Chapter One

chapter ONE

MAY

Ask me anything about the Fortitude and my family’s journey across the Atlantic from Cork, a place I’ve never been. Not me nor my mother nor my granny nor even her mam. But I know every word of the story. Nobody should have to know as much about that journey as I do.

“How they survived, I’ve no idea,” Granny likes to tell, wearing that faraway gaze, though she was nowhere near that ship, ever. “Your great-great-grandmother, my own granny, you see, she told me the story so often it runs deep in my veins. Thicker than blood, it is. God rest her beautiful soul, she got the ship fever, she did, wit’ the reelin’ in her head, then her brain was like to burst, all wit’out the peppermint oil or nothin’. The devil was in the poor woman’s bones, no question of it. Her feet swelled, and her skin was covered in spots that went putrid, and ’twere nothin’ to be done.” She will sigh heavily. “Nothin’ at all.”

“So you’ve said, Granny,” I say every time. I’m nice about it, but really, how many times must I listen to this old story? To show I’ve been listening, I tell her the end of it. “And the women screamed so in childbirth that no one could hear a word anyone said. And the men heaved their guts out until they could scarce move.”

“That’s right,” she says, smug for having told the story so well before.

“Do you know what, Granny, you’ve told me all that more times than I can count, and it’s running deep in my veins now, too. There’s no need to tell me again.”

That last part I only said one time, because she slapped me silly when I did. She might give the impression that she’s fragile, but I’ll tell you, she still packs a wallop in that bent-up old hand of hers.

“You must be proud of your family,” she commands, her voice quaking like a priest in the heat of a sermon. “In your life, ’tis important you have the hindsight to know where you’ve been, the foresight to know where you are going, and the insight to know when you have gone. The Lord, in His infinite Mercy, guided our ancestors across the sea, God bless ’em, so’s we could live in this paradise. Don’t you ever forget it, girl.”

At this point in the conversation, she squints, daring me to ask my question. She knows what it is, just like she knows everything else. What exactly about this place is paradise? But see, I’m smarter than that. I only need to get slapped once, thank you. Truthfully, in my head, I’ve already stopped listening. ’Tis a grand story, but I’m an honest girl. I’ll tell you the truth right now about the boat and the sea and all their courage: I wish they hadn’t bothered. I’ve seen no evidence of paradise, not here in the broken-down misery of The Ward.

The old folk living here love to wax on about the good old days, living free in the emerald hills of Ireland, even though it sounds like they was all living hand to mouth on the leftovers of their English masters, crunching on what was left of the potatoes, then starving when they was all done. Sounds romantic and tragic, I’ll grant you, but me, I like to think of what’s ahead rather than what’s past. This grand city of Toronto, ’tis growing day by day, and in it I see myself. The old piles of bricks—barring the crumbling ones here in The Ward—they’re giving way to bold new buildings, and wealth is everywhere. That’s the very thing I want in my future.

My mother, God bless her soul, was like me. She liked to talk about what might be around the next corner. Out wit’ the old, she’d say. When she died, she was only twenty-three, six years more than I have. Thinking of that, I suppose I should change what I just said: She’s not like me. I’ve plans. I’m the kind of girl who watches the sunrise, never the sunset. I’ve no time for dying.

My two rotten brothers, Martin and Owen, care nothing for the past, nor the future, only now. They and their dirty group of troublemakers have quick fingers to find other men’s pocketbooks. The two of them are near identical and dress the same, so most of their marks can’t tell if they’re coming or going. They learned their craft from Mr. Simmons, the best thief around, when they were small and Da was working two jobs. My brothers can smell coins, I swear it. If I don’t wrap them carefully, all the corners of the kerchief tucked in tight, they’ll sniff them out. But they can’t pull one over on me. I caught them once, trying to find my stash—which they never did—and I gave them what they had coming, I did. They leave me alone now, since they know what I’d do if they tried any of that nonsense on me again. The two of them don’t come home all that often these days anyhow. It’s mostly me and Granny and sometimes Da.

