The Factory Girl

by Maggie Ford

  Mavis too accepted her gifts, though Mavis always had even if as always she had to make some comment.

  ‘Must be doin’ well for yerself since yer ’usband walked out on yer,’ to which Geraldine preferred to hold her tongue, knowing her sister of old.

  Evie of course was ecstatic with all she was given – some nice dresses, a bottle of good perfume, a bit of jewellery.

  Fred managed to say that he could afford things himself now that he was doing so well, but thanked her anyway for the leather wallet and gold cufflinks.

  Wally as always accepted her gifts with good grace, even extracting the reason for all this generosity, despite her intention to say nothing, swearing himself to secrecy even from his wife who accepted with grateful amazement the two fashionable dresses her sister-in-law presented her with.

  ‘Though where I’m going to wear them, I’ve no idea. We don’t go out much, and not ter fancy places, what with the kiddies an’ all.’ Little Vera was three now, and the other little one, Johnny, had been born last year. ‘We don’t ’ave ’olidays except ter take the kiddies on the train ter the country for a day.’

  Distributing little gifts to other relatives brought comments similar to those from Mavis, to which she smiled and said nothing. None of it made her all that happy as it would have had she given them with a good heart, but it was what was needed. It was a means to an end – small revenge but a sweet one.

  ‘Oh, God!’ At her cry, Alan looked up from the worksheets he was going over. They’d been together all night and were now having Sunday breakfast before she went back to Mum’s where she was normally expected to stay.

  No doubt she would return there to the usual studied silence and sideways looks from her, the deliberate withholding of any comment even though Mum liked Alan immensely. It was because of this that Geraldine insisted she didn’t stay overnight with Alan too often. It was bad enough his neighbours chancing to glimpse her creeping off early from his house, worse to be seen coming back first thing of a Sunday morning to Mum’s, they immediately making something of it. There were nosy neighbours everywhere, only too eager to see the worst of others especially if they thought something was going on. Not that it made much difference if it was carried to Mum’s ears, she already knowing about it, except that Mum would feel embarrassed and belittled knowing it was the talk of the neighbourhood, and that was different.

  Geraldine, still in her dressing gown, had been reading the Sunday paper, just delivered, while Alan, still in his as he sifted through his worksheets for Monday, had been sipping his tea. He put down the cup to gaze questioningly across the breakfast table at her.

  ‘What is it, Gel?’

  She looked up. ‘This. Oh, Alan.’ Folding the newspaper into a more manageable size with the piece she’d seen easier to read, she held it out to him. ‘It says, “First aerial murder, London jeweller thrown from aeroplane.” Tony’s a London jeweller.’

  Her fingers were to her lips in horror as, still gazing at her, he took it and read it quickly. When he looked up, he was smiling.

  ‘Oh, love, it’s a different name. Look.’ He held it out for her to see. ‘Yer should of read on, love.’

  She felt herself almost collapse in relief, quickly needing to explain herself as she saw the look on Alan’s face.

  ‘Oh, darling, don’t look like that,’ she burst out. ‘It’s just that … I don’t want anything more to do with him, you must know that by now, but I wouldn’t want to see that sort of thing happen to him.’

  She forced herself to calm down, speak more evenly, yet inside she was a mass of anxiety that she needed to share with Alan.

  ‘I don’t love him any more. It’s you I want. But reading that gave me such a shock and brought it all home to me – that I was the one who told the police about him. What if it got to other people’s ears, those crooks he works with? I’m sure they’d be capable of something like that, and it’d be my fault.’

  Tony got up and came to her, crouching in front of her. ‘Don’t think like that, Gel. It wouldn’t be your fault at all. He was the one what got ’imself in deep with ’em. Besides, they might be crooks but they wouldn’t go to them lengths, throwing people out of planes. They’re small-time.’

