The Women of Lilac Street

by Annie Murray

  ‘I said,’ Dolly poked her head out, bristling with defiance (she wasn’t grateful – not a bit!), ‘then at least I could do away with the thing. I know where to go. I’d go to Mrs Horn.’

  Mrs Horn, who had once been a nurse but was no longer, for some reason no one was ever sure of, lived in the next street and was well known to have an abortion business going on in her attic.

  Phyllis lunged towards Dolly, but the girl darted back into the corner.

  ‘You’ll do no such thing!’ Phyllis was fit to explode with rage. ‘You don’t know what you’re saying – don’t you ever go anywhere near the likes of Mrs Horn!’

  ‘What do you know about it?’ Dolly was muttering again.

  Oh, she knew. Phyllis sat on the narrow tram seat, still seething. She knew, all right. And what was more, to go to Mrs Horn meant that all the neighbourhood would know by sunset the next day.

  ‘You’d better damn well behave yourself,’ she’d cautioned Dolly, in such a forbidding tone that even Dolly looked cowed at last. ‘You keep up your end of the bargain, my girl – or you’re out. And out for good – d’you hear?’

  ‘Yes,’ Dolly fumed into the sink.

  The bargain was no one was to know – ever. So far Phyllis’s plan was working – but then Dolly wasn’t showing yet. They were putting it about that she had left service because her employer had died and the house was to be sold up. A perfectly respectable reason. The full challenge was yet to come and Phyllis was terrified that Dolly would ruin everything, blow her cover by sheer petulance, or clumsiness or spite. Phyllis lived in daily terror of it. But they were going to see this through. She’d make sure of it, with every fibre of her being. She wasn’t having that little strumpet put at risk everything she’d striven for.

  She worked her way through the Bull Ring, up to the bustling Market Hall. Whenever she went into the Market Hall, it filled Phyllis with memories of her children, and especially of the bleak, terrible months after her James was taken from them. The little ones didn’t want to be left when she went shopping and she would sometimes bring them as a treat on a Saturday, even if they had to walk all the way. Those days had been bitter hard and she was glad they were over, but she still treasured the memory of the sight of their little faces when they saw the pets in the Market Hall, the cats, rabbits and birds. She gave a half-smile, thinking of it. Even Charles, her solemn boy, had lit up at the sight of the rabbits’ wiffling noses. Phyllis sighed. God, she’d loved having her babies. She’d felt like a queen, with James so proud of her and she feeling she was Someone at last. She’d been a powerful, fertile woman and she’d gloried in it. She enjoyed her big, powerful body, developed a flamboyant dress sense. For the first time in her life she felt she was really living. Had he not died, they would have had more and more babies. She’d always wanted one at her side and one in her arms.

  But it was no good looking back. It never got you anywhere. Phyllis was good at closing her mind to things. She turned her thoughts to her shopping.

  After the long day’s trading there was a mush of trampled vegetable leaves and stalks underfoot all round the markets. The air was full of the smells of fish from the stalls with their shrimps and oysters and jellied eels, the delicious whiff of roasted beef from the eating houses as she emerged into Spiceal Street. She’d bought her fruit and veg, and a pat of butter from the man who lifted it with his wooden paddles and made a packet of it for her. Jamaica Row was the place for some real bargains, for cheap joints and bags of offal, chickens and cagmag – bags of cut-off bits for stewing.

  It was one of the busiest times for the market. Making her way down through the lively throng, she passed the statue of Nelson, the memorial round which was gathered a crowd so dense it made it hard to get past. Phyllis slowed, winding through it. Suddenly a long tongue of flame darted up at the sky and there was an ‘oooh!’ from everyone around. Phyllis paused at the edge of the crowd. She’d seen it all before; the man sold cough lozenges after his fire-eating display – ‘Lozenges to clear the throat!’ – but it was always a draw. It made her feel like a child again, the thrill of it. The nerve of the man – how did he do it!

  The crowd gathered round were a merry lot, some munching on hot chestnuts and potatoes in their jackets. The smell made saliva rise in her mouth. None of that, she told herself. No giving in to temptation: hold on to your pennies.