If they’d dug a little deeper, they’d have found my hidey-hole. It’s simple enough: under my bed and under a loose floorboard, in a small wooden box. That’s where I keep my coins. There’s not many, but there’s more every week. Someday, I’ve promised myself, I’ll need a bigger hiding place.

Two years ago, I worked in the laundry at the Queen’s Hotel in that old dame’s final year. People claimed she’d gotten a bit shabby, but I never saw it in her. Compared to the room I share with my family, I’d be happy enough living in a cupboard in one of them rooms. The thing about the Queen’s is that, like I said earlier, the city’s getting richer. They want new and better, and more while you’re at it, so they knocked the old girl over and took away the bricks.

The new hotel—the Dominion, they’re calling it—will have a thousand rooms when it’s done. A thousand rooms. Think of that, would you? And twenty-eight floors. I can’t picture that, but I have been watching closely, ever since they cleared out the space where the Queen’s used to be. Been watching the construction, starting with the foundations, far below the ground.

I will be seeing those twenty-eight floors from the inside soon enough, when they hire me on. That I can promise. The Dominion will have some of those electric washing machines, I bet. Those would have been nice to have at the old Queen’s. But it don’t matter much to me now, does it? I’m not interested in even one more day in the laundry. I’ve got more ambition than that. My plan is to be a chambermaid there.

“Rosie!”

That’s Bianca. I peer down through the broken pane of our bedroom’s only window.

“Evening, Bianca!”

“You coming out?”

I don’t answer because we both know I’m already on my way. She and I, we know all there is to know about one another. As Granny says, I’ve known her since her boots cost fourpence. I only stopped in here first because I had to hide the pennies I got paid for running laundry up to Mrs. Pritchard’s house. These days I do what I can to make some money, since the Queen’s is gone.

I hop down the stairs, shove my shoulder against the front door, and step into the street. There’s a crash down the alley, then the yowling of a cat. Sure, and I’ve heard that blessed cat almost every night of late. Must be a tom, and he’s found a lady friend in heat. Every night he yowls, then a woman shouts at him, and the cat screams back. It’s happening right now. It could go on this way for a good long time, but then I hear a dog bark, and the story heads farther away.

“Such a beautiful night,” I sigh, holding out my hand.

Bianca tucks a cigarette between my fingers and sticks another between her lips. I pull out my matches.

“How was it today?” she asks, and we both lean into the little flame.

She’s talking about my daily visits to the construction site.

“The outside’s practically done. They’ll be hiring soon.”

The end of her cigarette smoulders orange in the weak glow of the streetlamps. Bianca’s a beautiful girl with thick, raven hair and brown eyes that are too bold and saucy for her own good.

“Finalmente,” she exhales, like it’s taken forever.

“?’Twasn’t long in the doing of it,” I say.

I already feel connected to the hotel, so I’m quick to defend her. I don’t know when they’ll start the interviews for chambermaids, but I’ll be first in line that day. If I’m to work there, I’ll get to know the hotel inside like I know its outside, and we’ll be friends soon enough.

“Feels like it’s been forever.”

I inhale deeply on my cigarette. “Only two years.”

Bianca can’t apply yet because she’s too young. She’s fair vexed with envy, so I goad her just a bit. That’s what friends do, isn’t it?

“Tell you what. I’ll give you a wave when I get hired, I will.”

She scowls. “If you get hired. Well, I’m gonna apply, whether you like it or not. Ai mali estremi, estremi rimedi.”

I glare at her. She only goes into Italian when she wants to annoy me.

“?‘Desperate times call for desperate measures,’?” she translates. “Mama says that. And you better believe I’m desperate.”

We slide our backs down the old brick wall, stretch our legs in front, and blow smoke rings into the night.

Bianca and me, and all these folks we’ve known since we were little, we live in a neighbourhood called The Ward. The old ones say this place started in 1850 or so, when poor, starving folks sailed across the sea and landed here, on Lake Ontario’s shore. Those same people go on and on, lamenting the fact that nothing in The Ward has improved since then, but how can I believe a word they say? They wasn’t around in 1850, was they? So how do they know what’s changed and what hasn’t?

