The Girl Now Leaving

by Betty Burton

  Nellie shouted for someone to fetch a bowl of water. There was a general unhelpful move by some of the girls. Others stood around helplessly. There was nothing to fetch it in. ‘Isn’t there a bowl in this whole shop, George?’ George watched the growing pool of blood as Lu made an effort to bind the wound with her apron. Nellie shouted at George, ‘Move, you useless article! Get that fruit-bowl thing from your office. Bring your brandy bottle, and tie up that dog!’ Nobody had ever heard Nellie speak so harshly, or seen George move so fast.

  George sloshed brandy into a teacup and held it to Kate’s white lips. ‘Come on, sweetheart, come on,’ he said, shocked into gentleness. ‘Take a sip of this. Go on, just a sip, Katy love, that’s my girl. Good girl, good girl.’ When she pushed the cup away, George drank it himself. He looked as though he needed it.

  ‘We’ll have to get her to the hospital,’ Lu said.

  ‘No, I’ll be all right.’ She trembled violently, then grew cold and clammy, beads of sweat formed on her brow and upper lip. She became deathly pale. ‘I couldn’t help it, the hair-slide broke and it all fell down.’ She began to cry, then, when she caught sight of Lu, who seemed to have blood everywhere, she collapsed again into a dead faint.

  Lu said, ‘Get her to your office, George. Phone for an ambulance.’

  ‘I can’t, there’s no outside line down here.’

  Lu flew out of the factory. Taking no notice of the protests of Mr Ezzard’s secretary, she ran through the outer office and, without hesitation, opened Mr Ezzard’s door. ‘There’s been a terrible accident. Kate Roles’s hair caught in the driving belt and her scalp’s torn away from her head. She’s lost a lot of blood. You’ve got to get her to hospital.’

  His secretary appeared at Lu’s side, waiting for instructions to throw her out, but Lu was a daunting and bloody sight.

  He too seemed intimidated and, waving his secretary away, reached for a telephone and ordered his driver to take the car over to the ground-floor machine shop. ‘Go with her.’

  Lu turned on her heel. ‘Thank you.’

  It was only when she was pushing her way past the clerks and typists gaping at the astonishing scene that she realized how bloodstained she was.

  The surgeon ordered Kate to be kept in hospital, and when Lu went to visit her that evening, Kate’s father and mother were already there. The ward sister said testily, ‘You can’t go in there – only two visitors at a time!’

  Lu bore into her the same self-confident gaze that had made Mr Ezzard move. ‘I’m probably more concerned about my friend than you are, so you can be sure I won’t do anything to make her worse. I’ll be five minutes, that’s all.’

  Before the sister could cite matron and hospital rules as higher authorities, Lu had walked on into the ward. Mrs Roles started back when Lu appeared round the curtain. ‘Only two visitors,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll go.’ Lu pressed her back down into the only visitor’s chair. ‘I shall only be a minute. I just wanted to see what they said.’

  Tears welled in Kate’s eyes. Mrs Roles said, ‘Katie love, they never said it was definite.’ To Lu she said, ‘One of them said that her hair might not grow again… it wasn’t very tactful.’

  ‘I might as well be bald all over as just in a patch. And it hurts, Lu, you’ve got no idea how much your scalp can hurt.’

  Mrs Roles said, ‘Don’t get worked up, Katie, it never does no good to work yourself up when you’re bad. It could a been worse.’

  Mr Roles said angrily, but keeping his voice low, ‘Aye! If the scarf had a got round her neck she could a been throttled. They should a let that bloody sweatshop burn when it was going. If you had a union, the lawyers’d fight for compensation for an accident like this. I’d like to see him in court, but folk like us haven’t got that sort o’ brass.’ Mr Roles, like Ray, was a railwayman, and so could safely talk glibly about unions. He also came from the north, where people did not seem so prone to tugging their forelocks.

  Surprising herself, Lu said, ‘I’m going to start one.’

  Yes! It was as though the last digit in a coded sequence had been entered, tumblers fell into place, and the door to her subconscious swung open to reveal an idea almost ready-formed.

  ‘You’ll not work as a staymaker any more if you do.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You’ll be needing help.’

  ‘I know that too.’

  ‘You can count on me.’

  * * *

  After she left the hospital, Lu went round to Lena’s to see if she was all right. In the confusion she had forgotten her. Although her brother had not yet bothered her, she still waited for Lu to walk her back to her room after work. It was disappointing that she had returned to her old uncommunicative self just as she seemed to have begun to come out of her shell. Occasionally Bar would bring home a magazine left discarded by a Palccino’s customer, or the last of a box of biscuits which Mama had told her to take, and drop in with them to Lena’s room, staying there for a couple of hours. When Lu asked what they talked about when she wasn’t there, Bar said, ‘I don’t know. Nothing much. She likes me to tell her hand. It isn’t a good hand, so I read the good bits, which is that she’s good with her fingers and she’s got a strong lifeline. Actually, you don’t have to talk to Lena if you don’t want to, so it’s quite a nice change after being nice to customers all day long.’

