The Surplus Girls

by Polly Heron

  ‘Ta ever so,’ said Colleen as they left the canteen together. She was a scrawny fifteen-year-old with caramel-coloured marks on her skin, as if her freckles had merged into blotches. ‘I don’t think Mrs Sumner is happy with me.’

  ‘It’s nowt personal, but time taken teaching you is time her looms work slower, so her pay will go down. That’s why you must pay attention and pick it up quick. Don’t feel bad about it. We all start out as tenters. I was Maggie’s tenter once, and she was a tenter herself years ago.’

  Colleen’s face screwed up. ‘D’you mind if I nip to the lavvy before we start?’

  She dashed off. That was another lesson she would learn. You didn’t use the lavatory if you could avoid it. Most women had developed cast-iron bladders so they could hang on all day without using the facilities provided by the mill.

  Waiting for her, Belinda picked up some pieces of wool, found a couple of stools and perched on one. Might as well take the weight off her feet; there was precious little opportunity to sit down during the day. A hand reached from behind her. For half a second, her eyes saw what they expected to see – Colleen’s hand – before they snapped into focus and she found a gloved hand with cutaway fingertips about to land on her arm. She tried to jump off the stool but she was too late. Mr Butterfield was standing behind her and he had her forearm. His body was close to hers, pressed against her back.

  ‘There now, is that what you’ve come for?’

  She was frozen, her insides solid with revulsion and shame. Then she wrenched herself free and swung round to face him, breathing hard. There was a bitter tang in her mouth. He had no business touching her; he had no right. Only Ben should ever have touched her, only her lovely Ben. She wanted to shout at him, but how could she? He was the tattler.

  ‘That’s not fair.’ He smirked. ‘Coming in here, looking for attention, then playing hard to get.’

  ‘I’m not playing anything. I’ve come to help the new tenter.’

  ‘Oh aye? That’s what it’s called these days, is it?’

  A movement caught her eye. ‘Colleen! Over here.’

  ‘Ready?’ asked Colleen. ‘Oh – Mr Butterfield. I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t see you.’

  ‘I’ll leave you to get on with it,’ said Mr Butterfield. He dropped his voice. ‘Any time you need a spot of attention, Miss Layton…’

  Humiliation made her body want to collapse in on itself, but she forced herself to stand up straight, trapping the sobs in her throat as Mr Butterfield strode away.

  ‘You could have warned me,’ said Colleen. Oh no, had Colleen seen Butterfingers lay hands on her? ‘About the lavvy: you could have said summat. It’s horrible. It stinks and it leaks.’

  ‘Here, park yourself.’ Belinda resumed her position on the stool. ‘I’ll show you and then we’ll do it together.’

  It was the oddest feeling, watching her clever fingers tying the same knot over and over again, and listening to her voice, not to the words as such, but to the patient tone. It was like she was standing a yard or two away, an observer who wasn’t involved. All the while, her body was objecting to what had happened. Goodness knows, he had only touched her arm, but he shouldn’t even have done that. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t decent. She felt peeled and vulnerable.

  Was it her own fault for coming in here on her own? He would say she had asked for it. He would say that if all she wanted was to teach young Colleen her knots, she could have done it in a corner of the canteen. Oh, heck, she hadn’t encouraged him, had she?

  No, she mustn’t fall into the trap of blaming herself. He would like that. He would use it against her, but she wasn’t at fault. He was the one who had done wrong.

  Imagine working in a place where you didn’t have to keep your distance from the boss.

  You could have been an office girl.

  ‘I’ve got it muddled again,’ said Colleen. ‘I’ll never get it right.’

  ‘Yes, you will. Watch me, then you do it, one step at a time.’

  Soon Colleen was beaming, her sense of achievement shining from her eyes. ‘Thanks ever so. I wish you were teaching me instead of Mrs Sumner.’

  ‘Only the six-loomers do the training. I’m a long way off that.’

  ‘You’ll get there one day, I’m sure. I can’t think of owt finer than that.’

  Oh aye, very fine, all those years ahead of her, dodging Mr Butterfield’s wandering hands. She hadn’t been supposed to stop in the mill indefinitely. It was meant to have been a decent job to see her through until she got married and started a family.