Still, I’ll not argue that my home is in a slum. They probably aren’t exaggerating all that much. Some folks live and die here, carrying on with family and whatever odd jobs they can find, but that’s not for me. Listen now, I was born here, but I will not die here. Death will come for me someday, but not here. How can I be certain? Because I have plans for where I’m going next.

Every day I walk to Front Street and stand in front of Union Station so I can watch the Dominion Hotel rise before me. The station’s new as well, being only a couple of years old. I’ll tell you, I hadn’t thought a train station might be a thing of beauty, and I’m no expert when it comes to art, but ’tis fair to say that Union Station is, in its own way, lovely. Across the street from it, well, there’s the true work of art. When I look at the new Dominion Hotel, that’s when I know for certain that I do live in a slum. In The Ward, there’s no automobiles driven by men in splendid suits. No gentlemen with briefcases escorting well-heeled ladies with their hair styled so grand, the bobs in their ears catching the sunlight. In The Ward, we hear the streetcars rumbling by, the bells clanging and the passengers getting on and off, but we rarely see the wonder of what disembarks. We don’t have clean streets or wealthy businessmen here. We don’t have silk stockings or regular meals or washing machines.

On the other hand, we do have a good mix of folks. To the east of the street where I live, there’s a whole block of Chinese people. They mostly live in little houses or apartments attached to stores, and it seems to me they’re always working. Even if they’re not, they seem like they are. I have a couple of friends over there, Li and Shang, whose father is a butcher. Sometimes Li sneaks me a ham bone or even a chicken, which goes straight into my soup pot. I don’t know what she tells her father about a missing chicken, but it’s not my worry. I’ve never met her father. The most interesting cooking smells come from their kitchen and the others in that area. Mind, the smells are so mouthwatering, they lure the dogs into the alley, and the mutts get into fights behind the butcher shop. I’ll tell you now, that makes quite a racket.

Li told me that her grandfather worked on the railways out west. She said he worked with his two brothers, but both died out there. The Ward is near the Union train station, so when I see the railcars and the cabooses, I try to imagine them outside of this city, chugging across a land I’ve never seen. I wonder what Li’s grandfather imagines when he sees the railcars here.

In The Ward, there’s more of God’s chosen, the Jewish folk, than other sorts. They mostly stick to themselves, so I don’t know much about what they’re like, God bless them. Sure, and then there are the Poles and the Ukrainians, who are all right, I suppose. Bianca’s always going on about them, saying she can’t abide the stink of cabbage cooking, but beggars can’t be choosers, I tell her plain. There’s hundreds of the Black folk living around The Ward, too. Indeed, they say a Black man was the first one here in The Ward, before it was called that. The story goes that he was an escaped slave. No telling where he got the money, but he bought up a load of properties. He helped more of his kind find homes up here, and they were fruitful and multiplied. His sounds like an interesting story, but I don’t know much more about it.

Bianca, she’s Italian, and she lives a block from me in a stone house built by other Italians. Their place has two bedrooms, but fourteen people, and three of the ladies are expecting noisy little bundles of joy soon enough. How’d they find the privacy? Bianca lately joked, but Granny heard her and prayed to God Almighty to silence Bianca’s tongue, cheeky divil. Bianca muttered to me that her family was building another room in the yard behind their house. Good thing her brothers know a thing or two about construction.

Where we rent, we’ve got two rooms. One where Granny, Da, my two brothers, and me sleep—when they’re home, anyhow. Everything else happens in the other room, like cooking and eating and sitting by the window, watching the world go by. Compared to Bianca’s cramped quarters, we’ve got loads of room that others only dream of. I keep quiet about that, since the last thing I want is someone banging down the door and disturbing our peace. Early in the morn, before even Granny’s awake, I sweep up the place, and if we’re blessed with flour, I’ll set a loaf to rise. If there’s meat, it goes into the pot with an onion and water and whatever else I’ve gotten my hands on. Granny will light the stove later and set everything cooking. That way we’ll have a meal when I’m home again.

