All My Mother's Secrets

by Beezy Marsh

  ‘I’m well enough to go back to work now, aren’t I?’ said Annie, after Mum decided to take her for a walk before their tea one evening. They rounded the corner, onto Acton Lane.

  ‘There’s a few things I need to tell you, Annie,’ said Mum, scarcely pausing for breath, as if she just needed to get the words out. ‘Hope Cottage has had to close.’

  ‘What?’ said Annie, pulling away in shock.

  ‘Now, you are not to upset yourself,’ said Mum, calmly, taking hold of her arm again. ‘I haven’t told you until now because I didn’t want to knock you back when you’d been so ill, but the council Medical Officer came into the laundry when you got scarlet fever to do some investigating and, the thing is, they reckon that the cause of it was some infected sheets that had come from one of the big houses . . .’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Annie, who felt as if the rug had been pulled from under her feet; she’d been so focused on her own illness, she hadn’t given a thought to anyone else these past weeks.

  ‘It was the Felstone hamper, the one you were sorting – at least that is what they think, because their daughter had been sick with the scarlet fever and she’d been lying in the sheets you took out of their basket. They were supposed to have been treated with carbolic by the nurses looking after her, but they weren’t . . .’

  ‘You mean Verity Felstone?’ Annie flinched visibly at the mention of the Felstone name. ‘I think I remember seeing her name in the clothes I washed in the laundry.’

  She had seen Verity’s name, day after day, of course, on so many lovely clothes in the years she’d worked at Hope Cottage. It was as if she knew her because she’d watched her clothes change from the pinafores of a girl to the beautiful dresses of a wealthy young woman. Some days, Annie had even imagined Verity Felstone going off to glamorous parties or drinking tea in the afternoon with her friends in their mansions around Holland Park.

  ‘I don’t know her name, love, but it was the Felstone girl who had the fever.’

  ‘And she got better, like me, didn’t she?’ said Annie.

  ‘Well, I don’t want to dwell on it, Annie, but as it happens . . . no, she didn’t get well again . . .’ Mum’s voice trailed off. She gave Annie a hug. ‘We are just thanking our lucky stars you are still here, love. We can only look forward now, not back.’

  Annie took in the enormity of what her mum was saying. She wanted to cry but found she couldn’t; there were no tears for someone she had never met. She’d never look on that family the same way now, knowing what she did about how Mr Felstone’s bully boys threatened poor people who owed him money. But none of that was Verity Felstone’s fault, of course, and Annie felt guilty somehow, that she had survived and Verity hadn’t.

  ‘But what about the laundry? It can’t just be closed down! It wasn’t the laundry’s fault I got sick,’ she said eventually.

  ‘It couldn’t be helped,’ said Mum, with a sigh. ‘The thing is, there were stories in the paper about the scarlet fever spreading because of the laundry, and once word got around that the doctors thought it had come from the sheets, people didn’t want to send their linen in, in case they caught it too. The Missus had the authorities round and they advised shutting up shop for a while, but in truth, the takings were already down and the Missus was going to have to lay people off. She sold off what she could to raise enough money for her to retire: the box mangle and the cart . . .’

  ‘But what about Moses?’

  Mum stopped and held Annie’s hand.

  ‘There’s not much call for laundry carts these days, Annie. Everyone’s switching to motor vans, but she got in touch with a rag-and-bone man in Notting Hill and he took him. He’s using him to haul his wagon.’

  ‘It’s all my fault,’ said Annie, as tears began to spill down her cheeks. Her whole world had changed overnight. ‘If I hadn’t got the stupid fever in the first place, none of this would have happened.’

  ‘Now, crying will not solve anything, my girl,’ said Mum, brushing the tears away with a clean handkerchief.

  ‘What’s everyone doing for work?’ said Annie, sniffling a bit.

  ‘Well, the other laundries have taken on as many of us as they can,’ said Mum. ‘I’m around at Miss Toomey’s Power Laundry with Aunt Clara and Dora and most of the ironers.’ Mum forced a smile. ‘It’s taken a while to get used to the steam irons, I can tell you, but perhaps it’s for the best. The old ways of doing things have got to move on at some point, you know.’

