by Lily Hammond
The man behind the counter peeled back thick lips over brown teeth and Eliza’s heart beat faster.
‘Morning there, Miss,’ he said. ‘What can I do you for?’
She lifted the suitcase and put it on the windowsill, pushed it towards the man. Nodded at it.
‘You wanna sell this, I’m guessing?’ He sniffed and pulled the case onto his counter, then with thick fingers, plucked at the leather strap. ‘Bit battered around the edges, this one.’
Eliza stood still in the cluttered gloom, not saying anything.
‘What’s the matter? Swallow your tongue, did you?’
Eliza nodded, lifted her hands, shrugged. The man stared at her for a moment, then went back to working the strap lose. The case sprang open and he wrinkled his nose at the clothes inside.
‘They’re winter things.’
Eliza nodded, more vigorously this time.
‘It’s summer, love. Look out the door, will you? Not much call for winter coats in this sort of weather.’ He was pulling her mother’s coat from the pile, shaking it out. ‘Not even ones with this many moth holes.’
Her shoulders drooped. He sifted a hand through the rest of her mother’s things. Paused at a petticoat and Eliza looked away. When she glanced back, he’d moved on.
‘Case for sale too?’ he asked at last.
She nodded.
He sniffed again. Made a show of wrinkling his nose. ‘Well, with them all being winter gear and all, I can’t think to offer you much – you realise that, don’t you, love?’
Eliza didn’t move. Her heart skittered around inside her chest under her hot clothes.
His eyes dropped back to the suitcase and its contents. ‘Well, all considering, I can give you five shillings for the lot – and mind you, that’s me being extra generous, considering.’
He didn’t enlighten Eliza as to what all the considerations were, and she widened her eyes at the paltry amount. Gaped at him.
He bared his stained teeth at her and gave a shrug that was meant to look helpless. ‘Can’t do no more than that, love. Times are hard for us all. This Depression has us by the throat. You and me both, love.’
Five shillings. It was little enough, but Eliza still had a full stomach and the optimism she’d swallowed along with it. Five shillings; that was two and a half good breakfasts. Who knew how many buns or loaves of bread. It would be enough. It would add to the pile of coins in the purse in the pocket of her skirt.
She nodded, and he grinned at her. ‘Ah, well done, love. That’s a wise choice these days, to take what you can when it’s offered.’ He sniffed again, but this time Eliza thought it was in satisfaction.
The case disappeared behind the counter. In its place the man slammed a metal lockbox, making a show of turning the key in its lock and laboriously counting out five coins. He held them up and waited for Eliza to raise her palm for them. She did, reluctantly, and he dropped them into her hand.
‘There you go, love. A good deal, done well.’
She nodded without enthusiasm and turned away from the grimy little counter and his leering grin.
‘You come back if you’ve anything more you want to pass my way, you hear,’ he called out to her retreating back and she shivered, vowing silently never to set foot in the shop again.
There was a rack of clothes down one side of the shop however, and she stopped in front of it, hands clenching and unclenching in reluctant need. She was hot, sticky, unable to ignore the wet rings under her arms. Her winter clothes dragged at her, chafing in the heat and she needed something cooler, lighter. She couldn’t after all, go to the hospital with great sweat stains under her arms. What would they think of a laundress who couldn’t keep her own outfits tidy and clean?
She brushed at the row of hanging clothes, skin prickling at the rising dust, at the sour smell of old fabric. She dug through them until she found a print cotton dress that looked like it might do, that didn’t make her fingers feel grubby from touching it.
Pulling it out, she held it against her, guessing that it would fit well enough. She’d not had the chance to wash anything more at the laundry than stark, dirty uniforms, stained sheets and soiled underclothes, but she liked fabric, liked the way it could fold and tuck and drape around graceful curves, and she liked clothes, had liked looking in the dress shop windows on their trips to town when she was growing up.
