The Scarlet Sisters

by Helen Batten

  Every year the people of Grays celebrated the coming of summer with a party. Pagan tradition collided with a modern steam fair and everybody turned up. It started in the recreation ground with the crowning of the May queen. A local beauty would be dressed in a papier mâché crown and a velvet robe trimmed with fur. Clara was most put out that none of her girls, not even Katie, had been chosen for this honour, noting with disgust that the May queens were always blonde. For years she had been forced to watch little girls parading down the high street in their pastel-coloured dresses festooned with garlands of flowers and headdresses. In the end she was so disgusted she boycotted the carnival altogether.

  This suited the sisters perfectly. They had free rein to get up to whatever mischief took their fancy, especially as their father would be spending the whole day in the pub. Alice, Joseph, Grace and Bill mingled in the high street watching the procession – lots of decorated wagons filled with over-excited citizens dressed in bizarre outfits. There was the obligatory Boudicea and her army of warrior daughters; blacked-up minstrels; Robin Hood and his Merry Men; with the Morris dancers bringing up the rear. There was cheering, flag waving and a band.

  In the press of the crowd Alice and Joseph held hands. Alice was aware of his tall frame pressing against her body and felt as if she was about to faint with the desire to hold him and kiss him and never stop. In fact, a few times Joseph did manage to kiss her, but Grace pinched her arm and hissed, ‘Stop necking, you idiot!’

  In the end Alice got fed up and whispered to Joseph, ‘Come on, let’s get away from the old fire extinguisher.’

  ‘We’re off to the fair!’ she shouted and pulled Joseph away before her sister could stop her.

  The fair would look a bit tame these days, but for the people of Grays in 1928 it was like Disneyland. As well as the traditional attractions of the coconut shy, shooting range and hook-a-duck, steam power had produced rides like the Gallopers and swing boats. Grace and Joseph darted around like children in a sweet shop. He made her laugh by missing the target in the shooting range and doing a ridiculous dance in the hall of mirrors – his body was strange enough without the help of a distorted mirror. As they whirled round on the Gallopers he shouted, ‘I love you’ and she shouted back, ‘I love you too,’ and in the dark tunnel of the ghost train he whispered it in her ear more seriously and added the words ‘for ever’ and held her tight against him. In her head Alice found herself adding the words, ‘Til death us do part’ and felt a little shiver.

  They came out of the ghost train and blinked in the sunlight, then Joseph said, ‘Come on, let me show you how strong my love is.’

  He pulled her over to the Mighty Striker, where a crowd had gathered to watch the butcher swing the mallet, and try and fail to get the arrow to shoot all the way up the pole and hit the bell. It was obviously quite hard.

  Joseph turned to Alice. ‘Do you fancy having a bet on this? I bet you I can hit the bell.’

  Alice laughed. ‘Oh, Jo! Do you really want to lose? If Muscles the butcher can’t do it, I don’t rate your chances, do you? But if you insist. So, what’s the prize?’

  Here, Joseph went all serious and seemed to struggle for words. He started a few times, stopped and then finally managed to spit out: ‘If I hit the bell, you have to marry me.’

  ‘You’re joking!’

  This time Joseph said it with more confidence. ‘No, I’m serious. I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life. Marry me if I hit the bell.’

  And Alice found herself saying in slight desperation, ‘But Jo, you’ll never hit it!’

  At which Joseph Davidson grinned and replied, ‘Just you watch me!’ He took off his jacket, handed it to Alice, and pushed his way to the front, saying, ‘Excuse me, ladies and gentleman, apologies, but there’s a life-changing wager at stake.’

  The crowd in their festive good humour laughed at the lanky boy, and cleared a path for him. Joseph paid his penny, rolled up his sleeves and grabbed the hammer. Alice watched with the most disabling butterflies as he practised his swing with a flourish, braced himself and then brought the hammer down with a resounding thud. There was an intake of breath as the arrow shot up and hovered three-quarters of the way up the pole.

  ‘You’re gonna have to try harder than that, beanpole!’ someone shouted.

  ‘I’ll eat my entire collection of sausages if you manage to hit that bleedin’ bell,’ the butcher said, laughing.

  ‘You’ll do that anyway!’ someone else shouted.

  There were laughs all round.

