by Lissa Evans
Sitting on her bench in Adam Square, The Flea sighed.
Mrs King is expecting again, and thinks she is four months pregnant. I will enquire about the lying-in grant, and have strongly recommended she attend the Drummond Street mother-and-baby clinic.
The outside convenience, serving all the inhabitants of the building, is currently blocked (this is the fifth time in a year), but Mrs King asked me not to serve a notice on the landlord, as she is afraid of being evicted if she—
‘Hello, Florrie!’
Etta Kirby waved to her from the edge of the square, and walked across with her usual India-rubber step. She was in her early thirties, all bounce and bonhomie, curly hair springing from beneath the brim of her health visitor’s hat.
She dropped on to the bench with an impact that sent The Flea’s pencil skidding across the page.
‘Golly, I could do with some fresh air,’ she said. ‘Been visiting a family in Bloemfontein House, and the grandfather was busy sticking new soles on the children’s boots with fish glue. There was a pot of it bubbling in a pan the whole time. I might as well have been bathing in the stuff – can you smell it?’ She offered a sleeve to The Flea, who sniffed, recoiled and nodded.
‘Oh Lord …’ Etta gave a crow of laughter and leaned back with her eyes closed, face up to the sun. ‘Five-minute break,’ she said. ‘Tell me if anyone comes by – remember Miss Beering? – “Comport yourselves with dignity, ladies. To be respected, one must look respectable.”’
‘“And behave respectfully, however alien the situation.”’
‘Good old Beery.’
‘Etta, have you recommended any children for Sunshine Homes lately?’
‘I have, as a matter of fact. Couple of kiddies who’d survived whooping cough and were living in a room that was as damp as a … a sponge. I didn’t have much luck – the home in Watford was full and the one in Barnet’s been converted into a hospital for infantile paralysis; they’ve had heaps of cases lately, they say, and some of those poor mites stay in for years. The only thing I could do in the end was get them sun-lamp treatment. Oh, Florrie,’ – she straightened up and opened her eyes – ‘did I tell you that Gresby proposed to me?’
‘That’s splendid. Congratulations!’
‘I haven’t said yes yet.’
‘Why not?’ The Flea had met Gresby, briefly – a pleasant, slightly built young man who looked as if Etta might be able to fold him up like a carpenter’s rule and stow him in her handbag.
‘Oh, I don’t know. If I say yes, I’ll have to marry him, and then I shan’t be able to work any more, shall I, and I’d hate that. On the other hand, I would like a couple of babies, and time’s ticking on and he’s quite a decent chap and …’ She shrugged, smile fading. ‘Well, I’m jolly lucky to have found anyone at all, aren’t I? Most don’t. I went to a school reunion last month, and out of thirty girls in my class, nineteen of us are spinsters – apparently, the newspapers are calling us “the surplus women”. “Like a drawer full of forks,” my friend Minnie said, “when all the knives have been stolen.”’
There was a moment of bleak silence, and then Etta slapped her knees, like someone knocking dust from a cushion. ‘So yes,’ she said, ‘I shall probably consent to become Mrs Leadbetter. Don’t!’ she added, clocking The Flea’s expression. ‘It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? Henrietta Leadbetter. Like a character from a nursery rhyme.’
‘I thought he seemed very nice when I met him,’ said The Flea.
‘Yes,’ said Etta, more soberly. ‘Yes, he is. I’m wicked to complain, especially when … Were you ever engaged, Florrie?’
‘No.’
‘You don’t mind my asking?’
‘Not at all. I wasn’t one of those poor girls who lost a fiancé at the Front.’
‘Just never found the right fellow?’
The Flea shook her head. ‘But I’m sure that you have, and I hope you’ll be very happy.’
Etta leaned across and gave her hand a clumsy squeeze. ‘You’re a chum,’ she said. ‘And I’ll expect you at the wedding. Now, I have to go and weigh some nice fat babies at the clinic – at least, I hope they’ll be nice and fat. You?’
‘I’m seeing someone in Wilson Road.’
‘Oh, bad luck.’
