Rough Justice

by Gilda O'Neill

  Nell nodded. ‘Yes, miss.’

  ‘You’ve not gone and pinched it off their line or nothing, have you?’

  ‘No, it’s mine.’ Nell’s head had started aching and her fingers and heels were tingling as the heat warmed her skin.

  ‘So what were you doing out in the street then?’

  ‘I left this morning,’ she said, then added hurriedly, ‘because I’m sixteen.’

  Sylvia frowned; there was something funny going on here. ‘I thought they were meant to get you girls work once you turned fourteen. Yeah, that’s right they do, they get all the girls from that place jobs in the schmutter trade. I’ve got customers who’ve taken them on as finishers and pressers.’

  She paused, looking Nell up and down, taking in the girl’s bare legs and her damp dress. She knew the home had a bit of a reputation for being strict and for not exactly overflowing with the milk of human kindness, but surely even they wouldn’t send a kid out dressed like that, not in this weather. Sylvia was wearing a good thick coat and warm stockings, and she felt bloody cold enough.

  ‘Here, you haven’t run away have you? Cos if you have, then I don’t want you here, because I’m not having you bringing any trouble to my door; this is a respectable house.’

  ‘No. It was Matron, she told me I had to leave.’

  ‘Well where are your things then?’

  ‘I haven’t got any.’

  ‘So you’re saying they kept you on longer than they should have, but then they just chucked you out with nothing? Are you telling me the truth?’

  Nell shrugged, embarrassed, but not daring to mention the row over the brooch. ‘Matron let me stay until now because I was doing all her office work.’

  She pressed her lips together, determined not to cry again. ‘I can do typewriting, you see. And I did loads of laundry and cleaning, and looked after the little ones, taught them their letters if they were finding it hard. But for some reason she got all upset with me, and said I had to go.’

  ‘Did you steal something? Is that why she got upset with you?’

  ‘No.’ Nell closed her hand tighter round the brooch. ‘I never took anything, not all the time I was there. I never even stole the vegetable peelings from outside the back of the kitchen, not even when I was really hungry, even though some of the others did. I don’t know why she was always so cross with me. I always worked as hard as I could. And Mr Thanet, he said I was the hardest worker in the home. Best he’d ever had.’

  Sylvia’s face softened. ‘You say you did laundry and cleaning, eh? So where are you working now then, Nell?’

  ‘Nowhere.’ Nell’s bottom lip started to wobble. ‘I don’t really know how to get a job.’

  ‘Right.’ Sylvia fussed about with Nell’s coat, turning it over and moving the chair nearer the fire. ‘Tell you what, you wait there for me a minute, sweetheart, and I’ll be right back.’

  As Sylvia disappeared through a door at the side of the bar, Nell could hear her calling, ‘Bernie, come down here will you, darling, there’s someone I want you to meet.’

  ‘Aw, Sylv, do I have to?’

  ‘Come on, Bern, do us a favour. It won’t take long. It’s important.’

  There was a sound of floorboards creaking and of a chair dragging heavily across a floor from somewhere above Nell’s head, followed by footsteps coming down a flight of stairs. Then Sylvia reappeared with a man behind her, his huge frame making the diminutive woman look even tinier. He was completely bald with a big, round, friendly face.

  ‘Bernie, this is Nell. Nell, this is my husband who runs the pub with me.’

  Bernie Woods nodded and smiled.

  Nell did her best to smile back, but hearing that this man who looked to be about Mr Thanet’s age – at least fifty – was married to Sylvia, who couldn’t have been more than in her late twenties, was something of a shock. He was old enough to be her dad. But perhaps that was how things worked in the world outside the home and outside the books at Sunday school. She felt bewildered. She was beginning to think she didn’t know much about anything at all.

  ‘And, do you know what?’ Sylvia continued. ‘We’ve been looking for a good, hard-working girl for a while now, not a lazy, dozy mare like the ones we’ve had working here lately.’ She looked at Bernie and rolled her eyes. ‘Right Bern?’

  ‘Right Sylv.’

  ‘So, how d’you fancy doing a bit of cleaning work for us?’

