The Women of Lilac Street

by Annie Murray

  He laid his arm across her and started to lift the hem of her nightdress so she obligingly raised her body. Harry pushed himself up to a kneeling position, to take it off her. His manhood was stiff and ready between his legs.

  ‘Let’s be ’aving yer then,’ he said, not roughly, but he had no other thought than plunging into her, his mouth sucking at her breasts for as long as he could manage it, until the surge in him became too strong. He liked her to lay her hands on his buttocks.

  Her hands moved down his thickset back, to press on his pumping, muscular backside. The sheer power of him always amazed her. I should be grateful. He earns his money and he’s scarcely ever laid a finger on me. Only once or twice in real frustration when he had lashed out. That was a good man, wasn’t it, who earned his wages and didn’t resort to his fists? Like her father. Only he and her mother had really loved each other.

  Harry was close to the end. She could tell by the way his breathing changed. She would not make him come out. It was safe . . . Now and again she had had glimmers of desire for him, in the early days. Until they ended up on opposites sides of the river and there was nothing between them. No thoughts, words, interests that they could share. Her body did not light to his. And as he grew frantic, then coursed into her inside, she closed her eyes. Over. Pray God don’t let it come to anything.

  He withdrew from her, without a word, and leaned over to blow out the light.

  Thirteen

  Rose spent six years in service to Benjamin and Hester Mount in Oxford Road, Moseley.

  Now and then she thought of leaving and looking for another post. But despite the musty, claustrophobic atmosphere, the boredom and loneliness of living with two such elderly people, she stayed. The only other regular visitor was Mrs Plummer, who came in and cooked in the middle of the day and left a cold plate for later. She was a widow, and pleasant enough, but no real company for Rose. The Mounts’ son Ernest hardly came near the place.

  Before too long, the war broke out and there was a crying need for servants. Rose could have left easily for a position elsewhere. She often dreamed of doing something different – women were doing all sorts by the end of the war. She could be a clippie on the buses. During the last summer of the war, Professor Mount told her that there had been a strike by women working on the buses and trains because, they said, their pay should be equal to the men’s. The strikes had spread to other towns including Birmingham.

  ‘And d’you know what the wily government have done?’ Professor Mount was talking to his wife as Rose arranged their breakfast: she on her couch, he at the little table beside her.

  ‘What, dear?’ Mrs Hester asked, whacking her boiled egg with the back of a teaspoon. Rose had to help her slice the top off.

  ‘They’ve fobbed them off with a five-shilling war bonus, as if that’s in any way the same as equal pay!’

  ‘Honestly,’ Hester Mount said furiously. ‘Of course, it takes a particular male aptitude to hand out a bus ticket or steer a train. No woman could possibly manage it . . .’

  ‘I know what your mother would have said,’ Ben Mount chuckled, peering at her over both his half-moon glasses and the newspaper.

  Hester Mount chuckled grimly as well. ‘She’d have said they were a bunch of young upstarts. She never did like seeing a woman admit to having a brain in her skull.’ She bit with some spirit into a slice of toast.

  ‘What do you think, young Rose?’ Professor Mount asked amiably.

  Rose froze, in the middle of scooping out Mrs Mount’s egg so that she could eat it with her good hand.

  ‘Equal work for equal pay, eh? Does that seem fair to you? If you’re doing the same job, does it make a difference whether you’re a man or a woman? After all – supposing some young chap came in to work here and was doing all your work and was paid half as much again?’

  ‘Well –’ She straightened up, not in quite the panic she would once have been at being addressed like this. Over these years she had had all sorts of odd scraps of conversation thrown at her and had learned that she was allowed to think about it herself, not guess at some stock answer.

  The very idea of women and men being seen as equal – it made your head spin! But Mrs Mount was always on about those women asking for the vote, saying that if it wasn’t for her bad health she’d be marching with them. And putting it the way Professor Mount had just put it . . .

  ‘It doesn’t seem fair, does it?’ she said tentatively. ‘Not if you’re all doing the same thing.’

