The Staircase Girls

by Catherine Seymour

  In fact, Maud had always felt responsible for the failure of their marriage. Not that she’d tell Maureen nor anyone else that. Close to tears, Maud showed Maureen out that wet and grim afternoon, and then sat to think about the last few years. She felt again the depression setting in as her hopes of having a family died. Those nights when she had cried herself to sleep, grieving for the children she would never have, Maud knew that Hugh could hear her through the bedroom wall, but he had never come into her room to comfort her.

  She decided, after too many months of crying and silently suffering, to throw herself into working and try to forget about the mistake she had made in marrying the first man who had paid her any attention – just as her nan had warned her she would. While Hugh was ‘looking after’ her and paying for housekeeping and anything that she asked for, she had thought perhaps that she’d try to save money in order to rent a place and leave him. She wouldn’t go back to her nan, even if she was paid to. She had told herself that Hugh was kind and at least didn’t beat her.

  Still, Maud thought, what a fool I was. She realized that she wasn’t the only woman in Cambridge not to know about Hugh’s secret life. Clearly, she thought, his mother didn’t know, either. Mrs Ingram had tried to help the couple to find a kind of peace between them, and although she meant well she’d only ever talk to Maud and always from a position of support for Hugh. She defended her son’s actions by telling Maud that he’d always been like it. One night when Hugh announced that he was going to go fishing, Maud screamed in frustration, and he left the house. Mrs Ingram tried to calm her, ‘Maudie love, stop it. Night fishing has always been his thing . . .’

  Maud had interrupted her. ‘You two must think I’m daft: he’s got another woman, hasn’t he? He doesn’t even have any bloody fishing rods!’ She’d thrown herself onto the sofa and cried and Mrs Ingram tried to soothe her.

  ‘He must borrow the equipment, or store it down Bait’s Bite. Why would he lie? Some men are loners. He likes his solitude, fishing gives you that. His dad was the same.’

  That had been the first time Mrs Ingram had spoken about Hugh’s dad and Maud stopped crying enough to ask, ‘What happened to your husband?’

  ‘He died in his sleep. Some sort of heart problem he’d had since he was a child. Sad business. Hugh found him and that was hard. He was only three, just a baby really.’ Mrs Ingram continued, ‘Hugh became very needy. He followed me everywhere after that. Wouldn’t sleep on his own for years after, I had to get in his bed. He was a real mummy’s boy and clung to me like I was going to just keel over at any time. Wouldn’t leave the house back then. Very sickly child he was, as well.’

  No, thought Maud now, she didn’t know. Perhaps her ‘illness’ since his death had something to do with her not knowing then but guessing it now. Perhaps she’s trying to avoid the truth about her precious boy, Maud concluded, that’s why she won’t leave the house, she doesn’t want anyone saying ‘I know, you know’ to her. It was probably for the best, Maud thought, ’cos she won’t be able to handle what I’ve just heard from Maureen.

  In the months after Hugh’s death, and with her mother-in-law essentially housebound, Maud had to stop working in Grantchester Road, but she was determined to carry on as a bedder (she’d been ‘promoted’ from assistant after her husband’s death). Leaving her cleaning job gave her time to build a proper small side-business out of her dressmaking skills, and for a long time she was the only woman in Ditton Fields offering the service. However, soon she was in competition with Mrs Hamilton who lived three doors up. She had noticed the extra cash Maud was making, and had her own sewing machine plus more time to devote to working on it than Maud could afford. They both made popular dirndl skirts for the local young girls to wear at the dances in town, but Mrs Hamilton could run them up in an hour. Young girls being as impatient as they were, mostly preferred to order their skirts with a few hours’ notice and wear them the same evening. So Mrs Hamilton was more popular than Maud, despite her higher prices.

  Some of Maud’s immediate neighbours, who felt sorry for her, knowing about her poor childhood and sham marriage, were angry with Mrs Hamilton for taking Maud’s business from her. Maud felt very uneasy about the atmosphere which she felt responsible for bringing about on the estate, and asked probably her closest neighbour and only real friend, Edith Perry, for advice.

