Daisy's Wars

by Meg Henderson

  ‘So what else changed then?’

  ‘The First World War, Daisy, that’s what changed,’ Mrs Johnstone said grimly. ‘The men were sent to the Front, God help them, and for the first time women were needed. They either freed more men to be killed by taking over their jobs or they worked in munitions factories, and they couldn’t do that trussed up, so they were freed. Men’s rules again,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘The only problem was that once they’d been allowed a few years of freedom they didn’t take kindly to being shut up again. It was as if freeing their bodies had freed their minds as well. But do you know the strangest thing?’ she laughed quietly. ‘The Flappers of the 1920s did everything they could to look like boys.’

  Joan got up from her desk and lifted a bound book of magazines from a shelf and handed it to Daisy. ‘Look at those tubular shapes. Ladies of means went to men’s tailors to have masculine clothes made. It even became an insult to compliment a woman on her nice figure, and they bound their breasts to be as flat as possible.’

  ‘I can sympathise with that,’ Daisy said glumly.

  Mrs Johnstone laughed. ‘Your shape is coming into its own, Daisy,’ she chided her. ‘You should be grateful for the 1930s, these days the fashion is for womanly women. But back then, well, I think in a strange way those ladies were trying to replace the poor boys lost in the war by almost becoming boys themselves.’

  ‘Did you wear things like that?’ Daisy asked.

  ‘Heavens, no! I couldn’t afford it, for one thing, but I was always a feminine kind of woman, if you know what I mean. The “Gay Thirties” suit me much better, though I still can’t afford the wardrobes of our customers. Besides, who has time to be constantly changing into morning, sports, afternoon and evening wear? And they can’t seem to be able to make up their minds where their hemlines should be.’ She produced another book and opened it at a Punch cartoon. ‘This always makes me laugh,’ she said, pointing to two pictures of the same young woman, one in her afternoon suit six inches below the knee and pencil-slim, so that she could only manage to walk in ‘the nine-inch hobble’, in the second wearing a loose-skirted evening dress, enabling her to perform ‘the metre stride’. ‘These are the kind of ladies we come into contact with, Northern women who desperately want to keep up with London and Paris, women like us, I suppose, only we don’t have their wealth!’

  Daisy became as fascinated by the lives of such women as by their clothes, which she loved. The dresses sewn into sections, or on the bias, garments so ‘well-cut that they didn’t need fastenings, so craftily designed that making your own was beyond most females, even for someone as experienced with a needle as Daisy. She gradually became familiar with the names of designers like Chanel and Schiaparelli, and learned the tricks of film stars like Joan Crawford, who wore impossibly wide, padded shoulders, giving the illusion of the still-prized narrow waist without the agony of corsets. She couldn’t have afforded the magazines that were part of her working tools and she and Mrs Johnstone spent breaks devouring each one, discussing and dissecting every detail.

  ‘I love the dresses Ginger Rogers wears,’ Daisy said, looking at the still photos of floaty, frilly dresses worn by the actress as she flew down to Rio to cance backwards and in heels with Fred Astaire.

  ‘Is that what you’d like to do, Daisy?’ Mrs Johnstone smiled. ‘Dance with Fred Astaire?’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful?’ Daisy replied, hunching her shoulders and clapping her hands together with feeling. She got up and laughingly improvised a tap dance, caught in the dream of being Ginger for a moment, a dream shared with thousands of other women.

  ‘You couldn’t wear her clothes, though,’ Mrs Johnstone said quietly.

  ‘Why not?’ Daisy demanded, stopping suddenly mid-step.

  ‘You’re a different shape.’

  ‘Daisy looked down at her ‘lumps’. ‘There they go,’ she muttered, ‘ruining it for me again!’

  ‘Daisy, Daisy, there’s nothing wrong with your shape!’ Mrs Johnstone said, shaking her head at the girl. ‘Ginger’s built for frills, you’re built for good lines, for well-cut clothes. If, ever a girl was designed for her time, it’s you. I saw that the first time I set eyes on you, especially now that we have brassieres to guide and support the bust rather than flatten it.’

  ‘I’d give anything to be like you and not need one,’ Daisy said with feeling.

  ‘Are you suggesting that I’m flat-chested?’ Mrs Johnstone asked, faking outrage.

