The Girl Now Leaving

by Betty Burton

  No backstreet church school teacher was going to intimidate Jacob Ezzard! ‘Because you don’t get it from anyone else?’

  The gloves were off now.

  ‘A mile wide of the mark, Jacob.’ She looked at him with a steady gaze as she lit one of her colourful cigarettes. ‘Corridor creeping is unpleasant but minor. What isn’t minor is Mrs Barfoot and Pansy Morgan.’

  He blenched but kept his head. ‘Mrs who?’

  ‘Oh, come along, Jacob. Let’s at least be straight. I know about that incident. You were on the Bench when she pleaded guilty to manslaughter. Pansy Morgan was pregnant and Mrs Barfoot tried to help her out of trouble. Five pounds Pansy paid, and all she got for it was blood poisoning.’

  His expression hardened. ‘Make your point, Cynthia.’

  ‘You had no business sitting on the Barfoot case. Your brother made the girl pregnant and the five pounds came from Ezzard’s. You should have declared an interest and left the court. But you couldn’t, of course. Your colleagues would be most curious to know what possible connection there could be between a respected businessman and magistrate, and a backstreet abortionist.’

  Jacob Ezzard burned with a sullen, silent anger. ‘You’re a bloody blackmailer!’

  ‘And your brother’s a bloody lecher. And you paid to clear up after him. Except that paying people off doesn’t clear it up. Pansy Morgan was her father’s only support. When she died, he was put in the workhouse.’

  ‘It would be a waste of time trying to bring the case back for a new hearing.’

  ‘Of course it would be a waste of time. But that wouldn’t be the point of it. The point of it would be that people will talk, and they aren’t merely going to say, Sour grapes, they’re going to say, No smoke without fire.’

  ‘You’re a blackmailer.’

  ‘You’ve already said that. Leave Louise Wilmott alone and do something about your brother.’

  He tossed off the rest of the whisky. ‘I don’t know how you know, and I’m not admitting that there is anything to know, but this case was in the lower court months ago. If you thought that you could connect the good name of Ezzard with that business, why wait till now?’

  ‘Because I did not know. I’ve been visiting old Mr Morgan – he died recently. He blamed himself for not asking Pansy earlier why Ezzard’s had started paying her so well, and who gave her the money to go to Mrs Barfoot.’

  ‘Old men will say anything on their deathbeds.’

  ‘I know that. And your fellow magistrates will certainly come to that same conclusion.’

  ‘All this because I foolishly went along the corridor and stood outside the Wilmott girl’s room?’

  ‘All this because next time you might open the door, and there is no way I will stand by and see any more of my girls ruined at the hands of the Ezzard men.’

  * * *

  It wasn’t easy going into work and sitting at her machine after the extraordinary experience. But she did it and, on the first evening back, she went round to collect Eileen Grigg and go down town to have an ice-cream at Palccino’s.

  Lu’s outings with Lena were usually arranged around Lena’s only two interests: films and food. They never really conversed, except in the way of questions by Lu and short, unembellished answers from Lena. The girls they worked with thought that Lu Wilmott was daft wasting her time on Lena. To them it seemed to be all one way, the benefit going to Lena. Lu couldn’t have explained, she could hardly do so to herself, except that there was a particular kind of peacefulness around Lena; she made no demands, except that Lu be there. Lena didn’t care whether Lu was making herself a copy of a skirt she had seen in Vogue, or that she had been away to Paris with Mr Ezzard. She would watch the first film and say, ‘That was good, wasn’t it?’ Eat her ice-cream and say, ‘I like choc ices, don’t you, Lu?’ Watch the big film and say, ‘I’m glad we chose this one.’ Buy her chips and scraps, and say, ‘See you tomorrow then, Lu.’

  The visit to Palccino’s was out of their routine, but Lena wasn’t put out when Lu suggested going there to meet Bar out of work and walk home with her. ‘All right, then, we could have one of their ones with fresh strawberries and cream and a long spoon.’ Lu would have been interested to know how Lena came to have experienced the famous ‘Palccino’s Pink Specials’ already, but Lena was such a secretive person that to ask would be insensitive.

