The Telephone Girls

by Jenny Holmes

  ‘Give me your answer do’.

  The sounds of the song echoed down the tunnel that took them under Bridge Street and they were still whistling and singing when they emerged on the far side.

  ‘I’m half crazy, all for the love of you,’ she trilled.

  Douglas whistled and smiled to himself. Life was champion, here under a blue sky, heading out beyond the grime. He cycled on, feeling that he could do anything as long as Norma was riding pillion – he could reach sergeant by the time he was thirty in five years’ time and he and his sweetheart would be married and living together in a house on Chapel Street or maybe Ada Street if they could afford the rent there, with a lovely little family of a girl and a boy thriving and about to start at Lowtown Junior School.

  Norma’s skirt lifted in the breeze and she had to hold it down with one hand. ‘It won’t be a stylish marriage,’ she sang and hummed along. ‘Tra-la, tra-la, tra-la-la.’

  ‘But you’ll look sweet,’ he joined in as they bumped over potholes and rode steadily on. ‘Upon the seat …’

  ‘Of a bicycle made for two!’

  Arriving home from work after a long wait for a bus and a detour up Albion Lane to buy a loaf of bread, Millicent stooped to pick up a letter from the doormat. Recognizing Harold’s neat handwriting, she opened it quickly and with an uneasy sense that all was not well. Harold never wrote to her unless it was bad news, and sure enough her heart sank as she read through the short contents to discover that he would be tied up this weekend – Friday at a pal’s birthday party in the working men’s club, Saturday at a darts match at the King’s Head. ‘Tied up!’ she said in disgust, tearing the letter in two. She felt like marching round to his precious mill manager’s house and knocking on his smartly painted door, just to enjoy the look of shock on his face.

  Instead, she threw the letter in the wastepaper bin then made herself a tea of cheese on toast, washed down with a strong, hot brew. He might at least have the good grace to say sorry, she thought. It wasn’t like this at the beginning. Once upon a time he swore I meant the world to him. Now he just keeps me dangling on the end of a string. But what’s to stop me putting on my glad rags and going out by myself for a change? Or nipping down to the Green Cross with Norma after Health and Beauty if she’s free?

  Such questions circled in her brain all that evening, even though she busied herself by ironing then hanging up a fresh set of net curtains. Still, she thought of Harold ensconced with his wife and kids – Doris doling out the fish pie for supper and the two boys, Freddie and Derek, who sat at the well-laid table with their spotty chickenpox faces; Harold with sleeves rolled up, looking gaunt and brooding about the latest lay-offs at Oldroyd’s and reaching for his umpteenth cigarette of the day.

  Why? she asked herself as she made her way upstairs to bed. Why do we carry on this way – me at home on my ownio, him grinding on in a loveless marriage? Or at least, that’s what Harold was fond of telling her. Life at home was hollow – there was no affection between man and wife any more, only the shell of respectability and a sense of duty.

  Millicent took off her clothes and put on her nightdress, caught sight of her reflection in the dressing-table mirror and for a second didn’t recognize herself. The face staring back at her was sad beyond words – the full mouth turned down at the corners, the eyes dull and shadowed.

  What am I doing? she asked herself.

  Living in a fool’s paradise. The answer flew at her with the force of a sharp stone hitting her forehead. Kidding yourself that the man you love will one day have the courage to leave his wife and family. Telling yourself that his feelings for you are as strong as yours for him. They’re not, you know. Otherwise he’d have given up his old life to be with you a long time ago.

  Dazed, Millicent took up a brush and ran it through her thick hair. She delayed turning out the light and getting into bed because she knew the darkness would crowd in and turn her in on herself. There would be more questions she couldn’t answer, more home truths that were too much for her to face.

  So instead she read the latest Mills & Boon romance and tried to lose herself in that. The gaslight on the wall flickered on well past midnight, long after Chalky White had returned to the yard after locking up the doors at the Green Cross and Walter Blackburn had fallen asleep in his fireside rocking chair.

