Dark Days for the Tobacco Girls

by Lizzie Lane

She was tactful enough not to mention her hope for the destruction of York Street once Phyllis was tottering down stairs looking like hell. After all, Mrs Proctor and her son lived there now.

  Phyllis refused breakfast. ‘I don’t think I can.’ She looked at her hands. Her brightly coloured nails were broken and dirty.

  ‘What will you do today?’ Bridget asked her as she stirred her tea and took a bite of the fried bread.

  Phyllis kept her gaze fixed on her hands. ‘Sam was coming home today, but whether he’ll get here or not…’ An angry expression came to her face. ‘It’s just not fair! This bloody air raid will hold up his train.’

  Bridget caught a look flash between her parents, who no doubt thought Phyllis selfish to talk of trains being late when their beloved city was in flames.

  Maisie noticed too. ‘Never mind about the train being late, what about them that’s died or were injured.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’ Phyllis looked offended. ‘I just wish things could be normal again.’

  Bridget swallowed the shock she felt. Phyllis had lost no time in declaring herself in love with Sam and totally rejected any well-meaning advice that she should be a little less impetuous. After all, they hardly knew each other. But then, thought Bridget, look what happened to you. One week in the August sun and face to face with a man who resembled Lyndon, and you threw caution to the wind. And the funeral, she reminded herself. The funeral moved you. Thankfully her period had arrived on time so she wasn’t going to end up like Phyllis and marrying because she had to instead of because she wanted to.

  Even though they’d had little sleep, Maisie and Bridget made their way into work. Phyllis went with them, intending to get a bus or tram to Old Market. As it turned out, there were very few. The tramlines had been blown up, along with the Bedminster tramway station. Phyllis had no alternative but to walk.

  Most of the women and girls working in the stripping room had made it in, though some stools were unoccupied and there were gaps at tables.

  Subdued and somewhat sullen, Aggie muscled her way in smelling of smoke. ‘We lost the last two gables. We’ve got five now instead of seven. Still, thank God for small mercies. We’ll be open as usual.’ She shook her head dolefully before shouting for the wireless to be turned on.

  The newscaster’s plumy accent cut like a knife through an odd silence in a room that was usually full of conversation and comment. ‘Last night, enemy aircraft bombed a city in the south-west of England. Although great damage was sustained, fatalities were light and a number of enemy aircraft were shot down…’

  Aggie’s voice boomed out like a foghorn. ‘A city in the south west…! It do ’ave a name, you know!’

  Despite the fact that the announcer couldn’t hear her, she glared at the wireless as though she could see through it to the man who dared treat the city with such anonymity.

  Maisie gave Bridget a nudge. ‘If that bloke were ’ere now, ’e’d be quaking in ’is boots.’

  One, two, three… Bridget counted and placed names to the empty stools.

  ‘None of our girls were bombed out,’ said Aggie on seeing her anxious face. ‘They’re just ’aving a bit of trouble gettin’ in this morning. I did meself…’

  Aggie was proved right when two of the missing came rushing in. Only one person did not. Edith Jones.

  ‘Anyone know where she is?’ shouted Aggie over the bent heads of women and girls keen to pass the piecework threshold and gain a bit of extra money.

  Heads were shaken. Nobody seemed to know until Ted Green, one of the managers, walked through and whispered something into Aggie’s ear that made her face turn pale.

  Gathering herself, she clapped her hands. ‘A bit of quiet if you please. Edith Jones and her kids were carted off in an ambulance last night. They’re all in hospital. They ain’t been bombed out, but I reckon we should ’ave a whip-round. Give whatever you can.’

  There were gasps and questions racing from one person to another, all trying to guess why Edith and her family had been carted to hospital and generously plonking coins into the canvas bag Aggie used for all her collecting.

  ‘What about ’er old lady?’ somebody shouted.

  Ted responded that he didn’t know. ‘Might still be in the Barley Mow buried under a beer barrel,’ he added in a sarcastic manner.