  ‘Once we’re wed, we’ll save all your wages and live off mine,’ had been Ben’s plan. ‘That way, it won’t come as a shock money-wise when you give up work and we’ll have a nice little nest-egg behind us.’

  And here she was, still at the mill and looking like she would be here all her life, losing her hearing and possibly suffering from bad teeth. It happened to some women after years of kissing the shuttle. Even now, every time she sucked the thread through, she felt a nasty prickle of awareness.

  You could have been an office girl.

  Stop it. It was far too late to think of such things.

  Was it?

  She was much too old. Miss Kirby had said she could have started as an office junior, which meant she would have been fifteen, just leaving high school, so she was way past the right age; and of course, she never went to high school. No one would look at her for an office post.

  Besides, how could she possibly leave the job that she owed to Auntie Enid? Auntie Enid and Grandma Beattie had done everything for her. Her life was immeasurably better, thanks to them.

  You could have been an office girl.

  Stop it. No point thinking like that. Drat Miss Kirby for putting daft ideas in her head.

  As they jolted and swayed their way home on the tram through the cold, dark evening in which a fine drizzle shone in the glow cast by the street-lamps, the man on the seat in front of Belinda and Auntie Enid was reading the Manchester Evening News. When he got to his feet, he dropped the paper on the seat.

  ‘Excuse me.’ Auntie Enid leaned forwards. ‘You’ve dropped your newspaper.’

  ‘I’ve finished with it. Have it, if you like.’ And off he went.

  ‘What a disgrace, walking off and leaving his rubbish behind.’

  Belinda reached over the back of the seat and picked it up. ‘We’ll have it.’

  Auntie Enid snorted. ‘It’ll be all about whether the miners are going to go on strike, like last year. You wait, people will be hoarding coal – them as can afford to.’

  Would Thad and Jacob start lugging home stolen sacks of coal? When had her little brothers grown into brazen thieves? And judging by his performance on Saturday, Dad would probably shake them by the hand and send them out for more. That bonfire belonging to kids in the next street that Thad had set alight on the afternoon of last Bonfire Night seemed now less of a joke that had got out of hand and more of a deliberate act.

  They got off the tram near Stretford Station and hurried, heads down against the drizzle, Belinda clasping the newspaper under her arm beneath her shawl. At the top of Grave Pit Lane, Grandma Beattie awaited them with a lamp.

  ‘You shouldn’t be out on a night like this,’ Auntie Enid chided.

  ‘It’s nowt. I know what time you’re due home. There’s not a lot of point having a clock if you don’t use it.’

  Belinda wanted to hug her. Grandma Beattie was proud of their black marble clock with its enamel dial, that they had saved up for and bought second-hand from the pawnbroker. Auntie Enid claimed the shame of entering such an establishment had nearly killed her, and Belinda and Grandma Beattie had had to act as look-outs to make sure no one they knew came anywhere near, but it was the only way they could be sure of getting a second-hand clock that was reliable.

  With Grandma Beattie lighting their way, they walked up the lane, confidently on the cinder path and then warily when they reached the dirt-track, which was sludgy und
erfoot. They held their skirts clear of the mud: the Sloan women didn’t go in for the modern shorter hemlines.

  Belinda threw open the cottage door, standing back to let the others in first. It made such a difference having Grandma Beattie coming home earlier. Until last year, the three of them had been out all day at the mill, but after they had done the sums repeatedly, they had decided that they could manage if Grandma Beattie gave up the mill and worked part time in one of the shops over the bridge. The few bob they had lost in income was more than made up for by knowing that Grandma Beattie’s life was less taxing and by Auntie Enid and Belinda’s coming home to a meal on the table.

  End Cottage smelled of beeswax and coal and Grandma Beattie’s herby dumplings.

  ‘It’ll be on’t table in five minutes,’ said Grandma Beattie, allowing them just enough time to nip out the back to the earth-closet. Auntie Enid went first. After Belinda had had her turn, she used the trowel to scoop some powder out of the box and sprinkled a mixture of earth and ashes through the hole in the wooden seat into the pail underneath to smother the odour.

