Peggy stopped for breath and Sally said in a low voice, ‘God forgive her if it’s true. To take a father from young children like them.’
‘I don’t think it is true,’ Cathy declared. ‘I think Bella Menzies is jumping to conclusions. Maybe her husband’s scarpered but it doesn’t mean Elsie’s with him. Someone would have suspected something before now.’ She suddenly thought of Elsie’s strange behaviour and fell silent.
Her mother said quietly, ‘Put the kettle on, Cath. Have a cup of tea, Peggy?’
She stood up. ‘No thanks. I’ll have to go back to the shop. I forgot to get my messages with the excitement.’
‘She’s afraid of missing something,’ Cathy said as Peggy dashed away, but she spoke absently. She looked at her mother. The same thought was in both their minds. What about Sarah?
‘Do you think it’s true, Mam?’ Cathy said. ‘She has been acting queer lately.’
‘I wouldn’t have thought it of her,’ Sally said. ‘But Bella Menzies must have more to go on than them being seen at Lime Street. I know I should be thinking of Bella and her children, Cath, but it’s Sarah I’m worrying about.’
‘Me too,’ Cathy said. ‘But surely Elsie wouldn’t let her down after promising so long ago?’
‘If Bella’s right, letting Sarah down will be the last thing Elsie’s worrying about,’ Sally said dryly. ‘If she can take a father from his children—’
‘I’m going to take a walk down to the shop,’ Cathy said decisively. ‘It might all be just a rumour.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Sally said, and within a few minutes they were walking down Plumpton Street. It was a time when women would normally be busy indoors but little knots of them stood about, talking eagerly.
‘It looks all too true,’ Sally said, as they hurried along past the gossiping women until they reached the shop.
The door was closed and when they looked through the window they could see that there were no flowers, only a tea chest containing moss and wires and a few vases.
Mrs Gorman from the fruit shop next door came out.
‘Hello, are you looking for Elsie?’ she asked. ‘She wasn’t here yesterday either, and I’m told she’s run off with a married man, a feller with five young children. Would you credit it? Mind you, she’s been awful funny with people these last few weeks.’ She came and stood beside them, looking through the shop window.
‘She buys her flowers every morning, so there’s no stock to worry about, only the moss for the frames, and it’s a lock-up rented shop. I think we’ve seen the last of her,’ Mrs Gorman said.
‘What about Nellie the apprentice?’ Cathy asked.
‘She give her the sack the night before last,’ Mrs Gorman said. ‘I seen her going home crying. I’d heard things, mind you, but I never put two and two together. Our Jinny saw Elsie sloping through the back entries to Brunswick Road a couple of times, and I got told this morning the feller worked there.’
Cathy and Sally walked away from the shop, wondering how they would tell Sarah.
When she arrived home at lunch time it was clear by her white face that she had already heard the news. ‘Never mind, love,’ Cathy comforted her. ‘You remember Mrs Malloy I often tell you about? She always used to say God never closes one door without He opens another, and it’s true. Something else will turn up for you, pet.’
‘No wonder Elsie was so queer lately,’ Sarah said. ‘I suppose it was a guilty conscience.’ Cathy was not so sure but she only told Sarah about Nellie’s being sacked.
‘It could have been worse. You could have started work there,’ she said.
A few weeks later Peggy told them that the Hammond house had been cleared. ‘I seen the door open,’ she said. ‘So I went in because it might have been someone robbing the place.’
‘Oh, Peggy,’ Sally said, laughing. ‘You went in to nose.’
‘Anyway,’ Peggy said, ‘some fellers were packing things up and I said to them: “What are you doing with Miss Hammond’s stuff?” They said it was all right then this posh feller come out of the parlour and told me Miss Hammond had instructed them to clear the house, so there was nothing for me to worry about. Did you ever hear the like? That wasn’t no sudden things, running off like that. She had it all planned, the crafty bitch.’
‘Poor Mrs Hammond,’ Sally said with a sigh. ‘I can see now why she had no heart to live. She must have known what was going on.’
‘Trust Peggy to go nosing in,’ Cathy said when her mother told her what she had learnt. ‘She’s enjoying this. It’s a bit of excitement, as far as she’s concerned.’
