The Women of Lilac Street

by Annie Murray

  ‘Oh, yes – why shouldn’t you?’ Phyllis leaned across the table. ‘Let’s just think about this, Dolly.’ Her voice was dripping with sarcasm. ‘Why shouldn’t you go about doing exactly as you please, eh? What’s stopping you? Only the fact that you’re more than six months gone with a bastard baby, or had you forgotten all about that for the moment?’

  ‘God, I wish I could!’ Dolly roared, stamping out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

  ‘Don’t blaspheme!’ Phyllis shouted after her. Soon she heard Dolly’s angry sobbing from upstairs and rolled her eyes furiously.

  ‘Bloody stupid little bint,’ she muttered, fishing a handful of carrots from her carrier. She was shaking with rage. ‘No idea, that one. No sodding idea at all.’

  She heard footsteps at the back. Susanna came in from work.

  ‘D’you know what that flaming girl’s done now –?’ Seeing Susanna’s worried frown Phyllis cut short her tirade. ‘What’s up with you?’

  ‘It’s just . . . It may just be nothing, but, you know Rachel said about that filthy old lady who she met?’

  Phyllis felt her circulation start to pump much too fast. She stood very still, having to hold on to the back of the chair.

  ‘Well – she’s standing out there, staring at our house.’

  The blood was banging in Phyllis’s ears. She wanted to sink down on the chair, but Susanna was staring at her.

  ‘Are you sure?’ She forced a casual tone. ‘Bit odd, that.’

  ‘She does look odd.’ Susanna moved through to the front. ‘She looks horrible. I’ll go and have a peek, see if she’s still there.’

  Phyllis followed Susanna’s padded, solid figure to the front. She went to the window and peered out from behind the nets.

  ‘She’s going now – I can still just see her, look –’

  Phyllis joined her at the window. Further along the street she could just see a scruffy, shuffling figure. Was that Ethel? It was impossible to be sure from here. Maybe it was all a mistake? She felt herself breathe more easily.

  ‘Bit queer,’ she said, releasing the curtain. ‘Perhaps the old duck isn’t right in the head.’

  ‘She gives me the creeps,’ Susanna said, shuddering. She pulled at the edge of the padded burden she was carrying. ‘Ugh, it’s so hot. I can’t wait to get this lot off. That blasted baby can’t come soon enough, is all I can say.’

  It wasn’t until the next day that there was a knock on the door. Phyllis heard it as she stood in the kitchen, rubbing fat into flour. She froze, drawing herself up straight. After a few seconds she began to breathe again and moved silently to the scullery to rinse her hands and take off the apron, uncovering her navy, belted dress made of stiff cotton. As she did so she heard it again, the sharp rapping. Phyllis did not have visitors in the normal run of things. She kept herself very private.

  Thoughts rushed through her mind as she crept to the front door. As she raised her hand to open it the knock came again. She drew the door open.

  The two women regarded each other, each trying to overcome the erosion of the years and find recognition. Those were Ethel’s eyes all right, the narrow set of them, and their almost unnaturally pale blue. In every other respect the woman looked like a tramp, hair straggling out from under a greasy-looking square of cotton, grey, threadbare clothes and a black wool shawl, even in this warm weather. She was scrawny and her haggard face an unhealthy yellow colour.

  To Phyllis’s surprise, Ethel seemed abashed at the sight of her, almost cringing as, in a grating voice, she brought out the words, ‘Well, Hett – tracked you down at last.’

  Phyllis stood back. She must get Ethel out of sight. ‘You’d better come in.’

  She led Ethel into the parlour, walking over towards the window with its spotlessly clean net curtains and turning to face her. Ethel stood just inside the door. Phyllis had never been exactly sure of Ethel’s age, but it had not been too far off her own. Now though, Ethel did not look like a woman in her early forties – she looked twenty years older. Phyllis saw her staring hungrily round the room at the two matching upholstered chairs facing the fireplace, the elegant clock on the mantelpiece, the little Chinese rug by the fire and her ornaments which she had collected over the years with James. Take a good look, Phyllis thought.

  At first Ethel seemed surprised, cowed by the smart, respectable room. But soon a sly expression crept back over her features.