  Edith and her family had moved into Ditton Fields in 1951, and the pair were fast friends from the moment Edith came over to introduce herself and her daughter, Audrey, who was only three years old at the time. Audrey was the youngest of four children after three boys, John, Roy and Ron, and as such had earned herself the nickname ‘Tiny’. She was the youngest by a good ten years and a very late addition to the Perry family; Edith was forty-three when she gave birth to her. Maud was immediately taken with Tiny and quickly started making outfits for her, which Edith very much approved of, and the two women struck up a friendship that became so close that Audrey soon came to call her Aunty Maud.

  Maud explained to Edith how a fast turnaround was more important to a lot of the customers but she had always been slow and methodical with her needlework, and diligent with her machine work. It took a little time, but Edith soon discovered that while the girls bought the same material for their rock-and-roll skirts, Maud could add a little extra to her service which her customers would appreciate. In order to get their skirts to puff out and hold their shape, the girls would wash their lace petticoats and soak them in sugar to make them stiff. Edith told her that she should give them the sugar they needed for the lace, because the girls’ parents were not happy with them using their supplies. Thanks to Edith’s advice the share of skirt-making levelled out between Maud and Mrs Hamilton, and they would even politely nod to each other in the street.

  So a kind of peace came to Maud in the mid-1950s, and she found contentment in working as a bedder and a seamstress. Not that she ever expected her happy state to last forever.

  AUDREY PERRY

  Cambridge 1955-56

  Audrey Perry was five years old when she first saw the inside of a Cambridge college. Three months after the coronation of Elizabeth II her mother, Edith, began work as a bedder, and within a few weeks her youngest child and only daughter was accompanying her on afternoon trips in order to turn down beds in students’ rooms on staircase A. Edith made their trips to college an adventure, telling Audrey that her dad didn’t need to know that she’d been there, it was their secret.

  Edith had taken the job much against the wishes of her husband, Edward. Audrey was playing by the fire in the back room when her mum told her dad about her decision to take a job as a bedder. He voiced his objections to her working at the university loudly. ‘So you’re going back into service again, eh?’ he almost shouted at her, which made Audrey flinch. Her dad went on, setting out for Edith the servants’ duties (as he saw them) that she’d be required to undertake. ‘You’ll lay up breakfast while they have a bath, clean the bath after them and see to their needs. I don’t want you to work at all, but if you have to, what’s wrong with working at Pye’s on the line or in a shop even? No,’ he continued with bitter irony, ‘you had to be a bloody bedmaker. It’s hard work and you ain’t got it in you no more – you’re nearly fifty, Edie, not eighteen. They’re nothing but a bunch of privileged, lazy buggers, and most of them are bloody thick, got no common sense.’

  Edith waited to make sure he’d finished before replying, ‘I’ll be home in plenty of time to get yours and the kids’ dinner ready, and after I’ve picked up Audrey I’ll get your tea on. Don’t worry, you won’t go hungry.’

  She had known what really bothered her husband of more than twenty-five years was that he might have to look after their daughter and get his own meals while she worked. She also knew that his working-class pride wouldn’t allow Tiny to be indoctrinated by ‘upper-class twits’ as he’d taken to calling the students, fellows and even porters at the university. Audrey and Edith were as close as any two females in an ot
herwise all-male household could be, which made keeping the visits a secret between them more than easy; it was natural.

  Edith had been offered the bedmaker position on Maud’s recommendation and by 1955, had been bedding for two years, occasionally sneaking Audrey in with her during school holidays. On a couple of occasions, they’d met Mr Horrans, a fellow of the college who Edith cleaned for. Audrey liked him, as much for his appearance as the fact that he greeted her warmly and insisted on shaking her hand. His hair stood out in tufts above his ears, although he was completely bald on top, and he wore large glasses that made him look like an owl, a resemblance enhanced by his eyebrows which were both tufty and pointed at their outer ends.

  It was very close to Christmas and Audrey hadn’t been into college with her mum for a few weeks. She wanted to see how the place was decorated, so asked her mum how work was and if she’d seen Mr Horrans.

  ‘I have, my love, and it’s very sad, so sad,’ Edith replied, shaking her head slowly.

  ‘Why, Mum?’

  Edith sighed and perched her plump bottom on the stool that was always kept next to the oven. She rooted around in her apron pockets for cigarettes, and Audrey sat at the pink Formica kitchen table. ‘Your dad’s gone and pinched my ciggies again. Bloody bugger,’ Edith tutted.

