by Nancy Revell
Reaching the end of the corridor, they turned left, then walked down another corridor and went right. Halfway down, Pearl stopped outside a room, the door of which was slightly ajar.
She stood and listened.
She could hear a gentle, bird-like voice singing a song she recognised from many years ago.
‘This is it,’ Pearl whispered. ‘Remember, two loud knocks if yer see the fat ginger nurse. And remember, if anyone asks us, we’ve got lost.’
Bill nodded and Pearl slipped into the room.
‘Henrietta.’ Pearl kept her voice low, not wanting to risk anyone in the rooms on either side hearing that there was someone visiting. She knew it unlikely that her old employer received many visitors, if any.
As she walked over to her former mistress, Pearl had to fight to stay in the here and now, but it was hard, made harder still by Henrietta looking exactly the same as she had back then – just older. Her thick make-up showed up the creases in a face that had once been youthful and smooth. Pearl worked out that she must be in her sixties, although she only looked to be in her early fifties.
‘Oh!’ Henrietta dropped the book she was reading and put both hands to her rouged cheeks. ‘My Little Match Girl!’ She was obviously overjoyed to see her unexpected guest.
‘That’s right,’ Pearl said, walking over to her so that she wouldn’t feel the need to shout. She sat down on the bed, which was next to where Henrietta was sitting, her feet touching the end of Henrietta’s long, plum-coloured taf-feta skirt. Her waist was still as tiny as Pearl remembered, clearly nipped into place, as it always had been, by a tightly laced corset.
‘You came back!’ Henrietta exclaimed, a smile illuminating her face.
Pearl winced. Henrietta’s sing-song voice could be quite high and seemed to resonate around the room. She put a finger to her lips. ‘Shush. I dinnit want anyone to knar I’m here.’
Henrietta mimicked Pearl’s actions and put a finger to her own lips.
‘Yer said yer wanted me to come back and see yer, remember?’ Pearl said.
Henrietta nodded; as she did so, a strand of dyed red hair from her chaotic updo fell across her face and she brushed it away.
‘Well, I can come ’n see yer,’ Pearl explained, ‘but only if yer dinnit tell anyone.’ She looked at Henrietta. Her eyes were still like saucers, but she could see the brown in them this time.
‘Do we have a deal?’ Pearl put her hand out for Henrietta to shake.
Henrietta nodded excitedly and took Pearl’s proffered hand.
Looking down, she spotted Bill’s gold band on Pearl’s wedding-ring finger.
‘My Little Match Girl got married!’ she declared.
Pearl took a deep breath and nodded.
‘She did.’
Taking hold of Henrietta’s other hand, Pearl forced her to have eye contact.
‘Henrietta, I want to talk to yer about the old days? Is that all reet?’
‘So, come on, tell me all about it.’ Bill put the drinks on the small round table in the corner of the Railway Inn and sat down. He had purposely picked the quietest table so they could talk in private.
‘Eee, Bill, I feel exhausted,’ Pearl said, taking a sip of her whisky.
‘Did you find out what you needed to?’ he asked.
‘Not really.’ Pearl lit up a cigarette and blew out smoke. ‘But I didn’t expect to, if I’m honest.’
‘Does that mean you’re gonna have to come back?’ he asked.
‘Aye, I think so. Might take a few more visits to get to knar what I want.’ Pearl looked at Bill to gauge his reaction.
‘Well, I’ll be happy to be your partner in crime until you do,’ Bill said.
Pearl smiled for the first time that day.
‘Ah, Bill, that’d be brilliant. It’ll help me out no end. And I reckon it’ll be easier next time. Not so fraught, if yer knar what I mean?’
‘I know exactly what yer mean,’ Bill said. He felt like throwing his hat in the air with pure joy.
‘So, did you manage to get any sense out of her?’ he asked, before taking a mouthful of beer.
‘Mmm, a bit. I mean, the woman’s barking, but she didn’t seem quite as bad as the last time I saw her. Mind you, I dinnit think I was all that reet in the head myself.’ Pearl took a sip of her drink. ‘The good thing is she’s not that gone that she can’t remember the past. I got her talking about the other servants that was there when I was, ’n she seemed to remember them all.’