  Cynthia’s new job at the telephone exchange meant that she had to plan her domestic duties well ahead of time. Arriving home at six o’clock, she lit the gas oven and heated up a Lancashire hotpot that she’d prepared the night before. While her uncle ate, she checked the larder and made a list of the groceries she would need to buy the next day. There was plenty of oatmeal for his porridge and the milkman would deliver more milk first thing. But they were short of eggs and sugar, and the loaf of bread was almost finished.

  ‘Well?’ William demanded as she took away his plate and offered him rice pudding. ‘Have they given you the sack yet?’

  Cynthia shook her head. She ought to be used to his humourless teasing, but still the mockery found its target and she struggled to change the subject. ‘The other girls were a big help – Millicent Jones and Norma Haig especially. Oh, and I saw Bert working in the barber’s. It’s just up the road from the exchange.’

  ‘Well then, you can pop in there tomorrow and ask him to pay me a visit. Tell him Wednesday teatime, six o’clock sharp.’

  ‘I will, Uncle.’

  ‘It’s to talk to him about collecting the rents, so I want you to be here as well.’

  Anxious to go up to her room to study for her RRQ test, Cynthia rushed the washing-up and knocked the handle off a teacup – a crime which her uncle would take at least a week to forget. Then he chided her about a small stain on the best linen tablecloth. It was half-past seven before she could finally settle down to her homework, aware that at any time he could call up the stairs for her to fill his hot-water bottle even though the nights were growing warmer, or to stand on a stool to lift the tin of biscuits down from the high shelf in the pantry where he kept them out of temptation’s way. ‘Two rich tea biscuits with a nice cuppa to round off the day,’ he would say, regular as clockwork. ‘Where’s the harm in that?’

  Determined to impress Ruth Ridley, Cynthia carried on with her studying until her eyelids drooped. She imprinted list after list on her memory, closing her eyes to repeat them to herself, pacing the floor until her uncle knocked on his bedroom ceiling with his stout walking stick.

  ‘Stop that racket!’ he yelled up at her.

  So she undressed and crept into bed, still rehearsing facts and figures. Her dress for tomorrow was hanging from the door – a striped green and white one that she’d updated with a floppy silk bow at the collar. She would team it with a darker green, hand-knitted bolero top, and though she wouldn’t look anywhere near as smart and sophisticated as the others, it would have to do. Rain was forecast so she would be forced to wear her dowdy old mac, but she would whip it off as soon as she got through the revolving doors. She resolved to put part of her first week’s wages to one side in order to save up for some summer shoes. And the beret had to go. Better be bare headed than carry on wearing that old thing. Millicent and Norma would never be seen dead in it, and goodness only knew what Brenda and Molly would think.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  At the end of her first week working as a telephone girl at the George Street exchange, Cynthia went along with Norma and Millicent to their keep-fit class as planned.

  ‘I only wish it wasn’t so far out of town,’ Norma complained as the three young women waited for the bus that would take them up to Overcliffe Common and from there to the edge of town where the Edwardian Assembly Rooms overlooked the wide moors and the distant, craggy horizon.

  ‘At least it’s in the right direction for you, Cynthia.’ Millicent knew she had to cajole and encourage their new young friend, who had survived her first few days by the skin of her teeth, no thanks to Ruth’s sharp tongue and piercing eye. ‘You can pick up the
number 65 again outside the Assembly Rooms and go straight from there back to Hadley.’

  Norma too sensed Cynthia’s reluctance and did her best to include her in the conversation. ‘You did tell your uncle that you’d be late home?’

  Cynthia nodded and waited anxiously. As if learning the ropes of a new job hadn’t been bad enough, here she was, putting herself through fresh torment by ‘prancing about in your underwear’, as William had put it when he’d learned where she wanted to go.

  ‘League of Health and what?’ he’d quizzed on the Wednesday evening, with Bert sitting at their dining-room table, laughing out loud.

  Bert had come to Moor View, as arranged, to pick up the rent book and satchel and to hear from Cynthia the best order for collecting the rents.

  ‘Beauty,’ she’d repeated for her uncle’s benefit through gritted teeth.

  ‘Oh, blimey!’ Bert’s laughter had developed into side-splitting guffaws. ‘Is that the silly business where you strip down to your vest and knickers?’

  ‘What if it is?’ she’d said stiffly.

  ‘And they play music and you canter around the room like circus ponies?’

