All My Mother's Secrets

by Beezy Marsh

  Annie felt a pang of regret that she hadn’t got married or had children like Esther, but she’d got her hands full helping around the house and going out to work. What was more, she’d been contacted by Wilf, who had been as good as his word and had got her some sewing work for a costumier who lived up at Shepherd’s Bush. Even the fiddliest little jobs, like stitching on sequins for dancers’ costumes, weren’t too much for her.

  ‘Do you ever see much of Vera?’ asked Esther, as they wandered along.

  ‘Not really,’ said Annie. ‘She was out the last time I called around and her landlady was a bit off with me.’ That was an understatement: the landlady had used some quite choice language to describe Vera, who – from what Annie could gather – owed a fortnight’s rent and had even been in trouble with the law for rowdy, drunken behaviour.

  Annie wanted to see her old friend, but she just wasn’t sure how to help her; she seemed intent on boozing herself into oblivion. A guilty little knot sat right in her stomach at the thought that she was letting Vera down in some way, when they’d been friends for so many years. The conversation was brought to an abrupt end because Elsie and Ivy appeared, waving their arms like a pair of windmills, to get her attention.

  ‘It’s Mum!’ said Elsie, gasping for breath. ‘She fainted at home and Dad’s gone to fetch the doctor.’

  By the time Annie got home to Grove Road, the doctor was packing his stethoscope away and Mum was sitting on the sofa in the living room, looking very pale.

  ‘It’s exhaustion,’ said the doctor, ‘it seems to be making her heart irregular, which has led to the dizziness. I’ve advised that she should ease up on work, at once.’

  ‘But I’ve got to go to work,’ said Mum. ‘We need my wages, for starters . . .’ Resting up wasn’t something that came naturally. She’d spent all her life working twelve-hour days in the laundries and then keeping house on top of that.

  The doctor looked at her sympathetically but said firmly, ‘I’m afraid I can’t be responsible for the consequences which may arise if you don’t stop putting too much pressure on your heart.’

  Bill sat down next to her: ‘Please, Emma, listen to the doctor and listen to reason. We will find a way to manage.’ He cast his eyes around the room. ‘We’ve got plenty of space here. We could take in a lodger, just until you feel well again?’

  Mum nodded, and Annie went to sit by her, holding her hand, while the girls fussed around with cups of tea. Nobody said it out loud, but they all felt it. She was the glue that bound their whole family together and the thought that they might lose her was almost too much to bear.

  ‘Well, everybody, this is Harry.’

  Bill introduced the Geordie union man as their new lodger less than a week after Mum’s funny turn and he looked very pleased to have found a bloke he got on with.

  ‘Hullo,’ said Harry. He was softly spoken, with a kind of magnetism which drew you in and made you want to listen. He said he’d been looking for a place closer to the factory as he had been travelling in from Hammersmith every day, so this was ‘just grand’.

  Annie smiled politely. Whatever it took for her mum to get the rest she needed was fine by her, even if it meant having that union firebrand in the house. Mum, of course, got up and started fussing around him, taking his coat, offering him a bite to eat. After tea, he made himself scarce, unpacking his few belongings in the front room. Annie had spent ages getting the room ready, plumping up the pillow and tucking in the sheets in the single bed George had found at the second-hand shop down Acton Lane. He’d be comfortable enough. As Annie watched him close the door, she couldn’t help hoping he wouldn’t be staying too long.

  Her fears of him intruding on their family life were short-lived. Harry kept himself to himself, to the extent that Mum got a bit worried about him: ‘It isn’t right, him shutting himself away like that,’ she tutted. ‘Anyone would think we weren’t making him welcome.’ She rapped gently on his door one evening to invite him to play cards with them. Elsie and Ivy had been learning canasta and it turned out he was a dab hand at that and, with the new radio set George had bought for them tuned into the BBC in the evenings, things got quite cosy in the kitchen. Annie wasn’t one for games, so she sat in the rocking chair in the corner, working on her sewing, surreptitiously glancing over at Harry, as he concentrated on his hand of cards. He was quite striking in his way, with long, dark eyelashes and eyes which were greyish blue, and quite a fine nose for a man, really. Not that she was interested, of course, because she was too busy with her piece-work to pay too much attention.

