by Barbara Tate
I wasn’t aware that Mae had returned until I heard her asking for her handbag. She was beaming over the counter from beneath a mop of dishevelled hair, amongst which was an angry patch of congealing blood. Syd was standing, jubilant, behind her.
‘What happened?’ I asked, relieved that the fight had ended and she seemed not too much the worse for wear.
‘What happened?’ she repeated, chuckling. ‘This is what happened!’ She stood back so I could see her full length, then she stuck her left foot well forward to display a shapely leg right up to the thigh, where the seam of her pencil skirt had ripped apart.
‘Proper little Hackenschmidt she was,’ Syd said. ‘Went off a fair treat!’
‘You tell her what happened,’ said Mae, giving me a wink.
‘Well, let’s get a drink in front of me first,’ Syd said. ‘Let’s all have one. Yours is gin and bitters, isn’t it, Mae?’
‘No!’ said Mae defiantly. ‘Me and Babs are going to have double lemonade. Aren’t we, love?’
‘Strewth!’ said Syd. He declared that he, at any rate, was going to celebrate with a double whisky, and after a couple of sips, he embarked on a graphic account of the contest.
‘By the time me and Mae got there, Rabbits had a fair crowd round her because she was ranting away and carrying on and they wanted to see some bother. Anyway, the minute she caught sight of Mae, she started shouting and went straight up to her. She puts her handbag down, ready for action, and screams like a mad thing. Mae started to see the funny side of it and just laughed in her face. Well, that really got Rabbits’ rag up. It was just like I said it would be: each grabs a handful of hair. But Mae here’ – he placed a hand on her shoulder – ‘Mae done just like I showed her and Rabbits didn’t know what’d hit her. Then Mae let go and Rabbits tried to hide behind the crowd. She got lairy like and started throwing her shoes, but all she done was hit a couple of ringsiders. Then she scarpered – and that was it! A right loony, that one!’
When he’d finished, Mae said admiringly, ‘He should have been a reporter, shouldn’t he?’
At this, Syd bowed low in proud acknowledgement and, after another sip of whisky, said to her, ‘Why don’t you tell Barb what you said to me just now?’
Mae looked at me intently. ‘Well, it’s like this...’ she began. ‘Well, perhaps you wouldn’t want to, but . . . well . . . even if I had to find another place, I need another maid. There’s nothing to it and it’s two pound a day and tips. What are you earning here? A fiver a week? What do you think? It’s not as hard as the job you’re doing now.’
It had all come out in a rush and now she was watching my reaction. Syd was standing behind her nodding his head vigorously and mouthing at me furiously to take the offer. I was thunderstruck.
‘But I don’t know anything about being a maid,’ I protested. Visions of my grandmother’s face came into my mind. A maid meant something very different in her book, and to be honest, I was already imagining a life below stairs and a starched apron.
‘Nothing to it!’ she repeated airily – in reckless disregard of what I later found to be the truth. Then she added wistfully, ‘And it would be nice to have someone I could have a bit of a giggle with sometimes.’
Of course, that more or less hooked me. I always had been a sucker for feeling needed, and somehow, I had already begun to feel a protective affection towards Mae. Besides that, she was offering me more money than I was getting from both my jobs put together.
‘I’ve had no experience, though.’ I knew I was repeating myself, but I wanted to make sure that she realised the fact.
‘Honestly, you don’t need any, love. It’s just that a girl can’t be on her own in the flat and someone’s got to be there for clients who come while I’m out.’
‘When do you want an answer by?’ I asked weakly.
‘Well, now, if possible. I want to get Rabbits out of my flat right away if I can. Or if I know you’ll come, I need to find one without a maid.’ She was smiling at me in the most beguiling way, with the wistfulness still showing through, and I began to smile back.
I took the plunge. ‘All right. I’ll do it!’ I said. ‘But I hope you won’t be sorry you asked. By the way, you know I’ll need to give notice here.’ I wasn’t worried about my day job, as I had long dreamt of leaving that.
