Rue End Street

by Sue Reid Sexton

  I sat on the little stool. Mr Tulloch leant over me to watch. I could smell his sweat and his tobacco smoke even over the smell of Forget-me-not. My hands looked puny beside her great swollen udder. She chomped on, still ignoring us.

  ‘Lean your head into her. Go on then,’ said Mr Tulloch. ‘Grip her hard. She’s expecting it. You won’t be surprising her.’

  I leant my head against her side and felt her warmth, then took another deep breath and gripped the teat in one hand. I fanned my fingers down in the way Mr Tulloch had shown me, one after the other. It was squishy and bendy and nothing came out. I was scared I’d hurt her and she’d kick in pain. Mr Tulloch made me try again.

  ‘Harder. Pull. Bring the milk down. Each squeeze of a finger pushes it further. You’ll get it. Tight at the top and push it down. That’s the way.’

  ‘Oh!’

  Forget-me stopped munching for a second as if she was surprised too.

  ‘That’s it,’ he said.

  ‘It’s working!’ I couldn’t believe it!

  ‘And again. Don’t stop.’

  ‘Look!’

  ‘Keep going. Get into a rhythm.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘That’s my girl. Well done. I knew you’d do it. Don’t stop.’

  ‘Skoosh!’ I said.

  ‘Make sure it all lands in the luggie. Look after the drops and the gallons look after themselves.’

  ‘Oops! Sorry.’

  ‘I need to deal with Nasturtium over there. She’s getting tetchy. Doesn’t like being last. You just keep going. I’ll be listening.’

  So I kept going with a slow but sure skoosh-skoosh into my luggie and soon there was a respectable amount of milk in it and Forget-me-not’s udder had shrunk up-the-ways to almost nothing. As the flow of milk grew less and less, the ache in my arms got worse. Mr Tulloch sang ‘Ye Banks and Braes’ and then something about blue skies over Dover, which made me think of one of my favourite counting-in rhymes. So I summoned all my courage and waited for him to stop.

  ‘Eenty-teenty, heathery-beathery, bamfaleery, over Dover, ram Tam, toosh Jock, you are it!’

  Mr Tulloch laughed his head off and said I’d have to teach him that one. By then he’d finished milking Nasturtium and went to empty his luggie into the big vat next door in the dairy. I looked in mine and gave Forget-me-not one last squeeze.

  Finally there was nothing coming out.

  ‘Great, young lady. I’ll just finish her off,’ he said.

  He sat on the stool and went skoosh-skoosh-skoosh from Forget-me-not into my luggie and stood up and beamed at me. ‘Look at all that yummy creamy milk. You did that. Come back at four and we’ll see what else you can do.’

  Deep breath. ‘Yes, Mr Tulloch.’

  I came reeling out into the sunshine. Mr Tulloch could probably in fact have milked twenty cows in the time I took to do my one, but I had MILKED A COW and not only that: I had MADE SOME MONEY. Plus the sun was out and I had more work to go to.

  I had walked almost the whole half-mile to the main road before I realised I was still wearing their gumboots and had to turn back. Mrs Tulloch was in the dairy by this time, talking loudly across the yard to the grain store where I could see Mr Tulloch’s back. I changed back into my shoes without being seen.

  ‘We should get some Italians,’ she said. ‘Or Germans. They’re probably glad to be prisoners of war and out of the worst of it. I’ve heard they’re just ordinary lads like ours. They can’t all be lazy. What do they want with the war? And they’ve nothing to do in the camps and probably glad to get out. I’ll be back on my feet soon enough, but if it’s not costing much I can’t see why you have any objections. Stop whistling and listen to me!’

  Italians, Italians! Why was everyone talking about the Italians?

  I ran back down the road and up to the Halfway House tearoom.

  ‘At last,’ said the thin lady, and she glanced down the road and pointed a sharp finger at a clock above a counter. I was five minutes late. ‘Let me see you.’ I opened my coat. ‘Nice dress. Turn round. Ach. You have mud, or something, all up and down the back of your legs. The bottom of your dress is mucky. Go and wash. Hands.’ I showed her my hands. ‘Oh my good God! Through there at once.’

