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  PRAISE FOR

  NO SMALL SHAME

  ‘Once I started reading I could not stop. I was utterly swept up by Mary’s story and her refusal to settle for the life she is expected to lead.’

  KATE MILDENHALL, AUTHOR

  ‘From the dust-filled collieries of Scotland to the bustling streets of Melbourne, Mary O’Donnell’s journey to self-awareness will have you turning the pages until the heartbreaking climax.’

  LAUREN CHATER, AUTHOR

  ‘No Small Shame is an intimate portrait of a life shaped by circumstance; an epic tale of a woman who finds her voice and ultimately, her agency. Meticulously researched, ambitious in scope and compelling in realisation.’

  CHRISTINE BALINT, AUTHOR

  ‘What distinguishes the novel is its rich characterisation. Each character in this carefully drawn work lifts off the page, evoking our enduring interest and empathy.’

  NADINE DAVIDOFF, EDITOR

  ‘Christine Bell arouses our anger and compassion as she vividly depicts Mary’s everyday domestic world. I ached for Mary and grew to love the defiant spirit shining through her doubts and fears. An absorbing, convincing and heartbreaking picture of a woman trapped in an impossible marriage.’

  JANE SULLIVAN, LITERARY CRITIC AND AUTHOR

  NO SMALL SHAME

  CHRISTINE BELL

  First published in 2020 by Impact Press

  an imprint of Ventura Press

  PO Box 780, Edgecliff NSW 2027 Australia

  www.venturapress.com.au

  Copyright © Christine Bell 2020

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any other information storage retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Any references to real people, real places, or historical events are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-1-920727-90-1 (paperback)

  ISBN: 978-1-920727-89-5 (ebook)

  Cover design: Christabella Designs

  Internal design: WorkingType

  To BB, thank you for believing …

  HAMILTON PALACE COLLIERY BOTHWELLHAUGH, SCOTLAND – OCTOBER 1909

  ‘Can you not try again to change your da’s mind, Liam?’

  Mary sucked her lips between her teeth, as much to stop her shivering, the night damp soaking cold through her skirt, as worry over the misery beast sitting beside her. She could scarcely make out Liam’s expression in the growing dusk, but his scowl came clear enough when he glared back at her.

  ‘Da won’t listen. Da never listens. He wants me underground, same as every other beggar in the Pailis, scraping a few shillings in the dark. Same as him.’ Liam kicked out at a hunk of rock, sending it into the deepening shadows at the bottom of the coal bing. ‘Da just don’t want me to raise meself up, to be better than him. He’s afraid I’ll do things he never even thought to do. Well, I will too, first chance I get. No-one’s keeping me underground.’

  Mary shrugged helplessly. Nothing left to say. The argument of months between Liam and his da could go to the highest court in the land, but there was no getting around it or changing Joe Merrilees’ mind. Fourteen tomorrow, Liam would be starting down the pit – as expected. He was only sitting there beside her now because he was unable to tell his pals, them all happy to be out of school and most of them down the pit too.

  How would Liam bear it? The boy who laughed out loud at the wind messing in his hair and found animals and faces in clouds, same as her. The same boy who’d call her outdoors in the bitterest winter cold rather than be cooped up inside. How could that boy bear to go down into the dark? How could she bear to watch him go?

  She searched for words to show herself equal to his misery. Prove herself determined as him. ‘Maw ain’t sending me to work on the dirty pithead or keeping me home waiting on marriage and babies neither.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Mary flushed at the note of admiration in Liam’s tone. The three years between them evaporated in that shared moment, emboldening her to vow. ‘I’m gonna be a teacher, one day, in a school. Or a nurse in a snowy white uniform. That’s what I’m gonna do.’

  Liam nodded back at her keenly then, like he really believed she could do whatever she wanted, instead of what Maw said. In that moment, she almost believed it herself.

  ‘Swear on it,’ said Liam. ‘Let’s make an oath. Right here, right now.’ He jiggled about, trying to wrestle something out of his waistcoat pocket. A flash of metal glinted as he grabbed up her hand.