This dress wasn’t that ambitious, but it was tidy, and even a little pretty, a pale blue with little red boats sailing across the fabric. It was cheerful. It was the best thing there, even if the hem was falling down, but she could fix that – there was needle and thread back in her room in her suitcase. It wouldn’t take a minute to fix. She held on to the dress, feeling the welcome thinness of the cotton compared to what she was wearing, and glanced back at the back wall of the shop with the counter cut into it.
Swallowing, she trailed back there, bunching the dress in her nervous hands. The man watched her, the grin wider on his face.
‘Good choice,’ he told her. ‘Suit your pretty red hair, that will. One of the best dresses we have in the place. Reckon it will fit you just fine, and all.’ He took the opportunity to cast his eyes critically over her figure, and she crossed her arms in front of her chest.
When he was done, he sniffed again, took the dress and folded it up, disappearing for a moment and returning with a square of brown paper to make a package of it.
‘You should have a look at the shoes and hats as well, love,’ he said. ‘Why don’t I hold onto this while you do that?’
Eliza shook her head quickly. She wanted to take the dress and leave. She didn’t want to spend an extra minute in the place. Besides, she didn’t have the money to spare. It was an extravagance as it was to buy this, although she was certain she needed it, thinking again of the interview with the matron at the hospital where she would get work in the laundry. Where she hoped she would get work in the laundry.
‘Well, if you insist,’ the greasy man behind the counter said, and twisted twine around the parcel. ‘That will be one of those shiny little shillings I gave you.’
Eliza’s ears rang. A whole shilling? For the dress? It had had a price tag on it, but she hadn’t glanced at it, of course. She shook her head but fumbled for her purse, pulling out one of the coins she’d only just dropped in there, and slotted it onto the counter before snatching up her parcel and turning on her heel, scurrying from the shop to the sound of the man’s laughter bouncing off the walls behind her.
Outside, she heaved a breath of fresh air, such as it was. The sun dazzled her eyes and she ran away from the pawn shop window without caring which direction she went. She only wanted to put the man’s filthy gaze behind her. She didn’t stop until she reached the corner, and then she paused only to cross the road and head down a side street where she pressed herself against a wall and panted.
That was enough, she decided. Enough for the day. The parcel with her new dress was crumpled against her chest. She smoothed it out with fractious hands, swallowing and blinking.
Here’s what she’d do, she decided, light-headed from her rush down the road. Her room was the best place to be right now. She’d go back there. Wash the new dress, wash the stink of the pawn shop out of it, fix the hem, and then tomorrow she’d put it on and be ready for the day. She’d get a bright start, find the way to the hospital, because surely that would be easy enough to spot – she knew a hospital when she saw one; anyone did.
Then she’d get herself a job. She’d be all right. Everything would be all right.
Levering herself upright, Eliza set off slowly and deliberately back the way she’d come, retracing her steps along the roads, along the map she’d drawn in her mind. She stopped at a bakery and swapped another of her coins for a currant bun, and then she walked slowly, almost blindly along the road back to the boarding house. She climbed the dark stairs in silence, her packages clasped in both hands.
Chapter Five
Clemency tugged at her dr
essing gown tie, impatient with it. For some reason, it was shorter on one side, and she gave it a yank, rolled her eyes, shook her head, and got it knotted around her waist. She padded into the kitchen.
‘Your feet are bare,’ Riley said.
Clemency blinked at her, frowning, ran the phrase though her head again. ‘It’s summer,’ she said. ‘I’m not dressed. I’m looking for a cup of tea.’
Riley shook her own head, rough grey curls escaping the pins she jabbed into them that morning. ‘Your father would turn in his grave,’ she said, but she said it affectionately, already moving to the range, lifting the kettle to the teapot on the table.
‘I think my father is long twisted around inside his piece of the cemetery; don’t you agree?’ Clemency plucked up a scone still warm from the oven.
‘Here, that’s for your afternoon tea.’
Clemency shrugged. Afternoon tea, lunch, breakfast – what difference was there? It was food, and she was hungry. She spoke with her mouth full of flaky, tasty scone.