  ‘See yer got some nice knick-knacks ’ere, Hett.’

  Phyllis cringed at the use of the term. Knick-knacks – cheap and common, like baubles picked up at a fairground. She clenched her fists as Ethel shuffled in her broken-down shoes, which had long lost their laces, over to the mantel and put her face close to the framed wedding photograph of herself and James. She felt violent loathing rise in her that Ethel’s breath was steaming up the glass, and had to resist such an overwhelming desire to grab this slovenly wreck of a woman and shove her out of the house, that she found she was shaking with the effort.

  ‘What d’you want, Ethel?’ She managed to sound calm.

  ‘I was married once, yer know.’ Ethel turned, her voice petulant. Phyllis could hear the old Ethel again, the child.

  She didn’t say anything.

  ‘I had a son. ’E’s gone off and left me now, all grown.’

  ‘I said, what do you want?’

  Ethel looked her in the eyes for the first time, her piercing, calculating stare. ‘Bet none of these round ’ere know who you are really, Hett. Hetty Barker? I kept asking. No, no one knows who Hetty Barker is.’ She took a step closer. ‘But I know what kind of piece you are really, Hett, for all your finery. What you’ve been.’

  ‘I was forced into it,’ Phyllis retorted. For a horrified moment she felt tears rising in her. What chance had she ever stood, back then, of a better life? It was as if everything she had strived for since, all she had tried to be, a wife to James, bringing up her children the best way she could, now counted for nothing. She was still to be tarred as a fallen woman. Ethel didn’t even know about Ma Hegarty’s and what she had been forced into in Birmingham, but she knew – about that life that she had been running away from ever since.

  She tried to steady herself. She must not get into a barney with Ethel! No – she must keep her dignity. She must do everything in her power to get rid of her before the old crone went blabbing around. Oh, yes, there were plenty round here would love to know all about her past and rub it in her face. Phyllis had no illusions that she was popular.

  Ethel was even closer now. ‘I thought you was my friend . . .’

  ‘Friend?’ Phyllis said, thrown into bewilderment. Everything between them had always been based on barter and threat, who could get what out of whom.

  ‘Yes, friend. We was in it together – and that day you ran off, just ran to save your own miserable skin, the day she—’

  ‘I thought the police would come. All that blood . . .’ Phyllis shuddered. The memories kept forcing themselves at her. ‘Why didn’t you leave her? You didn’t owe that trollop anything – everything she did was for herself. She used us, both of us for anything she could get . . .’

  ‘She was my mother!’ Ethel flared into her face.

  Phyllis stepped back, in stunned horror. ‘Your . . . ?’ She tried wildly to recall Ada, any resemblance. But Ethel had had flame-red hair, those eyes – nothing like Ada’s.

  ‘Yes – my mother. No, I didn’t favour Ada, not in looks. Must’ve taken after my father, whoever the hell he was. You never saw it, did you, never wondered why I stayed with ’er? You thought I was just after saving my own skin. But I’d’ve done anything for ’er – she was all I had. When I came out of the reformatory I was back there with ’er, we was working as a team, looking after the boys.’

  Everything was rearranging itself in Phyllis’s head. ‘The babbies – Eddie and Alf . . . ?’

  ‘My brothers – half-brothers, any road. They were as much my own as anyone.’

  ‘But . . .’
Phyllis began.

  ‘Why didn’t we tell yer? That what yer want to know – eh?’ Ethel came up close, and Phyllis shrank from the stink of her rotten teeth. ‘You think a whore like my mother has no pride? That she’d want a soul to know she was selling her own daughter?’

  There was a moment when they stood, eyes fixed intensely on each other.

  ‘The boys were done for, both of them. You know who did it? That quiet one used to come. The Quiet Gentleman.’ Ethel looked down brokenly for a moment, and Phyllis almost pitied her. When she looked up, her harsh tone was back. ‘She died, soon after if you want to know. Not from that – she was bad anyway, summat inside ’er. A growth. So –’ Her tone toughened more, into sarcasm. ‘I carried on the business. Married one of ’em, but ’e died – drink finished ’im, that and bad luck. My son – well, ’e might as well be dead too for all I see of ’im. No gratitude from that one.’