  After that, he regularly joined them in the kitchen after tea, sitting there, engrossed in his newspaper. Sometimes, he’d fetch a pen and a pot of ink from his room and start scribbling away, frenetically.

  ‘What are you doing there, Harry?’ said Mum. She was in awe of her house guest and his prolific writing. She was doing much better since she’d stopped working at the laundry, although she still took in some ironing for the Missus at home, and Annie had spotted her clutching her chest when she got out of breath at the top of the stairs a few times, which was a worry.

  ‘I’m complaining to the Evening News about that tinpot idiot Mosley and his Blackshirts,’ said Harry. ‘Their fascist views are dangerous and too much in line with Herr Hitler. People need to see it for what it is. They’re already persecuting the trade union leaders over there, not to mention Jewish people as well – it’s just intolerance of the highest order. If Mosley has his way—’

  ‘Ta-da!’ Elsie burst into the room, showing off the new dress that Annie had made for her on the sewing machine, cutting Harry off mid-rant.

  ‘Oh, it’s lovely, Elsie!’ said Mum, as Elsie swished about in the dress, which had a pink rose-print pattern and a matching belt.

  Harry glanced up at Annie, without smiling, and picked up his papers and stalked off to his room. Elsie raised her eyebrows: ‘Oh, he’s a funny one, ain’t he?’

  Annie shushed her: ‘He’ll hear you!’

  The girls at work had been planning a big night out at the dance hall in Shepherd’s Bush for ages, and Elsie and Ivy had begged to be allowed to tag along.

  ‘Just think of all the good-looking blokes we might see!’ said Elsie. They’d done each other’s hair up in pins the night before and had been rewarded with a head full of curls each, to show off.

  Annie had put on her polka-dot dress for the first time in years and found – to her relief – that it still fitted. Elsie was wearing her new rose-print outfit and Ivy had found some emerald-green rayon down the market, which Annie had run up into a frock for her, adding some lace at the collar, to finish it off nicely.

  ‘Well,’ said Mum, admiring her daughters as they got ready to leave. ‘Don’t you look the most beautiful bunch of sisters in Acton! But don’t be back late or your dad’ll have your guts for garters.’

  They were just about to make their way into the hall when Harry came in, ashen-faced.

  ‘We’re off out dancing!’ said Elsie, bubbling over with enthusiasm.

  ‘I see,’ he said, sitting down, his mouth pressing itself into a thin line. ‘I’ve been up at Hyde Park, with the Jarrow marchers.’

  ‘Who are they?’ said Ivy, as Annie shifted uncomfortably, feeling him gazing at her.

  ‘They’re men from the North-East who are starving because they have no work and the government has all but murdered their town, that’s what one of the speakers said today,’ he said.

  ‘Cup of tea?’ chimed Mum, desperate to lighten the mood.

  ‘I’m fine, thanks,’ he said, flicking open his newspaper. ‘I just want to see how biased the reporting of the march is.’

  He looked up at Annie. ‘Oh, don’t let me keep you – off you go dancing.’

  She felt so silly then, like some giddy girl going off enjoying herself while out in the real world, people were suffering terrible hardship. It shouldn’t have mattered to her what Harry thought, but for some reason it did.

  As sh
e turned to go, he said, softly: ‘You do look very pretty in that dress, mind.’

  It was gone midnight by the time they got back from the dance.

  As they pushed open the front door, with Elsie and Ivy giggling, their stomachs started to rumble as they smelt the most delicious whiff, of bacon frying.

  Annie darted into the kitchen to find Harry, with his shirtsleeves rolled up, cooking up a round of bacon sandwiches.

  ‘I thought you might all be hungry after your night on the tiles,’ he said, handing a sandwich over to Elsie, who wolfed it down.

  ‘I didn’t know you could cook!’ said Annie, completely flummoxed by the sight of a man at the stove.

  ‘Well, you never asked me, so I never told you,’ he said, giving her a little a wink.

  33

  May 1938

  ‘I thang yew!’

  The comedian Arthur Askey’s catchphrase rang out across the kitchen as the whole family gathered around the radio to listen to his show, Band Waggon, on the BBC.