‘Today’s the day, I reckon,’ she said, perching her behind on a handy chair.
‘And what day would that be?’ Riley had already been up since sunrise, making yet more jam with the fruit from the house’s orchard. It was a goodly crop this year.
Clemency shook her head at the woman who was more than housekeeper, who had been the closest thing to mother Clemency had ever known in her thirty-five years.
‘There’s to be a demonstration by the Unemployed Worker’s Movement.’ Clemency swallowed her mouthful, moved to find the pot of jam and spread the sweet conserve onto the rest of her pilfered scone. ‘At least, that’s what I’ve heard.’
Riley shook her head. ‘It’s a crime, the state of things these days.’
Clemency didn’t disagree. Things were a dreadful mess. Jobs being rationed, and meagrely at that. In five weeks, a single man could hope only for two days work, and at nine shillings a day. Slightly better if you were a man married with children, but then of course, there were more mouths to feed.
‘It’s the women I feel for,’ Riley said, wishing she could do more to help, but glad of the solidity of her own position, even if Clemency couldn’t be said to be quite all that her father would have hoped for in a daughter. She poured steaming tea into a cup and nudged it across the table to the young woman.
‘I agree,’ Clemency said. ‘They’re not getting any relief at all.’
‘And to think here we women have had the vote longer than any other country,’ Riley added with a lip curled in disgust. ‘Will this demonstration help, do you think?’
Clemency subsided back into the chair, teacup in one hand, purloined scone in the other. She crossed one leg over the other and thought about it only for a moment before answering. ‘I hope so,’ she said. ‘We can hope so.’
‘But wishing doesn’t make miracles,’ Riley finished for her on a sigh.
‘No,’ Clemency said, looking at her scone with a small amount of guilt. ‘No, it doesn’t.’
Riley changed the subject, slightly. ‘So, you plan to be there?’
A nod. ‘It will be an historic occasion. Or at least of some human interest.’ Clemency cocked her head to the side. ‘Or, at the very least, of interest to myself.’
‘To take photographs?’
‘Yes. Of course.’ The tea was hot, strong.
‘Will you be lugging around all that heavy gear, then?’
Clemency shook her head. ‘No. I’m going to try out the new camera. It should be brilliant for using like this, on the street.’ Her heart lifted at the thought. ‘No carting around heavy equipment anymore. Instead – practically the size of my hand, and with a coupled viewfinder. A marvel of engineering.’ She nodded, satisfied. ‘This new Leica is perfect for my requirements.’ A sigh of pleasure.
Riley gazed at her, knowing she had that look on her face she always got when faced with Clemency’s love affair with cameras. A love affair that had been born in childhood and had never forsaken her. Not like Clemency’s love affairs of more human dimensions. They had been nothing but disappointing.
‘I’ll head out as soon as I’m dressed,’ Clemency said.
‘You make sure you’re careful,’ Riley told her. ‘If there’s a crowd, it’s as like to turn ugly as not.’
The warning was warranted, and Clemency knew it. She popped the last of the scone in her mouth and nodded, chewing vigorously and getting up, bringing her tea with her.
‘I expect I’ll be out most of the day, Riley. And I’ll pop around and see Maxine before I come home. Do we have anything for her?’
‘I’ll gather it up,’ Riley said, hands on her hips.
Clemency nodded. ‘I’ll get dressed and ready, then.’
The new camera fit in her hand. It didn’t even look like she was taking photos, until she raised it to her eye and peered through the viewfinder. The rest of the time, she just blended in with the crowd.
And what a crowd there was. Clemency tried to estimate how many men there were standing in a mob outside the town hall, scowling out from under their hats at the figures at the top of the steps. She looked at them, sometimes with the camera at her eye, at other times, letting it fall to her side. Most of their faces were too lean, bones sharpened under the skin by too little food and too much worry. She lifted the camera again, capturing the shadows, the desperation, on her film. Inside her, twin sensations were at war – excitement over the photographs she was taking, and a kind of dismal sickness at the thought of so many men hungry, so many families behind them suffering.
