Family of Women

by Annie Murray

  That evening Bessie was snapping at them all, trying to feed the wretched baby and get the tea cooked. She stood by the stove in her huge flowery apron and the house stank of boiling fish. She’d obviously forgotten completely about the reports. Violet went over to the mantel and stared at them, hoping her mom would notice.

  ‘Get to the table,’ Bessie ordered.

  ‘There’s our reports – from school,’ Violet said, perched on her rickety stool. ‘You gunna read them?’

  Bessie’s face darkened. She gave a big, impatient sigh.

  ‘Best get it over with, then.’

  Violet scrambled eagerly to get them, heart thudding as her mother tore open Charlie’s and looked at it. Bessie ran her eyes swiftly down the rows of brief comments from his teachers.

  ‘Ah well, son.’ She looked across at him. ‘Not long now and you’ll be out of there.’

  Charlie and Marigold would be fourteen in October and then he’d be out to work. For Bessie it couldn’t come soon enough. She had a shuddering dislike of schools and everything about them.

  She picked up Violet’s report and ripped it open so carelessly that she tore the paper inside. Violet sat, not eating, forgetting to breathe. What did it say?

  Bessie eyed it in the same offhand manner as before, then moved on to Rosina’s. Soon she dropped all the papers on the floor by her chair.

  ‘Well, that’s that. Get on with your tea. It’ll be cold else.’

  Violet shrank inside. She didn’t want to eat smelly boiled fish. She felt sick and crushed. Course, Mom never took any notice of anything to do with school. She just thought this time she might have done well and Mom might say something. Her eyes filled with tears.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ Charlie said.

  ‘Nothing,’ she whispered, and tried to swallow down the fish.

  When they’d finished eating, Bessie got up and brewed a pot of tea. She plonked the bottle of sterilized milk on the table.

  Violet still couldn’t contain herself. She could sneak a look at the reports herself, of course, but if there was something special from Miss Green in there, she wanted to hear it, like an announcement. Wanted the others to hear it.

  ‘Uncle Clarence – ’ she whispered. ‘Will you read my report?’

  Clarence was sitting back, comfortable after his tea, and struggling to light his pipe.

  ‘All right – pass ’em over,’ he said indifferently. Clarence wasn’t interested in anything that didn’t centre on himself. Apart from two years in France in the Great War, he’d been looked after by Bessie all his life, and that suited him very well.

  Violet’s was on top. Clarence read, in his toneless voice, the remarks about her reading and sewing. They were ordinary enough. Violet’s pulse quickened. Now he was coming to Miss Green.

  ‘“Violet is very strong in arithmetic and geometry,” ’ he read. Violet sat drinking in every word. ‘ “It would be a waste if she did not go on to greater things.” ’

  The sweet honey words had not had a chance to seep into her when her mother gave a great mocking guffaw.

  ‘Who the hell wrote that load of flannel?’ She continued to laugh, shaking her head, her belly quivering. ‘What “greater things” is she on about, d’you think? Tea at Buckingham Palace? God, they live in another world, these people. What bloody good does she think geometry – ’ she put on a mock-teacher voice, ‘is going to be when there’s a babby in her belly and no food in the pantry, eh?’

  She sat shaking her head. Violet didn’t hear any more of her report. She tried to hold on to Miss Green’s words. Very strong! Greater things! But every last spark of her brief glow of pride was snuffed out by her mother’s scorn.

  Chapter Four

  1929

  Two years later the gates of school closed behind Violet for the last time.

  Miss Green had long left, with her words of encouragement. Violet tried to forget her excitement over that one school report. That little opening, those thin threads of light from a dream world not her own, was long in the past now. When she received her character from school, for arithmetic it just said, ‘Good.’ So, good enough, but nothing special. And now it was time to start looking for work, on a rainy April morning, two days after her fourteenth birthday.

  ‘Marigold – look after the babbies.’

  Bessie was putting her hat and coat on. Violet stared at her, a terrible realization beginning to dawn.