  She made a dash for the cottage, where Grandma Beattie was ladling winter vegetable stew onto mismatched plates, making sure they each got a delicious doughy dumpling.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Sloan,’ said Auntie Enid. ‘This is most welcome after a long day.’

  That was something Belinda had never quite come to terms with: the way Auntie Enid and Grandma Beattie called one another Mrs Sloan. They were in-laws, not mother and daughter, and even though they had shared a roof since the year dot, they still Mrs Sloan’d one another.

  After the meal, Auntie Enid resumed her knitting and Grandma Beattie sat with her darning. Belinda laid the newspaper on the table and read out some articles. Grandma Beattie liked being read to. She hadn’t had much education because of stopping at home to be little mother to her younger brothers and sisters after the death of her mother when she was seven; but she didn’t seem to pay attention the way she usually did.

  ‘The newspaper’s all right, but, me, I prefer Vera’s Voice; you know, stories and such like, and helpful things, like lying potatoes in hot water before you roast ’em and putting a bit of asbestos under the cake in the oven so the bottom doesn’t burn.’

  Presently Auntie Enid and Grandma Beattie started chatting, so Belinda read in silence. Turning a page, she found herself confronted by columns of advertisements for situ ations vacant. This time last week, she would have turned over without a second thought, but now…

  ‘Anyone for cocoa?’ asked Auntie Enid, starting to get up.

  Seizing the corner of the page, Belinda began to turn over – just as the words Office Junior Required caught her eye. She couldn’t risk Auntie Enid seeing. She turned the page, her heart beating quickly.

  Why couldn’t she stop to read the details? Why mustn’t Auntie Enid see?

  Because she had an itchy conscience, that’s why.

  No, she wasn’t going to keep this a secret. If she was going to take an interest in the advertisement – and she was interested, after what Miss Kirby had said – she must do it openly. She already had one secret tucked away in her cupboard upstairs, and that was bad enough.

  She turned back to the previous page, skimming it to find the words that had jumped out at her, which now, perversely, seemed determined to hide themselves.

  ‘You know I mentioned bumping into my old teacher? She said I’d have suited office work.’

  ‘Oh aye, looks down on mill-workers, does she?’ said Auntie Enid.

  ‘Not at all. In fact, she said how skilled you have to be, but—’

  ‘But what, lass?’ asked Grandma Beattie.

  ‘There’s a post advertised here in the paper for an office junior.’ She marked the place with her finger. ‘That’s how you start off in office work.’

  ‘She’s turned your head and no mistake,’ huffed Auntie Enid. ‘Foolish creature, giving you ideas above your station.’

  Belinda nearly gave in, but this was her chance to sway them. She looked Auntie Enid in the eye.

  ‘Office work pays better than the mill. We could have a better life. If I earned more, you could cut your hours in the shop, Grandma Beattie.’

  ‘I’m not sure I’d want to,’ said Grandma Beattie.

  ‘Even so,’ said Belinda, trying to sound as if it didn’t matter much, ‘if we had more money…’

  ‘We’re fine as we are,’ said Auntie Enid. ‘I don’t know what you’re thinking, letting that woman put fancy ideas in your head. You’re more sensible than that.’

  ‘Imagine being able to hoard a bit of coal,’ said Belinda.

  ‘That’s no reason to turn your back on your proper place in life,’ Auntie Enid retorted.

  ‘If Dad had let me sit the scholarship, maybe office work would have been my proper place.’

  A spasm of shock vibrated around the room. What had she said? It had almost sounded like… She rubbed the heel of her hand in circular movements against her chest, feeling cold even though the warmth of the range surrounded her. Auntie Enid and Grandma Beattie stared, not in recrimination, but in outright grief, faces strained.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Her mouth was filled with sawdust. ‘However that sounded… You know I would never, never…’

  Auntie Enid’s hand reached across to clasp Grandma Beattie’s. They sniffed almost in unison, breathing out and nodding, riding the tide of emotion.

  ‘If you’d been an office girl…’ Auntie Enid started to say.