  ‘Jesus, Liam, what are you doing?’

  ‘It’s a blood oath. Hold still now, will you?’

  A sudden sting on her palm stole the gasp out of her mouth. When the burn began in earnest, she bit back tears, as much for the spatter on her skirt and Maw’s tirade coming as the pain piercing her flesh.

  ‘Aw, it ain’t that bad.’ Liam brushed away the solitary tear sliding down her cheek.

  Against reason, his gentleness made her want to bawl harder. He might have scoffed at her sooking. Only he didn’t. Instead he tugged a crumpled handkerchief from his vest and dabbed the drips off her fingers. ‘You’re okay now. My turn.’

  When he took up her hand again, he pressed the slippery wetness of his own palm against hers. ‘Now, repeat after me, but put your own name in. ’Stead of mine.

  ‘I, Liam Merrilees, swear I will raise meself up to be better than me da and maw. Live the life I want. Go where I want. Do what I want. Not be beholding to anyone else’s orders or example. Be me own man.’

  Mary giggled at the last.

  ‘Aw, you say girl then. Just say it, will you? Me hand aches from holding it up so long.’

  Mary repeated the words, trying not to burst out laughing or give away she’d happily hold her hand up all night just to feel the warmth of Liam’s palm against hers. Even if blood dripped fair down her armpit.

  ‘Come on. Your maw’ll be hurling the poker if you’re not indoors by full dark.’

  He dragged on her hand, tugging her to her feet, and hurried her along the path below the bing, skidding on the shale, heading towards the darkening outline of chimneys on the tenement rows, smelling the burn of coal smoke drifting on the wind. They kept on, across the railway tracks, feet crunching on the cinders, until they almost ran headlong into a pair of lovers stopped for one last smooch behind the shelter of an empty coal wagon.

  Liam flung out his hand to slow Mary and they fell into tiptoeing past. Except she couldn’t stifle a giggle, followed fast by Liam’s low growl.

  ‘What’s that snarl for, Liam Merrilees? Don’t you think they’re sweet?’

  ‘Nah. Not sweet. It’ll be on tonight if Dermot’s da catches him with that Prod again. Should’a heard it raging through the wall last time. It ain’t right telling a lad what to do at seventeen.’

  Mary shivered at the bitterness in Liam’s tone, even knowing he was privy to all the fights at number six. Wouldn’t Maw bar the door if any daughter of hers thought to look to the Orange? In the closeness of the rows, the Tims and the Prods kept to their own, except Dermot McMahon.

  ‘Don’t you want to get married to the girl you love one day, Liam?’ She changed the subject, holding her breath, almost scared of his answer.

  ‘Not down the pits. Dermot McMahon’ll be stuck here his whole life, married or not, answering after his da. Not me.’

  ‘And where are you gonna be then, Liam?’

  He grinned back at her, hooking his thumbs under his arms as if through make-believe braces. ‘In me fine big house with fifteen bedrooms.’

  ‘Go o
n. And am I going to live in your fancy house too?’

  ‘Half of Scotland can live in my manor house. I’ll have more bedrooms than the Duke of Hamilton’s palace and one hundred horses in me stables.’

  Too dark to see his face properly, Mary couldn’t tell if he was serious. She was running already when she shouted over her shoulder. ‘Last one back’s a slimy eel out the Clyde.’

  Liam didn’t follow; she only heard his shout.

  ‘I will have that house, one day, Mary. I promise you.’

  FOUR YEARS LATER …

  THE BOOK OF RULES

  HAMILTON PALACE COLLIERY, BOTHWELLHAUGH, SCOTLAND – JULY 1913

  Who decided who got to go where and when? Or what a person could or couldn’t do? Who wrote that rule book? Not her mother, that’s for sure. Mary shut the door on Maw shouting after her and bolted, two at a time, down the lopsided steps at the back of Store Place, risking her neck and biting on her lips. Maw would chew her ear when she got home, but it could not be helped. This might be her last chance to see Liam alone. To tell him she’d miss him – make sure he was gonna miss her.