Mae’s face fell. ‘Can’t you just walk out?’ Then she added quickly, ’Oh well, see what you can do.’ She swung round to Syd. ‘What’s the time?’
‘Twenty-five to eight.’
Thinking aloud, Mae patted a finger against the palm of her other hand. ‘I wonder if Charley – he’s the agent – will be at The Intrepid Fox yet. I’ll go round and wait.’
She gently pushed past Syd and jauntily made for the door, twiddling her fingers in the air to us. ‘See ya,’ she called out.
‘You’ve done yourself a big favour there,’ Syd confided. ‘You’ll see. Your uncle Syd wouldn’t put you wrong. The missus of one of me mates is a maid: that’s how I know.’
‘Well I hope you’re right,’ I answered dubiously.
I had to break off then because another party of people had arrived and a whole load of dirty glasses had accumulated. By the time I was through, Mae had come back. Her face was a mixture of emotions.
‘Was he there?’ Syd asked quickly, avid for news.
‘Yes, he was there all right,’ she said grimly. ‘But you know that bloody Rabbits . . . she’s only gone and beaten me too it. She’s offered to help him by showing other flats to the girls, so she can get herself fixed up somewhere else, and badmouth me at the same time, I don’t doubt.’ Then she shook her head as though to banish her annoyance and smiled. ‘Give in your notice?’ she asked brightly.
‘Well, not yet. I thought I’d better wait and see how you got on first.’
‘Do it now! We’ll start on Monday.’
Syd leaned over. ‘Lovey,’ he said to me. ‘Tell Jim you’d like to finish up tomorrow. He can only say no.’
I looked round to see where Jim was. He was standing with a tray hanging from his hand, chatting with a group at a table he’d just taken some drinks to. When he came back to the bar, I put it to him as boldly as I could: I wanted to leave and would like to do so as soon as possible. I told him I’d had the offer of another job that would make life a bit easier for me.
‘Well,’ he replied. ‘Can you see me through tomorrow night? There’s stacks of girls looking for evening work. ’Spect I’ll be all right.’
‘Yes, I can do that. Thanks a lot, Jim.’
Brimful of joy, I hurried back to Mae, who knew from my face before I reached her that everything was settled. ‘I finish here tomorrow night,’ I announced triumphantly.
She fished in her handbag and produced a small white visiting card, which she handed to me. It read:‘M. Roberts, Plumber. 2nd Floor’, followed by the address.
I looked up, tentatively amused, and caught a broad answering look of merriment on her face.
‘Well, I’ve got to give clients something to help them remember where to find me, haven’t I? And if their wives go rummaging through their wallets, they’re not going to worry about a plumber, are they? It’s a damn good idea too, I reckon, ’cos it’s whore frost that does your pipes in – innit?’
Syd was guffawing; I was semi-choking.
‘I’m off!’ Mae said abruptly. ‘Got to get that lock changed before Rabbits gets any funny ideas. See you about four o’clock Monday, then. Okay?’ Impulsively, she leaned over and kissed me. ‘Be seeing you.’
As she moved away, I thought of something. ‘By the way, what sort of clothes should I wear?’
She considered for a moment, then replied, ‘Something shapeless, if I were you.’ And with an urchin grin, she was gone.
Syd looked as though he would have liked to follow her, but hadn’t quite the nerve. Instead he said to me, ‘Cheerio, Barb. I’d better buzz off and see if I can find the boys. They’ll wonder what’s happened to me.’ Then he left
too.
I took a deep breath and went back to the washing-up, my mind a jumble of events. Ronnie, whose sharp little eyes and ears missed nothing, said grumblingly, ‘It’s your affair – far be it from me to interfere – but you do know what sort of people you’re getting mixed up with, don’t you . . .?’
Four
I arrived home that night grateful to be alone at last to think about the evening’s events. Although it wasn’t cold in my room, I felt that I wanted to see the comforting glow of the gas fire and knelt to light it. I filled the kettle and put it on the ring. While waiting for it to boil, I gazed contentedly around my little room.
