Mill Town Girl

by Audrey Reimann

  ‘Heavens!’ she said.

  He had planned it all. Tomorrow they would explore the city together in the morning and take a tram down to the fun-fair at Portobello in the afternoon.

  ‘Here we are,’ he said. They had arrived at Ramsay Gardens and he was eager now to show her off to the Forsyths.

  Afterwards, Alan thought, it was as if they had caught the mood that was spreading throughout the country. Everywhere, everyone was saying ‘It might be the last time we can do this for a while.’ Mrs Forsyth had excelled herself in her welcome to Rose. Every minute was filled with happiness.

  They saw the variety programme at the King’s Theatre. Martin had been at his most amusing when the four of them dined at the Cafe Royal and Alan wished he were as debonair, as carefree as his friend, whose lack of reserve seemed to hold both girls’ attention.

  Then, in the middle of one of Martin’s outrageous stories, Rose had reached for Alan’s hand and tucked her arm into his as if it belonged there, and a great warm feeling of proprietary love had come over him.

  The weekend flew by in a whirl of activity. They had not been alone together for more than a few minutes at a time when, on the Sunday morning, he stood with her at the station on the crowded platform.

  He turned her to face him and clasped his hands together behind her waist. ‘Thank you for being here,’ he said. ‘I wish you were not going back.’ He wanted to hold her, to keep her here. When would he see her again?

  ‘It was the best weekend of my life,’ she answered.

  ‘It might be our last meeting for a time,’ he said.

  The train pulled in. People were pushing towards the platform’s edge.

  ‘You’ll go into the RAF as soon as it’s declared, won’t you?’ Her eyes were full of anxiety. ‘I’m afraid for you.’

  He pulled her close. ‘I’ll be all right,’ he said. ‘Take care of yourself.’

  Then he was kissing her; hard passionate kisses, oblivious of the crowd that jostled them. She seemed to be melting against him, as eager as he was. Then she pulled back; breathless, pressing the palms of her hands against his chest and he saw that her blue eyes were huge and bright with unshed tears.

  ‘Go now,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t bear goodbyes.’ She grabbed her bag and ran for the open door of a third-class compartment.

  Alan stood watching her as she found a seat; saw an elderly woman speak to her as she sat down and resolutely turned her face away from the window.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Carrie woke seconds before the alarm went off. She always did. The alarm spring was permanently wound tight; only the lever that turned it off was ever used. She reached over and turned the lever to ‘off’. It was seven o’clock, Friday, the first of September and a beautiful sunny morning, as warm as June.

  There was no need for her to rise early, for the lodgers did not take breakfast, but it was a lifetime’s habit. Only two bedrooms were let and those to two elderly refugee couples – one Czechoslovakian, the other a German Jewish pair. Cecil had recommended them to her.

  Cecil had influence. He was on all the committees he could get on to. She wished that she looked forward to marrying Cecil. Why was she unsure? He’d done nothing to make her uneasy. He was in every way most attentive and considerate. And there had to be a future for her. She couldn’t abide becoming an old and unwanted woman.

  She’d always had someone to look after. First Jane, then Rose. Never had she been, never had she liked, the kind of clinging, simpering woman who let a man take charge of her life. She made her own decisions. But there were times when even she longed for a strong shoulder to lean upon.

  She lay a little while longer, remembering the day he had proposed, after chapel, four months ago. He’d given the sermon; a good one on the sin of David with Bathsheba. At every ‘smote’ or ‘smitten’ Cecil beat his hand on the edge of the pulpit to make his point. And when he said that David ‘lay’ with Bathsheba, he lingered over the words. All the members congratulated him on the sermon so it must only have been she who felt that Cecil overdid it at times.

  He’d driven her home and she’d asked him in for a cup of tea. There were no live-in servants at the Temperance Hotel so no one could gossip about it.

  He followed her into the kitchen, and this evening he had a high colour from the excitement of his preaching and the members’ congratulations.

