Crooked Pieces

by Sarah Grazebrook

  ‘Maggie, it’s very late. Mrs Garrud will not welcome a visitor at this time of night.’

  ‘Mrs Garrud is not in.’ It came out so fast. Like a bullet. And sure, Fred looked at me like I had fired one. ‘She’s away visiting her sister. Mr Garrud is home but he will be in bed at this hour.’

  Fred cleared his throat. ‘Maggie, I don’t know.’

  ‘Why not?’ I could feel the courage dripping out of me.

  ‘Well, because it’s not entirely proper for…for… Maggie, I don’t know I can trust myself, that’s all. I really don’t, and that’s the truth.’

  My head was swimming, half panic, half this great quivering urge to be truly his. To belong to him. To show him how much I loved him. To give him something back.

  ‘Please – just for a little while.’

  He looked at me for a full minute, I swear, then oh, so slowly, he nodded his head. ‘I should like that, Maggie. Very much.’

  We went into the parlour. I lit the lamps and poked around at the fire that was all but out. ‘Shall I make some tea? Would you like a cup of tea?’

  Fred sat down on the settee, like he was waiting to be interviewed for Chief Constable. ‘That would be very nice.’

  I scurried off and made some. As I came into the hall I bumped smack into Mr Garrud. ‘Oh, it’s you, Maggie. I heard voices. Thought we might be being burgled.’ He chuckled for we all know no one would dare to burgle the Garruds’ house unless they wanted to end up as mincemeat. I stood there with my tray with two cups and a plate of cinnamon biscuits on it, going redder by the second.

  ‘I’m just…I…some tea…biscuits…’

  Mr Garrud nodded. ‘Yes, by all means. He works hard, your young man. And that landlady of his is no cook, from what I hear. Well, good night, Maggie, my dear, and don’t get cold, the pair of you, for that fire’s nearly out in the parlour.’ And off he went, up the stairs without a second glance. The whole world was pushing me in one direction. Did I want to go? I don’t know.

  Fred had quit the settee and was standing by the window, peering out through a crack in the curtains. He turned as I came in and seemed terribly pleased to see the biscuits.

  ‘Mrs Garrud will not mind us having them, for I gave her the recipe from Cook and can easy make some more,’ I wittered.

  ‘Oh, good. They look…very good.’

  ‘They’re cinnamon.’

  ‘Oh. Good.’

  I set down the tray. Fred did not move.

  ‘I have made some tea.’

  ‘Oh. Good.’ He glanced once more out of the window. Again he cleared his throat. ‘I think there will be a frost tonight.’

  ‘Yes, it was very cold out. So will this tea be, if you don’t drink it soon.’

  He came away from the window and stood by the tray, staring down at it so hard that I thought he had forgotten I was in the room. Indeed, I began to wish I was not.

  ‘Would you like some sugar?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, please. Just one spoonful.’

  How I wished I could do with so little, for then I would surely not get spots.

  In goes the sugar. We both stir our tea.

  ‘Will you have a biscuit, Fred?’

  ‘Yes. Thank you.’

  I picked up the plate. I know not what happened, for I am strong as an oxen, but I dropped it. All over the rug. Biscuits everywhere.

  ‘Oh.’

  Down we go on our knees. Suddenly we are face to face.

  ‘Maggie…’

  ‘I love you, Fred.’

  ‘I love you.’

  And then we were kissing like we were the last two people on earth, clinging so nothing could come between us, his fingers fumbling with a thousand buttons. I went to help him but he shook his head. ‘Lie back. Lie still.’

  I lay back on the rug, eyes half closed, my heart beating fit to burst. A shiver of cool air. Me. My flesh. Air. I heard him catch his breath. I felt his fingers touch my skin and though he did not hurt me, it was as though lightning had run right through me. I gasped. He looked at me then, very gently, he bent down and began to kiss my belly. I could feel his lips, his tongue, lower and lower. It was like drowning in honey. I wanted it to last forever.

  He kissed every part of me. I don’t even know if it was kissing. More like melting my soul. My whole inside was shivering and burning at the same time. Somewhere a clock struck. The fire was long dead in the grate. We lay together as though we were one being.

