Keeping My Sister's Secrets

by Beezy Marsh

  Kathleen was shown to a workstation at the other end of the factory, where a dozen women were quietly gluing and sticking labels to the Hartley’s ceramic jars. She’d seen the jars before in the grocer’s shop but she’d rarely bought them, because jam was a luxury they couldn’t afford often.

  Kathleen was just grateful she didn’t have to hull the pesky little strawberries. That was back-breaking work and she’d heard about girls not only nicking their fingers on the sharp knives, but slicing off the tops of thumbs. Besides, once strawberry season was over, it would be back to making marmalade and the last thing she wanted was to have to peel oranges, day in day out.

  ‘I’ll leave Beryl to show you the ropes in the finishing section, which is one of the more important areas because how you glue those labels on is the first thing the customer sees when they come to buy our products,’ said Miss Bainbridge, before bustling off in the other direction. ‘What in God’s name are those sacks of sugar doing on the floor?’ she yelled at a boy who had just plonked them off his sack barrow in the wrong place. He tipped his cap at Miss Bainbridge and gave Kathleen a wink before loading them back up and wheeling them away.

  Beryl was an old hand at the job, having been on labelling for the past five years, since she had left school. Her family lived over in the East End and she was the eldest of six. She spoke in a whisper, so that Miss Bainbridge wouldn’t ever catch her talking, but was quite a gossip and she managed to make Kathleen laugh that morning, as she showed her how to position the labels carefully across the middle of the jar and not get too much glue on the brush, or, worse, too little.

  ‘Nice and even, that’s right,’ she said, as she peered over the divider between her workstation and Kathleen’s. She had done ten pots in the time it took Kathleen to do one.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said warmly. ‘You’ll catch up.’

  Kathleen was by nature neat and tidy and by the afternoon she was speeding up but the lettering of those labels seemed to have seared itself into her subconscious: ‘W. P. Hartley’s Strawberry, Liverpool and London’. And on the bottom, each pot was stamped with ‘not genuine unless bearing W. P. Hartley’s label’. Miss Bainbridge walked past to inspect her work and gave a little ‘hmm’ of approval.

  When Kathleen clocked off at the end of that first shift, her fingers ached, her eyes were tired too and her legs were killing her from standing up. She couldn’t believe she had to get up the next day and do it all over again. At least she was better off than poor Nancy, who had several scald marks up her arms where she had got too close to the vats of boiling jam.

  As they joined the surge of women making their way out through the courtyard, Kathleen caught sight of the sugar delivery boy. He was heaving bags of the stuff off the back of a lorry in the yard. Their eyes met for an instant and Nancy smiled at him and gave her curls a little twirl with her finger. ‘Stop doing that,’ said Kathleen, who felt she was being upstaged.

  ‘I’m not doing anything,’ said Nancy, giving her a nudge in the ribs. ‘But it looks like someone is interested in you!’

  The whole of Howley Terrace was buzzing with excitement for the rest of the week, as a huge tea-party was planned for Saturday afternoon, to mark the King’s Silver Jubilee. Being a British summer, there was the risk of rain, but the blue skies overhead looked promising.

  Kathleen and the other factory girls were each given a pot of jam by Miss Bainbridge as a present to take home and share with their families. Her new workmate, Beryl, complained that she wasn’t likely to taste any of it.

  ‘Once the five others have had their sticky fingers in the jar, there’ll be nothing left for me!’ she said, departing with a cheery wave.

  By the time Kathleen got home, the party was just starting and the street looked breathtakingly beautiful. All the women had organized themselves into an unofficial decorating committee and were now competing to outdo each other because word had got around that a photographer from the London News was coming to take pictures of the best-turned-out streets in the borough.

  Peggy had found her most prized new possession, a Singer sewing machine, commandeered by Mrs Avens and Mrs Davies from number 16, who had spent every spare moment running up bunting from scraps of material. The strings of colours flags now hung in a magnificent crisscross, from house to house, the length of the street.