‘Don’t begrudge it to her, love,’ Sally said quietly. ‘If it can take her mind off her worries.’
‘Yes. I suppose you’re right, Mam,’ Cathy said, looking shamefaced. Peggy had many worries. Several of her sons and sons-in-law were out of work and had been for some time. Michael, the only son still at home, had always been delicate, but in desperation had taken a job in a foundry. He came home every night exhausted by the long hours of work and the heat, and with small burns caused by the splashing of molten metal.
‘I wouldn’t let the wind blow on him when he was little,’ Peggy mourned to Sally. ‘This’ll kill him but he’s determined to keep the job. Mind you, our Robbie or Chrissie’s husband would give their right arms for the chance of a job there, bad as it is.’
Chrissie came often to her mother’s with her thin, poorly dressed children, and Peggy did her best to provide a good meal for them every time they came, and a parcel of food to take home. Although only in her thirties Chrissie, thin and haggard, looked more like a woman of fifty. She had two sets of twins and four other children. Sally bought clothes from the wardrobe dealer she had dealt with when Cathy’s children were younger, and between them she and Cathy unpicked the clothes and made dresses for Chrissie’s girls and trousers for the boys. Peggy paid two shillings a week clothing club for Chrissie to buy shoes for the family, but the money was unobtrusively given to Peggy by Sally.
Peggy herself had little money to spare. Her husband Jimmie worked in the same yard as Lawrie, but he had never given all of his wages to his wife as Lawrie had done, or shared Peggy’s burdens as Lawrie shared Sally’s. He loved his wife and children, though, and Lawrie always declared, ‘Jimmie Burns is a good fellow. He’s as good a husband as he knows how to be, only he copies how his father was.’
Jimmie had injured his back at work and although he could still walk was in constant pain. He went doggedly to work but every night went straight to the nearest public house and drank brandy to dull the pain.
‘I sometimes think I’d be better off if he gave up work,’ Peggy said bitterly to Sally. ‘For all that’s left of his wages after the brandy’s paid for.’
‘But he might still need it if he was at home,’ Sally pointed out. ‘And you’d have to feed him all day.’
Although Peggy worried so much about Michael, she knew she could not have managed without his wages, especially as she had her orphaned grand-daughter to keep.
Peggy had other worries too. Her son Rob had been out of work and receiving relief for several years when his only child left school and managed to obtain a job in the doll factory.
‘She’ll get nine shillings a week and Rob’s been getting thirteen shilling and sixpence to keep the three of them. They’re desperate, Sal, and they thought the girl’s money would be the salvation of them.’ Peggy started to cry. ‘Poor Molly has tried. She got flour sacks and she’s used them for everything. Towels, teatowels, even underclothes.’
‘I know Mollie’s a good girl,’ Sally said. ‘I remember when her and Rob got married I told him he was a lucky lad, because she’d make him a good wife.’
‘And she has, but God knows it’s been hard going for them. And now this. They were made up when young Esther got the job but when Molly went for the relief they told her it was cut to five and six a week,’ Peggy said. ‘They took eight shillings off them because of Esther’s wages.’
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‘But the girl’s going to need fares and carry out and something in her pocket.’
‘Molly said that, but the woman on the committee said she could walk to work, and she shouldn’t expect pocket money. It was her duty to give all her wages to her parents. Old cow! The bloody women on them committees are worse than the men,’ said Peggy. ‘This one had an answer for everything. Molly said Esther couldn’t walk to the South End to the job because her shoes were so bad, and she couldn’t go to work in the poor clothes that were all she had.’
Peggy wept again and Sally said indignantly. ‘Surely they could see the point of that? Thirteen and six would only keep them alive. It wouldn’t leave anything for clothes.’
‘The old cow said Molly would have an extra shilling with the five and six and Esther’s nine shillings and she could buy clothes with that. Molly said she sneered and told her: “And as for carry out, as you call it, give her what she would have eaten at home.” And she smirked round at the fellers on the bench.’
‘God forgive her!’ Sally said. ‘Never mind, Peg, I got a lovely dress and bolero from the wardrobe dealer. Me and Cathy’ll make something nice for young Esther. And, listen – I’ll mug her to a pair of shoes to start work, but you tell her you bought them for her.’
