‘Bless you, dear! We’re happy enough as we are, ain’t we, Maggie? We like our workplace. Mrs Roberts runs a special nursery for our babies, so we don’t have to leave them with some old crone who won’t mind them properly. You wait till you find a fellow and start having babies, dear. You’ll thank your lucky stars you can carry on working here, earning a good wage,’ Jess said earnestly.
‘I don’t think I want a fellow,’ I told her.
‘Oh, don’t worry, sweetheart, your time will come,’ said Maggie, misunderstanding. ‘I reckon you’ll grow taller, blossom a bit, turn into a true dazzler and have all the fellows giving you the glad eye.’
‘I don’t think so – but even if I did, I wouldn’t give them the glad eye.’
‘Nonsense! You wait till some lad takes your fancy.’
‘I don’t believe in romantic love. I think it’s just a myth to make us procreate,’ I said grandly.
Olivia had listened to my theory and had been impressed. Jess and Maggie simply doubled up with laughter.
‘Oh, you’re a one!’
‘Just you wait, you funny little thing!’
‘Proper little caution, you are.’
‘Absolutely priceless. Ooh, stop me laughing or I’ll wet myself!’
I didn’t like them laughing at me, but I knew there was no malice in their cackles. We walked back onto the factory floor together. The same gawky lad whistled at me.
‘Oh, there you are, Opal. Young Freddy’s fallen for you already!’ said Maggie, and Jess made silly kissing noises.
‘Well, I’m not falling for him!’ I hissed, going pink with indignation.
Freddy had hair stuck flat to his forehead with cheap pomade, and he’d clearly grown recently and rapidly, because his sleeves stopped several inches from his bony wrists and there was a similar gap between his trousers and his boots.
‘Is he not good enough for you?’ said Maggie, with a slight edge to her voice.
‘Oh no, I don’t mean that at all,’ I said – though that was precisely what I felt.
‘Don’t worry, dear. You’re obviously bright as a button and you speak lovely, like a little lady,’ said Jess.
‘So what are you doing here, eh?’ asked Maggie.
‘Well, I . . .’ I swallowed hard. ‘My family need the money.’
It was a painful admission. The girls at school would have been shocked and embarrassed by such a confession, but Jess and Maggie sighed and smiled at me.
‘Down on your luck, dear? Well, good for you to help out.’
‘Yes, well done, pet. Your parents must be proud of you.’
I wished they were. I had no real idea what Father was thinking. Mother was too distracted and miserable to feel anything very much. When I got home after the desperately long afternoon, Cassie was taking a turn making the wretched little rabbits, while Mother was stirring a thick vegetable soup on the stove. Both her hands were bandaged and she winced when she stopped stirring to cut chunks of bread.
‘Did you have a better day today, dear?’ she asked wearily.
‘Let’s have a look at your hair! Did they give you another starch shampoo?’ asked Cassie.
‘I didn’t give them the chance. I shot out of there the very second the bell rang,’ I said.
‘Good for you,’ she said. ‘Oh Lordy, these rabbits are all staring at me with their beady little eyes. Horrid things.’
‘Shall I help too?’ I offered reluctantly, though I was so weary I just wanted to fling myself down on the sofa and sleep.
‘Well, we’ve got at least a dozen more to do tonight – so yes, come here. You stuff this little beggar while I cut out the next,’ said Cassie.
I sat down and started stuffing. My fingers ached after moulding all day. I couldn’t get the sawdust to fill the spindly limbs properly. It went up my nails and hurt, and when I started sewing the limbs to the body, I managed to dig the needle into the soft pad of my thumb while struggling to pull it through the felt. No wonder Mother was wearing bandages.
Just as she served the soup there was a knock on the door.
‘Oh no, our soup will get cold!’ said Cassie. ‘Don’t answer it, Mother!’
‘I’m not going to, don’t worry,’ she replied. ‘It’ll only be that terrible Liversedge woman again.’
‘But what if it’s someone important? Oh Lord, what if it’s someone with news of Father?’ I said, feeling sick.
