The Pearly Queen

by Mary Jane Staples

  ‘God bless golden syrup,’ said Patsy. Porridge with golden syrup was a real treat in Walworth. Patsy thought there ought to be a large tin in every home. Some families didn’t even have porridge, or decent boots or shoes for everyone. While Patsy was proud of her dad for what he provided, she was sad that not every dad had a job, and that some didn’t earn very good wages. When Jimmy had been working, the family had been almost well off. She knew her brother hated losing his job. He didn’t show it, but she knew.

  Syrup was spooned on to porridge. Mother frowned at her breakfast. ‘I don’t know I can eat this,’ she said.

  ‘All right, Maudie, take it to Whitechapel with you,’ said Dad.

  ‘Perhaps I’ll eat just a little,’ said Mother, ‘then I’ve got to sew some buttons on my costume jacket.’

  ‘Syrup, Mother?’ said Jimmy, pushing the tin across. From the window, Walworth’s morning light fell across the table and made the surface of the syrup gleam with translucent gold.

  ‘No, I couldn’t eat no syrup with it,’ said Mother.

  ‘All right,’ said Dad, and Mother absently helped herself to a spoonful. Coming to, she shuddered at her indulgence. It caused her to eat the sweetened porridge in a suffering way.

  ‘I’ll be gone for a week,’ she said.

  ‘You won’t,’ said Dad.

  ‘I’ll do some packin’ this mornin’,’ she said.

  ‘Talk sense,’ said Dad, ready to go over the top.

  ‘I’m bein’ called to higher duties,’ said Mother. ‘I’ll be in Whitechapel with the League this afternoon, then I’ll be stayin’ at our ’eadquarters in Bloomsbury. I don’t want no-one to worry about me.’

  Dad breathed hard. ‘You’re a worry to all of us,’ he said, ‘and a—’ He meant to say and a bloody headache to him, but Betsy was already upset enough, and Patsy was biting her lip. ‘There’s other things beside this cock-eyed League, Maudie, there’s your fam’ly.’

  ‘And the cookin’ and washin’ and housework,’ said Jimmy from the scullery. Having finished his porridge, he was toasting slices of bread under the gas grill.

  ‘I ’appen to ’ave taught you all not to be ’elpless,’ said Mother, ‘and your dad’s been a soldier.’

  ‘I don’t ’appen to have been a bleedin’ housewife as well,’ said Dad, and Betsy looked near to crying then. But spirited Patsy flashed a look of encouragement at him. It urged him to let himself go, but he didn’t want Betsy in tears. ‘I’ve got my job, Maudie,’ he said, ‘an’ you’ve got yours.’

  ‘I’m being called to higher duties,’ said Mother again.

  Jimmy brought in four slices of toast and handed them out. Mother began to eat hers as it was, dry. Dad and the girls put marge and marmalade on theirs, with Betsy glancing unhappily from one parent to the other. Jimmy put other slices of bread under the grill. Patsy, seeing it was no use relying on her mum to preside, poured the tea.

  ‘Maudie,’ said Dad, ‘let’s get this straight before I go to work. You’re goin’ away for a week?’

  ‘I’ve got the Lord’s work to do, me and the Repenters,’ said Mother. ‘We’re goin’ to march on the city of Satan, which is London, and bring the ’eathens to redemption.’

  ‘You won’t like what ’appens,’ said Dad.

  ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words won’t never ’urt me,’ declared Mother.

  ‘What about rotten cabbages?’ asked Jimmy from the scullery.

  ‘That boy, what’s ’e talkin’ about?’ asked Mother.

  Bringing more toast in and sitting down, Jimmy said, ‘Listen, Mother, I suppose you realize Patsy and Betsy are short of clean knickers?’

  ‘That’s it, tell everybody, you cheeky beast,’ said Patsy.

  ‘What disgustin’ language,’ said Mother, looking at Jimmy in shock. ‘Who is this young man, might I ask?’

  ‘’E’s our Jimmy,’ blurted Betsy, then gulped and hid her face.

  ‘Well, I still don’t want ’im usin’ language like that,’ said Mother.

  ‘I’m just tellin’ you, that’s all,’ said Jimmy, not liking the atmosphere of edginess and its uncomfortable aspects.

  ‘Do a bit of listening for a change, Maudie,’ said Dad. ‘Listening to us, I mean.’

  ‘’Aven’t I spent the best years of me life listening to all me fam’ly?’ said Mother. ‘Now it’s me duty to listen to the Lord and all ‘Is commands.’

  ‘Oh, it’s the Lord, is it, who’s told you to push off for a week?’ said Dad.