  Bar hushed when she saw Lu and Lena waiting to be served, but she came over with her little notebook and pencil, smiling politely and asked what they would like to order. Before Lena even mentioned the ‘Pink Special’ she said, ‘You’re Lu’s other friend, aren’t you? So am I. We never been here together before, but we come to walk home with you. We want the strawberry one with a long spoon and I’m paying.’ For Lena, a long speech.

  As Bar was writing down the order she whispered, ‘You’re Lena, aren’t you? You knew Lu a long time before I met her, so you’re her oldest friend.’

  Lena nodded and sat back smiling. A Lena smile was a rare thing. When Bar returned with the tall confections, Lena said, ‘I shall see you every Sunday now. I got my own place. I always come in after church, sometimes I have a doughnut and cocoa if it’s a cold morning,’ then stopped the flow of information with a whole, red strawberry.

  Lu and Lena had been going to the pictures for weeks now, but this was Lu’s first insight into the rest of Lena’s life. She had never liked to ask, because there was always the inhibiting memory of what Lena’s life had been before she had been taken away to the Home for Wayward Girls. As they wandered home along the pebble beach, Bar told Lena that she had left home because people never forgot that her pa was a gypsy.

  Lena said, ‘That’s why I got away from Lampeter Street.’

  Bar said, ‘You’re not a gypsy, are you?’

  ‘No, but everybody there knows about me having a bad baby with my brother.’

  For long moments Lu didn’t know what to say, or whether she should say anything.

  Bar handled it better. ‘That isn’t your fault, no more than my pa being a gypsy is mine.’

  Lu couldn’t believe that she had been so deaf or blind to what had happened to Lena. ‘Lena, nobody knows anything about you having a baby. I didn’t know, and I lived in Lampeter Street. You went away to school, I know that, but nobody’s ever said anything about you having a baby. You know Lampeter Street, if anybody had known it would have been up and down the street in ten minutes.’

  ‘Miss Lake knows.’

  ‘Does she? Miss Lake? But she wouldn’t tell anybody, would she, not Miss Lake.’

  ‘The doctor knows, and Mrs Steiner. Mrs Steiner wanted it to be took away, but the vicar wouldn’t.’

  ‘You mean an abortion?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Steiner said it would be better, but the vicar said it was criminal and a sin. Mr Ezzard knows. He got me away from the first place after they took the baby for adoption, and got me into a home where they teaches girls how to earn a living.’

  ‘But Lena, honestly, nobody has the slightest idea about all this. That day when you came back – if anybody had known, it would have been all round the factory.’

  ‘They must know. Didn’t you know?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I wondered why you never said anything. Why do they give me the cold shoulder at the fact’ry if it isn’t because of the bad baby?’

  ‘You don’t speak to them.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t, would I?’

  Bar said, ‘There isn’t any babies that are bad. Babies can’t be.’

  ‘Mine was. It’s because of incest. Do you know what that is? It’s because our Brian was always fuckin’ me.’ She breathed several heavy, puffing breaths down her nostrils. ‘Yes. He did. Yes… She was a little girl. I wanted to see her, but the nurse said, No, she has to go straight away to a good home. I said, Just let me see her, but she said, No, it won’t do no good, she has to go to a good Christian family where she won’t know she was born bad.’

  Suddenly rage
, like a great enveloping wave, swept over Lu, almost taking her breath away. Her emotions and her mind were in a state of agitation, yet it was in her body that she seemed to feel the greatest disorder. Her heart palpitated unevenly, her pulse raced and she felt quite terrified. She picked up pebbles and began smashing them down with all her strength, embedding them in a strand of soft sand.

  When she came to her senses, she realized that the other two were standing quietly watching. Lena said, ‘What’s wrong, Lu?’

  Lu went as close as she could, pushing her face into Lena’s as Lena used to do when they were little. ‘What’s wrong? What they did to you! That’s what’s wrong! They took you away and knocked the stuffing out of you. They took your baby away.’ She began to cry. ‘Bar’s right, there aren’t bad babies. Bad people.’ She clutched Lena’s shoulders. ‘Why didn’t you punch them in the teeth like you used to punch me? Why don’t you punch me now? People did that to you and when you came back all I did was take you to the pictures and buy ice-creams. Why don’t you wrestle me down in the dirt, Lena Grigg? I’d let you win.’

