The Girl Now Leaving

by Betty Burton

  ‘How many brothers have you?’

  ‘Two, my twin, and then a much younger brother, Dominic – he’s at school here in Southampton. Being a bit of a tyke at the moment. I have to placate his headmaster. I come in for the dressings-down when Dom threatens the good name of the school. I’m sort of Dom’s guardian, parents live abroad much of the time. One in America, one in Brazil. It’s not surprising Dom gets a bit too anarchic for headmasters: it’s his third school in two years. He wanted to leave, but… No! that’s enough about me. Tell me about you.’

  Lu’s daydreams had prepared her for such a question. ‘My parents are both dead. Two brothers, I live with one, the other is travelling on the Continent at the moment. Last time we heard, he was in Spain.’

  ‘I was there in January. An astonishing country. Have you been?’

  ‘No, never, actually. I’m about to cross the water for the first time. Paris.’ That sounded wonderful. She would never invent or tell a lie about herself, especially to a man like David who seemed so open, but she had such good truths now. She would be enigmatic. Allow him to draw what conclusions he liked. She hoped that one conclusion would be that a young woman who could converse well in a classless voice, whose hair had been styled in Southampton’s best salon, and who was about to travel to Paris, could not possibly be a factory hand. He said, ‘Paris in spring. I wish I was going too. How long will you be there?’

  ‘A few days.’

  Sonia returned and he stood up at once. ‘I just want my bag, Louise. Marco wants to leave now. What do you think?’

  ‘It’s all right. You go with Marco.’

  ‘What about you, Louise? Should I leave you with this handsome stranger?’ She smiled at David.

  Damn you Sonia. I can manage this myself. ‘I’ll get a taxicab as I usually do.’

  When David discovered that her taxicab was to take her to the railway station, he asked, ‘Where do you live? Couldn’t I drive you? My car is just down the road.’

  ‘My brother will be waiting at the other end.’ Naturally she did not say that before she reached her waiting brother she would be catching the terminus tram and that he would be waiting up for her at home, sitting by the fire with cocoa ready mixed and some fish and chips keeping warm in the oven.

  ‘Right. Could I write to you?’

  ‘I’m not sure where I’m going to be…’ She was teetering on the edge of having to lie to him.

  ‘The thing is, I’m trying desperately to make sure that you won’t run away a second time without knowing that we will meet again.’

  She couldn’t think. She too didn’t want that.

  ‘How about this?’ He produced a small card from his breast pocket. ‘It’s an invitation to a buffet dance. At the Royal Navy dockyards in Portsmouth.’ He laughed. ‘Well, no need to look so alarmed – officers’ mess affair, lots of gold buttons, very nice food and drink.’

  ‘Are you Navy?’

  ‘No, I’d never stand the discipline. Look, I’ll be staying in Southsea, at the Queen’s Hotel. I’ll write it on the back so you’ll know. If it suits you, we could meet there. It’s not a bad place, on the sea-front. We could have a drink first, if you like. It’s not until mid-July, so you’ll be back from France by then.’

  What flashed through her mind was, did she know anyone who worked there? If she did, then it would be a chambermaid, or someone in the kitchens. An opportunity to go through those splendid doors and into that world where the other half lives was worth the small risk.

  ‘I’d love to come. I’ll be back from France ages before that.’ When she heard herself say that, she could hardly believe this was her own real life, and not something she was dreaming as she machined her way through a morning at Ezzard’s.

  When she got off the Lampeter Street tram, every one of her senses was heightened. Light breezes drifted across at the many intersections of the grid of streets, her heels clicked rhythmically on the pavements. As she passed the great facade of St George’s, the church that dominated the factory area where she worked, the Guildhall clock struck twelve. Cinderella! She twirled as though still dancing. The smell of lilac, drifting over a vicarage wall, added an unbelievable glamour to the night and her thoughts about her prospects.

  The way out is up! Yes. Up in an aeroplane to Paris, and after that up the grand steps leading into the Queen’s Hotel. Up in the world. Her future was lilac-scented, strewn with rose petals, a stairway to the stars.