  Nanny Day had had a word with some of the flower sellers over in Covent Garden and had managed to get enough flowers for every home to have some around the doorway. The men of the street spent ages nailing little trellises over each door and foliage mysteriously appeared, thanks to the boys, led by her little brother Frankie. Many suspected it had been pinched from the local park but no one asked too many questions, because this was a happy occasion and the whole community was pulling together to make this a celebration to remember. A huge makeshift table was constructed with planks of wood and every home brought out some linen and china. There were jam sandwiches and tarts for the children, as well as bread rolls and currant buns. Every child had a place at the table, with upturned crates pressed into service when they ran out of chairs.

  Even Mr Pemberton from the Poor Law had found favour by donating a huge banner, which had God Save the King in gold and silver letters and a little crown underneath, which his wife had spent ages sewing by hand. He had also donated some cash from the Poor Law Authority coffers to provide cakes for the children, as the area was underprivileged.

  ‘He’s probably just trying to get his ugly mug in the photograph,’ muttered Mrs Avens, who still hadn’t quite recovered from the loss of her mahogany sideboard and held Mr Pemberton partly responsible for his failure to give her financial assistance in her hour of need.

  Kathleen’s piano was lifted outside into the street, where she guarded it with her life from the likes of Eva and her little friend Gladys. The sun shone brightly and for once it seemed that all the cares of the neighbourhood had been forgotten. Women put on their best dresses and hats and men donned their smartest suits. Only Mrs Davies resolutely bustled about in an overall on top of her dress, making sure she was in the thick of the action, serving tea from a giant teapot. Mr Pemberton even gave a little speech about the nation’s gratitude to the monarch, until one of the dockers from Tenison Street had enough of it and started hammering out ‘Roll Out the Barrel’ on the piano, loudly, to drown him out.

  The kids had running races with a prize of a penny for the fastest up and down Belvedere Road, while a crowd gathered around the piano to hear Kathleen sing. The fella who normally bashed out tunes down at the Feathers turned up with a crate of beer for the men and soon ousted Kathleen from her spot at the piano stool, much to her annoyance. The piano was her prized possession but she knew that she would have to share it because he was a better player than she was, although she would only admit that reluctantly. He started playing lively tunes, things Kathleen didn’t know the words to, but the older women seemed to recognize them and started dancing a kind of funny jig across the pavement and back, as the men lined up on the other side and moved forwards and back in a long line. Even her parents joined in, meeting each other in the middle of the street and twirling around.

  At bang on three o’clock, the man and a photographer from the London News came and got everyone to wave and smile for a photograph. Some older lads were mucking about on the costermongers’ barrows but even they stopped to come and pose. ‘Watch the birdie!’ the photographer said to the little children, many of whom had never seen a camera before and were too scared to smile. ‘Lovely to see the whole street getting into the spirit of it,’ the reporter said to Mr Pemberton, who had of course appointed himself spokesman for the neighbourhood. ‘Not like that Commie lot down in Red Bermondsey. The mayor’s only gone and burned an effigy of His Majesty on the steps of the town hall and there were hundreds cheering him on.’

  ‘Good gracious, no!’ said Mr Pemberton. ‘Let’s sing the National Anthem and show people how London really feels.’

  He turned
and shouted, ‘God Save the King!’ and was greeted by cheers as the pianist struck up the tune. The singing and dancing went on into the small hours. Kathleen, Peggy and Eva stayed up late but tiredness got the better of them and they were soon tucked up in bed, peering out of the window at the party still going on outside by the dim glow of the gas lamps. This was their community, their home in 1935, and in that moment Kathleen felt that nothing could ever take that away from her.

  16

  Eva, January 1936

  The woman in the long black coat had a suspicious look about her. Eva had clocked her a few days ago, hanging around on the street corner and she knew then that there was something amiss. Alice Diamond had taught her always to be on her guard in case the cozzers came calling and so she took more notice than most of the comings and goings in the neighbourhood.

  Eva had hopped the wag from school to go pinching down East Street Market with Alice earlier on. She took her mate Gladys with her, to start showing her the ropes. Gladys was a year younger but she was game for anything and she looked up to Eva and admired the way she was earning good money hoisting. It was easy stuff, just a few scarves to start with, some tins from the grocer’s and a bottle of perfume from the snooty pharmacy, just because Eva didn’t like the way that old matron behind the counter looked down her nose at them.

