All My Mother's Secrets

by Beezy Marsh

  Vera leaned over to Annie, whispering, ‘What a bunch of stuffed suits this lot look, don’t they, Ann?’ Meanwhile, as the Medical Officer’s words began to sink in, the women in the rows in front of Annie started to shift uncomfortably in their seats. Annie spotted Bessie, twisting her handkerchief over and over in her hands.

  ‘The employment of married women outside the home means that premature weaning is likely, and that is one of the causes of diarrhoeal diseases, of which we have seen an upsurge in recent weeks . . .’

  Bessie could no longer contain herself: ‘But it is bad milk that makes the babies sick, not the mother working in the laundries, everyone knows that! Wouldn’t you be better off spending your time making those dairymen clean up their act?’

  The sturdy woman up on the podium glared at Bessie for interrupting. ‘That’s Mrs Knight, who runs the council nursery where our Evangeline goes,’ said Vera. ‘She’s a right old dragon. I wouldn’t fancy Bessie’s chances if it came to blows.’

  ‘That is a fair point, madam,’ said the Medical Officer. ‘But if babies were not weaned so early in order to get the mother back to work, there would be no question of them needing other milk . . .’

  ‘And if none of us worked, who’d keep your suits looking so smart, then?’ said another woman, from the row behind Annie.

  The woman in white simpered slightly as she gazed up at the Medical Officer and they exchanged glances. He ran his fingers through what was left of his hair, in exasperation.

  The Mayor stood up and banged his gavel on the table. ‘Ladies, this will not do! The Medical Officer is trying to bring to your attention a very serious issue about the health of the children in this borough – the least you could do is listen politely.’

  Vera, who was not the brightest button in the box, leaned over to Annie again: ‘So, are they saying it is our fault that kids are getting sick, because women have to go out to work?’

  ‘That’s about it, yes,’ said Annie, who had started to feel properly unwell herself; she was burning up from the inside and her throat felt as if she had swallowed one of Bill’s rusty old razor blades.

  The Medical Officer started off again, reading out a long list of ailments which affected the tiniest tots in the borough: ‘Bronchitis, pneumonia, tuberculosis, malnutrition due to want of breast milk . . .’

  Annie had started to feel quite giddy and she barely noticed the tugging at her sleeve at first. Vera was pointing to the door, where her brother Alf was standing, waving frantically at them. ‘I’ve got to go, Annie,’ she said. ‘Come with me?’ They slipped quietly from the hall and into the cool air of the atrium. Alf was standing there, waiting. The look on his face said it all; he had been crying, that much was clear, but he couldn’t get the words out.

  Vera seized him by the shoulders and shook him, hard: ‘What’s happened to her? Is there any news from the hospital? Tell me or I will box your ears right off that stupid head of yours.’

  ‘No, Vera, don’t,’ said Annie, struggling to hold her friend back; Vera in a temper was like a ship in full sail. ‘He’s your brother, he’s only trying to help.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Vera, I’m sorry,’ he said, as tears spilled down his cheeks. ‘Mum was there with her at the end. There was nothing more to be done.’

  Annie had never realized how loudly a scream could echo around a hallway with a marble floor, but Vera’s cries for her baby sister Evangeline brought an abrupt end to the meeting as the women of Soapsud Island abandoned any thoughts of listening to the men who were trying to tell them how to raise their kids, and burst through the doors to comfort one of their own.

  On the morning of Evangeline’s funeral, Annie woke to find herself bathed in sweat. It was a fever like no other, not even when she’d had German measles as a child; the sheets were wringing wet.

  Elsie and Ivy took one look at her and hopped out of their bed, running to get Mum. They bobbed about over Mum’s shoulder, to see what was wrong, before they were shooed away downstairs.

  Annie looked down at her arms, which were covered in red blotches.

  ‘Let me see,’ said Mum, peering down the front of Annie’s nightdress; it didn’t matter that she was a grown-up, in her mother’s eyes she would always be her little girl. The rash was spreading across her chest and her face was burning up. ‘I don’t like the look of it,’ said Mum. ‘Looks like scarlet fever.’

  Annie wanted to speak, to tell her mum not to fuss, that she’d get better, but her head just felt too big and heavy to even lift off the pillow.