  What were they going to do about Lena, though? When Kenny had gone away to live his dream, he hadn’t had any Eileen Griggs or Bar Barneys or Kate Roleses to think about.

  * * *

  The spur-of-the-moment decision to try to start up a union caught fire. She felt certain she could do it. So, on the following evening, she went to call on Nellie, whose cooperation would be vital. Nellie, without her cap and large white apron, was quite transformed. Her hair was white and fluffy, and she was wearing a soft dress with a bar-brooch on the bosom, and a locket on a chain round her plump throat.

  ‘I called round at the hospital. Oh, poor Katie, she’s always been that proud of her hair. They used to call her Buttercup when she was little, but then you’d know going to the same school. Fred, this is Lu, one of my girls.’

  ‘Sit yourself down. You just caught us right, we’ve been to a meeting.’

  ‘That’s just what I’ve come about.’

  Nellie smiled, ‘Not a Baptist meeting, though.’

  ‘No, a meeting to start a union.’

  ‘Do you know what you’d be taking on? I don’t know that it’s a job for an eighteen-year-old.’

  ‘I can do it.’

  Nellie nodded thoughtfully. ‘I believe you can, Lu.’

  Fred Tuffnel said, ‘Why not? It don’t take anything except a bit of guts and an ex-marine on the door to keep out any riff-raff.’

  ‘All right,’ Nellie said, ‘we’ll help. It’s time we got on an’ did something instead of hoping and praying.’

  * * *

  Seeing Nellie and her husband like that gave Lu heart.

  A meeting was arranged in the greatest secrecy, and in secrecy too they were visited by a Mr Gus Greenfield, who already had experience of establishing a branch of the Garment Workers’ Union in the West Country. It was all a bit fraught having to organize it under the very noses of the Ezzards, and they were forced to distribute leaflets only on the day of the meeting. But Gus Greenfield seemed confident that, if it had worked in his part of the country, it would work anywhere.

  It was March now, and although the evenings were getting lighter, it would be cold in the hall. Lu became ever more anxious and edgy. She knew their opponents well enough to understand that this was the only real chance they had of a shot; if it misfired there wouldn’t be a second. But if it worked… If it worked then tonight they would form a branch and sign up members, but from then on they would be forced to function under cover, because it was a dead certainty that anyone found having a paid-up card would be O-U-T, fast. They had no idea how many would turn up; all they could do was hope. It was an upstairs h
all, so that with Fred TufFnel and Mr Roles, who knew just about everyone in the area, they felt fairly certain that they could keep an eye out for anybody who might be there to make trouble. They knew that it was bound to get back to the Ezzards after tonight, but hoped that enough people would turn up to feel that there was safety in numbers.

  When Lu was still bothered about whether it was fair asking people to risk their jobs, Fred Tuflnel said, ‘It’s always been a fight between Them and Us. We have to fight.’

  Nellie said, ‘When I was a girl, women didn’t have a vote – it all had to be fought for. In the end all the factories are going to have to let in the unions.’

  Before Lu left for work that morning, Bar said that she would see if Lena was all right and then come on to the meeting. ‘You look as white as a sheet,’ she said to Lu. ‘You eat something before you go or you won’t be any good to anybody this evening.’

  ‘I already feel sick with fright, and that’s the truth. I told Ray not to come, I should feel worse knowing he was there.’

  ‘You’ll be all right. You’re good with words.’

  ‘I shan’t remember any of them if there’s a room full of people.’

  ‘Just fix your eyes on me and you’ll be all right. I shall be proud of you.’

  ‘What would I do without you, Bar?’

  ‘You’d stop eating altogether and drop down through a crack in the floor.’ There were times when she reminded Lu of little Bar as she had first seen her, carrying the tray of milk and Sunny Jim’s.

  ‘I don’t think I ever met anybody so contented with what they’ve got.’

  ‘That’s because I’ve got everything. I used to wish I could be like you and live in Portsmouth, and then my dream came true and I do.’

  How could anyone have a dream to live out in this place? For Lu to live her dream there would need to be ancient olive groves and sunshine, or mountains with winding tracks leading to ancient walled cities, or a place like Paris or New York where the people were elegant and interesting. Her dream could be lived in any number of places – but not here. Not here in Pompey.

