A Woman's Place

by Maggie Ford

  The woman, in high-necked black blouse and black, belted skirt, nodded and gave a tight smile. ‘That’s quite all right, Mrs Adams.’ She looked down at Helena. ‘Come along then, child. Don’t dawdle, and if you feel sick in class, hold up your hand.’

  Helena lifted her face to be kissed by her mother. ‘Bye,’ she said, and slipped into her class file.

  Eveline turned away. She ought to go and see her mother-in-law now. She’d have to tell Mum and Dad too. She didn’t want to see Albert’s mother, not just yet. The poor women might be in tears and she felt she couldn’t cope with that at this moment.

  Finnis Street was quiet and empty, with children at school, grown-ups at work. It was beginning to spit with rain which promised to get heavier. She stopped and looked up at the overcast sky, feeling the spits on her face. She just couldn’t comprehend the possibility of never seeing Albert again; it seemed more like a dream she was having.

  Directionless, she moved on, crossing the street into Three Colts Lane, turning automatically into Corfield Street. She found herself at Connie’s door, though why, she didn’t know. Connie would be at work. Even so she rapped with the black knocker, not knowing what else to do now she was here. The door opened. Connie stood there. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘It’s you.’

  Standing in the dim of the landing on this dull morning, she replied in a flat, lifeless tone, ‘You’re not at work.’ It was all she could find to say.

  ‘Rebecca had a tummy bilious attack. I couldn’t leave her.’ Connie’s words were stilted and formal, as if talking to a casual caller. ‘Is there something you wanted?’

  ‘I …’ Eveline hesitated. What did she want? ‘I don’t know really.’

  Something in her tone, a faintness of breath perhaps, the way the words were whispered, made Connie lean forward to look at her. The stiff attitude fell away as she saw the expression Eveline felt must be there on her face and she knew instantly.

  ‘Oh, no!’ There was such pain in that voice. ‘Oh, Eveline, no!’

  Gathered into Connie’s arms, the cold fear inside her gave way to what had been waiting for release. Sobbing her heart out on her friend’s shoulder, she was vaguely aware that Connie too was crying, her own long-held-in grief finally flooding out of her.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Friday, almost the end of another working week. A grey morning with granite skies, cold, as cold as she felt since Albert had been reported missing. Grey days exacerbated her loss, sunny ones only mocked it, and the cessation of hostilities five days ago, though not officially announced as yet, was tearing her apart.

  With Helena beside her, she made her way towards the school. Connie would meet her at the gates and together they would go on to work. Connie was doing all she could to make up for her strange resentment towards her after losing George. Eveline was glad that their relationship had improved. One thing was different though. Conversation was no longer light-hearted. Sometimes they’d walk in silence though it was the compatible silence of friends both more or less in the same boat.

  This morning they worked side by side without talking, mostly due to the continual noise of machinery smothering any attempt to chat. When lunchtime finally arrived and the thundering racket died away, ears would be left buzzing in the unaccustomed quiet.

  Nearly eleven o’clock. An hour and a half to lunchtime and Eveline felt hungry. She’d not eaten breakfast. In fact she had no interest in food at all – it was only there to keep her going.

  The boom of maroons made the workers jump. Maroons would go off when an air attack was imminent, but today everyone to a man knew what they proclaimed: the war was over. The Armistice had been signed five days ago, but now it was official. Although they had waited all week for this, no one had been sure quite when.

  Eveline’s first thought was for Helena. She was at school and she’d be unable to get to her. Connie’s face told her she was thinking the same thing about her daughter. On this day of all days they weren’t together with their children.

  There came the shrill sound of a police whistle, once used by them as they bicycled around the streets to warn people to take cover. There also came discordant blasts of Boy Scout bugles. The young boys too would help the police warn the public. But this time they were sounding the All Clear, fit to burst.

