Dark Days for the Tobacco Girls

by Lizzie Lane

  Phyllis had always had a bit of a selfish streak, but Bridget realised this wasn’t about selfishness. Once she’d known she was pregnant, Phyllis had taken the best path for the baby, even if it meant being tied to a man she didn’t love. Now she was being honest about her marriage, not wanting to hurt anyone but looking to the future, trying to work out where the world might be going and how best to make her way in it.

  ‘Carpe diem,’ Bridget said softly.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Seize the day,’ said Bridget. ‘It means that we must live in the moment. Like the hymn, Oh God our help in ages past, our hope for years to come…’

  Silence descended until the sound of a ringing doorbell from across the street startled them.

  ‘Mrs Harvey?’ Bridget suggested.

  Phyllis took on a contemptuous look. ‘Unlike me, she has a key.’ She threw Bridget a telling glance. ‘Me and the milkman have to ring the bell. He’s the one ringing the bell. She’s left the money in a teapot. I’ve left the door on the catch so I’d better go over and deal with it. I’ll see you again.’ She half ran across the road, and called over her shoulder, ‘And if you hear of any jobs going, let me know, but don’t call round, I’ll call on you.’

  12

  Frank Miles

  Frank Miles couldn’t believe his luck when he took up with a widow who ran a boarding house in Ford Street. At first he’d been just another lodger renting a room, but once he’d told her a sob story about his wife dying and his children abandoning him to take off on their own selfish lives, he earned her sympathy. He achieved even more when he gave her a few bob extra rent from money he’d stolen from a pub that hadn’t locked the doors and windows as well as they could have done. Not that he told her that. ‘A bit from what I’ve saved just to show how much I appreciate your hospitality.’ Once that was done, his feet were well and truly under the table.

  The widow was named Vera Thompson and was roughly his age and too fat for his liking, but what did that matter as long as he had a roof over his head and was fed big stews that stuck to his stomach?

  The great thing was that she was fairly new to Bristol and wasn’t in the know as to who he really was and what he did. He made a big play on being a widower – which was true – and further elaborated on his story, saying that his son had moved a loose woman into the family home and told him he had to go – which was not true. He even told her that he’d spent time at sea for years, hence his profuse beard of gingery hair that hid the lower part of his face. The silly old bag had believed him. It still made him smile to think how easily he’d pulled the wool over her eyes.

  The boarding house was far enough away from York Street for him to be considered a stranger, but close enough for him to keep an ear to the ground. Although uneducated, he was streetwise and fully aware that news travelled quickly from one pub to another, so he made a point of only drinking in one where he was not known. At the same time, he had to continue to lie low. The last thing he wanted was for Eddie Bridgeman to find out where he was. He’d heard a rumour he was already out of prison and looking for him, but he reckoned he’d covered his tracks well.

  Frank was not known to do gainful employment and thus the last place anyone was likely to look for him was anywhere that called for honest work. The secret, he decided, was to land a job that nobody else wanted. War work was well paid, but also controlled by government, and governments were something best stayed away from. Because of the demand, many hard-working folks had left their peacetime jobs for others that were better paid. As a result, there were very many less salubrious jobs crying out for willing hands to fill in the gaps. With that in mind, he found a job with a slaughterhouse situated on the outskirts of the city and close to open countryside. His job was to load bones, hooves and horns onto a small lorry and deliver to one of the rendering yards in St Phillip’s.

  Although the delivery point was close to his old stomping ground, he figured how to do it safely. The employees at the rendering yard wore scarves over the lower part of their faces to help them cope with their stinking environment. Frank covered his own face just before entering the yard, which made him as unrecognisable as everyone else.

  Few pleasantries were exchanged between the men working at the renderers and lorry drivers. All the gruff men in the yard wanted to do was to unload and tumble the bones onto heaps that heaved with rats and flies before they were taken by wheelbarrow and tipped into great vats. In peacetime, the resultant liquid was used to make soap; in war, the bulk of it was used to produce glycerine for armaments. Drivers were known to want their loads turned round as quickly as possible so they could get out, strip their masks from their faces and breathe in the fresher air outside. The men in the yard wanted to do much the same and envied those who had the option of driving away.