  ‘What about Bessie and the washerwomen?’

  ‘Bessie and the others are down at the Cambrian and the Sweet Lavender, but they aren’t getting as much pay per day now,’ said Mum. ‘It ain’t fair but there’s nothing to be done about it. At least they have got work. It’s the men who’ve been the hardest hit.’

  So that’s what Bill had been doing, kicking his heels around the yard at home.

  ‘The laundries don’t need any more fellas, there’s so many going for one job, with unemployment being what it is.’ It had always been difficult to get work since the days of the General Strike, and more families than ever in Soapsud Island seemed to be relying on the women’s wages, it was true. There was money to employ apprentices, because they earned next to nothing, but a man of Bill’s age could find himself out of work and signing on the dole before he knew it.

  ‘I’ve got to get back to work and start earning,’ said Annie. She almost asked whether Elsie and Ivy might be sent out to earn something, but then she stopped herself. Her sisters were clever as anything and Mum and Bill were rightly proud of them. They were on to secretarial college and a better life. Annie didn’t begrudge them that; in fact, if anything, she was prepared to work harder to ensure they stayed out of the factories and the laundries.

  ‘There’s barely a job to be had round here, love,’ said Mum, staring straight ahead. ‘You can try, Annie, you’re a good worker, but I’ve got my ear to the ground and I know the laundries in Soapsud Island aren’t hiring.’

  ‘Well, I’ll go further afield, then,’ said Annie. ‘I’ll get the tram up towards Shepherd’s Bush tomorrow and see what I can find.’

  ‘Don’t push yourself before you’re ready,’ said Mum. ‘But the truth is, Annie, anything you can bring in will be a godsend because we’re down to our last brass farthing at the end of every week and I’m going have to start putting things on tick, or we won’t be able to pay the rent next month.’

  As Annie pulled on her coat and her green felt cloche hat to set off looking for work the next day, she realized that her hands were shaking with nerves.

  Mum eyed her warily. ‘Do you need another cuppa before you go?’

  ‘No, I’m fine,’ she replied, jamming her hands into the depths of her coat pockets. Her fingers traced the outline of some folded paper: the note from her father, Henry. ‘I’d best be off. The early bird catches the worm!’

  By the time she’d reached the tram up on Acton High Street, her plan was set in her mind. She handed over her penny and the tram conductor issued her ticket, with a little ‘ting’ on the bell punch as he stamped it for her to get off at Shepherd’s Bush; it was just a short walk from the tram depot up to Notting Hill, she knew the route well enough from her trips with Moses on the laundry cart.

  She put the ticket in her pocket and carefully unfolded the note from her father, written on a payslip from the stables, the paper now yellow with age. She examined it, memorizing the address – Silchester Mews. It wasn’t as if she was doing anything wrong, she just wanted to see where her dad had worked and maybe walk down her family’s old street. There’d be plenty of time after that for her to go and have a look around the laundries in Latimer Road and the shops up Holland Park, to see if anyone was hiring.

  The tram was a rickety old thing and the clattering of the metal wheels on the rails in the road was almost deafening, so it came as a relief to get off. The tram didn’t run up past the big houses at Holland Park, and she suspected that the noise might have had som
ething to do with that: who’d want that kind of racket outside the front door, morning, noon and night? She turned off Holland Park and into a side street, trying to remember the landmarks that Aunt Clara had spoken about. The road ahead narrowed into a mews with a kiln at the end of it and she found herself on Pottery Lane.

  It was a like a gateway to another world; one with tumbledown houses with peeling paint and net curtains grey with dirt. The streets were alive with kids, hordes of them, with suspicious little faces and filthy knees. They were skinnier even than the Stirling Road mob and meaner-looking too. She wanted to stop to ask directions to the stables in Silchester Mews but, faced with women in grubby housecoats staring at her from their front steps, Annie was lost for words. In the end, she plucked up courage to ask a couple of navvies who were hauling open a manhole cover in the dusty road. They wolf-whistled at her as she turned her back and a boy shouted a rude comment about her hat, so she took that off and held it close to her, quickening her pace, wondering whether this had been such a good idea after all.

