Secrets of the Shipyard Girls

by Nancy Revell

  DS Miller kept a hold of Rosie’s hand, but she gently tugged it away, her fingers trailing across his open palm as she broke free from his grasp. Her face looked a picture of indecision, before she threw her arm out to hail the bus. DS Miller could hear the brakes being applied and watched as Rosie turned in anticipation of leaving him.

  The bus came to a halt and Rosie climbed on board, but just as the driver put the engine into first gear and started to pull away, she turned to DS Miller. ‘All right, Vera’s. The usual time,’ she agreed.

  And with that the bus gathered momentum – and Rosie was once again taken from him.

  Standing there in the darkness, his woollen coat flapping open in rhythm with the cold breeze coming in from the North Sea, he realised that, not for the first time, he was at a loss as to what to make of their encounter.

  Of course, he was elated that Rosie had agreed to meet up with him. It would give him the chance to really talk to her, work out why exactly she did not want to continue their courtship, especially when he felt she really did want to see him – that she did have feelings for him.

  He had to admit that he was totally baffled by this woman he had fallen for. Since the beginning of the year they had spent just about every Wednesday teatime cosied up in Vera’s café, chatting, laughing, philosophising. They had got on like a house on fire, and it was clear that this was more than friendship. Friends didn’t look at each other the way he looked at Rosie and the way, much as she tried to disguise it, she looked at him.

  He had an overwhelming urge to run after the bus and follow Rosie into town to see where she was going, and if she was seeing another man, but he forced himself not to.

  ‘Argh!’ Detective Sergeant Miller sounded out his frustrations into the night air.

  When Rosie walked through the front door of Lily’s she was hit by a warm gust of smoky, perfumed air and the tinkling of a piano being played in the reception room. It was the complete antithesis of the sounds, smells and sights of the yard.

  As always, whenever Rosie stepped over the threshold of the bordello, it was like being transported from a world of black and white and into one painted in Technicolor. And this evening Rosie sensed an added hum of excitement in the air.

  ‘Oh, ma chérie!’ Lily cried out as she came out of the back parlour and spotted Rosie. She almost broke into a trot, but was prevented by the confines of her tightly fitted fishtail skirt

  ‘You wouldn’t guess what?’ she asked, looking over the half-moon spectacles that were perched delicately on the bridge of her small but perfectly shaped nose.

  Rosie looked at her friend, who was now also her business partner, and smiled. Lily’s dyed-auburn hair was, as usual, carefully crafted into an elaborate bun, but in the flurry of the evening’s events, various strands had broken free.

  ‘I have no idea, Lily,’ Rosie said, ‘but I am sure you’re going to tell me. Let’s go into the office. You can tell me your news there.’

  The reason Rosie wanted to seek sanctuary in the front room, which had been converted into a very resplendent office, was that it was usually quiet there and she had a half-full decanter of Rémy Martin. And after bumping into Peter, she needed a drink.

  Lily agreed to a tipple, but looked a little surprised to see Rosie pouring herself a drink so early – on top of which she was using the expensive brandy from the thick crystal cut-glass decanter that was usually kept for the sole consumption of the clients who came in to settle their bills.

  ‘Come on then. What’s happened?’ Rosie asked, glad of the distraction from her own panicked thoughts about agreeing to meet up with Peter at the café.

  ‘Well, ma chère.’ Lily took a quick sip of her drink, before she continued. ‘Old Mrs Pemberton, you know – our neighbour on the right, has passed away.’

  Rosie spluttered on her brandy. ‘God, Lily! You could at least pretend to be a little sad.’

  ‘Oh, I know, that came out all wrong, sorry, anyone would think I was a heartless old cow.’ Lily’s cockney accent came to the fore as it always did when she was excited, angry, or a little inebriated.

  ‘No, I am really, truly sorry. Poor woman,’ Lily rested her hand on her ample bosom, which had been squeezed into a stylish, but rather risqué, black corseted top, ‘but she was nearly ninety,’ she added. ‘And at least now – what do people like to believe? – she’ll be together again with her dear husband Ernest.’

