All My Mother's Secrets

by Beezy Marsh

  Of course, she knew there was a little piece of paper in there, which along with the photo of her father, was the most precious thing she owned, taken from Nanny Chick’s sewing box the day she died. She looked at it in the rare moments when she was alone in the bedroom, without Elsie or Ivy. She’d carefully unfold it and trace over the words with her finger: ‘I love you Emma, now and always, Henry’, imagining her father saying that to her mother.

  Quickly, she got up and ran to the top of the stairs to check what the girls were up to. They were nearly young women now, with Ivy turning sixteen soon and learning to type, while Elsie was leaving school this year. But they seemed younger than other girls their age in some ways, more sheltered, because they’d not been out at work and picked up the ways of the factory girls. Bill liked it that way and Annie had to admit, she was glad they hadn’t had to toil in the laundries from a young age as she had. They both still had a cheeky streak to them and were as thick as thieves if they’d been up to mischief. The last thing Annie wanted was for them to catch her pulling the paper from its hiding place: they’d run and tell their mother, or worse, Bill. She could hear them singing ‘On Mother Kelly’s Doorstep’ together in the front room; Elsie had a nice singing voice but Ivy, God bless her, was tone deaf.

  There was almost a thrill in her little secret, unfolding that paper, and reading his declaration of love. It was written in pencil, on top of what looked like a payslip, for eighteen shillings, from Silchester Mews Stables in Notting Hill. If no one else was around, she’d pull the photograph of her father out from its hiding place under the mattress and look at that too, searching his face for similarities to her own, now she was a grown woman. What would he make of her? Would he be proud of her working so hard each day in the laundry and looking after her sisters and George?

  A footfall on the stairs brought her back to reality and she swiftly tucked the paper into the pocket of her pinny as Elsie burst through the door. ‘Come and judge who’s done the best job, Annie!’ she cried. ‘Dad’s got a sixpence for the winner and I want it to be me.’

  Annie glanced at her wristwatch. It was nearly six o’clock and she had promised to pop in and see Vera this weekend. She was a fiercely loyal friend to Annie but was building a reputation as a woman not to be messed with around South Acton.

  As far as work was concerned, Vera was completely unreliable; the Missus had to sack her in the end for her poor time-keeping. Well, that and the fact that she lamped Ada the laundrymaid one day for making snide remarks about her ‘trouble’.

  After Vera left hospital and found herself homeless, Bessie had persuaded the Nosy Parkers downstairs to sublet one of their rooms. It wasn’t completely without self-interest, mind you, because having Vera around gave Bessie more clout when she wanted to use the shared copper in the scullery to do her smalls. Vera, meanwhile, found herself a new job as a helper in the council nursery on Bollo Bridge Road, which meant she was able to see her mum’s new baby, Evangeline, and lavish her with so much love, as if she were her own child. Annie knew that Vera was seizing the chance to be with the baby, for fear that she would never be able to have one of her own.

  And there were signs that she was trying to bury the sadness of everything that had happened in her life. Once her pay packet arrived on a Friday afternoon, Vera would start drinking more than it was thought polite for a young woman – or any woman, for that matter. Her father would be propping up one end of the bar, sinking pints, and she’d sit at the other end, knocking back port and lemon or sherry, glowering at him. As the night wore on, he’d sling an insult and she’d sling one back. The landlord of the Railway Tavern had tired of them both and turfed them out, so for the time being, they were both to be found, in their cups, at the Anchor up the road.

  Saturday teatimes were Annie and Vera’s regular meet-up because that was when Vera’s dad went out to the eel pie and mash shop down Acton Lane for his tea, giving Vera’s mum the opportunity to sneak her wayward daughter into the house to see her siblings. There were ten of them, including Vera, but the six oldest had all grown up and moved out and started families of their own, so that you only had to turn a corner in South Acton and you’d bump into one of the O’Reillys or their offspring.

  Just when it seemed that Vera’s mum had surpassed herself with the twins, Ernest and George – who were constantly in trouble with the Old Bill – and told everyone that these two had just about killed her off with worry, she’d fallen pregnant again, unexpectedly, with Evangeline. The child was angelic – sweet, blonde and beautiful – and was doted on by the whole family, and Vera most of all.