  ‘I don’t know about a week,’ said Mother. ‘Father Peter says our work among the sinful multitudes might be lastin’.’

  ‘What’s lastin’?’ whispered Betsy to Patsy.

  ‘A lot more than a week,’ said Patsy.

  ‘Oh, ’elp,’ breathed Betsy, and gulped again.

  ‘I don’t like the sound of lastin’,’ said Dad, ‘you’d better shake yerself up a mite, Maudie, you’d better start doin’ some sensible thinkin’ about what you’re gettin’ up to. It don’t make any kind of sense to me, nor your fam’ly.’

  ‘The Lord ’as called me to ’elp carry ‘Is fiery sword,’ said Mother.

  ‘I bet He’s not goin’ to bless you for pushin’ off for a week,’ said Jimmy.

  ‘Where’s my umbrella?’ asked Mother, giving her son a sharp look.

  ‘Never mind your daft umbrella,’ said Dad, getting up. ‘I’ve got to push off meself now, to me job. Listen, Maudie, don’t make it so that I’ll ’ave to come after you, which I will if I’ve got to. I might not be as close to the Lord as you are, but no-one’s goin’ to make me believe ’E’s in favour of wives an’ mothers carryin’ ‘Is fiery sword.’

  ‘Now then, Jack Andrews, don’t you—’

  ‘I don’t ’ave time to do more arguin’ at the moment,’ said Dad. ‘So long, loveys, see you later.’ He kissed his girls. ‘Look after things, Jimmy,’ he said, and departed like a man who knew he’d got problems.

  ‘Dad’s right,’ said Patsy, ‘you just can’t go off as if you’re the lodger, Mum, it ain’t fair on Dad, nor on us.’

  ‘And it’s not befittin’, either,’ said Jimmy, getting that one in with relish.

  ‘I don’t want any sauce,’ said Mother, ‘you’ve all got to understand about me religious callin’. While I’m away it won’t do your Dad any harm to be a help to ’imself and ’is children.’

  ‘We’re your children, too,’ said Patsy crossly.

  ‘You can all ’elp each other,’ said Mother. ‘Well, I’ve got things to do now, includin’ sewing some buttons on.’

  ‘We’ve got more things to do than you ’ave,’ said Patsy heatedly. Jimmy put a hand on his sister’s arm, knowing she was near to shouting at Mother.

  ‘Not worth it, sis,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t commit no sins while I’m not ’ere,’ said Mother, ‘and don’t forget to ’elp the poor.’ Up on her feet, she left the kitchen. Patsy sat fuming. Betsy’s face crumpled a bit, and Jimmy put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze. Betsy gulped.

  Dad only worked a half-day on Saturdays. The main delivery journeys to the retail shops had all been done by Fridays. On Saturdays, he usually arrived home about one o’clock. Today, having got on the right side of the manager, he was back home by half-past eleven. The family was in crisis, and he’d got to put his foot down. That would amount to tying Maud up, as good as, and that in turn would really upset Betsy. He felt the best bet was to let Maud get repentance and redemption out of her system, to let her chuck herself in head first.

  She’d always been religious, of course. He’d first found out how pretty she was as a girl of eighteen, how nice she was to kiss and cuddle when they were courting, and nor did she mind kissing and cuddling, except she’d sometimes say ‘Now then, Jack Andrews, don’t take liberties.’ He found out she was religious when she began to make him go to church with her on Sunday mornings. She even carried her own prayer book. But she made a pretty and willing bride
, and a conscientious wife, although after a few years she began to act at times as if going to bed with him was a bit improper. He thought that funny at first. Then he thought it bloody ridiculous. And then religion really did begin to get a hold on her, and among other things she insisted on having a family Bible and reading out loud from it on Sunday evenings. He’d fallen in love with a pretty girl who had nice ways and was sweet to kiss and cuddle. He slowly fell out of love with the kind of woman she became. He still retained some affection for her, and always had the right amount of loyalty to her as the mother of his children. But things now were really getting on his nerves. And what was worse, the kids were suffering. Patsy was getting ratty, Betsy was getting distressed, and Jimmy was losing all respect for his mum.

  Arriving home, Dad found that Mother had finished her sewing and packing, and intended to depart in ten minutes or so. The girls had taken the laundry to the Bagwash early, and Jimmy had collected it an hour later. Now it was all hanging on the line in the yard, and the August sun, strong enough today to pulverize the Walworth haze, was at its drying work. Dad felt he had treasures in his kids, and he had to give Maud some credit for that. For four years, while he’d been in Mesopotamia, she’d had to manage them by herself. But, frankly, she wasn’t a woman any more, not a proper woman. There was no warmth there.