  Phyllis held herself stiffly, feeling as if she was watching a snake that might pounce on her at any moment.

  ‘You’re not short of a bob, Hett, I can see that.’

  Phyllis gave a harsh laugh. ‘I’m a widow – and this isn’t a palace, in case you can’t tell.’

  ‘All the same –’ Ethel peered around. ‘Look at you – a few things yer could pawn in ’ere.’

  Phyllis’s mind was racing. So it was clear, what she was after.

  ‘You could spare me a bit, Hett, for old times’ sake,’ Ethel wheedled. ‘I ain’t had your luck. Never had none of that going, not me. If you help me out – you know, proper like, I’ll keep away after that. You won’t see me again. Never.’

  ‘How much?’

  Ethel looked taken aback for a moment, as if having her request granted was more than she ever really expected. She struggled to fix on a figure. Screwing up her face, she pronounced brazenly, ‘Fifty quid. Get me fifty.’

  Phyllis kept her face a mask of calm, but her mind was racing ahead, planning, calculating.

  ‘It’s a lot of money,’ she said at last.

  ‘Worth it though, eh, Hett?’

  Phyllis looked down at the floor for a moment, giving the impression of deep thought.

  ‘Course, I don’t have that sort of money around me,’ she said, looking up into Ethel’s face, which was now showing signs of a repulsive excitement. ‘But I tell you what I’ll do. I don’t want to carry that sort of sum about, not round here. You hang on a couple of days and I’ll send my son to you.’

  Ethel’s face darkened. ‘How do I know I can trust him?’

  ‘My Charles is a lay preacher,’ Phyllis said haughtily. ‘There’s none more trustworthy than him, I can tell you. And he’ll do what I say.’

  She named the place and time. Ethel still looked doubtful.

  ‘We’re a Christian family, Ethel,’ Phyllis said, ushering her firmly towards the front door. ‘He’ll be there – don’t you worry. Just keep your head down till then. And keep away from here.’

  Ethel turned on the step, her face eager, almost childlike. ‘I won’t forget this, Hett.’

  ‘We go back a long way, us two,’ Phyllis said.

  She watched for a second as Ethel turned to go along the road, then quickly she disappeared back inside.

  Fifty-Four

  All Rose could think about was that Arthur was coming on Sunday afternoon.

  The weather was warm and good for both house painting and fishing, so Harry was away from home a good deal of the time. Every spare moment while he was out, Rose worked on her embroidery for Mrs Lacey, intent on earning as much money as she possibly could. The set of flowered table places was already finished and looking fresh and pretty and she had begun on a tea cloth in a similar design.

  Every hour felt like a mountain that had to be conquered. One of the hardest things was having Harry in the house and trying to behave as if everything was normal. Harry’s behaviour towards her now was cocky, sneering, as if he had won a battle and was glorying in it. He had her just where he wanted her. All because, Rose thought contemptuously, he could put his thing in her whenever he wanted now, as if that was all that mattered. What a fool he was – like an animal!

  She still wore the letter, with the poem from Arthur, tucked into her clothing. It was her greatest comfort, knowing it was there.

  On the Sunday morning she sat through church, standing and sitting automatically for hymns and readings, smiling vaguely at the other parishioners and not taking in a thing. When the clock struck eleven, at the end of the service, she thought, Four more hours. And it seemed like the eternity that the Bible was forever mentioning. She already knew what it was to live in eternity, she thought.

  By ten to three, she was alone at last, sitting in the front room, her chest tight, ears straining to take in any sound, above all that of a stick tapping on the pavement. The waiting seemed to go on and on. Then she heard it, unmistakably. In a second she was at the door, pulling it open. And there he was, coming towards her.

  He stopped at her step, and because he couldn’t see her waiting for him, half hidden by the door, she called softly, ‘Arthur.’

  His face held a combination of eagerness, fear and possibly resentment, she wasn’t sure. She shared the fear, but all else she could feel was immense relief that he was here, and the tenderness of longing to be in his arms.

  ‘Come in, quickly,’ she said, reaching out her hand.