  There was a little scullery off the kitchen. She used it mainly as a private washroom. It had a sink with a gas water-heater above it. There was no hot water in the big kitchen. She didn’t want him hanging about too long so she filled the kettle with almost boiling water at her geyser. And when she turned round he was behind her.

  ‘Get out of the way, Cecil,’ she said. ‘I’m making the tea in the kitchen. Sit down at the table.’ He sat, on the edge of his chair, waiting for her to seat herself and begin pouring.

  ‘You must know by now, Caroline,’ he’d begun.

  ‘Know what?’

  He came right out with it. ‘That I want you to be my wife.’

  It was not a surprise. Carrie poured the tea and handed his cup and saucer to him. ‘I’ve never much fancied marriage,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t stand all that . . .’ She took a deep breath. It had to be said, straight out. ‘I couldn’t stand any intimacy, Cecil. I’m not that kind of woman.’

  He put down his cup and to her consternation came round to her side of the table and dropped to his knees in front of her. ‘I need you,’ he declared. ‘You are my salvation.’

  He reached for her hand and took it in both of his. It was neither romantic nor silly, the way he did it. His voice was overwrought but, to her dismay, she saw his eyes fill with tears.

  She pulled her hand away from his fondling fingers before he could press it to his lips. Where did he get the idea that a woman liked to see a man grovelling on the floor?

  ‘What are you doing?’ she said with as much spirit as she dared show, under the circumstances. It was unnerving, seeing a man who was usually proud and arrogant, on his knees before her. She didn’t know what to do.

  He looked up at her with longing. ‘I have no appetites, Caroline,’ he told her, on his knees still. ‘I need a woman who is strong, who will smite, as she would a beast of the field, any man who . . .’

  ‘Stop it!’ she ordered. ‘Stop it this minute.’

  He pulled himself to his feet and appeared to shake his head as if he’d been in a trance. ‘I apologise,’ he said. ‘I have offended you.’

  ‘I don’t know what gets into you,’ she said at last. ‘You act so silly at times.’

  ‘Can’t you bear to have me touch you?’

  ‘No.’ She had better explain what she meant. ‘I don’t want that kind of thing. Not from any man. If I did marry, Cecil, it would be for position, security, for companionship and that would not be enough for you.’

  Then he was down on his knees again on the cold floor. ‘It is enough,’ he said with great sincerity, ‘if you’ll have me.’ There were more tears in his eyes and he looked so pitiful and humble that her heart was moved.

  How could she refuse a man who said he needed her as Cecil did? And if she did marry him she would be a woman of rank; a woman of importance in the town. And he would stop all this . . . this self-abasement.

  She looked at him with eyes full of compassion. ‘I’m not ready. I’m not ready to decide yet, Cecil.’

  ‘But you will consider it?’ He got to his feet.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When can I expect your answer?’ He was smiling now, as if she had indeed accepted him.

  ‘Give me until the end of the year,’ she’d said. Was she hoping that he would tire of her before then? Or did she think he would withdraw his proposal? ‘I know it’s a long wait for you but your wife has only been gone two years and there are a lot of things to take into consideration. The hotel. I will not sell the hotel unless I can get a good price for it.’

  And that had been it
. The proposal. After that he never again dropped to his knees. He sometimes kissed her hand and although she didn’t really like it – he kissed the palm of her hand wetly – it seemed a small price to pay for his evident enjoyment. She also had protection and the little civic favours an alderman could arrange. She had her good, respectable refugees and the big black Humber to be driven around in.

  But another consideration, and the one that finally won her over, was that Cecil would drop a hint here, an advisory word there on the means by which she could make a great deal of money. He was not rich. He had only been able to make a comfortable living from his shop, he told her.

  She had always put her money into property. Wells Management drew rents from all over the town without anyone knowing that she was the sole owner, for she kept the deeds and the account at a Manchester bank. There were too many nosey people in Macclesfield.