  ‘Where’re you going, Mom?’ she asked, dreading the answer.

  ‘You needn’t think I’m letting you loose looking for a job by yourself,’ Bessie said, doing up her buttons. ‘You’ll say yes to anything for slave wages – or you’ll end up in service, skivvying for a pittance. I’m not having that. Come on – set your hat straight, wench. No good going out like a bag of muck tied up in the middle.’

  There was no point in arguing. They stepped out into the Aston drizzle. Bessie cut a forbidding, matriarchal figure, striding out of the yard in her black winter coat which only just fastened round her. She always wore her hair, raven black like Marigold’s, in two plaits coiled round her head, and over these she pulled a black hat with a narrow brim which curved upwards.

  ‘Morning, Mrs Wiles!’

  ‘Awright Mrs Wiles – off up the shops?’

  ‘No – I’m going to find our Violet a job.’

  These greetings were repeated several times, all with deference, a few with cringing timidity. Bessie, as the gaffer of the yard, was often consulted about quarrels which broke out with so many people living cheek by jowl under the stresses of poverty; she held the ‘didlum’ money, the savings people put in week after week to save for Christmas or to have some money put aside for an emergency, like paying the doctor. She was respected, for her dominant toughness as much as her immense capacity for taking things on.

  Walking beside her, Violet felt any vigour of her own draining away. Her mother had this effect on her. Bessie’s energy seemed to flatten her, like a steamroller. Bessie lived in constant terror of the poverty of her childhood and fought it even when there was no need. She never went out without a chunk of bread pushed into her pocket.

  ‘You never know when lightning’s going to strike,’ she always said.

  Violet trailed along after her. Her coat sleeves were too short and one of the blue buttons was missing. Although she had tied her hair back and tried to look neat and tidy, she felt scruffy and awkward and childish. All she wanted was a decent little job she could just slip into, with a few friendly faces around her. If only Mom could let her go out and do it for herself!

  They walked a way along Summer Lane. It was a notorious area, famous for its poverty and gangs of violent lads. Violet looked round. She was never out at night to see what went on. Everything looked normal enough now. She could just hear sawing from one of the mills round the back. The streets were busy with people, women with small children out on their way to the shops, drays from the brewery and the Co-op, one of the horses lifting its tail to deposit dollops of manure along the street. It had barely finished when a tiny lad, no more than four years old, was in the road scooping it into a pail. Its sale to anyone who wanted fertilizer brought in handy extra pennies. Another cart passed loaded with blocks of salt, its driver yelling his way along the street.

  ‘Right.’ Bessie paused suddenly, and from the house they were standing beside a cloud of dust and dirt was flicked all over them by a broom. ‘ ’Ere!’ she shouted, brushing down her coat. ‘Watch where you’re throwing yer muck and mess!’

  ‘Well how was I to know you was standing out there?’ came a voice from inside. ‘I’m not a bleedin’ mind-reader you know. Why don’t yer just bugger off and stand somewhere else if you’ve nowt to do?’

  Bessie stalked away huffily. She was out of her own little orbit and people weren’t showing her the same respect.

  ‘Down here.’ Bessie led her along several streets, all tightly packed with yards of houses leading off entries and front houses with thei
r doors flung open to let some air in and, squeezed between them all, factories and workshops. At the end of one street they came to a bigger works. ‘Steel Castings’, it said across the front.

  Without a word to Violet, Bessie went to the door and knocked. After a wait, a swarthy man with a moustache came to the door. Violet felt herself shrink inside. She didn’t like the look of the place or the man’s grim expression.

  ‘What d’you want?’ he demanded.

  ‘I want a position for my daughter. You got any vacancies?’

  Violet was very embarrassed by the aggressive tone in her mother’s voice, and she had an almost physical sensation of the man running his eyes over her from top to toe. To her great relief he said, ‘Skinny little mare like that ain’t no good to us.’ And shut the door.

  ‘Huh,’ Bessie said. ‘Well, bugger him.’