  Ray, as usual, had waited up. Recently, they had been in a state of truce. When she had come home and said that she had been picked out to be the figure for the new model and would be going to Paris, instead of being thrilled for her, he had behaved as though he was one of the aunts saying that she was too young, it was not a proper thing to do. He had called it a jaunt and that had made her furious. They had rowed, then lived in an atmosphere of chilly politeness. But Lu was determined that she was not going to let him dominate her. When he learned that Miss Lake would be travelling with her, he made an effort to put things right. But Lu had been hurt that he should have thought that she would have anything to do with a mere jaunt to Paris with the boss.

  Slowly the chill had gone out of the atmosphere so that when she saw that he had waited up and was mixing her some cocoa she decided that she had made her stand for long enough. She smiled at him as though nothing had happened. ‘Oh, lovely, I can just fancy that.’

  ‘Nice time?’

  ‘Lovely.’

  In his usual careful way, he put the newspaper he had been reading back together and folded it good as new. ‘Is that your new dress?’

  She turned round to show him the dark gold satin calf-length frock.

  ‘You’re really clever with your needle. You look like you stepped off the front of one of your fashion magazines. Nobody would ever think you worked for a living.’

  ‘I hope they don’t. I don’t want people to know that I’m working class.’

  ‘You don’t have to be ashamed of your class.’

  ‘Why not? They’re rough and coarse and small-minded.’ Oh, no, here they were, off again before she had hardly got into the house. She hadn’t meant Ray, he must realize that, but she had called him narrow-minded when they had blazed away at each other over the modelling job.

  She watched his fingers as he ran them along the folds of the newspaper; familiar, practical fingers that she took for granted until suddenly they seemed terribly special and precious. She would have liked to have caught hold of them, but to do so would have made her so full of emotion that she would probably have cried. It had been Ray’s hands as much as their mother’s that had tended her as a baby. She had told Lu how he used to dip his knuckle into the milk to test the temperature. It had been his hands that had wrung out cloths to keep her temperature down when she had been in crisis with diphtheria. She wanted to tell him that he was such a nice man. Nobody said those things until the person was dead. Everybody was good after they were dead. ‘I didn’t mean you, Ray.’

  ‘Oh, good. Am I just the one exception, or are there others who get your seal of approval?’

  ‘You mean well-mannered, broad-minded, well-read people like Uncle Hec and Mary and the Wilmott aunts?’

  ‘I thought you might approve of Sid Anderson and some of the delegates you met at the Bournemouth conference.’

  ‘They’re different.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’

  ‘They’ve risen above it. They’re not like the people who live around here.’

  ‘So, what are you going to make yourself into? You can’t go on for ever with one foot in the coarse world and one in that one you’ve got when you’re out with Ken’s girl.’

  ‘Don’t let’s fall out again, Ray.’

  ‘What do you expect when you seem hell-bent on joining the middle classes?’

  ‘What’s wrong with them? They don’t hang around chip shops and billiard halls. They speak nicely, and wash, and do more interesting things than us.’

  ‘Of cours
e they do, they’re the ones with the money. They can afford bathrooms and tickets to orchestra concerts; they can travel, and sit in the sun.’

  She wasn’t going to let him be cross, so she quoted his own words. ‘Because they’ve got people like me turning out millions of aprons and corsets and brassieres for the smallest pay-packet they can get away with.’

  ‘We’ll make a union member of you yet.’ He gave her a token peck on the cheek and went to lock up, leaving her with an apron over her gold dress and her hands in soapsuds washing the supper things. What sort of future could she possibly have? The weight of responsibility for his young sister hung heavily on Ray Wilmott’s shoulders.

  She called him back. ‘Ray?’

  ‘That sounds like you’re going to sweet-talk me into something.’

  ‘I was thinking, how about if we asked Bar to come here for a few days?’

  ‘If she’d want to come to Pompey, go ahead, it’s up to you. I’ve got a district meeting next weekend.’

  ‘That’s the week I go away with Miss Lake.’ She no longer spoke of it as going to Paris. ‘I thought the weekend of my birthday.’