  As she eased through the crowd outside St Martin’s church, she felt someone elbow her in the ribs. As there were so many people crowding towards Jamaica Row, she thought nothing of this, until it happened again, and a voice, horribly close to her ear said, ‘’Ello, Het – well, well, after all this time! Fancy seeing you!’

  Phyllis thought her heart had stopped. The breath refused to go in and out of her lungs. Here was this voice from the days before she passed through and out the other side into a new life. Before James. She forced herself to turn to the person who had spoken to her, with a look of snooty contempt.

  ‘What’re you doing, elbowing me?’ she said in her most correct voice. ‘Who d’you think you are?’

  The woman, who was about the same age as her, had narrow eyes and a head of sickly coloured hair piled under a hat. She was leering at Phyllis with apparent relish and her gums showed several gaps between her top teeth. She let out a scornful laugh. Other people were jostling past them.

  ‘Don’t you give me that. I’d know you anywhere! You’re Hetty Barker. I’d stake my life on it, even if you are trying to sound like you ain’t common as muck any more. Come on, Het, you remember your old sparring partner – it’s me, Ethel.’

  Oh, God, yes, she remembered, all right. Ethel Sharp. The sly, slitty eyes, the way Ethel would do anything to get her way, to survive.

  ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,’ Phyllis said, turning away. Her heart was now pounding alarmingly. ‘I’ve never heard of a Hetty whatever-it-was. You’ve got yourself confused. Now let me get along . . .’

  ‘Oh, come on, Het – with that conk of yours – it’s no good thinking you can pretend, not to me. I know you . . .’ The woman had hold of her arm and while Phyllis was trying to get along, to escape her, she was clinging on like a parasite.

  ‘You look as if you’ve gone up in the world, Het,’ she said in a whiny voice. ‘Not the girl you were in Spon End now, are yer? Where’re you living these days then? You can tell yer old friend Ethel all about it.’

  ‘Let go of my arm!’ Phyllis stopped abruptly and spoke in what she hoped was a commanding voice. ‘I don’t know who you are and I don’t want to! Get away from me, woman, and leave me alone!’

  ‘You having trouble?’ A muscular man in a cap came up close, hearing Phyllis’s voice, and looked from one to the other of them.

  ‘This woman won’t leave me alone,’ Phyllis complained.

  ‘I wasn’t doing any harm,’ Ethel whined. ‘She knows me – she’s just saying she don’t.’ But she released Phyllis’s arm and Phyllis moved swiftly on while the man barred Ethel’s way.

  ‘I know you, Hetty!’ Ethel roared after her. ‘I’ll find you out – you’ll be seeing me again!’

  Panting, full of a sense of horror, Phyllis ducked round the church and hurried towards Digbeth. Sod the meat. All she wanted was to get as far away from there as she could. She kept looking behind her, certain Ethel would be chasing after her. She even dived down a side street off Digbeth and waited at the mouth of an entry between the dark houses for a few minutes, to make sure she had thrown her off. Her heart was hammering.

  On the tram, clutching her bags, she found she was trembling all over. Seeing Ethel Sharp was like waking the dead. The dead of a past she had done everything in her power to rise above and forget.

  Eighteen

  Phyllis was born in 1884, named Hetty Barker, the sixth child of Fred and Eileen Barker.

  They lived in Spon End, Coventry, in a street comprised of scruffy, cramped courts and run-down terraces. The Barkers lived in a front house, facing the street
. Except on the warmest days of summer, the walls inside were wet to the touch and sprouted black and green mould. Although there was a small attic they couldn’t use it because Fred Barker had torn up all the floorboards for firewood.

  Fred was a violent drunk and a loud one. Many nights they would hear him approaching along the street, falling about on the cobbles, yelling, and Eileen would say, ‘Oh, Lor’ – ’ere ’e comes.’ Those words seemed mild compared with the fear and dread in her eyes. If the young ones were not already upstairs, the whole host of them crammed together on the floor in the bigger of the two rooms, they would scatter immediately. Upstairs they did anything they could not to hear the shouting, the cries of pain, things being thrown – not that there was much to throw. It was usually the poker or the coal bucket. Fred would be too hungry to throw his dinner. Hetty’s elder sister Nancy would sing to them all – hymns, as they were the only songs she knew. They went to every church or Sunday school they could where they might get something to eat. The Methodists were good. They had biscuits and sometimes offered bread and butter. Happy the Souls to Jesus joined . . .