  ‘Until they got away with millions of pounds’ worth of bullion,’ she reminded him. ‘And the police still ain’t caught them. What if they have connected what I did with Tony? They could’ve done all sorts of things to him. They could’ve done away with him. And to think they called themselves our friends, their wives always so friendly, yet look how they came after me. Alan, I’m scared. What if they have gone and …’

  She felt herself being gathered into his arms, his voice crooning in her ear. ‘Listen, Gel. Yer’ve got ter put them sort of things out of yer mind. It’s all over between you and him, you and them sort of people. You’re with me now, and I ain’t goin’ ter see anythink bad ’appen to yer.’

  ‘I know,’ she murmured, but his voice continued.

  ‘Yer’ve got to forget that life you ’ad. And don’t worry about ’im either. Chances are he’s living it up with all that money he made. And there’s you, ’alf yer time taken up worrying about that damned shop. Divorce ’im, Gel, an’ get rid of it. I’ve got enough to keep you on. I’ve got a good business and it’s growing. Please, Gerry, start doing somethink about it, eh?’

  She was doing something, making Tony bankrupt, doing him down in some small way, in some small measure denting his ego.

  ‘Listen, Gerry,’ he was going on. At her insistence he’d begun calling her Gerry when he remembered. ‘Listen, I can look after yer. Maybe not give yer all the things he gave yer.’

  ‘I don’t want them,’ she cut in. ‘They carried too much baggage with them.’ But he was racing on.

  ‘But I can give yer more than he ever did. I can give yer loyalty and a contented life. Gerry, love, go an’ see a solicitor. You could ’ave ’im for adultery and yer wouldn’t ’ave to fight the case. You’re the one what was wronged.’

  Slowly she nodded. It would be painful, maybe drawn out, but she’d be helped on her way that he would also discover himself owing huge sums of money to the creditors she had never paid, threatened with bankruptcy.

  By the time the divorce came to court, he might even find his once precious business taken from him, he hopefully by then having got through those ill-gotten thousands she believed he must have flown the country with and have nothing left – knowing his joy of big spending and living it up, that would most likely be the case. He’d have nothing. What a wonderful feeling it gave her.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  They’d come home to her parents’ place this August Saturday evening after going to a matinee of Noël Coward’s new play Hay Fever, Alan doing his utmost to compensate for what he saw as the good times she’d left behind. The other thing was that she no longer stayed with him on Saturday nights.

  ‘Yer don’t want people talking’ about yer,’ Mum had finally said. ‘If yer want ter spend all yer time with him, then marry ’im.’

  ‘Mum, I’m still married to Tony,’ she pointed out. Mum hadn’t even blinked.

  ‘Then get yerself unmarried!’ was all she’d said.

  It was still hard taking that final step and seeing a solicitor. Alan was becoming frustrated, certain she didn’t want him as much as she professed and Dad had warned that if she did decide to go through with it and it was found that she too had been spending her time in some other bloke’s house – he shied away from using the phrase sleeping with him – then she could end up the loser. It made sense and since then she and Alan had decided she should sleep at her own home, sharing Evie’s bed for want of room here, but it was hard.

  Her own home was now with her parents, the better of two evils she told herself. She loathed going to the flat. There was never any sign of Tony having been there and it had developed a cold, unlived-in atmosphere that made her shudder every time she set foot in it. When she finally managed to bankrupt T
ony, the flat would go as well. No base for him to come back to, though would that trouble him? She kept forgetting he must be rolling in money now and had no need of a rented flat – probably had enough to buy himself a mansion.

  On the way home Alan bought the afternoon edition of the Daily Mail and fish and chips all round, and now they were sitting with Mum and Dad round Mum’s table. Both Evie and Fred were out, Evie with her current boyfriend and Fred with the girl he’d been going with these past eleven months and now talking of an engagement. ‘A bit young fer that,’ Mum had observed, but she liked Carrie. Geraldine was glad that was the name she went by, it being short for Carol or Caroline, that name spoken a painful reminder of the child she had lost, still acute after all these years. Another child would have made all the difference but Tony had thought otherwise. If only for that, she’d want to do him down.