  Now she was back home, lurking in the living room and peering out through the net curtains at the activity in the street. It was bloody freezing but she didn’t dare light a fire because their coal was running low and then she’d have to explain to Dad why the fire had been lit so early, when he got home from work. He’d probably give her another belting for it. She watched her breath form in little droplets in front of her and took another peek through the net curtains instead.

  The woman looked around, as if she was waiting for someone. From the other end of the street, Eva saw Mary bundled up against the cold, and her little daughter, Florrie, toddling along, holding her hand. Everyone had been so happy for Mary when she got pregnant again so quickly after losing Billy to diphtheria. The baby was delivered safely and Florrie looked so much healthier than her late brother. In fact, she was positively chubby and well dressed for the weather in a knitted coat, hat and a fur muff, with stout little boots on her feet. Mary fed her the best cuts of meat and she never went without milk – the real stuff, from the dairy, not evap. In fact, the milkman’s horse and cart had become a familiar sight outside Mary and Joe’s front door, turning up on a Saturday for payment. But Mary hadn’t got a new job or anything like that. She still worked pulling the fur from rabbit skins and was permanently coughing from the fluff which got down her throat and everywhere.

  The woman approached Mary, catching her by the sleeve. Mary pulled her daughter close, with a look of panic on her face. This stranger pulled out a notebook and pointed to it. Mary pulled off her wedding ring – a thin silver band – and handed it over. The woman went to stroke the little girl on the cheek but Mary slapped her hand away. ‘Don’t you dare touch her!’ she shouted, loud enough to provoke next-door’s dog into a barking fit. The woman shrugged her shoulders and left, turning down Belvedere Road.

  Eva pulled on her coat and darted out into the street, falling into step with Mary.

  ‘Was that woman bothering you?’ she said, as they walked along, past the corner shop, which had a newspaper hoarding outside with ‘THE KING IS DEAD!’ written on it in big black lettering. Eva paused for a second to look at it. His Majesty had had a nice life and it wasn’t that she didn’t care, but the world of rich folk was so far removed from hers that she wouldn’t be shedding any tears over his death.

  ‘Don’t know what you mean!’ said Mary. ‘You’re imagining things, Eve.’

  ‘No, I ain’t,’ said Eva. ‘How much do you owe her?’

  Florrie started tugging at Mary’s hand. Mary looked at Eva imploringly, ‘You can’t tell anyone, least of all Joe because he thinks I’m working sick cover to pay for everything and I did have some shifts over Christmas but they’ve stopped now. I just borrowed some money to pay for things for Florrie, just until she is big and strong enough to not . . .’ She started to cry. ‘Well, I went to a moneylender down in the Borough to get a loan, just five pounds, but it’s the repayments – they seem to go up every week. You’re too young to understand this, Eva . . .’

  ‘I’m only thirteen but I ain’t a kid no more!’ said Eva. ‘I know how to look after myself.’

  ‘Of course you do,’ said Mary gently. ‘It’s just I don’t want to burden you with my troubles; they are my own to deal with. I’ll have to talk to Joe and we will find the money somehow. It just means Florrie will have to go without . . .’

  ‘What if I help you pay it off?’ said Eva, pulling a pound note from her pocket and offering it to Mary, whose mouth fell open.

  ‘Where did you get that?’

  ‘Don’t ask no questions and I will tell you no lies,’ said Eva. ‘I told you I can look after myself. You don’t think we got that piano from me dad killing himself looking after the boilers and me mum scrubbing floors, do you? Folks like us shouldn’t judge too harshly, Mary, and if I help you, all I ask is that you help me from time to time.’

  ‘What kind of help?’

  ‘I might need to keep a few things in your house, if it’s too tricky for me at home.’

  Mary knew enough about James Fraser’s temper and the black eyes sported by his wife to know that if Eva was bringing home a bit of crooked, she would meet with more than his disapproval.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘But we will have to be careful. I don’t want to have to explain a visit from the law to my Joe.’