  ‘That’s nice, but just don’t go making your arrangements around me. I’ll be really pleased to see her, but don’t go making any more of it than that.’

  * * *

  Bar came on the Friday of Lu’s eighteenth birthday, laden with foxgloves and flags from around Swallitt Pool, Roman’s Fields strawberries, Cowslip cream, and a jelly tart that May said would remind them of Lu’s twelfth birthday, their first Midsummer Day. Ray, who had been to the barber’s and changed into grey flannel trousers and an open-necked shirt after work, took chairs into the back yard and shared the tart with them. Later, the two girls took a punnet of strawberries to eat on the beach, after which they wandered round the late-opening shops and market-stalls. It was such fun that Lu wondered why she had never thought of asking Bar before this. Bar showed her enjoyment at everything. Her questions made Lu look twice at things she had taken for granted. Walking up the impressive steps to get a close look at the stone lions guarding the Guildhall reminded Lu that it was not so long ago that she had been as much in awe of the place as Bar now was. And again, when sitting in a booth at Palccino’s Ice Parlour, as they consumed parfaits with long silver spoons, she admitted, ‘I used to think that this place was too posh for the likes of me.’

  ‘I never even knew there was such places. Southey’s sells Sno-fruits and choc-ices, but fancy having ice-cream in glass vases. Ma would laugh at eating out of a vase.’

  They took tram rides all over the city, sitting on the top deck; they walked on Southsea Pier and had refreshments there; then they walked the sea-front and had afternoon tea prettily served in a cafe, and then on to first house at the Theatre Royal, where Bar could hardly believe the velour curtains, chandeliers, murals and gilded plaster. To pack in as much pleasure as possible, Lu had even ordered refreshments for the interval.

  Bar’s ingenuous pleasure made Lu feel very sophisticated, and dwelling on that thought during the boring second half of the performance, she saw that, compared with all the girls she had known since childhood, she was sophisticated. She had set out to be and it was working. Slowly, bit by bit, she had learned the tricks of ‘doing things right’. Some of her confidence had come via Mr Matthews’ classes on local affairs, knowing that even the grandest and most intimidating buildings were on the whole quite ordinary places inside, containing rooms and curtains and chairs and tables and lavatories, and realizing that even the grandest palace had been made by human beings for human beings. There were really no ‘special’ people in the way that she had seen them as a child. Kings were only kings because other people said that’s what they were, the same as mayors were only mayors. Since Kenny had started writing about republican Spain, Lu had thought a great deal about the monarchy. When Lu asked Mr Matthews, ‘What are they for?’ she found his reply about tradition, stability and order very inadequate. Even so, at the end of the show she stood for the National Anthem, which Kenny had vowed never to do again: ‘If we’ve got to have a national song, then “God Save the People” will do for me,’ he’d said.

  When the girls came out, Ray was waiting. ‘I just thought you might like to go somewhere else.’ It was Bar he was really asking.

  ‘Where?’ Lu asked.

  To Bar: ‘How about the funfair?’

  Lu said, ‘When did you last go to the funfair, Ray?’

  ‘Too long ago. Would you like to, Barbara?’

  ‘If Lu wants to. I love fairs.’

  Lu said, ‘Just don’t ask me to go on anything that goes fast or goes up high.’

  Which left the side-shows, cars and rocking-boats for the three of them together, and the switchback, big-wheel, and all the other spinning and whirling rides for Ray to ride with Bar, who clung to him, thrilled and bubbling over with enjoyment. On the long walk from the seafront to Lampeter Street, Ray walked between them, linking arms. He stopped to buy three bags of chips, and when they crossed over the railway bridge, they leaned on the parapet whilst Ray pointed out to Bar the office where he worked, and answered her questions about what he did there and about the other men. He told the traditional railway stories about horrific accidents, headless corpses, crashes prevented by some brave soul in the nick of time, trains that jumped the lines, and the dodges people found to travel without paying. Lu thought that she had never heard him talk for so long about the railway without once mentioning his beloved union.

