The Surplus Girls

by Polly Heron

  First published in paperback in Great Britain in 2020 by Corvus,

  an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.

  Copyright © Polly Heron, 2020

  The moral right of Polly Heron to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination.

  Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Paperback ISBN: 978 1 78649 967 7

  E-book ISBN: 978 1 78649 968 4

  Printed in Great Britain

  Corvus

  An imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd

  Ormond House

  26–27 Boswell Street

  London

  WC1N 3JZ

  www.corvus-books.co.uk

  To the memory of John Copas (1940–2017).

  Tarantara! tarantara!

  And to Ron and Celia Dorrington, dear friends, best of neighbours and surrogate parents.

  Chapter One

  Manchester, January 1922

  ‘THERE’S NO CALL for you to visit the pie shop with the others, Miss Layton.’ Mr Butterfield’s tone was casual, but the brief flicker in his hooded eyes was anything but indifferent and Belinda felt a dip of dismay in the pit of her stomach. ‘I know Mrs Sloan won’t have sent you out this morning without your midday snap.’

  ‘I could do with a spot of fresh air.’ Why had she run downstairs? Where were the others? She edged nearer the door. Better to wait outside in the mill-yard even on a bitter day like today than to be backed into a grubby corner by Butterfingers. Shifting her shoulders beneath her woollen shawl, she made a show of gazing at her bare hands. ‘I’ve forgotten my gloves. I’ll nip back up.’

  ‘They’re sticking out of your skirt-pocket.’

  Drat. She tugged them out and put them on, pushing them down into the gaps between her fingers with as much care as if they were kid gloves that fitted like a second skin instead of having been knitted by Grandma Beattie from an old cardigan she had unravelled.

  Mr Butterfield moved closer; she stepped towards the door. He frowned and smiled at the same time, a pretend-humorous expression that questioned her silly reaction to his perfectly normal behaviour. She reached for the door-knob; her woolly glove slithered round it. Mr Butterfield stretched out his hand. He wore gloves without fingertips; there was a line of dirt beneath each nail and the ends of the pointing finger and middle finger on his right hand were a dull tobacco-yellow. He was much taller than her five foot two.

  His hand stopped in mid-air. ‘I were only going to open the door for you since it appears to be stuck. Why?’ There was a triumphant smirk about his lips, there and gone so swiftly it might never have existed. A bland smile replaced it. ‘What did you think I was going to do?’

  The others clattered down the wooden staircase. Belinda glanced their way and when she looked back, Mr Butterfield was a couple of yards away. Her knees felt watery with relief – but only for a moment. Annoyance flared. It was horrible having to put up with Butterfingers, but they had no choice. As one of the tattlers, he was important. If someone was off sick, he could offer a day’s work to one of the desperate souls who lurked outside the gates from the crack of dawn every weekday morning; and if someone left the mill, he chose which weaver took their place and which moved into the vacant slot left behind. Eh, they were powerful men, the tattlers. And they were all men. There was no such thin g as a woman-tattler. Not now the war was over and the women weren’t needed any more.

  ‘There you are.’ Buxom and keen-eyed, Maggie was in the lead.

  The knot of women drew Belinda in. Crossing the lobby with its depressing smell of floorboards and low pay, they burst into the mill-yard. The January morning – well, it was afternoon now, just turned – was only slightly less raw than it had been first thing and the wind, as they marched along the street, was sharp as a knife. Normally, Belinda preferred to wait outside the pie shop since she never bought anything, but today she sneaked indoors for warmth. A mixture of delicious aromas wrapped round her, setting her tummy rumbling: pastry, mince-and-onions and the bacony, mustardy smell of devilled chicken puddings that would form a savoury treat for some lucky families later. Grandma Beattie’s fish-paste barm cake suddenly seemed unappetising – oh, what a disloyal thing to think. Shame on you, Belinda Layton. Disloyal was the last thing she was. The past four years had proved that.