  ‘Oh, Mary Mother of God, just get on with it!’ Alice thought. And then she started to pray. ‘Please, please, please, dear Lord, can he hit the bell.’

  ‘You’ve got three goes, you know, mate, so two more,’ the fair man reminded him.

  ‘Yes, sir, I know. That was just a warm-up,’ Joseph said.

  He pushed his floppy hair out of his eyes. With legs apart he rocked backwards and forwards, bounced the mallet as if he was about to serve at tennis, raised it in the air and brought it down with a huge grunt. The arrow shot up, past the three-quarter mark and looked like it might go the whole way.

  Alice was transfixed. ‘Go on, up, up, up!’ she willed. But the arrow stopped just short of the bell. ‘Ahhhhh,’ the crowd sighed. ‘Dammit!’ Alice muttered under her breath, and the lady next to her shot her a look.

  ‘This is your last chance,’ the Mighty Striker man said.

  This time there were no theatricals. With a look of the utmost concentration, Joseph took a huge swing and with a giant roar hit the hammer on the pedal. The arrow shot up like a rocket and hit the bell. It rang round the fairground.

  ‘Oh my God!’ Alice cried, and clapped her hand over her mouth. The lady next to her said, ‘You need to watch your language, young lady!’ but Alice took the wind out of her sails by giving her the most enormous hug and bursting into tears. Meanwhile, the butcher was trying to shake Joseph’s hand, but he was already pushing his way through the crowd, as they slapped him on the back with a ‘Well done!’ and ‘Champion!’, trying to get to Alice.

  He peeled her off the lady and picked her up and swung her round and then kissed her full on the lips. At which the crowd again did a collective ‘Ahhhhhh’ again.

  Their embrace was finally broken when the fair man tapped Joseph on the shoulder: ‘’Ere, don’t you want your prize money?’

  ‘No, I’ve won the best prize of all,’ was the reply. At which the crowd cheered and Alice kissed Joseph and then he turned and said, ‘But I’ll take it anyway.’ And then there was laughter.

  And that is how Joseph Davidson proposed to Alice Swain.

  Joseph’s victory over the Mighty Striker started a hurricane of secret activity in the lives of Alice and Grace. That evening, the girls were hiding behind their dad’s shed for a late-night cigarette when Alice dropped her bombshell.

  ‘You’re getting that bouquet, Gracie.’

  ‘What bouquet?’

  ‘My wedding bouquet.’

  ‘You’re having me on!’

  ‘No, he proposed today.’

  ‘And you said yes?’

  ‘’Course I did. You haven’t been listening, have you? It’s Destiny …’

  ‘Oh, but Alice, it’ll kill Mum.’

  ‘It ain’t, because she ain’t gonna know.’

  ‘What do you mean? Oh, I really do think you’ve gone a bit barmy. It’s been a hot day … Have you had too much sun on your head, or ginger beer, or has candy floss got into your brain? I dunno!’

  ‘No, I haven’t. Look, this whole wedding is going to be a secret and you’re going to help me.’

  ‘Oh, I am, am I?’

  ‘Yes, you are.’

  ‘And why would I do a daft thing like that?’

  ‘Because you love me, and you know I love him. Look, do you like Jo?’

  ‘You know I do.’

  ‘Do you think he and I go well together?’

  ‘Yep. You’re both as mad a
s hatters. But isn’t it worth just taking a little time, Alice? There’ll be other men who are as mad as a hatter like you and maybe have the extra advantage of being acceptable to Mum as well.’

  ‘Oh, stop it! Imagine if I said that about Bill. We’re like swans – we’ve found each other and that’s it … we mate for life.’

  ‘Yeah, well, that’s a myth, isn’t it? Swans don’t mate for life at all.’

  ‘Don’t they? Oh, Grace, look, you’re not taking this seriously.’

  ‘No, you’re right, I’m not. And that’s because it’s a ridiculous idea.’

  ‘It’s not at all! You know as soon as I marry the bank will show me the door. If we keep it secret, I don’t lose my job – in fact, I earn as much as possible and save it, and Jo will do the same. He can take on extra shifts and we wait until we have enough money so we can get our own place and show Mum and everyone that we’re serious, and Jo’s worth something.’

  ‘But you can do that without being married. Why don’t you just get engaged?’