‘But it doesn’t seem right. You should get the credit for it,’ Peggy protested.
‘I don’t want the credit, I’m glad to help,’ Sally said. ‘I know what she’s going through – Molly, I mean. I had a bit of that myself when the girls were young, and Mrs Malloy helped me out, so that’s the way it goes. We all take our turn.’
‘I’ve never been able to do much for anyone,’ Peggy said with a sigh.
‘Don’t be daft,’ Sally said. ‘Look what you did for your Mabel, and then you took the baby when her and Sidney died, and Meg’s had every care. Anyway, Peg, with the houseful you had there was never anything to spare.’
‘You spoke a true word there,’ Peggy said. ‘I was just getting on me feet with a few of them working when the war came, and the next thing they all got married and the house cleared out. You were lucky you only had the two.’
Sally turned away and fiddled with the fire irons, then said in a low voice, ‘I don’t know about lucky, Peg. I’d have given anything if only my little lad had lived.’
‘Oh, God, I’m sorry, Sally,’ Peggy exclaimed. ‘Me and my big mouth. I’d forgotten about the stillborn lad you had.’
‘Well, it was all a long time ago, even before you came to live here, so I wouldn’t expect you to remember. Now, thank God, I’ve got Greg. He’s like a son to me, and I’m sure Sam would be as thoughtful if he lived near.’
‘Yes, your girls both fell on their feet, didn’t they?’ Peggy said wistfully. Sally lifted down the handleless teapot from the mantelpiece and took five shillings from it. ‘Get Esther’s shoes with that, Peg,’ she said. ‘But mum’s the word. Will you have another cup of tea?’
‘No thanks, I’d better get back and get my curtains up in the parlour,’ Peggy said. She began to laugh.
‘You know I put newspapers up to the windows while the curtains were down. When Sarah came with that dish, she was very nearly standing on her head trying to read the paper while she was waiting on the step.’
‘That child would read tissue paper if there was nothing else,’ Sally said. ‘Lawrie and Cathy and Greg are all fond of reading but I’ve never seen anything like Sarah. Always got her head in a book.’
It was true that Sarah was reading more than ever since her hopes of becoming a florist had been dashed because with a book she could escape to another world and forget her disappointment. The shop stood empty and abandoned, until just before Sarah left school at Christmas it was let again to a cobbler. Elsie seemed to have disappeared without trace.
Josie was inclined to think that her flight could prove an advantage for Cathy. ‘Your Sarah can get a job and bring something in when she leaves school at Christmas,’ she said. ‘I always thought you’d have been mad to let her work for nothing.’
‘But she’d have been trained,’ Cathy said. ‘If she’d passed the scholarship we’d have had nothing from her until she was sixteen anyway.’
‘You want to get her in a factory,’ Josie advised. ‘That’s what I’m going to do with our Edie. I’ve asked Betty Ashcroft about Crawford’s because I know she’s spoken for their Lucy there.’
‘Betty seems to like it there, doesn’t she?’ Cathy said. ‘I know she gets broken biscuits for Mam and Peggy Burns, and Mam told me Betty was in a netball team there.’
‘She told me to tell Edie to write in and ask if there were any vacancies, and said she would mention her name,’ Josie said. ‘You want to get Sarah to do the same.’
‘I’d like to get her into another florist’s like Fishlock’s but I don’t think we’ll be able to,’ Cathy said. ‘Elsie told me they all want premiums, but she’d take Sarah for nothing.’
‘I wouldn’t take much notice to what she told you, the sly faggot,’ Josie said. ‘All that going on, and us feeling sorry for her because she was on her own without her mam.’
‘Greg blames the man, Luke Menzies,’ said Cathy. ‘He says he was the one who had responsibilities and should have honoured them. He says he was trying to have his cake and eat it.’
‘Walter’s just the opposite,’ Josie said. ‘He says it’s always the woman to blame, like in the Bible it says “The woman tempted me”.’
‘That always seemed wrong to me,’ Cathy argued. ‘Adam blaming Eve. He didn’t have to eat the apple.’