  Her companions chose their handheld pies, selecting the cheaper ones, cheese-and-onion, curried vegetables, suet-andveg. Coins chinked and the shop-owner and the copper-haired girl who worked with him handed white paper bags over the counter. Then everyone scurried back up the street and through the tall gates into the mill-yard. The banks of grimy windows made the mill an unwelcoming place.

  Jostling good-naturedly to get out of the cold, they hurried upstairs to the canteen, which was a grand name for a long, draughty room. They were glad enough of the draughts on weekdays when the mill was working full tilt and the hot, humid atmosphere left everyone gasping for breath, but on Saturdays, especially winter Saturdays, the draughts nipped fiercely, no matter how much hot tea you supped to keep them at bay.

  Steaming mugs were handed round, then everyone plonked themselves on the benches and tucked in.

  ‘Didn’t them devilled chicken puds smell heavenly?’ said Annie.

  A chorus of agreement was mumbled through mouths filled with pasties.

  ‘I might get a couple to take round to Mum’s…’ Belinda began.

  ‘No, you don’t, lady.’ Annie spoke so sharply that pastry crumbs flew out of her mouth. ‘It’s not your job to feed them kids. It’s your dad’s.’

  ‘Leave her alone,’ said Maggie. ‘But don’t forget, love,’ she advised Belinda, ‘it’s because of you that your family had a good Christmas.’

  ‘Not just because of me…’

  ‘Yes, because of you.’ Even though she was hard of hearing after her years in the mill, Maggie didn’t speak unnaturally loudly the way a lot of the women did. ‘You’re the one what came here every Saturday for two months and saved all the money so yon young ’uns got more than a sugar mouse on Christmas morning and your mum got a capon with all the trimmings.’

  Belinda shrugged. ‘I wanted to.’

  ‘I know, and now it’s time to spend a few coppers on yourself.’ Maggie gave her a look. ‘That’s what your Auntie Enid’s expecting.’

  Belinda warmed to the older woman. She owed Maggie a lot. It was Maggie who had helped Auntie Enid get her this job at the mill when she moved in with her and Grandma Beattie; and, a few weeks back, it was Maggie who talked Auntie Enid into letting her work the Saturdays leading up to Christmas. Auntie Enid and Grandma Beattie would never have allowed it if Maggie hadn’t stuck her oar in. When Belinda had gone to live with them back in 1916, Auntie Enid had made promises to Mum, one of which had been no Saturday cleaning. That had seemed to matter to Mum more than anything, though it hadn’t stopped her accepting the Christmas goodies that had come her way.

  Maggie raised her eyebrows and Belinda laughed, giving in.

  ‘Yes, Auntie Enid expects me to treat myself.’

  ‘Come Monday morning, I’ll want to
know what you bought.’

  ‘That’s easy. I’d like material to make a new blouse.’

  ‘I’m pleased to hear it, lass. What colour?’

  A flush crept across her cheeks. ‘I haven’t decided.’ Hadn’t built up the courage, more like. She knew what she would like, but would she dare?

  Maggie patted her hand, then left her alone. That was one of the good things about Maggie. She never pressed you. Or did she need to be pressed? Deep down, did she want to be? Oh, heck.

  She finished her barm cake and helped wash up the mugs. It was time to line up for their wages. Saturday cleaning was paid separately to the weekly wage. You cleaned all morning; then, while you ate your snap, the tattler checked the work and got the wages ready.

  Queuing with the others, Belinda edged towards the front as those ahead of her received theirs. Mr Butterfield sat behind a table that did duty as a desk, courtesy of an ink-pot and a wooden pen-tray with grooves for pens and pencils. A ledger was open in front of him, a tin cash-box beside it.

  ‘Name?’ As if he didn’t know.

  ‘Belinda Layton.’

  ‘Make your mark here.’

  He always said that – as if the workers couldn’t write. She signed her name, though what she felt like doing was scoring an indelible black X across his forehead. Make your mark, indeed! But her annoyance was short-lived. It was impos sible not to be thrilled by the prospect of receiving of a whole two shillings and elevenpence for a morning’s work. Two and eleven! You got a higher rate for Saturday cleaning. For the forty-eight hours she gave the mill Monday to Friday as a two-loom worker, she expected to earn twenty-six bob a week, give or take, which was sixpence ha’penny an hour. But on Saturdays, everyone got an extra tuppence one farthing per hour. Some said this was for working on the weekend, others that it was danger-money for hand-brushing the turning wheels to sweep off the floss. Belinda didn’t care. It was wonderful to have been able to give her family a better Christmas.