  Oh Lor’, Violet thought, full of dread, what if she ends up shooting her mouth off? Bessie had a terrible temper on her when she got going. Mind I don’t lose my temper, was one of her warnings.

  In the next street, though, they came to a factory called Vicars which made brass hinges, and this time, while Violet prepared herself for being called a skinny mare again or something worse, in fact the middle-aged man who opened up to them looked kinder. He was certainly more polite.

  ‘Er’s got a good character,’ Bessie said, thrusting the School Leaving Certificate at the man, which said that Violet was reliable and capable of hard work.

  The man stroked his face as if he had a beard, although he didn’t.

  ‘You’re young, but we can use you,’ he said. ‘You can start tomorrow. Seven and six a week.’ He introduced himself as Mr Riddle.

  It was only then that it really dawned on Violet that when she went out to work she would be earning her own money. Seven and six! It wasn’t a princely sum, not by a long way, but it was still more than she’d ever earned before. She found herself beaming at the man, and Bessie said, ‘Yes, she’ll take it.’

  On the way home, she said, ‘You needn’t get any grand ideas about your wages – you’ll be handing them over to me, for your keep.’

  The inside of Vicars was one big workshop, with long, grimy windows all along one side, a loud, dirty, stinking place with all sorts of different machines working at once to turn out brass hinges of a whole variety of sizes. However, Violet rather liked the atmosphere, especially as the first morning she heard someone singing ‘Yes, We Have No Bananas!’ in a cheery voice over the racket of the machines.

  Mr Riddle came to Violet that first morning and handed her an overall.

  ‘Don’t worry, love – no one’s going to bite you.’ He smiled at her anxious expression. ‘I’ll start you off over here – in at the deep end, sort of thing. You look like a sensible sort of wench and I need someone with a bit of dexterity. Lil who normally works there’s been taken poorly.’

  He instructed her in the use of a drilling machine, set to drilling screwholes into tiny brass hinges which one of the other girls told her were for jewellery boxes. Though it took concentration because of the size, she found the work quite straightforward and after a few mistakes she settled in well. Over the next few days she learned about all the machines, for milling, drilling and countersinking, the capstan lathes and a big stamping machine for carriage door hinges. And she also got to know the faces behind them, some friendlier than others. She was relieved to find there was a jolly-looking girl called Jo who was not much older than her. And she also identified the source of a lot of the singing – a stocky lad of eighteen with shiny black hair and a laughing, jaunty air about him, called Harry Martin.

  Chapter Five

  Marigold watched sparks flying from the knifegrinder’s stone. Narrowing her eyes, she made the dots of light come into better focus. She didn’t know she was a bit short-sighted, so it seemed normal to her that the gas lamps round the Bull Ring, the naphtha flares on the traders’ stalls, even the match struck by a man close to her to light his cigarette were a soft-edged outburst of light and colour. Standing amid all the shouting as the traders vied to sell off Saturday night’s cheap cuts of meat and fruit and veg, the glowing lights made her feel nice. A smile lit up her normally vacant expression.

  ‘Want one?’

  At first, she had no idea that he was talking to her. People hardly ever did talk to Marigold directly, except to give her orders. They talked round her and about her. Marigold won’t want one of them. Marigold doesn’t do things like that . . .

  A few days ago she had turned sixteen. Under her old tweed coat she wore a muddy-grey frock from the pawn shop. Rosina, at eleven, wore the prettiest clothes because she had the nerve to keep on and get what she wanted. Violet was far too mousy to talk back to their mother, but at least she could save for bits and pieces with what was left of her wages. Bessie had relented and let her keep two bob a week now. But she wouldn’t let Marigold go out to work. Oh no – she was needed at home. So Charlie and Violet were bringing in a wage, but not her. She never had any money to call her own. Marigold didn’t complain because no one heard her if she did.