  From inside the factory an earsplitting cheer had gone up. As the power was switched off and the roar of machinery died, workers dropped what they were doing and began to surge towards the factory entrance, Eveline and Connie being borne along in the rush to get outside and celebrate as a huge body of people streamed towards and through the factory gates.

  Outside in the street it was bedlam. It was as if some gigantic school had been let out as people came flooding from nearby factories, shops, houses, dancing, yelling, singing, cheering for all they were worth.

  There were some who did not dance and sing. Instead they stood as if rooted to the spot, perhaps with shock, but mostly – it was written on their faces – they remembered the loved ones they’d lost, who wouldn’t be celebrating this wonderful day. Eveline and Connie stood holding hands, each looking into the other’s eyes that glistened with tears.

  For a moment Connie closed hers, her thoughts focused on this terrible year she had endured. How could she have pushed Eveline away as she had? Just when she needed her, she had rejected her, resentful that Eveline’s husband remained alive while hers had died; Eveline was still clinging to the hope that Albert might be found alive somewhere, but she must know that after all this time there could be no such hope. Connie felt filled with guilt. How could she have so begrudged Eveline in the past?

  She thought of her mother’s words – tinged with that same ring of jealousy – that last time she had gone to see her: ‘Why is your husband alive and mine dead?’ But she’d felt the same towards Eveline, though she had avoided such direct and cruel confrontation. At the memory, guilt bit into her. It had taken Eveline’s loss to bring them together and that was very sad.

  She looked again into her friend’s glistening eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said awkwardly.

  Eveline seemed to know exactly what she meant. ‘No need,’ she said.

  The next moment she found herself being enfolded in her friend’s arms.

  ‘We’ll come through,’ she whispered with returning determination, her face buried against Eveline’s shoulder. ‘We have to be strong together.’

  She heard the answering whisper, ‘Yes.’ Meanwhile all about them people continued to celebrate a world finally at peace.

  The factory had closed at once, as had all the other workplaces. Every street was crammed with people rejoicing, making it difficult to get home. But they needed to. The schools would have closed too and they had to collect their daughters, though Eveline hoped that either her mother-in-law or Gran would have done the honours.

  Bethnal Green Road was as crowded as everywhere else so that their bus could hardly get through, finally giving up, leaving passengers to walk, not that anyone cared. They’d been jigging in the aisles anyway, as the whole country came to a standstill to celebrate Victory Day.

  The two women had to push their way through people waving flags while others cheered from roofs and windows and up lamp-posts, bunting appearing from nowhere. Eveline found herself kissed by total strangers, as did Connie. Pubs were already bulging, customers bringing their beer glasses out into the street, and every serviceman in sight found himself being hoisted shoulder-high.

  Their own streets were no less crowded. Eveline got to her mother-in-law’s flat to find she had both the children there as well as Gran, who was sipping a glass of Guinness. Gran looked frail.

  ‘I ’ad to come in and sit down for a while,’ she said. ‘Ain’t so young as I was and them crowds out there took all the go out of me. But thanks to Mrs Adams, I’m recovering a bit how.’

  ‘Where’s Mum and Dad?’ Eveline asked.

  ‘Them? I think they shut up shop and went over to find Len and Flossie.’ The
y now had a small flat in Three Colts Lane, very handy to visit. ‘Perhaps in a while you and me can go along there.’

  ‘If you want to,’ Eveline said. She was beginning to feel down again – so many were celebrating. What were the rest of those with no reason to celebrate feeling, perhaps sitting in their homes, listening to the excitement going on outside, making their loss all the keener?

  She was glad Connie was here. The worst thing would be to sit alone.

  ‘Mummy, they’re saying the war’s over!’ Helena said, her voice shrill.

  Eveline looked down at her and forced a smile. At eight years old the girl had no idea what exactly this meant to people, each in their individual way. Helena would never have the misfortune to feel deeply affected by it, and just as well. Her world would go on without any painfully sad memories. If Albert never came home, she would only vaguely remember him; she had been too young when he went away to remember him as he really was, and knew him only from photographs. She would live her young life, fall in love, marry, bring up her children and with luck go contentedly into old age never really knowing what it had been like to go through such a terrible war as this one and lose loved ones to it. The war was over. But the memories for her and Connie and so many others like them would linger on to the end of their lives.