  I asked, ‘Am I a woman now?’

  ‘You were always a woman.’

  ‘Like Ma, I mean. A proper woman.’

  He smiled and kissed my nose. ‘Nearly.’

  ‘Will I have a baby?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  He leant up on his elbow and kissed my fingers one by one. ‘Yes. Maggie, you will never have a baby from me till we are married. That I promise you.’ My heart leapt higher than the sky.

  He tucked my shawl around my shoulders. ‘You must get to bed. And I must go home. Or Mrs Blackett will be after me with a frying pan for waking her up.’

  ‘Yes. Must you? Go? I’m not tired. Not even a bit.’

  He laughed. ‘Neither am I, but I will be tomorrow when I have to be on duty at half past seven.’

  I went with him to the door, him carrying his shoes for fear of waking Mr Garrud. As he turned to go I caught hold of his hand, his beautiful warm, strong hand. ‘Fred… I… Thank you.’ He smiled.

  Next morning I went back to the office, and though nothing had been moved or changed while I was in prison, the curtains seemed suddenly brighter and the chairs more comfortable and everything – even the dusty old reeds in a pot by the door – looked fresh and welcoming and new. Or perhaps it was me. I listened to all that had been going on – how Miss Davison had been chased by a great big dog when she went to nail up a poster, and how a group of mill girls had got all the way into the Parliament lobby, pretending to be tourists, and all sorts of wonderful things, but all the while my heart was singing, ‘He loves me. He loves me. Love is so wonderful. I am nearly a woman. When we are married I will be a real one. It cannot be better than nearly being one, surely? Supposing it is? I shall die of happiness on my wedding night.’ Miss Lake asked me what I was beaming about. I said, ‘Oh, just to be free again, Miss Lake.’

  She humphed and said that was all very well but there was a deal of work that had piled up in my absence and perhaps I would like to make a start on the backlog. I wonder if Miss Lake has ever been nearly a woman. I wonder if any of them have. I cannot think so or they would not be so cross about men all the time.

  Miss Sylvia came rushing into the office today, quite pink with excitement. She is usually in a rush but hardly ever happy about it. ‘Oh, Maggie, goodness knows how I am to do it. It is so huge and really there is next to no time. Still, it is such a challenge I would never forgive myself if I turned it down. What I need now is…’ and she was off, burrowing through the cupboards like a bloodhound on the trail of a cutthroat.

  I was desperate to know what was going on so after the third crash and a rather loud ouch! from the storeroom I asked Miss Kerr if I should check if Miss Sylvia needed any help.

  ‘Oh, yes, do. And try not to let her destroy the entire place, will you, Maggie? Those files took me months to sort out.’

  Miss Sylvia was slumped against a cabinet, thumbing through a pile of postcards. All around lay posters, banners, photographs, newspapers. Had I not known her better I would have said the place had been hit by an earthquake.

  She looked up as I entered. ‘What I’m thinking of is a mural along the main wall made up of panels, you see. What do you think of this?’ waving a picture of an angel with a bugle at me. I said I liked it very much.

  ‘But for the mural? For the main motif?’ Head in her hands. ‘Oh, I knew I should never have said yes. I haven’t an idea in the world. Blank. Completely blank.’

  I said nothing, feeling just as blank myself. At length she rai
sed her eyes again and gave a great helpless shrug. ‘Maggie, you must think me mad.’

  ‘Not mad exactly…’

  She laughed. ‘But near enough to make no difference, I know. No, it shall be done. I can do it. With help I can do it. I just have to think it through logically.’

  ‘I would very much like to help, miss, if you would like me to, only…’

  ‘Oh, I should. Only what?’

  ‘Only I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  Miss Lake came in to see what we were laughing about. She went out again very quickly when she saw the state of the room but not before her face had quite iced over.

  There is to be a great exhibition. The Prince’s Skating Rink has been taken for three whole weeks and Miss Sylvia has been put entirely in charge of the decorations.

  She has rented a studio in Fulham just for that. ‘You are most welcome to call any time you like,’ she told me. ‘Why don’t you bring your young man?’ (knowing he likes paintings).

  Fred was most keen when I told him. ‘We can go tomorrow after I finish at the station. Why are you smiling?’

