by Nancy Revell
‘Two words,’ Gloria said. ‘Child Killer.’
Rosie sucked in air.
‘No!’
‘The strange thing is, I can remember the court case,’ said Gloria. ‘You would have been too young. But the irony is I only read about it because I’d become obsessed with reading the marriages and births sections, trying to find out when Miriam and Jack had got married and if they’d had a baby. I know, pitiful, but I was only a young girl. I was in bits … Anyway, I remember reading about the court case of this woman from one of the mining villages who was hanged after it was discovered she had killed at least five children – most of them her own. She’d poisoned all these poor mites over months and had made a great show of trying to nurse them back to health.’
‘Oh God, and you definitely think it was Martha’s real mum?’ Rosie asked.
‘Yes.’ Gloria was definite. ‘Miriam told me with great glee how she had a friend who worked in the registry office and she’d confirmed that the woman was Martha’s mam.’
Rosie stood still, staring, not knowing what to say. Sensing the disquiet, Hope started to whimper.
‘I know, I couldn’t quite take it in.’ Gloria sighed sadly.
‘Poor Martha,’ Rosie said, ‘fancy finding out that a monster like that is your own flesh and blood.’
‘I know, that was exactly the point Miriam made,’ Gloria said as she went over to the pram and fished out a bottle of milk.
‘Let me guess,’ Rosie said, handing Hope over to Gloria. ‘She threatened to let every man and his dog know about Martha’s mum?’
‘That was about the sum of it.’ Gloria sat back down and started feeding Hope.
Rosie and Gloria didn’t need to say anything; they both knew that Martha would not cope at all well with being the talk of the town and it would send her straight back into the non-verbal world she had previously inhabited. She would be ostracised, stared at in the street, and whispered about behind her back. It would destroy her, as it would her mother and father.
Rosie shook her head. There were no words. She sat back down and topped up her tea, which was going cold.
‘So, I’m guessing it wasn’t just Hannah and Martha that Miriam dug up dirt on? Mind you, I’d be amazed if she found anything at all untoward about Polly.’
‘You’re right there about Polly, but what Miriam did threaten to do was get word to Tommy that Polly had found another chap.’
‘That’s not on!’ Rosie exploded. Out of all her squad Polly had always been the most industrious and determined. She was also a lovely girl, who was incredibly kind and caring to just about everyone she met. They had all watched her fall in love with Tommy and seen Tommy fall right back in love with her. Their courtship, though, had been rather tumultuous thanks to Helen’s attempts to split them up because she wanted Tommy for herself.
‘I think, more than anything, it was Miriam’s way of trying to hurt Jack,’ Gloria said. ‘She knows how close Jack’s always been with Arthur, and that Jack thinks the world of Tommy too … And she also knows Tommy’s history. You know about Tommy’s mam topping herself, don’t you?’
Rosie nodded. Most people who worked in the yard knew Tommy and why his granddad had brought him up. Not that anyone ever talked about it openly, least of all in front of Tommy.
‘How did Miriam put it …’ Gloria thought for a moment. ‘That’s it … That Tommy might take after his father in looks, but in his mind he was just like his mam – “fragile”.’
‘God, she really has no soul, does she?’ Rosie was aghast.
‘Nope, not even a shadow of one,’ Gloria agreed. ‘The thing is, if Tommy got wind that Polly was off with some other bloke, he’d believe it. Most blokes would believe it. Especially if their sweetheart worked with a load of strapping young men day in and day out.’
Rosie nodded her agreement. It was true. And they’d all seen it with their own eyes, women straying while their fiancés or husbands were away. The war had made people do things they wouldn’t normally do.
‘What was Jack’s reaction?’ Rosie asked.
‘He was livid.’ Gloria looked at Hope, who was falling back off to sleep having drunk most of her bottle. ‘He started yelling at Miriam that this was one step too far. I think Miriam knew she was skating on thin ice and tried to smoothe it over, saying she was sure such rumours wouldn’t make it all the way over to Gibraltar, but it was obvious the threat was there all the same.’
