Crooked Pieces

by Sarah Grazebrook

  ‘I have brought a resolution,’ I told him.

  He lifted one eyebrow. ‘Have you?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And I must deliver it.’

  ‘Who to?’

  This I had not considered.

  ‘I must tell you that I am ordered to prevent such a thing,’ he said most helpfully. ‘And I must request you to descend these steps immediately.’

  ‘If I will not?’

  ‘I shall have to take you in hand.’

  ‘Does that mean arrest me?’ I asked, thinking how cold a cell would be just now.

  ‘Those are my orders.’

  Down below in the square I saw women being herded and thrashed like cattle, squealing and sobbing beneath the bobbies’ truncheons. Still fighting to reach the steps.

  ‘I have to deliver my resolution.’

  My bobby sighed. ‘Then I must do my duty.’ With that, he took me firmly by the arm and led me down the steps. At the bottom he let me go.

  ‘Am I arrested?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  I stared at him. ‘So I can try again?’

  ‘If that is your determination.’

  Back I went, him following. At the top he took my arm and led me down.

  When we had done this six times over and I was about to set off once more, he caught hold of my wrist. ‘Do you remember when I left you at your office, what I said?’

  I thought, or pretended to think. ‘That your name is Fred Thorpe?’

  He laughed. ‘You remembered. But I also said that if I had cause to escort you back there again I should have to note down your name, miss.’

  ‘If I am arrested, you will know my name.’

  ‘Is that what you want?’

  ‘If I cannot have the vote.’

  He looked unsettled. ‘Prison is no place for such as you, miss.’

  ‘There is no place for such as me if I am not allowed to choose who shall rule over me.’ (This is how Miss Christabel would often end her speech and it always got a cheer, but I felt somewhat guilty, for my bobby plainly thought it came straight out of my head.)

  ‘Well, miss, I cannot argue against such principles. You will be in good company, I’m sure, for half the ladies of Knightsbridge will be in court tomorrow.’

  As if to prove his word, a cry went up that Mrs Despard was taken and, sure enough, she sailed by us, stately as on her way to launch a battleship, trailed by two shrivelled little policemen who looked as they should be laying a red carpet out for her, not setting her before a judge. I have never seen her look so cheery.

  In her wake came a throng of women, singing and waving their resolution papers, and alongside hopped a bunch of bobbies, all sweaty from their efforts and grinning like lunatics. It was hard to guess who had charge of who.

  My bobby gave a kind of sigh and let go of my arm. ‘Well, if you will be charged, it shall not be by me.’ And he was gone. I confess I felt a little put out for I had slightly hoped he might walk with me to the police station. I did not have long to wait, however, for it seemed anyone downwind of the Parliament and wearing a skirt was arrested that day.

  The next morning we appeared before another judge (quite as puffy as the first). As there were so many, we were sent before him in batches, twelve at a time. It was gone three o’clock when my lot were called and we had had no dinner. Not so the judge, I think, for his fatty face had gone from white to red. Also his words were fuzzy.

  We were sent off to some prison fifty miles from London because there was no more room in Holloway. I was not sorry, for surely there is no place more vile than Holloway?

  Well, yes there is. There is Aylesbury, where we were crammed together like sheep in a pen and not near so cosy, by my guess. The food was worse, the warders more foul, and there was no knitting. Only potatoes to be picked off a piece of scrubland called The Garden till our backs would hardly straighten. Chapel, morning, noon and night. If I had known there was so much of damnation in the Bible I would never have bothered with trying to be good. Never a word of forgiveness, only ‘Repent. Repent. Repent.’

  I have listened to some of the women on my floor. I do not think they are bad, like the chaplain would have us believe. Is it bad to be so poor you cannot pay a fine for failing on your rent? If you cannot pay your rent, how can you pay a fine that is twice what you owe already? And is it bad to lay with a man for a shilling so you can buy food for your children? And if it is, why is the man not bad also? The more I learn, the more I think men do not like women. They like horses better, and dogs, for they do not answer back or ask for justice, no matter how hard or how often they are beaten or kicked.

