The Saturday Girls

by Elizabeth Woodcraft

  ‘Do it on your own.’

  ‘They must be desperate if they want me to do it. Anyway, it’s no fun without Sandra. I need a proper job.’

  ‘Helping out Mrs Weston would be a decent way of earning some money,’ Mum said. I was brushing her hair. She had put in the rollers and dried it, and now I was styling it. The theory was that I enjoyed doing this because I was good with hair – but the real reason was that Mum liked having her hair brushed, although somehow she never asked my sister Judith to do it. Mum looked at herself in the little hand mirror and frowned. ‘But if you want something to fill your time, and don’t want to babysit for people in need, you could always hoover this house, starting with the stairs.’

  ‘And are you going to pay me?’

  ‘I think I’ve been paying since you were born,’ Mum said. ‘And pocket money doesn’t grow on trees. I can’t afford any more.’ She gave me ninepence a week. Ninepence! ‘Alternatively, when you’re next in the shop, ask Mrs Weston when she would like you to look after Mansell.’

  ‘What kind of name is Mansell?’ I said.

  ‘It’s the baby’s name, and I don’t want to hear any jokes. That poor woman has enough trouble already.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked. Sandra had given me her mum’s version, but I wanted the steadiness of my mum’s description. Mum always said we should be good and kind to others who were less well off than us, although I couldn’t think who could be less well off than we were. Dad’s pay as a trade union District Secretary was not good. But I knew our standards were the right standards. And I knew Mum’s way of summing up the Westons would be the right one.

  She looked at me in the mirror and sighed. ‘There are people who have strong feelings about unmarried mothers, especially those who keep their babies. And Mansell’s mum, Sylvia, has . . . problems. Often people don’t understand –’ She stopped.

  ‘What? Don’t understand what?’

  ‘Baby blues.’

  ‘Is that what she’s got?’

  I’d never met Sylvia. I’d never been to their house; we’d always picked Mansell up from the shop. Sandra had reported from her mum that Sylvia had been really bad for the last few weeks, in and out of Severalls, the hospital in Colchester, twenty miles away. Going to Severalls meant you were mad. When I thought of Sylvia I had visions of witches with wild dry hair and wide eyes, their fingers flexed ready to grab my throat. What if she wanted to come out for a walk with me and the baby? What would people think if they saw us together?

  ‘So what does she look like?’ I asked Mum.

  ‘It isn’t necessarily something you can see.’

  ‘Is that why she goes to the loony bin all the time?’

  Mum looked at me sharply. ‘We do not call it a loony bin. Severalls is a hospital, a mental hospital. She is ill, in just the same way that you were ill when you had chickenpox.’

  I had nearly died.

  I stopped brushing Mum’s hair. ‘I’ve finished.’

  Mum looked at her hair in the mirror and then looked up at me. ‘She’s not going to jump out at you.’ Sometimes she read my mind. ‘She’s rather sad and lonely. Just be polite and kind.’ She looked back at her hair. ‘That’ll do.’ I didn’t know if she meant the hair, or if she was underlining how she wanted me to treat Sylvia.

  *

  The Hayfield Estate was a new estate, built in the 1950s. Our road was the central road, the road that gave the estate its name. There was no pub, which my mum was pleased about – she was a strict teetotaller – but there was a row of shops, down the road from us. The grocer’s where Mrs Weston worked with Mrs Brady was in the middle of the row, between the baker’s, the off-licence and the newsagent’s on one side, and the hardware shop, the greengrocer’s and the fish shop on the other.

  The grocer’s was a large shop with a pillar in the middle where the sterilised milk crates were stacked, next to the large bottomless freezer that was only interesting to us because, among other things, it held ice cream. The owner of the grocer’s was Mr Roberts. He owned another two shops in town and hardly ever came to ours. ‘Thank Gawd,’ Sandra’s mum said.

  We were in their kitchen. It was the night before I was to take Mansell for a walk. Mrs Brady was leaning against the sideboard, smoking, while Mr Brady was standing on a stepladder, doing something with the fluorescent light bulb. The only light came through the arch from their living room and the lamp that Sandra was holding.