  As Annie hurried off towards Stirling Road she was almost knocked flying by a gaggle of kids careering down the middle of the street on a crate they’d hammered some old pram wheels onto. It seemed like yesterday that George was doing the same, but now he was to be found zooming around town on a motorcycle with a gleaming sidecar. He’d landed a job as a delivery boy for the Cherry Blossom shoe polish factory down in Isleworth and was cock-a-hoop about it, not least because all the prettiest girls wanted to jump in for a lift.

  There seemed to be plenty of opportunities for keen young blokes like George who were prepared to move with the times and learn new skills. It was the older fellas who still suffered the most from the worst of the unemployment and wage cuts. Even Alf, Vera’s brother, had got himself a job as a delivery boy for the grocer and he brought his pay packet home to his mum every week, to make her life a bit easier.

  Annie rapped on the tatty black door at Vera’s mum’s house and then gave it a shove and let herself in. She knew better than to stand on the doorstep and wait – she’d be there all night – for politeness did not feature highly in their world. She walked into the hallway, which had mud marks and scuffs all up one wall, as if it had been used for football practice. Ernie and George were fighting on the stairs, pulling each other’s hair and screeching their heads off. The O’Reilly family lived in a continual cacophony of noise, tears and dirt, but Vera’s mum did her best to love them – even through the black eyes which were the mark of Vera’s dad having had a particularly busy weekend, drink-wise.

  In one sense, the O’Reillys had gone up in the world, in that they now had the run of the entire house, as the old woman upstairs had given up the ghost and died, so the landlord had let them have her rooms for next to nothing. On the other hand, the house was as near to a total slum as anything Annie had ever seen, with beetles infesting the walls and mould sprouting strange mushroom-like growths from the damp and peeling extremities of each room.

  Annie pushed open the door to the scullery, which was probably not more than nine feet square, and was confronted by the smell of a burning sausage in a pan on the stove, which did little to disguise a sweet, fetid stench. Vera was holding Evangeline on her lap on a worn-out old sofa and trying to spoon watery mashed potato into the child’s mouth. The little mite didn’t have the strength to protest or wriggle, so she merely clamped her lips tightly shut and tried to turn her head away. Meanwhile, her mother was mopping sweat from her brow and browning a single sausage to a crisp; it would then have to be carefully sliced and divided between the children for their supper, along with a dollop of mashed potato each.

  ‘Come on, Evangeline, eat, please, for me,’ Vera crooned. ‘Eat for your best big sister.’

  She turned and looked up at Annie.

  ‘Oh Ann, I’m worried half to death about her,’ she said. ‘She’s not been right all week, right off her food, and she’s got the runs something terrible.’ Vera kicked a porcelain jerry under the sofa, for the sake of decency, but the smell lingered.

  ‘The poor little thing,’ said Annie. ‘Has she seen a doctor?’

  Vera lowered her voice to a whisper: ‘Ma says she can’t afford it but I’m going to take her myself on Monday. It ain’t right. It’s coming out like water, Annie, and there’s not a picking on her to start with. She’s all skin and bones.’

  It was true, even for a two-year-old
Evangeline was tiny, and her skin was almost translucent, except for two blotches of pink on her cheeks, and the hand-me-down nightdress she was wearing seemed to swamp her scrawny frame. Annie put her hand to the toddler’s forehead. It was burning hot.

  Vera’s mum called for the twins and there was a stampede of little feet into the kitchen. The boys wolfed their food down and then charged back out of the room, wildeyed and with their hair sticking up on end, to knock seven bells out of each other while their mother washed up.

  ‘I’ll get you a nice drink of milk,’ said Vera, patting Evangeline’s dirty blonde curls. She went over to a zinc bowl by the draining board and lifted a grey-looking cloth to reveal a milk bottle. There was nowhere to keep it cool, so this was the best Vera could manage, but a couple of flies buzzed about as she did so.