With the permission of the landlord and the extra money from the club, I had managed great improvements. I had replaced the blackout curtains with bright chintzy ones, and I’d bought a pretty orange bedspread to hide the army-surplus blankets. The paintwork on the walls, which had been a nasty waiting-room shade, was now all a nice shiny white. Even the drab, worn lino, made up of different scraps fitted together, had received my attention. Every morning before going to work, I painted another square yard of it with liquid lino in a pleasant burnt-orange colour. For a shilling each, I had purchased two orange boxes, which I’d stood on end and covered with American cloth. Both had a strong central partition that served as a shelf. One was now my larder, and the other a bedside table.
In one corner was a large earthenware pot, which I’d joyfully found marked at sixpence in a junk shop. This was now filled with sprays of beech leaves, which were slowly turning a beautiful bronze. I had also been guilty of what I considered to be two extravagances – a small bedside lamp with an orange shade, and a little Bush radio. I had just paid the first month’s instalment of sixteen shillings on the latter. This was a wonderful buy; it still works perfectly today and has never had a thing go wrong with it. So, with my books on a home-made shelf and my possessions dotted around, it was all quite cosy, though still nothing to write home about.
Not that I could write home anyway. My grandmother had been quite specific on that point, telling me that as far as she was concerned, from the moment I left her roof I was dead. When I walked out, she’d thrown my ration book after me and said, ‘And may you never know a day’s happiness in your life.’
At times, I still found solitude quite a fearsome thought, but it was something I knew I had to get used to, and common sense told me that, in truth, I was no more alone now than I had been before I left home.
The kettle boiled and I made some coffee. Taking it over to the bed, I curled up on my nice new bedspread and, once again, suddenly felt the jubilation of having escaped from my grandmother. I wasn’t quite sure what I had escaped to, but the joy remained. No need to feel nervous, I told myself. Life had improved, and although I was still lonely, at least now I was free.
I went and raided my biscuit tin. Even this gave me a thrill: just to do so without a voice from the next room shouting, ‘And what do you think you’re doing?’ Then I indulged in another of the perks of freedom: a forbidden cigarette. The fire had heated up by now; it was pink, hot and popping merrily amongst its broken bits of fireclay.
For the first time since I’d left home, I felt that I could really relax and think properly. Until now, I had always been too busy or too exhausted to do so. I thought how nice it would be if there was someone with whom I could talk things over – but there wasn’t and never had been. It had always been impossible for me to form a really close friendship with another girl because of the very limited amount of freedom I had been allowed. All my contemporaries were the ‘bright young things’ of the twenties and had been brought up accordingly, having been given lots of latitude, spending money and smart clothes. Because my circumstances were so different, I was too embarrassed to accept invitations to parties and outings and, out of awkwardness, withdrew into a shell of studiousness and apparent indifference. At work also, I had not been able to make friends: my responsibility for discipline put a stop to that. It was clear that whatever decisions I had to make now, they must be made without help: that I was mistress of my own ship and must choose my own course, no matter how unreliable my steering was.
I made myself another coffee to help me think about one aspect of my new job that was causing me some anxiety: sex. It was a subject about which I knew almost nothing. At that time, my formal sex education consisted of one cryptic remark made by my grandmother in a rare expansive moment: ‘Men only want you for one thing.’ Although the experience with my boss had, up to a point, proved her right, I really had very little idea what that ‘one thing’ was. I had gleaned the rudimentary facts from the girls at school, but these were of the most basic nature. Later, at art school, I had been far too engrossed in my work to give the matter much thought. Most of the other girls were beginning to go out with boys and, no doubt, learning quite a bit. I think I must have been one of the most ignorant young women of my age. I knew this, and it worried me that Mae did not. I wondered if I’d been unfair to her in accepting the job.
But then, I thought, brightening, surely a maid doesn’t need to know anything about sex. I anticipated that one of the things I would have to do was take the various callers’ hats and gloves, and that that was what earned the tips Mae had mentioned. As well as that, I supposed, I would keep the place clean, pour liqueurs or coffee as required and do bits of mending and such. Nothing to worry about there: these jobs were all familiar to me. And twelve pounds a week – riches!