  You’ve just got to tell him. Make him tell you.

  She ran through the soaking wet grass on the drying green, holding up her skirts and cursing the hoot of the coal train forcing her to stop at the edge of the tracks to check it was not about to plough over her.

  Seeing the wagons were only shunting, she ran on, boots crunching on the cinders between the rails, scanning beyond to the field at the bottom of the coal bing. The mountain of colliery waste reached so high it threatened to block out the sun, but somehow the familiar sight reassured her. Familiar as Liam living next door every day of her life since them babes – the bing had always been there. Growing higher by the year, yet unchanged in essence. Now everything was about to change, Da and Liam going away without her.

  ‘What flea bit you on the arse with that sour face?’

  Mary swung around, aiming a clout at Liam’s head. Wasn’t he expecting it too, after a crack like that?

  ‘You’d think you’d find it in that lump of coal you call a heart to be kind to me when you’re about to leave me for months. Don’t you know I’m sad?’ She said the last, kicking at bits of shale tumbled onto the path below the bing, sneaking a sideways glance at Liam, but the dafty wasn’t even looking her way. Only a nudge to her shoulder brightened her mood – Neddy, the pit pony, nosing over the fence. Along with the other ponies in the field brought up from the pits that afternoon for their annual holiday above ground and the start of Fair Fortnight. She patted the animal’s neck, lamenting his pale eyes, how his sight had dried up out in the daylight. In a day or two he’d be fine, whereas she couldn’t shake the feeling she was the one about to go down into the dark.

  ‘Course you’re sad. Ain’t all my lovely lassies going to miss me?’ Liam tugged a handful of grass from beside the fence post and gave it to Neddy, along with the hug he surely meant for her. ‘You’ll have no-one but your sisters to boss when I’m gone and I’m going to have a lovely, long holiday and thank the jiminy for saving me from that viper tongue of yours awhile.’

  Mary refused to answer, torn between boiling at his cheery banter, like he couldn’t wait to be on the ship and away from her, and blushing at being called one of his lovely lassies. Ignoring the fact he’d lumped her in with more than just herself and any wonder over who any others might be.

  ‘See what I got from the men?’ Liam grabbed up her hand and pressed in a rosy gold medallion, the size of a sovereign. The centre signet gleamed with its fresh cut etching LGM. She turned it over and read the wording engraved on the other side.

  Presented to Liam Merrilees by his fellow workmen Bothwellhaugh July 1913

  ‘The men must think well of you, Liam. It’s a beautiful thing, truly.’

  ‘Not a thing, Mary. It’s me ticket out. Out of the pits and away from here. No more of this crap on me.’ He beat his fists on his dusty waistcoat, scowling at the flitters of coal dust. ‘When I get out to Australia first thing I’m gonna buy is a proper suit and a bowler hat – be one of the toffs in no time.’ He threw back his head and whooped, pointing to the medallion in her hand. ‘Real gold it is too, by Jesus. What do you think of that?’

  Mary couldn’t help but grin back, relieved at the imp of old sparking in his emerald eyes. But her smile paled when a sudden blast from the pit whistle reminded her that Joe Merrilees would have something to say if his son refused its call in Australia. Plenty of families had left the village already before nominating those emigrating behind them, including Joe’s brother George and his family. It was George who’d convinced the Merrilees and the O’Donnells to follow him to the new State-owned coal town of Wonthaggi. But it was the promise of Australia, not the coal mine, bringing the hope back into Liam’s eyes.

  Mary was glad for him. The light had somehow gone out of Liam since the day he’d gone down the pit. The gentle boy she’d always known had become surly. No more talk of his dreams – not until talk of Australia.

  Looking into his two slits of reddened eyes laughing back at her, she bit back her own fears. Didn’t she want the exact same thing? To go out to Australia and get the kind of job she wanted. Where she wanted. Not be stuck home answering to Maw? Liam didn’t hear her crying misery being only a girl with no say and left behind. No, he did not.

  She would have told him as much when she thrust the medallion back at him, only when he took it, he refused to let go of her hand.