  Before Nell could answer, Bernie had cut in. ‘You can give her more than a bit of cleaning, Sylv. With her looks we’ll have the blokes flocking in if we stick her behind the bar.’

  ‘I think you could be right.’ Sylvia eyed Nell closely, not as she had done before, but this time taking in her trim figure, her wide grey eyes, and her badly cut yet still pretty blonde curls.

  She thought for only a few moments. ‘Here, I’ll tell you what, Nell, you can do the cleaning down here, help me upstairs with a few jobs, maybe a bit of laundry and that, and then you can have a couple of hours behind the bar. How does that sound?’

  ‘Thank you, miss.’ Nell could hardly say the words, not because she was still shocked at her being married to Bernie – that was all forgotten in this fast-moving, strange world – but because she was so excited; her mouth had gone dry and she felt as if her tongue was going to stick to the roof of her mouth.

  Then cold reality struck her like a slap in the face from Matron Sully. ‘But first I have to find somewhere to stay.’

  Sylvia shrugged. ‘Don’t worry about that, you can live in if you like. How’d that suit you?’

  Nell stared down at the ground, feeling stupid, just like she did whenever Matron had scolded her for getting something wrong. ‘Live in? I don’t know what that means.’

  ‘It means I’ll sort out a room for you here, Nell.’ She nodded towards the door by the bar. ‘Upstairs. We’ve got loads of space. Rooms we don’t even go in, let alone use. And you can have your meals chucked in and all, and we’ll get you a couple of frocks, a sight better than that one, and, let’s say what, five bob? No, don’t let’s get into an argument over it, seven and six a week?’

  Nell nodded, her face glowing with the gratitude that she felt towards this wonderful woman.

  It was now Sylvia who couldn’t believe her luck: a general dogsbody for seven and six a week, a couple of frocks off the market, and a bit of grub. She could already imagine having a lovely long lie-in of a morning before sitting down with a nice cup of tea. Living exactly the life she’d expected she was going to have the day she’d agreed to marry Bernie, when she’d been working for him as a barmaid.

  Bernie patted Nell on the head. ‘Good girl,’ he said, and made his way back towards the door by the bar.

  ‘I’ll leave you two girls to sort out the details,’ he said, puffing as he started to climb the stairs. ‘I’m back up to the kitchen to finish off my breakfast. And from the sound of that girl’s rumbling belly, I reckon she could do with a bit of something and all, Sylv.’

  ‘I’ll make her a couple of rounds of toast,’ said Sylvia, following him through the doorway. ‘You warm yourself by the fire, Nell, while I go and get the bread. And give that coat a turn or it’ll scorch.’

  Nell watched in amazement as Sylvia sat next to her by the fire and first toasted the thickly sliced, really white, fluffy-looking bread on a long metal fork, and then spread it with bright yellow butter – something she’d only ever seen when taking Matron in her afternoon crumpets, certainly something she’d never eaten. Sylvia then put big dollops of glistening deep red jam on top.

  Nell ate three of the thick slices and drank two cups of tea with sugar and milk, out of the prettiest cup and saucer – even better than Matron’s – she’d ever seen. It was as if the angels in those books at Sunday school had lifted her up.

  ‘Better?’ asked Sylvia.

  ‘Yes, thank you very much, miss.’ Nell shifted slightly on her chair so that she wasn’t looking Sylvia in the face. ‘There is one thing, thou
gh.’

  Here we go, thought Sylvia. She should have known it was too good to be true. ‘And that one thing, what would that be then?’

  ‘What your husband said, about blokes flocking in. I didn’t really know what he meant. What do I have to do?’

  Sylvia covered her spluttering laughter with a hurried coughing fit.

  ‘You don’t have to do anything, darling,’ she finally managed to spit out. ‘When you’re a young girl with looks like yours, men will take a proper shine to you. They’re only interested in one thing about a girl, see, the whole bloody lot of them. You know what men are like.’

  ‘No, not really, I don’t think I do.’ Nell was slowly shaking her head. ‘I’ve only ever really known one man, and that’s Mr Thanet. He’s the governor at the home, and Matron said I was too old for him to be interested in me.’

  This time, Sylvia’s coughing fit didn’t have to be put on.