  Vera sniffed at the milk bottle and then poured some of the milk into a little teacup and took it to her sister.

  ‘Are you sure that’s good for her?’ said Annie. She didn’t want to interfere but she knew that the dairyman who delivered around Stirling Road was one to avoid; her mum had refused to buy his milk because of the filthy churns. He’d merely dropped his prices and moved his cart a few streets away, of course. The poorest in the community didn’t have the luxury of paying a few pennies more for cleaner milk, but she thought Vera’s family should have qualified for the free powdered milk that the council gave out.

  ‘They stopped the powdered stuff, the Poor Law did,’ said Vera. ‘Caught me dad working at the tyre factory and because me mum is working they took it off us. But milk is milk, Annie, and everyone knows it’s good for littl’uns.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Annie. ‘I think you should try to speak to the doctor . . . but Nanny Chick always used to say if you had a dicky tummy you should steer clear.’

  Evangeline took the cup and gulped it down. ‘She’s thirsty,’ said Vera. ‘I’ll get her some more.’

  Vera filled the cup up again and then smiled at Annie. ‘See, it’s doing her good. She looks better already.’

  Annie nodded, ignoring the dreadful sinking feeling inside her, as she looked into Evangeline’s beautiful blue eyes.

  Bessie was busy grumbling about the difficulties of washing rayon undergarments without shrinking them when Mum came in to the wash house waving a poster about a public meeting.

  There in big, bold black letters were the words which made her mother see red: ‘The Health RISKS of Acton’s LAUNDRIES: Acton’s Medical Officer will address councillors’ concerns about health problems related to Soapsud Island.’

  ‘It’s outrageous,’ she said. ‘We can’t have people saying our laundries are a health risk. I’m going to take it to the Ladies’ Laundry Association, but I will expect you lot to back me up at the council meeting.’

  ‘And so will I,’ boomed the Missus, looming over her shoulder. ‘It’s just a lot of busybodies spreading lies, girls, and we have got to stick up for each other.’

  Annie had to admit, it did seem like some of the councillors from the other side of the tracks were always complaining and blaming every cough and splutter in the district on the laundries, while making full use of their services to keep themselves looking spick and span.

  She yanked some dirty sheets out of the Felstones’ laundry hamper with renewed vigour. She had quite a few thoughts about things, but she tended to keep them to herself.

  ‘There’s been a lot of that upset tummy business going around,’ said Bessie, as she held up the most ridiculous-looking pair of red rayon bloomers; it was cheaper than silk, so a lot of people had it nowadays, but if you got the water too hot, it would ruin it. ‘People say it’s dirty milk. I don’t see how that is our fault!’

  Bessie was right. Soapsud Island was just an easy target for people who wanted to point the finger of blame, but the truth was that it employed well over a thousand women in the district and the Ladies’ Laundry Association was going from strength to strength, giving the women a voice, as well as a Christmas club and outings. With other industries laying men off left, right and centre, families were only too pleased to have mothers and daughters out at work at the washtubs, and someone needed to remind the council of that.

  But the mood didn’t stay serious for long in the wash house, not with Bessie around. ‘Oooh, Annie,’ she said, putting on a silly voice. ‘Look at me in my long, red raffia drawers! I bet you’d love a pair like this, wouldn’t you?’

  Annie laughed: ‘I thought they belonged to you!’

  ‘Oh, you cheeky minx,’ said Bessie. ‘Don’t think you’re too old for me to give you a clout!’

  Annie hadn’t heard from Vera for a few days, so she decided to call round to see her at Bessie’s on the way home from work, to catch up on how little Evangeline was doing. Plus, she could bring her friend along to the meeting up at the council offices, off the High Street. The Missus wanted bums on seats and that was what she was going to get.

  But when she got to Bessie’s house, Mrs Nosy Parker from downstairs answered the door, with her hair in rollers. ‘She’s out. Gone round to her mum’s.’