  ‘Because what’s the point in waiting? We know we’re meant for each other. This way we don’t have to wait.’

  ‘Well, you don’t have to wait to do It.’

  ‘Oh, stop it! It’s not like that.’

  Grace shot her sister a quizzical look, then grabbed the cigarette packet off her and lit another one.

  Alice tried again: ‘If you wanted to elope with Bill and asked for my help, what do you think I’d say?’

  Grace took a long drag and blew the smoke towards the stars just visible in the early summer dusk. ‘You’d help me.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  A pause. Then, ‘All right, I’ll think about it.’

  And that’s how the girls started a frenzy of preparations. Alice had always wanted to become a Roman Catholic and now she started secret conversion classes with the priest of St Thomas’s church. Grace helped Alice make a dress and a veil and gave her alibis for her meetings with Joseph. There were several near-misses, not least when the local gossips reported back the drama of the Mighty Swinger to Clara.

  Alice brushed it off: ‘I was walking past and stopped to have a look. Half of Grays was watching, Mum.’

  ‘And if you was just passing, why did he push his way through the crowd and give you a great smacker on the lips, then?’

  ‘Who says?’

  ‘Mrs House.’

  ‘Oh, Mum, you know what she’s like. It’s all exaggeration with her. Stir, stir. She’d put two and two together and make a hundred, she would.’

  ‘It’d better be a hundred and not four, my girl,’ Clara said and stared intently, looking for any sign of duplicity.

  But love had made Alice bold and she just stared right back.

  More serious was when Alice left her wedding veil on the sewing machine and Bertha found it and took it into the kitchen.

  ‘Oh, Mum, that’s just my friend May, who’s asked me to help her with her wedding veil.’

  ‘Really? You didn’t tell me. I’ve never heard of this May before.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve told you about her.’

  Alice caught Grace’s eye and she leapt in to help her big sister: ‘She has, Mum. We met her at Miss Faber’s. You remember – she’s marrying a man she met in the bank.’

  ‘Good for her,’ Clara said pointedly.

  After that May became very useful, as she provided alibis for Alice’s frequent disappearances. It wasn’t that Clara wasn’t suspicious, but with Grace backing her up, it was difficult for her to prove Alice wasn’t telling the truth.

  Grace, however, could see one major flaw in the plan. She didn’t like to bring it up, but one day she couldn’t help herself: ‘What if you get pregnant?’

  ‘Not going to happen.’

  ‘What, you’re not going to do It?’

  ‘Don’t be silly. No, trust me, I’ve taken care of it.’

  ‘What do you mean, “taken care of it”?’

  ‘That’s for me to know and you to guess. I bet you your purple silk scarf I’m not pregnant by our first wedding anniversary.’

  ‘No. No more bets, I believe you. But I’d wish you’d tell me how.’

  ‘Little sister, when you are old enough to really know, I’ll tell you, I promise …’

  It was a real advantage that Alice worked in town: every day, she walked past a mobile women’s health unit. In 1927 Dr Marie Stopes and her Society for Constructive Birth Control opened the first birth control caravan. It travelled around London giving out leaflets, advice and the cervical cap. Alice borrowed a ring from her mother’s drawer and queued up. Posing as a married woman with an already too large family, it really was taken care of.

  On 16 October 1928, just over ten months since they first met, and as Alice had predicted – before the year was out – she walked down the aisle of the church of St Thomas of Canterbury and became Joseph Davidson’s wife. There were only two guests: Grace and Bill. Her dress had been made from a pattern cut out from the Pictorial Review and was a simple, sleeveless cream satin slip, with a drop waist and a yellow sash embroidered with tiny seed pearls. She carried a bunch of white roses that she’d bought from the flower stall in the market on her walk across the town to the church, her dress covered from gossips’ eyes by her coat.

  ‘Are you sure about this?’ Grace asked as they rounded the corner and walked towards the church.

  ‘Yes, I’ve never been so sure about anything in my life.’ Which wasn’t quite true: Alice was sick to the pit of her stomach.

  When they reached the church, Alice looked up the aisle and saw Joseph waiting at the altar. Grace hurriedly opened the small suitcase she was carrying and got out the troublesome veil, while Alice took off her coat. With a few swift manoeuvres involving net and hair pins, Alice was transformed into a bride.

