by Joan Jonker
‘Yer not serious about him, then?’
‘How can I be, Harry? Can yer imagine me taking a boyfriend home to meet me parents? They’d run a mile!’
Harry sighed with relief. ‘That’s all right then.’ He claimed his first kiss before saying, ‘I don’t want no competition. It spoils me appetite, puts me off me food.’
The next morning Sadie waited to hear about Brenda’s date with Alec. She thought she’d be full of it, but her friend was so subdued Sadie began to wonder whether she’d been told to keep her distance. She wouldn’t be surprised because it was the sort of thing Alec would do to get back at her. He was like a big soft kid.
When the dinner-bell sounded, Sadie could keep quiet no longer. ‘Are you all right, Bren? Yer’ve not had much to say for yerself this morning.’
‘I’m fine.’ Brenda took her overall off, straightened her jumper and combed her hair. ‘I was late gettin’ to bed and I’m tired.’
‘Did yer enjoy yerself?’
‘Yeah, it was great.’ Brenda gave Sadie a long look, as though she wanted to ask her something, but then changed her mind. ‘Yeah, I really enjoyed meself.’
‘Are yer seeing him again?’ Sadie tucked her arm into her friend’s. ‘Takin’ him home to meet yer mam, are yer?’
‘I don’t know yet, we’ll just have to wait and see.’
But when they were passing Alec in the factory yard, and he called, ‘Come here, Brenda!’ the girl practically ran towards him, leaving Sadie to carry on on her own.
‘My God,’ Sadie muttered under her breath, ‘that was a flippin’ order! He’s going to have her dancing to his tune and she’s daft enough to do it.’
Brenda was smiling and breathless when she caught up. ‘Alec wants me to go out with him tonight.’
‘And are yer going?’
‘Of course I am. Why shouldn’t I?’
‘No reason at all, Brenda, so don’t be gettin’ yer knickers in a twist. I suppose he’s calling for yer?’
‘No, I’m meeting him outside that dance hall you went to with him. But he said he will come and meet me mam one night,’ Brenda said defensively. ‘Perhaps on Saturday.’
‘That’s good.’ Sadie was amazed that her friend was so gullible. But the best thing she could do would be to keep out of it. She had enough troubles of her own to contend with.
When Sadie came in from work on the Friday night and sat down at the table opposite her sister, she forced herself not to wrinkle her nose in disgust. The filthy stained oilcloth, the sauce bottle and the opened tin of condensed milk were amongst all the other things that were in the same position on the table as they had been when she had left at half-seven that morning. Her mother didn’t believe in making work for herself. I mean, why carry all the things out when you only had to carry them back in?
‘How did yer last day at school go, Dot?’ Sadie hadn’t held a conversation with her sister for nearly two weeks and she wouldn’t be doing so now if her own interests weren’t at stake. ‘Did yer feel sad?’
Dot looked at her in amazement. Through a mouthful of chips she said, ‘Yer must be jokin’! I hated school and couldn’t get out quick enough.’
‘Did they give yer a card to take to the unemployment office?’
Dot took another bite of her chip buttie before answering. ‘Yeah, they gave us all one but I won’t be needin’ mine.’
Sadie’s spirits soared. ‘Ooh, yer’ve got a job so soon, have yer?’
There was wickedness in the eyes of her sister as she gloated, ‘I’m not goin’ to work. Me dad said I could stay home an’ help me mam.’
Sadie was stunned. ‘Yer not going to work?’
Dot smirked. ‘You heard what I said, yer not deaf.’
Sadie looked to her mother. ‘Is she tellin’ the truth? Did me dad say she didn’t have to go out to work?’
Lily lowered her eyes. This was one thing she didn’t agree with her husband on, but when she’d told him this he’d lost his temper and was like a raving maniac. So, as always, she gave in for a quiet life. There were a lot of things happening that she was uneasy about, but she was too afraid of upsetting him to speak out. She should have put her foot down years ago; it was too late now. And she was still crazy about him – nothing he did would change that. ‘Ask him yerself, he’ll be in any minute.’
‘I’m asking you, Mam.’ Sadie felt like jumping up and slapping the sneer off her sister’s face. ‘If it’s true …’ They could hear the stamp of heavy footsteps on the bare boards of the hall and the room fell silent.