  Cecil had advised her to buy empty premises that he said would be needed by a government department. She had questioned this; it did not appear to her to be above board but he had laughed and assured her that since it was going to be bought someone would make a profit. Why not herself? When she asked how he knew she was in a position to buy he’d told her that though he would never break the confidence, his official position gave him access to copies of all the deeds of sale of Macclesfield properties. He knew what she already owned.

  So far she had bought well. He would see that everything she bought from now onwards was a sound investment. Then there had been the empty flour mill, which he had persuaded her to lease. She was now drawing ten times as much in rent since it had gone over to munitions.

  As for his peculiar ways, the hand kissing and the frenzied outbursts of religious zeal, for all she knew most men behaved in this manner. She knew little about the workings of men’s minds and cared even less. But she would not allow him to speak of it to anyone yet.

  She could hear the Singers moving about upstairs. She did no cooking for them. Mrs Singer, the Jewish lady, cooked dinner for herself and her husband in the evening. The other couple ate their dinner at midday, as Carrie always did so that their arrangements were not at all inconvenient. In fact, Carrie thought, life was a lot easier with permanent lodgers. Both couples had impeccable manners and behaved both towards one another and towards herself, the men in particular, with extreme formality, courtliness almost.

  Carrie dressed in her black working things, pulled back the curtains and looked out over Waters Green. An early stallholder, the baker, was setting out his stall. Nat Cooper was delivering milk at the far side, near the bus station.

  She could not pronounce the name of the Czech couple so she always referred to them as Mr and Mrs Terry Chenko. The husband, who was getting on, about sixty, Carrie guessed, had found work in one of the mills. His wife spent her mornings cleaning their bedroom.

  Mr Singer had started a little factory. Jewish people were very enterprising in Carrie’s opinion. She had a great deal of admiration for them; in fact she’d set them as high in her estimation as the Salvation Army. Mrs Singer, who spoke no English, spent her day tearing up lengths of silk for her husband’s cutters.

  Carrie thought of Mrs Singer as something like the poor girl in the Rumpelstiltskin story. Mr Singer brought in sacks and sacks of stuff and his wife worked away, not turning them into gold exactly, but getting through the work as fast as she could. All the little ends and pieces she kept in a pillowcase and when it was full she presented them, miming ceremoniously, to Mary. Mary cut them up or stitched them together into patchwork quilts, dolly dresses or frilly bits and pieces for Vivienne’s dressing-up clothes.

  Carrie went down to the kitchen and turned on the wireless. It took a minute or so to warm up so she filled her kettle and set it on the stove.

  ‘German troops this morning attacked Poland. Warsaw is under heavy bombardment,’ the newsreader said. Carrie turned it up. ‘ . . . that if German troops are not withdrawn within forty-eight hours . . .’

  So it was here. War.

  Carrie filled her teapot and set it upon the scrubbed wooden table. She heard Nat Cooper coming up the entry, the alleyway that divided the Temperance Hotel from the next house, and went to open the back door. ‘Have you heard the news?’ she said.

  ‘Aye.’ Nat handed over a quart can of milk. ‘All the lads and men at Brocklehurst’s mill have got their call-up papers.’

  Carrie emptied the milk into a tall china jug and went to the sink with the can. ‘You’ll not be going then?’ she asked.

  ‘I canna. They’re not tekkin’ cripples,’ Nat answered.

  ‘You wouldn’t have to go anyway.’ Carrie handed him back the rinsed can. ‘We need farmers. What does your mother think about it?’

  Nat grinned. ‘She’s gettin’ the bedrooms ready for th’evacuees. She reckons she can tek four.’ He swung the can around his fingers. ‘Are you tekkin’ some?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I’ve two spare rooms but they might billet a ministry on me.’

  She closed the door when Nat had gone and sat at the table, relieved that it had started at last. They would soon put Hitler to rout. An expeditionary force had gone to France and the French had their Maginot line. They’d have learned a lot from the last war.

  It was what would happen here that was alarming everyone. They all knew that this war would be waged against civilians. There would be bombing of all the towns and cities and wholesale gassings. Hitler would try to crush the British from the air since he couldn’t march in.