  As assumptions sprang up like mushrooms, Maisie sat with her brow knitted in a deep frown. What with the bombing, it wasn’t easy to find out what was going on in the city and the fact that the Battle of Britain was being fought on their doorstep. Telephone boxes had been blown off their perches and many lines were down. Like the tramlines, they would take some time to repair – if it ever happened.

  Aggie admitted to having been listening to the wireless from early that morning. ‘Lot of clearing up to do, so I ’ad a fag and listened to the wireless. Lord Haw Haw’s been on the wireless on about Bristol wanting to replace the trams with buses, and their bombers ’ad done the job. Bloody cheek.’

  ‘But what about Edith,’ said Maisie. ‘Anyone been around to her ’ouse?’

  ‘We could ask a neighbour, I suppose,’ ventured Bridget.

  ‘Or phone the hospital. You’re good at that, Bridget.’

  The two of them exchanged looks of understanding. The last time they’d phoned the hospital it had been about Phyllis.

  They’d heard from one of their workmates that lived in that direction that there was no damage around Midland Road even though it was a prime target.

  From necessity, a great need to lift the gloom, the conversation turned to more pleasant matters.

  Maisie had received letters from Sid, the closest thing she’d ever had to a real boyfriend. At first, she’d been a bit lazy replying, but of late she wrote to him a bit more often, mostly because his letters had become more interesting. He was somewhere in the Middle East but couldn’t tell her where. ‘There are a lot of camels here, the sun’s hot and the sea is the deepest blue you could ever imagine.’

  She’d even let Bridget read them, who’d immediately surmised that he was in Egypt.

  ‘You got any letters from abroad?’ Maisie asked her as she tucked her letter into her overall pocket. The inference was obvious and caused a deep blush to come to Bridget’s face.

  ‘No. I don’t know anyone in the armed forces,’ she snapped, loath to even mention Lyndon by name, let alone admit that he was likely engaged to somebody else.

  ‘I was meaning your RAF bloke down in Devon. Thought ’e might ’ave gone abroad.’

  Both Maisie and Bridget knew she didn’t mean any such thing. Bridget’s reluctance to talk about Lyndon was noticeable and the only reason she had mentioned James was because his story was intertwined with that of her evacuated brothers and sisters. She’d admitted nothing else, certainly not of any intimacy shared.

  One of the girls in work who lived close to the city centre remarked on the damage she’d seen, of rubble and glass strewn over the roads and gaping holes – like missing teeth – amongst those buildings still standing.

  As they made their way to one telephone box that was still standing, Maisie and Bridget had spotted a staircase hanging against the remaining wall, a collapsed roof and a bed sitting on top a pile of rubble.

  Sleet beat against their faces as they waited for the queue to use the telephone box to diminish. Once it was their turn, they both huddled inside, Bridget taking off her woollen mittens before dialling. As before, Maisie got out a handful of pennies.

  Having learned from their earlier experience, Bridget proclaimed herself Edith’s sister.

  ‘I need to know whether I have to make room in my place for the children,’ she explained.

  ‘Ah yes,’ said the voice on the other end. ‘Two children of a family of four died in the early hours of this morning. The mother and surviving two children are critically ill.’

  As the news sank in, Bridget replaced the phone.

  ‘Poor Edith.’ Her voice was little above a whisper. Edi
th’s children were as much a casualty of this war as the widow and children attending the funeral of a father killed at Dunkirk.

  ‘What killed them? Was it gas?’

  Bridget shook her head and relayed what had been told to her, eyes moist with unshed tears. ‘They died of food poisoning – eating bad meat.’

  Maisie froze. She couldn’t speak. She could barely blink. Everything that Phyllis had reported came back to her. Up until now she had resolved not to shop Frank Miles, unless he did something that she couldn’t possibly ignore. This was that something, but how best to shop him without betraying her whereabouts to Eddie Bridgeman and bringing his vengeance down on her head?

  Weary from work, Maisie fell into bed but couldn’t sleep. Tossing and turning, she stared into the darkness, her thoughts diving round all over the place. She would shop him. She had to, but not directly. She had to get somebody else to do it, somebody who hated him as much as she did; somebody who would savour the sweet taste of revenge.