  ‘No, no,’ Daisy replied. ‘But you’re built like Ginger, you’re built for frills, I just wish I was.’

  ‘And I wish I had your curves. Never satisfied, are we?’

  Joan Johnstone was impressed by the courage of the girl from Heaton via Byker, but she also had an eye for business. In recognising that Daisy was built to wear the fashions of the Thirties, even if she couldn’t afford them, she knew that the girl would be perfect to model them for prospective buyers, once the rough edges were smoothed over, of course, and once she knew something of the business she was now in. From the very first day she had changed her lunchtime habit, and it became established that she and Daisy ate together in her office. ‘I have hopes for you, Daisy,’ she had told her. ‘You’ll get fed-up with filing and dealing with bits of paper, but you mustn’t give up, you have to know everything, it’s part of my plan.’

  Daisy had nodded, though she didn’t understand. For her the choice was simple, work with pieces of paper at Fenwicks or, if she was lucky, pieces of paper at the ropeworks with Dessie always on hand, leering at her. No choice at all, really.

  Joan Johnstone was a smart woman, though. She was a good judge of when routine became drudgery, especially for a bright youngster like Daisy, so every now and again she would take her to the shop floor to watch some wealthy young woman buying a new wardrobe. Daisy was forbidden to speak, only to watch and learn, and what she learned was that the divide between her and the customers was much wider in some ways than she had thought, but in other ways much narrower. She would have to save for a very long time to buy one dress and she would think it was the world, while these women bought a whole collection complete with accessories, and they didn’t just buy the best, they recognised it when they saw it. Sometimes Daisy was allowed to help them change and was always amazed by the finery they wore underneath, the embroidered silks, satins and gossamer laces that weren’t seen as they moved gracefully through their lives. She was impressed, too, by the way these wealthy women treated her. Not as an equal – that would have been too much to expect – but as a human being, when all her life till then she had lived in a world of Us and Them.

  One day they had Mrs Armstrong in for a fitting, a lady in her forties who wasn’t married but carried the title as a courtesy. She was a tall, slim woman, with dark, waved hair in the style of her young womanhood, and very pretty, with neat features and a sweet smile. Joan Johnstone had brought Daisy into the fitting room with Mrs Armstrong because she knew the woman had a kind disposition and wouldn’t make Daisy nervous, even if she was very rich.

  ‘They say there’s to be another war, ladies, what do you think?’ Mrs Armstrong asked, as Daisy did up the long row of tiny buttons on the back of her dress while Mrs Johnstone evened out the hem.

  ‘It’s too horrible to think about,’ Mrs Johnstone said. ‘You just can’t believe they would do it again, can you?’

  Mrs Armstrong sighed. ‘I lost everything in the last show, you know,’ she said sadly. ‘Three brothers and my fiancé, all in the same regiment. At the Somme.’ The words hung in the air. ‘My parents didn’t last more than a year afterwards, so that was me, all on my own. I had the family money, but nothing else. My lovely chap wanted to get married before he left, but my family wanted a huge society wedding for their only daughter and there wasn’t time. The times I’ve gone over that in my mind and cursed myself for being a damned fool!’

  Daisy stared at her, transfixed. ‘And you never married?’ she asked before she could stop herse
lf.

  ‘Daisy!’ Mrs Johnstone said quietly.

  ‘No, no, Joan,’ Mrs Armstrong said, ‘I really don’t mind.’ She turned towards Daisy, taking the girls hands in her own. ‘You’re a very attractive girl, Daisy,’ she smiled, ‘one day you’ll be a very beautiful woman.’

  Daisy shrugged with embarrassment.

  ‘You will!’ The two older women exchanged amused glances. ‘I was, too, you know, though you’d hardly believe it now!’

  ‘You are,’ Daisy stammered, ‘you really are beautiful. I think you’re one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen!’

  ‘Oh, that’s kind,’ the woman replied. ‘But if you’ve lost the love of your life, Daisy, as I hope you never will, it doesn’t matter how beautiful you are or how many men chase after you, you’re not interested. I regret not marrying him every day of my life, I’d give anything, everything, for the chance to go back and change it. He was the only one and he still is, even all these years later.’ She sighed. ‘You see, everyone looks at the Great War and feels horrified at the millions of young lives that were sacrificed on the battlefields, but they don’t understand that there were other lives lost here at home – the young women who never married their men. They weren’t actually lost, of course, but they might as well have been, and if they never married, then they never had children. I often think of that, you know, what our children would have been like. But by the sounds of things if they had been born they would now be getting ready to fight the Germans all over again.’