  ‘Mothers and children are being evacuated today from London . . .’ the voice went on. ‘All families who have been told to expect their arrival are requested to gather at assembly points.’

  She wouldn’t take children. Cecil had fixed it for her since he’d been on the committee. She was glad that she had Cecil on her side. She couldn’t cope with children. She found Mary and Vivienne too much for her. Anyway, with hers and the two refugees’ rooms that only left the old maid’s room and one attic bedroom and that was already half filled with cans of corned beef, pineapple chunks, sugar and a chest of tea. She was stockpiling the foods that had to come in from abroad. She would not be caught out like last time.

  She heard the postman at the front and went to the door. There was one from Canada – they wouldn’t be able to get through soon – and a card, with a picture of a windmill and a woman with clogs on, from Cecil. He was in Holland. They were big chapel folk, the Dutch. He’d be on his way back and she hadn’t missed him for a single minute. Now that war was about to be declared, they would postpone their wedding plans. Everyone knew it would not be a long war. Cecil would understand. He was a patient man. She respected him. And he’d respect her over this.

  She slit open the letter from Patrick with shaking hands. Her hands seemed to have a life of their own for they always shook when she received his letters.

  ‘You should be here, all of you, out of harm’s way before the war starts. You are an obstinate woman, Caroline Aurora. Rose does not need your supervision. She is eighteen and has her own life to lead. You are wasting yours.’ Why did he say such things to her? What did he mean by them?

  Of course her daughter needed her. Rose was talking now about leaving college. She had spent a weekend in Manchester last month, tying up loose ends, as she’d put it.

  Rose was going to go back this term but Manchester was no place to be when there was a war on. Carrie hoped to influence her – hoped that Rose would not do anything rash, like join one of these new women’s services as she’d hinted she might. If she felt that way then she must take a course, become a First Aider or a VAD nurse.

  Rose arrived home on Christmas Eve. She couldn’t carry on with her studies when every pair of hands would be needed to help win the war. She’d done a year and a term. It would count when the war was over. Now she had to make a decision. She had been turned down for the services as her eyesight was not good enough. They advised her to wear glasses all the time, not just for reading a
s she did now. She would try to get work in Macclesfield.

  She was tying packets of sweets to the branches of the Christmas tree. Mary and Vivienne, inseparable as always, were sorting out paperchains and the tin bells they were going to pin to the curtains.

  Mum was at church, setting up the crib in readiness for midnight mass. Dad had gone to meet her. Outside was the ever-constant reminder of almost four months of war. The Phoney War, the Americans called it. It might seem phoney to them, Rose thought, but here it seemed real.

  They all had identity cards and ration books. So far only sugar, bacon and butter were rationed and Aunt Carrie was looking smug about her stock of sugar. Any day now the air raids might start. All the windows in Macclesfield were blacked out. No lights showed. A few older men of the neighbourhood patrolled the darkened streets, tin-helmeted and important in the officious ways of the ARP wardens.

  Inside it was as it had always been; warm and secure, well-loved and familiar. Rose had missed it badly when she was away and was glad to be home again.

  The tree was almost done. In a minute she’d go upstairs and change out of the old green skirt and jumper she was wearing. She could put on her navy-blue dress ready for midnight mass. She looked over and smiled at her sisters.

  ‘Have you made your mind up yet?’ Mary lifted her head from the tangle of paper-chains and lanterns she was making.

  ‘About college?’ Rose asked.

  ‘Yes. Are you coming home, or what?’

  ‘If it were me, I’d go on the stage and dance for the soldiers,’ Vivienne exclaimed.

  ‘I’m leaving. I don’t know what to do though. I’ve been turned down for the WAAF.’ She looked at Mary. ‘What about you? Are you staying on at school to do your School Certificate? You sit the exams in May, don’t you?’

  ‘I won’t pass it, Rose,’ Mary said in a worried voice. ‘Mum and Dad will be disappointed.’

  Rose looked at Mary’s sweet face. ‘Shall I talk to them about it?’ she asked. ‘If you’re sure . . .’