All My Mother's Secrets

by Beezy Marsh

  They were a respectable family, the Chicks. They went to church and believed that cleanliness was next to Godliness, even if him indoors did like his drink a bit too much. All the girls had good jobs, although Kiziah was a worry because she had ploughed her own furrow. She hadn’t lasted five minutes in the laundry, she was just too spirited to be bossed about by a Laundry Missus. Kiziah even told the Missus where to get off when she’d found fault with her ironing. Susan had told her daughter that was no good, it was not the way to get on in this world, but Kizzy just laughed and tossed her auburn hair and said she’d go out and find another job. And, do you know what? She blooming well did!

  First of all, she’d tried the posh shops down Bond Street, but they were all snooty and didn’t want a girl from the Potteries who didn’t know how to address a lady. Susan could have taught her, if she’d only listen, but she was headstrong, that one, with a fire in her belly, and so she’d gone off to find work doing the thing she was good at: sewing. Being a seamstress was hard work, poorly paid, but Kizzy loved to see what the ladies about town were wearing and she had such a way with her nimble fingers, it was as if the silks just flowed like water in her hands. She’d done some samples for one of the tailors down on Westbourne Grove and just about knocked spots off his best seamstresses, so he’d taken her on, just like that. She was paid per piece, and sometimes she’d bring her work home with her to finish off in the evenings. The light of the gas jet in the scullery was dim and so Kizzy would sit with her sewing on her lap, making tiny rows of perfect stitches by candlelight, until she was happy with it, while her dad almost glowed with pride at her work.

  ‘You’ll make someone a fine wife, Kizzy,’ he said, pressing some baccy into his pipe. She’d be eighteen soon enough, a good age for marrying.

  ‘Oh, I’m in no rush,’ she said, with a laugh. ‘I’m waiting for a proper gentleman to sweep me off my feet.’ Dad nodded to himself, as if he were pleased with her answer, and then smiled at her.

  Emma looked up from the sink where she was peeling spuds, and rolled her eyes at her mother and said under her breath: ‘And I bet that would be just your luck, an’ all!’

  Emma was bringing in a half-decent wage as a presser at Mr Ranieri’s. She was learning the ropes from Eliza Blythe, who was a right stickler, but Emma didn’t mind. Emma was a different kettle of fish to her older sister, Kizzy, everyone said so. It wasn’t just their looks – Kiziah was tall, fiery and striking, with red hair, where Emma was small, like her mum, with thick, sheeny chestnut locks and a quiet way about her. Emma was secretly proud that she had the patience needed to become a best ironer. It would take years of hard work, she knew that, but she’d only just turned sixteen, so she had time. She hoped it might make it easier for her to make a good marriage, too, because as the old saying went, ‘marry a silk ironer and marry a fortune’ – that’s what all the women around the Potteries said. The other part of the saying was that the painters and decorators who married laundresses were a lazy lot who lived off their wives’ hard work, but she knew better than to repeat that within earshot of her father.

  Her younger sister, Clara, well, she was a bit of a clumsy clot and a bag of nerves whenever she got scolded, but she was such a sweet girl. She was in packing at Mr Ranieri’s because she’d not long left school and he’d been kind enough to take her on, as she was family, although no one expected too much of her. Mum worried about her, but Emma promised she’d always take care of her, and she did, too – she was always checking she was all right and making sure she didn’t make any mistakes by getting things in the wrong hamper. The family needed her wage, for starters, so it would be no good if she got the sack.

  Mum was only too pleased that Emma and Clara were out of the wash house because it was down a steep set of stairs right in the basement of Mr Ranieri’s two-up, two-down. Gawd, it was like the Black Hole of Calcutta down there some days, with all the bugs crawling out of the dirty sheets and stinking clothing, the filth sloshing out of the washtubs onto the floor and the steam rising and no air to be had anywhere. Old Ranieri would have his two daughters and his missus and as many women from the neighbourhood who’d work for a bob a day down there in his cellar, scrubbing away and mangling for dear life. It wasn’t legal, of course, to have so many women working in such squalor, and when the factory inspectors came a-calling they’d all have to hightail it out of there with their washboards and away down the back alley. He was allowed to employ his family and two others, that was all, and then he could just about get away with murder on the pay and conditions because he wasn’t covered by the Factory Act, and he knew it. It wasn’t that Ranieri was a bad sort, he was just running a business – like all the others in Notting Hill. He was kind-hearted enough to bring them bread and cheese and beer for their lunches every day, from the Black Bull pub round on Silchester Road.