‘So, go on, tell me what she found out about Angie and Dorothy. I’m guessing there was lots to pick from there,’ Rosie said, thinking of her two workers – so full of fun and life, but also about as far from saintly as you could get.
‘Well, it wasn’t them but their mams that Miriam – or, I’m guessing, the person she employed – found out about.’
‘Really?’ Rosie asked.
‘Well, it would seem that Angie’s mam is having it off with some bloke. God forbid Angie’s dad finds out. If he gives his daughter a clobber every now and again for cheeking him back or not getting the shopping in, heavens knows what he’d do if he found his wife was doing the dirty on him.’
Rosie took a drink of her tea and thought about the red mark she’d seen on Angie today.
‘But it was what she found out about Dorothy’s mam,’ Gloria continued, ‘that was a real turn-up for the books.’ They all knew Dorothy’s mother had been married and that the marriage had broken up.
‘Well, it seems that Dorothy’s mam didn’t actually divorce her first husband before marrying the bloke she’s with now. The one she’s had four more daughters with. And as Miriam was keen to point out, it’s illegal to be married to two people at the same time.’
‘Bigamy,’ Rosie said.
‘Exactly,’ Gloria said, although she had not known that this was the proper word for it until Miriam had enlightened her. ‘Which means if she gets found out, she’ll be looking at a spell in prison, or a huge fine. But even if Dorothy’s mam got off with a slap on the wrist, it’d be the shame of it all.’
‘Blimey.’ Rosie whistled out air.
The two women were quiet.
After a few moments Rosie’s head suddenly jerked towards Gloria. ‘She didn’t find anything out about me, did she?’
Gloria shook her head vehemently. ‘No, thank goodness. The only thing she’d found about you was that you were “living in sin” with some bloke twice your age.’
Rosie slumped. Relief flooded through her. She didn’t think she could handle another threat to the bordello. Not after the last time.
‘Thank God for small mercies,’ she muttered, pouring out the last dregs of tea into their cups.
Gloria got up and put Hope back in her pram.
‘God, Gloria, this really is shocking. What did you do after she’d said all of this?’
Gloria sat back down and took a drink of her tea. ‘I just asked her straight. I said she obviously had us over a barrel and what did she want?’
Rosie couldn’t help but admire Gloria. Nothing ever seemed to faze her, or at least she never let on that it did.
‘I’d pretty much guessed by this stage what she wanted in exchange for her keeping shtum – and that was that I also keep my mouth shut … I am never to tell another living soul about Jack and me, nor am I to breathe a word about our “bastard’s true paternity”.’
Again, Rosie flinched. She hated that word. Not because it was a swear word, but because it was so judgemental.
‘She said that if I did that, every one of my “workmates’ sleazy secrets” would remain just that – secrets.’ Gloria slumped at the word ‘secrets’.
‘Oh, Gloria … You were so looking forward to being honest and open, and now here you are not just having to keep your secret – but everyone else’s.’ Rosie paused. ‘I’m guessing that the cherry on Miriam’s perfectly iced cake was banishing Jack to Scotland?’
Gloria nodded. Her mind flicked back to how she’d been ordered to leave the house without saying goodbye
to Jack, and how she had walked along the coast road feeling punch-drunk. Jack had found her and made her promise to stay strong before they’d said a rushed goodbye. Now Rosie was back, though, she felt she could unload some of that heavy weight she’d been hauling about with her these past five days.
‘Yes,’ Gloria said. ‘Miriam got her father – you know, old Mr Havelock?’ Rosie nodded. Everyone knew Mr Havelock. He owned, or at least had substantial shares in, a good majority of the town’s businesses and shipyards. ‘Well, she got him to sanction Jack’s move to the Clyde. The yarn she is going to spin, should anyone ask, is that Jack is the all-singing, all-dancing expert on everything to do with the new Liberty ships, and that, as a result, he’s in demand with just about every shipyard in the country.’ Everyone in the shipbuilding industry knew the Liberty ships were of massive importance to the war effort. The prototype had been designed by Mr Thompson himself, but the Americans could build them cheaply and quickly, and without the threat of being bombed.
‘So, that’s why Jack’s up in Scotland?’
