Things a Bright Girl Can Do

by Sally Nicholls

  ‘Everything,’ she said. ‘Father, everything. I want to go to university. I want to earn my own living, doing something real and useful, like Kit will. I want to vote for someone who stands for the things that I want, not what my husband wants. I want to have the same rights as a man for – oh, for all sorts of things. The right to see my own children if I get divorced. The right—’ She stopped. Her father was looking at her in bafflement.

  ‘But, Evelyn,’ he said. ‘I hope you’ll never have to earn your own living. I hope you’ll have a family, and children of your own. Would you really rather live like Miss Perring, at the edge of someone else’s family?’

  ‘I’d like,’ said Evelyn fiercely, ‘to live in a world where women can do everything men can.’ Her father was shaking his head. And suddenly she felt the fury rising inside of her. ‘It’s not funny!’ she said. ‘Don’t you dare act like it’s funny, or I shall scream!’

  Her father’s lips tightened.

  ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Supposing you did have a vote and there was an election tomorrow – who were you intending to vote for?’

  ‘I –’ Evelyn hesitated. The shaming truth was, she hadn’t the faintest idea. She had only the vaguest notion of what the various political parties stood for. She knew her father voted Tory, and always had done, but she still wasn’t sure exactly what the difference between the Tories and the Liberals was. The Suffragettes wanted you to vote Labour, because they were in favour of women’s suffrage. But Labour were hardly going to win an election, so she couldn’t see how this was supposed to help. Also, it felt rather disloyal to Teddy’s father to vote for his workers when he had such trouble with strikes and so forth. But she was damned if she was going to vote for her father’s party, and she was damned if she was going to vote for the Liberals and that cad Mr Asquith, who was responsible for force-feeding, and the Cat and Mouse Act, and all sorts of other beastlinesses.

  Deciding, as ever, to go with the answer most likely to annoy her father, she said with dignity, ‘I would vote for the All-for-Ireland League. I think it’s about time those poor old Irish got Home Rule.’

  ‘The All-for-Ireland League!’ He laughed. ‘My dear Evelyn! They hardly put up candidates in Hampstead!’ He shook his head. ‘I know elections are the current fad amongst you girls,’ he said. ‘But women can’t be expected to understand politics, and it’s not fair to ask you to try.’

  Evelyn flushed. She hated to be made to look a fool.

  ‘Well, and how am I supposed to know any better?’ she said. ‘I’m not even allowed to read the newspaper! If I had a vote, I’d damned well read up on the candidates, which, if I may say so, is more than most men do!’

  She knew damned would upset him, and it duly did. His expression hardened.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘that’s as may be. But I am not going to stand by while you throw your life away. These women are not heroines, Evelyn. They are violent, barbaric criminals.’ He stood up. ‘You are not to see any of these people again,’ he said. ‘Nor are you to see Teddy, until he can learn a little responsibility. You are to come straight home from school – and if I can’t trust you to do that, I shall have to ask Miss Perring to accompany you. And once you’re home from school, you are not to leave the house, unless accompanied by your mother, or Miss Perring, or me. Do I make myself clear?’

  Evelyn flushed.

  ‘Perfectly,’ she said. ‘And you have the nerve to ask what freedoms you think I don’t have!’

  And she turned on her heel and marched out of the study, slamming the door behind her, to the admiration of Hetty and Kezia, who were watching from the stairs.

  Evelyn always liked to have the last word.

  A Meeting Place

  THE RELIGIOUS SOCIETY of Friends, commonly known as Quakers, met for worship on Sunday morning. The Meeting Room was large, square and filled with long wooden benches, arranged in concentric squares around the table in the centre with the Bible and Christian Faith and Practice. At the far end of the room was the elders’ gallery, where May’s mother sat with the other elders. May could see her now, her hands folded in her lap, her expression quiet. The room was perhaps half full of Quakers, all similarly silent.

  May let her gaze wander around the Meeting. Her school-friends found the Quakers baffling whenever she’d tried to explain them.

  So you just sit, in silence?

  Yes.

  But why?

  You’re supposed to listen. To God, or … the Holy Spirit, I suppose. Quakers don’t think religion is about what you read in the Bible or what people tell you to believe – although it’s about that too, of course. They think it’s about what you can say, yourself. That’s why we don’t have priests, or ministers. We’re all just as equal as each other.