  Emma looked forward to that because sometimes one of the local workmen would carry the beer in cans suspended from a long wooden pole and deliver them to the laundry. She’d got chatting to him lately because he knew her dad from working on the houses, and his mum, Jane, worked as an ironer at Mr Ranieri’s. He was called Arthur and had a cheeky grin and the greenest eyes she’d ever seen. He’d made a point of talking to her on the doorstep long enough for Mr Ranieri to get annoyed the other day too, so maybe he quite liked her, although she couldn’t be certain because she’d never had much experience of talking to fellas. Her dad wouldn’t stand for any nonsense with blokes, she was pretty sure of that, because he’d tell his daughters not to dress up like the costergirls, who put feathers in their hats and hung around the pubs after dark.

  Hanging around the pubs was a different matter as far as he was concerned, of course, and Emma was often sent off by her mum to fish him out of his favourite watering hole. Sometimes he’d be propping up the bar at the Black Bull, talking to Cornelius, the old barman, but lately he’d taken to supping pints down at the Bridport, off Avondale Park Road, because that was where the best card-gaming went on.

  Emma buttoned up her jacket against the cold and lifted the hem of her skirt as she stepped over the rubbish strewn all over the street. The tinkers made a living collecting rubbish from the big houses up Holland Park and then whatever they couldn’t use, they just chucked out in the street; what with the mud in the winter, you never knew what you were going to step in. The road narrowed into a little alleyway at the top of Pottery Lane, where the last of the brick kilns stood. She hated going down there in the dark, as the gas lamps barely lit the way and the shadows they cast up the narrow walls gave her the jitters. She took a deep breath and made a run for it, her boots tapping on the cobbles as she went.

  A dog barked nearby, almost making her jump out of her skin. The local pig-keepers had dogs, too, and those mangy old things ran wild sometimes, which was scary if you got a pack of them coming after you. Some of the women carried walking sticks to beat them off and Emma was regretting coming out of the house empty-handed but, as she reached the end of the lane, the barking grew more distant and she slowed to a walk.

  The costermongers were already making a night of it down the pub because Emma could hear them singing ‘Molly Malone’ when she came around the corner:

  Alive, alive, oh,

  Alive, alive, oh,

  Crying, ‘Cockles and mussels’, alive, alive, oh!

  A down-and-out minding the barrows was slumped against the green-tiled walls of the pub, looking for all the world like a bundle of rags, but he held out his hand as she drew near: ‘Trouble you for a penny, miss?’

  Emma knew her mother would scold her for it, but she dipped her hand into her jacket pocket and tossed a coin into his tin mug; it was a cold night, and she hated to see people on the streets in this weather.

  As she pushed open the doors, Emma was enveloped by a thick fug of tobacco smoke which rose above the bar; the walls were stained yellow from years of men puffing away in there. One of the locals was hammering away at the piano, while a costermonger, in
his shirtsleeves and waistcoat, was playing the spoons by way of accompaniment.

  A costergirl with wild raven-black curls was standing on a table, her skirt hitched up to her knees, swishing it from side to side, with a circle of admirers at her feet. She had the tiniest waist that Emma had ever seen, and all the men seemed enthralled by her; it was like watching a music-hall star, close up. A hush fell over the room as she sang:

  She died of a fever, and no one could save her,

  And that was the end of sweet Molly Malone.

  Now her ghost wheels its barrow, through streets broad and narrow,

  Singing ‘Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh!’

  And then the whole pub erupted into the chorus, with hoots of laughter, as the singer jumped down to join her friends. They linked arms with each other, swaying as they screeched the refrain at the top of their voices: ‘Alive, alive, oh!’