  Is that how we should be? To take what we are given and be glad of it, however little or however ill? And if so, why have women been given great strong brains like Mrs Pankhurst and Miss Sylvia and Miss Christabel, who has taken exams to be a lawyer and come top in them, above all the puffy men, and yet must stand before one and be silenced when she questions his law-making?

  And if that is right, and ‘the proper order of things’, as that poxy-faced chaplain keeps telling us, why do we feel it so hard? Surely if we are but creatures to be trained and commanded, we should not mind it, but strive to please our masters? Not rail against our fate and seek for betterment? Why, if we are not to use them, have we been given minds at all? What use are they?

  I put this to one of the lifetime women when we were picking the other day. She came as close to laughing as I have ever seen her. ‘Ask the chaplain, why don’t you?’

  So I did. He makes a daily visit in case you had forgotten between lunch and dinner just how wicked you are and deserving of the hell fires for all eternity.

  ‘If it please, Reverend, may I ask a question?’

  He looked most surprised, as though such a thing had never been done before. ‘Ahem, ahem, ahem. I think I may allow it. Does it concern the morning text?’

  I tried to remember what it had been for I spend most of his sermons thinking about what I would like to eat when I get out.

  ‘If it please, sir, yes.’

  ‘Proceed.’

  ‘Please, sir, if women are not supposed to think and determine for themselves, why has the mighty Lord God given us brains?’

  Well, you would think he had been struck by one of his own thunderbolts. Pink, pinker, purple went his face so all his scars turned scaly. His mouth hung open like a pocket. Finally some breath comes back into his lungs. ‘Foul, sinful child.’ He turns to the warder woman. ‘See she has nothing but water till she has cleansed herself of this blasphemy.’ And off he puffs, so I never did get my answer. I wasn’t sure how long it would take to cleanse me, but next morning the lifetime woman slipped me a piece of bread for she had heard him bellowing and was sorry for telling me to ask. I said it was no matter for I had wanted to know the answer.

  ‘And do you?’

  ‘No.’

  She shook her head. ‘Don’t look for answers in this life.’

  But I will. And maybe, one day, the fog will start to clear.

  While we have been locked up great things have happened. It seems that all the arrests that night stirred the public to action at last, and many have complained at our treatment to the newspapers, so now a Member of Parliament is to put forward a private bill on our behalf! It is not Mr Hardie, either, but another man called Mr Dickinson, so that’s two good men in the world – well, three, for I think my bobby has all the makings of a thoroughly good man, and he is handsome, which the other two are not.

  Poor Mrs Pankhurst has lost her job. The authorities in her home town said she must choose – either to return and fulfil her duties or resign from her post as registrar. Though she smiles and says it is no matter and the Cause is all, I know she feels it strongly, for she is not a wealthy woman, as some would think.

  Mr Dickinson’s bill has been thrown out. We held another ‘Parliament’ to protest. Miss Christabel urged us all to march and keep on marching till we got inside the Parliament.

&
nbsp; ‘Seize the mace and you will be the Cromwells of the twentieth century!’

  I did not know who either were, but everybody cheered and off we charged. I think I only escaped arrest for not knowing where to start looking. Since I was getting nowhere I thought I should go back to the office where at least I could type a few letters or stick some stamps on.

  It was on my way there that I met Fred Thorpe. He was walking towards me and when he saw me his face broke out in a great golden smile. ‘Good day to you, miss. I had feared you might be on your way to court again.’

  ‘I should have been if…’

  ‘If what?’

  ‘If I had not been distracted from my task.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘I was to seize the mace,’ I told him. ‘But he was not in his usual place.’ (This was only a small lie, for he might very well not have been.)

  My bobby looked for a moment as though he would laugh out loud, but he straightened up and said in a most serious voice. ‘Was he not? Well, that is most unfortunate. For you, if not for him.’

  I said, ‘It is no wonder the bill cannot get passed if men like the mace are absent from their duties.’

  He nodded gravely. ‘It must certainly hold things back. And where are you off to now?’