  ‘Daddy will be coming home now, won’t he?’ Helena broke eagerly through her thoughts, destroying all Eveline’s hopes of the child remaining untouched.

  ‘I hope so,’ was all she could say, a wave of relief passing over her as Rebecca butted in.

  ‘Can we go outside and join in?’ Connie smiled across at Eveline.

  ‘Yes, let’s do that,’ she said with a defiant lift of the chin.

  Eveline felt the emotion touch her and she too lifted her face. ‘Then we can all go on to Len’s place. And you too, Mum,’ she added, addressing her mother-in-law. ‘It’ll do you good to be with other people.’ It would do her good too.

  By December, things had grown quieter. The war had been won though the official peace agreement had yet to be signed between the Allies and Germany; that country had become so impoverished by war it was starving, the Kaiser had abdicated, socialist revolutionaries were parading its cities, sailors had mutinied, soldiers seizing their command posts. Germany was falling apart.

  Britain was in trouble too. Food shortages were common, men released all at once from the forces found themselves unable to find jobs while those who’d worked during the war were demanding higher wages, threatening to strike if they didn’t get them.

  One thing that had made a difference was the November General Election, in which twice as many voted as in the last election in 1910. Women had at last been granted the vote, but they had to be over thirty, householders or wives of householders or owning property worth five pounds a year. Seventeen female candidates had stood though only one got elected, a Sinn Fein candidate for a Dublin seat, Countess Markievicz, she promptly declining to attend Parliament, saying it was against her principles to take the oath of allegiance to the King.

  Compared to the excitement of the Armistice, the granting of women’s suffrage was hardly noticed. No triumphal marches, no great speeches, in fact there was even talk of the WSPU disbanding, now that its demands were apparently satisfied.

  ‘How can they be satisfied?’ Connie questioned hotly, disappointed and angry. ‘If it had been lowered to twenty-one, we’d have been included.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Eveline said without enthusiasm as she got up from the kitchen chair, to give Connie a hand in peeling potatoes for her dinner.

  She felt little interest in suffragette matters. What had come to dominate both her sleeping and waking mind of late was a vision of a mutilated body buried by mud on some deserted battlefield, a body missed by searchers, perhaps too torn apart to be recognised as a whole among so many other scattered body parts, the unknown remains gathered up to bury with the rest and given only the dignity of a solemn prayer.

  She’d tried so many times to put the vision out of her head but it persisted in returning. Now there was Helena asking more and more where was her dad and when would he be coming home.

  Was she old enough at eight to have the situation explained to her? Yes, she was, but Eveline hadn’t so far been able to find the words, so had fobbed the child off. But soon she’d not be able to fob her off any longer. How did one go about explaining to a child the wages of warfare, what can happen on a battlefield to cause a man to be missing? She still found herself believing that Albert was just missing, not dead. She thought she would always live with that hope, no matter how many years went by.

  ‘But of course,’ Connie was saying as Eveline went on peeling the potatoes with pent-up energy. ‘It would have meant the chance of more women standing for parliament, and that’d never do!’

  ‘What wouldn’t do?’ Eveline echoed, dragged back to the present.

  Patiently, Connie repeated her previous words, demanding a sensible reply from Eveline. ‘We don’t qualify anyway,’ she managed to say mildly. ‘We don’t own property.’

  ‘But we both fought as hard as any for the vote and we get nothing out of it! After years of campaigning it took a war to bring it about.’

  That was true. The government had been forced to admit to a debt of gratitude owed to women for so readily filling the gap in the workplace left by men going to fight. But it had been a half-hearted gesture, as Connie said.