  Rosie pursed her lips, feigning disapproval.

  Just then the sound of the front door shutting could be heard and the distinctive sound of a walking stick hitting the polished parquet flooring of the hallway. Lily jumped up from the chaise longue she had been perched on.

  ‘Perfect timing! It’s George!’ And she tottered to the half-open doorway of the drawing room.

  ‘George, come in.’ She waved her hand. Rosie thought she caught her giving George a rather cheeky, secret wink. One day Rosie would get to the bottom of what was really going on between the two of them. Were they really just friends, like they purported to be? Or was there more to the relationship than they were willing to disclose?

  As George entered the room, dressed in a dapper deep blue three-piece suit and swinging his walking stick energetically, he made a beeline for Rosie and performed his usual ritual of taking her hand and planting a kiss on it. George was nothing if not a true gentleman.

  ‘I was just telling Rosie here about poor Mrs Pemberton from next door,’ Lily said, sitting back down on the small sofa and patting the place next to her, signalling George to join her.

  ‘Oh, yes, Mrs Pemberton,’ George said by way of encouragement but wanting Lily to carry on talking.

  ‘But now you’re here,’ Lily said, ‘you can tell Rosie yourself about your plan.’ She was clearly determined that George be a part of the conversation.

  ‘Our plan,’ George corrected, getting out a large cotton hankie, on which his initials were embroidered, and wiping perspiration from his forehead and the side of his face where a deep white scar was the permanent reminder of his time spent fighting in the First World War.

  ‘Well, Rosie, I think what Lily wants to tell you is that she and I are going to buy next door!’ George declared grandly, before continuing, ‘As you know, I’m not exactly short of a few bob and I’ve a load of money just sitting doing nothing in the bank so I thought it was about time I spent it.’

  ‘Why that’s great news, George.’ Rosie paused and looked at Lily with a curious smile on her face. ‘So, does this mean you two will be “cohabiting” – is that the correct turn of phrase?’

  Lily almost choked on her brandy. ‘Mon Dieu! Rosie, I think you must have love and romance on your mind at the moment!’ She took another sip of brandy as if to steady her nerves at such an outlandish suggestion. ‘I wonder what could make you think that I would do something as scandalous as “living in sin”.’ As Lily spoke, a wide, mischievous grin spread across her face.

  Sometimes Rosie really struggled to know how to take Lily. She did think it interesting, though, that she had not reacted in shock, or even rebuffed the idea that she and George might live together as a couple.

  ‘Non, non, ma petite,’ Lily said, ‘George and I are simply going to be joint owners. Partners in property, should I say.’ She took a deliberate swig of her brandy and continued. ‘We’re not sure what we’re going to do with the house just yet, but we think it’s a good investment for the future. Some may think us mad with all the bombs being dropped around our ears, but we reckon we’re going to be safe here in Ashbrooke. Hitler’s more interested in obliterating the shipyards. Not much over this way Jerry wants shot of.’

  ‘I suppose you could rent the house out,’ Rosie volunteered. ‘Or were you thinking we’d branch out. Extend the bordello?’

  George nodded in agreement. ‘We’re definitely thinking along those lines. See,’ he turned to Lily, who was now sitting by his side, ‘natural business head on this one. She’s going to go far.’

  �
��I know, George,’ Lily said in her most uppity of voices. ‘And don’t forget I was the one to bring her on board. I was the one who actually spotted Rosie’s business acumen all those years ago when she first came here. But, of course, as always, no one listened to me.’

  Rosie smiled, but her mind had started to wander back to her meeting with Peter. She did not want to tell Lily. She would only start to worry that their romance might be reignited, condemning them all to a good few years in some grotty prison cell.

  ‘Well, some of us better get on and do some work.’ Rosie opened up one of the drawers and pulled out her heavy accounts ledger, dropping it on to the leather-embossed desktop with a thud.

  ‘All right, my dear, we’ll leave you to your numbers, but before I go, there is just one more piece of exciting news I have to communicate to you.’

  Rosie raised her eyebrows. ‘More?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, I’ve got to head back down to La Lumière Bleue.’