  ‘Go on then, Mum. What?’

  Edith ignored Audrey as she searched through the knickknack drawer, hunting among the odd lengths of string (‘might come in handy one day,’ her dad always said), fuses, small screwdrivers, nuts and bolts that didn’t fit one another, Green Shield stamp books, old postcards from Felixstowe, Scarborough and Blackpool, two-pin electrical plugs and, finally, a crumpled box of Woodbines cigarettes. Edith pulled a bent one from the packet and lit it, inhaling deeply before beginning her story. ‘I went to see the old fellow and, as you know, most mornings I see him eating his breakfast with just his birthday suit on, and today was no different. So I told him, not for the first time, “You’ve got to put your clothes on.” He says, “Give me my shirt, Mrs Perry, and help me.” I said, “No, get your pants on first,” and passed them to him.’

  Audrey stifled a giggle and jumped as her father’s voice boomed into the kitchen from the parlour. ‘You did what?’

  Edward had been standing at the kitchen door for long enough to have heard the bit about his wife passing another man his pants, and he looked furious. Audrey jumped up from the table, ran to Edith and buried her head in her lap. Edith was unfazed. ‘Trust you to get the wrong end of the stick, you bloody great apeth, Edward. Bloody calm down! He’s just the bloody old fellow. Really old. And he’s ill, Edward.’

  Her husband stepped into the kitchen and stood, glaring at Edith.

  She gently lifted Audrey’s head and told her, ‘Sit down again, Auds.’ Turning to Edward she explained, ‘I have to get him dressed some mornings. He’s got a nurse that comes in to him but sometimes she’s not there when I arrive. Anyway,’ she turned back to Audrey, ‘today I found him in a right state at the end of the day, not in the morning. We were s’posed to be having Christmas mince pies with all the others at the college. They’d come in from Hawkins bakery, and really nice they smelled.’ She paused.

  ‘I didn’t get to the Halls though, ’cos I saw Horrans coming down the stairs and he’d got a bad tummy and he was . . . Well, you know, all the way down the stairs, all along the corridor, treading in it . . . yeah . . . and the stink . . . I thought the nurse was coming in but she weren’t there, and I thought, “What am I gonna do?” Then Maud came along and shouted up the stairs to me I had to come and get a mince pie before they all go, so I shouted back, “Don’t come up here!” She said, “What’s the matter?” and I said, “Go and get me some disinfectant, quick!” ’cos I’d run out of it. Anyway, Maud and little Mo came back and they helped me clean the stairs and carpet while I cleaned him up.’

  ‘Oh Mum, that’s horrible,’ Audrey felt like crying.

  ‘It’s alright, love, we got it all done soon enough. But when Maud and little Mo said come and have a mince pie, you can imagine how I felt. You couldn’t, could you?’ Audrey shook her head, and could think of nothing to say.

  Her dad did, though. ‘Right,’ he sounded calm now. ‘You ain’t working there no more. You’ve made your point, you’ve done it for long enough, but you might as well be working in the bloody asylum up in Fulbourn. They’d probably pay you more an’ all.’

  ‘Oh, have a bloody heart, for Pete’s sake,’ Edith sounded as if she was about to lose her temper. ‘He’s ill. OK, it’s a bit embarrassing seeing him naked every day, and I did report it and they said I didn’t have to go in there if I didn’t want to. But what can you do? You can’t go out and leave him when he comes down for breakfast, I have to get him dressed.’

  Edward stood up and walked out, shouting after him, ‘You ain’t working there no more, and that’s final. Fur coat or no bloody fur coat!’

  Audrey waited for her dad to slam the front door on his way out (to the pub, she assumed) and said, ‘I think Dad’s right, Mum. You shouldn’t work there. You didn’t get your mince pie.’

  Edith laughed loudly and told her daughter, ‘Do you know what, Audrey, I don’t think I could ever eat one ever again. Don’t care if they’re made at Hawkins or Buckingham Palace!’

  Despite Edward’s protests Edith continued to work at the college, and two weeks later, on New Year’s Eve, she queued up all night outside Eaden Lilley’s to buy the fur coat she had been to look at in the window every day for the last two months.