  ‘Well, here’s a pretty face,’ said the spoon player, giving Emma’s waist a little squeeze as she nudged her way through the crowd to find her father. ‘Come and join in, love, don’t be shy. I bet you can sing like a bird.’

  ‘No, really, I’m fine, thank you,’ said Emma, staring at the floor in shame. She hated coming into places like this. ‘I’m just looking for my dad, Will Chick.’

  ‘Will’s girl, are you?’ he said, smiling to reveal teeth like a row of moss-covered tombstones. ‘He’s round the back, playing whist with Charlie D and the boys.’

  Emma elbowed her way through to the back room, where her dad was sitting at a table, his brow furrowed in concentration as he thumbed through the cards in his hand.

  He glanced up at Emma and slapped the cards down on the table, chucking a small pile of coins into the middle. ‘I’m folding, lads,’ he said to the other three players. ‘Here’s what I owe you – any more than that, you’ll have to wait till Friday.’

  ‘Probably best you do, before you lose your shirt,’ said a bearded man, with a wry smile. Emma swallowed hard. This must be Charlie D. He didn’t sound as if he was joking. They couldn’t afford for Dad to gamble away his wages like this.

  Emma didn’t want to ask her dad directly to come home, it made him look foolish and he might take it out on her mother, but there was another reason she didn’t want to speak; one of the men gazing up at her from the card table was Arthur.

  It was as if she had fallen into his eyes and was drowning in them.

  ‘Cat got your tongue, girl?’ said Dad.

  ‘Mum sent me,’ she said, staring down at the workmen’s hobnail boots, which – when you looked closely – were covered in flecks of paint.

  Dad stood up and plonked his tatty bowler hat on the back of his head and adjusted his cravat. ‘Let’s be off, then.’

  They barely said a word as they made their way home, back up Pottery Lane, but Emma didn’t mind. She was too busy wondering whether she might lace her corset a bit tighter tomorrow, just a little. Maybe then Arthur would look at her the way those fellas were gazing at the costergirl; that would be something, wouldn’t it?

  15

  May 1900

  ‘Roll up! Roll up! All the fun of the fair, for just a penny!’

  The man in the top hat, whose face almost matched the scarlet of his waistcoat, glanced down at his gold fob-watch for a moment before gesticulating to Emma, Clara and Kiziah to come closer. Behind him, the merry-go-round of painted horses bobbed up and down as a little steam engine chugged away inside it.

  ‘I’ll give you three young ladies a ride for tuppence, just because I like the look of you, how’s that for a bargain?’

  Clara clapped her hands with glee, but Emma hesitated.

  ‘Oh, go on, Em,’ said Kiziah, pulling some pennies from her purse and pushing her sister forwards. ‘Do something daring, for once in your life! It won’t kill you!’

  ‘I’m worried it might make me feel a bit sick,’ said Emma, who would have preferred to have a go on the shove ha’penny or just watch the strong man lift weights. The May Fair at Shepherd’s Bush was full of exciting things to see and there were toffee apples too, which were her favourite. Shepherd’s Bush was such a bustling hub of a place, it made Emma feel anything was possible; there were shops skirting the green, their awnings flapping in the breeze, and horse-drawn trams crammed with passengers. The trams were vying with each other to get down the road, past barrows filled with fruit and vegetables. The people on those trams didn’t have to spend all day at the washtubs or the ironing boards, Emma was sure of that, and she almost got caught up in a daydream about what their lives were like until Kiziah shouted ‘Come on!’ Kiziah had already chosen her steed and had clambered astride it, in the most unladylike fashion, unpinning her straw boater and letting her hair flow free: ‘I’m going to enjoy myself!’

  Quite why Kizzy always had to make such a show of herself, Emma would never understand, but she sighed and followed her to the carousel, where Clara was already making herself comfortable in a gaily coloured chariot.

  ‘I’ll help you up, if you like?’

  Emma spun around to see Arthur offering her his hand.

  She had hoped he might be here, at the fair, with some of the other workmen, but now he was beside her, she didn’t quite know what to say. It wasn’t like meeting briefly on the doorstep of the laundry, where they could have a little chat about the weather or how busy they both were. This was different.