  Mom was a pale, emaciated woman, always worn out. Hetty didn’t remember her being any other way, nor did she know what colour her mother’s hair had been because in her own lifetime it had always been a sludgy grey. Eileen’s clothes hung on her as if she was a wooden frame, there was so little flesh on her bones, and she had lost all her teeth, through childbirth and having them knocked out of her head. She had no false ones and could not chew meat. On the rare occasions when they had any, she would ask the children to chew it for her. She fainted often. Her movements were slow, without vitality. Sometimes there was food, sometimes not. Sometimes Fred worked as a labourer when he could stay sober long enough.

  Eileen had grown up in an orphanage, shackled herself to the first man who came along, when she was sixteen, and had one baby after another. By the time Hetty was eight, there were eleven of them, eight boys and three girls. No distinction was ever made between them – they were all thrown in together and wore whatever came to hand if anything did.

  So far as possible, their father was someone to be avoided. The children soon learned. He was a short, thickset man with black hair. Hetty looked very like him. Most of the time he was at home he was the worse for drink and in that state he drove his fists into anything that got in the way. Sometimes even Eileen hid in the coal hole with the children, or upstairs, leaving him food if there was any, in the hope that he would eat it and fall asleep. Often it worked. Fred would come in, yell the house down and then if they were lucky, there would be other noises – the chair, the only chair (the other had gone the same way as the floorboards) scraping the boards, then quiet. Sometimes he made it upstairs to sleep, other times they would all creep past him laid out on the floor by the last burning shreds of fire, mouth open, snoring.

  Between Nancy and Hetty there were four boys. Nancy was the only one who ever looked after Hetty and the sisters really only felt they had each other. Hetty did her best to look out for the younger ones, but Mom was wrung out, outnumbered and sick. She was not cruel – had not enough energy to be so. For her father Hetty had not a grain of pity or fellow feeling. Never once in her life at home did they speak kind or reasonable words to each other. From a young age she felt superior to both her parents. Nancy was more of an adult than either of them ever were.

  Why doesn’t she kill him? Hetty used to think, on nights when he came raving home and Mom was cowering, waiting. There was the poker – why not just get rid of him? Her dark thoughts never shocked her. It just seemed a practical solution, like ridding the house of rats.

  Nancy was five years older and had long, pale brown hair. Hetty thought that was how Mom must have looked once. On the bare boards of the room where they slept – there were no bedsteads in the house and only one thin mattress on which their parents slept – Hetty would always sleep beside Nancy and her older sister often wrapped an arm round her and they fitted their bodies together under the rags of bedding to keep warm. Sometimes they whispered together at night. Nancy would tell Hetty stories, or they would make up fantasies about the food they’d like to eat as they usually went to bed hungry. Once, Hetty remembered, there was some sugar in the house. Nancy crept down and came back with her fingers damp and coated with sugar. She let Hetty lick off some of the rough sweet grains.

  All the Barker children learned young how to obtain food any way they could. They would hang round the market in Coventry picking up anything that fell, however bruised. They would swipe things from stalls when the stallholder’s back was turned, ready to run for their lives with an apple or a fat, sweet carrot. Hetty once managed to steal a whole loaf from one of the baker’s shops without them seeing. She tore home with it, convinced the police would be on her tail. When no one seemed to be after her she stopped, her chest heaving, and tore a lump off the end. The crusty, stretchy dough was the best thing she had ever tasted. She took the rest home and shared it with the others.

  ‘Better not do it again, Het,’ Nancy warned. ‘You don’t want to go to prison.’

  But some days they would do anything for food. They picked sprigs of lavender and tried to sell them. They begged and wheedled. They tried to get work. Nancy left school and worked packing ball bearings. At least as the older ones grew up there was a bit more money coming in.

  Everyone in their street was poor, but the Barkers were the family everyone looked down on. Hetty burned with rage. The cold she could stand, she could tolerate being hungry, ill-clothed and shod, often not shod at all. But the contempt of the other children cut deep.