  ‘That it does not – well said!’ Professor Mount squeaked. ‘There we are, my dear – a young suffragette in the making.’

  She often ached to get out and do something else. Mrs Mount had suffered a stroke which left her numb on her left side and though able to stand, she found it very difficult to walk. Thankfully she was now able to speak well again. They spent virtually all their time there, sleeping and eating, since it was so hard for Mrs Mount to move anywhere. Professor Mount wheeled a commode in for her when necessary. It was Rose’s job to empty it. At first the heat and sickroom aromas of the Mounts’ back room had appalled her. But she had done such things for her mother when she was sick too. And she grew used to it.

  Rose was young and timid, and after all the sadness and upheaval of her family life at that time the last thing she wanted was more change. At least with the Mounts she had a secure roof over her head.

  But the main reason she stayed was that Professor and Mrs Mount were so very kind to her. Much as she longed for another life and people her own age, she became attached to them. They would have had a terrible job finding someone else.

  Benjamin Mount had been a Professor of Ancient History at the university and a keen amateur archaeologist. The place was full, upstairs and down, with dusty old leather-bound tomes – all of which it was part of Rose’s job to make less dusty. In his study were glass cabinets from which looked out carved figures – ‘All replicas, alas,’ Professor Mount told her, ‘but a comfort all the same.’ He talked a good deal about the Hellenistic Period and how without the Greeks ‘we shouldn’t have anything approaching a democracy – although of course what we have here is really an oligarchy . . .’

  When she looked blankly at him he would explain with sweet patience. ‘You see, a real democracy is a place where all the people have a say in decision making and are equal before the law. In fact, a government which is in place for the needs of its citizens. An oligarchy, however, is rule by an elite group – a privileged group. So wouldn’t you say that’s closer to our state now?’

  After a while she came to enjoy these conversations, the way he explained things she would never, ever have thought of. She did not realize it at the time, but she was learning to use her mind. To know that there could be more than the everyday scrubbing, the cycle of eating and washing and cleaning.

  And part of her job was to help Mrs Mount with her embroidery. She had been a very fine needlewoman and could still sew well, but without the full use of her left hand she needed someone to hold the embroidery frames still for her. And she would talk to Rose as well.

  The only time she saw other people, apart from delivery boys, was on her one afternoon off a week, when she would sometimes take the tram along the Moseley Road out to Bessie’s house. Bessie’s husband, who was in any case not young, had a reserved position in a factory that had gone over to making shells, so he did not go away to fight. As the war went on their family grew. Bessie was immersed in her children. Despite the shortages she had grown quite plump and by the end of the war she had four children: two boys and two girls. She was always glad of a helping hand, though Rose did not feel they were close.

  They heard nothing from Peter, not all the way through the war. And neither of them knew where little Maud was. After a time they stopped mentioning her.

  Life in the Mounts’ house kept Rose busy enough, but often, when she was alone, she sat on her bed, sadly wondering what would become of her life. Her room was on the second floor at the back,
overlooking the neglected jungle of the garden. The windows fought it out with a wisteria gone wild. Rose imagined that one night it would push through the pane and she would feel it wagging in her face.

  Something about the house, everything in it so old, decayed and neglected, made her feel old and sad before her time.

  When the war’s over, she thought, I’ll get out of here. Go and work in a factory – anything so long as it’s different.

  In 1916, Professor Mount took what for him seemed a revolutionary step. For once he raised his head, stepped outside his house and took a long look at the state of it.

  ‘Age and decay in all around I see,’ he pronounced. ‘Rot – that’s what we’re looking at, pure and simple.’ And decided to have the woodwork painted.

  Within days, a Mr Southgate arrived with ladders and brushes. He was a small, stocky, very dark man. Rose first saw him outside at the back, staring in dismay at the wisteria-choked house.

  With him was his assistant – his seventeen-year-old son, Harry.

  ‘Oi, come on, lad, get back to work – I need yer!’

  This cry went up from Mr Southgate increasingly often as the days went by. Young Harry took to hanging around the back door and Rose took to hanging around it too.