George came into the room with his usual swagger. He looked at the three people sitting around the table and grumbled, ‘What’s the matter with youse lot? Yer look as though yer’ve been to a bleedin’ funeral.’
‘Dad, is it true that you said our Dot can stay at home, that she doesn’t have to go to work?’ Sadie was beside herself with anger, and tears weren’t far away. ‘Yer didn’t, did yer?’
‘What’s it got to do with you if I did? I don’t bleedin’ have to ask your permission, Miss High and bloody Mighty.’
Sadie stood up so quickly she knocked the chair backwards and it crashed onto the broken-down sideboard that was minus one drawer and one cupboard door. ‘Are you expectin’ me to go to work every day for a shillin’ a week pocket money, while she stays at home lazing around like me mam does?’
‘Yer’ll do as I bleedin’ tell yer!’ George’s bloated face looked ugly as his eyes blazed and his nostrils flared. ‘I’ll be buggered if I’ll have a scrap of a girl tellin’ me what I can and can’t bleedin’ well do!’
They’re so jealous that I can keep meself clean and tidy in this muck midden, Sadie thought, they’re trying to break my spirit. Well, I won’t let them. She was so incensed by the unfairness, she blurted out, ‘Oh no? Yer buggered if yer’ll have a scrap of a girl tellin’ yer what yer can or can’t bleedin’ well do, are yer? Well, if I’m a scrap of a girl, what’s our Dot? And she’s telling yer what yer can or can’t do, isn’t she? But you and I know, and our Dot, why she can twist yer around her little finger.’ Sadie mimicked her sister, saying the words that were imprinted in her mind. ‘ “I am nice to yer, Dad, an’ I do look after yer, don’t I?”.’
While she watched her father’s jaw drop, Sadie heard Dot’s sharp intake of breath. ‘I want an extra sixpence pocket money tomorrow – and if I don’t get it, then if she doesn’t go to work, neither do I.’
With that Sadie fled from the room and up the stairs. She’d have to go out without a wash ’cos she wasn’t going back in there to face them. She wished she hadn’t agreed to meet Geoff, but no matter how bad she felt she wouldn’t let him down. And she had to get out of the house, anyway. She wished she could get out for good, never come back. And she’d do that one day, just pack her few belongings and walk away for ever. Let them stew in their own evil and filth.
Geoff took her to the pictures and held her hand in the darkness. ‘You’re very quiet tonight, Sadie,’ he whispered. ‘Do yer feel all right?’
‘I’ve got a headache, that’s all,’ Sadie whispered back. ‘It started in work and has got gradually worse until now it feels like a tight band around me head.’
‘Would yer like to go home? It can’t be very pleasant for yer sitting here if yer don’t feel well.’
If you only knew how much more unpleasant it would be if I went home, Sadie thought. I’ve got no mother to make a fuss of me and send me to bed with a Beecham’s Powder. ‘No, I’ll stay to the end. I don’t want to spoil your night for yer. No good two of us being miserable.’
As he was walking her to the tram stop, Geoff asked, ‘Would yer like me to see you to yer front door?’
‘No thanks, Geoff, I just want to get home and go to bed. I’ll be fine in the morning.’
‘Will yer be all right to come out tomorrow night?’
‘Yeah, of course I will. I’ll be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to go to work in the morning.’
‘Can’t
we meet in the afternoon and go to Southport again? You enjoyed that, didn’t yer?’
‘No, I’ve made arrangements to see a friend in the afternoon and I can’t let her down. I’ll meet you at seven in the usual place. And Geoff, I’m sorry to have been such a wet blanket. I’ll make it up to yer tomorrow.’
‘Hello, girl! I was beginnin’ to think yer weren’t coming.’ Mary Ann grinned. ‘I thought I’d put the fear of God into yer over Elsie.’
‘If I see her coming, Mary Ann, I’ll do a bunk.’
‘Then yer’d better start runnin’, sunshine, ’cos believe it or not she’s heading our way. And she’s got a face on her like thunder.’
Sadie turned and saw the big woman approaching. She touched Mary Ann’s arm and said, ‘Just watch this.’
