Chocolate Girls

by Annie Murray

  Two

  Edie walked down Charlotte Road, one of a little grid of streets tucked, along with the infirmary and the Alliott engineering works, into a pocket of land between the main road, the wharf and the railway. Each of the four streets was long enough for two rows of forty or more tightly packed terraces facing each other, their tiny strips of back garden with outside lavatories and wash-houses, each one shared between two houses. When the builder, a Mr Glover, had put up this sturdy neighbourhood soon after the turn of the century, he named the streets after his family. The side road was Kitty Road, and off it fed Charlotte, Minnie and Glover.

  Charlotte Road sloped gently downhill in the direction of the works and the wharf behind it. The Marshalls’ house, number twenty-seven, was about half-way down. At the very bottom of the street two shops faced each other: on the other side was Higgins’ hucksters shop, which sold everything from gas mantles to mops and buckets, and on their side was her dad’s business, Dennis Marshall: Gentlemen’s Barbers. Dennis Marshall was a short, barrel-chested man, spruce and upright, nails always scrubbed clean, absent from home as much as possible. As a small girl Edie had sometimes had to go and deliver a message to him, self-conscious as she stepped in her buttoned boots through the door, into that mysterious aura of sweat and shaving cream and male banter, of fuzzy little piles of hair sweepings on the floor. Some of them would say, ‘Awright bab – Dennis, ’ere’s yer littl’un come for yer!’ and tease her or chuck her cheeks. This was her father’s little kingdom. The one place he seemed happy.

  Jack’s family, the Weales, lived at number forty-seven. The front of the house badly needed a lick of paint, and as she passed, she could hear Mrs Weale’s voice raised, moaning as usual, along the entry. Jack wouldn’t be back in yet. Edie hurried past, threads of her prospective mother-in-law’s voice trailing after her down the road. She and Jack were rescuing each other.

  Rodney, her ten-year-old brother, was out playing on the pavement with a bunch of other kids. You could see his carrot-topped head a mile off, flying after a ‘cat’ – the little block of wood used for ‘tipcat’, their game craze of the moment. Seeing Edie they shouted, ‘Eh, Rodney’s sister – gorrany choclit for us?’

  ‘You know I ain’t, so why bother asking?’ she retorted.

  Rodney, playing the big man in front of his pals, thumbed his nose at her.

  ‘Same to you.’ She went down the entry and along the little path to the back of number twenty-seven, then realized she was still carrying Ruby’s bag. Sticking her head through the open back door, through which drifted the smells of boiled greens and Bisto, she shouted, ‘Mom – I’m back! Just dropping Ruby’s overall round.’ She didn’t expect a reply and didn’t get one.

  Ruby lived in Glover Road. When she and Edie had met at their first Cadbury’s interview, aged fourteen, Miss Dorothy Cadbury, with her kind eyes, old-fashioned clothes and hair coiled into ‘headphone’ plaits above her ears, had set them some little puzzles to do, then checked their hands and nails. No one would be taken on at the works if they had warts or other blemishes on their fingers. Then she asked them questions, starting with when were they born?

  ‘October the nineteenth, nineteen-twenty,’ Edie said.

  When Ruby, next in line, offered the same answer, Miss Dorothy frowned. ‘I mean your date of birth,’ she said. ‘Not hers.’

  ‘That is mine,’ Ruby said, going red. ‘It’s the same.’

  Being accepted by Cadbury’s was a coveted position in the area, a cause for celebration. It meant good, steady work in a clean atmosphere with holidays, education, medical and dental treatment and all sorts of sports and clubs available to the staff. For Edie, getting her place there was like the great miracle of her life. It was the one and only time she could ever remember her mother being obviously pleased with her. ‘Of course our Edie’s going to work at Cadbury’s,’ she boasted snootily to the neighbours. And Ruby got a place as well. Their lives had revolved round the works for the past five years: scrubbing round their work station every Friday, one Saturday off in four, the trips and picnics.

  Next door to the Bonners lived a Mr Vintner, who’d been wounded and shellshocked in the war. He was sitting in the doorway of his house, staring at the street with his vacant, childlike eyes. With his one arm he liked to offer sweets to anyone who went by. As kids they’d been warned off (‘Don’t go taking sweets from that Mr Vintner’), but now Edie thought, poor soul, and went and accepted a humbug from the little white bag he held out.