  ‘That’s the one,’ Cynthia had replied, scarcely able to refrain from giving Bert’s cheek a hard slap. Just to look at her cousin made her mad – he was so cocksure, grinning and bursting out of his old schoolboy jacket, his tow-coloured hair slicked down with brilliantine. ‘If you must know, it’s called callisthenics. Why – would you like to join us?’

  ‘Me? Not on your nelly. Anyway, it’s only for women.’

  ‘That’s right.’ Cynthia had fixed him with an angry stare. ‘You’d fit right in.’

  Bert had risen to the clumsy insult, saying she of all people was wasting her time in the pursuit of beauty, or words to that effect.

  Cynthia couldn’t remember precisely how the row had developed, only that their uncle had stepped in and said she could go to the class, if only to avoid Bert and Cynthia running into each other again when Bert brought the rent money back.

  But now she seriously regretted agreeing to come. She wasn’t the ‘prancing around’ sort, for a start. And she wasn’t very good at joining groups – at the age of seven, for instance, she’d left the Brownies after only a few weeks, without a single badge to her name.

  ‘I don’t like going,’ she’d told her mother quietly after the fourth or fifth week of holding hands to form a circle then dancing around the toadstool, promising to do her duty and learning to tie knots with trembling, nervous fingers.

  Relieved to not have the expense of buying the uniform, her mother hadn’t insisted and Cynthia had stayed at home on Tuesdays from then on.

  ‘Cheer up, Cynthia – this isn’t a visit to the dentist’s. It’s meant to be fun.’ Millicent bundled her on to the bus without giving her the chance to back out.

  It was jam-packed with mechanics and mill workers, seamstresses and shop girls returning from work, so Cynthia stood in the aisle squashed between Millicent and Norma as it chugged along.

  ‘By the way, just in case I miss Bert later on, here’s my week’s rent money.’ Millicent slipped some silver coins and coppers into Cynthia’s mac pocket. ‘That’ll help swell the old man’s coffers to bursting point.’ Then she turned to Norma. ‘Are you and Douglas going out later?’

  ‘Yes, to the flicks, all being well. What about you and Harold?’

  ‘Don’t ask.’ Millicent pulled a face. She paid her fare and allowed the conductor to squeeze by. ‘Harold’s not in my good books, if you must know.’

  As the bus swayed and rattled on up the hill, Norma veered away from the touchy subject. ‘What about you, Cynthia? Do you have a nice young man to walk out with?’

  ‘Not at the moment.’ Not ever, in fact. Cynthia hid another of the reasons why she felt gauche and naive next to everyone else at the exchange. All the girls there had so much more experience of the world than her. It went along with their fashionable clothes and hairstyles and brought with it a confidence that she sorely lacked.

  The conductor – a fair-haired chap in his early twenties – picked up the gist of their conversation. ‘This must be my lucky night,’ he quipped as he took Cynthia’s fare. ‘I finish my shift in half an hour. What do you say to you and me meeting up outside the Victory?’

  ‘And you a man engaged to be married, Wilf Evans!’ Pretending to be shocked, Millicent gave Norma and Cynthia an exaggerated wink.

  ‘Spoilsport.’ The conductor laughed and handed Cynthia her ticket. ‘I hope you get wet,’ he kidded as rainclouds descended from the moor top.

  ‘Come on, this is our stop.’ All too soon for Cynthia’s liking, Norma alighted from the bus.

  Heads down against the wind, the three women felt the first drops of rain as they ran for the entrance to the Assembly Rooms and made for the cloakroom where they changed into their keep-fit uniforms alongside six or seven other late arrivals, including Clare Bell.

  ‘Here you are, Cynthia.’ Millicent dug deep into her bag to pull out a neatly folded white satin top and some black knickers. ‘Lucky for you I have a spare set.’ She turned to the new receptionist at Sylvia’s Salon. ‘Clare, meet Cynthia. Cynthia – Clare. This is only Clare’s third time so you two can learn the routines together if you like.’

  Daunted by the creamy, smooth-skinned vision of loveliness, Cynthia smiled shyly at Clare then the four of them dashed into the hall, catching Ruth’s eye as they entered. Music blared from a phonograph positioned at the edge of the stage, competing with the chatter of the large group of women gathered for their weekly session.