  ‘He buggers up all our systems,’ Mrs Brady said. ‘It’s quicker if we cut the ham in the morning before anyone’s asked for it, and I told him they all like the cheese ready wrapped in the greaseproof. He says it’s “potentially wasteful”. I’ll waste him, never mind about potential, cheeky bleeder! And then he doesn’t like us sitting on the sacks of sugar in the back room when we take our breaks. “Unhygienic,” he says. Unhygienic!’ she shouted at Mr Brady. ‘It’s had more than our bums in overalls sitting on it, I can tell you. It’s all because he doesn’t like that pram parked in the shop by the biscuits. He says it’s bad for business. Mrs Weston says people don’t mind it. She says to him it attracts people to the biscuits and makes them buy more, which it bloody well doesn’t.’ She stubbed out her cigarette in the glass ashtray. ‘But he’s the boss. Thank Gawd we only see him twice a year. Hold the light where your dad can see it, Sandra, you silly bleeder.’

  When Mr Brady had fixed the bulb and the light was back on, Sandra and I went up to the bedroom she shared with Marie. We were discussing the arrangements for the next day. I was to pick Mansell up from the shop and drop him back with Mrs Weston just before they closed.

  ‘But if Mr Roberts is hardly ever there, why have I got to take him out? They needn’t tell him he’s in the shop,’ I said. I was trying to pin her hair up in curls on the back of her head.

  Sandra handed me a hair clip. ‘They’re doing stocktaking at the moment, and Mr Roberts has to come over every afternoon. So Mrs Weston’s desperate to get him away from the Maryland Cookies.’

  ‘She’ll probably pay me in loose biscuits,’ I said.

  ‘My mum said Mrs Weston wanted Sylvia to have the baby adopted,’ Sandra said. ‘They’d got all the forms and everything, but then just before he was born, Sylvia upped sticks and ran away.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘She said she went to France. And that’s likely.’ Sandra was filing her nails. ‘She was only away for the weekend. But when she came back she started calling herself Sylvie. What kind of name’s Sylvie?’

  ‘Sylvie’s a French name,’ I said. If she called herself Sylvie, she might be a bit more interesting. Sylvie Vartan went out with Johnny Hallyday. As a pop music duo, they were all the go in France. The French assistante at school had played us one of their records. I liked French. ‘She could have gone to France,’ I said. ‘People do.’

  ‘Yeah, well, pigs could fly. They just don’t.’ Sandra looked at me in her dressing-table mirror. ‘Her mum thought she’d gone to London. My mum reckons she went to the air base.’

  ‘Pregnant?’

  ‘You can ask her when you see her. Anyway, when she got back from wherever it was, Mrs Weston didn’t have the heart to make her give the baby up, not after he was born.’ She blew on her fingernails. ‘While you’re at it, try and find out who the dad is. She won’t tell anyone.’

  ‘She’s hardly likely to tell me. Anyway, I’m not going to see her, I’m only going to the shop.’ I twisted a lock of Sandra’s hair round my finger. There were many stories about Sylvia. That the father was a married man who lived on our estate; that he lived on another estate; that she spent her time going to dances at the American air base near Braintree, jiving and flashing her petticoats; that she was weird even before she had the baby. ‘What have people got against her?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Sandra said. ‘But it’s not fair that she gets to have a baby and no one says a word –’

  ‘Oh, I think they do. You said her next-door neighbours won’t even speak to
them now.’

  ‘Well, there you are. Not saying a word. All the rest of us get locked in our room and have to say four hundred Hail Marys for even kissing a boy.’

  ‘Really?’ Sandra’s mum and dad were strict, but I didn’t know about the Hail Marys.

  ‘Marie said Deirdre had to leave town just for going out with Mick Flynn.’

  ‘The priest made her do that?’

  ‘No, her mum, but it’s the same thing.’

  ‘So have you told the priest about Danny?’

  ‘You have to. That’s what confession’s about. You’re not meant to have any fun, but Sylvie did and she got away with it. You’re not supposed to get away with it.’

  ‘Except she’s not that well now and people talk about her all the time.’

  Sandra shrugged.

  ‘But what should she have done?’ I said.

  She handed me a hairgrip. ‘Got married.’

  ‘Who to?’

  ‘The father.’

  ‘What if he wouldn’t marry her? What if he couldn’t marry her?’