  She was a frumpy sight in her old woman’s clothes and flat shoes, wide as boats, her black hair chopped chin-length and kirby-gripped. Weighing her down were the carriers of meat and fruit. Marigold’ll go into town for the meat auction – she likes it. For once Mom was right – she did like it. It was Marigold’s one taste of freedom. But she didn’t think foramoment that any man would bother talking to her or that her ripe, solid shape and dark brown eyes might be of interest to anyone.

  ‘I said d’you want one?’

  Marigold jumped, alarmed by the attention. He’d come close and was holding out a single cigarette. The face that looked out from under his cap was gaunt, tired-looking, but his pale eyes were friendly.

  ‘All right.’ She’d never smoked a fag before.

  He leaned closer and pushed the end of the cigarette between her lips.

  ‘Here you go.’

  She saw that he opened the box of matches with one hand and then leaned down and struck the match on the ground, bringing the little flame carefully up towards her.

  ‘Good job it ain’t windy.’

  She saw his left arm was missing, or part of it, and the sleeve of his jacket pinned.

  Marigold was about to speak, but she breathed in a great chestful of the smoke without meaning to and coughed and retched until her eyes ran.

  ‘First one, is it?’ the man asked, grinning, once she’d stopped gagging.

  Marigold nodded, gulping. She took another cautious puff on the cigarette without breathing in. That worked better.

  ‘What happened to your arm?’ Her throat was stinging.

  ‘Wipers, that’s what “happened,”’ he said sourly. She saw the muscles in his cheek clench for a moment. ‘No one wants a bloody cripple working for ’em.’

  ‘Oh,’ Marigold said.

  He seemed amused at her lack of pity. ‘Oh? Is that all you can say?’

  Marigold shrugged and puffed on the cigarette again.

  ‘Tastes like tar,’ she said.

  He laughed. ‘Does a bit.’

  There was a pause. Sounds of the market surrounded them. The air was full of smells of smoke and cooked meat, mild ale and crushed oranges.

  ‘Where’re you going then?’

  ‘Get a chicken,’ Marigold said.

  ‘Come on then.’

  He told her his name was Tommy Kay.

  ‘Tommy Kay,’ Marigold said in wonder. ‘You look quite old.’

  ‘Old as the hills,’ he teased. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Marigold.’

  She giggled with him this time, bubbly and excited. ‘Violet, my sister, says it’s a cow’s name.’

  He didn’t ask her age.

  Together they walked through the crowds to where a group were gathered round a chubby, red-cheeked man in a blood-smeared overall. There was a lot of pushing and jostling and shouting wisecracks. Tommy helped her buy a
chicken, holding it up with laughing eyes.

  ‘Look at the state of that – looks as if someone’s sat on it!’

  The chicken did look flat and dejected. Marigold giggled again. Everything seemed funny with Tommy Kay.

  Tommy asked her where she lived.

  ‘I live up Lozells. I’ll walk up with you.’

  Bessie always told Marigold to use a penny for the tram, but Tommy was insistent.

  ‘No need – it ain’t far. Give us one of your bags.’

  ‘All right,’ Marigold said, suddenly feeling shy and overwhelmed by the thought of walking all the way home with him. What she wanted now was to get on the tram and remember his smile, safely, like a picture from the front of those Peg’s Papers that Mom liked Violet to read out to her, not have to go on with him. Why did he want to walk with her, daft old Marigold?

  As they left the crowded Bull Ring she saw that Tommy walked with a limp. He didn’t say much. Once or twice he whistled scraps of a tune she hadn’t heard before.

  ‘You’re a nice girl,’ he said suddenly. They were in a street with houses and factories, noise coming from the pubs.

  Marigold giggled.

  They crossed over a dark street and there was a factory with an alley down the side. Tommy stopped.

  ‘Come and put your bag down a minute.’ He was speaking softly suddenly. ‘We’ll have a rest.’

  Marigold did as she was told. There was a lamp outside the front of the factory, and Tommy took her hand and pulled her into the deep shadow of the alley. Marigold thought it was a funny thing to do.

  ‘You’re nice, you are.’ His voice had gone queer, low and tight. He wrapped his good arm round her and pressed her close to him.