  Chapter 8

  ‘Well, I must say, Nell, you’ve picked this up in no time, darling.’

  Nell smiled across at Sylvia, as she gave the brass rings around the beer pumps a final polish. ‘It’s all so beautiful, I feel lucky that you let me do it.’

  ‘I have to admit I hadn’t been seeing the Hope and Anchor in that sort of a light lately. It’s been more like a bloody millstone round me flaming neck than a thing of beauty – what with all the cleaning and scrubbing involved. It was all too much for one person to cope with. You’ve brought a proper breath of fresh air to the place. It’s been like having a special friend living here with me, or even the daughter I might have had.’

  ‘Why haven’t you had children, Sylvia, you’d be a smashing mum?’

  Sylvia suddenly found herself preoccupied with a smudge on the front of her dress. ‘Didn’t happen, that’s all. After I had a bit of trouble. Anyway, I’m happy enough. And I’ve got you now, haven’t I?’

  She looked at Nell, studying her shining hair, and her soft, unblemished skin. How old was she?

  Nell was apparently concentrating on folding the rag she’d been using as a duster into a neat square, flattening it firmly on the bar with slow sweeps of her hand. ‘I don’t remember my own mum, Sylv. Like I said, all I do know is there’s someone I think I remember, a kind, beautiful lady, but then there was a fire and then I was in the home, and . . .’ She ran a finger round the outline of the brooch she now never failed to pin onto whatever she was wearing. ‘For some reason I always knew this was mine, mine by rights; something to do with remembering someone, and the fire.’

  Nell lifted her chin and looked at Sylvia. ‘But I hope she was like you, Sylv, however old I am. Though I reckon we’re more like sisters, you and me.’

  Sylvia bit down on her scarlet-stained bottom lip and held out her arms. ‘Come over here and give me a cuddle, you silly great ha’p’orth.’

  Nell hugged her tightly. ‘I can’t remember ever being this happy. Not ever.’

  She had had more loving attention in the time she’d been at the Hope and Anchor than she had experienced in her whole life before she had bumped into Sylvia, on that day when the man had knocked her over. Now Christmas was coming, and Sylvia was promising to put on what she called ‘a really good do’. And then there was Stephen Flanagan.

  Could her life get any better?

  Nell suddenly pulled away from Sylvia, went behind the bar and gave the pumps another unnecessary rub with the rag. ‘I’d better get on.’

  Nell knew Stephen Flanagan was a bit of a sore point with Sylvia for some reason – although she always said she could never explain why – and, she didn’t know how, but Sylvia seemed to be able to read her mind whenever she was thinking about him.

  ‘Nell, you do know how old that man is, don’t you?’

  Nell laughed – not very convincingly. She knew Sylvia was serious about this, and had become even more so over the past few weeks as Nell had grown closer to Stephen. ‘Sylv, I told you, I haven’t even got any idea how old I am, let alone how old anyone else is.’

  Sylvia moved closer to Nell, reached up and brushed her soft fair hair from her forehead. ‘Look at you, however old you are, you’re flipping lovely, Nell. Any man would be proud to have you on his arm, so why bother with an old bloke like Stephen Flanagan?’

  ‘But you’re younger than Bernie.’

  Sylvia shrugged dismissively. ‘But I’m not a kid, am I? You told me you reckon you’re sixteen, and I know I told Bernie you’re eighteen, but me, I truthfully wouldn’t put you at more than fourteen, fifteen at most. And as for Stephen, the man’s got to be at least forty-bloody-five years old, and that’s not including the year he had measles.’

  ‘He’s nice to me, Sylv. He’s kind. And he says such nice things to me.’

  ‘I know, but there’s something about him, Nell.’

  ‘Please, Sylvia, don’t let’s get stuck on this again. We’re opening up soon, and I’ve not even polished the glasses yet.’