  ‘To my office. There is much to do.’

  ‘Will you let me walk with you?’

  ‘Are you not needed to arrest defenceless women?’ (I do not know how I got so bold, but Miss Christabel says that is what we are.)

  Fred Thorpe shrugged his shoulders. ‘I think they can manage without me for today. Truth is, I am not very good at it, as you yourself are witness.’

  ‘Well, at least you are good at finding streets for people,’ I said, for I did not want him to think me quite unfeeling.

  He smiled. ‘And I’m also good at finding out people’s names, Miss Maggie Robins.’

  I stopped dead. ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Oh, it’s easy enough. I saw it in the police station when you went to court.’

  ‘There were fifty or more of us that day.’

  ‘Yes, but only one from Argyle Place.’

  ‘You must be very good at catching villains,’ I said, ‘if you remember things like that.’

  ‘It’s my job. Anyway, I enjoy it.’

  ‘Remembering things, or catching villains?’

  ‘Both. But most of all I enjoy listening to music in the park on a sunny Sunday afternoon.’

  ‘Oh yes. That’s grand. I went with my brother once. All the bandsmen had uniforms. They looked like soldiers. And afterwards we had ices at a tearoom and sat outside and watched the swans.’

  ‘Would you like to do that again?’

  ‘Oh yes. But Frank’s away at sea. And anyway…’

  ‘With me, I mean.’

  I stared at him.

  ‘We could go this Sunday if it’s fine. Or are you off getting arrested somewhere?’

  ‘Not on a Sunday. The Parliament men don’t work at weekends.’

  ‘Well then?’

  I felt all pink. ‘I don’t know. I’ve never…’

  ‘Been out with a bobby before?’

  I could have said ‘with a man’, but instead I just nodded like a great ninny.

  ‘You’ll come to no harm, Maggie. I promise you. And I’ll see you safe home after, so you don’t get lost.’

  I laughed and he smiled, too. ‘I’ll call for you at three o’clock.’

  My heart started pounding in panic. ‘What if it rains?’

  ‘We’ll go to a gallery. Did your brother ever take you to one of those?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Do they have ices?’

  He smiled. ‘I’ll make sure of it.’

  He left me outside the office. I hoped no one was watching for I really did not think I could take more twitting just right then.

  When I got in Miss Kerr and Miss Lake wanted to know what had happened at the rally, who had been taken, if any were injured? I was ashamed that my head was so full of Fred Thorpe and Sunday that I could hardly turn my thoughts to answering them.

  It is as well I am so busy for else I should go mad with trying to decide which blouse to wear and whether to have my hair up in a roll, or brushed straight down with a ribbon at the back to keep it neat. Straight is easier, but a roll makes me look much older – at least sixteen, Mrs Garrud said, when I tried it out on her. I wonder how old Fred Thorpe is. At least twenty, I would say. He must be to be so fine and confident, and to know so many streets and to go to galleries. He will very quickly tire of me. I asked Miss Sylvia if she had any books on music I could borrow and she brought me a whole pile, but they are full of black squiggles with only a little bit of writing so it is more a mystery than ever to me. Perhaps I should pray for rain, but then my hair will get wet and go all straggled like string.

  I am the happiest person who ever lived. Today at three o’clock exactly came a knock on the door. Mrs Garrud was on her way to open it but I jumped right past her down four stairs together and begged her not to trouble herself.

  There stood Fred. For a moment I could not think why he looked different, but then I realised he had real clothes on, not a uniform. He looked twice as handsome. I had on my best blouse that has tiny flowers across the bodice and round the cuffs and a new blue skirt and jacket that I went out and bought yesterday for thirteen shillings and fourpence in Oxford Street. More than a week’s wages! I should not have done it but I will have no chocolate for a month and that will make up the money. I wore my hair down with a blue velvet ribbon although you could not see it under my hat.

  Fred smiled when he saw me and offered me his arm. I was all right about that for I have held Frank’s arm sometimes and also Pa’s when he is acting the clown. We walked down to the corner of Argyle Place and Fred said, ‘What do you think? Too cold for the park?’