  Harry had a funny way of laughing, clutching his sides a bit as he chortled, and he’d even taken to calling Ivy ‘Mrs Bagwash’, after the comedian’s charlady, to tease her, which Annie and Elsie found hysterically funny. He’d relaxed into life at Grove Road and, as he did so, had allowed them to see he had a great sense of humour and it wasn’t all serious politics with him, as Annie had at first thought.

  ‘You used to know him, didn’t you, Annie?’ said Elsie, chewing on a piece of toast and jam.

  ‘Yes, when I worked up in Drury Lane,’ she said, catching Harry’s eye. There was something about the way he looked at her which could just make her blush, even though she had nothing at all to be embarrassed about. Those days up in Drury Lane seemed like a distant memory now, although she wrote to Mavis and Wilf often and she loved flicking through her autograph book with her sisters, showing them all the famous people she’d met.

  As it was the bank holiday weekend, work had organized a charabanc outing to Richmond-upon-Thames. Annie had never been down that way before and everyone was praying it wouldn’t rain, as they were planning on a boat trip down the river. Bill didn’t want to go – his legs were giving him gyp, and in any case, he was superstitious about going on water: ‘Never set foot on a boat in my life and I’m not about to start at my age!’

  So, it fell to her and Harry to set off bright and early the next morning to meet everyone at the factory in Acton Vale. He whistled as they went along and Annie found herself feeling a bit shy to be alone with him – there’d normally be three of them, and Bill and he did most of the chatting.

  ‘What were you doing up in Drury Lane, then?’ he asked.

  ‘Working for a family, helping them run the pub and getting my heart broken, mostly,’ she replied, with a laugh.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that, and more fool him, in that case,’ he said, watching her intently.

  ‘Oh, it’s fine. I shouldn’t have even mentioned it,’ she said, slightly flustered that he’d paid her a compliment and that she’d told him something so personal. But part of her had wanted him to know, for reasons she couldn’t quite fathom. ‘I’m fine about it, really, I like my own company, although I’m not often on my own because I’ve got the family around me.’ She sounded like she was gushing the last bit, falling over the words, in case she sounded desperate. ‘So, what about you? You’re a long way from the North, aren’t you?’ She was quite keen to shift the attention back onto him.

  ‘I had to come down here to find a job, and I left my Mum and sister back up in Newcastle,’ he said, lighting a cigarette. He blew the smoke out, thoughtfully. ‘I’ve never been lucky enough to meet the right girl and settle down, but life’s quite busy with work and all the union business.’ He seemed a bit awkward and Annie regretted having said anything, as if she’d touched a bit of a sore point for him. It must have been tough, having to leave his folks. She took a long look at him – he must be more than five years older than her – but he was a handsome man.

  When they reached the charabanc, Annie was quite pleased to strike up conversations with the factory girls, who’d dressed up in their best clothes for their outing. They admired the dress she’d painstakingly made – a cotton seersucker number with a nipped-in waist and some tiny pleats down the front that really showed off her trim figure. Someone was handing out white carnations as buttonholes for the women, and the men were loading crates of beer and bottles of pop onto the bus, which Harry got roped into helping with, rolling up his sleeves, joshing with the workers, but she felt his eyes on her as she clambered on board.

  An accordion had found its way onto the charabanc and, as they set off, one of the machinists started to play ‘The Sun Has Got His Hat On’ and bottles of beer were popped open. Annie settled herself back in her seat as kids chased along the road after the bus, cheering.

  It was going to be a great day out.

  Down by the river at Richmond-upon-Thames was where all the posh people liked to promenade on high days and holidays and it wasn’t quite prepared for a busload of rowdy factory girls and fellas, intent on having the time of their lives. They were in high spirits, singing at the top of their voices, which raised eyebrows among the well-to-do ladies in white tea dresses going for a scenic stroll by the white stucco houses which presided over the terraced lawns.

  The river was alive with people on little skiffs and rowing boats, and there were beautifully polished pleasure cruisers cutting sleekly through the water, driven by smart-looking gents wearing peaked caps, slacks and open-necked shirts. It was such a different world down by the water’s edge, with green fields and countryside all around them, and all just a few miles from the industry and slums of Acton.