  Behind the closed door, in the front room, they stood close together, but at a loss, each hearing the other’s breathing. They could not embrace – nothing was resolved. Arthur hung his head as if he suddenly did not know why he was here.

  ‘You came,’ she said eventually.

  He nodded. She could see now that he was regretting it, as if he had given in to something wrong.

  ‘That child – Aggie. I had to tell her something. And then when I’d told her—’

  ‘Arthur,’ she interrupted. ‘Please. Please. Let’s leave here. Let’s just go away together. I can’t think of anything else. I love you, I want to be with you whatever it costs. I just can’t bear this life . . .’ She gestured round the room, even though it was wasted on him.

  ‘It’s all very well,’ he said despairingly. ‘But how am I to work? I’m all right in the firm here, but—’

  ‘You’ll find work,’ she said passionately. ‘You can tune pianos just as well as anyone who can see. And I thought you said St Dunstan’s would help, that they’d help wherever you were living? We could go north, to some town where no one knows us or any of our business and we can just be together, you, me and Lily.’

  As she spoke, Rose found she was panting. Both of them were, they were so pent up with nerves.

  ‘You don’t seem to realize what you’re saying,’ Arthur said. ‘Neither of us has much money—’

  ‘I can work. I’ll do anything, especially once Lily’s at school. And I can sew. I’ve got some money saved and I’m working on more. Mrs Lacey says my work’s some of the best – she’d still buy off me and I could find others . . .’

  He seemed stunned by her determination.

  ‘But the shame . . . Divorce . . . It’s a terrible thing. I’d feel as if it was all my fault – you know, the Vile Seducer, like in the pictures. And my family . . .’

  ‘Arthur.’ She went up close to him now, laying her hands gently on his shoulders. ‘Do you love me?’

  His face was working, twisting with inner conflict. ‘You know I do. Though God knows, I’ve tried not to.’

  ‘Oh, my darling . . .’ Her voice was full of tears. ‘And I love you. I just can’t stand life without you – with Harry. I don’t care about shame. There are worse things. Loneliness is worse than shame and I’ve had so much of it.’

  Arthur nodded. She could see that he was moving towards her, that they would be together, and it was wonderful and terrifying. ‘Loneliness.’ He sighed. ‘Yes. Oh, God, yes.’

  Only then, they held each other. She could hardly believe even now that he was here, that she had her arms
round him and could feel him warm and close to her.

  ‘Here –’ She guided his hand to her ribs, where the paper, softened by being pressed to her for so long, could just be felt under the cotton of her dress. ‘I’ve kept it close to me all this time – your poem.’

  Arthur smiled, moved. ‘Not my composition, I’m afraid. But it seemed right.’

  She moved her face towards him, her lips reaching for his. He kissed her with hungry need and for a moment they were lost in each other, but then Arthur drew back.

  ‘Look – not now, here, like this. If we go on I’ll want you so much I’ll lose my head and we just can’t do that. Especially not here, in this house. To tell you the truth, I’ve been so worried . . .’

  ‘Why?’

  He looked solemnly at her. ‘When we were together before, we didn’t – I mean, I was afraid there might be an outcome. That perhaps that was what you needed to tell me?’

  ‘A baby?’

  ‘That’s the normal thing, isn’t it?’ He was teasing now, gently. ‘But there isn’t, I take it?’

  ‘I don’t know, for sure. But I don’t think so. Arthur.’ She couldn’t tell him she had missed twice. Not now. ‘Come and sit down. I’ll make tea. Come to the back with me while the water boils. I can’t bear not to be with you every minute.’

  They drank tea in the kitchen, at first intoxicated by excitement. They had given in to their feelings for each other. They could not be denied, and Rose sat holding Arthur’s hand, full of a sense of the miraculous. He was here. They would be together and at first it was like a haze around them. But then the cold realities began to reach then, like fog seeping into a warm room.

  ‘Arthur – what are we going to do?’

  He sat looking ahead of him for a few moments. ‘I feel so shocked – at myself, at all of this. I can barely think. We need to take a while, to make plans. Nothing sudden, not at first.’

  ‘But if we go,’ she said. ‘That’ll have to be sudden.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

  ‘We’ll have to just walk out one day with everything, and get on a train and never come back.’