I recalled some of the language I’d heard tonight – especially from Rabbits – and I grinned. It was almost poetic. At home, under extreme emotional stress, I had been allowed to say ‘Blow!’ and ‘Dash!’ How satisfying it must be, I thought, to really let rip as she had done.
I never once considered the fact that most people would have regarded the new life I was embarking on as the steep and slippery road down into hell. Mae seemed so bright and spirited that I regarded Ronnie’s gloomy remark about the people I was getting mixed up with as peevishness at my leaving. It was so typical of the sort of thing my grandmother would come out with that I thought no more about it. Grandmother had always maintained that my mother had had to get married because of me, and that because of this, I was bound to inherit her morals and would need watching. Perhaps she was right.
A favourite teacher at art school had said that artists such as Renoir, Goya and Hogarth had lived, seen, thought and suffered. ‘That,’ he said, ‘is what makes them great painters.’ At that time, I would have got fairly high marks for the suffering and thinking bits but that was all. In my case, the sort of living and seeing my teacher meant had – until a few weeks ago – been strictly second-hand. This, I thought, is my great chance to really live and see. I would be foolish not to take it. The way I saw it, I would serve as maid and the experience would serve me.
The thought of being a maid presented a picture of myself in a frilly white cap and apron. I smiled at the image, though my stomach turned over at the thought of what my grandmother’s reaction would be if she were ever to know. One of the things she was totally against was any of her family going into domestic service; she would have had hysterics had she known what I intended. But it only added extra appeal to me – here was an opportunity that I saw as a gesture of defiance against the thousand and one thou-shalt-nots that had hemmed my life in.
I decided that on the following day I would write a note to my boss at the studio, telling him that I had left and giving him the name of the best girl on the staff to replace me. The next day being Sunday, the studio would be empty and I could collect the few private possessions I had there without a fuss. I breathed a sigh of relief at the thought that soon I really would be free of the past.
I undressed and turned out the fire, which gave a few protesting pops as I climbed into bed. My thoughts turned towards Mae. I remembered the impetuous way she had leaned across the bar and kissed my cheek. Perhaps at last I had found a friend.
Five
On Monday afternoon, with butterflie
s in my stomach, Mae’s address in my handbag and, as instructed, wearing my most shapeless dress, I arrived at what I thought to be the nearest underground station.
I’d allowed myself plenty of time, and for the first time, I found myself wandering around in Soho. My route to The Mousehole every evening had been through comparatively deserted streets in a quieter part of the outskirts. Now I ventured into the heartland and fell under the spell of a sordid magic that to this day has never faded for me.
I was overwhelmed by the noise, the smells, the teeming squalor of its life and its disregard for order. I passed fascinating little shops whose windows were hung with peculiar cheeses and strings of queer sausages, the barrels on the pavements filled with pickled herrings, olives and unrecognisable things, the racks holding newspapers from all over the world; Chinese shops with flattened, varnished ducks and cardboard-like dried fish hanging from cords amongst paper parasols and incense; rowdy street markets selling vegetables and fruit, some of which were completely unknown to me; dirt and debris everywhere; the many foreign restaurants and cafés, exuding pungent smells of herbs and garlic, and the raucous but melodic sounds of waitresses shouting orders in Italian down to long, dark kitchens. I was enchanted by it all.
I could have lingered indefinitely, drinking it all in, but there would be plenty of time to explore on other occasions and I thought I’d better find Mae’s place. In the end, it wasn’t so much a street as an alleyway – and a very dirty one at that. It clearly hadn’t been swept for some time and then, probably, only by the wind. It was just a pedestrian way, partly cobbled, partly paved and with a slight dip in the middle. Whether this was by design or the wear of centuries, I didn’t know, but it acted as a trap for rain and rubbish. Apart from that main furrow, there were other hollows, all full of sludgy water. I would hardly have been surprised had a window overhead been thrown open and more filth been hurled out to join it.