Josie laughed aloud. ‘Just listen to us,’ she said. ‘Picking faults with the Bible.’
Cathy laughed too but then she said more seriously, ‘Greg was defending Elsie. I was so mad for Sarah’s sake I was calling her for everything, and he said that Luke Menzies must have asked her to run away with him when she was feeling low after her mother’s death.’
‘Like you said about Adam, she didn’t have to do it,’ Josie declared. ‘No, I blame her.’
‘Well, whoever’s to blame, poor Bella’s left with all the problems and Sarah’s been let down,’ Cathy said. ‘I only hope they think it’s worth all the trouble they’ve caused.’
Sarah’s teacher knew of her disappointment and promised to give her a letter of introduction to another florist’s shop nearby. A few days after leaving school Sarah went into the shop and, too shy and nervous to speak, handed the letter to one of the assistants who brought the manageress.
She read the letter then called Sarah to the end of the counter. ‘This is a good recommendation, love,’ she said kindly. ‘I see you were hoping to work for Elsie Hammond and that you can make frames and wire flowers. I’d like to take you but we just haven’t got a vacancy, you see, but I’ll keep this letter and keep you in mind.’
‘Thank you,’ Sarah whispered, not really surprised at being refused. She had sent applications to several places, including Crawford’s. A reply came from the biscuit factory acknowledging her application and promising to file it.
‘That means they’ll call you for interview when there’s a vacancy,’ Edie told her. She had been accepted and was now the proud owner of a bicycle paid for at one shilling a week on which she rode to the factory in Edge Lane every day.
‘I hope you get in,’ she told Sarah. ‘The money’s good and the work’s nice and clean. I’m making cartons for cream crackers, but when I’m older I’ll go on the web on piece work and earn more.’
‘The web?’ echoed Sarah, looking puzzled.
‘The conveyor belt,’ Edie said impatiently. ‘It’s a sort of canvas belt that goes past the tables where the girls work. There’s tables down each side of it with three girls to each table. The crackers come past on the web and one girl takes some off and weighs them, then she puts them in a sort of tin thing with four spaces and the other two girls take them off and wrap them.’
‘How many tables?’ Sarah asked.
‘About eight each side,
’ Edie said. ‘The girls are real quick and they don’t half make good money. We’ve got to be quick with the cartons and all to keep up with them. There’s hundreds altogether in the packing room and there’s always something going on. I love it.’
Sarah looked doubtfully at Edie. It all sounded rather daunting to her although she could believe that Edie, big and self-confident, enjoyed it.
Cathy shared Sarah’s doubts. ‘I’d worry about Sarah in a big crowd of girls like that,’ she told her mother. ‘She’s so shy.’
Sarah’s name was also on a waiting list at the pen works, as the fountain pen factory near Hope Street was known locally, but before she was called to either place she had been offered a job in a bread and cake shop where the manageress was a friend of her grandmother.
‘Mam cast her bread on the water by helping Mabel when her husband died,’ Cathy said to Josie, ‘and it’s come back in the form of a job for Sarah.’
‘She’d have been better waiting for Crawford’s,’ Josie said. ‘The money won’t be as good in a shop.’
‘No, but she won’t have any fares to pay and she’ll be able to come home for her dinner,’ Cathy said. She said nothing to Josie about her doubts about Sarah working in a crowd.
Sarah was happy from the start in the cake shop. The manageress, Mabel Burroughs, was a plain woman, tall and angular, with large hands and feet, but she had a sweet smile and a pleasant manner, and was kind and encouraging towards Sarah.
The owner and his wife ran the bakery behind the scenes but in the shop Mabel ruled supreme.
‘I’m pleased with Sarah,’ she told the owner in Sarah’s hearing. ‘She’s a good little girl, very quick and willing to learn, and she’s polite to the customers.’
‘If she suits you, Mabel, that’s all right,’ Mrs Dyson said. ‘Me and Albert have got enough to do in the bakehouse without worrying about out here.’
On the first Saturday of her working life Sarah came home at seven o’clock and proudly handed her mother her wages of twelve shillings, a box of cakes and two loaves.
‘Mrs Dyson gave me them,’ she said. ‘She thinks I’m making a good shape, and if I work hard I’ll do well.’
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