‘That’s good,’ Bill said. He had a glug of his beer. ‘Makes you wonder what’s wrong with her, doesn’t it?’
‘Dunno,’ Pearl said. ‘She was always a few shillings short. But I never thought she was bad enough to end up being carted off by the men in white coats.’
Chapter Twenty-Six
Monday 2 August
‘Thanks, Basil,’ Rosie said as the old man touched the tip of his tweed flat cap and disappeared out into the yard.
Rosie breathed in the still air, aromatic with the smell of polished wood. This was not going to be easy. She turned and faced five serious faces.
Gloria, Dorothy, Angie, Martha and Hannah were sitting in the high, light drawing office, where the ships they worked on began their life. The rows of wooden tables around them were littered with pencil sharpenings, bottles of Indian ink and rolled-up tracing paper. One table had a large drawing weighed down by two heavy round rulers. At the far end of the room there was a rudimentary ship’s model, made to scale.
Angie took off her headscarf and started fanning herself with it. The drawing office was always warm and quiet, even when it was cold and noisy outside, but today the sun had been out all day and there had been little wind, making all of the yard’s offices warmer and stuffier than normal.
‘Eee, this all feels a bit serious,’ she said.
‘Yeah,’ Dorothy agreed, ‘like when you’ve been told to go and see the boss and you know it’s not about a rise.’ She copied Angie and took off her red checked headscarf, allowing her dark hair to fall onto her shoulders.
Martha, whose short hair didn’t necessitate a headscarf, rolled up her sleeves and wobbled a little on the wooden stool that wasn’t quite big enough to accommodate her.
‘Is everyone who works here as small as you?’ She looked at Hannah.
‘Mmm,’ the group’s little bird said. ‘Thinking about it, there’s no one particularly big. Although there are quite a few tall people.’
‘It’s you that’s big, Martha,’ Dorothy declared. ‘Not them that’s small.’
Just then Polly walked through the door. Or rather, waddled. Her sensible flat shoes tapped on the linoleum floor.
Angie laughed loudly.
‘Yer’ve got company now, Martha. ’Ere, Pol, come and sit next to Martha!’
They all settled themselves at the table.
Rosie looked at Gloria, who was also perched on one of the stools, looking equally uncomfortable, although it was not because the hard wooden seat was too small.
‘Right, now that we’re all here,’ Rosie said, ‘I guess we better get started.’
‘And the lesson today is …’ Dorothy spoke in a deep, headmasterly voice.
‘Actually, it’s not me that’s taking the class today—’ Rosie said.
‘It’s me,’ Gloria interrupted. ‘You’re all here because of me.’
Polly shuffled around on her stool. ‘Is everything all right, Glor?’
‘Is it about Jack?’ Martha asked.
Gloria smiled at Martha and nodded. ‘Yes, yer right, Martha, it’s about Jack.’ She took a deep breath. ‘But it also involves yer all.’
‘Eee, Glor, yer’ve gor us worried now. I’ve got butterflies in my stomach,’ Angie said.
‘What – like when you’re with Quentin?’ Dorothy jibed, shoving Angie a little too robustly and nearly pushing her off the stool.
Angie looked daggers. ‘No, Dor, not like when I’m with Quentin. Yer dinnit get butterflies when yer out wi
th a friend, ’cos otherwise they wouldn’t be a friend, would they?’
‘Methinks you protest too much,’ Dorothy said.
Rosie sighed. Sometimes she did feel like she was the teacher and they were her naughty pupils. She looked at Gloria, who gave her a look that said she wanted Rosie to take over.
‘A while ago,’ Rosie started, ‘quite a while ago – can you remember when I went off to Guildford after Peter sent me that telegram?’
‘And you came back a married woman,’ Hannah piped up.
‘That’s right. Well, when I left for the day, you might recall that Gloria had to leave for a little while.’
‘Aye, I remember. Billy the yard foreman came strutting over, saying yer had to have a word with management,’ Angie said.
‘Because Rosie had just dilly-dallied off to see her lover,’ Dorothy added.