  Sylvia leaned her back against the bar, taking in the sparkling bottles on the spotless glass shelves, the glow of buffed wood, and the glint of firelight sparking off the brass. Nell was more than a breath of fresh air; she was a bloody force of nature. Sylvia had never seen the place looking so good or anyone work so hard in all her life. The home might have had a rotten reputation for the way it treated the kids it was supposed to be caring for, but it knew how to train them to graft for a living all right. A few more girls like Nell working for her, and Sylvia would have been able to open a whole chain of pubs, and just sit on her arse all day watching them earning her money. But now Stephen – ‘just one more pint’ – flaming Flanagan had his eye on her. He might have been a big drinker – in fact he was in the pub just about every day – but he wasn’t a stupid man. Far from it. Sylvia always tried to give people the benefit of the doubt, but he made her suspicious for some reason. From what she’d heard he’d had some sort of a turn since his wife had gone amongst the missing. Mind you, who could blame her for doing a runner from him and those horrible twins of his? Good on the woman, whoever she was, was Sylvia’s opinion.

  She closed her eyes and let out a long slow breath. If Nell decided she was going to go off with the old bugger, she’d be like flipping Cinderella, but without the benefit of a fairy godmother. But was she just being selfish, not wanting to lose her?

  Sylvia plastered on a smile. ‘Darling, you do know – and you mustn’t mind me saying this – that all I want is for you to be happy, don’t you? But to be honest with you, love, wouldn’t you miss all this? We have a good laugh working here together, don’t we? And going shopping down the market. Having our cup of tea and toast together. You always love that. You would miss it, I know you would.’

  Nell blinked back the tears that were threatening to show her up in front of Sylvia. ‘Course I’d miss it. All of it. Keeping everything looking nice, having you to talk to.’

  She couldn’t control the urge to cry any longer. What was wrong with her? She’d never been so happy, but she’d never cried so much in all her young life either. ‘And having you as my friend,’ she sobbed. ‘Everything.’

  Sylvia reached across the bar and took Nell’s face in her hands. ‘I’ve always said it: you’re a daft great ha’p’orth. And I’ll never stop being your friend, but I won’t stop worrying about you either. Please, Nell, please think about it.’

  ‘He only wants me to go down the Lane for a wander.’

  ‘Yeah, and –’ Sylvia paused, searching for an explanation that Nell would understand. Not easy, when she didn’t really know what she meant herself. ‘And the snake only wanted Eve to have a little nibble of his apple, if you get my meaning. You’ve been to Sunday school, you know what happened next.’

  Chapter 9

  As usual, Stephen Flanagan came into the Hope and Anchor at half past seven, and, as had happened for the past two months, Nell pulled him his pint of mild and bitter before he even had a chance to ask for it.

  Sylvia watched, skunk-eyed, as the man br
ushed his fingers along Nell’s forearm.

  ‘All right there?’ she snapped, making Stephen pull his hand away, as if she’d just caught him rifling through the till. ‘Over here, Nell, there’s people want serving.’

  While a blushing Nell took orders from a group of animated young doctors from the nearby hospital, Sylvia marched over to Bernie to bend his ear.

  ‘I’m telling you, Bernie, I don’t like the way that that Stephen Flanagan looks at her. And I ask you, did you see him touch her just now? It’s disgusting, enough to make you feel sick. Man of his age. He’s old enough to be her father. No, I’ll change me mind over that one, he’s old enough to be her bloody grandfather.’

  ‘Don’t keep leading off, Sylv, he’s only doing what any other red-blooded man’d do if he was brave enough.’

  Sylvia blinked very slowly. ‘I beg your pardon, Bernard?’

  ‘’Cept me, of course, my little beloved. But while we’re at it, we’re not exactly the same age, now are we?’

  ‘You sound like Nell, but like I said to her: at least I’m a grown woman with a bit of understanding about the ways of the world. She’s so bloody innocent.’ Sylvia shook her head. ‘I just don’t like it. He’s got them two kids that are older than her, and a vacancy for a bloody skivvy to look after the three of them if you ask me.’

  ‘You worry too much, Sylv. You can see in the bloke’s face how taken he is with her. Leave ’em to it and it’ll all work out – it always does. And now,’ he said, pushing back his chair and standing up, ‘if you’ll excuse me, my little firecracker, I am off to have a word with the man himself.’

  Sylvia fussed around, straightening her husband’s already straight braces. ‘Bernie, you know I love you, you great big lump, but why, where that man’s concerned, do I get the feeling that there’s something you’d rather I didn’t know about him?’