  ‘Thanks, Mr Vintner,’ she said. ‘You keeping all right?’ He nodded at her solemnly.

  Smudge, the Bonners’ mongrel, was panting in a patch of shade in the yard, and the back door was flung open. The smell that came out was a rank mixture of damp, stale cooking, a hint of booze. Ethel had always liked a tot of the hard stuff. These days it was more than a tot. Edie dreaded going there now. Every day when she was younger, she’d run round there as soon as she could. There was always something going on at the Bonners’ house – the five boys up to all sorts: football, marbles, roaring up and down the street on home-made go-karts. Sid and Ethel had worked in the theatre, in variety, before they married. He was a pianist and she sang and danced. Ethel gave it up when the kids came along, while Sid earned regular money playing irregular hours for pubs, tea dances, ballet schools, and, like his father, by tuning pianos. Often, when Edie arrived at the house, she heard music floating out, jolly popular songs and dance tunes, and Ethel singing along, No, No, Nanette or songs from Hit the Deck in her strong, gravelly voice. Not now though. Edie tapped on the door and heard Ethel shout, ‘Who is it?’

  ‘It’s only me – Edie!’ She feared that Mrs Bonner might ask her in and sit staring at her with her sad, bloodshot eyes, hair streaky grey now the bleach had grown out.

  Ruby’s six-year-old brother, the youngest of the family, appeared in a filthy, torn vest and a pair of shorts which reached half-way down to his ankles.

  ‘Awright Edie,’ he grinned.

  ‘Can’t stop, Alfie,’ she said quickly, putting the bag on the floor just inside the door. ‘Just dropping off Ruby’s swimming things. She’s gone into town to get you all some tea. She’ll be home soon.’

  Edie walked sadly up the road, dodging the kids who were playing out. It felt terrible slinking away from the Bonners as fast as she could. Not long ago she’d have done anything to be round there where it felt safe and everyone was kind! Everything she did this week hammered home the message that her life was changing and how much she was about to lose. In marrying Jack, she’d gain a home and independence of a sort, but . . . Their swim today had been what set her off this afternoon. Memories kept flooding back.

  She and Ruby had been together through the Cad-bury’s Continuation School until they were eighteen. One day of the working week they spent in the school on Bournville Green, extending an education that would otherwise have ended when they were fourteen. As well as subjects like arithmetic and history, they’d put on plays, been taken on outings – trips along the Cut, camping at Holyhead – and got plenty of physical exercise. It was because of Cadbury’s that Edie had learned to swim. Tuesday lunchtime was Ladies’ Day at the Bournville baths. There was time to swim, luxuriate in the showers which lined the gallery above the pool, and then eat a bit of dinner. Today they’d eaten their buttered cobs out in the sun. Ruby was the one who’d taught her to swim. Cadbury’s had an instructor, to teach their employees. The initiate would go into the water with a rope round their middle and she held the other end and shouted instructions, hauling them along the pool. Ruby was one of those people who just took to it like a fish, but the instructor, Miss Proctor, scared the wits out of Edie.

  ‘She just lets you go under all the time,’ she’d complained after one of Miss Proctor’s gruelling sessions. ‘I’m not going back to her. I’ll never learn to swim.’

  ‘Oh yes you will,’ Ruby said. Both of them were fifteen then. Patiently, week after week, Ruby had held Edie’s chin an
d told her what to do, gently towing her up and down the pool until her limbs started to cooperate and she gained the confidence to go on her own. By the end of the year she was happily swimming lengths. Edie adored swimming, the glowing feeling it left you with. Part of it was the lovely showers, with their half-moon-shaped enclosures and endless supply of hot water.

  There were all the other activities too. Ruby was part of the Bournville amateur dramatics group and Edie had discovered she could draw quite well and joined the Art Club. It had been her favourite thing. Now she was getting married, she’d have to give all that up.

  ‘You can still come – you can be my guest,’ Ruby had told her recently.

  But already Edie could sense a distance between them and her heart was heavy. If only she didn’t have to give up work things would be perfect.

  Seated beside Alec in the car, Janet watched his deft hands with their little tufts of dark hair as they turned the wheel, shifted gears.