  ‘I was just thinking of what your fellow officers would say if they knew where you were going.’

  ‘Oh, well, I could always say I was doing it to spy on you.’

  I tried to laugh.

  When we arrived we could hardly believe our eyes. Great canvases, twenty feet high or more, were stretched along the walls, and working at them like Hebrew slaves, a team of students from Miss Sylvia’s old art college, some tottering on rickety old chairs, others balanced on planks between two stepladders to reach the top. She said they had all been at it day and night and still could not be certain to be finished.

  Fred was truly enthralled. He even offered to lend a hand, for some of the helpers looked extremely tired. Next thing, we are both of us wrapped up like fishermen in great oilskin smocks and splashing away at a great high bunch of angels till our arms felt fit to fall off.

  Miss Sylvia was really pleased with our efforts. She said she was sorry she had no cake to offer us but if we would like to come again on Saturday, she would make sure she had some in. Fred said he would come anyway. I think he fancies himself as a painter, although to speak true, his hair was yellower than his angel’s when he had done. Why do angels always have fair hair? Fred has, and he is an angel. Mine is dark.

  I have been charged with arranging the programmes. I had not believed so much could go on in one hall. There will be bands, dancing, fortune-tellers, displays, stalls… A rich American has promised us an ice cream soda fountain. I am not sure what this is, but Miss Davison said it was like nectar from the gods which, I daresay, she has drunk on many an occasion.

  Mrs Garrud is to mount a display of jiu-jitsu. She has asked me to be in it and though I have tried to think of every excuse, she has been so good to me I dare not disappoint her. She has promised to find me a longer coat.

  It has been a triumph! Triumphus spectaculosus! Guess who came up with that! So many visitors, and such joy and cheerfulness all around. There was a whole stall full of different sorts of jam. I bought three pots – raspberry, bramble and a yellow one called ‘lemon curd’ for Cook. Miss Sylvia promised to deliver them to her for me and the next day came back with a sheet of Mrs Roe’s writing paper. It said: ‘DEaR MaGGE, ThaNC yo FoR Mi JaM. CooK.’ Well, I thought, I would never have made a schoolteacher.

  One table was entirely covered with the most beautiful hats in the world, with a great long mirror for ladies to admire themselves in. Whenever things went quiet I and two or three other helpers would rush off over to it and try as many on as we could before the real customers appeared. Mr Pethick Lawrence spotted me one day when I was swishing around in a great feathery straw.

  ‘Do you like that one, Maggie?’

  ‘I do, sir, but I think maybe I would need a big car and servants to go with it.’

  He laughed. ‘Maybe you’re right. More for a Prime Minister’s wife, perhaps?’

  I took it off right fast.

  At the end, when the clearing up was done and the money counted, Mr and Mrs Pethick Lawrence took all the office staff out to supper. After the ices they both made a short speech to say how grateful they were and how proud of us all. They gave special thanks to Miss Sylvia who went red as strawberries and said she could not have done one thing without her helpers. I felt like standing up and saying, ‘That’s not true, for I know Miss Sylvia and she would have painted the whole hall single-handed if she’d had to,’ only I lacked the courage.

  Mr Pethick Lawrence then made a great show of getting ready to go home when his wife caught him by the arm and said, ‘My dear, haven’t you forgotten something?’ And he looked all surprised and confused, but not very convincingly – more like a man in a comedy.

  ‘Ah, yes, my dear. Now what can it be?’ And down he goes under the table and pulls out the biggest cardboard box you ever saw. He opens it up and inside, can you believe, he has bought each and every one of us a hat from the hat table. And they are all different and all quite, quite beautiful. Miss Christabel’s was purest white with a mass of violet feathers, Miss Sylvia’s the softest green, oh, all so beautiful. I was half fearful when it came to my turn that I should have the straw with all the feathers, but instead I had a lovely blue felt with a dark blue ribbon and the tiniest pale blue veil. I could have cried with happiness. Mr Pethick Lawrence whispered to me as he gave it to me, ‘I hope you are not disappointed, Maggie. I just didn’t think you’d like to marry Mr Asquith.’