Now, listen. I’m not after saying we’re starving. Not at all. Most of The Ward, including me, shops at the St. Lawrence Market, about a fifteen-minute walk from the neighbourhood. A hundred years ago, that place was no more than a wooden building for about twenty butchers. They’d had no use for more than that, for a good many folk kept their beasts in their yards. Well now, didn’t The Ward get more crowded every day, with more folks from away coming in off the boats, bless them. Like Bianca’s family, that meant people gave their yards over to second buildings rather than to cows and pigs. And so the market grew, rickety stall by rickety stall, until it all burned to ashes in the Great Fire of 1849. The fire’s Granny’s second favourite tale to tell, after the Fortitude saga. Her mother survived it, she says with a right bit of pride. Barely escaped with her life by the sounds of it.

Maybe she did, maybe she didn’t. Who am I to say?

From the ashes, the city put that market back together, then didn’t they knock it all down again in 1904. They needed someplace grander, so they put up a massive brick building with a glass roof, large enough the farmers could drive their wagons and wares right inside.

Nowadays we can get what we need from the market, but it comes down to how many pennies we can afford to pay, doesn’t it? I get what I can, and if we find ourselves with grumbling stomachs, Granny is quick to remind me that the Bible says, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” I reckon this is her way of telling me to stop complaining.

Under our apartment are two shops. One is rented to Frenchie, a quiet cobbler. You hardly hear a squeak from him. He got the shop from his father, and I’d wager he got it from his father before him. Mr. Jamieson, a fine baker famous for his drinking, used to rent out the other shop, but last year it burned down. We were lucky not to get our skins roasted along with it, but the Lord was watching that day. I’ve no idea where Mr. Jamieson is now, but his shop is still a black hole under our apartment. Wouldn’t you know it, after all this time I can still catch a whiff of old smoke if the wind is blowing wrong.

The only building I care about is the Dominion Hotel. It’s been growing like the biggest flower in a city full of weeds. I remember when they started building, with the dirt all cleared, and the horse and carts rolling in timber for the foundations. Soon enough, the Italians laid down the stone and the bricks and whatever else they needed. There were others, but truly, I’d say it was mostly Italians. They was hard to miss, with their rough manners and the way they ordered people around. Them Italians know how to get things done; I’ll give them that. Once the place became more of a building, and the steel walls were covered in a creamy limestone, in came the fellas with the money, wearing black wool coats, fine hats, and serious faces.

Now the hotel’s walls reach toward heaven. From what I can see, I know the building is just about done on the outside, but Da is working inside, putting in miles and miles of red carpet, and he’s told me it’s like a beehive in there. He said there’s so much red carpet that if they rolled it all out, it could go all the way from Toronto to Hamilton, which is about forty miles.

I asked him once if it’s hard work, carrying all those carpets around.

“?’Tis a good job, to be sure. I’ll never complain.” But then his hand went to the base of his spine. “But my old back…” His tired eyes sparkled with wonder. “Ten elevators, Rosie. Can you picture it? Twenty-eight storeys, every one of them with that beautiful red carpet.”

If I’d any doubt in my mind about working there, it disappeared when I learned about the elevators. I would work in that hotel, and not in the basement like at the Queen’s. I need to know what it feels like to step into an elevator and ride to the top.

The tomcat is back. His yowling pulls me from my place in the clouds and back to Bianca, who’s still angling for a job. “Doesn’t matter to them that you’re in desperate times,” I tell her, feeling a bit heartless, but ’tis true. She’s stuck on working with me, but I don’t know how else to make her understand. She expects me to work a miracle, and the front door of the new hotel isn’t even built yet.

“You’re only sixteen.”

“Almost seventeen. Come on. Anything, Rosie.”

I snort. “Laundry?” Ah, but she remembers my red, chapped, miserable skin from working in all that steam. I probably shouldn’t tease.

“If I gotta. I’ll clean boots if I gotta.”

I have nothing more to say on that, so I switch topics. “How’s your papa?”