  It was one of the things she loved best about them. All of the jobs in a Meeting – from keeping the accounts to visiting the sick and managing the burial ground – were divided up between the members of the Meeting, men and women. Equality, to May, wasn’t just a political goal, but a religious truth. In what other religion could a woman like her mother sit there on the elders’ bench, her pale hair – already beginning to turn grey at the temples – threatening to tumble down out of its hairgrips? In what other religion could May herself stand up and speak, if the spirit moved her?

  And all of these people would listen.

  May knew that she was supposed to be listening too. But she wasn’t. She was thinking instead, of a single word, repeated.

  Nell, she thought. Nell, Nell.

  May had met Nell three times since that evening in her bedroom. Once, they’d gone to Victoria Park and walked round and round the little pathways while Nell talked about the Suffragettes and May talked about the Sapphists. The second time, they’d been to a Picture Palace and seen a Charlie Chaplin picture, and held hands in the dark. And then there’d been the action at Wellington Arch. May had not been involved in the violence – the pacifist Quakers kept as far away from it as they could – but she had seen it, a little of it. She didn’t know if Nell had been a part of it. She supposed it wasn’t very likely. There had been a lot of women on the march, after all, and most of them hadn’t been fighting policemen. But still.

  She closed her eyes, and pictured Nell as she had seen her at the Bow Baths Hall, ready to take arms against anyone who opposed her. She knew perhaps she ought to be worried about Nell, but she wasn’t. She found herself almost hoping she had been in the violence, which was rather an awful thing to think when you were supposed to be a pacifist. But that mental picture of Nell, Saturday night in hand, taking on the British constabulary, was so glorious. It frightened her a little, how exciting she found it.

  Nell, she thought. Nell.

  That was a girl you could fall in love with.

  Short, and Containing Much Wailing and Gnashing of Teeth

  IT WAS, OF course, not only Evelyn who was in disgrace. In the row that followed the newspaper picture, several other things had come out, including Teddy’s presence at the Albert Hall meeting and the copies of Votes for Women which were still being delivered to Evelyn at Teddy’s address. Teddy too had been summoned into Father’s office and treated to another long lecture; Evelyn didn’t know exactly what had been said, but he had come out looking rather subdued. He hated not to be thought well of. Not only was Evelyn forbidden to see him, he was banned from the Collis house until further notice. Evelyn was more ashamed about this than she liked to admit; although he had never exactly said so, she knew how important their family was to Teddy.

  ‘I do feel a heel,’ he told Evelyn. They were on their way upstairs; Teddy had been granted ten minutes in the nursery to say goodbye to Hetty and Kezia. ‘Uncle John’s quite right – it was a bit thick of me to go behind their backs like this. They’ve been frightfully decent to me, you know, over the years.’

  ‘They’ll get over it,’ said Evelyn callously. ‘And it’s none of their damn business if I choose to be a Suffragette anyway. I tell you who
won’t get over it though – young Henrietta. I hope you’re prepared for an awful scene.’

  This turned out to be quite true. Hetty was so upset by Teddy’s banishment that they ended up spending their last ten minutes together comforting her. When it came to it, Evelyn had no time to do anything except clasp Teddy’s hand and whisper, ‘I’ll write – don’t fuss, Teddy – and tell your mother I’m still coming to her meeting, no matter what Father says.’

  Teddy looked rather as though he wanted to protest, but it was too late.

  Evelyn’s father was in the doorway, and he had to go.

  A Lady Visitor

  ‘WHEN SHALL I see you again?’ May had asked, after the Picture Palace. And then, ‘I’d love to see where you live – may I?’

  Nell had flushed. Then, remembering Keir Hardie in Parliament, she said, ‘If you like.’

  May turned up at half past six, just as Nell’s mother was serving tea. Nell, bringing her up the stairs, said awkwardly, ‘It ain’t much, like.’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ said May. ‘I say, though, did you see the fighting at Wellington Arch? I thought you might have been in it.’

  Nell snorted.