  Their boat was moored and waiting for them, and Annie felt her stomach do a little flip as Harry held her hand to guide her up the gangplank – but it was probably just because she was no longer on dry land. Everyone had brought sandwiches, ginger beer and lemonade; several of the factory girls declared themselves to be starving hungry and got stuck in early. This was a bit of a mistake because they’d barely been on the water half an hour when there were heads leaning over the side, chucking up.

  The captain had a wind-up gramophone on the top deck and a space had been cleared for dancing, with seats around the edge. As the boat made its way downriver, one of the factory lads wound it up and put a record on and the music brought a stampede of people up top, to dance.

  Annie was left sitting on the sidelines, tapping her feet, watching the girls pair off with the blokes until she got a bit bored and looked out over the fields and the meadows instead, to pass the time. Suddenly, she felt a hand on her shoulder, and spun around, coming face to face with Harry.

  ‘Would you like to dance?’

  ‘Dance? I didn’t think you liked dancing,’ she said, in astonishment.

  ‘Whatever gave you that idea?’ he replied, with a twinkle in his eye.

  She took his hand and they started to move in time to the music. He smiled down at her and she found herself beaming back at him. It wasn’t like the heady fizz of champagne, dancing with Stanley, but being in Harry’s arms felt warm and familiar, as if she had come home at last.

  That summer, Wilf kept his promise to come and visit Annie over in Acton. ‘It’s not the same down in Drury Lane without your cheery little face,’ he wrote. ‘Ralph’s got no one to laugh at his jokes any more! It’s as dull as dishwater in the pub.’

  Mum got quite excited that Annie was having a gentleman visitor round for tea and had put on her best blouse and tidied her hair up into a neat little bun.

  ‘The thing is,’ Annie began, taking some scones she’d baked out of the oven, ‘he is quite theatrical, so you mustn’t mind the way he talks. He’s not like all the blokes round here.’

  ‘Oh, that’s fine, love,’ said Mum, glancing up from her knitting. ‘All your friends are welcome here and I’m sure he’s a very nice man. Didn’t you used to go out with him, you say?’

 
; ‘Well, yes,’ said Annie. ‘But not like that.’

  ‘What other way is there to walk out with a fella?’ said Bill, gruffly, swiping one of her scones and then putting it back down on the tray, quickly, as it burned his fingers.

  There was a knock on the door and Annie heard Wilf calling ‘Coo-ee! Fan-Ann!’ through the letterbox. She rushed to answer, ignoring Bill’s raised eyebrows.

  ‘Ooh, look at you!’ he said sweeping her into a hug. ‘You’ve got a glow about you! Who’s the lucky fella? Tell me everything!’ They walked through into the kitchen, where Mum was pouring some tea into their best blue and white china cups and Bill sat, open-mouthed. Wilf was wearing his best suit, tailor-made to show off his slim figure, and a perfect red and white spotted bow tie at his neck added a splash of colour. With his blond hair slicked back, emphasizing his high cheekbones, he was very striking to look at.

  ‘Such a pleasure to meet you!’ Wilf cried, practically skipping across the floor to clasp Mum’s hand. Bill stood up, stiffly, before Wilf could get anywhere near him. ‘I’d better get on and mend those shelves, out in the yard,’ he said, gesticulating over his shoulder. ‘Can’t sit around here all day chatting . . .’

  ‘Do have a cup of tea and a scone,’ Mum cut in, shooting Bill a filthy glance. ‘You’ve come a long way to visit us, haven’t you? Was the journey all right?’

  ‘Yes, it was lovely, thanks,’ said Wilf, sitting down at the table, just as Harry made his way into the room. He walked over and shook Wilf’s hand. ‘So, you’re the handsome Wilf, who I’ve heard so much about,’ he said. ‘Sounds like you two had a champion time of it up in Soho. I’d love to know all about what Annie got up to. I bet she was quite naughty when she’d had a drink, wasn’t she?’

  Annie giggled and felt herself colouring up.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Wilf. ‘Wicked as anything. Wait till I tell you what she got up to behind that bar, never mind leading me astray down the dark alleys of Drury Lane. It was a relief when she came back home to Acton, just so I could get a rest!’