  He took her by the hand and led her to a dappled grey horse with a bright red saddle and golden reins. The pony had a fixed grin which Emma feared might resemble her own, as she was almost struck dumb by Arthur’s presence.

  In an instant, she felt his hands around her waist, lifting her up to sit, side-saddle. She clasped the gilt-painted twisted wooden pole which rose from the horse’s back, to steady herself, inwardly praying that her long wool skirt wasn’t hitched up too much because that wouldn’t be seemly.

  ‘Mind if I climb up there and join you?’ he said. He was clean-shaven, with a freshly pressed shirt and collar, and the way his waistcoat was buttoned up showed off his muscular frame. A smile played on his lips as she murmured her consent and he clasped the pole, his fingers almost touching hers, and swung himself onto the horse’s back, his long legs dangling over the footplate at either side. Just to be this close to him, well, it probably wasn’t decent, but it was as if all the golds, reds and greens and blues on the carousel were swirling around inside her and she couldn’t help smiling.

  Emma turned and caught a glimpse of Kiziah, sitting on the horse behind her. She could have sworn that her sister was scowling.

  Just then, another bloke appeared at the carousel and waved at Arthur, before jumping on, just as a bell rang out and it started to turn.

  ‘Thought I’d lost you for a minute,’ he said, catching his breath. ‘I was in the hall of mirrors – almost scared myself witless! I might have known you’d have found some fine fillies to keep you occupied, Arthur.’

  He tipped his bowler hat at Emma: ‘And who might this be?’

  ‘This is Emma, from the laundry in Latimer Road,’ said Arthur. He added, with a laugh: ‘The girl I was telling you about, Henry.’

  ‘I’m his younger brother,’ said Henry, giving Emma a wink. ‘The better looking of the two Austin lads, so they say . . .’ He was shorter than Arthur, wiry too, but he was right – there was a roundness to his face which made him almost boyishly handsome, even with his neat little moustache.

  The merry-go-round owner appeared at their side and motioned for Henry to find a seat and pay his penny, so he sat down in the chariot, beside Clara, whose mouth was just about hanging open. She’d better not go telling Mum and Dad about this carousel ride and all these blokes appearing, or they’d be for it.

  A crowd had gathered to watch, and their faces were a blur as the carousel whirled round, faster than Emma had ever gone in her life, as the organ piped out ‘Pop Goes the Weasel’. Her heart was pounding in her chest and her face was flushed, she could feel it. Some wisps of
hair escaped from the plait which she had so carefully pinned into place under her hat, but she let them fly about, as she leaned a bit closer to Arthur. Some children on the horses in front of them were waving frantically to their parents, and the music and the spinning and shouts all made Emma feel rather giddy. But with Arthur beside her, she was enjoying the ride, rather more than she had expected.

  ‘Is that your sister?’ said Arthur, glancing over his shoulder, as their dappled horse bobbed up and down in time to the music. His words almost broke the spell.

  ‘Yes,’ said Emma, ‘that’s Kiziah, she’s my older sister.’ She almost had to shout above the din to make herself heard. ‘She’s a seamstress!’

  Right on cue, Kiziah tossed her head, her flaming red hair billowing in the wind, and smiled a dainty little smile, right at Arthur, who grinned back at her.

  ‘Your dad must be very proud of you both,’ said Arthur, holding Kizzy’s gaze.

  Desperate to take the attention away from Kizzy, Emma pointed to Clara, who looked as if she might catch flies in her gawping mouth at any moment.

  ‘And that’s my younger sister, Clara, who works at the laundry with me.’

  Arthur nodded. He whispered in her ear: ‘So, might you think about walking out with me one of these Sunday afternoons? It’s nice up at Kensington Gardens.’

  He was actually asking her out courting!

  ‘I’m not sure what my dad would say . . .’ she replied, her heart sinking into her boots. She wanted to go out with him, more than anything, but if her father found out she’d been messing about on fairground rides and getting asked out, he’d have her guts for garters.