  La Lumière Bleue was Lily’s second business, which she had started up earlier in the year in London’s red light district. It was also the reason why Rosie’s responsibilities had increased so much of late, for Lily was creating what she called a ‘magnifique’ Marie-Antoinette-themed bordello in the heart of Soho. For its name she had unashamedly copied the so-called ‘blue-light’ brothels that had started up in Paris and were catering for a higher class of clientele.

  ‘I’ve a lovely, quite exquisite young woman who has recently come under my employ in London. She’s quite divine; petite, so colourful, so full of life. And what is more exciting is that she has asked to come and work here!’

  Rosie looked puzzled.

  ‘Well, that’s a turn-up for the books. It’s usually the other way round – the girls wanting to go to London. I mean the money’s better and, let’s face it – it’s easier to keep yourself to yourself there. What’s made her want to come up north? And to Sunderland, of all places?’

  ‘Exactly the same questions I put to her,’ Lily said, getting up to refill George’s glass as well as her own. ‘She says she has relatives up here who she’s been meaning to come and see for some time – to “reacquaint” herself with them. That’s the way she speaks – ever so la-di-da … My guess, though, is that she’s probably running away from something – or someone. But, who am I to meddle in the business of others?’

  Rosie let rip a laugh of pure scepticism, while George forced himself to suppress a chuckle.

  ‘Let me just interpret,’ Rosie said with more than a little mischief in her voice. ‘This “exquisite” young woman is going to be a great – and more than likely bankable – asset, and you don’t really give two hoots why she is heading up north – only that she is – and that it’s going to benefit you – and the business – massively?’

  ‘How did you get to be cynical, Rosie?’ Lily shuffled up next to George, who went to put his arm around her but stopped himself.

  ‘Spending too much time here!’ Rosie joked back, but she hadn’t missed George’s near show of affection for Lily, and for a short moment she stared at the pair of them with a question on her face.

  They both looked away.

  ‘Well,’ Rosie said, filling the embarrassed silence. ‘I look forward to meeting this “exquisite, colourful little bird” … but,’ she said, putting on a matronly voice and shooing them away with both her hands, ‘in the meantime, go and see our guests and let me get on with some work.’

  Chapter Seven

  Hendon Beach, Sunderland

  April 1913

  The tide had turned and seemed to be coming in quickly. The sea was lively and the waves seemed more frothy than normal. Pearl stood at the bottom of a sloping hill that was more mud and rock than grass, and which led up from the shingly sand of Hendon beach.

  She wasn’t alone as she bent down and picked up small round black nuggets of coal; on either side of her there were others, mainly women using their long skirts and aprons as makeshift bags in which they would carry their loot back home.

  Pearl’s heart leapt as she spotted a particularly large chunk of jet black stone. Her dirty hand quickly reached out to grab it, but she was too late – a large, callused hand belonging to one of the local fishwives got there first.

  ‘You’ll have to be quicker than that, bonny lass,’ she cackled.

  Pearl was caught between outraged anger and the need to cry with despair and tiredness. She looked at the older woman whose rotund body was protected from the bitter autumn cold by layers of skirts, petticoats and shawls.

  ‘Yer dinnit need any coal with all that fat on yer,’ Pearl spat out, wanting to hurt the woman for stealing what should have been hers.

  The old woman simply laughed at the young girl’s cheek, and shouted back as she hauled her black treasure in her large wicker basket up the hill.

  ‘Come down to the docks and I’ll put some meat on those skinny bones of yours. I’ll boil yer up some nice tasty fish heads!’ she shouted over her shoulder. The seagulls above her squawked as if in anticipation of such a feast.

  The thought of any kind of food, even if it was a couple of smelly fish heads, had Pearl’s mouth watering. She was starving. If she could just get enough coal, then the sooner she could get back home and get something in her belly the better. If she was lucky, her ma might have got some cut-offs of meat from the butcher’s to make into a hot stew.

  As soon as the thought flitted through her mind, though, it was dismissed.

  ‘Chance’d be a fine thing,’ Pearl muttered to herself.