  ‘Not me!’ she said, which was true as far as it went. She hadn’t actually hit anyone. ‘Wish I had been, though. That would’ve been something!’ They reached the landing. From behind the closed door, May could hear the hubbub of children’s voices. Nell hesitated. ‘Well,’ she said. Then: ‘It’s a bit full.’

  It certainly was. Both of the Swancotts’ rooms were filled with furniture. Every flat surface was covered in ornaments, or crockery; even the ceiling was criss-crossed with washing-lines hung with children’s clothes and babies’ napkins. The room was crowded with children clamouring for their tea. Nell introduced them one by one.

  ‘That’s me brother Bill. He’s a butcher’s boy, and he thinks he’s all that – but he ain’t. This is Bernie. He’s ten. He’s a sweetheart, ain’t you, Bernie? And Dot – she’s six. She’s a terror. This is me little brother Johnnie. He’s three. And the baby’s Siddy. Are you going to wave to the nice lady, Siddy?’

  May waved to the baby, and was shown around the two rooms. The bedroom had a large brass bedstead, in which Nell and Dot and Johnnie slept top and tail with their mother and father. There was a orange-crate cot by the bed for the baby. Bill and Bernie slept on the sofa in the kitchen. The kitchen had no range, but only a cheap gas stove. May knew from her mother’s Fabian friends how expensive the gas stoves were, and how more often than not dinners made on them would be left half cooked rather than waste another penny on gas.

  She was invited to share the family tea, but refused politely, saying she’d already eaten. She knew there wouldn’t be much food going spare. Tea was bread and dripping and hot, sweet tea for everyone except Bill, who also got a slab of fried ham. The children mostly ate standing up, a hunk of bread in one hand and a mug of tea in the other, and then ran out to play in the street, Dot lugging Siddy under one arm. Bill tipped his cap to May and disappeared ‘off out’, but the others didn’t look round. One of Bernie’s friends had acquired a roller-skate, rescued from the rubbish bin by a sister who was a nursemaid, and all the boys were desperate for a go. May and Nell went to fetch the water from the pump downstairs, then went down and sat on the step, leaving Nell’s mother to the washing-up. Johnnie, imprisoned in his high chair, kicked and yelled as the others went outside.

  ‘Oh, give over, Johnnie, do,’ said his mother. ‘I’ll take you out when me work’s done, if you’re good. He’s that fretful,’ she said to May. ‘I don’t know what to do with him most days.’

  The street, like all the side streets in Poplar, was full of boys, some chasing the boy on the roller-skate, the rest engaged in a game of cricket. The girls, as far as May could tell, didn’t play. They sat in little gaggles on the steps, minding the babies, who, being live and wriggling, were far more interesting than any of May’s dolls had ever been. May thought they seemed to be having a jolly old time of it.

  It wasn’t all jolliness, though. Bernie, excited by his turn on the roller-skate, had been overcome by a fit of coughing and had had to relinquish it. His narrow face was pinched and white, and she had been astonished to learn that he was ten years old – he wasn’t much bigger than his little sister Dot. She wondered at the five-year gap between Nell and Bernie. Had there been other children there, who had died? Was that the sort of thing one could ask? She thought of the tea, and the hunks of bread and dripping. It wasn’t much, particularly for Nell, who was in full-time work, and the mother, who had an air of permanent exhaustion.

  Nell was watching her a little anxiously.

  ‘I know it ain’t much,’ she said. ‘I mean – with all them kids in, like. Mum does her best, but it ain’t easy …’

  ‘I liked it,’ said May. She smiled at Nell, trying to show her how much she had liked it, how she wasn’t going to swank about her own home or talk down to Nell about hers. ‘It’s – well, it’s friendly. I liked your mother. And I liked your brothers and sisters too.’

  Nell grunted. The two of them were silent, sitting on the step. May said, ‘How come there aren’t any children between you and Bernie?’

  To her surprise, Nell grinned.

  ‘That’s cos me dad was in South Africa. He were a soldier, in the Boer War.’

  ‘Oh.’ May was rather taken aback. ‘Your poor father.’

  ‘What’s so poor about it?’ Nell demanded. She was proud of her dad. Not everyone had a dad who’d been to South Africa.