  Mother was in the bedroom. He cornered her there, and spoke his piece as firmly as he could without raising his voice. He reminded her again that she was a wife and mother, and if she couldn’t see what that meant, then her kind of religiousness wasn’t the kind he’d recommend. ‘Ruddy hell, you’re a disgrace the way you keep going off and leaving the kids to look after themselves until I get home,’ he went on in angry vein. It made no difference. Mother was adamant that she had to go. She said if it meant she’d be away from home for a while, it couldn’t be helped. Dad didn’t think much of that, it was too indefinite, too vague. And she was getting vague too about the family, so much so that he had a feeling she was likely to forget she had a family at all. He wanted to shake her hard.

  Someone knocked on the front door. Jimmy answered it, passing his parents’ bedroom on the way. Aunt Edie was on the doorstep. As usual, she looked a treat. For a start, she had an hour-glass figure and wore tight-waisted clothes like an Edwardian woman. And she favoured large hats, like the one she had on now, with wax flowers decorating it. Her peach-coloured dress showed her calves. At thirty-six she was the same age as Mother, her cousin, but she was a different kind of woman. Jimmy had an idea she found the shorter fashions a bit of a lark. Well, being a pearly queen, she would do, especially as she appeared in charity concerts put on by Camberwell pearlies. She probably finished her turns by doing a cockney knees-up on the stage, which meant showing her legs. And good legs were best for a knees-up.

  One of a large family, Aunt Edie had come up the hard way, for her dad had had a very poorly paid job as a metal worker with a firm that always laid men off when orders were a bit low. She’d known years of patched clothes, leaky boots and not too many good meals. But from the moment she was lucky enough to secure a factory job when she left school at fourteen, she was determined to make a decent life for herself. She applied that determination to her work and stepped up the ladder until she’d become supervisor of eighty girls and women. She’d held that position for years now. Her one sad memory was of the fiancé she’d lost through the boating accident on the Thames. She might have married someone else, being such a cheerful and good-looking woman, but although she was never without men friends, she’d never taken a husband. She lived happily enough, it seemed, in a flat close by Camberwell Green, and the people she most liked to visit were the Andrews family, even if she was never very keen on cousin Maud.

  From the doorstep she smiled at Jimmy, a chip off the old block with his grey eyes and a bit of his dad’s twinkle.

  ‘Well, young man?’ she said.

  ‘You’re a nice surprise, Aunt Edie,’ said Jimmy. ‘Shouldn’t you still be at work? Don’t tell me your firm’s gone bust like mine did.’

  ‘No, I finished early this mornin’ because it’s Bank Holiday weekend,’ said Aunt Edie. ‘Look, if you’re goin’ to keep me standin’ on the doorstep like I was someone from the gasworks, I might as well go ’ome.’

  ‘Don’t do that, come in,’ said Jimmy. She stepped in and he ducked under the brim of her hat and kissed her.

  ‘That’s better,’ she said. ‘Found another job yet, lovey?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Keep lookin’, and if I hear of anything I’ll be round double quick to let you know.’

  Dad appeared. ‘Thought I ’eard you, Edie,’ he said.

  ‘Bit of a shock, was it?’ smiled Aunt Edie.

  ‘Pleasure,’ said Dad, but looked as if his mind was elsewhere, which it was.

  ‘I always get off early Bank Holiday Saturdays,’ said Aunt Edie, ‘and as I want to go down East Street market, I thought I’d call in ’ere first and give the girls a little treat.’

  That was just like Aunt Edie, thought Jimmy. She had never visited without bringing something for his sisters, and him too during his schooldays.

  ‘You’re a good sort, Edie,’ said Dad, a bit absently.

  ‘Well, I was young meself once,’ she said. ‘Where’s Maud? I’d better pay me respects while I’m ’ere, or I’ll get sermonized.’ Aunt Edie was inclined to be a bit scathing about her cousin’s religious mania.

  ‘Maud’s gone over the top a bit,’ said Dad.

  ‘Oh?’ said Aunt Edie, and went into the parlour with Dad and Jimmy, where Dad put her in the picture. ‘She’s off ’er rocker,’ said Aunt Edie forthrightly, and Jimmy thought there were sparks in her eye. ‘What’re you doin’ about it, Jack?’

  ‘Got to let ’er get it out of ’er system,’ said Dad.