  Back at Lampeter Street, where Bar couldn’t get over how many people were about at night, and how light it was on the streets, the three of them sat with their feet on the fender and talked about Ken, and Roman’s Fields, and Bar’s favourite horses and the ones that were devils. ‘I kept my eyes about me today, just in case I might see Duke. I keep thinking he might come over to Wickham Fair. I always ask them, but they’re a close lot, my pa’s people. He says, if Duke wants us to know, he knows where we live. And that’s the trouble. Dad don’t want to roam. He’s took to living on the Strawbridges’ land.’

  Later, when Lu and Bar were in bed, Lu pinning her hair down and Bar plaiting hers into a long fat pigtail, Lu said, ‘I shouldn’t worry about Duke. I expect when he’s king of the gypsies he’ll have to tell you.’ Lu too, whenever she heard the clop of horses pulling drays and floats in town, without being too conscious of the connection of that sound with Duke, would look to see who the driver was.

  ‘He never could, because he’s only a half-breed. Duke couldn’t ever be a king, he comes from the wrong sort of family.’

  Lu said, ‘My teacher at evening school reckons that if people really want to change something, and if enough people decide it must be changed, then it will be changed.’

  ‘Do you believe that?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’d really like it to be true.’

  ‘What would you change, then?’

  ‘I…’ She paused then went on vigorously, ‘Oh, there’s so much! Wherever would I start? I’d do something so that people who had to work in factories got a say in what goes on there. I’d make bosses talk to us like we were human beings. They think that if we had windows we’d be forever looking out, but we wouldn’t, we’d just have more fresh air so that we didn’t get half dopey with fumes from the boiler and the stuffy air.’

  ‘Why do you put up with being treated so bad?’

  ‘Why do you?’

  ‘Because of who I am. At least on the estate they leave me pretty much to my own.’

  What must it be like to be Bar? Her life straddled two camps as well, but nothing like the two Lu inhabited.

  ‘If I lived here, it wouldn’t matter being a Barney. Towns are exciting, you can’t hardly walk down a street without finding out something you haven’t ever seen before. All the stuff you’ve got – trams so you can get about anywhere, you just wait and it comes along and it takes you where you want to go. You got pavements to walk on everywhere. You know what it’s like out our
way, if a van or a wagon comes tearing along, sometimes you have to jump in the ditch or up in the hedge, and when it rains it kicks up mud. And there’s all these different places to look for work.’

  ‘Different, but factory girls are factory girls everywhere. They pay you what they like, and if you don’t like it then you can leave, and you won’t get more anywhere else because the owners get together and fix piecework rates.’

  ‘So why don’t fact’ry girls get together? There’s a lot more of you than them.’

  Lu laughed, ‘Ray would love you saying that.’

  Bar blushed. ‘Why would he?’

  ‘Because he thinks trade unions solve everything. Of course, he might be right, but I don’t see how we’re ever going to find out.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Too many women with kids to feed.’

  ‘Ray told me once that girls like you could do it. You haven’t got kids to feed, you wouldn’t starve, you got Ray and your aunty would send you down boxes of food on the train.’

  Lu laughed. ‘Strawberries, Cowslip butter and stickbeans.’

  ‘Your uncle’s got a couple of porkers now, and another sow about going to farrow. Good ones, they’d send you bits of belly pork. You wouldn’t starve, Lu.’

  ‘Who’d pay the rent and gas and coal?’

  Bar lay back on her pillow, gazing at the ceiling, smiling at her foolproof plan. ‘I could get a job here and be your lodger, and I’d put in share and share alike.’

  Lu leaned on her elbow and looked tenderly at her friend. ‘Bar, you working in a factory? You wouldn’t last a month away from your horses.’

  ‘Why not? You’re all right.’

  ‘Are you serious, would you like to live in Portsmouth?’

  ‘Like a shot out of a gun. I’d give anything to live like you. You go to all those classes, you got girls your own age to talk to all day, you can go out at night… look at it, streetlights still on – you can buy chips when it’s near midnight – and look at the shops… Everything in the whole world anybody could want.’