‘Yep, and as far as Miriam’s concerned, that’s where he’s going to stay.’ Gloria was unable to keep the despondency out of her voice.
‘So, what did you tell the women when you got back? They must have been wondering where you’d got to, and why Jack had suddenly left for the Clyde?’
‘You know that lot – always the Spanish Inquisition.’ Gloria let out a short laugh. ‘Well, I kept it to as near the truth as I could. That Jack had been sent to Scotland at a moment’s notice, but that we’d managed to see each other to say goodbye. I just left out everything else.’ Gloria suppressed a yawn. Now that she had unburdened herself she was starting to feel tired.
‘Come on,’ Rosie said. ‘I’ll walk you to the bus stop. I’m not surprised you’re knackered. We’ll work out a solution. Might take us a little while, but we’ll think of something. Miriam’s a nasty piece of work, but she’s not going to win. Mark my words.’
‘I wasn’t a total pushover, though, you know? With Miriam,’ Gloria said, puffing as she and Rosie carefully got the pram up the steps and onto the pavement.
‘I can well imagine,’ Rosie said. Gloria was about as far removed from a pushover as you could get, although it still surprised her that her workmate had put up with her husband’s violence for so long.
‘I didn’t exactly have the last word, but I did manage to give her the length of my tongue before I was booted out the front door,’ Gloria said. The cold night air had woken her up.
Rosie looked across at Gloria as she pushed the pram along Borough Road and past the towering stone pillars of the town’s municipal museum, still open despite it now being early evening.
‘She tried telling me I’d shot myself in the foot by telling Vinnie about Hope and that I’d be called all sorts now as everyone would know that I had an illegitimate baby and there was no father around. She said I’d be known as the yard’s “bike”!’
Rosie tutted as she wrapped her old work coat around her denim overalls.
‘Oh, I thought it was quite funny actually,’ Gloria said, peering in the pram as she walked, checking on Hope. ‘Told her I didn’t give two hoots about what anyone thought of me.’
Which was true, Rosie thought. Gloria had only ever been worried about people finding out she was being beaten by her husband. For some inexplicable reason that was still a source of shame to her.
‘She didn’t like the fact that I laughed in her face and told me I should be careful as she might well inform the authorities that I’m an unfit mother and get Hope put into some kind of care home.’
Rosie could feel her own anger rise, so she knew how this must have made Gloria want to explode.
‘Well, red rag to a bull or what?’ Gloria said as they continued up Holmeside in the direction of the bus depot at Park Lane.
‘So, I told her straight – that if she even threatened to do that ever again, I would make sure that every man, woman and child in this entire town and beyond knew that her husband had had a child with another woman … That I would make damn sure that she was never able to lift her head high ever again in this town without a trail of salacious whispers following behind her. And, to top it all, I would make sure that everyone who is anyone got to hear how she tricked Jack into marriage, how she pretended she was pregnant, how she conned him and dragged him down the aisle faster than the speed of light – and then how she faked a miscarriage! I told her she’d be the laughing stock of polite society. That she would be known as Desperate Miriam Havelock. The woman who had to pretend she was up the duff to get her man!’
‘Good on you, Glor! What did she say?’
‘Oh you know, tried to make a joke of it and say she was quaking in her boots, but I knew I had got to her. At least when she slammed the door in my face I felt like I’d won a very minor victory.’
Rosie squeezed her friend’s arm. Miriam might well have the upper hand, but this was by no means the end of the matter. The hostilities, Rosie was sure, would continue for a long time to come.
After Rosie had helped Gloria put the pram onto the double-decker bus that had been waiting, she waved her goodbyes and hurried home. She’d never really thought about how far Gloria had to trudge to work and back each day, but helping her bang that boat of a pram about, well, it had got her thinking. As she walked back down Holmeside she resolved to have a word with her landlord, old Mr Brown who lived in the flat above her, as well as a chat with George. Once, that was, she had told everyone at the bordello about her new marital status, something she felt a little nervous about and was happy to leave until tomorrow.
She was certainly in no rush to tell Lily that she was now a married woman. George, of course, would be the perfect gentleman and get out the best brandy and demand an impromptu celebration, but she was sure Lily would find some reason to throw a bucket of cold water over the celebration. Rosie loved Lily to pieces and knew Lily loved her too, but Peter had been, and still was, their one bone of contention.