‘The thing is,’ Gloria said, ‘it wasn’t management who wanted to see me.’
Everyone thought back to that afternoon just a few days into the New Year more than eighteen months ago.
‘Who wanted to see you?’ Polly asked.
Gloria took a deep breath. ‘Miriam – it was Miriam who wanted to see me.’
‘Oh my God!’ Dorothy gasped.
‘Because?’ Martha said.
‘Because she’d found out about you and Jack?’ Hannah said, clasping and unclasping her hands. She didn’t like the way this was going. She hated anything bad happening to her friends. They were her security blanket.
‘Yes, she had,’ Gloria said.
‘Hang on,’ Dorothy said. This was huge and she wanted to know every second of what had happened. She couldn’t believe Gloria hadn’t told them all before now. ‘So, what happened after you walked off with Billy? Where was Miriam?’
‘At home,’ Gloria said. ‘Billy told me to go to the main gates. Harold was there.’
‘And what did he say?’ Martha asked.
‘Oh, he just said it was nothing to worry about – that I was needed elsewhere and pointed over at the company car.’
‘Blimey, Glor, yer must have been wetting yerself,’ Angie said.
Gloria let out a sad laugh. ‘I was a bit. Especially when I got in the car and we started driving towards Roker and I guessed where we were going.’
‘What? So, you went to her house?’ Martha asked, shocked.
‘I did,’ Gloria said. ‘The door was open in expectation of my arrival. Miriam was there to greet me, gin and tonic in hand.’
‘Blimey, sounds like something out of the books yer read,’ Angie said, turning and looking at Dorothy, wide-eyed.
‘It did feel a bit unreal,’ Gloria admitted.
‘But if she’d found out about you and Jack,’ Polly said, ‘why didn’t she just have it out with Jack? You wouldn’t have thought she’d have wanted the other woman there as well.’
‘That’s exactly what Jack said when I walked in ’n he saw me.’
‘What? He didn’t know you were coming?’ Hannah asked.
Gloria shook her head.
‘What did yer say?’ Angie said, thinking of her own mother. There was no way her dad would be asking her mam’s fancy bit round to the house for drinks and a chat.
‘I apologised,’ Gloria said, ‘for any hurt ’n upset I’d caused.’
Everyone stared in disbelief.
‘It was the right thing to do,’ Gloria defended herself. ‘And Jack apologised about not telling her before. We’d been intending to tell her …’
‘And did she knar about Hope?’ Angie said.
‘Oh yes, she knew about everything,’ Gloria said. ‘Actually, I felt relieved that it was all out in the open.’
The women understood. They all knew Gloria hated lying about anything.
‘But then it soon became obvious that for Miriam, having everything out in the open was not an option.’ Gloria sighed. ‘Looking back, I was so naïve. I should have realised she’d have moved heaven ’n earth to save herself the humiliation of everyone knowing that her husband had left her fer another woman.’
‘So, how did she manage to silence you?’ Hannah asked, her expression deathly serious.
‘That’s where it gets a bit complicated,’ Gloria said, glancing nervously over to Rosie.
‘How so?’ Polly asked.
‘Well,’ Rosie took over, ‘Miriam had employed a private investigator.’
‘A private investigator?’ Dorothy’s voice was raised.
‘Eee, it really is like one of Dor’s books,’ Angie said.
‘So, what did this private eye find out?’ Martha asked.
‘A lot of things that she could use against me,’ Gloria said.
‘What, to keep yer trap shut?’ Angie asked.
Hannah looked puzzled.
‘Mouth,’ Martha interpreted, ‘to keep her mouth shut.’ There were still some expressions Hannah struggled with or hadn’t heard before.
‘So, what did she find out?’ Hannah asked.
‘Well,’ Gloria said, ‘she found out that yer aunty Rina was in debt. That she wasn’t getting her money back from those she was giving credit to.’
All eyes were on Hannah. It seemed a long time ago since Rina had been a credit draper.
‘Miriam threatened to get Hannah sacked,’ Rosie chipped in.
‘In the hope,’ Gloria added bitterly, ‘yer would end up penniless ’n in the workhouse.’