  Frank kept his head down at the slaughterhouse. He wasn’t interested in passing the time of day with fellow workers who, for the most part, were older and had lived in the country or the edge of the city for most of their lives. Working in isolation gave him the time he needed to think about his future and a better way to make money. Ultimately, he might get back to where he was, but with his fear of Eddie Bridgeman, he needed to stay put – at least in the short term.

  Obsessed with improving his lot and keeping himself to himself, he gave the appearance of being a hard worker and attracted the attention of his employer.

  Clifford Venables managed the slaughterhouse and prided himself on being a good judge of character who firmly believed in rewarding hard graft. He watched as Frank roped a sheet of canvas over his load prior to delivering it to the rendering yard. At the moment when Frank was about to open the driver’s door, Clifford thrust open the metal framed window of his office and shouted down, ‘Miles. I want a word with you.’

  Frank blinked up at the big red face, the bushy eyebrows, the treble chin sitting like a layer of cushions above too tight a shirt collar. What had he done? He had a sudden urge to ask one of his work colleagues if they’d heard a rumour he was being sacked. Like everyone else, he did take the odd piece of offal back to the boarding house and Mrs Thompson’s gushing thanks. But there was nobody else in the yard he could ask, the loaders having gone off to where a herd of lowing cattle awaited their fate.

  The metal stairs leading up to the manager’s office rang like a bell with each footstep.

  Venables invited him in, sitting like a huge pile of blubber behind a ramshackle desk.

  Frank played the part of the respectful employee, sweeping his cap from his head and standing with it in front of him, clasped in both hands. He stood silently and waited, discreetly studying the man in front of him. Clifford Venables didn’t just have a triple chin. His fat arms pressed against his shirtsleeves and his body barely fitted into his chair. Perspiration beaded his forehead. Not for nothing was he called Fat Cliff.

  Like a sudden cut in that fleshy face, his small mouth opened and shut as he began to speak. ‘I’ve been watching you, Miles.’

  Frank froze.

  ‘You’re a hard worker. Keeps yer head down and gets on with the job. You know Jack Parker dropped dead yesterday, did you?’

  Frank said that he did and wondered where this was leading. Jack had been eighty and had worked part-time, a dour man who had less to do with his workmates than Frank did.

  ‘How do you fancy taking over his rounds, delivering meat to them butchers’ shops that like us to take their bones away to the renderers?’

  This was not at all what he’d expected. He was overjoyed as he thought of the extra bits of meat he might be able to lay his hands on. Vera was complaining all the time about how the rationing didn’t go far and that without a bit of offal there’d be nothing worth eating. Now what if he could get a bit of decent meat as well?

  ‘I think I can manage that,’ Frank said with undisguised confidence.

  Fat Cliff pointed a warning finger. ‘Just you take care everything ordered gets delivered. We don’t want anything going astray, do
we?’

  ‘Of course not, Mr Clifford.’

  Of course not? Frank was already reckoning on a bit of that meat finding its way into Vera’s oven – or better still, he could sell it on – if there was enough of it, that was.

  Frank scratched his head as he made his way back to the yard, the metal steps clanging with each descending footstep; his plan was not yet fully formed. It needed a bit more thinking about. What he did know beyond doubt was that there was a good chance to make some serious money. There had to be a way, he thought. Surely not all those butchers were honest, and if they weren’t…?

  That evening, Vera ladled out a bowl of meaty stew. Flour being in short supply, she told him how she’d thickened it with rolled oats.

  ‘Mind you,’ she added. ‘It’s the bones that give it the flavour. Amazing how much meat came off them bones you brought home for me. So handy you being able to get them so fresh.’

  Frank’s spoon paused halfway to his mouth. He’d been thinking of heading for the pub tonight where he could laugh and talk with other working blokes and not have to hear all this ongoing chatter about rationing and cooking. Yet something in what she said gave him pause for thought.

