by Lissa Evans
Everyone on the bus seemed to be coughing; some coughs were dry, some phlegmy, some so prolonged and explosive that they made you wonder if half a lung was going to end up, twitching, on the cougher’s handkerchief. Ida kept her head turned away, squinting through the filth on the window. After a day of wet snow, it had frozen hard and the pavements were covered with a lacework of grey ice; pedestrians were picking their way along, holding on to garden walls and lamp posts. The bus was barely moving; at this rate, she would be late for work.
‘Cold enough for you, Idey?’ asked someone, plumping down on the seat beside her.
She turned to see who it was and then pulled a face.
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Kenneth. ‘Not pleased to see me?’
‘Why would I be?’ She tugged the hem of her coat out from under his buttock. ‘I suppose you think it’s all right to treat a person that way?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘You went off with someone else after I got hurt at the fair.’
‘It wasn’t like that.’
‘Wasn’t like what? You said, “Go home, you look a fright,” and then you took Maud Beaman to the pictures.’
‘Which was a mistake. She ate a bag of toffees and a whole box of chocolates. I had to roll her home.’ He was actually laughing, which made his handsome face even more handsome. ‘You look all right now, though,’ he said. ‘More than all right. Where are you off to?’
‘Work.’
‘Did you know I’d got a job at Clifton’s?’
‘No.’
‘Carpet fitter. Nice money, nice houses, nice ladies admiring my backside when I bend over.’
He snaked an arm along the back of Ida’s seat and she leaned forward so that his sleeve wouldn’t touch her.
‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I’ll make it up to you. How about going to the Palais on Friday?’
She jerked her head round to stare at him. ‘No. I don’t want to see you again. Your behaviour was monstrous.’
‘Your behaviour was monstrous?’ he repeated, incredulously. ‘Ey say,’ he added, in tones of mock-refinement, ‘em I correct in thinking ey’m addressin’ Lady Muck?’
Abruptly, Ida stood up and, at the same moment, the bus braked and slewed sideways; she shot out a hand for balance and found she’d snagged Kenneth’s hair.
‘Sorry,’ she said, unhooking her fingers; a couple of dark strands drifted free.
He looked up at her furiously. ‘That bloody well hurt.’
‘We’re stopping here!’ shouted the bus driver. ‘It’s sheet ice all the way up South End Green, and there’s an ’orse fallen over just ahead.’
It was a big old piebald, steaming in the cold, and it was struggling to its feet as Ida exited the bus, the smack and scrape of hooves curiously loud in the frigid air. The milk cart it had been pulling was blocking the road, shafts resting on the ground, the churns bunched together at the front, like interested spectators.
Ida started walking, not looking behind to see what Kenneth might be doing.
‘Monstrous,’ she muttered, out loud. Was that a posh word, or just an unusual one? The house on the Heath was full of words that she’d occasionally seen in print but never heard out loud, and it wasn’t all to do with poshness; the first-class waiting room at St Pancras had oozed with money, but she’d never heard anyone there talk the way that Miss Simpkin did, producing sentences like a magician pulling silk handkerchiefs from a pocket. ‘What you’re holding is an ammonite,’ she’d said last week, chancing upon Ida polishing a fossil shaped like a ram’s horn. ‘It was classified a cephalopod, from the Greek for “head-foot”. Not what you might call a glamorous name, but they had staying power. The human race will be dust in a tenth of the time of the ammonites’ reign on earth.’ To which Ida had replied, ‘Oh.’ Which didn’t matter, because Miss Simpkin hardly seemed to be expecting a reply – it was as if she just spoke for the pleasure of hearing the words.
Ida had been working there for nearly a month now. It was a big house, but half the rooms were unused and the others she was expected to clean, but not necessarily to tidy. ‘Just leave those books where they are,’ Miss Lee had said. ‘Neither of us minds useful clutter.’ Ida liked the way she was left alone to get on with it – no one hovered over her, no one followed her from room to room, waiting for her to do something wrong; Miss Lee was often away at work and Miss Simpkin blew in and out of the house like a gust of wind. When present, she was always audible, her telephone voice like someone shouting across traffic, her footsteps deliberate. She even read noisily, reacting to whatever was on the page with snorts and comments and scribbled notes, and when she wrote she used a typewriter which made every sentence sound like a box of bangers going off. ‘What are the ladies like, then?’ her aunt had asked her after the first week there, and Ida had thought for a moment before saying, ‘They’re not like anyone.’