It had seemed to The Flea as a child that there was something akin to a miracle about the process of ironing – the way that black metal, hellish heat and the violent hiss of steam could turn crumpled cloth into an angel’s raiment. Sitting now in Mrs Beck’s kitchen, she marvelled all over again. Outside the front door were soot and sparrows, the very air full of smoky filth, and inside were folded snowdrifts; the striped linen cloth in front of her might have been draped across the table straight from the loom.
‘Thank you,’ she said, as Mrs Beck set down a tray. Two delicate gilt-edged cups and a matching teapot stood on a cross-stitched mat. The sugar bowl and the milk jug were plain.
Lilias Beck nodded and took a seat opposite, lowering herself stiffly, as if the act of sitting were unfamiliar. She clasped her hands on the table-top, fingers grinding against the reddened knuckles. There was no bend to her, thought The Flea – she was like a chess queen, upright and severe, her tautly handsome features somehow at odds with the boiled-bacon complexion of someone who worked perpetually in steam. ‘It’s a beautiful teapot,’ said The Flea.
‘It was my grandmother’s.’
There was a pause. In the silence, a child could be heard crying drearily in the next-door flat, and beyond was the perpetual dull thunder of the trains. The Flea cleared her throat; formality was a killer to confidences – she was always glad when the women she visited were sewing or holding a child.
‘So …’ she began.
‘You’ve been giving Ida lessons,’ said Mrs Beck, abruptly, ‘about the human body.’
The Flea hesitated, struggling to gauge what her response should be. Was she being accused of wasting Ida’s time? Of introducing indecent subjects? Of giving the girl ideas above her station?
‘We’ve had some little chats about vitamins and general health,’ she said, cautiously. ‘I showed your niece one of my textbooks, with a diagram of the digestive system. It wasn’t exactly a lesson …’
‘She told me you’d talked about her going back to school.’
‘Continuation school? Yes. Yes, I mentioned the idea. Perhaps you know about the scheme?’
Mrs Beck said nothing, but her hands continued to move, kneading and twisting each other.
‘The service is provided by London County Council, and it’s free – Ida could go for two afternoons a week, or even three. She could come to work a little earlier on those days, and we’d make no reduction to her wage.’
Her voice, bright and conciliatory, hung in the air like an offered handshake.
‘And then what?’ asked Mrs Beck, smacking it aside.
‘Well … if Ida were also able to study in the evenings, she could matriculate, and maybe go on to a training college.’
‘A training college?’
‘To be a teacher. Or perhaps she could go to nursing school. She really is a bright girl, Mrs Beck – she has great curiosity and an excellent memory. I think that, given the chance, she could do very well.’
The aunt’s hands stilled, and she leaned forward slightly, her eyes fixed on The Flea.
‘I’ll tell you what Ida is,’ she said, fiercely. ‘She’s a pearl. A pearl.’
She sat back again, as if she’d just issued a challenge.
‘Oh!’ said The Flea, startled. ‘Well … yes. I think she is.’
‘She’s always had character. She’s always been the best of that family. My brother-in-law’s not much of a man and his wife’s a prize—’ She clamped her mouth shut over the letter ‘b’, before it could escape. ‘I don’t like to use the word, Miss Lee, but if you met Violet, you’d be using it yourself. You’ve not met her, have you?’
‘No.’
‘She’s like the Queen of the May. They a
ll dance round her’ – she flapped a hand in a parody of airy deference – ‘she’s got the whole family on reins and none of them will hear a word against her, but she holds them back, Miss Lee. I’ve watched her. Ida could have stayed on at school, there’s enough money coming in, two of the boys are earning now, but Violet couldn’t stick that – couldn’t have someone making more of themselves than she’d ever done. I know it’s men that hold women back, Miss Lee, but there are women who hold women back as well. It’s jealousy, my own mother was the same …’ She paused for a moment, her lips moving silently, as if reprising old arguments. ‘I didn’t get any chances in life,’ she said, matter-of-factly, ‘nor any luck. I don’t want the same to happen to Ida. The end of last year I told her parents she ought to come and live with me, and I’d pay for her keep – they’ve got no space; a growing girl sharing with her brothers, it’s not right. And I found Ida that job at the station waiting-room – they send their table-linen to me – and I thought it might lead to something better, but then she got the push. You know about that, Miss Lee?’