  When she got home with it, Audrey buried her face into the plush fur and breathed in a scent of something she couldn’t explain, as if it was an animal, but not like the really fluffy rug that her mum’s friend Maud had in her front room. Edward ignored the coat. Audrey begged her mum to let her try it on.

  ‘Don’t be daft, Audrey, and don’t get your dirty bloody paws on it neither!’

  Audrey retreated and sat on the foot of the stairs and watched as her mum put the coat on and stood, admiring herself in the mirror by the front door. Still Edward said nothing. With a toss of her head, Edith opened the front door and swept out without saying where she was going. ‘Get me some fags if you’re near the Co-op!’ shouted Edward at the slammed door.

  Audrey, her head full of images of movie stars dancing in fur coats, walked to the parlour where Edward sat, smoking and looking out of the window. She asked if they could pretend they were at a dance and to her surprise her dad said yes. He stood to put a 78 on their enormous radiogram record player and the sound of the Glenn Miller band soon poured into the tiny room. Audrey stepped on to her dad’s feet and together they waltzed around the front room. She’d never forget that New Year’s Eve.

  Long after her bedtime Audrey lay awake, waiting to hear her mother’s return. Just as she was slipping into darkness, as if from the end of a long corridor, she heard her dad say, ‘Hello, love, have a nice time in your new coat?’

  Struggling to surface into the cold air of her bedroom, Audrey pulled her sheet and blankets down from her ears and heard her mother’s happy laugh, and with it she knew everything was alright. Audrey was asleep by the time Edith looked in on her as she made her way to bed.

  A few days into the new term at college, Edith was late getting home. As she hurriedly prepared vegetables for tea, passing potatoes to Audrey to peel next to her at the sink, she said over her shoulder to Edward, who was sitting on a small stool polishing his shoes ready for a night out at the pub, ‘Maud was off sick today.’

  ‘So?’ Edward responded nonchalantly.

  ‘Well, that’s why I’m a bit late.’

  ‘More work for you when she’s off, then.’ Edward had an edge to his voice.

  ‘I don’t mind helping a friend,’ Edith snapped back. ‘That’s what we do. She’s done mine enough of late, after all.’ Edith had taken a few days off work sick with a bad stomach in the run-up to Christmas, and Maud had covered for her.

  ‘The porter Trevor was r
eally shocked when I told him I’d be doing her staircase for her, and he said it was unheard of that Maud would have a day off. Anyway, I told him that she had some sort of tummy bug and he scoffed. Well, I didn’t like his tone, see, he can be a bit catty that one. So I said to him, “Maud ain’t no slacker, you know.” And do you know what he said?’ Edward had stopped paying attention and Edith turned to face him and shouted, ‘Are you listening to me?’

  Edward smiled and dutifully placed the shoe and the polish on the newspaper at his feet. He nodded his head. ‘OK, full attention. Trevor is being horrible about our Maud, yeah, go on. Maud ain’t no slacker, go on, what’s your point?’

  ‘The point is, Edward, that Trevor told me something today and I didn’t like what he was implying. Bin playing on my mind all day it has. He said that she came into the college to do the beds on the day her Hugh died, which must ’ave bin 1950, afore we knew ’er. He said Hugh had pegged it in the middle of the night, but she came in and got their breakfast ready and did all their cleaning, without saying a word to no one.’

  Edward looked confused. ‘So, what’s your point? We know Maud is a bit of a rum ’un and a bloody workaholic, so it doesn’t surprise me.’

  ‘I know, but Trevor was really angry, see. Like he felt real hate for her. As if she’d done Trevor wrong or something, you know, as if she gave him that odd limp. I don’t know, just ’cos she came in to work on the day her ’usband died, he was really put out. More than once he said, “All the time Hugh Ingram was dead in his own bed and that cow of a wife was carrying on like it’s a normal day.” I said to him, “It’s not like he knew anything about it, so there’s no harm done. He was dead, after all. She must have been in shock.”’ Edith grimaced, and clutched at her side, as if she’d felt a pain. ‘It weren’t until years after my dad died that I could talk about it, do you remember? It can affect people in different ways, can’t it. Although nothing you do is gonna bring ’em back.’