  She was beginning to sound like Miss Weatherbeaten. Therefore I obeyed without question, scrubbing my legs, hands and dress as hard as I could at the cold tap, even though my hands were already spotless.

  ‘Turn round,’ she said, when I came out of the bathroom. ‘Hands up!’

  I checked over my shoulder in case she had a gun, Commando lunges at the ready, but she had what looked like a small tablecloth which she wrapped round my middle and tied tight at the back.

  ‘There. Perfect,’ she said. ‘Off you go into the kitchen then and you can get started.’

  I looked round for a door and there one was. It had a round glass panel in the middle of it which was completely steamed up. Pushing my way through I found no-one on the other side, just a huge pot of boiling water on a big stove and a large window which was also steamed over. Three loaves of bread sat neatly side by side on a table with the biggest slab of lard you ever saw. Presently she followed me in.

  ‘I’ll slice, you butter, thin mind, every second piece.’

  We worked in silence, which suited me. Not only was my mouth in a state of jellified terror but the rest of me seemed to be frozen rigid too so that I kept dropping the knife or putting the bread together all wrong. And every time I did, she hit my fingers with the back of her knife. Then when the bread was done she gave me a basket of potatoes and told me to wash them under the tap at the back door with a little scrubbing brush. Very soon my fingers were blue with cold and red with grazes where I missed the tatties and got my fingers instead. When I’d finished those there was another basket of carrots and two huge fresh turnips. Next was chopping. The turnips were as crisp and hard as you like and, because Mr Tulloch had forgotten to give me any milk, I still hadn’t eaten and couldn’t help eyeing up the little chunks I was cutting for soup, especially the carrots. I had just thrown two squares of it in my mouth when she came back through from the tearoom.

  ‘What’s your name?’ she said.

  She was smiling, and seemed to have thought better of being such a cow, although I realise now what an insult to cows that was, having just learnt they were perfectly friendly and placid. I shoved the lumps of carrot on top of my tongue so I could speak. ‘L... Lenny,’ I said.

  ‘Well, Penny, go out the back and clean out the WCs. There are two. Ladies and Gents. They must be spotless. I want to see my face in them.’

  I’d like to see your face in them too, I thought.

  ‘Cleaning equipment under the sink, except for the mop which is by the door. Off you go now. No. Wait. Come here. Turn round.’ She undid the tablecloth from round my middle and hung it over a chair by the wall. ‘Put this back on when you’re finished. I don’t want it ruined in there. Go.’

  I don’t think those cludgies had been cleaned in a month. Ours at the hut was never like that and we didn’t even have water. It was worse than our communal one on the stair in Clydebank that we shared with the rest of the close before it was bombed to bits. I will not describe her cludgies to you. That’s how bad it was. To make matters worse I could hear Mavis and Rosie playing amongst the trees behind the building. I had told them to stay at home, but there was nothing I could do. And then, by the time I finished that revolting job, the front of my beautiful dress was as dirty as the back.

  A bowl of soup was sitting on the table when I came back in. I was starving, absolutely, and cold, and generally miserable and cross. I was particularly miserable and cross with myself because I hadn’t even told her I needed paid for my work. The soup was developing a skin. I hoped it had been left for me. I went to the little round window and peered out. To my great surprise, all six tables were full of people. The thin lady was smiling at everyone as if she was goodness itself. I ran back to the table and started shovelling th
e soup into my mouth as quickly as I could. It was watery and needed salt, but when you’re starving, all food is fantastic. Then I quickly washed the bowl and spoon and put them in a cupboard.

  She came back, the smile wiped clean off her face.

  ‘Where’s my soup?’ she said.

  I was ready for this. ‘I put it back in the pot, Mrs... ,’ I said. How annoying not to have her name.

  ‘No you didn’t,’ she said, ‘You ate it. Liar.’

  I was also ready for this. ‘That’s not fair. I don’t lie,’ I lied. ‘I was taught not to. I did put it back in the pot. It had a skin, and I washed the plate and put it away.’

  She paused for the briefest of seconds. ‘Nonsense,’ she said. ‘You have some on your dress.’