  She smelt the mews before she saw it. As she rounded the corner into Silchester Road, she was hit by an overpowering stench of horse dung and rubbish. A large heap of the stuff was piled at the far end of the mews and some kids were chucking stones at one of the stable doors, which was hanging off its hinges.

  A broken cart was jammed hard up against another of the stables. Annie dreaded to think what might be lurking underneath the tarpaulin covering it, because it stank of rotting flesh. A pile of old pram wheels and metal poles stuck out at crazy angles in a tangle of metal next to that. She inched her way across the greasy black cobbles, trying not to slip or step in anything which might ruin her only pair of smart shoes. They had a slight heel to them and she felt very foolish for having worn them, in case she needed to make a run for it.

  She glanced around her. This wasn’t how she’d imagined her father’s work to be; in her mind’s eye she’d seen a bustling stable filled with beautiful horses and ruddy-cheeked stable lads fetching and carrying buckets of water and bales of hay. Instead, she was confronted with decaying horse manure and piles of junk concealing God knows what.

  ‘Get out of it!’ a voice boomed from a cracked window-pane above one of the stable doors. ‘Sling yer hook or I’ll give you a thick ear!’

  Annie glanced nervously around her as the boys scarpered back down the road. A heavy door was pushed open and a bulky figure appeared, with sacking tied around his legs up to his knees. He wore an ancient bowler hat and his grey beard was flecked with the remnants of his dinner, by the look of it.

  ‘Clear off, you too!’ he said, tucking his thumbs into his belt and glaring in her direction.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she began. ‘I’m just looking for someone who used to work at the stables here . . .’

  He laughed. ‘The horse has had his day, or are you blind?’ There was the sound of whinnying from one of the stalls. ‘Except for that old thing: he pulls the rag-and-bone wagon for me.’ He spat on the ground in front of him.

  ‘I don’t want to be a trouble, I was just hoping that someone might have heard of Henry Austin, that’s all.’

  He looked at her closely. ‘And who’s asking?’

  ‘My name’s Annie Austin. He was my dad and I think he was a cabbie here.’

  ‘Well, I’m not saying I did know him and I’m not saying I didn’t, but I’d better take a closer look at you,’ he said, ambling down the flagstone stairs towards her. He wasn’t too steady on his feet and he held onto the wall with an outstretched hand as he did so. Annie stood rooted to the spot, afraid to move, as he drew nearer. He was a big fella, standing nearly six feet tall, but he walked with a stoop which made him look lopsided. And he smelt almost as bad as the manure heap. His jacket was covered in greasy stains and his neckerchief had once been red but was now almost black with filth. With the sacking tied around his legs with twine, he cut a very strange figure indeed.

  ‘Keeps the rats away,’ he said, spitting on the floor again, as he caught Annie staring at his legs.

  She tried her best not to shrink under his gaze.

  ‘Well, you do look quite like him, I’ll give you that much,’ he said. ‘But you have your mother’s face more than his, I’d say.’

  ‘So, you knew them both?’ said Annie, with barely disguised excitement.

  ‘Yes, I suppose I did,’ he said. ‘A long time ago. It was a different world then. Your dad worked for me here, at the stables.’ He paused, as if he was thinking: ‘Horses ruled the roads, not like the motor cars they have now.’

  The penny dropped for Annie then: ‘You must be Charlie D?’

  ‘Most folks know me as Charles Doncaster these days,’ he said, with a laugh. ‘Makes me sound more respectable, for a totter, at least. I’d like to talk to you, but I have got a terrible thirst coming on . . .’ He touched his throat with blackened fingernails.

  ‘I can buy you a drink if you’d like?’ she offered, catching his drift.

  ‘Well, if you insist.’ He smirked. ‘Let’s go round to the Black Bull and see if a pint or two can jog my memory.’

  The fact that Charlie D, the scruffy totter from Silchester Mews, was walking out with a well-dressed young woman was enough to turn a few heads on the way round to the pub.

  A shopkeeper unloading some boxes from a wagon gave them a cheery wave and shouted, ‘Whose your new bird, Charlie?’ which made Annie wish the ground would swallow her up.