  He glanced at her. ‘You’re quiet. Everything all right?’ She nodded, staring out through the windscreen. Tiny flies kept colliding with it, pinned there, helpless. She tried to arrange words in her mind. She’d wait until they’d cleared the middle of town and get him to stop somewhere. By the time they passed the Moseley Baths Alec was talking fluently about Herr Hitler and Germany. Was there going to be a war as so many were saying? He thought not. Of course we were wrong to let them take Czechoslovakia, but sometimes a price had to be paid to keep the peace. No one would be so foolish as to start another war like the last lot.

  ‘It’s such a nice evening, I thought we’d go out into the country. Henley-in-Arden maybe. See what we fancy.’ When Janet didn’t reply, Alec looked at her again. ‘Are you sure you’re all right? You look a bit off-colour.’

  ‘I do feel rather queasy.’ This was the truth. She’d felt queasy on and off all day. ‘Look—’ He was driving through King’s Heath. ‘Let’s go into the park. It’s lovely at this time of year.’

  ‘But darling, I was hoping we could be a bit more private.’

  I know what you were hoping, she thought. Every time they met now was an excuse for lovemaking. As soon as they had crossed that threshold, the talking had stopped.

  ‘Please.’ She spoke sharply. ‘I need to get out.’

  He sighed impatiently and parked the car at the edge of the park. That sigh of his decided her. She would not tell him. If she told him everything he would have to be involved. He’d take over. And her mother might have to know. Better just to deal with it herself, somehow.

  In the park he took her arm. ‘Well, this is nice,’ he said grudgingly, as they walked up towards trees. He moved his lips close to her ear. ‘But I was hoping to have you tonight. I need you so badly, darling.’

  ‘Alec—’ Janet stopped and stood square in front of him. ‘Please. Enough. We have to stop this.’

  His dark brows pulled into a frown. ‘But I thought . . . You’ve enjoyed yourself, haven’t you? I thought we were in this together?’ He tried to take her arm again, saying resentfully, ‘You’ve certainly seemed to be enjoying yourself.’

  Janet blushed. ‘Don’t, Alec.’ She looked at her feet in their white summer sandals. ‘What we are doing is wrong. We have to stop it and if you’re not prepared to do it, then it’ll have to be me.’

  ‘But—’ He put his hands on her shoulders.

  ‘What if I was to fall pregnant?’ she flared at him. ‘Have you thought about that?’

  ‘But darling, I’ve always been careful!’

  ‘Not always.’

  They looked into each other’s eyes. That one time, their only whole day out together, in Wales, which extended late into the evening, into making love on the sand in the dark. ‘It’s so much nicer without,’ he’d said. ‘It’ll be all right, darling, just this once . . .’

  ‘You’re . . . not – are you?’ he said now.

  Janet swallowed. Oh, if only she could tell him, have him take everything on, take away the terror that came over her at night when the reality of what was facing her chilled through her. She had no idea what she was going to do.

  ‘No. But I want an end to this.’

  He heard her coldness. His hands slid from her.

  ‘Oh. I see.’ He sighed again, looked up at the pale sky above the trees. ‘Well – I suppose, all good things . . .’

  They stood there, at a loss for a moment.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. Her chest ached with tears but she remained dry-eyed. It had to be like this. She had to face the future herself, without entangling him, his family. That was unthinkable. And she didn’t want him deciding things for her.

  ‘I’d better drive you back then.’ She was silent. ‘Janet – d’you really mean this?’

  Her eyes met his, steadily. ‘Yes.’

  Three

  Edie leant up on her elbow and looked down at her husband. Husband!

  It was the morning after their wedding and she had woken in utter bewilderment when she saw the beams above her, and the lopsided slant of the room. Where in heaven was she? The room over the Pack Horse out at Kidderminster! Her wedding night. Everything felt strange: the lumpy mattress, the stiff cotton of her new nightdress, the unfamiliar rhythm of doors opening and closing downstairs and the hot heaviness of another body the other side of the bed.

  She slid her hand across and touched Jack’s back, hard and flat, like a wall, just as it had felt last night when he’d been on top of her, leaving that sticky mess behind. She flushed with shame. Surely it wasn’t supposed to be like that?