I imagined a policeman standing there, pale under his helmet. I imagined his voice saying, ‘So sorry, miss, but is Ernest Harold Plumstead your father? The gentleman who is currently in Whitechurch remand prison? Well, I’m very sorry to tell you that there’s been a sad accident – a matter of rope in his cell. I’m afraid he’s gone and hanged himself.’ The voice echoed in my head as plain as anything, though I was still sitting at our kitchen table, stuffing a little rabbit so hard its leg swelled as if it had dropsy.
Mother and Cassie looked at me.
‘How could there be news of Father?’ said Cassie shakily.
‘I’d better go and see.’ Mother scrabbled at her apron with bandaged hands. She went out of the kitchen and Cassie suddenly clasped me tightly.
‘You don’t half smell of sugary sweets,’ she said.
We both strained our ears. We could hear a voice saying something and Mother murmuring, but we couldn’t gauge the tone. Then Mother said something else and we heard heavy footsteps in the hall.
‘Oh God, I think it is a policeman,’ I blurted. ‘I can’t bear it.’
I put my hands over my ears, not wanting to hear any further terrible news. But it wasn’t a policeman at all. Mr Andrews, my music teacher from school, came into our kitchen! I stared at him, open-mouthed. Cassie must have been even more bewildered, but he was a reasonably handsome man, so she tossed her hair about and stood up straight.
‘Good evening, sir,’ she said. ‘I’m Cassie and this is my sister, Opal. How can we help you?’
‘Shush, Cassie! It’s my schoolteacher,’ I hissed.
‘Indeed,’ said Mr Andrews apologetically.
Mother followed him into the room, in a fluster because of the state of the kitchen. ‘Please let us go in the parlour!’ she implored.
‘No, no! Oh dear, I see you’re about to have supper,’ said Mr Andrews. ‘I’m so sorry to come at such an inconvenient time. I promise I’ll only be a minute or two. I just want a quick word with Opal.’
‘Take him in the parlour, Opal,’ Mother insisted, sweeping the pile of rabbits off the table, her face on fire. ‘I’m making a few toys for my nieces and nephews,’ she lied, though it was obvious that the rabbits were factory piecework. She was very aware that no respectable middle-class married woman went out to work, let alone did piecework in her own home. She glared at me ferociously to make me do as I was told.
‘Please follow me, Mr Andrews,’ I said, and led him into the parlour. It was dark and stuffy in there, and almost too neat. The chairs and table had a melancholy look, because they were so rarely used.
‘I’m sorry, Opal. I just wanted to come and see if you were all right,’ said Mr Andrews, standing uncomfortably, making his soft hat slowly circle in his hands.
‘Please, do sit down,’ I mumbled. ‘I’m perfectly fine, Mr Andrews. At least, I’m not ill.’ I waited. ‘The reason I haven’t been to school is . . .’ It was no use. I couldn’t say any more in case I burst into tears.
‘I do know the reason,’ said Mr Andrews, very gently. ‘I read about your father in the newspaper.’
‘Oh,’ I said hopelessly.
‘I’m so sorry, Opal.’
‘Does everyone at St Margaret’s know, then?’
‘I – I believe a few people saw the newspaper,’ said Mr Andrews.
It was clear that the news had spread like wildfire. I thought of Miss Mountbank, Miss Reed and Miss Laurel whispering amongst themselves. I thought of all the girls gasping and giggling, their eyes bright with the scandal, and I burned.
‘I can entirely understand why you stayed away. Stay away a few days more, if you like, but I’m here to ask you to come back.’
‘Surely I wouldn’t be allowed?’
‘Of course you are. I’ve had a word with Miss Laurel. You yourself have done nothing wrong. You still have your scholarship. You’re one of the brightest girls I’ve ever taught, Opal.’
‘Really?’ I said, thrilled in spite of everything.
‘Really,’ said Mr Andrews. ‘So you must be a brave girl and come back to school and finish your education.’
‘I can’t,’ I said sadly.
‘I know it will be embarrassing for you. There might be a little gossip for a few days. Girls can be very silly. But things will settle down quickly enough. You’re a steely girl with a lot of spirit. You’ll manage.’
‘Thank you, Mr Andrews. I wish I could come back. It means so much to me that you’ve come here to tell me this – but I can’t, because I have to start earning a living to help support my family,’ I said in a rush.
