The Bobbin Girls

by Freda Lightfoot

  She stared into the grubby medicine tin which bore a picture of Queen Victoria’s jubilee on the lid, no doubt indicating the age of its contents, in the hope of salvation. Fenning’s Fever Cure. Dolly shuddered. Kill or cure, more like. It would take the coating off her tongue, and even if she was prepared to suffer it, she doubted it would solve her problem. Vic’s Vapour Rub. Fat lot of good that would do. And a bottle of Indian Brandee, good for belly ache caused by a period. But would it bring one on?

  She heard the back door open and her mother’s voice raised in argument. What was wrong now? That old nosy-parker from next door causing trouble again?

  Dolly’s head ached abominably and she laid a cold flannel against it with tender care. Perhaps that third nip of gin had been one too many and that was why the top of her head felt as if it were being screwed off like the stopper from a stone ginger bottle.

  Mrs Sutton’s voice rang out. ‘I wish I’d done it meself, you nasty old witch!’ Then the kitchen door slammed, reverberating throughout the small cottage and doing no kindness to Dolly’s headache.

  If only she were older, she thought, after retching another thin stream of bile-like liquid into the sink. It wouldn’t have mattered so much then. She might even have been pleased, on the basis that Tom Townsen would have to marry her. But although he was near enough twenty, she was only sixteen, seventeen come February which was only four months away. Not that being seventeen would help in any way with this problem.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Mrs Sutton asked, as she watched her daughter peck at a slice of dry toast. Not known for being picky with her food, Dolly usually demolished two or three thick slices in five minutes flat. Her mother’s face cleared. ‘Ah, you’re on one of them new-fangled diets, is that it? To go with the shorter skirts.

  Dolly looked at her uncomprehendingly for a moment since nothing could be further from the truth. Admittedly she was not a small girl: well-built some might say, plump certainly, voluptuous being the kinder term. Her face was pretty and she was pleased enough with that. Her hair was thick and brown and lustrous. She had good legs too, with dainty slim ankles, and was never short of admirers. So if the rest of her wasn’t quite what it might be, it certainly didn’t trouble Dolly.

  But right now it seemed easier to agree with her mother that, yes, she was on a diet. Better than answering more probing questions about her pallor.

  ‘Got to rush, Mam. Been on the last minute a bit lately and the foreman is watching us like a hawk.’ She stood up and, taking a quick sip of tea, held the half-eaten slice of toast in her mouth as she shrugged on her coat. It was only as she went out of the back door that it occurred to her that such an admission would affect what was produced for her evening meal and every meal thereafter. Dolly groaned. If there was one thing she hated it was lettuce leaves, and that would be what she’d get from now on. The thought added to her depression, which worsened as she ran her gaze up and down the row.

  There’d once been one long communal garden behind Applethorn Cottages, though any sign of the apple trees that might have served to christen it, had long since vanished. Instead there were patches of rough grass, small vegetable plots and the occasional lilac tree, interspersed with ramshackle outhouses and hen huts that leaned into the wind; even the odd pig-sty with its grunting occupant. The saving grace of all this muddle was the view. The cottages faced open countryside: thick woodlands and undulating fields criss-crossed with lichen-covered drystone walls, all lit on this particular morning with bright autumn sunshine.

  But something was wrong. Frowning, Dolly tried to work out what it was. By every back door stood a dustbin, and each one had been up-ended. ‘Ah,’ she said, to no one in particular. ‘So that’s what all the row was about. Hallowe’en.’

  At that moment Betty Thorns from next door came out, waving a shovel at Dolly. ‘I’ll knock your block off if I get my hands on you,’ she shouted, false teeth clicking with fury.

  ‘What? You don’t think I did this?’

  ‘Funny yours weren’t touched, don’t you think?’ The old woman nodded meaningfully at the Suttons’ dustbin, lid still firmly in place and not a scrap of litter around it. ‘Young hooligan! That’s what comes of having no father.’ It was her favourite method of attack when something had displeased her, and always set Dolly’s hackles rising. This morning it unleashed every ounce of pent-up emotion so that, for once, she hit back.