  He grinned. ‘Might be able to get you a bit of extra – not just bones. Liver, kidneys, hearts and stuff…’

  She wrinkled her nose. ‘Offal? Be nice if you could get a breast of lamb or some nice ox tail. Be even better if you could get a bit of meat for roasting.’

  ‘Might be able to.’ He tapped the side of his nose. ‘Things are lookin’ up fer me, old girl. Now,’ he stood up and rattled the few coins he had left in his pockets. ‘I’ve only got enough for a couple of pints…’

  ‘Don’t you worry about that,’ said Vera with a beaming expression. ‘I’m sure I can stand you a few pints, seeing as you brought ’ome them bones. I’m one of the lucky ones. Think how many are going without a decent bit of meat on the table and not everybody can afford black-market prices. Here’s half a crown. Am much grateful, Frank. Much grateful indeed.’

  And a lot of other people would also be grateful thought Frank as he whistled his way to the pub. Many a woman would appreciate the bits and pieces he got from the slaughterhouse. His mind turned to the lorryload of bones and bits and bobs. A lot of them still had plenty of meat on too – which gave him an idea, one that could make him a decent bit of extra money.

  13

  Maisie

  Nerves were on edge, what with the men away and news coming from all over the country about air raids. So far, Bristol had escaped lightly, but London especially had received a bit of a bashing. The girls and women who worked in the stripping room were readying themselves. A tea urn was in place in the cellar that had been so ably converted for use as an air-raid shelter, along with blankets, chairs, camp beds and tins of food.

  ‘Right, that’s our stomachs taken care of, but we need something else to take our minds off things,’ declared Aggie. ‘Let’s club together and buy a few more records.’

  Aggie’s persuasive methods were quite formidable and it wasn’t long before coins rattled into the leather shoulder bag she wore round her neck.

  ‘ So, we’ve got the gramophone sitting ready and waiting for us down in the cellar – sorry – air-raid shelter. Trouble is the only records that came with it are “March of the Chocolate Soldiers” on one side and “In a Monastery Garden” on the other.’

  ‘And that’s all we’ve got?’ exclaimed Edith Jones who spent most of the day singing along with anything that came on the wireless. ‘I can afford a tanner to ’elp with that,’ she said.

  Aggie shook the leather satchel and fixed Edith with a piercing look. ‘Two bob would ’elp a bit more. Otherwise it’s that one of Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy singing “Indian Love Call” and “Rose Marie”. Plus, a bit of tea dance music from the twenties. They’re the cheapest.’

  The resultant groans and mutterings about twenties music being dead and buried were followed by a hunt in purses for extra coinage, though Edith, who had four kids and a husband who’d scarpered the moment he’d received his call-up papers, still showed some reluctance.

  Maisie had lived with Aggie long enough at the Llandoger to guess what would happen next. Aggie had a big body and a big heart. She saw her pat Edith’s shoulder. ‘Sixpence will be enough if that’s all you’ve got.’

  Everybody knew Edith Jones was finding it hard, four mouths to feed and no husband to bring money into the house. It was well known that her mother was supposed to look after them and queue up for rations. It was also rumoured that the kids often went short because their grandmother exchanged some of the ration coupons for black-market gin. Actually Maisie knew it was more than a rumour; she’d seen her staggering along the road, her shopping bag lighter than it should be.

  Still, she thought, that’s their business.

  ‘Here you go,’ Maisie said, her copper pennies greasily warm in her palm before she sent them tumbling into Aggie’s bag.

  Once everyone had been coerced for a second time, Aggie’s face was a picture of satisfaction as she gave the heavy bag a good shake.

  ‘That’s a bit more like it.’ She called for a piece of paper and a pencil as she surveyed the upturned faces. ‘What’s it to be then? What records do we buy?’

  ‘George Formby.’

  The younger women grimaced and groaned until Aggie made comment.

  ‘Now, now. We’ve got to allow for all tastes…’

  ‘And old tastes,’ somebody grumbled.