  Bar prised Lu’s fingers from Lena’s shoulders and Lu stood, her arms hanging loose, mucus and tears streaming down her face as though she was a beaten five-year-old. ‘Here.’ Bar pushed a handkerchief at Lu. ‘Your nose is running.’

  For a moment Lu looked at the handkerchief as though she had no idea what it was for; then she went down to the water’s edge and splashed her face with water. The other two came and sat on a ridge of stones beside her.

  Lena asked a bit apprehensively, ‘You didn’t really want me to… did you?’

  ‘I don’t know, Lena. Maybe I did.’

  Later, when Lu and Bar talked quietly in bed about what went on down on the beach, Bar said, ‘It wasn’t you crying and shouting like that, it was Lena. You know, like when a message gets sent through the voice of a seer. The spirit can’t talk so they make somebody else say it for them. She couldn’t talk properly until you got all that off her chest for her.’

  That, coming from anyone else, Lu would have said was a lot of tosh, but coming from Bar it was the most reasonable explanation of something very strange.

  When Lu had calmed down, Lena stopped speaking in her usual short, lifeless sentences and spoke to them naturally, almost fluently. ‘Hitting people don’t do no good, Lu. First off when they shut me up in that place, I punched everybody who come near me. I was that angry that it was me shut up in there and… him whose fault it was didn’t have nothing done to him. I could have killed him… not just hit him, I’d have put a knife in him if he’d a been there. Instead, I just hit them. Anybody. They just hit me harder. The housemother had a little cane, she used to swish it across the backs of your legs. I didn’t care. They made the ones like me who caused all the trouble scrub out the lavs. That winter I had stripes on the backs of my legs and great chilblains. Some of us was sick all the time, but we didn’t care, we just said all right because then we could get miscarriages. I never seemed to matter.’

  Bar said, ‘It must have been a strong little baby.’

  ‘I reckon so. She used to kick the living daylights out of me. It’s a queer thing, being kicked on your insides like that. You can feel the feet through your own skin. I started thinking that’s a person in there, and after that I never wanted to start a miscarriage. I used to call her Feet, and I used to say “Hello, Feet” and “Goodnight, Feet”, but not so anybody else could hear. I started being good then.’

  Bar said, ‘It must be hard going through all that and having a baby, then it gets taken off you.’

  Lu was thinking just that same thing, but couldn’t say so, in case it was the wrong thing, but Bar always knew what to say to make people feel better. Lu was no good at it, so people never knew how she felt.

  ‘They put me out to have the baby because her head got stuck. After, it’s like they took everything out from inside you and left you empty. That must sound daft, but I feels like this—’ she ran her hands down her plump torso – ‘is just like one of them cardboard eggs they have in the shops at Easter to put presents in. They look like they would be solid, but they’re hollow. Oh well.’ She gave a queer little smile. ‘That ice-cream I had down at Palccino’s has got lost in there already. I could do with a bag of chips and scraps. You can come in my place if you like, and I’ll make us a cup of tea.’

  Lu never had any difficulty in hugging or squeezing Bar, but she couldn’t touch Lena; even though she would have liked to, she was too uncertain and inhibited. ‘Come on then,’ Bar said, and put her arm round Lena’s neck, and Lu wished for the hundredth time since she had known Bar that she knew how to be calm and kind like that instead of hot-headed and distant.

  For a few days, Lu felt that she could, or should, never enjoy herself again. As soon as she found herself thinking back to the excitement of Paris, or forward to dressing up in all her splendour, she forced herself to draw back and feed herself some guilt about having had the good fortune not to be Eileen Grigg.

  * * *

  Bar settled in easily, and took a much greater share of the chores than Kenny had ever done. Sometimes, when Bar worked late on Saturday, and Lu was out with Sonia, Ray walked down town to meet her and they meandered back through the late-night markets. A couple of times he took her to a film and once to the theatre, but he never let their relationship be anything but friendly.

  Ray had thought that there was no harm in them enjoying a bit of one another’s company. He still felt that she was far too young for him. And after the episode last Christmas at Roman’s, he decided they should have a platonic relationship.

  Madrid – June 1935.