  ‘What’s that got to do with aught? Anyroad, they would’ve married, only me dad died fighting for his country before they could. Not that it’s any of your business.’ Instantly she regretted parting with this piece of private information.

  ‘That’s what she told you, is it? That he died a bloody hero? Run off, more like. She always did have a romantic imagination, did Maggie. Ask her what she gets up to on a Friday night, and see what she has to say about that. Pieces of muck, you Suttons! But then if you’re born wrong, you live wrong. Bastards, every one of you.’

  White-faced and trembling, Dolly faced her with stubborn defiance. ‘Mam’s right. You are a bad-mouthed old witch. I hope you go to hell.’

  This is all your fault, Alena Townsen, Dolly thought, as she marched stiff-backed down the lane. I’ll get my own back on you for this, madam, see if I don’t.

  Are you going to tell me what you’re up to then?’

  Alena, coming out on to the landing in pyjamas and plaid dressing gown paused as she heard these words; filled suddenly with a childlike curiosity to hear what it was adults talked about when they were alone, she slid into the shadows and listened.

  ‘I thought I’d make a few enquiries, that’s all.’

  ‘What sort of enquiries?’

  She peeped between the rails of the banister. The kitchen door was flung wide open, and through it she could see the lower half of her father’s back and legs. Ray Townsen was leaning over the table, waving a paper, a letter perhaps, in Ma’s face. Well?’ he barked, in a tone of voice she knew well.

  Lizzie folded the breakfast cloth with painstaking precision and put it in the drawer. ‘We haven’t time to talk about it now.’

  ‘When will we talk about it then? I asked you last night and you were too tired. I ask you this morning and you’re too busy.’

  ‘This isn’t the moment. We both have to get to the mill.’ Lizzie was buttoning her coat, tying a scarf around her hair and feeling in her pockets for her gloves. She hadn’t been sleeping too well lately. Too much worrying, and felt tired and weary, like an old woman, though at forty-six she was far from that. She wasn’t surprised by her husband’s persistence; rather she’d been amazed how long it had taken him to discover what she was up to. She’d been writing letters for weeks now. All in vain.

  ‘It’s about our Alena, isn’t it? I thought I told you not to interfere.’ And Alena watched, appalled, as his hand lashed out, slapping Lizzie across the face so that she fell awkwardly against the table, the corner of it jabbing into her side. Alena felt her palms grow sticky with sweat as she ached to run down the stairs and defend her beloved mother. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen such a thing happen. Ray Townsen had a quick temper, everybody said so, but would the next instant be as sweet as pie with his poor wife, kissing her better and making cups of reviving tea. Alena had long since vowed that no man would treat her so roughly, however sorry he might be afterwards.

  Lizzie recovered her balance in seconds and, hand to her cheek where the livid marks of his fingers were already beginning to show, hissed back at him under her breath.

  ‘Will you hush? Do you want the child to hear?’ She made no reference to the slap. But then she never did, accepting it as her lot. ‘We’ll talk about this later, I tell you.’ She really didn’t want to talk about it at all, but supposed he had the right. Lizzie came out into the hall, still searching for her gloves, to stand unknowingly below her daughter, hiding above on the landing. Ray followed her and Alena sank further into the shadows, praying they wouldn’t see her, or hear the thud of her heart.


  ‘She’s been asking a lot of difficult questions lately, and I’m running out of ways to avoid answering them.’

  ‘You should never have lied to her in the first place.’

  ‘I didn’t lie! I’ve never lied to her. I simply haven’t told her everything, that’s all.’

  ‘You don’t know everything.’

  Lizzie turned on her husband, eyes blazing with anger. ‘That’s why I’m trying to find someone who does. Without much luck, I might tell you.’

  ‘And what difference would it make if you found your answers?’ he persisted.

  By way of reply Lizzie went to the bottom of the stairs and called: ‘We’re going, love. There’s some porridge on the stove. Don’t be late for school now.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Alena called back, trying to make her voice sound far away, which wasn’t too difficult since she felt as if she were choking. She didn’t move until the slam of the front door told her they were well on they’d gone. Even then she stayed where she was, shivering with emotion, and something cold and hard in the pit of her stomach that felt remarkably like fear.