‘You have to work? Don’t you have any savings at all? Then surely your mother . . . or your sister . . .?’
‘Mother’s tried to get a position, but can only find piecework to do at home – those rabbits. Cassie goes out to work already, but she has an apprenticeship and doesn’t get paid till her third year. So I have to work. I started at the Fairy Glen factory on Monday.’
I couldn’t help enjoying the look of shock on his face.
‘Surely you could find more congenial work in an office, Opal. You could be a junior clerk, maybe learn to use a typewriter.’
‘Would that earn me eleven shillings a week?’
‘Probably not,’ said Mr Andrews, sighing.
‘I think I have to stay at the factory for now.’
‘Are they kind to you there?’
‘No. They’re hateful!’ I said. Then I thought of Mr Beeston, Geoff, Maggie and Jess, the well-spoken woman in the ladies’ room . . . ‘Well, some people are quite kind, I suppose.’
‘You’re being very brave,’ said Mr Andrews.
I felt myself glowing. Fancy Mr Andrews paying me such a compliment! Oh, wait till I tell Olivia, I thought. Then I felt such a pang because she wasn’t my friend any more.
‘How is Olivia, Mr Andrews?’ I asked.
‘It’s plain she’s missing you enormously, Opal. It’s very sad to see her trudging around by herself, so cast down. I’m sure she’s been in touch with you.’
‘No, I don’t think she’s allowed to, not now. Her mother said I wasn’t ever to see her again.’
‘Oh dear, oh dear. That’s very sad for both of you. What a wretched state of affairs. I wish there was some way I could help.’ Mr Andrews looked truly upset.
‘I don’t think there is, but I’m very glad you came to see me all the same,’ I said.
We sat there for a minute or two, neither of us knowing what to say next.
‘I’d better be going. You’re missing your supper,’ said Mr Andrews.
He stood up. I stood up too.
‘Well, good luck, Opal,’ he said, and he held out his hand.
I shook it shyly, worried that my own palms were clammy with emotion. I went with him to the front door and we said our goodbyes.
‘Don’t lose heart,’ he said. ‘Listen to classical music, keep reading, keep learning, even if you have to teach yourself.’
‘I will,’ I promised.
I went back to Mother and Cassie, feeling uplifted. Mr Andrews truly cared about me. He thought I was really clever. He was appalled that I had to work in the factory. He thought I was very brave, very valiant. Surely Mother and Cassie would be impressed.
‘Your soup’s cold,’ Mother said. ‘For goodness’ sake, why did he have to come round? The nerve!’
‘He cares about me,’ I said.
‘It was me he was staring at,’ said Cassie.
‘Oh be quiet, both of you. Do you have to spoil everything?’ I declared, and stamped up to my room supperless.
I still felt inspired by Mr Andrews’ visit. I took him seriously. I couldn’t listen to music because we didn’t own a phonograph, but I got out all my schoolbooks and piled up all the serious works of literature I could find. I put aside Little Women and What Katy Did and A Little Princess, though reading them by candlelight had been such a comfort. I borrowed from Father’s small library of second-hand books: Gibbons’ Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, the Romantic poets, George Eliot’s Middlemarch, Henry James . . . I handled each dusty book reverently, feeling as if I was sharing them with Father. See, Mr Andrews, I thought as I opened each one. I’ve taken what you said to heart. I am teaching myself.
In spite of all these resolutions, my eyes glazed in the flickering candlelight, my head nodded, and I didn’t manage more than half a page before falling asleep. And as I worked on, day after day, week after week, moulding an entire garden full of fondant roses, my mind seemed set in a starch mould too. I had totally free Saturdays and Sundays, but I couldn’t seem to concentrate enough to read difficult books. Well, I could read a page or two, but none of it made any kind of sense. I started to find even Dickens and Hardy too hard.
I found I was too listless to paint. Ever since I was a tiny tot I’d been drawing pictures with a packet of chalks, but now I seemed to have no inspiration, no inclination. My beautiful paintbox might just as well have been reclaimed because I scarcely used it.
The only time I truly applied myself was when I wrote to Father. I covered page after page, but most of these letters were never sent.