  Both Alan and Dad were engrossed in their newspapers and Mum was eating her portion of fish and chips with little to say to her, as usual, so she sat thinking of the show and those times when she’d have been taken to a high-class restaurant instead of being bought fish and chips after a matinee – as a matter of fact, they would never have gone to a matinee but an evening show, sitting in the dress circle, during the interval meeting friends in the bar and sipping champagne. Maybe she and Tony would have been invited to meet the great Noël Coward himself, depending on how close a friend they were to those in the bar already invited. She thought of how disappointed she’d have been to be left out, how angry. Now it left her angry to think how she’d once slavered after such titbits of favours from those fancy friends, not one of them true.

  She smiled at the humble room about her. Despite Mum, this was a far better, contented life, one that never demanded lick-spit after anyone. Tony’s shop was going downhill fast. Poor Mr Bell was worried, but she had to look after her own interests. She’d give him a good reference and the dole queues were nowhere near as long as they’d been, the country getting back on its feet to some extent. Dad was in work most of the time now, Wally was doing well, and at her request Alan had given Mavis’s Tom a job at his yard so long as he kept his nose to the grindstone this time, and Lord knows Mavis needed a steady income with her tribe to feed.

  She was thinking how good it would be to see the business Tony had worked to build up fall apart, good to see the flat go as well, when Alan interrupted her reverie. ‘Want the paper?’

  As she took it from him, glad of something else to occupy her mind, there came a knock at the door. ‘I’ll get it,’ Mum said. ‘Yer Aunt Ada an’ Uncle George said they might pop in later. Ain’t seen them fer ages.’

  Geraldine watched her hurry out into the passage. It had been cleared of family paraphernalia long ago: Wally and Mavis were married with their own places, she too having left, though she was back now; only Evie and Fred’s bikes were propped tight against the wall, one behind the other, allowing enough room even in the narrow space to get to the street door these days.

  The Daily Mail Alan had passed to her ignored, she picked at her fish as she listened intrigued to the whispering going on out there while Alan and Dad finished the last of their fish and chips, Dad still engrossed in his paper as he ate. Who was that whispering? If it had been her aunt and uncle, Mum would have brought them straight in. She was about to get up and go to see when Mum reappeared. Her face had lost its colour; her usual disapproving expression when things weren’t right looked even more disapproving.

  ‘Someone ’ere ter see yer,’ she said to Geraldine, the tenseness of her tone causing Alan and her father to looked up expectantly. But Geraldine was looking beyond her mother to the man standing right behind her.

  In the dim light of the passage the face above its dark clothes appeared to be disembodied. Only as he stepped into the brighter light of the room could Geraldine see it was a uniform. He held his helmet under his arm out of respect for being in someone’s house.

  ‘This is me daughter, Geraldine,’ Mum said as the man, with natural inquisitiveness instilled in him by his job, glanced briefly around the room. His gaze came to settle on her as Geraldine made to rise.

  ‘No, please sit down, Mrs Hanford.’ The police constable’s tone was kind though a certain ring of authority could be heard behind the kindness. ‘You are Mrs Geraldine Hanford?’

  She sat as bidden and nodded her affirmation. Her first thoughts were that Tony must have been apprehended, that he must have implicated her in his confession, and a quiet fury began to boil up inside her at his treachery. Not content with leaving her for another woman, he was now intent on bringing her down with him, the bloody toad!

  The constable’s tone remained gentle. In fact she heard him take a deep, almost sad breath before continuing. ‘The wife of Mr Anthony Felton Hanford?’

  The last time she had heard Tony’s second name spoken had been at their wedding. It sounded strange now. Again she nodded, dismally this time. The constable moved forward a little into the room in a way that almost looked as though he were ready to offer aid.

  ‘It’s my unpleasant duty,’ he began in a lowered voice, ‘to tell you that a man’s body has been found in the Thames, washed up on the mud by the receding tide, and we have reason to believe it might be your husband, Mrs Hanford.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ The cry tore itself from her even as the constable went on.