  ‘I feel betrayed,’ she said as, out shopping with no work to go to that day, they paused to watch older women entering a polling booth.

  ‘Little we can do about it,’ Eveline said lamely as they moved on.

  Both were on short time; the factory where they worked did not need to produce so many munitions now the war was over. With men returning home, many of the jobs the women had filled in their absence were being given back to them. Unless she and Connie could find other work, their incomes would plummet, leaving them to manage on the pittance paid to war widows. It spelled a frightening future.

  Working, they’d come to make the most of a few good things in life: going to the cinema, seeing a show now and again, regular food on the table as far as wartime rations had allowed, dressing nicely. They had followed the fashion for shorter skirts, cut their hair short to curl around their faces, when not restricted by the mob caps they wore at the factory. It was all coming to an end.

  ‘Some women might have been enfranchised,’ Eveline said as she thought of her dwindling resources. ‘But it’s not the emancipation Christabel Pankhurst spoke of. We’re still being asked to rely on men for most things.’

  They had no men, she thought bitterly. They’d soon have little money. As predicted, in early January their jobs went. She felt so let down that it began making her feel under the weather. In fact in the middle of January she began to feel distinctly ill, waking up one morning with vague aches in her joints and a fever.

  ‘I hope I’m not coming down with that Spanish flu,’ she told her mother, having gone there for the morning after taking Helena to school. ‘There’s such a lot of it around. The papers are saying it’s an epidemic in other parts of the world and thousands of people have already died from it.’

  ‘That’s there, not ’ere,’ Mum said, placing a cup of tea in front of her.

  ‘But it is here,’ Eveline persisted, straightening her back against the vague pain, her head beginning to feel heavy.

  ‘It’s been going round for a month or two,’ Mum said without much sympathy. ‘If you was going ter get it, you’d of got it by now. It’s just you, worrying yerself stiff over losing yer job. I told yer, if you’re in ’ard straits, me and yer dad’ll help you out as far as we can.’

  She was a different woman these days. No more, ‘You made yer bed so put up with it.’ With any hope of Albert coming home finally seeming futile – the subject was no longer mentioned, being too painful – the fact seemed to have brought her that bit closer.

  ‘Being worried doesn’t make you feel fe
verish,’ she said. ‘Helena went to school this morning saying she didn’t feel well either. I’m worried for her.’

  ‘She’ll be orright.’

  But Eveline arrived back home to find a note through her door from the school asking her to collect her daughter as soon as possible as she had a nasty headache. The news sent her scurrying off to get her.

  One look told her that she had a very sick daughter. Taking off her coat, she draped it round the girl’s shoulders giving extra warmth although the day wasn’t as cold as January could be, and part walked her, part carried her home. By that time she was in a panic, with the heat of the child’s body penetrating right through her clothing.

  ‘Mummy,’ Helena moaned plaintively several times on the way, ‘I feel ever so ill.’

  ‘I know, love,’ she said. ‘I’m putting you straight to bed.’

  Once there, she heated milk and made her drink it sweet with an aspirin. ‘Stay in bed, darling, while I go for the doctor.’

  The surgery was crowded. The receptionist looked agitated. ‘The doctor’s ever so busy as you can see. There’s not much he can advise except tell you to do what you’re already doing, giving her aspirin.’

  ‘What if it’s not the flu? What if she’s got meningitis or something?’

  The receptionist thought a moment. ‘Maybe I can get him to come after surgery. That won’t be for ages, though.’

  ‘Well, ask him if he can make a visit as soon as he can.’

  ‘You have to pay for visits.’

  ‘Then I’ll pay!’ Eveline snapped and rushed off, not stopping to think where the money was coming from.

  By the time he arrived about midday, having forgone his lunch to deal with the growing number of influenza victims, Helena looked desperately ill. Eveline too was feeling like death as she forced herself to see to the needs of her daughter, her own head feverish and throbbing, the pain behind her eyes almost unbearable, every limb aching to each movement.