  She studied him closely, thinking that all those years ago, her dad had spent every day working for him. It was hard to say how old he was. She guessed he was about ten years older than her mum and Bill, perhaps, but he looked ancient because of the years spent working outside in all weathers, which had given his skin the appearance of worn leather.

  He pushed open the doors to the pub; it stank of stale smoke, and was darker than a coal hole inside, with drab walls. The floor was old, with broken floorboards, and Annie couldn’t help noticing the pile of sawdust at the foot of the brown-painted bar, filled with abandoned matchsticks and fag ends. A tatty chalkboard with ‘No Tick’ stood on a shelf lined with grimy glasses and half-empty bottles of dubious-looking spirits.

  She’d never bought a drink herself before and certainly not in the middle of the day, so she fished her purse from her coat pocket and handed some coins to Charlie D, while she settled herself on a stool near the fireplace because her legs were shaking so much with nerves, she wasn’t sure she could stand much longer.

  ‘Now then,’ said Charlie D, returning with a port and lemon for her and a pint for himself, ‘it’s all starting to come back to me. What is it you want to know?’

  She took a teeny sip of her drink, just to be polite. ‘I wanted to know what my dad did up until he went away to the war, I suppose . . .’ she ventured.

  He looked at her, puzzled: ‘Oh, he was long gone before that.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Annie, completely flummoxed. ‘Where did he go?’

  Charlie D hesitated for a moment before taking a large swig of his ale. ‘They never told you the truth, did they?’

  20

  May 1934

  ‘You were still a babe in arms the first time your mother brought you along to visit my stables.’

  The bar stool screeched on the stone floor as Annie shuffled closer to Charlie D so she could hear him better; he was muttering into his beard as he spoke.

  ‘What about my dad?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, he was a good worker, reliable, but he never got as many fares as some of the other lads because of that old grey mare he liked so much,’ said Charlie with a laugh.

  ‘You mean Old Nell,’ said Annie. She touched the brass horse charm which she was wearing under her blouse. It had seemed right to put it on this morning, and now she was glad that she had.

  The pub had started to fill up with lunchtime drinkers, workmen mostly, who nodded a ‘hello’ to Charlie. One fella with a pronounced limp hobbled in and was handed a pint by
the barman without having to ask for it. He sank it in about three seconds flat, handed over his money and then limped out again.

  She lowered her voice: ‘I know about the gambling debt and my dad working to pay it off.’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, there’s a thing. All right, so I’ll speak plainly. Not many months after you came into the world, the old man Will died.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Annie, ‘that must have made things even more tough for my family.’

  ‘I can’t say that it did,’ said Charlie, shaking his head. ‘Liked two things in life, he did. Drink and gaming.’

  ‘But I thought he’d promised my nan he’d give all that up after he got in money trouble!’ said Annie, her voice rising an octave in disbelief.

  ‘Well, there’s one thing I’ve learned in this life, and that’s that a leopard don’t change his spots. Will drank so much he fairly pickled his liver,’ said Charlie. ‘And he was still owing people money left, right and centre. So, I can’t say he was mourned too badly when he went, though I always had time for him.’

  ‘I bet you did,’ muttered Annie, under her breath. ‘What’s that you say?’ said Charlie D, a flicker of malice in his eyes.

  ‘Well, you were working for Felstone all along and encouraging him to gamble!’ she said. ‘You were partly to blame.’

  People at the bar turned and started to talk to each other, pointing over at them. Charlie grabbed her by the arm and gripped it tightly. ‘Now, see here,’ he hissed. ‘A man makes his own choices. And you don’t come onto my manor and start hollering Mr Felstone’s name too loudly, not if you know what’s good for you.’

  ‘Let go of me!’ she said, trying to pull her arm away, but he held her fast.

  ‘You think you can come into this parish, take a trip down memory lane and then just waltz off and leave the past behind?’ he said. ‘Well, it ain’t that easy; the past ain’t finished with you yet.’

  Annie wanted to scream, but she didn’t think for one minute that any of the men at the bar would help her. She was a stranger here, out of her depth. ‘I’m sorry,’ she stammered. ‘It’s just that my Aunt Clara told me . . .’