Mary Ann stood with her arms folded. There were customers waiting to be served but they’d just have to wait until she made sure Sadie wasn’t going to get a hiding. If Elsie wanted to tangle with her young friend, then she’d have to tangle with her as well. She might only be little but she was good at jumping on people’s backs. But the stall-holder got the surprise of her life when she saw Sadie walk towards the big woman with a smile on her face.
‘Hiya, Elsie, am I glad to see yer! I’ve been keeping me eyes peeled for yer, hoping yer’d come.’
That took the wind out of Elsie’s sails. She’d come down to demand her money back for the blouse one of her neighbours said wasn’t pure silk. And if she didn’t get her money she’d throttle somebody. She was spoiling for a fight as she eyed Sadie with suspicion. ‘Oh aye, were yer now? Did yer want to see me to tell me the blouse wasn’t pure silk and yer were going to refund me money?’
Sadie’s vivid blue eyes flew open with surprise. ‘No, nothing of the sort, Elsie. I was going to ask yer to sell it back to me.’
Elsie gaped. ‘Yer what!’
‘Will yer sell it back to me? I was telling me friend all about it an’ she said she’d love it. She didn’t half tell me off for not keepin’ it for her.’
Elsie was flummoxed. ‘But one of me neighbours told me I’d been had – that it’s not pure silk.’
‘I’ll buy it off yer in any case, Elsie, ’cos me friend would love it. She’s about your size and she’s got the same nice colouring, so it would look a treat on her.’
Elsie was in a real quandary now. The much talked-of blouse was lying at the bottom of her shopping bag, waiting to be handed over in return for her money back. But if someone else was prepared to part with sixpence for it, perhaps she’d be daft not to hang onto it. After all, it did look nice on her – her feller had said so. And what the hell did her neighbour know about pure silk anyway? The silly sod didn’t know her arse from her flipping elbow!
Elsie looked towards Mary Ann. ‘Is she havin’ me on? ’Cos if she is, I’ll kill her.’
‘Ooh, Elsie, I don’t think I should interfere because the transaction was between you an’ me assistant here, Sadie.’ Her two fingers under her chin, Mary Ann wagged her head from side to side as though giving the matter her full consideration. ‘The way I see it, though, as an independent outsider, Elsie, yer can’t lose. If yer like the blouse then keep it, if yer don’t like it then sell it to Sadie for her friend.’
Indecision was plain to see in the eyes Elsie turned on Sadie. ‘Why would yer friend want to buy somethin’ she hasn’t even seen? She must have a screw loose.’
‘Ooh, far from it, Elsie. Me friend’s got very good taste. As soon as I described it to her and said how nice I thought you’d look in it, what with your figure and colouring an’ everythin’, she got all excited and asked me to buy it back off yer. Yer see, it’s not often yer come across somethin’ as pretty as that.’
That did it. ‘Your friend, whoever she is, can just sod off.’ Suddenly Elsie loved the blouse so much she wouldn’t have parted with it for a king’s ransom. ‘Tell her to find her own bloody bargains!’
Sadie’s face took on a look of disappointment. ‘Ah, me friend will be dead upset. Still, I’m glad yer satisfied, Elsie, ’cos I enjoyed servin’ yer last week. Not all the customers are as nice as you.’
Elsie beamed. ‘Thank you, queen, it’s nice of yer to say so. Next time I’m in the market I’ll make a point of gettin’ you to serve me.’
Mary Ann scratched her head. ‘I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with me own eyes. She came down here to create merry hell an’ you’ve sent her away like a little docile lamb. Well, I never. I thought I was good at bein’ two-faced, girl, but I’m not in the meg specks with you. Knock me into a cocked hat, you do.’
‘I enjoyed that, Mary Ann.’ Sadie’s spirits had been lifted by the encounter. ‘In fact, if Elsie had taken off on me I’d have flopped her one.’
‘I believe yer would ’ave, girl. Me now, I’d have to get meself in a real paddy before takin’ anyone like Elsie on.’
‘I am in a right paddy, Mary Ann. I could take the whole world on, single-handed.’
‘Oh dear, as bad as that, eh? Well, help me clear some of these customers away an’ yer can tell me what’s ailing yer.’