  ‘The man had been in the water for some time, I’m afraid, and the only identification we have is the name of the tailor on the suit, and a—’

  ‘What makes you think it’s my husband?’ Geraldine burst through his words, all other thoughts pushed aside.

  ‘We found what was left of a leather pocket book in the breast pocket, with the name Anthony Felton Hanford impressed in gold in one corner.’

  Yes, she remembered buying it for him two years ago. She didn’t know he still had it, and the knowledge brought a pang of that old love she’d once known. The constable was still speaking, rapidly, as though eager to have this business over with.

  ‘The name on the pocket book led us to Hanford’s, the jewellers in Bond Street. The assistant told us Mr Hanford had been missing for some while and that you were living at this address. I’m very sorry, Mrs Hanford. I understand how you must be feeling but we need you to formally identify the clothing and pocket book, and maybe the body.’

  Alan had moved to her side, was holding her steady as Geraldine felt her knees growing weak and must have looked as though she were about to collapse. She was more grateful for his support than he realised.

  ‘It may not be your husband, Mrs Hanford,’ the constable was saying. ‘But we have to be certain. I know what we’re asking isn’t pleasant for you, but we have to be certain. It is very important. It could be that of someone who had stolen the pocket book and some time later fallen into the river and drowned. May I ask if you know the name of your husband’s tailor?’

  As if in a dream, Geraldine supplied the name. The constable nodded solemnly. ‘It could still be that whoever was fished out took the coat as well. We have to consider every possibility. Of course, it’s not easy to establish whether this was an accident, a suicide or even a murder. We will have to make investigations …’

  ‘Murder?’ She clung to Alan. ‘You can’t …’

  ‘Mrs Hanford.’ The policeman had moved closer, yet his voice seemed to be coming from some way off. ‘All we need from you now is to identify the belongings. Then we can go on from there.’

  His voice seemed to be drifting away from her. Alan was holding her tightly and Dad had come to stand close beside her. She could hear him speaking but could make no sense of it. No doubt he was taking in what the constable was saying about where they were to go to make the identification, but nothing was penetrating her brain except the word murder.

  An accident was possible, but why should Tony need to be anywhere near the Thames? Suicide had to be ruled out – with all that money, surely not, unless his part in the robbery had been denied him and he’d come away with
nothing. But it wasn’t enough to make him commit suicide. He’d had what was at the time a thriving business. Maybe Di Manners had finished with him. She couldn’t imagine that either. Murder then? Those villains who’d called themselves his friends? She going to the police?

  ‘Alan, I can’t do it.’ It was more guilt now than fear of seeing a dead body.

  ‘I’m afraid you have to, Mrs Hanford.’ Gone the sympathy, in its place officialdom. But she held back.

  ‘Alan …’

  ‘I’ll be with yer, love.’ He was holding her so tightly it was difficult to breathe. ‘I won’t let yer do anythink yer don’t want to.’

  Between her father and Alan, Geraldine stood by the slab with its coarse cloth forming a mound over what lay beneath. The clothes and pocket book had been his. She still hadn’t quite collected her wits, stood now like a lump of clay, her mind and body feeling numb as though neither belonged to her. She winced as she heard her father ask how long did they think the man had been in the water, and the reply, a couple of months at least.

  She heard herself being asked if her husband had any distinguishing marks on his body and remembered the wide scar on his thigh, a war wound he’d said. That seemed to be good enough, and she heard herself being told that this was her husband.

  Unable even to feel relieved that she hadn’t been required to view the body, all she wanted now was to leave here and go home. Without a word, hardly bowing her head to the commiserations from those men conducting this business, she let herself be led from the building and helped into Alan’s van, she and Dad squeezed on the seat next to him.

  There was a lot to be done: funeral arrangements; papers to be signed; Tony’s parents had been told, naturally. Geraldine wrote to them, giving them the date of the funeral, the time and place. It wasn’t easy writing. She’d had as little to do with them as had Tony and owed them nothing, but she worded the letter as kindly as she could.