  ‘Eavesdroppers hear no good of themselves.’ Tom’s low voice in her ear made her jump. She hadn’t even heard him approach.

  ‘I wasn’t eavesdropping.’

  ‘Yes, you were.’ His wide infectious grin seemed to stretch from ear to ear, and even as her mind struggled to make sense of what she had just heard and seen, Alena couldn’t help thinking it was no wonder her brother was so popular with the girls. He really was a handsome, devil-may-care sort of fellow, with his fair hair and melting brown eyes. But then she adored him too. The youngest of her four brothers, Tom was her favourite

  ‘Ma and Dad were quarrelling. Did you hear?’

  ‘Not a word.’

  Alena met his gaze directly and for the first time in her life knew that he lied. ‘Have you had your breakfast, child?’ he barked, in a fair imitation of Ray Townsen. And when she flung one leg over the banister rail to slide headlong down it, he thundered after her down the stairs. ‘If you don’t get a move on, you’ll be late for school - then I’ll tickle you to death as punishment.’

  By a miracle Alena was not late for school, but the day seemed endless. The teacher’s voice grated on her nerves, the rows of chalked sums on the blackboard seemed blurred and meaningless. And she hadn’t any interest in playing Piggy-Jack-Fly in the playground at break-time.

  She couldn’t get the overheard conversation out of her mind; it kept on going round and round in her head. Who could her mother be writing to? Why had her dad accused Ma of lying? Why had Tom lied about hearing them? Alena hated the thought of lies, particularly told by people who claimed to love one another. Tom must have heard, despite much of the quarrel being conducted in angry whispers. Fierce and furious but generally short-lived, the whole Townsen family had grown used to them, and knew that although their parents’ marriage may not be perfect, they still loved each other, in a robust sort of way.

  But what could she do? Alena knew she couldn’t ask what was going on without confessing to listening in to a private conversation. What disturbed her most of all was the pitiful sadness in her mother’s face as she’d called up the stairs.

  She was still puzzling over it later that afternoon as she walked through Low Birk Copse, looking for Rob. She had on an old pair of shorts, long since discarded by Kit, a sweater that had seen better days and, to please her mother, a soft green beret pulled down over her wild curls. But the ribbon Lizzie had tied them back with had got caught up in a hawthorn branch, where it now flew like a bright red flag.

  Rob was late, which annoyed her. She’d waited impatiently by the ancient oak, their usual meeting place, for almost an hour but he hadn’t come. The tree had stood sentinel in that clearing for a hundred years or more, surrounded by bluebells at the right time of year, its huge trunk pitted with rabbit holes and knotted with galls. She’d climbed to the top of its crooked branches so she could look out over the smaller trees as far as the mill leat that cut its way down the hillside. She’d swung from the knotted rope they’d tied from one thick branch many years before; walked fifty times one way around the circumference of the great tree, and fifty times in the other. But still he hadn’t come.

  Now she followed the narrow forest rides that wound between the tall beech, sycamore, oak and ash trees, underplanted with the quicker growing birch and hazel, and called his name. Sometimes he played games on her, jumping out from behind an old hawthorn bush. Not tonight. Just when she needed him most, he’d let her down. So lonely did she feel it was almost a relief to meet Dolly Sutton.

  The girl was sitting under a birch tree, a pile of purple-black berries cradled in her skirt which she was eating one by one, her face screwed up in agony. When Alena asked, with some curiosity, what she was doing, Dolly flew instantly into a rage, yelling about dustbins and how the blame for Alena’s Hallowe’en prank had been laid at her door. Then before Alena could reply, or even apologise, since she was indeed guilty of the offence, thinking she was doing Dolly a favour by not tipping over her dustbin, the other girl burst into noisy tears.

  Alena was shocked. ‘Heavens, it’s not that bad, surely? They’re only dustbins. And there wasn’t much rubbish in any of them anyway.’

  ‘It’s not the dustbins,’ Dolly said, in between sobs. ‘I-it’s me.’ And away she went again.