‘Well, I hope you told her that Aunty Rina and I are made of sterner stuff!’ Hannah had gone red. ‘And that even if we had ended up in a workhouse, it would have been like a palace compared to where my mama and papa are.’ There were tears in Hannah’s eyes.
Polly put her arm round her workmate’s skinny shoulders and gave her a cuddle.
‘The thing is …’ Rosie said, her eyes focused on Han-nah; she’d never seen her so riled ‘… it wasn’t just you that she’d discovered things about.’
They all looked at Rosie.
‘Did she find out about Lily’s?’ Polly asked the question everyone was thinking.
‘No,’ Rosie said, ‘thank goodness that was something she didn’t find out.’
‘And she can’t have had anything on me?’ Polly asked.
‘No,’ Gloria said, ‘but she did threaten to spread a rumour that you were seeing someone ’n that the rumour would find its way over to Gibraltar – that it wouldn’t be good for someone working with explosives, and who also had a tendency towards dark moods.’
‘What a total cow!’ Dorothy exclaimed.
‘I could think of worse words,’ Angie said.
Polly put a hand on her bump. ‘How horrible.’ She looked back at Gloria. ‘But she can’t threaten that now, can she? There’s no way in a million years Tommy would ever believe anything like that now.’
She looked down at her bump. ‘And definitely not with me like this.’ She let out a light laugh. ‘I think it would be a physical impossibility.’
Everyone chuckled, enjoying the break in the mood.
‘So that leaves me, Ange and Martha,’ Dorothy said.
There was an awkward silence.
Neither Gloria nor Rosie could find the right words.
Angie glanced at Dorothy, a worried expression on her face.
‘I’m guessing that if this investigator person went snooping around my way, they might’ve found out summat about my mam?’
Gloria and Rosie nodded.
‘That she’s having it off with some bloke down the street …’
Gloria and Rosie nodded again.
Everyone was silent, not knowing what to say.
‘We weren’t sure if you knew,’ Rosie said.
‘Well, I’ve gor eyes in my head,’ Angie said. ‘And I dinnit think my mam’s been that discreet. It’s a good job my dad’s not the sharpest. Plus, when he’s not working, he’s clapped out in the chair with a bottle of beer. I doubt he’ll ever find out unless someone tells him.’
‘But if he did find out, I’m guessing he�
�d go mad?’ Rosie asked.
Angie nodded, her face grim.
Everything fell quiet again. No one wanted to imagine the possible scenario that could ensue if Angie’s dad was told of his wife’s infidelity.
Rosie waited a short while before addressing Dorothy.
‘And she found something out about your mum, too, Dor.’
‘Yer mam’s not gorra bit on the side ’n all, has she?’ Angie asked.
Dorothy shook her head but didn’t say anything.
None of the women had ever seen the group’s joker so serious.
Gloria and Rosie looked at each other.
This time Gloria spoke.
‘Apparently,’ she said, ‘yer mam didn’t divorce yer dad before she married yer stepdad.’
Another taut silence.
‘That’s right,’ Dorothy finally conceded. ‘My mother is what the law would call a bigamist.’
Everyone continued to stare at Dorothy.
‘And, like I’m sure Miriam was told,’ Dorothy stated, ‘being married to two blokes is illegal.’
‘What? Yer can get done fer it?’ Angie was shocked.
‘You can,’ Dorothy said. ‘You can get sent to prison.’
The women were all quiet, digesting everything they had just heard. The irony that it was the two comics of the gang who were hiding such serious secrets was not lost on them.
Rosie flashed Gloria a look.
‘So, that’s why Jack can’t come back,’ Rosie said, not looking at Martha. ‘If he does, she’ll spill the beans and the consequences will not be good.’
‘I think you might have forgotten my mam,’ Martha suddenly piped up.
Now it was Rosie and Gloria’s turn to look surprised. Never in a month of Sundays had they expected Martha to know the truth about her parentage.
‘What, Mrs Perkins?’ Angie said in disbelief. ‘I can’t imagine yer mam deeing anything wrong.’
Martha smiled. Her mother was pretty much perfect in her workmate’s eyes.
‘Not that mam,’ she said, ‘my other mam.’