  Looking at her watch and seeing that it was time to begin, Ruth lifted the needle from the spinning record and clapped her hands. ‘Take your positions. Beginners, stay at the back for our warm-up. No more talking, Millicent. Pay attention, everyone, please.’

  Cynthia glanced at Clare, who shot her an anxious look. Ignored by the other women, they rallied and did their best to mirror Ruth’s twists and bends and to keep time to the music that had begun again – a jaunty brass band tune with a military air that got them all stepping and kicking in unison as they kept to their rows and began their routine.

  Thank heavens I can hide at the back with Clare, was Cynthia’s main thought, surrounded as they were by pale, bare limbs, twisting torsos and faces full of concentration. But it turned out that she had a good sense of rhythm and could quickly pick up the steps so she soon relaxed and began to take in her surroundings. She glanced up at the high, beamed ceiling and at the heavy crimson curtains then down at the polished wooden floor marked out with white lines for games of badminton. She noticed that Clare also seemed to have found her feet and was swinging her arms with gusto. Here they were, beginners together, fitting in well and starting to enjoy themselves until the music ended and Ruth found fault with everyone’s timing and execution.

  ‘Knees higher,’ she instructed. ‘Everyone, point your toes. Cynthia at the back – swing those arms as if you mean it. Clare – chest out, shoulders back. Once more – from the beginning.’

  As Ruth set the needle down on the record a second time, Cynthia tugged at the hem of her satin top then adjusted the skimpy bloomers that Millicent had lent her.

  ‘It’s all right – you’re decent,’ Clare assured her – the first words she’d spoken since Millicent had introduced them.

  ‘Ta.’ Cynthia nodded back at her.

  It was all there was time for before they launched into a repeat of the marching routine but Cynthia was grateful. She wondered why she hadn’t run into Clare before now, or at least got wind of her reputation as an outstanding beauty. Looks like that got you noticed then whisked away to places like London or Paris to become a fashion model or even to Hollywood and a starring role on the silver screen. Cynthia resolved to find out more from Millicent and Norma soon.

  ‘Not good enough! Again, please … Dorothy, you’re out of step … Clare, those toes are not pointed. Your feet are like fillets of haddock on a fish
monger’s slab.’

  Commands and insults poured from Ruth’s lips until the session ended and the class was dismissed.

  ‘That’s it!’ Clare declared from the safety of the changing rooms, where she sank on to a bench and half disappeared under her lilac-coloured dress hanging from its hook. ‘You won’t see me here again, not for all the tea in China.’

  ‘Ruth does seem to have it in for you,’ Norma acknowledged, while Millicent as usual advised her to let it wash over her.

  ‘Here’s my opinion, for what it’s worth,’ she went on. ‘Ruth Ridley wasn’t always an old sourpuss. From what I hear, she once had a husband – not here, but in a town over Manchester way. The marriage didn’t last. The story goes that Ruth’s old man went off with a girl who was no better than she should have been, if you know what I mean. He was never heard of again.’

  ‘But why does that make Ruth pick on poor Clare especially?’ Norma wanted to know.

  ‘Here’s what I think …’ Millicent’s air of intrigue drew curious looks from half a dozen women who were getting changed nearby. ‘Just suppose that Clare Bell happens to remind Ruth of the girl who stole her husband’s heart – the same milky-white skin, those dark eyes, a figure that most women would die for.’

  ‘Never!’ commented one of the women. ‘There can’t be two like Clare in the whole of England. Just look at her.’

  ‘I know – lucky her,’ another remarked.

  ‘I am here, you know,’ Clare reminded them as she stood up with a resigned air and took her dress from the hook.

  ‘Oh, but we are all green with envy, aren’t we, girls?’ Millicent declared. ‘And the thing about you, Clare, is that you go around in a little world of your own, not knowing or caring about the effect you have.’

  ‘I don’t mean to.’ Clare’s humble remark was genuine. In fact, she saw herself as the opposite of lucky, having been driven from home at the age of fifteen by a tyrannical father and a mother too sickly to stand up for her or her two younger brothers.