  Alena sat down beside her, putting an arm rather awkwardly about the plump shoulders. She waited patiently for the crying to abate sufficiently to risk probing further. It was quiet in the woods, and the crying seemed to swell and echo, shattering the peace in a most disturbing way. Where was Rob? Alena wished he would come and free her from this embarrassment, yet knew that if he heard this din, he’d keep well away. He hated any show of emotion. At last she felt it safe to ask, ‘Why are you eating sloe berries?’

  Dolly’s surprised eyes appeared above a grubby handkerchief. ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Yes, you are.’

  ‘These are juniper berries. They’re supposed to be good for -’ She couldn’t say it, couldn’t say how she hoped they would bring on her period.

  Alena picked up a berry. Squashing it between her fingers, she licked the juice. It was sour and sharp. ‘That’s a sloe, Dolly Sutton. Soak it in your mam’s gin with a touch of sugar and it’ll be delicious. Eat them like this and you’ll get a belly-ache you won’t forget in a hurry.’

  ‘Is that why my mouth is all dry and horrid?’

  ‘I’d say so.’

  ‘Oh God, I can’t even do that right.’ And she burst into fresh paroxysms of noisy crying.

  Little by little the story came out between Dolly’s gulping sobs. When it was told, Alena could only stare at her in awed silence. It seemed unbelievable, that Dolly Sutton, who was only two years older than herself, had actually done the unmentionable, when she, Alena Townsen, hadn’t even been kissed yet. She felt an urge to ask what it had been like. Had she enjoyed it? Was it as exciting and earth shattering as everyone said? How had she got over the embarrassment of taking her clothes off? Most important of all, who had she done it with? But it didn’t seem quite the right moment for such questions.

  ‘Go on, say it.’ Dolly’s voice was bitter. ‘Tell me I deserve it. That I’ve got what’s coming to me. That’s what Mrs Thorns next door will say. I can almost hear her saying it.’ Dolly told Alena of their exchange this morning. ‘That was bad enough. Heaven knows what foul words she’ll use when this comes out.’

  ‘I’m sure she won’t.’

  ‘Won’t she just! You can get away with anything, Alena Townsen, with a mother and father who care about you, four brothers to spoil you, proper family and all that. Me, I’m just a little b…’

  ‘Don’t say it, Dolly.’

  ‘Why not? It’s true. And it’s true what she said about my mam. She has got a fella. I think it’s the chap from The Golden Stag. She spends enough time there.’

  Alena was enthralled by this piec
e of news. ‘Mr Turner? Hasn’t he still got a wife somewhere?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I thought he didn’t like women any more?’

  ‘He likes my mam.’ Dolly almost giggled, then seemed to remember her troubles and started snivelling again, loud, gasping sobs into a none-too-clean hanky.

  ‘Oh.’ Alena could see how that would be embarrassing. She would hate it if her own mother did anything so shocking. ‘She never did marry your father then?’ Yet another revelation.

  Dolly shook her head. ‘Mam says he died at Ypres in the Great War, just after I was born, though he’d promised to wed her when the war was over like. She never had a dad neither, so it makes sense, don’t it, that I’m having a little bastard of me own?’ As the tears gushed afresh Alena wrapped her arms tight around her one-time friend, rocking her gently to and fro.

  Rob never did appear, despite his promise, but Alena was too busy mopping up Dolly’s tears, cleaning her skirt of sloe juice in the cold waters of the beck and talking her into believing that her period was simply late, to make much of it.

  ‘Don’t let yourself think of it for a whole week. Every time it comes into your head, do something else to take your mind off it. Go for a walk, read a book, or go to the pictures. You like going to the pictures.’

  ‘It was going to the pictures that got me in this mess!’

  Alena was stunned once more into silence, mind boggling with the implications of doing It while everyone else was watching Marlene Dietrich or Greta Garbo.

  ‘Because of that long walk home from the ferry,’ Dolly explained, and they both giggled. The nearest cinema was in Bowness-on-Windermere, and you had to cross the lake to get to it. ‘So walking wouldn’t be a good idea either, would it?’

  Alena laughed. ‘Course it would. Best thing in the world.’

  ‘Depends who you walk with.’

  Again the unasked question hung between them. Dolly said nothing. She hadn’t told Tom yet, and really had no wish to break the news to Alena before she did so. What would she say if she knew it was her own precious brother who’d put Dolly in the pudding club?