  ‘You need to keep away from me,’ said Annie, her voice a whisper. ‘Keep the girls away from me, don’t let them catch it.’ Mum nodded and Annie closed her eyes for a minute. When she opened them again, the room seemed to be moving from side to side; she’d never been on a boat but now she imagined herself being rocked on a gentle tide, and the sea surrounding her was so warm that she needed a drink, yet she could barely swallow the water that her mother offered her.

  The next thing Annie knew, sunlight was streaming through a crack in the curtains. She must have slept for hours. A damp cloth had been laid across her forehead and she tried to sit, dislodging it, so it slipped down over her face.

  ‘Don’t move, I’ll do it,’ said a voice. Aunt Clara drew nearer and dipped the cloth in a basin of water on a stool at the bedside. ‘You need to rest.’

  ‘Don’t come too close,’ croaked Annie. ‘It might be catching.’

  Aunt Clara smiled, her broad face beaming with kindness: ‘I’ve had scarlet fever. Don’t worry, I’m safe to look after you. Your mum and Bill and the girls have gone to my house and George is sleeping at the neighbour’s. The doctor says the best thing is to keep you here, to stop it from spreading.’

  ‘I don’t want to be a trouble . . .’

  It didn’t seem right that everyone had to move just because she’d fallen sick, but Annie didn’t have the energy to say any more. She flopped back into the bed as Aunt Clara dabbed the cloth over her face. She was on the boat again, swaying gently, as her eyelids closed.

  ‘It didn’t take me, and it won’t take you, Annie, I promise,’ whispered Clara, laying a kiss on Annie’s forehead as she drifted back off to sleep.

  That night, Annie’s fever worsened and the rash spread all over her body, burning her up from the inside, as the skin started to peel from her hands. Aunt Clara sat in a chair in the corner, sewing by candlelight, rising occasionally to give Annie a drink or to pile more blankets on her, in the hope of making her sweat it out.

  When she closed her eyes, Annie saw Moses the horse coming out of the bedroom wall towards her, pulling a hearse with a glass coffin filled with flowers. She climbed out of the bed, her feet wading through murky waters which lapped almost to her knees. Moses sploshed forwards to greet her and she reached out her hands to him. As she drew nearer, she realized that the hearse was carrying her body, pale and lifeless, and she recoiled in horror. She looked up at the carman and he lifted his black silk top hat to her, and she came face to face with her father, just like he was in the photograph. Annie woke with a blood-curdling scream and sat bolt upright.

  ‘Whatever’s the matter?’ said Aunt Clara, rushing to her side.

  ‘I’m dying,’ croaked Annie, ‘I’m dying and there are things I have to tell you. Things I’ve taken, I shouldn’t have . . .’ She was boiling hot but her legs were shaking and she felt that no matter how many blankets Aunt Clara put on top of her, she’d never get warm again. Her teeth started to chatter and she resembled one of those little monkeys jumping up and down for pennies at the fair in the summer.

  Aunt Clara’s expression was placid in the half-light: ‘Shhh, don’t upset yourself. It’s the fever talking, Annie, it makes people say silly things.’

  ‘No,’ Annie whispered, curling herself into a ball, to try to get warm, ‘I found a picture in Nanny’s sewing box before she died, of my dad, and a piece of paper.’

  ‘What picture? What paper?’ said Aunt Clara
, her voice rising slightly.

  Annie pointed to the chest of drawers and Aunt Clara opened a drawer and rifled through it, pulling out the note. She unfolded it and held it to the candlelight to read, making a little ‘Hmph’ noise as she did so. Eventually she said: ‘You’re a dark horse, aren’t you, Annie? If there’s things put away so you won’t find them, it’s for your own good . . .’

  ‘Please,’ croaked Annie. ‘I know it was wrong of me, but I’m not a child, I need to know. I have been keeping the picture I found since Nanny died. I don’t want there to be any more secrets, not now.’

  ‘Tell me where you hid it,’ said Aunt Clara, gently.

  Annie pointed beneath her, under the mattress.

  Aunt Clara ran her hand underneath and pulled out the old photograph, gazing at it for an instant, smiling in recognition: ‘Oh, yes, that’s him, that’s Henry Austin.’