  Bridget suddenly engaged with the discussion and suggested Benny Goodman. ‘Music you can dance to.’

  Her suggestion was met with instant approval by many of the younger women.

  Maisie tried to recall music she’d heard on Aggie’s wireless at the Llandoger. ‘How about that Vera Lynn. I likes the songs she sings.’

  It was agreed that a bit of crooning would soothe their souls and who better to provide it than Vera Lynn.

  At lunchtime, Aggie enlisted Bridget and Maisie’s help to count out the takings. Coppers, shillings, sixpences, florins and half crowns were separated and placed in neat piles on the table. Later while they ate, talk was ongoing about what records would be bought.

  ‘I’m looking forward to listening to them,’ exclaimed Edith Jones.

  Looks of condemnation flew in her direction.

  She looked from one disbelieving face to another and spread her hands in a helpless fashion. ‘What ’ave I said?’

  Bridget enlightened her. ‘We’re going to be playing those records to hide the sound of the bombs dropping – just in case you’ve forgotten there’s a war on.’

  Edith looked shocked, even a little frightened. ‘I’m trying not to think of it! Got enough on me mind what with finding enough grub for the kids.’ The legs of her chair scraped the floor as she got to her feet. ‘I’d better be going. Got to buy a few pork bones for dinner tonight.’

  Maisie sensed her embarrassment and felt sorry for the poor woman. She looked washed out. It couldn’t be easy, she thought, coping with four kids, no husband and a gin-sodden mother. ‘Must be a bit of a struggle feeding her kids,’ she remarked as she scraped the last of the cottage pie from her plate.

  She smelt a hint of lavender water and cigarettes as Aggie leaned forward, her voice no more than a whisper. ‘I knows for a fact that she buys the pinky fruit and whatever veg the barrow boys have got left on their carts that nobody else wants – stumps of cabbage, turnips and half black potatoes. As for meat, I ’ear it’s mostly bones – and not just pork bones,’ she said, her voice dropping that bit lower. ‘Gets a bit of horse meat from the knacker’s yard over in St Phillip’s.’

  Maisie felt instantly sorry for her. It wasn’t easy being poor and hard done by, and she certainly knew all about that. Frank Miles had ruled his household with a heavy hand. It hadn’t helped that she wasn’t his natural daughter. What money did come into the house had been spent on booze and cigarettes. Feeding her and her half-b
rother, Alf, had not been a top priority.

  As a child it was sometimes Maisie’s task to use her waif-like appearance to go along to the knacker’s yard and get meat for a rock-bottom price. She’d seen the dead, old and worn-out horses taken in there, their meat usually destined for pet food. That was before the war. For anyone that desperate, horse meat was as sweet as beef and far cheaper. At present, in the midst of war, it slipped beneath the rationing regime – if you could get it. The authorities were beginning to latch on. Horse meat was becoming more sought after, a handy alternative to short-term deprivation and long-term starvation.

  Bridget forked over the last bit of food on her plate. The cabbage was a bit watery, the meat a little gristly; like everyone else, the canteen cooks were finding it hard to maintain standards.

  ‘So what did Phyllis ’ave to say,’ Maisie asked once it was just the two of them left at the dining table. ‘Shame I couldn’t ’ave got a day off too.’

  Bridget cradled her teacup. ‘Now that she’s heard about Robert, she doesn’t see any reason to stay, but, of course, her mother-in-law won’t have it that Robert might never come back. She’s insistent that Phyllis stays with them until he comes marching back through the door.’

  ‘Won’t be doin’ that if ’e’s dead,’ spluttered Maisie. ‘That woman’s mad. I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Phyllis has made her mind up. She’s determined to get out from under their roof.’

  ‘Back to her mother?’

  To Bridget’s mind, it seemed the best option, yet she couldn’t help thinking Phyllis had been a bit reticent when she’d suggested it. ‘I could offer her a bed at my house, what with the kids being evacuated, but it would only be temporary. They’re not going to be away forever.’