  I looked down and saw that this was true. This too I was ready for. ‘It must have splashed going back in,’ I said.

  She began to laugh. ‘Onto your chin?’

  This would have been the moment to falter but I had already decided that enough was enough when she kept hitting me with her knife earlier on. I decided to change the subject.

  ‘How much are you paying me for doing this?’ I said.

  ‘Pay? How much?’ She seemed to be thinking. ‘Tuppence,’ she said. ‘You’re not worth tuppence, but there it is.’

  ‘A penny will do. I’ve done everything I’m doing.’ I held out my hand.

  She laughed again. ‘Your working day has hardly begun,’ she said, and she made a strange noise with her nose. ‘Fill the sink and put the cloth back round you, then go and clear the tables.’

  ‘It’s nearly two o’clock,’ I said. ‘I’m hungry and tired and you’re rude.’ I hadn’t meant to say this last bit. It just slipped out, and once it was out I tried hard not to look sorry for saying it, even though I was. I almost wished my mouth would turn to jelly again and shut me up.

  ‘And you’re a liar. Get to work.’

  ‘My penny please,’ I said, going to the corner and taking my coat from the rack.

  ‘Get back to work.’ She turned and left through the round windowed door. Now I was furious.

  I followed her through and in front of all those people I said, not loudly, ‘I’m going home now and I want my pay.’ I held out my hand, which to my great annoyance was shaking. The customers looked up, every one of them.

  ‘Be quiet, girl, and get back in the kitchen,’ she said under her breath.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘I’m docking your wages for leaving early,’ she said.

  ‘Hello, Lenny, what are you doing here?’ I looked up to see my friend Mrs Mags who was bad George’s auntie. She had her baby with her and a lady in a hat.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Mags,’ I said. ‘I’m working. I just started but this lady isn’t very nice so I’ve decided to stop again.’

  ‘You need to finish your shift, Lenny,’ said Mrs Mags kindly. ‘You can’t run out in the middle of a shift and leave her in the lurch.’

  ‘Yes, I can,’ I said. ‘She keeps hitting me with her knife.’

  ‘That’s terrible,’ said an elderly man at the next table. ‘What a thing to do to a young girl. Look at her hands.’ I held up my hands for everyone to see.

  ‘Poor wee lassie,’ said the man’s wife. ‘That’s a sin. I’ve some ointment in my bag that would help that.’

  ‘Thank you, that’s very kind,’ I said.

  ‘I thought you said you were leaving,’ said the thin woman.

  ‘I just want my penny. It’s not much for six hours of work, is it?’

  ‘Shocking,’ said someone behind me.

  ‘I’m not paying someone who runs out in the middle of a shift,’ she said. ‘Absolutely not.’ She turned and went back into the kitchen.

  The room fell silent. The lady put her ointment on the table.

  ‘Give me your hands, dear,’ she said, reaching out.

  I felt my lip go. It trembled and froze. I felt stupid. I was trying hard to go on being grown-up and brave when Mrs Mags’s baby suddenly yelled and made everyone jump and stare and forget about me. I put my coat on as quickly as I could and made for the door, gulping in my pride.

  ‘S... sorry,’ I said, to the ointment lady as I fled. ‘S... sorry.’

  George was in my way, the final straw. I pushed past him and clumped down the steps to the road and then turned back up the hill between the pub and the tearoom and went in search of Mavis and Rosie.

  ‘Mavis!’ I shouted. ‘Rosie!’ Tears of rage flowed down my cheeks and then Dougie, bad George’s little brother, appeared on the path in front of me.

  ‘They went home ages ago,’ he said. ‘What happened? What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Nothing at all.’

  Chapter 13

  This is what happened next. Dougie told me afterwards. He went to join George and Mrs Mags and the baby in the tearoom. Mrs Mags was trying to calm the baby down but little Calum, who was already two and a half and so not really a baby any more, had bellyache, probably because of the thin lady’s bad cooking. He didn’t want to be quiet. After a bit the thin lady came out and asked Mrs Mags to keep her children in order. By this time George had been given the run-down on the old bat and her not paying me, so he followed her into the kitchen and gave her a piece of his mind. George’s mind is pretty mean even on a good day so I’m glad it wasn’t me he was giving his mind to, which it usually is. Anyway, he said quietly to her that he was going to start shouting too, along with his little cousin Calum, who is normally cute as a button, I promise you, if she didn’t give him, George, my penny IMMEDIATELY. He probably got that from Miss Weatherbeaten because that was her favourite way of getting you to do stuff, by shouting IMMEDIATELY and making you jump out of your skin.