  That first morning, as they stood squinting up at the house, Rose spied on them through the tiny window of the pantry, standing on a stool. The boy she saw outside was a head taller than his father, and with the same solid build, broad shoulders and black hair. His face had a cheerful look and as he talked, creased in a jocular way.

  They started at the front, as if defeated by the state of the back.

  ‘Have you offered them a cup of tea?’ Mrs Plummer demanded as she shelled peas from wilting pods. She was a plain, down-to-earth woman with swollen ankles.

  ‘No. Should I? I dain’t know what was right.’

  ‘Well, it wouldn’t do any harm, would it?’ Mrs Plummer said. ‘If I was tackling this place I’d want more than tea, I can tell yer.’

  So Rose ventured outside. At the sound of the door opening, both men turned from scraping the hard remains of paint from the lower windows.

  ‘ ’Ello ’ello,’ the older Mr Southgate said. ‘Look what we ’ave ’ere.’

  Rose blushed, feeling them both staring at her. She never remembered that she was pretty since no one ever told her so. And now she had grown up, she had a well-proportioned, curving figure, kept lithe by domestic work. The younger of them had his eyes glued to her.

  ‘Mrs Plummer says to ask if you want a cup of tea?’

  The men looked at each other, seeming very pleased.

  ‘Ar – we would,’ the older Mr Southgate said. They were both still staring like mad. ‘You the maid then?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, and turning, fled back inside.

  ‘Will you take it out to them?’ she asked Mrs Plummer once the tea was brewed.

  ‘Me? I’ve got quite enough to do, thank you, miss. I’d’ve thought you could at least manage that.’

  Rose put the biggest cups and saucers on a tray and went outside. She didn’t know why she felt trembly all of a sudden, her heart pit-patting as hard as if she’d been shaking out the rugs.

  The men stopped work again at once and came over, both lighting up for a smoke.

  ‘What’s your name then?’ the younger one asked.

  Bending down to put the tray on the ground, she murmured, ‘Rose Spencer.’

  ‘This is Harry,’ the older man said. ‘My lad.’

  Rose passed them the tea. Harry was staring at her with naked interest.

  ‘What’s it like working ’ere?’ he asked.

  ‘All right,’ she said. She had barely spoken to any boy since Peter left home. It felt exciting.

  Harry looked up at the house and across at the neighbouring ones, and made a face. ‘Looks terrible,’ he said. ‘How long’ve you been ’ere then?’

  ‘Three years,’ Rose said.

  Harry jerked his head, to indicate inside. ‘They all right, are they?’ He seemed to find it hard to believe that she could be working in such a place.

  ‘Yes,’ she said simply, not knowing what else to say.

  ‘Nice tea,’ he said.

  ‘Always tastes better when it’s made by a pretty wench,’ Mr Southgate added.

  Rose blushed again. She was enjoying Harry’s obvious admiration but didn’t know what to do with it.

  ‘Mrs Plummer made it,’ she admitted.

  ‘Well, ta, anyway,’ Harry said with a cheeky grin, handing her the cup. As she took it from him, for a moment he pressed his fingers hard over hers so that she could not pull away, and looked laughingly into her eyes. Then he released her. ‘Best get on,’ he said.

  Soon, Harry was making excuses all the time to knock at the back door. Could he have some water, a rag, some tea, some soap? And Rose was always listening out, lurking in the pantry as if she was busy with something. When she saw him standing there in his paint-streaked clothes, his dark eyes searching her out, nearly always with a glint of laughter in them, she was filled with excitement. Harry was a jokey, cheerful lad and they developed a bantering sort of friendship.

  ‘That were a nice bit of cake you gave us yesterday,’ he might say. ‘Don’t s’pose there’s any more going?’

  ‘Huh – you’ve got a cheek,’ Rose would reply in an arch tone. ‘Coming round here, eating all our food. Mrs Plummer’ll be after me if I give it all to you!’

  ‘Oh, go on – you can spare it. I bet those old people eat like sparrows.’