Bianca’s father is a big fella. Strong and stocky, with a thick, black moustache and cheeks as red as tomatoes. At least, he used to be. He was one of them Italians working at the Dominion site. One of the men in charge, Bianca boasted, bold as brass. I say was because a couple of weeks ago, a concrete block fell on his leg. Broke it to smithereens, it did, so that a piece of his bone stuck clean out. Da was there that very day. Didn’t he go a quare shade of green when he told me what happened. I haven’t seen hide nor hair of Bianca’s father since.

“We scraped together the money for a doctor, only for him to say Papa will never walk again. We’re in desperate times, you better believe it.” Bianca sucks in smoke and lowers her voice. “I heard Mama say that Papa owed a lot of money to some bad people. Don’t see how he’ll ever pay them back now that he can’t walk.”

“Roisin!”

Granny’s voice cracks through the warm evening like a whip. I stub out my cigarette and hear the window scrape closed above me.

Bianca’s used to Granny, who practically raised her while she raised me. Said Bianca needed some mothering before she could be expected to mother all those brothers and sisters herself.

“You got it easy,” Bianca says. “Your brothers can feed a family on what they steal.”

“Nah. If I saw them, maybe, but they never come home.”

“Then you have that big place all to yourselves with them gone. Think of me, Rosie. I got seven brothers and sisters, three of them not even four years old. Sergio and Leo gotta be six feet tall at least, bumping their heads on the ceiling, and they eat like bears. It’s rough, Rosie. I’m babysitting six other babies as well as my brothers, and most of their mamas can’t pay the pennies it costs.” She huffs in annoyance and presses her palms together like she’s praying. “Can you talk to them for me?”

By them she means the hotel folks. “I’m not even hired yet,” I explain for the hundredth time. I know I will be, though. My manager at the Queen’s Hotel has already given the Dominion people my name. I peer down the alley, wondering at the sudden stillness of the night, and I see the cat’s slunk off again. “I don’t know if they’re hiring Italians.”

“Us Italians are building it. They’d better hire us to work inside.”

“They probably will. But you’re still too young.” She’ll apply anyway. I know Bianca.

“All those rooms, Rosie! Just think of all the people they’ll need to hire to treat those rich folks like royalty. That’s what I can do.”

“Enough! The place isn’t opened yet, I’m not hired yet, and I have no idea about any of the other stuff. Maybe your brothers can pick up a second job.”

She’s gobsmacked. “I can’t believe you’d say that. They’re already working three each.”

Directly overhead, in our bedroom, Granny opens the window again and starts giving out in Irish. I think she truly loves Bianca, though she dislikes almost everyone else. Especially the Italians. Once, when I was little, she grudgingly told me that many a good tree grew on shallow ground, which I took to mean it don’t matter where someone’s from, so long as they’re a good Christian.

Granny’s still yelling. Bianca waits for a translation.

“She doesn’t like your cigarette. She says only whores smoke cigarettes.”

That makes her grin. “Scusa, Granny,” she calls, tilting her face toward the night stars. “Fumare non è un peccato, Granny. Questa sigaretta mi sta aiutando a dimenticare quanto ho fame. Hai qualcosa da darmi da mangiare?” She smiles at me. “I told her smoking’s not a sin, and when I smoke, I forget how hungry I am. Then I asked her if she could feed me.”

She knows Granny doesn’t understand Italian. Or at least, I don’t think she does. But nobody’s got much of anything to share in The Ward except tall tales.

One shiny day in the beginning of May, the most exciting thing happens. A new construction team is working at the front entrance of the Dominion, assembling the front door and putting it in place. When it’s been done, I watch it open and close on its new hinges, and I can’t believe my ears. No squeaking at all. The sunlight flashes off the brass plates on the bottom, and I feel like something big is about to happen.

That night, Da comes home, groaning as he manages the stairs. He shuffles into the apartment, his back arched from years of laying carpets, and when I pull out his chair, he sinks onto it with a huff of relief. I bring him a bowl of soup, and he eats half of it before even acknowledging that I’m there. Then he lifts his scruffy chin and grins across the supper table at me.

“They’re hiring staff, my girl. Tomorrow morning.”