  ‘If you’re going to say I wouldn’t have been suitable for Ben because he was a dustman, well… just don’t say it. I loved him. He were the best thing that ever happened to me and all I wanted was to be his wife and look after him all us lives.’

  ‘We know, love, we know,’ said Grandma Beattie.

  ‘I had a horrid, ratty job when I met him. I used to feel sick to my stomach on Sunday nights, knowing I’d have to get up and go there on Monday for another week. But you know what? I’d do that job every day for the rest of my life if only Ben could have come home safe. You said about my proper place, Auntie Enid. Well, my proper place was to be Ben’s wife. That’s what was meant to happen, but it didn’t and…’ Loneliness built up inside her, a physical ache beneath her ribs.

  ‘Eh, you’d have been a good wife and mother.’ Auntie Enid dashed away tears. ‘Our Ben would have made a lovely dad.’

  ‘He would that,’ sighed Grandma Beattie. ‘It should have been me what was took, not him, a young man with all his life before him. Better to get rid of an old biddy like me.’

  The room was washed in sorrow, sharp-edged and urgent. The pull of their shared mourning was as powerful as it was familiar and Belinda was no match for it. Nor did she want to be. Ben had brought her together with these two and it was Ben that kept them together and always would.

  There were more tears and memories, an exhausting mixture of unhurried, glowing nostalgia and flat, empty sadness. It was only when she got up to trim the wick, because the lamp-flame was starting to give off sooty smoke, and her arm brushed the newspaper, that she recalled how the conversation had started. She couldn’t mention the advertisement again, not after they had all been so upset. Was the subject destined to fade away? Was that what she wanted? Filled with longing for Ben and cherishing the closeness she shared with his mother and grandmother, maybe it was.

  But when Auntie Enid was stirring the milk for their cocoa and Belinda was tipping boiling water in the hot-water bottles and fastening the brown-glazed ceramic stopper in each one, Grandma Beattie brought the subject up.

  ‘What about this office job in’t paper? Never go to bed on an argument.’

  ‘We didn’t argue…’ Belinda began.

  ‘Yes, we did and I want it sorted.’

  ‘It’s all very well talking about how you earning more would make a difference,’ Auntie Enid said, ‘but you wouldn’t start on good money. The office junior is at the bottom of the pile, like being a tenter.’


  ‘Aye, and you’re twenty,’ added Grandma Beattie. ‘That’s old to know nowt at work. People would look down on you.’

  ‘It would be worth it if I got a better job out of it.’

  ‘I hate to say it, Mrs Sloan,’ said Grandma Beattie, ‘but we have to let her try. Otherwise she’ll always wonder and she’ll end up blaming us; either that or she’ll do it anyroad without our permission.’

  ‘I would never…’ Belinda started to say, but had to stop because she needed time to work out whether it was true.

  Fortunately, Auntie Enid spoke over her. ‘It’s your Miss Kirby’s fault, putting ideas in your head and leaving us to deal with the mess.’ To Grandma Beattie, she said, ‘You’d best buy her a sheet of good paper and an envelope, then.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Belinda.

  ‘Nay,’ said Grandma Beattie, ‘save your thanks for when we dry your tears after you’ve been knocked back from getting above yourself.’

  Belinda tried hard not to look excited when she came home to find a crisp sheet of paper and a matching envelope, already stamped, awaiting her on the dresser. She had been planning her letter all day in her head. After they had eaten their pressed tongue and cleared away, she made a point of letting Auntie Enid wind wool around her hands, so as not to look too eager to write the letter.

  But at last she was free. She started by writing a rough copy.

  Dear Sir, or should it be Dear Sirs since there were three surnames? Or Dear Messrs Grace, Wardle and Grace? Get the rest of the letter written and worry about that later. I should like to be considered for the job – no, the position of office junior in your firm – no, in the firm of Grace, Wardle and Grace, which meant she couldn’t address the letter to the three gentlemen by name, as it would sound odd to use their names again so soon. I went to elementary school – no, cross that out. At school, my teacher wanted to put me in for the high school scholarship, but my father… my father what?… did not want me to stay on at school. Not bad. New paragraph.