‘He’s only allowed one letter per week,’ Mother said. ‘You mustn’t be so selfish, Opal. You must let Cassie have a turn.’
I dare say Cassie loved Father, maybe almost as much as I did, but she wrote him very cursory letters.
Dear Father,
I hope you are well. I am very well and all the girls at Madame Alouette’s say I look very fine in my green dress.
From your loving daughter,
Cassandra
Sometimes she wrote no words at all, but simply attached a silk rose to a piece of card or snipped a lock of her beautiful hair and sent it in a twist of tissue. I felt painfully jealous then, because I couldn’t compete. I knew Father probably treasured these hasty little gifts far more than my long letters.
Mother did not write or send him little treasures. Even Cassie felt this was strange. ‘Maybe you could box up one of your stuffed rabbits and send it,’ she said.
She was joking, but Mother looked at her sourly, her mouth set. She’d discarded her bandages now and her fingers no longer bled, but her hands still clearly pained her. Every night, when at last she stopped sewing, she filled a stone bottle with hot water and then sat holding it in her hands, trying to soothe the stiffness. There was a stiffness in her soul too. Sometimes she clutched her chest as if in pain, sometimes she winced if we touched in passing, sometimes she walked in such a rigid way she looked as if she were wearing iron corsets. I remembered her gay girlishness during the Happy Days time. It didn’t seem possible that Mother could ever be that woman again.
Poor Billy the budgerigar seemed to have absorbed the dour family atmosphere. He gave a chirrup or two when I fed him and occasionally sharpened his beak on a piece of cuttlebone, but spent most of his days drooping silently on his perch. Cassie tried to teach him new little phrases: ‘Pretty girl’, ‘Lovely dress’, ‘Brush your hair’ – repeating them over and over again. Billy watched her with his beady little eyes but couldn’t seem to get the hang of it.
‘Try, you silly little thing!’ said Cassie. ‘Dear me. You’re nothing but a painted sparrow!’
‘Don’t say horrid things to him. He can’t help it. He dislikes being cooped up,’ I said.
I couldn’t bear the thought of anything being in captivity now. One Saturday, when Mother and Cassie were out, I opened the cage door. ‘There you are, Billy! Have a little fly about the room and stretch your wings,’ I said encouragingly.
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Billy didn’t seem at all interested at first. His clawed feet stayed clutching his perch, his wings tucked into his sides.
‘Look, Billy, fly!’ I gently moved the little door in his cage. ‘See – it’s open. You can get out. Quick.’
I had to give him several little prods before he realized that this was his one chance of freedom. He suddenly hopped to the door, blundered out into thin air, and then his wings worked by instinct and he flew up to the ceiling. He circled madly three or four times and then perched on the picture rail to get his breath.
‘There! Did you like that? It was good, wasn’t it? Well, go on, make the most of it. Explore the room!’
I’d taken the precaution of shutting the window and closing the door so it seemed quite safe. Billy flew another few circuits and then landed on my head. It was the most curious sensation feeling his claws clinging to my hair.
‘Better not try this with Cassie or you’ll get in a terrible tangle,’ I said. ‘Are you going to talk to me now? Say Happy days just once for me, Billy. They were happy days, weren’t they? Do you think we’ll ever be happy again? Say it for me so I can believe it.’
Billy stayed resolutely silent, but he took off again and seemed to be enjoying himself flying all over the parlour. I was a little alarmed when he lifted his tail and sent a jet of white onto Father’s chair. It mostly went on the antimacassar and hardly showed, but I thought I’d better give it a good scrub before Mother came back.
I sidled out of the door to get the washing cloth and yellow soap from the kitchen. When I got back I opened the door cautiously again, but Billy must have been waiting, hovering in mid-air. As soon as the door opened a crack, he was out, soaring into the hall.
‘Oh help! Come back, Billy! Please, come back!’ I entreated him.
He took no notice of me. He flew all the way upstairs. I ran after him, pleading uselessly.
Billy flew through the open door into Mother and Father’s room.
‘Oh, I think you’re looking for Father! How I wish he were here. But you can play with all his things. See, here’s his wardrobe. His clothes still smell of him.’
Billy didn’t pay them any attention. He flew past the dressing table to the open window behind the net curtains.
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