  Dear Lu and Ray, In case you were wondering or worrying, it is true that there is trouble in Spain which to anyone outside must all seem very complicated, but I don’t go looking for trouble. Some trade-unionists here make the NUR look like the Mother’s Union, Ray.

  When I started out on this ‘working-man’s grand tour’ I had a longing to see this country, as you know, but I never thought I’d be so caught up and inspired (yes, that’s the right word) by life in a republican country. I feel that I am my own man here. I love the place and the people, and would have no trouble in settling down here.

  In some places there is no work to be had, in others there is plenty (labouring, of course, a lot of picking which is back-breaking) so we don’t fling our little earnings about, but keep as much as we can so that we can keep ourselves fed as we walk and walk and walk.

  I wish I was better with words, or that I had a camera or could paint, but come to think of it none of them would do justice to any of the sights I am seeing daily – not all good, and some are pretty terrible, but all memorable. You have to be here, smell the place, feel the hot sun and the bitter winds, taste the tomatoes and wine, burn your throat with chilli peppers. Holiday-makers come here and sit on the shores of the Med, which is nice enough of course, but they miss what’s going on in the small towns.

  I’ve learned to speak quite a mixture of languages – only words, my sentences make people laugh. But I shall get the hang of it, be sure. Hasta luego (see you later), Ken.

  … Have just collected Lu’s letter. What is going on? What on earth did the aunts say to that, Lu? A journey from Paris to Espana, not bad for a lad from Lampeter Street. Hells-bells, our little Lu giving an opinion on the Impressionists. Now it only needs you to take the plunge, Ray. You’d never regret it.

  ‘Wouldn’t you just love to do that?’ she had asked Kate Roles. ‘Just pack your bags and be off?’

  ‘What? Go tramping off amongst foreigners? They eat horses. My dad was there in the Great War, he knows. You got itchy feet going off like that with the boss.’

  * * *

  When, in July, the day of the officers’ mess dance came, Lu had still not told Ray where she was going. Bar knew, and it was she who suggested that if Lu didn’t want him to ask a lot of questions, she should get ready round at Lena’s and get a taxicab from there. As once
or twice a year factory girls were invited into the naval base to a dance, Ray wouldn’t think this any different.

  After she had been to the public baths, Lu took her things to Eileen’s and got ready. Eileen sat, contentedly watching as Lu fastened her stocking to a tiny suspender belt. ‘An’t you going to wear nothing else except French knicks?’

  ‘It would show through. Anyway, the dress don’t need anything under it.’ Lu took out the Lascelles gown from its box.

  ‘Oh, Lu, I thought you was going to wear a ball-gown. It looks like it got into a hot wash by mistake.’

  ‘Just you wait and see. I’ve been waiting for this moment for weeks.’ She stepped into the simple arrangement of straps and pleats and slid her arms into the long sleeves. As she pulled the dress up, the concertina pleats moulded themselves around every dip and curve of her figure. ‘Is the back right, Lena?’

  ‘What there is of it.’

  She arranged the straps correctly. ‘Well? What do you think?’ Lu tried to see herself in the only mirror Lena had, which was a small hanging one.

  ‘Don’t leave much to the imagination, Lu.’

  Lu grinned. ‘I know, lovely isn’t it?’

  ‘It shows your figure off all right, but I wish you’d got one with a big skirt. That one clings tight round your bum – you won’t be able to sit down.’

  ‘I will, look, it stretches everywhere, that’s what’s so clever about it.’

  ‘Haven’t you got nothing to go round your shoulders?’

  ‘No, I don’t want to spoil it with any clutter, just my little bag.’

  When she was finally ready, Lena ran down the road and called a taxicab. As it drew away, Lena stood on the pavement waving, smiling. Lena had started smiling lately. Occasionally she spoke to someone at work. About this same time of year it must have been, when Lu and Bar had been dervishing by The Swallitt Pool, Eileen’s grown-up brother had made her pregnant. Only a few years. It seemed hardly feasible that they could have become the people they now were in so short a time. Eileen’s brother and Ray were the same age. She felt a sudden flash of regret that she had been underhand with Ray. She decided to tell him, and that she was sorry. Then, as the taxicab turned off the sea-front and in through the gates of the Queen’s Hotel, she put Lampeter Street and everything connected with it out of her mind.