  ‘Then she should have given it away.’

  ‘Do you really think that? Would you have given it away?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have had a choice – my mum and dad would have seen to that.’

  ‘But would you want to?’

  Sandra laughed. ‘It would depend on the baby.’

  *

  The arrangement was that I would pick up Mansell every afternoon that week except Wednesday, which was early closing. Mrs Weston offered to pay me a shilling each time but mum said that was too much just for taking a baby for a walk, so they agreed on two shillings for four afternoons.

  ‘I’m supposed to be making money!’ I said.

  ‘The family relies on Mrs Weston’s wages from the shop,’ Mum said. ‘You shouldn’t really accept any money at all.’

  ‘So what am I doing it for?’

  ‘Sylvia needs us to show we don’t think of her as an outcast.’

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ll just think of her as someone who ought to be paying me more than two shillings a week.’

  Mansell was five months old. He had a round, chubby face and shining lips from all the dribble but he wasn’t bad because he smiled at my jokes – which weren’t that funny – hiding behind my hands and saying boo, but it was something.

  The first afternoon we walked round the estate. When I dropped him back at the shop, just as I had predicted, I got two bourbon biscuits. On Tuesday I took him along Partridge Avenue, beside Piggy Wood and down North Avenue past my mum’s church. Wednesday was half-day closing, so I wasn’t needed. On Thursday we went round the lanes to my old primary school, and up to the village hall where our Guide meetings used to take place. I explained to Mansell that I had been in the White Heather patrol and had obtained several badges which enabled me to look after him so well, Child Care, Emergency Helper, Cook and Hostess. He blinked at me seriously and then fell asleep.

  We walked along the Main Road and up Sperry Drive back onto the estate, but we were too early. As we reached the shop I could see through the window that Mr Roberts was still there, standing at the slicing machine, holding down a huge ham, smiling and chatting. It was only four o’clock. I wasn’t going to walk round for another hour. That meant delivering the baby back to Sylvia in their house. Mrs Weston had said Sylvia would be at home all afternoon, so if necessary I could drop Mansell off with her.

  The Crescent was a turning off our road, almost opposite the shops. Number thirty-two was in the middle of a terrace of three. It looked faded and grubby. The houses in the Crescent were newer than ours, but Dad said the quality was much lower, as the council had overspent the budget on the brick houses in our road. Their front door was pale yellow and the paint was peeling. The door-knocker wasn’t one you could polish, like ours; it was light grey metal and it hardly made any noise at all when I knocked.

  I knocked again, and waited. I felt breathless. I didn’t know what to expect and it was getting dark.

  Beside the front door was a small square of earth filled with flowers, pale lemon daffodils. They looked pretty, they looked normal. I started to calm down. I knocked a third time. Still there was no reply. She wasn’t in.

  I looked at my watch. Mr Roberts might have gone by now. I’d go back to the shop, wander past, look in casually.

  And then the front door opened.

  Sylvia was about twenty-five. Or she could have been thirty. She was pale and thin, and her eyes seemed to fill her face. Her thick black hair was pushed back from her forehead with an alice band, and the ends flicked up. And she was tall, taller than me, even considering that I was on a step lower than her. She was wearing a big, grey man’s cardigan hugged round herself, a long blue skirt and bright maroon embroidered slippers. I wondered which came first, the depression or the outfit.

  I was in my duffel coat but I wished I was wearing my suede, so she’d know that I was a mod and had more style than her. We looked at each other for a minute. ‘So you’re Linda,’ she said, with a little smile. Her voice was a bit posh. ‘You’re the one saving Mansell from his mum.’

  What did she mean? She was his mum, wasn’t she? Why was she talking about herself as someone else? ‘Well, I’m the one taking him out,’ I said. ‘Which I love doing,’ I added, in case that sounded unkind.

  ‘And where’ve you been today?’

  ‘We went round The Lane. Past my old school.’

  ‘How lovely. Did you see anybody interesting?’

  ‘It’s only a school,’ I said. ‘And everyone’s on holiday.’

  ‘Well, come in, Linda.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘Mansell’s fast asleep.’

  ‘No, do come in. Have a cup of tea. The kettle’s just boiled.’

  Reluctantly I wheeled the pram into the hall. There was a cold smell in the house.