  Mr Butterfield reached into the cash-box and counted coins into his palm. The other tattlers didn’t do that. They counted it straight into your hand, but Mr Butterfield held it out on his palm, obliging each woman to take it from him.

  She had taken off her glove. With woolly gloves on, you couldn’t pick up coins without fumbling, especially not a heap of coins like that. Did he really have to give her so much copper? Mr Butterfield wasn’t looking at her; he was writing in his ledger. She reached towards his extended hand, wanting to scoop up her bounty in one go, but his fingers clamped around hers, squeezing her flesh into the edges of the small change. Her breath hitched and she tried to pull away. For one moment – just for one moment, as if maybe it hadn’t really happened – he held tighter. He looked up into her eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry, Miss Layton. I believe I’ve given you the wrong amount.’

  He dropped his pen and twisted her hand the other way up so the coins lay in her palm. With one hand, he held hers in place while his other fingers sifted through the coins, his fingertips brushing against her skin as he moved each coin, one by one, from the heel of her thumb to the base of her fingers. Almost of its own accord, her hand tried to jerk free, but he held on.

  ‘Careful, Miss Layton. You don’t want to send your hardearned wages flying all over the floor. I wouldn’t be able to reimburse you if you lost any… And thruppence makes two shillings… and thruppence, sixpence, sevenpence, eightpence, eightpence ha’penny, ninepence, ninepence ha’penny, ninepence three farthings, tenpence, tenpence one farthing…two farthings… three farthings… elevenpence. Two shillings and elevenpence in total. No mistake after all.’

  She wrenched her hand away, clutching the money, forcing herself to clutch it when she felt more like flinging it away because it was tainted. Her eyes filmed with tears. It wasn’t the money that was tainted. It was her hand. Switching the coins to her other hand, she wiped the hand he had held across the side of her skirt, brushing past the rest of the queue as she marched out.

  She didn’t stop until she was in the mill-yard. Only then did she pull out her purse and thrust her wages inside, snapping it shut.

  ‘You all right, love?’ It was Annie, eyes narrowing as she fixed her gaze on Belinda’s.

  Take a breath and smile. ‘I’m fine. Butterfingers grabbed my hand, that’s all.’

  ‘Could have been a lot worse.’

  She felt stung. Was she meant to be grateful that Mr Butterfield had ‘only’ played with the palm of her hand? Distaste wriggled inside her, but there was no point in dwelling on it. They all knew what Butterfingers was like. Should she keep her gloves on next time? Or would that simply spin out the process, as her wool-encased fingers struggled to take the money?

  There probably wouldn’t be a next time. Auntie Enid had only agreed to her working Saturdays in November and December so as to give the Laytons a better Christmas. Today, the first Saturday of January, she had been allowed to work the extra four hours, thanks to Maggie’s influence, so as to have something to spend on herself.

  ‘Don’t let on to your mum and dad about it,’ Maggie had said, advice that made Belinda’s throat thicken with shame, the more so because she knew it must be what Auntie Enid thought as well. Auntie Enid and Grandma Beattie were always polite about the Laytons, but what did they say behind Belinda’s back?

  ‘Off to fritter your ill-gotten gains, love?’ It was Flo, one of the three-loomers. ‘Lucky you, able to spend it on yourself. Some of us have no sooner got us mitts on it than it vanishes down the children’s throats.’

  ‘Better that than down your old man’s throat in’t pub,’ said Maggie. ‘You go and enjoy your money, love. I’ll ask you on Monday, mind, what you bought.’

  ‘I already told you: blouse material. You never know, if I spend all weekend making it, you won’t need to ask. You’ll see for yourself.’

  ‘I hope not, lass. I hope it’ll be too pretty to wear for work.’