  ‘I should rather be dead, sir.’

  He smiled. ‘No need for that, I hope.’

  I told Fred when I showed it to him. He looked at me hard, as though he was trying to make up his mind about something. ‘Blue is much better,’ he said at last. ‘And very suitable.’

  ‘Suitable for what?’

  ‘For a policeman’s wife, of course.’

  A policeman’s wife. And a suffragette?

  Last night I lay and looked at my blue hat. I have hung it on a hook right opposite my bed so I can gaze and gaze at it till I fall asleep. It is so fine. So soft. So beautiful. Fit for a real lady. But I am not a real lady, nor ever will be. My best hope is for Fred to make me a real woman. There is no shame in that. The shame is in being wed to one of the Asquith’s policemen. What am I to do? I cannot give him up. I cannot.

  I will not think about it any more. My eyes are closed.

  I suppose, because everyone had worked so hard and put so much into the exhibition, we all felt a little flat and dull afterwards. It was difficult to start back over, knowing as we did that we were not much nearer our goal than we had been a year ago or even two.

  Mrs Pankhurst noticed this and was not pleased! Orders went out that we were to attend every by-election, every political gathering where a Cabinet Minister was present. Up and down the country we were to be ahead of them, drumming up support before they had even stepped off the train or out of their smart black cars.

  The Liberals had got so afraid of us that we were banned from their meetings altogether and had to think of clever ways to get inside the halls. The actresses were brilliant at this.

  I wrote to see if they could give us advice on how to disguise ourselves as men and they decided they would do better than that, and organised classes for us where we learnt to walk like men, talk like men (well, lads), and, all in all, behave like men. Miss Davison suggested we put a bucket in the middle of the room and all practise spitting, but it was generally felt that even the commonest men would not dare spit with a Cabinet Minister on the stage. She was a bit miffed at this and went off to practise on her own.

  The politicians are as frightened as mice and go everywhere with an army of bobbies to protect them. In Sheffield the Asquith had to be sneaked out through a back door like a stolen sack of potatoes. The papers had fine fun with that, some suggesting he might be booked to appear in the pantomime for he was so good at magically vanishing himself.

  Ju
ne 29th is to be our biggest demonstration yet. We are to petition the King. I cannot believe the Parliament will allow us through though, for every time we try a new way they find a law to use against us and those they cannot find, they invent, it seems to me.

  Miss Wallace Dunlop, an artist friend of Miss Sylvia’s, has made a great rubber stamp with the words of the bill on it and stamped them on the wall outside the House of Commons. The first time it smudged so she was let go, but she went right back with a second one and there it is: IT IS THE RIGHT OF THE SUBJECT TO PETITION THE KING in purple letters all along the wall of St Stephen’s Hall.

  This is my first real night as an organiser. Yes, I have been trained and put in charge of printing and lists and arranging stalls and even paying some bills, but tonight I have my own team – eight women, two of them nobs, and all instructed to follow my bidding. I feel sicker than when Fred first came to see me fighting.

  We are to break the windows of the Foreign Office and, because it is feared we will meet with rough treatment, we are all parcelled up like china vases. Padded vests and woollens, and inside our skirts in a hidden pocket, a bag of stones. I am twice the size I was this morning. If Fred should see me now I think he would never buy me another piece of chocolate.

  He is on duty tonight, I know, and dreading it. I wonder sometimes how he can do his job. He says there are other ways to stop a crime than hurting someone, but it is a message he has yet to sell to his fellows. Not all of them. Many of the bobbies are family men and truly hate to see the women flung about and beaten. The trouble is they are the ones who hang back, while it is the wild young bloods that lay about us with their belts and truncheons.

  What can it be in a man that he must loose his anger on the weak? Do they fear us so much? I hope so, for that would help me to bear it.

  I am no leader. I am worse than useless. At the very moment when we should hurl our stones I find three of my ladies are shaking like leaves and cannot find their pockets. I say, ‘Sisters,’ (we must always address each other as such, though it is very hard when you know half of them are wearing silk camisoles) ‘make ready.’ Comes this whinnying sound like a half-dead horse, and one of them has a pot of smelling salts up her nose, with the others hanging on her heels to be next.