  ‘Nanny kept it,’ said Annie.

  Aunt Clara stood up and walked over to the window. When she turned around, Annie could see that there were tears glistening in her eyes.

  ‘It was all such a long time ago now, some things are best forgotten, Annie.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with me knowing he was my father, or having a picture of him, is there?’

  ‘No, not as such – it’s just it was very difficult for your mum, losing him so young, and people have to move on, get on with their lives, and memories don’t help put bread on the table, do they? It’s probably best not to tell her you found it, I’m not sure what Bill would say, for a start . . .’

  Annie was exhausted with the effort of talking and, sensing this, Aunt Clara offered her a sip of barley water. A solitary tear started to trickle down Annie’s face as she drank.

  ‘Don’t, Annie, please, you mustn’t tire yourself,’ said Aunt Clara. Annie had no energy left to talk now. She lay back, her body aching; it was as if she was being run through the box mangle, with its heavy stones pressing down on top of her. She coughed, a horrible, rattling cough, which shook her bones. She could almost feel Moses’ breath warm on her fingers, and her father was motioning to her to climb up on the driver’s seat of the hearse beside him. He looked so handsome sitting up there and it would be peaceful to ride along beside him, with Moses stepping out gently all the way. There would be no more pain, she knew that.

  Aunt Clara sat down in the chair by the bed and held Annie’s hand, sensing that her niece was giving up the will to fight the fever. She squeezed her hand: ‘Stay with me Annie; stay with me and I will tell you what I can about Notting Hill in the old days.’

  Annie’s eyelids fluttered open.

  ‘That’s right, you listen to me and I will tell you a story about three sisters living in the Potteries and Piggeries of Notting Hill, working in the hand laundries. Those places make Hope Cottage look like a palace. Oh, they were tough times but they had each other. Emma, Clara and their older sister . . . Kiziah.’

  14

  Notting Hill, January 1900

  Susan Chick pulled her shawl tightly around her shoulders and set her face against the bitter wind as she pushed her handcart full of clean laundry up Holland Park Avenue, the wealthy main street through Kensington, lined with white stucco houses.

  Silently, she cursed the day she’d left her job as a lady’s maid; it had been twenty long years of spit and polish, but at least she’d have been warm inside one of the mansions on a day like this, instead of splitting the worn leather on her boots walking for miles on end.

  The cold made her rheumatism play up, the pain spreading through her joints with every step, and then there was him indoors to worry about.

  He was always keeping money back from her, spending it down the boozer with the other workmen, instead of bringing it home. Every man kept a few shillings for himself – for tobacco and beer – but Will, well, he seemed to need a bit more than most to keep him happy, which meant she was often running short of housekeeping money. She didn’t like to complain because the one time she’d given him a piece of her mind, he’d refused to get out of bed and go to work at all and then they almost starved. She’d had to beg his forgiveness and he found another job soon enough, but it had frightened the life out of her because she honestly thought he’d have seen them all in the workhouse.

  Sometimes, she could have sworn he did it out of spite, because she hadn’t given him a son, just three daughters. They were three of the loveliest girls you could wish for, everyone in the laundry said so, but only her eldest, Kizzy, seemed to be good enough in his eyes – and that was because she had a wild streak and would stand up to him and his moods.

  The worst of it most days was when he’d start on at Susan for not cooking him a decent tea. ‘A man’s got to have his relish!’ he’d yell, as he picked over lumpy mash and gravy. Once, he’d chucked a plate of kippers at the wall in a fury because he’d wanted a nice lamb chop, but she couldn’t afford it, not after she’d fed the girls, even though she’d gone without. It had left a greasy mark on the wallpaper, like someone pointing a finger at her every time she set the rickety little table for them to eat. It made her hate him, although she tried not to because she’d meant her vows – to love, honour and obey – and, God knows, she’d left it late enough to find a husband. She’d still had flaxen hair when he’d walked her up the aisle, but by the time her third came along, she’d turned as grey as the flagstones on the laundry floor. Sometimes she was so tired from standing all day at the washtub that she felt as if she had one foot in the grave, in any case.