  So George got my penny. When Dougie told me this I was furious at first, not expecting ever to see the penny. And then Dougie pulled out of his pocket a warm shiny slightly sticky penny with King George the Sixth on one side, and the lady with the fork on the other.

  But I’m away ahead of myself because this didn’t happen until well into the next day.

  After I left the tearoom and went in search of Mavis and Rosie, I didn’t find either of them at the rope swing or any of the huts as I thought I would, and then I thought I’d run out of time and had to get back to Mr Tulloch’s farm. In fact I was early and had to hang about in the porch, waiting.

  By then I was a lot dirtier than I’d meant to be, apart from my hands which had been scrubbed and rubbed and whacked and so on for several hours. I thought that was probably enough to make me clean enough to milk cows for the whole of the next week but Mr Tulloch thought otherwise and sent me straight to the tap.

  I washed all twenty cows and milked Forget-me-not again until Mr Tulloch finished her off, or ‘stripped’ her as he called it, which sounds sore but he says isn’t.

  While we were milking he was very quiet, just humming ‘Ye Banks and Braes’ over and over, so I hummed along too and when he fell silent I sang the words, those I could remember, more to keep myself awake than anything else. The warmth of the barn made me sleepy and I was glad to be able to sit on a stool and lean my head against Forget-me-not’s side. Mr Tulloch seemed sleepy too.

  He gave me a penny and a cup of milk and made me drink it there and then seeing as I hadn’t brought him back his cup from the day before. He told me to come back in the morning and bring the cup with me and he’d show me how to do the milk dishes.

  ‘Yes, Mr Tulloch,’ I shouted, though I couldn’t remember seeing any dishes and I went back down the lane. As soon as I hit the road I pulled out my penny and rubbed it between my fingers. Nineteen twenty-five, it said, with another King George on it, this one with a fancy moustache. I kissed it, put it in my pocket and held it tight all the way home shouting ‘Mavis!’ and ‘Rosie!’

  As our hut appeared through the trees I saw smoke billowing out of the chimney like it does when it’s newly lit, or like when George set his on fire and he ran out screaming and Mrs Alde
r had to run in with a bucket and throw water on the fire before it burnt the whole hut down.

  Just then one of Mr Duncan’s girls came bouncing down the hill and onto the road in front of me.

  ‘They’re in the hideout,’ he said. ‘Your mum’s been shouting on them for ages.’

  ‘My mum?’ I said. ‘Oh, yeah, of course. Good. Thanks for telling me.’

  But Willie was waiting. I decided Mavis and Rosie were alright if my mum was there. So I took the shortcut to the big house and went in by a back door straight into the kitchen.

  ‘Ah, there you are,’ said Willie. ‘Great, and what a pretty frock. Stick your coat over there and give your hands a scrub in the sink. Look lively.’ She beamed at me and wiped a few stray locks from her forehead with a floury hand, leaving a streak of white. The kitchen had three huge windows, each one probably higher than the other, and the biggest stove I’ve ever seen. I knew all this already, but what I noticed this time was how much smaller it seemed with the mess she had made in it. There were three recipe books lying just visible on the vast table, but they were half-buried in newspapers and cabbage leaves. The sink was full of gritty pink water and chicken feathers that I also noticed in several corners of the room. They were under the huge kitchen Aga, at the windows even, and in little flurries under the chairs. In fact I kept finding little feathers for the rest of the evening no matter how meticulously I picked them up when I saw them.

  On a pale oakwood Welsh dresser stood two roasting tins. Willie lifted their lids to show me what was inside and for a second I thought she was going to bang them together like a pair of cymbals. Luckily I was wrong.

  ‘Look!’ she said proudly. ‘Not bad eh?’