Passing the museum, Rosie saw that there was some kind of event on as there were people hurrying up the wide stone steps and disappearing through the main entrance. The people who were attending looked well-to-do, which again brought Miriam to mind.
As she and Gloria had trooped to the bus depot they had agreed that at the moment, they had to do what that horrible woman wanted. There was nothing else they could do. Interfering in any of the women’s lives would probably just make matters worse. They couldn’t exactly tell Dorothy, Angie, Hannah and Martha what they knew.
And as for Polly, if she thought there was even the remotest possibility that Tommy might be fed lies about her and some other bloke at the yard, she’d worry herself into an early grave. The girl was as anxious as hell about her fiancé. And who wouldn’t be? Handling unexploded bombs did not bode well for a long life.
Such morbid musings about Tommy had Rosie’s thoughts slipping back unguarded to Peter. He mightn’t be handling live mines, but she was pretty sure that what he was about to embark on was just as dangerous.
Chapter Five
Tatham Street, Hendon, Sunderland
‘Nooo!’
Lucille pushed the thermometer that Bel had been trying to ease gently into her mouth out of her mum’s hand before flinging the blankets in her cot to the side with great gusto.
Bel looked at Maisie, rolled her eyes towards the ceiling, and sighed heavily.
Maisie considered taking the thermometer and trying to give it a go herself, but then decided against it as she didn’t want to catch whatever horrible bug it was Lucille had. The poor mite had been throwing up, sweating, and tossing and turning since the early hours.
Maisie had arrived at the Elliots’ with the intention of taking her little niece into town for their regular sojourn to the Holme Café for some hot chocolate and one of Mrs Milburn’s famous patisseries, only to find Lucille languishing in her cot in the downstairs bedroom that was now Polly’s.
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��I think it’s safe to say you’ve had a wasted journey,’ Bel said to her half-sister, putting the blankets back over her daughter. ‘Why don’t you come back at the weekend when madam here should be back on her feet?’
‘Noooo!’ This time Lucille’s wail was even longer and was followed by another eruption of snotty tears. ‘’Aisiee stay!’ she pleaded, eyes watering with tears, her little button mouth pursed defiantly at the aunty who was abandoning her in her hour of need.
‘Nothing wrong with her hearing, then,’ Bel said, wearily. She had been up half the night and was starting to feel more than a little under the weather herself.
Chuckling, Maisie took off her coat, grabbed the chair that was by the dresser, positioned it next to the cot and took hold of her niece’s hot little hand through the wooden bars. Children had never interested Maisie; she had certainly never yearned for a daughter or son of her own, like most women she knew, but she did love Lucille. Her niece was full of life and fire, and sometimes, Maisie swore, she saw herself in the little girl.
‘I don’t know, LuLu,’ Maisie said softly, ‘what are we going to do with you?’
Lucille now looked at her aunt with wide, adoring eyes and grabbed for the toy bunny that Maisie had brought back for her from a trip to London. She started sucking her thumb at the same time as squashing the cloth bunny to her tear-stained face.
‘You’re going to have to get better soon,’ Maisie said, keeping her voice low and cajoling, ‘because I can’t go to Mrs Milburn’s tea shop on my own, can I?’
Lucille shook her head, hypnotised by Maisie’s softly spoken, southern accent.
‘You don’t have to stay, you know?’ Bel said, tucking the blankets around Lucille, who was now calming down.
Maisie laughed quietly. ‘I think the whole street will get a right earful if I go now.’
‘Well,’ Bel whispered, ‘as soon as she starts to drop off, you can make your escape.’
Bel was secretly pleased Maisie was staying, a feeling that was relatively new to her as their relationship had not got off on the right foot. It was at Bel’s and Joe’s wedding that Maisie had decided to declare that she was Bel’s sibling, and Pearl her long-lost mother. The very public reunion had taken an even more dramatic turn after a shunned and very distraught Pearl had gone on a bender, only to be found in the nick of time as she was taking a midnight dip on Hendon beach.