  ‘Ready?’ Grace asked.

  Alice nodded and Grace suddenly kissed her sister and hugged her. ‘You are just the bravest, best sister. I want you to know, whatever happens, whatever anyone says, I think you are amazing.’

  That was the moment when Alice had to wipe away a few tears. Grace saw the way things were going and said, ‘Come on, you. Let’s get you married.’

  She took Alice’s left hand and walked down the aisle alongside her, in the place of their father, ready to give her away. When they reached the altar Joseph turned and looked at Alice and smiled. Suddenly her courage was restored.

  The sun shone in through the windows, creating ladders up to heaven. It wasn’t the big, fancy wedding Alice had dreamt of, but it felt much more special – sacred, even. A private, unbreakable commitment, with no people to get in the way of her vow to her Maker. When Joseph placed the simple gold band on her finger – purchased from the pawnbrokers on the high street – Alice felt elated. At the door of the church after they had walked back down the aisle together as man and wife, she kissed him with such a passion he lost his balance and nearly fell over. And then as Bill and Grace threw confetti over them, Alice passed over her bouquet to Grace.

  ‘I won,’ she said.

  The foursome ran straight from the church to catch the ferry across the Thames Estuary for the honeymoon – a long weekend in Margate. Alice would never have been allowed to go away without Grace as her chaperone, and she had told Clara that they were going on a trip with their girlfriends from Miss Faber’s.

  Such weekend jaunts sent members of the older generation tutting, but they were not unusual for unmarried, working women in their twenties. Ever since the end of the First World War, trips to the seaside had become commonplace. Public transport made it easier and coastal resorts close to London developed fun diversions. There were also plenty of boarding houses, where a newly married couple and her sister and boyfriend could get lodging – as long as the sister and the boyfriend had separate rooms, which Grace and Bill did.

  Margate was the sisters’ favourite. There was the beach and bathing facilities, the grotto and sunken gardens, and its very own pier. I have photos of a
ll the Swain girls over the years: on the beach in ridiculously revealing bathing costumes – surely it wasn’t allowed then? – and walking happily along the seafront promenade with the pier behind. Grace looks quite the flapper in her cloche hat, coat open to show her drop-waisted slip and little dainty Mary Jane shoes. Bill wears his trilby hat cocked at a jaunty angle, a cigarette in his hand.

  The biggest draw was the Dreamland Amusement Park. It had Britain’s first ever roller-coaster ride: the mile-long ‘scenic railway’ which offered an amazing view of the seafront as the train ratcheted slowly up to the top and then plummeted down the steep track. It also had the first ever train disguised as a giant caterpillar, which whirled people round its track faster and faster until, just as it reached maximum speed, the passengers were plunged down into total darkness and a klaxon blasted in their ears. As they were flung back into bright daylight, their faces were hit by a jet of compressed air. It really was heady stuff for the 1920s. Of course there were also bars, cafes, restaurants, and a zoo with a lion that was so tame they encouraged parents to sit their babies on its back to have their photos taken.

  Bill and Grace, with friends

  Dora

  Bertha and Grace

  The happy foursome took full advantage of all these delights. Not exactly the romantic idyll expected today, but still a lot of fun. Hands were held and kisses snatched. Grace couldn’t help but notice that Alice and Joseph couldn’t leave each other alone, which was interesting – everything going well, then. Bill also noticed the fizzing sparks between the new Mr and Mrs Davidson.

  Grace couldn’t wait to get home and quiz Alice for the gory details, although she didn’t hold out much hope – Alice was annoyingly discreet when it came to things like that.

  A giant Haunted Snail had taken Bill’s eye. It was like a ghost train, except people had to walk through the insides. Entrance was via its mouth, which was set in a sinister, Cheshire-cat-like grin. He wouldn’t rest until Grace had agreed to go in there with him. They walked into the huge mouth, holding hands and giggling. As they went further inside, it got darker. They were all on their own. They pushed their way through cobwebs, spectres jumping out of cupboards, spiders falling on their heads and ghoulish wails assaulting their ears. It was almost pitch-black. Suddenly, Bill grabbed Grace and kissed her so passionately that her feet came off the floor. She returned his kiss and then, remembering herself, pushed him off with a squeal.