  Knowing that Vera only dared venture home on a Saturday tea time, when her dad was out, Annie hurried off down the street to the O’Reillys to see what was going on. When she got there, the curtains were already drawn downstairs and the house was unusually quiet. She knocked, tentatively, and then let herself in. Vera was sitting at the kitchen table, clutching Evangeline’s favourite doll. She glanced up as Annie entered, her eyes red-rimmed from crying. ‘It’s the baby, she’s really sick with her stomach trouble,’ she sobbed. ‘Mum’s gone up to the hospital with her, she went so floppy that the doctor had to come out and Dad went off on one because of the cost of it.’

  ‘Where are the other kids?’ said Annie.

  ‘They’ve gone to my aunt’s around the corner, although God knows where she’s going to put them all, but she insisted, so that my Mum could go and be with Evangeline up at the hospital.’

  ‘Do the doctors know what’s wrong?’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Vera, ‘but there’s a few kids gone down with some kind of fever and they’re blaming the milk churns. The doctor took the milk bottle away to test it or something.’ Her face darkened and she balled her hands into fists. ‘That dairyman better not show his face around here if he has done something to hurt my Evangeline!’

  ‘There’s a meeting this evening,’ said Annie, hesitantly. ‘It’s about health. Maybe you could ask some questions about it – or at least take your mind off things. It can’t be good sitting here on your own.’

  Alf appeared around the scullery door: ‘You go, Vera. I’ll get up to the hospital and keep an eye on things.’

  Vera sighed. She looked so much older than her years, haggard and hunched over the table. ‘You’re right,’ she said, standing up. ‘It’ll be good to get out for a bit at least. I’m just sitting here worrying myself sick about everything. I know my mum has gone up there with her, but I feel like it should be me, Annie, I’m the one she loves the most.’

  Annie put her hand on her friend’s shoulder, realizing how painful this was for Vera: ‘Of course you are, Vera. And she loves you right back, you can see it in her eyes every time she looks at you.’

  Annie had never seen so many washerwomen crammed into one room before, and with them taking the weight off their feet for once, too, rather than bent double over their washboards. The noise of them chattering to each other echoed around the hall, to the obvious irritation of the councillors sitting on a little stage at the front, who wanted to get on with the meeting.

  The town hall was such an imposing building, with a grand clock tower in white stone looming over the High Street. Annie had always wondered what went on in there, with smartly dressed men bustling in and out of it whenever she’d walked past. Now she was inside, it made her feel quite nervous and her throat had gone terribly dry. She was warm too, even though it was only spring, and she took off her cardigan and held it in her hands, which had
gone all clammy.

  She recognized the doctor sitting up there, shuffling some papers about, but he was murmuring to another man, who had a silvery beard and not much hair on the top of his head. The Mayor was next to him, weighed down by his chains of office, and then along the row were other men in sombre suits and starched collars. A sturdy-looking woman sat at the end of the table, and next to her was a fine-boned slender little bird of a thing, wearing the purest white dress and silk stockings that Annie had ever seen. Annie couldn’t help wondering how much those stockings had cost; she’d laundered quite a few pairs of those in her time and loved the feel of the silk, but she couldn’t imagine what they’d be like to wear. The woman crossed her legs and stifled a yawn behind her gloved hand and then turned her gaze once more to the men beside her, with a look of concentration, as if she were willing herself not to fall asleep.

  Annie could just about see the top of her mother’s best hat in the front row, alongside the Missus. There was no sign of Bill or the other laundry hands anywhere; they’d probably taken the opportunity to sneak out for a sly pint.

  The Mayor stood up and banged a gavel on the table in front of him, calling the room to order: ‘This is a very impressive turn-out indeed and it’s pleasing to see so many of you prepared to take an interest in the health of our borough. Without further ado, I’d like to hand you over to Acton’s Medical Officer . . .’

  The man with the silvery beard stood up and began to read from a sheaf of papers in front of him, glancing around the room as he did so. ‘Infant mortality in Acton has long been a problem and a topic of much discussion among the council members in this very chamber. Regrettably, we have found that deaths from diarrhoeal diseases and respiratory causes have always been high, and the reason is probably that the extra food and higher standard of living that a woman working outside the home in the laundries can provide and negated by the effect on the babies of the mothers leaving them in the care of others, in order to work.’