  An hour or two after midnight, she came to a viable conclusion. There was one person who hated Frank Miles more than she did, one who might be able to distract any semblance of blame falling on her.

  Grace Wells, her natural grandmother, blamed Frank Miles for killing her son after finding out about his relationship and the child he’d had with Maisie’s mother – resulting in her birth. There was, it seemed, no other option than to visit Totterdown and ask for her grandmother’s help.

  24

  Phyllis

  When Phyllis had first escaped from Hilda Harvey, she’d almost skipped to her job at the soap factory, but familiarity now festered with contempt. She hated the smell of the place. It wouldn’t be so bad if she worked in the office rather than in the steamy, smelly area where the liquid was boiled then left to cool and solidify.

  It did have a small office, but she didn’t see much of an opening for a secretary or even a humble filing clerk. However, she did mention it to Mr Grove, the manager, who’d leered at her, groped her bottom and said that he would see if there was an opening for her – if she played her cards right.

  She understood his meaning and from then on had done her best to keep out of his way.

  Although she hated the job, and the house in York Street was far from being a spacious hotel, Mrs Proctor had made it far cosier than when Maisie used to live there. Not that its cosiness was Phyllis’s chief reason for not moving on to better things. Other jobs beckoned and so did other lodgings, but Sam Proctor was the most wonderful man she’d ever met. He was also a superb lover, something she’d found out one night when Mrs Proctor had gone to the Odeon picture house with an old friend. The front room sofa had a few loose springs that squealed in time with their lovemaking, so much so that Sam had made a joke about it.

  ‘If they springs get much louder, the whole street will know what we’re up to.’

  Driven by their passion, their laughter was short-lived.

  ‘Are you sure?’ In the dim glow of the standard lamp standing like a spindly lighthouse in the corner, she saw both passion as well as reluctance in his eyes. As an act of reassurance, but also a signal of her impatience, she pushed his hand up her skirt as far as her stocking tops.

  For a moment he held his breath before he gave in and his hand travelled further. His body was hard, his touch gentle and it wasn’t long before they were rushing to take their clothes off.

  Phyllis’s knickers, recently made from an old silk chemise she’d bought at a Salvation Army thrift counter, slid like water down her silk stockings – bought at enormous expense from a spiv with a suitcase who hung round down behind the engine sheds at the edge of the marshalling yards.

  This evening, Sam was due home again on leave and hopefully they’d get the chance for a repeat performance. It all depended on his mother having somewhere else to go.

  On entering the house, the smell of something cooking wafted out along the narrow passageway. Its smell was welcome after that of the soap works, as was the glow of the cosy interior, and she blocked her mind to what other people were enduring following the air raid.

  As she went upstairs to get changed, music drifted out from the wireless in the living room – ‘Moonlight and Roses’ – and then she heard his voice, deeper above the delicate tune that she so loved.

  Phyllis’s heels clattered down the stairs. She was wearing her best shoes and her best dress, hair loose and cascading down her back, make-up newly retouched.

  The moment he saw her, he put down his teacup and got up from the chair.

  ‘Phyllis!’ Even though his mother was still present, he gave her a massive hug. ‘I bin thinking about you all day!’

  ‘What with the air raid, I thought you’d be late,’ she cried excitedly, aware that Mrs Proctor was frowning at such a public display of affection.

  Sam’s beaming expression changed and suddenly he was holding her at arms’ length.

  ‘Me and the regiment are being posted overseas. Can’t say where of course, but…’

  Phyllis froze. It was as if the floor had opened beneath her. ‘No.’ It was all she could say and in a very tiny voice. ‘Do you know for how long?’

  ‘I’ve already asked ’im that,’ declared Mrs Proctor, her expression tighter than usual.

  It was hard for Phyllis to read the look on Mrs Proctor’s face. There was concern of course that her son was being sent overseas, but also something that bordered on relief, which was more difficult to understand.

  Phyllis’s legs felt weak and she was scared at whatever it was she was about to hear.