  ‘Well –’ May didn’t quite know how to answer this. Quakers were pacifists. All the Quakers she knew took it for granted that wars were dreadful, violent things, which no sane person would ever want to be involved in. ‘Wars are simply frightful, aren’t they? Quakers are against war,’ she explained. ‘We wouldn’t fight even if there was conscription, like there is in France and Germany.’

  Nell blinked.

  ‘That’s barmy,’ she said, frankly. ‘What’s wrong with wars? If people fight you, you have to fight back.’

  ‘No, you don’t.’ May leant forward eagerly. ‘Soldiers only fight wars because their officers tell them to. Your father didn’t have anything against the Boers personally, did he? He just killed them because he was told to. Well, that’s not right. All the soldiers should have said they wouldn’t, and then they’d have had to use diplomacy instead. That’s what the Quakers would have done. Quakers say there’s a bit of God in everyone. So if you kill people, you’re killing God.’

  ‘You’re cracked,’ said Nell. She leant back against the door and dug her pipe out of her pocket. ‘I don’t believe in God,’ she said.

  May sighed.

  ‘That’s all right,’ she said. ‘He’s there whether you believe in him or not.’

  A Life Full of Purpose

  EVELYN HAD SAID that she was going to go to Teddy’s mother’s drawing-room meeting, and she meant it. She and her mother had both, in fact, been formally invited, but her parents – fortunately for Evelyn – had a dinner engagement, and her mother had turned down the invitation and promptly forgotten all about it. Even more fortunately, it was Miss Perring’s evening out – she was going to a concert at the Crystal Palace.

  ‘I am asking you to stay here with your sisters,’ Evelyn’s mother said to Evelyn before she left. ‘I believe I can trust you not to run off and visit that boy as soon as my back is turned. Am I right?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know about that,’ Evelyn said. Evelyn considered it below her dignity to lie. ‘But I can’t think where you got the idea I’m such a flirt from. Teddy and I never did anything we need be ashamed of.’

  Her mother raised her eyebrows.

  ‘I never believed you had,’ she said. But she had kept the dinner engagement. And Evelyn had to do nothing more than wait until Miss Perring had left, put on her hat and coat, and walk out of the door.

  She could not help feeling guilty about this. She justified it to herself all
the way to Teddy’s house. It’s not as though there’s anything wrong about the Suffragettes. And I did tell Teddy’s mother I was going to be there – and Teddy – and Mother’s always going on about how important it is to keep your promises. And what right have they got to tell me what to do anyway? I’m nearly eighteen. I’m not a child. And what’s more important, after all, obeying your mother, or fighting for your freedom?

  She arrived at Mrs Moran’s house in a bad mood. Mrs Moran had arranged all the chairs in the house – there were a surprising number of them, once they’d been scavenged from the kitchen and the dining room and the bedrooms – into rows in the drawing room. The speaker was a young woman called Mrs Leighton, a friend of Miss Wilkinson’s. She was standing at the front of the drawing room, hands neatly clasped in front of her, waiting for the assembled women – and it was mostly women – to quieten down and let her speak. Teddy was standing at the back, leaning against the wall as though to distance himself from the attendant women. Evelyn felt an unexpected flutter of excitement at the sight of him. This wasn’t entirely comfortable; she looked quickly away, slipped into the back row and concentrated on studying Mrs Leighton. She looked calm and quiet and not at all nervous – hardly surprising, Evelyn thought, when one considered that she regularly spoke on street corners, and in packed meeting rooms full of angry anti-suffragists, and at busy, open-air rallies. Compared to those things, Mrs Moran’s drawing room must seem like very small fry indeed.

  As Mrs Leighton stood waiting, the women gradually stopped speaking and were silent. Those who were still talking were nudged by their companions until they too became quiet. Mrs Leighton waited, holding the silence. Then she began to speak.

  ‘All my life,’ she said, ‘I waited for something that would give me purpose. Something I could do that would mean something. I thought I might find it in my husband, but I didn’t – although we loved each other, loving him wasn’t enough to fill a life. I thought I might find it in my house, but I had a small house and an excellent housekeeper, and an active mind which was not to be filled with housework. I was sure that I would find it in my child, but I found that, though I love my little boy, I do not have the sort of mind that can be satisfied by bending itself to the whims of an infant.’