  She chewed her lip. Could she? Was it time? Oh, heck.

  A spiteful breeze caught Belinda’s breath and whipped across her cheeks as she swung round the corner by the news agent’s, nimbly skirting the sandwich-board with its wonky black capitals about poor Sir Ernest Shackleton. In the tightly packed square where the weekly market was under way, the cobbles were slippery. The earthy aroma of winter vegetables bounced out at her, merging with the mouth-watering smell of sausage-meat cooked in sage and the heavy, burnt sweetness of treacle toffee. Alongside the cries of the stallholders calling their wares was the scrape and clink of pieces of china and the whirr and spark of the knife-grinder’s wheel. Better-off housewives had their own knife-sharpeners, so it was the less well-off who queued for his services, though not the poorest, who sharpened their knives against the corner of a brick wall.

  She rounded the corner by the ironmongery stall, with its array of pots and pans hanging up and all those differentsized nails and screws in little cardboard boxes laid out on the trestle-table. The draper’s was along this row.

  ‘Belinda – Belinda Layton! I thought it was you.’

  She felt a burst of pleasure at the sight of her old schoolteacher, followed by a rush of concern. Miss Kirby had a pinched look about her. Well, didn’t everyone these days? First the war, then the influenza, and Miss Kirby wasn’t a young woman. Everyone was tired and in need of a pickme-up. But this was the beginning of a new year. New year, new hope.

  ‘How are you, Miss Kirby?’

  ‘Fair to middling. I’m retired now. I was well past the age, though I’d gladly have carried on.’

  ‘Why didn’t you?’

  ‘Oh, the usual reason these days. A returning soldier needed a teaching post. Anyway, I’m sorry: I shouldn’t call you Belinda Layton, should I?’ Her eyes swept over Belinda’s apparel, black from head to foot. ‘I did hear – oh, ages ago; several years ago – that you’d got engaged. You can’t have been married long before… I’m sorry for your loss.’

  Chill streamed up her nostrils and down h
er throat. Her lungs went cold, then hot. She released a quick breath. It appeared in front of her, a huff of white cloud, like a cat-sneeze. She had never worked out what to say at these moments. Fortunately they seldom happened these days. A devil in her head pointed out that since she hadn’t seen Miss Kirby since she left school, she wasn’t likely to bump into her again, so why correct the mistake? Why not be a widow just for a few minutes? After all, it was what she was, really and truly.

  Except for not having Ben’s ring on her finger; except for not having his name. Belinda Sloan. That was who she should have been.

  But she didn’t want to tell lies. With all the troubles in her parents’ home, all the bickering and her brothers running wild, it was important to conduct herself correctly, not just to set a good example to the boys, but because it was the right thing to do. She was – it shamed her to think it, but she was – better than the Laytons. When Ben’s mother and grandmother had taken her in, they had lifted her not just into a cleaner, more pleasant home, but also into a more ordered way of life. She would be grateful to them to her dying day.

  So: no lies. Especially, she couldn’t lie to Miss Kirby, who had been so good to her, who had tried hard on her behalf.

  ‘I did get engaged, but he… he were killed before we could get wed.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ Miss Kirby sighed, shaking her head. ‘It was just that, seeing you in full black, I thought… Anyway, I’m sorry.’

  Please don’t say: You’re young. You’ll meet someone else.

  Miss Kirby said, ‘What a shame you didn’t go to high school.’

  Raw air swooped into her eyes as they widened in surprise.

  ‘It’s true,’ said Miss Kirby. ‘Without a husband to rely on, you’d be in a stronger position with some education behind you. Think of the job you could have got.’

  She didn’t know what to say. ‘I’m well suited where I am.’

  ‘And where is that?’ It was an honest question, not a snide remark.

  ‘I’m a mill-worker.’

  Miss Kirby’s lined features took on the blank politeness of resignation. And just like that, they were back on the brink of whatever it was that she had seen in Belinda when she was a child of ten; only it hadn’t been resignation on Miss Kirby’s face then. There had been anxious determination in the furrowed brow and the steady, quiet voice.