  ‘Jimmy,’ said Aunt Edie, fishing in her shopping bag, ‘take these to your sisters, there’s a love.’ She gave him two paper bags, each containing half a pound of Walters Palm Toffee. ‘I just want to talk to your dad for a bit.’

  ‘Go easy on him,’ said Jimmy, and left them to it.

  ‘I’m goin’ to do what I shouldn’t,’ said Aunt Edie, ‘I’m goin’ to interfere.’

  ‘Help yourself,’ said Dad, ‘it won’t be interference to me, old girl. But watch out for ’er brolly, I’ve just been poked with it meself.’

  ‘If it comes to a fight,’ said Aunt Edie, ‘I’ll hold me own. She’s in the bedroom, is she?’

  ‘She’ll be on her way out any minute,’ said Dad, who thought a stand-up between his wife and Edie might make Saturday rattle a bit.

  ‘You stay here,’ said Aunt Edie, and rustled forth to give battle, with Dad wishing her good luck.

  The bedroom door was shut. Aunt Edie knocked and entered. Mother, dressed in her black costume and black hat, was just taking hold of the handle of an old leather suitcase. She looked up. Surprise put a question mark on her face.

  ‘Edie? What’re you doin’ here?’ she asked.

  Aunt Edie closed the door. ‘I’m not doin’ anything yet,’ she said, ‘but I’m just about to start. I can ’ardly believe what I’ve just ’eard, that you’re goin’ off on some religious work, that you’re leavin’ your fam’ly.’

  ‘The Lord’s called me to take up ‘Is sword,’ said Mother proudly.

  ‘Don’t make me spit,’ said Aunt Edie.

  ‘Don’t you spit in ’ere,’ said Mother.

  ‘That’s a laugh,’ said Aunt Edie. ‘Look at it.’ The room was untidy. ‘You ’aven’t even made the bed.’

  ‘I ’appen to have more important work,’ said Mother, ‘and I’m now goin’ out to get on with it.’

  ‘You’ve been a bit daft for ages,’ said Aunt Edie, ‘but I never thought you’d go off and leave the kind of fam’ly you’ve got.’

  ‘Don’t you talk to me like that, Edie Harper,’ said Mother, taking umbrage, ‘I ’appen to have the privilege of bein’ accepted into the League of Repenters.’<
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  ‘Sounds like another name for a loony bin,’ said Aunt Edie.

  ‘Oh, what impertinence,’ said Mother. ‘I’ll ’ave you know we’ve come together by the grace of God.’

  ‘I bet,’ said Aunt Edie. ‘All right, so God and all ’Is wondrous works are out there somewhere, even if I ’aven’t seen many of them meself. But it’s no good you bein’ in a hurry to shake ’ands with Him. You’ll ’ave to wait till you pass on, like the rest of us, and while you’re waitin,’ Maud Andrews, remember your work’s down ’ere on earth with your fam’ly, and don’t you forget it.’

  ‘More impertinence,’ exclaimed Mother. It was hard to believe just how much impertinence there was about these days.

  ‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself,’ said Aunt Edie, her sparks flying. ‘Look at you, dressed fit for a funeral, your bedroom not tidied up, the bed not made, and I don’t know what else. Nor don’t I know how a woman with your kind of fam’ly can talk about ’aving had a call from the Lord. If it was me, I’d tell the Lord to find someone else.’

  ‘Oh, what blasphemy!’ cried Mother, and raised her umbrella.

  ‘You poke me with that,’ said Aunt Edie, ‘and you’ll wish you ’adn’t. I’ve watched you for years, you and your silly ways, and you can count yourself lucky you’ve got a ’usband like Jack. Anyone else would ’ave put you over ’is knees and spanked you long ago. Jack works long hours and ’ard ones, and deserves a bit better than what you’re givin’ him.’

  ‘Do you ’appen to be referring to Mr Andrews, my ’usband in wedlock?’ asked Mother distantly.

  ‘Don’t get high and mighty with me, Maud,’ said Aunt Edie. ‘I know too much about you. Religion’s for Sunday church, not for askin’ a wife and mother to spend every hour of every day goin’ about in a trance.’

  ‘Leave my house,’ ordered Mother.

  ‘Not before I’ve finished speakin’ me piece,’ said Aunt Edie. ‘Your trouble is you don’t know when you’re well off, you’ve got what a lot of women would be more than ’appy with, a home, a good ’usband, and a son and two girls that’s a credit to any fam’ly. I’ll come right out with it, Maud, if Jack, Patsy, Betsy and Jimmy were mine, I’d thank the Lord for me blessings, not go off and leave them. Now what’re you doin’, what’ve you got your eyes shut for?’