It was only quarter of a mile from the stalled bus to the Vale of Health, but it was all uphill and it took her an age, mincing along the icy pavement like a Chinawoman with bound feet. The Heath stretched away to her right, improbably vast. She’d never understood what it was doing there – a piece of countryside dropped into the middle of London, crows flapping above it, no signposts or streetlamps, a blank on the map by day, a black hole by night. It was all snow now, a tree-spiked sweep across which a small brown dog was zig-zagging, nose to the ground.
Despite its name, the Vale of Health was just a road – a lane, really, pushing into the heart of the Heath and lined with large houses. Ida picked her way past the gateposts: St Ives, Braemar, Edelweiss. Her employers’ house was called Green Shutters. ‘Though we usually refer to it as “the Mousehole”,’ Miss Lee had said, on the first day. ‘Not because we have mice – though you might see the odd one; remind me to show you where the traps are – no, we call it that because it used to be a convalescent home for suffragette mice. When they’d been released from prison under the Cat and Mouse Act, you know.’ Ida had nodded, though she didn’t know. She opened the gate now, and took the path to the back of the house, aware that she could no longer feel her toes. Her first thought, when she saw the figure with the whirling arms, was that Miss Lee had bought a mechanical scarecrow to protect the vegetables.
Mattie had unexpectedly found the missing Indian club the evening before, wrapped in a balaclava helmet on the shelf of the coat cupboard. It still had the leather loop attached, and she’d given it a brief indoor twirl that had nearly taken a picture off the wall.
The next morning, she’d got dressed and gone straight into the back garden. It was at least a decade since she’d last practised callisthenics but, with the club in one hand and a rolling pin (for balance) in the other, she quickly picked up the rhythm of it again, standing legs apart on the frosted path, arms windmilling, puffs of breath rising as if she were the Flying Scotsman breasting a peak. Within a couple of minutes she was sweating fiercely, and she stopped to catch her breath and saw Ida goggling at her from the path.
‘Callisthenics,’ she explained.
‘I’m sorry I’m late,’ said Ida. ‘The buses weren’t going any further than Pond Street and the pavement was all icy. I can start out earlier tomorrow.’
‘Cut across the Heath,’ said Mattie. ‘You’ll knock off half the journey and it’s far easier to walk through snow than on ice.’ She glanced at Ida’s feet. ‘We have spare wellingtons.’
‘The Heath?’ repeated Ida. The idea was unimaginable, like taking a shortcut across Russia. ‘I wouldn’t know the way.’
‘Directly up Parliament Hill, past the tumulus, then bear west across the viaduct and you’ll come straight to the back of the garden here. You know the viaduct?’
Ida shook her head.
‘What about the tumulus? No? But you know Parliament Hill, of course? Kite Hill, it’s sometimes called.’
There was a pause. ‘I think so,’ said Ida, uncomfortably.
‘Good Lord!’ said Mattie. ‘Well, I can draw y
ou a map. It’s quite straightforward.’ She started to swing her arms again, and then abruptly stopped. ‘As a matter of fact, Ida, I’ve been meaning to ask you one or two questions. Don’t be alarmed, it won’t take very long. How old are you?’
‘Fifteen, Miss Simpkin.’
‘And can you tell me the names of three great women of history?’
‘Beg your pardon?’
‘Three great women of history. There is no right or wrong answer, I’m simply interested in your response. The first three that spring into your mind.’
Ida, struggling for an answer, wondered fleetingly if she wouldn’t rather be hit in the mouth with a miniature bottle of whisky. ‘Queen Victoria … Queen Elizabeth …’ She stared at the vegetable patch, as if the crossed pea-sticks might give her some inspiration. They did. ‘The Virgin Mary.’