  In fact, the Mounts had remarkably good appetites, considering Professor Mount only ventured out once a day for his ‘constitutional’, occasionally pushing Mrs Mount out for some air.

  ‘That doesn’t mean I can just give it to you.’

  ‘Oh, go on, Rosie – I’m a hungry man.’ And then one day he added, ‘And it’s my birthday today.’

  ‘You should’ve said!’ Rose exclaimed.

  ‘Why – would you’ve made me summat special?’

  ‘Maybe,’ she teased. ‘But we’ll never know now, will we?’

  Life felt so much better now it included these snatched conversations. She thought about Harry constantly. So much so that she hardly realized he had almost become the air she breathed. When they packed up to go home in the evening, it was as if the life had gone out of the place and she could barely wait until they came back the next morning. It was as if for the first time, in Harry Southgate’s admiring eyes, she had a mirror to see herself, and what she saw was someone pretty and worthwhile because he was obviously so taken with her.

  Bit by bit they told each other about their families. Harry’s mom and dad, from the sound of things, didn’t get on any too well. He had a brother and sister, both older.

  ‘My brother’s in France,’ he said. ‘We get a card from him now and again.’

  One day he said to her, ’Don’t you ever get any time off from this place? Would you walk out with me?’

  A couple of days later, Mr Southgate senior arrived at the house alone. He and Harry had been in the middle of disentangling the back wall from the stranglehold of the wisteria so that they could get at the window frames. Seeing him alone, Rose was very disappointed. No Harry today? Was he ill?

  She stood at the back door, so glum that Mr Southgate came over immediately.

  ‘I’m sorry, love.’ He looked more sombre than she had ever seen him. ‘Now he’s turned eighteen, he’s had his call-up papers. He’s had to go. He said to say goodbye and he’s very sorry he hasn’t come himself. I don’t think he could face it – ’e just wanted to get it over with.’

  Rose swallowed hard. ‘Oh.’ She could barely speak. ‘Will he be all right?’

  ‘I hope so, wench,’ Mr Southgate said. ‘That’s all I can say.’

  Fourteen

  ‘Lily, love – go and run that duster over the piano again, will you?’

  Rose, who was on tenterhooks waiting, watched from the doorway as
the little girl started earnestly on her task.

  One day her daughter would be able to play like a lady, Rose thought. Whatever Harry said. Once it was tuned to sound right. She had done her best to keep him sweet over the past couple of weeks. And he’d be out all day today. Spring was coming and a mild one at that. He had a job on out at Olton – a big house to paint, he’d said.

  A note had arrived yesterday from the piano works in Ombersley Road. The tuner would come at ten-thirty today.

  Rose glanced nervously round her little front parlour. Did it look tidy and respectable? They didn’t use the room much and everything was in place. Her heart was thudding with nerves.

  He was absolutely punctual. Just as the clock on the mantel in the parlour let out a soft ‘dong’ on the half-hour, there was a polite rap at the door.

  ‘Put the duster away!’ Rose hissed at Lily. She touched her hair to make sure nothing was hanging down, took a deep breath and went to the door.

  She had expected someone older, official looking, bossy. Nothing prepared her for the sight in front of her.

  The first thing she took in was his strange, fixed gaze, which seemed to be directed at her feet, or past them, or at nothing at all. Then she saw the white stick held in his right hand. Only then did she take in the young man himself, the brown trilby, the neat look of his brown coat and polished boots, the well-proportioned face.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said, shifting the stick into his left hand to lift his hat. Rose caught a glimpse of coppery blond curls. ‘You’re expecting me? My name is Arthur King. I’m here to tune your piano. I do have the right house?’

  ‘Oh, yes – you do,’ Rose said, flustered. Lily had come to peer out round her. She hoped the child wouldn’t say anything that would cause offence. ‘You’d better come in – please.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ the man said very politely. He was softly spoken. ‘But you may have to guide me, to begin with. I’ve got used to the streets, bit by bit, as much as one can, but in strange houses it can be difficult. I’m only quite recently without my sight, you see.’