  ‘Do you really think it will come to that?’ Mrs Johnstone asked quietly.

  ‘I’m afraid it sounds very much like it.’ Mrs Armstrong looked thoughtful, then she gave herself a shake that was transmitted through her hands to Daisy. ‘Now look at us!’ she said brightly, her eyes shining a little too much, ‘standing here gloomily like MacBeth’s witches!’ She turned to Daisy again, still holding her by the hands. ‘I was brought up to respect and obey my parents. I expect you were, too, Daisy, but they’re not always right, that’s all I’ll say. Just don’t you let the love of your life get away from you, Daisy, no matter what anyone else thinks or says. Joan here is living proof that marriage works: she found her man and held on to him!’

  Daisy listened for the rest of the fitting session as Mrs Johnstone kept the conversation going in a polite voice with the strong Geordie inflections evened out, and thought how much she had to learn. Later, over sandwiches in the office, she talked about Mrs Armstrong.

  ‘Money really isn’t everything, is it?’ she asked thoughtfully.

  ‘No, it isn’t, Daisy.’

  ‘She sounded so sad, poor woman.’

  ‘Well, she is,’ Mrs Johnstone replied.

  ‘But you’d think she’d have found someone, wouldn’t you? I mean, she must’ve been a looker in her day, and she’s so wealthy.’

  ‘It doesn’t always follow, Daisy.’

  ‘And she’s so nice, she’d have made a lovely mother.’

  ‘Well, there are a whole bunch of lessons there for you,’ Joan Johnstone said quietly. ‘Just because she’s got lots of money doesn’t mean she should be horrible; just because she’s beautiful doesn’t mean she’s able to forget – what did she call him? – the love of her life? And just because she’s rich and beautiful doesn’t mean she doesn’t have her sadnesses or that she shouldn’t be nice. Now stop it, you’re getting morbid!’

  ‘Do you think there is such a thing?’ Daisy asked. ‘As a love of your life, I mean. Does everyone have one?’

  ‘Now how would I know that, Daisy? Maybe there is one for everybody, but not everybody meets theirs.’ She looked at Daisy’s serious face and suddenly laughed. ‘You’ll have us both in tears in a minute! Let’s change the subject. I want you to model a dress for a couple of customers the day after tomorrow.’

  Daisy choked and stared at her.

  Mrs Johnstone chuckled. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ she teased. ‘Something go down the wrong way?’

  ‘You mean put a dress on and walk up and down?’ Daisy asked, horrified.

  ‘You see, it’s simple, isn’t it?’ Mrs Johnstone replied, calmly getting on with her lunch.

  ‘But I can’t!’ Daisy spluttered.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’ll fall over, I’ll trip, I’ll … they’ll just laugh at me.’

  ‘No they won’t, they won’t even see you, they’ll only see the dress.’

  ‘But why me then?’ Daisy persisted.

  ‘Because you’re the right shape to let them see the dress.’

  Daisy glowered at her.

  ‘Now what’s that look for?’ Mrs Johnstone demanded.

  ‘I hate my shape. I didn’t think it mattered here.’

  ‘Of course it matters, you daft girl! And why would you hate your shape?’

  ‘It’s all lumps and bumps and men grab me or leer at me, that’s why!’ Daisy said bitterly. ‘I wasn’t always this shape, I used to be normal. My sister’s two years older than me, she’s nearly twenty, and she’s still normal, they don’t grab at her.’

  ‘Oh Daisy,’ Mrs Johnstone said, ‘you are quite beautiful. Has no one ever told you that?’

  ‘No. Women hate me and men just grab at me and rub themselves against me.’

  ‘My dear God!’ Mrs Johnstone whispered. She looked at Daisy’s embarrassed face across the desk. ‘Daisy, from now on you have to have a different outlook. You are beautiful, and that’s a plus, not a minus. You have to rise above the creatures of the gutter who don’t have the intelligence, education or natural graces to know how to behave.’ She looked at her again. ‘I want you to have your hair lightened,’ she said.