Mary Ann listened without comment as Sadie poured her heart out. She told the older woman everything exept her father’s wickedness. She described in detail the house that was filthy inside and out, how there was never enough to eat and how the children were so cruelly neglected. Her father’s drunkenness and her mother’s laziness. The neighbours who either ignored or taunted them. Her shame each time she walked down the street and knew that the women standing at their doors with their arms folded, looked on her as they would a piece of dirt. And how she had never had a real friend in her life and never would have until she cut herself free from her family.
Sadie was dry-eyed as she related all this. But when she came to what she called the last straw, tears shone in her eyes. ‘Now they want me to go to work while our Dot stays at home. It’s so unfair, Mary Ann, and I can’t take any more. I’ve got to get away, find meself somewhere decent where I can have a bit of pride in meself. And I was wondering if you could advise me? Would I be able to get digs somewhere – or would it cost more than I earn?’
‘Yer mean yer want lodgings, is that it, girl?’
‘I’ll have to do something, Mary Ann, even if I end up sleeping on the streets. If I don’t get away from that house it will destroy me.’
‘I’ll have a little think, girl, see what I can come up with. I’d have yer meself but I’ve only a two-bedroomed house and I’ve got two kids at home. There must be someone though who would be glad of yer few bob a week. I can think of some who would jump at the chance, but they’re not respectable enough for yer. Yer’d only be jumpin’ from the frying pan into the bleedin’ fire.’
‘Will yer have a think for us, Mary Ann? I’d be willing to help with the housework and I am clean.’
Mary Ann kissed her cheek. ‘Anybody that gets you would be gettin’ a bargain. I’ll put me thinkin’ cap on and see what I can come up with by next week. But don’t be too expectin’, ’cos I’ll only let yer go where I know yer’ll be well looked after.’ She nodded to a customer and as she was walking away she said, ‘I’ll get yer fixed up, girl, even if I have to build yer a bleedin’ house with me bare hands.’
Chapter Eleven
‘I don’t think I like goin’ out with boys,’ Brenda said, laying sheets carefully in the wooden crate. ‘I’d rather go out with a girlfriend.’
‘Yeah.’ Sadie had enough on her mind without listening to her workmate going on about nothing in particular. Her home life was worse than ever since the row over Dot. Her sister got her own way, she stayed at home with their mother. But as the house looked as bad as ever, it seemed the pair of them sat around all day doing nothing. And Sadie didn’t get the extra sixpence pocket money, either. Her mother even had the nerve to say that there wasn’t enough money coming into the house as it was, so she was wasting her time complaining.
Sadie hated herself for letting them get away w
ith it, but she didn’t give her job up as she’d threatened. Firstly because she decided a shilling a week was better than nothing, and also because she couldn’t bear the thought of being in the house all day with her mother and a sister who now seemed to be ruling the roost.
Sadie’s train of thought was once again interrupted by Brenda.
‘Do you like goin’ out with boys, Sadie?’
‘It depends upon the boy, Bren. Some are nice, some are not.’
‘Do they all – you know – try to touch yer?’
Sadie blew out a deep sigh. ‘As I’ve said, some do and some don’t.’
‘Do you let them touch yer?’
‘Oh, for cryin’ out loud, Brenda, grow up, will yer! Yer a big girl now, yer should know what’s right and what’s wrong, so don’t be asking me.’ Sadie looked at the serious expression on her workmate’s face and was immediately sorry she’d spoken so sharply. Alec was the only boy Brenda had been out with so she could imagine why these questions were being asked. He was a real horror, was Alec, and Brenda couldn’t have chosen a worse one than him for her first boyfriend. ‘Look, Bren, don’t ever let a boy do anything yer don’t want him to. That’s the best advice I can give yer, so let’s drop the subject now.’
Sadie was happy to return to her work and her thoughts. The only bright spots in her life were the times she went out with Geoff, which was three times a week for the last three weeks, her meetings with Harry in the park, and her Saturday afternoon at the market with Mary Ann. If she didn’t have those three people in her life she’d have nothing and no one. She was disappointed that Mary Ann hadn’t been able to find her lodgings yet, but last week the stall-holder had explained that the person she had in mind hadn’t been in the market for a few weeks. But it was better to have a little patience and wait for the right person than dash headlong into something she might regret.