‘I’m not sure that – no, never mind. What can you tell me about Dame Millicent Fawcett? Anything? No? What about Mary Somerville? She had a famous institution named after her.’
‘You mean … the prison?’
‘No, that’s Pentonville. What about Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst? What do you know about her?’
‘She threw a brick at the King’s horse.’
Mattie absorbed the blow. ‘And which politician do you most admire?’
‘Politician?’
‘Yes, is there a politician that you admire?’
Ida glanced around rather desperately, wondering when she was going to be allowed indoors. Which answer would get her into the warm? ‘Mr Baldwin?’ she suggested.
‘The Prime Minister.’
‘Yes.’
‘And if you could vote tomorrow, who would you vote for?’
There was a pause. ‘Mr Baldwin?’ said Ida again, hoping it was a trick question. She was actually starting to shake now, partly from cold, and partly from the sense that, despite Miss Simpkin’s assurance, she was somehow failing a test. Her employer’s expression had the brooding, internal look of somebody with a large piece of meat stuck between their back teeth.
‘Could I go in the house now, Miss Simpkin? I’m ever so cold.’
‘Yes, of course. Run along.’
Mattie watched her go, and the memory of Jacko’s complacent smile plucked infuriatingly at her memory. What could be done? How could these girls be rescued from the fog in which they were currently wandering, without recourse to the shallow sparkle of film-stars?
Thoughtfully, she windmilled through another exercise, then tucked the rolling pin under one arm and lunged with the club towards an imaginary policeman, feinting and thrusting.
‘Morning, Miss Simpkin.’ It was her neighbour, Major Lumb, peering at her through the leafless thicket of the honeysuckle.
‘Morning,’ she said, crisply.
‘Fencing practice?’
‘Ju-jitsu, since you ask.’
He gave a mirthless ‘Heh heh’, as if she’d made a joke. ‘Just wondering if your pipes have frozen? We’re having a little difficulty with ours.’
‘I shall check.’ She gave the imaginary policeman an unexpected jab in the solar plexus and went into the kitchen; The Flea was filling the kettle.
‘Not frozen,’ shouted Mattie out of the back door, before shutting it.
The Flea looked up enquiringly. ‘Major Lumb?’
‘Can’t stand the man.’
‘Why the club?’
‘I stumbled across it.’ She weighed it in her hand, strangely reluctant to put it down. ‘Over the last two weeks I have heard the opinions of two young women, and neither appear to know anything.’
‘Know anything about what?’
‘About anything. History. Politics. The geography of Hampstead Heath.’
‘Have you been talking to Ida outside?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ve just sent her to the drawing room to warm up a little; honestly, Mattie, her teeth were chattering, no wonder she couldn’t answer your questions. She’s actually a bright girl.’
‘I wasn’t impugning her intelligence; I’m talking about ignorance.’
‘What on earth do you expect? She left school at fourteen and she’s one of a very large family. I doubt they ever sit around the kitchen table discussing the Times editorial. If you talked to her when she wasn’t frozen stiff, you might be pleasantly surprised.’ Mattie grunted, and turned to stare out of the window, and The Flea took an orange from the bowl on the table and began to peel it. ‘Do you eat fruit, Ida?’ she’d asked the girl on her first day.
‘Sometimes, Miss Lee.’
‘I’m asking because I’ve noticed that the corners of your mouth seem a little sore, and that’s most probably due to a lack of vitamin C. If you eat an orange every day, the soreness will disappear, and it will very likely help your styes as well. You may take one from the fruit bowl here if there are none at home.’
The girl had turned pink.
‘Don’t be embarrassed,’ said The Flea. ‘There were no oranges in the house that I grew up in. I was seventeen before I ate one, and I had no idea that you were supposed to peel it first. An apple will do just as well, but I suspect you don’t eat those because they hurt your mouth.’
Ida had looked startled. ‘How did you know, Miss?’
‘Tender gums are another symptom. Vitamin C preserves the lining of the body, inside and out, and it’s present in foodstuffs that are green, or red, or orange, or purple.’
‘Like blackberries?’
‘Yes, blackberries are a very good example.’