‘The geography question?’
‘Sacked for being too clever. And when you offered her work I wasn’t happy at first, what with her just being a daily, but then you and Miss Simpkin took an interest. First the Sunday club, and then the lessons. Ida comes back from the Amazons and she’s a foot taller.’
‘I’m glad,’ said The Flea, smiling at the image.
‘But what I want to know is this.’ She fixed The Flea with an unblinking gaze. ‘Will you stick with her, Miss Lee?’
‘Stick with her?’
‘You can’t raise her hopes and then drop them again. It doesn’t take much to knock back a young girl. I knew of one who had a school prize for penmanship and thought she could be a clerk at the Post Office, and then someone turned round to her one day and said, “You’ve got hands like a navvy. No one would believe you could do copperplate,” and that was the end of it. I don’t want that for Ida.’
‘I promise you,’ said The Flea. ‘We shall go on helping your niece. You haven’t met Miss Simpkin, but she is, perhaps above all else, a … a sticker. She is staunch, Mrs Beck. And good-hearted, and utterly reliable. And you’ve met me now, and I hope you can see that I’m sincere.’
Ida’s aunt held her gaze for a moment more, and then gave a grudging nod.
‘You’re not what I expected, Miss Lee.’
‘No?’
Her hostess lifted the lid of the teapot and gave the contents a stir, and poured them each a cup before she spoke again. ‘I thought you’d be one of those ladies who works just to give herself something to do.’
‘No, I’ve always needed to earn my living. But I think you’re being a little unfair, Mrs Beck – a great deal of good has been achieved by people who could have spent their lives doing nothing.’ Her tone was sharper than she’d intended (as always happened when she found herself defending Mattie, however obliquely), but Mrs Beck appeared not to take offence – the tone seemed, if anything, to brighten her, as if she relished a clash of swords.
‘That’s as may be,’ she said. ‘But you can always tell. If someone’s never had to think about money, you can see it in their faces. They haven’t ever had that worry, dripping away year after year. It wears a groove in you. Stains you.’
‘And you can see that in me?’
‘I can.’
The Flea nodded. ‘My mother took in laundry, Mrs Beck.’
Ida’s aunt gave a huff of grim amusement. ‘But you got a chance,’ she said.
‘Yes, I was quick with figures, and my teacher suggested that I go to a commercial school for a year – it was near us, in Northampton – and my parents agreed. I learned shorthand and book-keeping and that led to … many chances.’
‘So your ma and pa did their best for you?’
‘Yes, always.’
‘Brothers and sisters?’
The Flea shook her head; impossible to explain that she hadn’t seen her brother for more than twenty-five years. ‘And you, Mrs Beck?’
‘I have a sister who’s a defective – she lives in the country with my cousin. I send money for her.’
‘That does you credit.’
‘She never did anyone any harm. Smiles at everyone. Not many people you can say that about.’
‘No indeed.’
Mrs Beck laid her hands flat on the table and looked down at them. They were large, the fingers splayed with arthritis. ‘Another few years, I won’t be able to grip the iron,’ she said, ‘and I’ll be finished.’ There was no self-pity in her voice, just truth and a flat bitterness.
‘Perhaps … perhaps you have a widow’s pension?’
‘I’m not a widow. He was a beast. He walked off one day and I never saw him again, and good riddance.’ She reached for her cup, and tilted it so that the gilt rim caught the light. ‘This was a full set of china when I married him. He’d get in a temper and bang, crash, all my nice things.’ She rocked it gently back on to the saucer. ‘I was a fool to marry. I’ve told Ida to stay away from men, but they won’t stay away from her, will they? She’d be better off the way that you are, Miss Lee.’
That raw, unblinking stare again.
The Flea had to swallow before she could speak. ‘The way that I am?’
‘Independent.’
She could feel her cheeks burning. Quickly, she drank the remains of her tea, and stood up. ‘Thank you, Mrs Beck, I’ll have to go now, I have another visit to make. And I hope that you’re reassured that our – that my interest in Ida is genuine, and that I’m aware of the responsibility of … of encouraging your niece to further her education.’