  Whenever he shouted because his wife’s food displeased him, Clara, her youngest, would start quaking in her boots and her middle one, Emma, would try to placate him, smoothing things over by offering to run to the shops to find something else, which he would only find fault with, in any case. Only Kiziah would tell him that the food tasted fine and he’d feel better for it, if only he’d just try a mouthful. He’d watch her for a minute, through eyes that were already bloodshot from boozing, and then stroke his whiskers before tucking in, the juices dribbling down his chin – until Kiziah mopped them up with his handkerchief. He was like a little kitten with her.

  His other favourite habit was to start harping on to all and sundry about the first Mrs Chick, who was no longer of this earth. She was so bleeding marvellous, she should have been a cook at the Savoy Hotel, apparently. Everything she did was better than Susan, according to him; it was a wonder she hadn’t got her halo caught in the mangle when she did her washing.

  Susan knew she didn’t have it as bad as some of the other laundresses, though, and she was grateful for it. Oh, the endless black eyes and busted lips she saw at the washboards on a Monday morning were a sight to behold. Will had never raised his fists to her, but he was such a miserable so-and-so, she breathed a sigh of relief when the front door banged shut in the morning and he took his scowl off to work, wallpapering the grand mansions in Belgravia.

  Susan pushed the cart on up towards Notting Hill Gate, as a beautiful glass-topped landau carriage pulled by two glossy black high-stepping horses came clip-clopping past. She remembered seeing them for the first time when she came to London from Suffolk as a servant, marvelling at the footmen who rode on the back, with their shining buttons on perfectly pressed uniforms. Now all she could think about was how long it would take her to get those uniforms looking so smart, just so the fella in the silk top hat, studiously ignoring her as he sat safely inside, could keep up appearances with his posh friends.

  Mind you, she was only too pleased to have a bit of extra work on from the wealthy lot who paraded up and down Rotten Row. It was helping to make ends meet, taking in some extra laundry, even if it meant she was working seven days a week. Once she’d finished at Mr Ranieri’s place on Latimer Road, she’d haul buckets of water from the yard into the scullery and get the copper going and get scrubbing with the washboard again until the light faded. Emma and Clara helped her run it all through the mangle, and she had a good solid sad iron for pressing things just right. S
he’d perfected her skills working for a rich American widow in Bayswater during her years in service. The mistress was blind, the poor old dear, but she could feel a wrinkle in a sheet or a crease out of line on a handkerchief and then there’d be trouble.

  It wasn’t a bad life, not as bad as some folks thought it was when you said you came from the Potteries and Piggeries. It was just a stone’s throw from the posh houses up on Notting Hill, but the rows of grim little two-up, two-downs that had been hastily thrown up there to house the poorest in the parish were a world away from that. There were still a few old dears who remembered the days of cut-throats in the back alleys, cock-fighting and the tumbledown wooden shacks of the pig keepers, who were driven out of Marble Arch and settled there, in the mud and the filth, back in the 1840s. Then came the bricklayers, digging out the clay pits to build rows and rows of back-to-backs which were crammed full of people struggling to make ends meet, every family as poor as the next. By the time Susan and Will moved in, the area was a network of little streets and every square inch of dusty earth seemed to be put to use to scrape a living; whether it was basket weaving on the front step, pig fattening, or rag-and-bone men picking over the rubbish from the houses up on the hill.

  Susan was glad of her friends and neighbours in Manchester Road, the row of sooty terraced houses – which all the do-gooders who came to help at the Mission Hall on Latimer Road on Sundays spoke of, in whispers, as a ‘slum’. Slum it might be, but it was home. She kept it as clean as she could, scrubbing the front step on a Friday, just like all the women who worked with her in the laundries and whose husbands were all plasterers or decorators like her old man Will.

  When the girls were little, back in the eighties, you could barely venture out without a clothes peg on your hooter, it was true, because of the stink of those blooming pigs running everywhere and all the old claypits filled with black, slimy water and pigs’ muck. The totters’ kids from Silchester Mews called the biggest one the Ocean and used to dare each other to dip their toes in, but Susan had warned her girls to stay away from it. One poor love never made it home from the pub when she slipped and fell in and drowned – what a way to go! It was a park now because they’d filled it in for health and decency’s sake, but Susan didn’t like to go down there, near Pottery Lane. Some said it was haunted by the ghost of that poor drowned woman – and she believed them.