The girl had nodded; she’d actually been listening. Some women listened, some didn’t, and to those that didn’t you just had to offer clear and simple advice and repeat it when needed. The other sort, though, presented a type of chink, which with gentle persistence you could widen into a doorway. Ida’s complexion had already improved.
The Flea broke the orange into quarters and left it on a plate on the table, together with a biscuit and a glass of blackcurrant cordial. ‘I may be back rather late this evening,’ she said. ‘I’m carrying out a workshop inspection and I’ve asked to speak to the night-shift girls. There’s cold lamb in the larder and I’ve scrubbed some carrots. Oh, and if you had any time, I’d be very grateful for some help addressing envelopes for the Mass Sanitation campaign. There’s a pile of them in the morning room.’ There was no reply. ‘Mattie?’
Mattie was staring out at the view: the wintry garden, the ivy-clad back wall beyond which the Heath surged upward, so that the skyline was all bleak nature, unsullied by chimney or gable. Once over that wall, one might in an instant be Hiawatha, or Hawkeye, or Robin Hood, or even that sorely underwritten character Maid Marian.
‘Mattie?’
‘I’ve had an idea,’ she said, and the idea, huge and splendid, actually emerged as she spoke the words, like a breaching whale. She gave the club a twirl, savouring her thoughts, already composing the advertisement. She would write the copy this morning and take it straight round to the offices of the Ham & High.
HAMPSTEAD HEATH GIRLS’ CLUB
For girls aged 12–18
Healthy outdoor fun
Meet on Parliament Hill (also known as Kite Hill)
At 10 a.m. Saturday morning
Clothing: mackintosh, gloves, hat, sensible footwear.
Mattie was at Parliament Hill by nine thirty. There were no kites being flown. A gusty wind was flattening the long grass and tossing the rooks around like jugglers’ balls. The only people she could see were dog-walkers.
She paced the top of the hill, unsure of the direction from which any girls might be arriving; she had rather imagined hordes of youngsters already waiting for her, eager to start. She had thought of beginning with a relay race; two teams, perhaps three, each named after a famous woman. Could Elizabeth Garrett Anderson beat Elizabeth Fry?
Time passed rather slowly. Mattie recited, ‘O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being’, and Hardy’s ‘Weathers’, and counted and tried to name the church spires that poked
like needles through the grey cloth of the city.
At nine fifty-five she was still alone, but now she could see Ida toiling up the hill from Parliament Fields, head down, The Flea’s oilskin coat flapping round her wellingtons.
‘Well done!’ she called, as Ida came into earshot. ‘Couldn’t persuade anyone to come with you?’
‘I asked my friend Vesta, but she says today’s her only lie-in,’ said Ida, trying to keep the resentment out of her voice, seeing as exactly the same thing applied to herself. Saturday was the day she got an extra hour’s sleep, before going round to see her mother and the rest of them, and on Sundays she helped her aunt fold and deliver the ironing to a dozen different addresses. She hadn’t wanted to come at all. ‘Why not just attend the very first meeting and see if you enjoy yourself,’ Miss Lee had suggested, sensing Ida’s reluctance, not knowing that Miss Simpkin had already cornered her in the scullery and virtually ordered her to turn up. And now she was out of breath from the climb, ankles aching from the unfamiliar weight of the boots, and looking like a fool in a mackintosh too long for her. ‘Going fishing?’ the bus conductor had asked, derisively, when she’d got on at Camley Street.
‘And here are some others,’ said Mattie, with satisfaction. Three figures, two very short and wearing matching tam-o’-shanters, and one rather tall, were walking up the more gradual incline from the tennis courts.
‘Is this the girls’ club?’ asked the tall one, eagerly, when they were near enough for conversation.
‘Indeed it is,’ said Mattie. ‘And you are …?’
‘I’m their nanny. This is Avril, and this is Winnie. What time should I collect them?’ She was already backing away.
‘How old are they?’ asked Mattie.
‘We’re nearly eleven,’ said Avril, as if Mattie had asked her directly.
‘The advertisement clearly stated the parameters as twelve to eighteen. I’m afraid they’re too young.’