  The small rocks of washed-up fuel that had dropped from the local colliers heading out to sea would, at most, warm her, but any food which came her way would more than likely be a bit of bread and lard. At best she could fry the bread up once the fire was going.

  Pearl’s stomach started to growl.

  Half an hour later, her small sack was almost full, which was just as well, as the light had nearly gone, and the tide had almost reached the pebbles at the bottom of the hill. Her bare feet were sore and had gone way beyond cold.

  Pearl walked up the steep slope along with the last couple of remaining coal pickers – an old man, and a young woman who was clearly in the family way. Pearl looked at the girl’s swollen belly and her worn-out face; she recognised her from around the doors, and knew her to be just seventeen, although she looked years older.

  Pearl knew she still only looked her fourteen years of age, but at this moment in time, with her numb feet, her hands cut to shreds, and her aching back, having been bent scouring the beach like a man-sized crab for the last few hours, she felt the same age as the old fishwife she’d set her lip up to.

  As she half carried, half dragged her bag of washed-up coal back along the cobbled pavements to the slums near the south dock, to the tenement where she lived with her ma and da and six other siblings, she fought back the terrible feeling of dread that had been growing inside her for the past few weeks and instead she concentrated on simply getting home, getting warm, and finding something to eat.

  Then she would be able to work out what to do.

  ‘Is that you, Pearl?’ Her ma’s voice was louder than need be and there was the hint of a slur. Pearl’s mum, Edna, was drunk which, Pearl knew, with a sinking heart, ruled out any chance of a hot stew, even if it had been a watery stew, made with just fat and offal.

  ‘Aye, it’s me, Ma,’ Pearl shouted down the hallway.

  ‘About bloody time,’ her ma yelled back. ‘Ger in here with that coal ’n get the fire gannin … and put the bar down while yer at it. Everyone’s in for the night now.’

  Pearl wearily put her bag down and turned back to the thick wooden front door. With her scrawny arms she reached down and picked up a large plank of wood which she then put across the door. She had never really understood why they had to do this every night as it wasn’t as if they had anything to steal, but all the same, the family upstairs and her own ma and da seemed to view it as a must.

  ‘Well,
come on. Dinnit take all day!’ her mother shouted through from the back kitchen. When Pearl entered the dark, candlelit parlour, she saw her three youngest siblings cuddled up on the threadbare sofa. They were play fighting and scratching their heads at the same time. Pearl knew what that meant, and made a mental note not to go near them.

  Her ma had her baby sister in her arms, and judging by her partly exposed breast she had just fed the baby, which was probably why she wasn’t screaming her head off like she did most of the time. She could hear her father and her older brothers out the backyard. God knew what they had been up to, not that she particularly wanted to know. If they had just come in over the back wall, they’d probably been out on the rob, which might also explain why her ma wanted the door secured so quickly. Either way, it didn’t make any difference to Pearl. If there was any loot to be had, or enjoyed, she was never privy to it.

  As she knelt down to stack up the little bundle of kindling she had gathered earlier on in the day, a blast of cold air rushed through the room as her father and two siblings came in from the cold, rubbing their hands and laughing loudly at some shared joke. Her brothers Johnnie and James were a few years older than Pearl, and had inherited their father’s strong physique and dark looks, just like Pearl had her mother’s bony frame and fair hair.

  ‘Ah, yer a good lass, Pearl, getting us our warmth fer the night. Stick the kettle on while yer there. Me and the boys are in need of a nice hot brew.’

  It would never occur to her father that his sons do anything in the house, even something as simple as making a pot of tea. It seemed to be an unwritten law of the land that a man did not lift a finger in his own home. The man was the king of the castle. The lord of the manor. And it was up to the women of the house to serve him.

  As Pearl prepared the fire, the room became alive with the animated talk of men discussing the ins and outs of the FA Cup final, which had seemed to whip the whole of Sunderland up into a frenzy. The excitement and anticipation had been followed by a thick, depressive air of gloom after the town’s revered football team was beaten by a team called Aston Villa at some place called ‘Crystal Palace’. Football held no interest for Pearl, but the venue of the game had conjured up wonderful images of a sparkling, magical wonderland.