  ‘As long as it takes to win this bloody war, I suppose,’ he responded with a ‘chin up’ sort of smile. ‘But we’ll do it,’ he said with a sudden burst of joviality. ‘And then there’s no more going off to foreign parts for me. Blighty for me forever!’

  Though tears pricked her eyes, she smiled back at him. One question remained to be asked, but Mrs Proctor answered it before she had the chance.

  ‘Off on the train to Southampton tomorrow.’

  Sam elaborated. ‘Nine o’clock tomorrow morning. Temple Meads.’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ she blurted.

  He shook his head. ‘No. I don’t want any waving hankies and crying buckets at the station. I’ll say goodbye to you both ’ere.’

  Tears flowed from his mother’s eyes. ‘Sam! My darling Sam!’

  ‘Don’t you worry, Mum. I want my best girls to take good care of each other whilst I’m away.’

  ‘It’s so unfair,’ said Phyllis in a tremulous voice, her bottom lip quivering.

  He laughed. ‘Hardly. I was thinking we could pop along to the Duke of York for a quick one. You up for that? Mum’s coming too.’

  For a moment her heart soared. Phyllis would get to have a little time with him before he left. As it was, his mother would be there. She’d never been hostile towards her, yet tonight it seemed that something had changed. The only thing she could put it down to was that his mother was jealous of her relationship with her son, which reminded her of Hilda Harvey.

  The morning came too soon for Phyllis’s liking. Cloaked in a thick fog, York Street took on a ghostly look, even though it was only seven thirty in the morning.

  Sam’s arms were warm around her, but still she sobbed.

  ‘Now come on. I said no tears. No fretting about me getting there in time neither. I’ve been taught ’ow to quick march, ain’t I,’ said Sam. In order to prove his point, he marched a short distance up and down the pavement, turned and marched six more.

  Phyllis laughed whilst brushing threatening tears from her eyes. His mother called him a silly sod and told him to stop messing about.

  Sam put his arm round his mother and kissed her on the forehead. ‘Now don’t you worry about nothing, Ma. I can fight as well as march, even run if I need to!’

  Even in the dim light, Phyllis could see his attempt at a cheery expression, though it did nothing much to diminish her concern.

  On letting his m
other go, he put one strong arm round her, pulled her close and kissed her. After that he whispered into her ear, ‘Wait fer me, Phyl. I’ll do right by you when I get back and that’s a promise.’

  After heaving his kitbag over his shoulder, he disappeared swiftly into the fog without looking back.

  An ominous silence accompanied the two women as they went back inside the house, each careful not to let the light from the passageway fall out into the street before the door was closed.

  Mrs Proctor stood in front of Phyllis with her lips pursed and hands tightly clasped in front of her. ‘I want a word.’ Her tone was unusually harsh.

  The warmth of the living room and the smell of recently eaten breakfast still lingered in the air. Coals damped down for the night were already glowing and the kettle normally singing on the gas stove was now sitting on the hob at one side of the fireplace.

  Mrs Proctor turned to face her, arms folded and a hard look on her face. In fact, thought Phyllis, her eyes looked harder than nubs of coal.

  She swallowed her apprehension. It couldn’t possibly be anything serious, could it?

  ‘Is something wrong?’ she asked.

  Mrs Proctor’s jaw stiffened. ‘Yes. You’re a wrong ‘un and I want you out of here.’

  Phyllis opened and closed her mouth like a breathless goldfish. ‘You can’t do that! Sam expects me to be here when he gets back. Me and him – well – we might be getting married.’

  Mrs Proctor shook her head and glowered. ‘I don’t think so.’ She began to tap her fingers on the elbows of her folded arms. ‘What about the husband you already got? What you going to do about him?’

  The whole room seemed to spin round at an alarming rate.

  ‘I’m… a… widow,’ she managed to stutter.

  There was no let-up in Mrs Proctor’s angry glare. ‘Not according to your mother-in-law. She’s ’ad word that your old man is still alive.’

  ‘What?’

  It was as if all the blood had drained from Phyllis’s body. Robert was alive?