  ‘It won’t ever come to that,’ said Eva. ‘How much do you still owe to that woman?’

  Mary sighed. ‘It seems to go up every week. It was a fiver and it doesn’t seem to have gone down much, no matter that I must have already paid that back by now. There’s no end to it.’ She had a haunted look about her as she spoke. ‘She keeps telling me how sweet my Florrie is and I’m scared she’s going to try to hurt her if I can’t keep up the repayments.’

  ‘I will get someone to talk to her about that,’ said Eva, smiling to herself. ‘Especially if I know I can rely on you to keep mum when I need a bit of help. You help me and I will help you, that’s fair, ain’t it? Just tell me her name and where she lives . . .’

  Maggie Hughes had a fierce temper and when Eva explained that a friend from her street who was prepared to handle stolen goods for the Forty Thieves was being ripped off by a moneylender, she didn’t need to be asked twice.

  Maggie didn’t wait for the cloak of darkness. She loitered on the corner near Long Lane down the Borough and then grabbed her victim by the throat when she walked by. As Eva looked on, Maggie pulled out her hatpin and waved it near the woman’s face. ‘You keep away from Mary in Howley Terrace. She’s a friend of Alice Diamond and the Forty Thieves. Do you get me?’

  ‘Get off me!’ the woman shrieked. ‘Help me! Somebody!’

  People put their heads down and scurried past. Maggie Hughes was well known in the neighbourhood and no one wanted to cross her, or Alice Diamond, for that matter.

  ‘She’s paid you enough and if I hear you have been round there again I will slit your little throat,’ spat Maggie, with a wild look in her eyes. ‘She’s one of our own. And don’t bother telling the cozzers ’cos we have got them straightened an’ all. You moneylenders make me sick.’ Maggie released the woman, who ran off shakily.

  Maggie smoothed her blouse and stuck her hatpin back into her straw boater. Then she turned to Eva and said, ‘Right, that’s that. Let’s go shopping. Selfridges?’

  The January sales were in full swing when they got there, pushing their way through the crush. The death of King George V the previous morning seemed to have done little to dampen the nation’s desire to bag a bargain.

  ‘We’re going to have to be clever to outwit the walkers ’cos they’ve got a new lot in, so Alice tells me,’ s
aid Maggie. Eva caught the whiff of booze on her breath as she whispered to her. ‘Let’s keep our wits about us.’ Eva was always careful but Maggie on the sauce could be more reckless than daring and Eva’s heart fluttered at the memory of her escapade in Gamages a year or so back. There’d been a few close shaves since, but the fright of that first time was enough to keep her wary.

  The pair sifted through a pile of leather gloves, Eva acting as a screen for Alice as she stuffed a few pairs into the inside lining of her coat. ‘Let’s go and find some fur. It’s bloody freezing out there and I fancy me a nice mink stole,’ said Maggie with a cackle. ‘You can clout it. Alice tells me you’re getting good at it.’

  Eva nodded. She was faster now, much faster, and her fingers seemed to be able to roll things quickly and stuff them down her shoplifter’s drawers without the shop assistants noticing. Practice sessions in Alice Diamond’s scullery had seen to that. She was barely in school these days. The teacher had bumped into her mother down the Cut and said something about it but Mum, knowing exactly why Eva wasn’t in school, covered for her and said Nanny Day had been so depressed she couldn’t work and so they were keeping Eva off to help around the house a bit.

  Eva thought about that as she rolled another fur stole, fox this time, complete with a bushy tail, and stuffed it down the other leg of her drawers which Alice had had specially made for her by a little seamstress down in the Borough who was very handy with her needle and thread. Maggie was already nudging her way through the tightly packed rows of coats to go downstairs to jewellery but Eva wasn’t done yet. Glancing around, she grabbed another mink stole, rolled it tightly and stuffed it down her other knicker leg. She emerged from behind a rail of coats and bumped straight into a shop assistant, who did a double take at seeing her. Had she been spotted? Eva said loudly, ‘Ouch! You should look where you’re going! I’m going to tell my mum!’ and she ran off to catch up with Maggie.