The crowd was noisy, and Clemency skirted around the edges of it, trying to be discreet, but she needn’t have worried. All attention was on the men who stood at the top of the steps, shoulders flung back with their own importance in front of the Town Hall doors, which remained resolutely closed. Clemency took her camera and focused on them, catching the sun smooth across their rounded jowls, the way they shook their heads. She tried to capture the essence of their words.
No, they said to the hungry men. No, we have nothing for you.
Clemency stared through the viewfinder and sucked in a sharp breath. The sun beat down on her head; she could feel it right through the hat she’d thrown hastily on. It dampened her scalp, and moisture ran in a hot trickle between her shoulder blades. The men roared, lifted fists to those on the steps telling them no. She clicked the button on the camera, and the image was recorded on her film.
Then the crowd undulated, moved, the sea of hats shaking, turning, marching away from the Town Hall, the men streaming across the Octogon, heels blunt and worn on the pavement, and Clemency followed, caught up in the stream, borne helplessly along like a piece of flotsam. She clung to her camera and waited to wash up on the edge of the crowd again.
They drew her along with them, and every now and then a man would look at her as they pushed and jostled, and she would see their eyes, darting and hungry and unaware of anything but their monstrous need. She licked her lips and caught the memory of raspberry jam and fresh-baked scone.
She was flung to the wayside finally by the tide of men, and landed panting on the kerb, precious camera held tight to her breast. Bending over, she heaved in one breath, then another, and straightened, set her shoulders, set off after them again, a small shadow in their wake, camera to her eye, scanning the crowd, zeroing in, looking, seeing, recording.
Things at the Hospital Board office were no better than at the Town Hall. The men in authority were just as adamant, their words just as bleak. No assistance. No money. No extras. No food.
Under the burning sun, the crowd shivered and shook, no longer something made of individual men, but a beast all of its own. And the beast roared, shook its fists, dragged itself forward and back. Howled.
Clemency’s mouth was dry, but she kept going, skirting and weaving around the edges of the crowd, listening, looking, darting here and there for the right angle, the right picture. Looking upwards, she saw figures at the windows, watching the
beast below with white faces and dark eyes.
She ducked into a doorway and pushed open the door, her heels tapping over the lobby tiles and then up the stairs, looking for a view over the street.
‘What are you doing here?’ someone asked, as she pushed forward to look out the window. ‘You don’t work here.’
Clemency gave a brief shake of her head. ‘Photographer,’ she said, and held up her camera. ‘Want a good vantage point.’
The women clustered at the window parted and let her through. The sash was pushed up, the smell of the street seeping in, along with the noise of the crowd below.
‘They have some women going into the office, asking for assistance,’ someone said next to Clemency’s ear. ‘I hope they give it to them.’ The voice lowered. ‘Crying shame women can’t get any help. They need to eat too.’
Clemency looked at the faces around her. Even those with darker complexions were pale. All the women in this room knew it could be them out there, pleading for help, for food, their stomachs empty.
‘Who are you all?’ she asked, camera at the ready. ‘What work do you do here?’
Someone shook their head. ‘We’re just the one’s who do the dog’s work around here. Fetching and carrying, sorting. A bit of typing, for those of us lucky enough.’
Another voice piped up. ‘Or we make tea, carry the mail around.’
Clemency looked past the frightened faces at the room she’d come blindly into. It was some sort of office.
One of the women had seen her looking. ‘Solicitor’s office,’ she said. ‘Big firm, and we’re lucky of the work. But even for us, it’s precarious.’
Another nodded. ‘What if we got sick? If one of the children is sick, I still have to come in. Not a good time to take a day off.’ They all shook their heads.
Clemency had nothing to say. They were all true and correct in their assessment of the situation. If you had a job right now, you hung onto it with gritted teeth and clawed nails. She turned back towards the window, held up the camera, rapidly took a few shots. The crowd was huge from this vantage point.