And then she almost fled from the flat, hurrying down the outside staircase, stopping only on the last flight in order to button her coat and straighten her hat, so that she emerged on to Wilson Road looking composed, and professional, though she could still feel the heat in her face. She crossed the road and started walking briskly in the direction of Silverdale, glancing back once at Alma Buildings, as if expecting to see Lilias Beck leaning out of a top-floor window, pointing accusingly.
Had Mrs Beck guessed? Had she guessed? And yet what was there, actually, to guess at? The Flea lived with a friend, as did countless other women; what could be more sensible or more pleasant – or expedient, for that matter, with rents so high and no men left to marry? Neither Ida, nor any visitor to the house, could ever have heard a syllable or witnessed a gesture that conveyed more than innocent companionship.
No, thought The Flea, there really was nothing to guess. And if the certainty of that thought lacked comfort – if, in fact, it felt like a door slamming on an empty room – then there were other thoughts against which she had learned to balance it. While there was no one she had ever loved with more passion than Mattie, and nothing she could do with that passion except carry it around like a wrapped parcel, there was also no one who had ever interested or entertained (or, occasionally, infuriated) her more, or for whom she had greater admiration, or who had proved more able at dispelling loneliness, or who stood more in need of protection – because Mattie would never take a shortcut that might avoid the battlefield; she simply couldn’t dissemble, couldn’t mute her own reactions, couldn’t turn a blind eye. She needed a shield-bearer.
Long ago, The Flea had loved another friend: Agnes Hines, an old schoolfellow. They had shared a desk at the offices of Northampton Town Hall, as well as a room in lodgings and – on one cold night of astonishing happiness – a bed. The next morning, Agnes had refused to speak or even look at her (and how terrible that had been, how icy, after waking to the brief warm bliss of another body curled around one’s own), and that evening her room-mate had packed and left the lodgings. Something had been said at work, something nebulous perhaps, but hateful, so that all around The Flea were averted heads and the sound of scraping chairs as their occupants edged away, and Mr Sopwith, in charge of the office, had drawn her aside – as if with tongs – and suggested she make a fresh start
elsewhere. No reference had been offered. The Flea’s own brother, who worked at the Midland Bank and who was a member of the Conservative Club, the Temperance League and the Lodge of St George (accumulating respectability as a farmer bags rooks), had somehow heard the rumours, and sent her a letter saying that she was no longer welcome at his house, nor was she to see his children again; that was the one thing that had made her weep; she had cherished her little nieces. After that, given that her parents were dead, there was no reason to remain in Northampton, and she had moved to London, feeling not shame – she had never felt shame – but fear, since her own inclinations had proved to have the power to remove her from those she loved.
And she loved Mattie. Living with her in simple friendship might be akin to dancing the Charleston when what you really ached for was a slow waltz – but the music still played; it was, in its way, still a dance.
‘Afternoon, Miss Lee.’
‘Oh – hello, Mrs Chase,’ said The Flea, gathering her thoughts and stepping out of the way of the dilapidated baby-carriage that was blocking the pavement, ‘and hello, Cyril.’ Cyril had a stick of rock in his hand, which he had evidently dropped and retrieved several times, judging by its dense coating of grit.
‘He’s got pink-eye again,’ said Mrs Chase. ‘I told him not to play by the bins but he won’t listen.’
‘How are the twins?’ asked The Flea, ducking down to peer under the hood of the perambulator. A total of three babies stared back at her, one of them with a cluster of weeping yellow scabs on its chin.
‘I’m minding the one in the middle for a friend.’
‘I’m afraid that the one in the middle has impetigo. Which is extremely contagious.’
‘You mean it’s catching?’
‘Yes, very.’
‘I heard you get it from tinned milk, and I never give my babies tinned milk.’
‘Unfortunately, you get it from touching the affected area. You should bathe your two little ones very thoroughly with soap and hot water when you get home.’
‘We’re just on our way out. My sister’s had a baby girl and we’re visiting. Bit of a party.’