  ‘You can leave the pram here,’ she said. ‘Mansell will be fine.’

  I followed her into the kitchen. The light was on, a bare bulb with no lampshade. It was bigger than our kitchen – there was room for a small flimsy table and two spindly chairs that didn’t match. The cooker stood on its own against one wall. Under the window, next to a cupboard, was a sink and a grooved wooden draining board. There was an old calendar for 1962 hanging crookedly on the wall. It said July and had a picture of a brown and white carthorse. The room felt empty and lonely, as if the cheapness of the outside of the house had slipped inside when no one was looking.

  Sylvia almost fell into a chair. ‘Could you make the tea, chicken?’ she said. ‘I’m afraid I’m having a bit of a slump.’

  ‘Perhaps I should go home,’ I said.

  ‘No, no, it’s lovely to have company.’

  For you maybe, I thought. I wasn’t good at making tea. I took the kettle off the top of the cooker. The kettle was cold. It was empty. It wasn’t boiling at all. I looked at Sylvia, but she was rubbing her face with her hands. This was going to take ages. As I filled the kettle, the tap wobbled because the pipe was coming away from the wall. I lit the gas with a match from a large squashed box on the draining board and looked for the teapot.

  Sylvia waved a hand towards the cupboard. Crockery was piled inside. The lid didn’t match the teapot, and the cups didn’t match anything. They were all chipped. I hoped the boiling water from the kettle would kill the germs.

  ‘Where’s your fridge?’ I said.

  ‘Oh, the milk’s in the bucket by the sink.’

  I gave Sylvia the nicest cup, ornately shaped with a gold rim and fading roses, because she was the person who wasn’t well. I had a green one like the ones in Mum’s church. ‘That’s lovely, chicken,’ Sylvia said. She took a mouthful of tea. She shuddered. ‘Ooh.’

  ‘It’s too weak, isn’t it?’ I said.

  ‘No, no. It’s just – there’s no sugar.’ She pulled the sugar bowl towards her and stirred in three heaped spoonfuls. She took another sip. ‘Ahh, that’s better.’ She looked at me, hunched on
my chair. ‘Are you cold? Let’s go into the living room. Bring your tea.’ Before I could think of another way of saying I want to go home, she stood up and walked across the hall.

  In the living room another bare bulb lit the room. This didn’t look like a room for living in at all. It was like a junk room. There were three different styles and colours of chairs, and everything was faded, greys and greens and browns. Mustardy, cracked lino covered the floor with a matted orange rug in front of the electric fire. Our living room was shabby – we had a hole in the middle of the carpet – but at least our settee matched the armchairs.

  And there was a smell of cigarettes and baby sick and a sort of dampness. No wonder Sylvia was depressed.

  But she didn’t seem depressed now. ‘Right,’ she said, gaily, ‘let’s get a bit of atmosphere in here and listen to some music.’ She switched on the fire with a loud, empty ping. The fan behind the plastic coals began to whirr and the bars turned slowly red. She pulled the curtains but they didn’t meet in the middle. Then she said, ‘Turn off the light,’ and motioned to the switch on the wall.

  She wanted us to sit in the dark! Now I really wanted to go home.

  But Sylvia switched on a standard lamp and the glow from the lamp and gradually the red of the fire meant the room looked cosier. ‘That’s better,’ she said. ‘A bit of atmosphere. Right, what shall we have?’ In one corner next to the TV, on top of an old-fashioned bulbous wooden sideboard, was a record player, green and cream, with a pile of LPs beside it. She slid the records from side to side. ‘How about this one?’ She held up the cover of a Louis Armstrong record.

  I didn’t like Louis Armstrong. He wasn’t sleek and lean like the Motown artists, and he played the trumpet. When he did sing in that gravelly voice it was songs like ‘Hello Dolly’, that bounced in a jaunty sort of way.

  ‘Louis Armstrong is a remarkable man, Linda,’ Sylvia said, looking at my disdainful expression. ‘He is an interesting musician and he paved the way for all those young men I assume you like.’

  It did make a difference to know he was a good musician and a trailblazer. I knew black people had had a hard time in America, even though slavery was over, and if he made it easier for Tamla Motown to exist, that was great, but I still didn’t like his music.