  In fact, it was rather cold and my new jacket not as warm as I would have liked. I said, whatever he thought best. ‘Well then, I think we should aim for a gallery. Portraits or landscapes?’ I said, whichever he thought best, at which point Fred stopped walking, turned me round to face him and said, ‘I’d like best for you to stop trying to please me and say what you think, Maggie.’

  ‘But I was never in a gallery. How can I know what I would like?’

  ‘True. Well, let it be portraits then, for they take less time to look at.’

  This seemed sensible to me. I told him how Miss Sylvia had painted my portrait.

  ‘May I see it?’

  ‘I haven’t got it. She has it in her studio.’

  ‘Is she a good painter?’

  ‘Wonderful. She made me look…well, like me, I suppose.’

  ‘Then I should certainly like to see it. I shall buy it from her and put it in a locket round my neck. Why are you laughing?’

  ‘Because it is the size of a paving slab.’

  Next thing he is dragging along the street like a hunchback, pretending he has a paving stone round his neck. People turned to stare and nudged each other but he did not care at all. I said, ‘You will be in rare trouble if your sergeant sees you now. He will not want a madman in his force.’

  Fred stood upright again. ‘He has a tribe of them already. One more won’t make a difference.’

  ‘One person can make a difference,’ I said, without thinking, for it is a slogan on the bottom of our pamphlets.

  Fred looked all serious. ‘I suppose you must believe that or you couldn’t do what you do,’ he said.

  The gallery was not a bit as I had expected, not that I had known what to expect. I had thought, I suppose, that it would resemble Miss Sylvia’s studio – all mess and paintbrushes and oils with their lids left off. Instead it was high and light with huge wide walls painted white, and along them picture after picture, all of people and sometimes with some bug-eyed little dog sitting, smug as a chaplain, on its mistress’s lap.

  Some I liked greatly. One of an old man with a skinny child by him. He reminded me
a sliver of my grandad, for he had kind crinkly eyes and wispy hair and brown spots under it like the map of the Holy Land that Mrs Beckett had up on the wall of the Sunday School. There were a mass of gentry and dotted round them, their whey-faced children. Pale waxy copies, eyes dull inside their pointy heads, all ruffs and jewels and velvet. Like flowers that never saw the sun.

  Fred asked me what I thought.

  ‘It is all very clever.’

  ‘You don’t like them?’

  ‘They are not…like Miss Sylvia’s.’

  ‘But they are here, and hers are not. So maybe it is she who should change her style?’

  I could not let that by. ‘These are here because a man has painted them. There can be no other reason.’

  Fred looked quite taken aback. ‘I had not thought you would be so against our sex.’

  I shook my head. ‘I’m not. Truly. I have three brothers of my own. How could I be against them?’

  ‘But that is your family. Do you really think all other men are hopeless?’

  ‘No… No I do not. You mistake me. I am just angry that one man can paint the same face six times over and be here, with great white walls, and fame and everything, and someone like Miss Sylvia who can paint you so you would think it was a mirror, is forced to work long hours in a tiny room with no proper light and sleep in that same room, and still cannot get her paintings in a gallery.’

  Fred was quiet for a long deep moment. ‘Would you like to have an ice, now?’ he asked.

  ‘If that is all right with you,’ I replied.

  He took me to a splendid tearoom in Regent’s Park from where we could see the zoo animals and the people strolling along, laughing and chatting together and poking sticks through the bars to tease the poor creatures. The monkeys jabbered and grabbed at them and if they succeeded, snapped them in half and chewed at them. Other animals ran away. Only the elephant took no notice.

  The waitress brought us the menu which was a foot long at least and covered in wavy writing saying what the different cakes were, and more ices than I had thought were in the world. We had chocolate sponge and then strawberry ice to follow. Fred asked what I would like to drink. There were sodas, and ginger ale and all sorts but I said, ‘Tea, please,’ because, after all, it was a tearoom and I thought it might be rude not to drink some.