And dawn sneaking up the wall and a bottle rolling back and forth and a high wind hissing. And a bird pipping. And it getting louder. And the light crawling over the blanket. And the baby starting up. And Minnie’s eyes prickled from no sleep. And the sweat across her chest. And the toss to cool it away. And the cold. And a toss for warmth the other way. And the baby wailing. And Minnie – aching for sleep – gathers her sore bones. Goes to the window.

And the knocker-upper in shredded soles, padding up her street. And she wants to shout to tell him no knock. For she’s awake, awake! And the pennies she will waste. But the rot-rattle-crack if she opens the sash and the baby who won’t shut up and her being on the top floor, yelling against the wind. And the neighbours who would wake. And Johnny snuffling in his grubby vest. And he certain to wake. And all Minnie can do is lift the net and rub a hole in her frenzied breath that’s gathered on the glass, left its stain as mist.

And the knocker-upper pays out his rod of bamboo. And at the end, a claw of wire which taps on the glass like the wretched undead. And she thinks of her mistress down at the mill. And the terror she puts on the doffing girls who twitch like insects at the spinning frame. And her scream to tie up your ends! and her vicious poke if she works too slow. And Minnie being new and her knuckles ripped down to the bone. And Audrey who spied the smears of blood and learned her the knack of picking the bobbin, to plier her fingers just so.

And thank God for Audrey and the girls. But the mistress going on. And the fear of being late, of not being there before they shackle the gate. And then no work and then no pay and a mark in the book of complaints. And Johnny being mad and him in drink since the engine’s cog took his limb. And the baby being born and there never the time to be its mam.

And Minnie’s wave to the knocker-upper to signal she is up. And him fading up the street and her pressing her cheek to the liquid-pane to wash herself alive. And her mouth fur-dry. And her heart ironed flat. And the baby who’s sobbed too long to sob. And the effort to bundle it to her front. And together to number eight who’ll give it watered-down milk to suck while Minnie’s lungs fill with dust. And pennies for pay. And all for Johnny, crippled with shame and thrashing for his beer.

And there being no sleep. And the Laudanum bottle high on the shelf. And maybe tonight. To close the baby’s lids. Calm its sinless bones, now hungering on to death.

And this is Minnie’s life and this is Minnie’s dread.