  ‘Your dad’s no good – my dad says ’e’s a waster . . . Your dad fell over outside our ’ouse last night . . .’ And on more than one occasion, ‘Your old man tried to come into our ’ouse last night!’ And cruel, humiliating laughter.

  One day, Hetty thought, seething with determination, I’m gonna be better than you . . . You just wait and see . . . Better than the whole lot of yer . . .

  It was a November evening in 1897, a Saturday, the year she turned thirteen. There weren’t so many of them at home now. Some of the older ones had gone off – they never said where – and Nancy, who was eighteen, was going steady, planning to get married as soon as she could. Hetty couldn’t stand the thought of being there without Nancy.

  ‘Can I come with yer – when you get wed?’ she begged.

  ‘Oh, I dunno, Het,’ Nancy said. ‘I dunno how it’s gonna be. There’s Wilf and all ’is brothers on the farm – I can’t just take you with me . . .’ But she felt guilty going off and leaving, Hetty could see.

  That evening, Hetty and her brothers were at the market. She loved it, the Saturday night bustle, with everything being sold off. She liked the business, the women in their bonnets, the bright colours and the noise. When all the crowds were there was often a good time. Things got dropped. If you kept a sharp eye out you could chase a fallen plum or hot chestnut, an apple or potato rolling under a stall, and be away with it before anyone noticed. She didn’t want to be hanging around for long. She had nothing on her feet. It wasn’t as cold as it might be yet, but cold enough. She could move fast as a mouse when she had to. She was all bones, her eyes big in her head.

  Her gang of brothers had gone off somewhere. Hetty was sloping past a stall with oranges on it, their happy, exotic colour glowing in the light of the evening flares. She was so busy eyeing the fruit, praying that someone would drop or discard something, that she didn’t notice the man standing to one side, a little way from the stalls, looking at her. He moved closer.

  ‘How would you like one of those, little miss?’

  Hetty jumped, as if she had been caught doing something wrong. She saw a man with a cheerful pink face, mutton chop whispers and a black trilby hat. He seemed large, a fulsome tummy pushing out his thick tweed coat.

  ‘It’s all right – there’s no need to be scared,’ he said. He had an awkward way of speaking. ‘Look – I’ll buy a bag of orang
es and you can have some too. How’s that?’

  Hetty nodded, never one to turn down an offer of food.

  The man purchased the fruit and then turned to her again. His expression had altered. He was more solemn now and seemed to be thinking hard about something. Hetty thought he had probably changed his mind about the oranges and she felt angry as her mouth had started to water in anticipation.

  ‘Tell you what,’ he spoke more brusquely. ‘Come over here . . .’

  He led her to a quiet spot, then bent down, looking around him. He reached into the bag and pulled out an orange, offering it to her. Hetty went to grab it and run away, but he held on tightly and pulled her closer to him.

  ‘You look like a nice, handy wench. How would you like to come and work for me?’

  Nineteen

  His name was Josiah Gordon. He worked for the bank and lived with his mother in a tall, thin house full of stairs and narrow corridors in Fleet Street, Coventry. He wanted a maid. He also wanted the body of a young girl.

  Hetty never went home again. Later, when Ethel or anyone else asked where she’d come from, she’d say, ‘I dunno. Can’t remember.’

  And the truth was, she couldn’t. She could barely read and did not know the name of the street where her mother and father lived, although on days when she went to the market, she could have found her way there, but could state no address. At first she missed her brothers and sisters, especially Nancy. She went back once or twice, but although her younger brothers and sisters were pleased to see her for a short time, they didn’t take much notice, and her mother wasn’t any better. When she said she had gone into service, Eileen Barker said, ‘Well, you won’t need to stop ’ere now then, will yer?’ She was one less mouth to feed.

  Every so often she saw Nancy at the market. Nancy was affectionate, but she was on her way out too, getting married and moving further away. She told Hetty where she was going, to the farm out near Brandon, and said to come and see her, but it seemed like another world to Hetty. She told Nancy her employer’s name but she didn’t know his address either. So a new life began.