  ‘What?’ Daisy demanded. ‘Where I come from it’s bad enough already, what do you think will happen if I become a Peroxide Blonde?’

  ‘You will look like a million dollars, that’s what will happen,’ Mrs Johnstone said firmly. ‘Daisy, you never intended staying in Heaton, did you?’

  Daisy sat in silence. She had always wanted to ‘get out’, but it was a vague notion. She had no plan, in her mind it was a kind of ‘someday’ thing. ‘No,’ she said uncertainly, ‘but …’

  ‘But nothing, my girl! You’ve seen the young ladies we get in here, do you think of them as “Peroxide Blondes”?’

  ‘No, but …’

  ‘There you go with that “but” again! Daisy, today we will practise walking without falling down or tripping, and tonight you will become a golden blonde, not a Peroxide Blonde.’

  ‘But I can’t, I have to go home and do the chores,’ Daisy protested.

  Mrs Johnstone looked puzzled. ‘You have a mother, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes, but she’s an invalid,’ Daisy replied.

  There was a short silence as both women acknowledged to themselves that Daisy had never openly discussed her family circumstances before.

  ‘How long has she been ill?’ Joan Johnstone asked quietly.

  ‘All the years since I was born,’ Daisy replied in a small voice. ‘One doctor told my father it was her heart, something from when she was a child, but my father says it’s really her lungs.’

  ‘And she’s bedridden, Daisy? Totally?’

  Daisy nodded.

  ‘And you do everything?’ Mrs Johnstone asked, suddenly remembering clues the girl had inadvertently dropped in the past and putting the pieces together. ‘The shopping, washing, cooking, cleaning?’

  Daisy nodded again.

  ‘But you mentioned a sister at the ropeworks, she must help, surely?’

  ‘No, no, Kay doesn’t do chores,’ Daisy said, shocked.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because one day she’s going to be a big star, she has her music to practise and she can’t have rough hands, and …’ Daisy stopped, realising for the first time that it sounded strange.

  ‘I don’t understand …’ replied Mrs Johnstone, who did think it was strange.

  ‘My sister’s Little Kay Sheridan,’ Daisy explained, ‘though
she’s not all that little now, of course.’

  Mrs Johnstone thought for a moment. ‘The little girl who used to sing in the clubs?’

  Daisy nodded. ‘She’s still going to be star,’ she said defiantly. ‘My mother says it always happens with child stars, there’s a slack spell while they grow up, then they become adult performers.’

  ‘But for now she works in the ropeworks and you do all the housework?’ Even as she said it Mrs Johnstone looked and sounded as though she thought it was all nonsense.

  Daisy looked at her glumly. ‘It’s not how it sounds,’ she protested, ‘Kay still has a beautiful voice, she’s still going to be a star. She’ll sing for the world one day, not just the Irish clubs in Newcastle,’ she continued, falling back on her mother’s oft-repeated mantra. She looked up at Mrs Johnstone and they both laughed. ‘That’s what my mother says,’ Daisy said quietly.

  ‘Well I’ll tell you what, Daisy, tonight the star will do the housework.’

  Daisy opened her mouth to protest. Kay didn’t know how to fill a kettle, the thing was unthinkable.

  Mrs Johnstone held up her hand and turned her face to the side. ‘No “buts”, Daisy. I’ll get a message to your sister at the ropeworks that you’ll be late tonight, and the star can get her hands dirty for once.’

  Daisy’s stomach leaped. The thing wasn’t just unthinkable, it was impossible, maybe even a sin to be confessed. Even if she had beginner’s luck with the kettle, Kay opening up the banked fire and putting coal on? Making a meal – even if all the basic work had been done earlier so that she just had to heat it up? Kay washing dishes – even with good old dependable Dessie drying – seeing to Kathleen, washing her and emptying the bed pan she had taken to using since the distance to the bathroom had become too much for her? Kay?

  Later that day she looked in the hairdresser’s mirror and once again saw a complete stranger, this time a very blonde stranger.

  ‘Now I look like, like …’

  ‘A million dollars,’ Mrs Johnstone beamed beside her, ‘just as I said you would.’