  ‘Don’t be a Miss Snakey Britches. Ain’t we still friends? Blood friends?’

  She itched to snatch back her hand, until he ran his fingertips so gentle over the calloused skin, tracing the fine scar of a promise made four years ago. A promise they’d be better than their lot, and here he was on the eve of leaving for that life. Their shared oath coming real at last, when all she could see was him going away without her.

  The miserable thought strangled the breath in her throat.

  ‘Are you okay, lass? Are you ill? Do you want to sit down?’ Liam laid his rough palm on her cheek.

  How could she tell him, her knees had gone weaker than a newborn foal’s while his fingers played with the wisps of hair by her ear? His breath blowing warm on her face. Yes, she wanted to sit down. Lie down, if the truth be told. Right there in the field in his arms if he kept touching her like that. Shock at such shameless thoughts squeezed the breath from her chest, while her face came over hotter. Please, Lord, don’t let him forget me. Please make him feel the same when I get out to Australia.

  If only he would say it.

  Instead she had to ask.

  ‘Ain’t you sad for me not to be going with you, a wee bit?’

  Instead of the answer she was hoping for, Liam dropped his hand and sank his face into the neck of the pony beside him, began gulping into its scruff.

  Jings! Was he sobbing?

  No!

  From those hoots, she more suspected he was laughing his fool head off. She began to run, her feet stumbling on the coal waste. Well, let him. She’d be laughing louder come next week thinking of him chucking his breakfast, lunch and tea over the side of the ship, hopefully all the way to that Australia.

  ‘Aw, come back, lass. I’m sorry. Truly I am.’

  ‘You will be Liam Merrilees,’ she shouted over her shoulder. ‘I won’t miss you a day. See if I do.’ And she kept on running across the railway tracks. She didn’t stop until her boots pounded on the stairs of number ten.

  Why did the dafty act as if it was only himself going out to Australia, instead of her and both their families too? As if he’d forgotten her already and their friendship of years meant nothing. Their blood friendship. As if she wouldn’t be right there alongside him.

  ‘Mary! Is that you blethering out there?’

  At Maw’s call from the landing, Mary sucked down her sniffles and took one last look over the roof of the washhouses and up near the bing to the distant figure jumping about to amuse old Neddy, without e
ven a look her way or an, ‘I’ll miss you’. Only her mother’s shuffling footsteps made her move her backside and get inside before Maw came looking for her.

  THE PROMISE

  JULY 1913

  Mary hugged the sound of Da cursing in the dark, knowing it the last she’d hear it for months. Smelling the steady burn of the paraffin lamp, she squinted to his dim outline stoking the coals in the range to brew his tea. She shivered, hoping the fire would chase away the cloy of damp bedding shrouding her and her sisters. Unseasonal chill or not, she’d one last chance to talk to Da. To change his mind so as he’d take her with him on the steamship, not leave her waiting home with Maw. While that dafty Liam went ahead without her.

  God, what if Liam truly did forget her? What if out in … ?

  The same evil fears nagging through her night dreams persisted. Only one answer that she could see. But how was she to ask when the question had been raised already to no good answer? She couldn’t even remember the multitude of reasons she’d been practising half the night to convince Da to take her with him, knowing it impossible – his plans all in place, him leaving tomorrow – but wishing it anyway.

  She gnawed the skin off the side of her thumbnail, glancing across the room to the dark shape of her mother lying still on the inset bed in the opposite hole in the wall, and breathed a silent prayer at the swollen bulge of Maw’s belly. Please, please, Lord, let this wean stay.

  She hunched in the bed in one last grab for courage, then in one leap dove her feet into her boots, all without disturbing Kate and Hannah, asleep on the paper-stuffed mattress behind her.

  ‘Did I wake you?’ Da croaked, stifling the wracking bray Mary knew would hit once he reached the Through Road – away from the eagle ears of Maw.

  ‘Can you not stay home today, Da?’ she whispered, watching for any hint of her mother waking. Then she raised the heavy iron kettle off the stove and poured Da a scalding brew made of last night’s leaves. She handed him the unchipped cup.