  She pushed herself up to look at him, over his pale, thin shoulder, naked except for his singlet. All she could see was the bruised portion of his face.

  Tuesday, the evening they’d gone looking for lodgings, she’d called at his house. Mrs Weale, his sickly, complaining mom, called him down. There was a pause, then Jack appeared, tall and lanky in the doorway. Edie’s hand went to her mouth.

  ‘Oh my God, Jack – what’ve you done?’

  The right side of Jack’s normally impish face was barely recognizable. His eye had almost disappeared into the swelling and his cheek was a swollen purple mess. The other side of his face, Edie could see, wore a decidedly sheepish expression.

  ‘Bit of a fight,’ he admitted indistinctly, looking down at his grubby boots.

  ‘And it’s worse than that,’ Mrs Weale complained, folding her arms in a way which immediately made Edie feel like taking Jack’s side. ‘Go on then – are you going to tell her, or am I?’

  Jack suddenly strode over, hoiking Edie’s arm. ‘Come on, Ede – we’re going out.’

  ‘Jack – just tell me!’

  ‘Come to the park and I’ll tell yer.’

  ‘But Jack—’ She stopped outside, exasperated to the point of fury. ‘We’re s’posed to be going over Fordhouse Lane – to look at the rooms.’ She peered more closely at him. ‘What a sight you look,’ she said tearfully.’ You’ve got to go to our wedding Sat’dy looking like that.’

  ‘Thing is, Ede . . .’ Jack began. ‘It were that bastard Scottie MacPherson.’ She could hear his anger, feel him tense up at the very mention of his name. He’d had a long-running feud with Scottie. Whenever Jack, Frank and the other mates he knocked about with ran into Scottie, it was like a red rag to a bull. Edie even suspected they’d forgotten what the original grudge was about. If it hadn’t been Scottie it’d be someone else – that was just how they were.

  ‘We ’ad a set-to outside the Dog last night. And then I were late for work this morning. Very late. And they took one look at me and said I’d had enough warnings . . .’

  Edie’s heart sank even lower. ‘They let yer go, daint they?’

  He nodded, wincing at the pain in his head.

  ‘Oh Jack, how could yer?’ Edie was enraged by seeing her mother’s predictions coming true even before the wedding! ‘You know my job finishes as soon as I’m a married woman. I’ve got enough to put down for that Mrs Smedley for the rent, but a
fter that it’s up to you ’til I can find a little job somewhere. What’re we going to tell her?’

  ‘She don’t need to know I’ve lost my job – I’ll soon find summat else. I always do, don’t I? Don’t fret, love. We’ll soon be on our own without them all nagging all the time. It’ll be all right. You’ve got to trust me.’

  ‘Trust yer?’ Edie exploded. ‘I could bloody kill yer! Look at the state of yer!’

  Jack nudged her as they walked slowly, side by side. Edie faced forward, refusing to be appeased. He tried tickling the back of her neck as she dragged him off to catch the bus to Stirchley.

  ‘Aw, Edie – don’t be like that. I won’t be out with my pals once we’re married. I’ll ’ave to settle down then, won’t I?’

  ‘It ain’t funny Jack. And yes, you have got to stop fighting – be more responsible. Yer like a great big load of babbies, all of you lads, that you are.’

  ‘Come on—’ He slipped his arm round her and she flung him off, but he could see she was beginning to come round. ‘Let’s go and see that Mrs Smedley – get our little nest sorted out, eh?’

  ‘No thanks to you,’ Edie grumbled.

  ‘You’re getting wed on Sat’dy. Look on the bright side, eh.’ He leaned round and his one wholesome eye peeped cheekily into hers. He pecked a kiss on her freckly nose.

  ‘I’m gunna ’ave to look on the bright side of your face an’ all,’ she said. ‘You great big Charlie.’

  The swelling had subsided completely by their wedding day, but the whole area had turned a rainbow mixture of blue, mauve and yellow and she’d felt embarrassed and disappointed in him, especially when Jack’s friends made ribald jokes about his exploits. And her mom had loved it of course, sweeping into church all dressed up, peering snootily down her nose at the Weales from under the brim of that big hat. The photographer had arranged it so that Jack and Edie stood sideways on in the wedding picture, so the good half of his face was showing, she looking up at him, as she only came up to his chest.