  She’d have to leave to do that. This morning they had received a letter from Kenny. Although he didn’t write a lot about the threat to the new republic, it was worrying what was happening in Spain: the uprisings, the threat from the Fascist powers on its borders. Lu went almost daily into the public reading room of the library to see what she could find in the newspapers about the area in which Kenny was working. Worrying and inspirational. In Spain, long before the people took over, there must have been any number of small groups doing the sort of thing the Ezzard’s workers were doing. In one of Kenny’s letters he had said the most powerful nation in the world was the nation of workers. Lu had liked that. It was the kind of inspiring statement she had heard that time at Bournemouth, the kind of thing that cheered people up.

  She knew, though, without it having to be spelt out, that she was about to reach some kind of peak, some crossroads; that the various threads of her life over the last seven or eight years were coming together and making some kind of significant pattern. But, for the time being she was too involved in what was going on day to day, minute to minute, to think about it.

  One thing was for sure, though: she would be called to Mr Ezzard’s office and made to account for herself before she was sacked. Maybe she wouldn’t even be given that satisfaction, and would find herself being given her marching orders by George, or even shut out by the gateman.

  * * *

  Mr Tuffnel was already guarding the outer door and Mr Roles waiting with a collecting bag upstairs when Lu arrived. Mr Roles patted Lu’s back. ‘Good lass. We brought our Katie home today. She reckons she’s coming to the meeting, but it depends who gets top-side in the argument wi’ the missis.’ He smiled, proud of his two strong-minded women. ‘I’d back ower Kate. If she comes, she’ll have summat to say.’

  By seven-fifteen, only about thirty of the seats were taken. Spread around the hall, this audience looked very sparse. Gus Greenfield arrived, his West Country voice assuring them that people would come. ‘Last minute. The fellers’ll be having a pint, and the maids putting on their faces. You won’t get none of the women who’ve had little childer.’

  He handed her a cigarette straight from the packet, lit it with the match cupped as he would for a mate.

  Soon the room was two-thirds full, then more and more people began streaming in. ‘You see, my gel, I told you it a be standing room only. When the time’s right for summat like this, it will go.’

  And then they were on the platform. Gus Greenfield and Lu. She felt pale and sick, her throat was dry and her hands cold and clammy, and she knew if she should unclasp them they would tremble uncontrollably. Her stomach was rumbling horribly; she hoped the sound wouldn’t carry beyond the table.

  Gus Greenfield said something formal. Lu tried to attend but she was thinking of what she had in her notes, at the same time scanning the audience for Nellie or Bar or anybody she knew; but without aprons and scarves tied round their hair, all the women seemed to be strangers. By the time she returned her attention to Mr Greenfield, he was getting towards the end of his remarks about the need for unity, about recognizing that labour and capital had equal value, and about the benefits of a unionized workforce to workers and management alike.

  ‘But this is not my show tonight. This is an inaugural meeting, the start of a new branch of the Garment Makers’ and Tailors’ Union…’

  As Lu looked, more and more unknown faces became people she recognized. Workers from other factories, but who lived in the Lampeter area had come. They’d be saying, She’s only one of the Wilmotts. You know, her dad was that sailor who drowned, brother of him that drives the beer-lorry. Who the ’ell do she think she is? She wished she could run away, but she was trapped by her own cockiness now.

  Then, at the side of the hall, she saw Bar’s familiar topknot of black hair tied with a red ribbon, and standing close beside her was Ray. She should have known he wouldn’t be able to stay away, was glad that he hadn’t. She spotted Nellie, standing as she did in the factory, arms folded across her large bosom. Then Miss Lake! Miss Lake winked… surely she had winked?

  ‘…and she is a local young woman, who knows the staymaking industry, having worked in it as a skilled machinist for several years. Miss Louise Wilmott.’ He turned to Lu and suddenly she was on her feet.

  The voice she heard coming from her own mouth was amazingly clear, unbelievably confident as she said how glad she was that so many people had been willing to come and sit in a cold room on a Friday evening. ‘But we shouldn’t look upon it as giving up the picture-house or the pub, because we’re doing something for ourselves. We’re not here by permission of our bosses, we are here because we want to be, we need to be. We are here because many of us believe that it is high time the health-hazards, the long hours, the unpaid work, the shut-outs, the stand-offs and poor pay need to be talked about openly. There’s nothing shameful in expecting good, safe working conditions and honest payment.’

  A burst of applause surprised her, and when she looked up from her notes, Kate Roles was taking a seat on the end of a row, bits of her buttercup hair ringleting from a silk scarf fastened by a diamante brooch covering her bandages.

  Abandoning her prepared speech she said, ‘I was going to say all these things about wages and conditions, but I won’t, I’ll just tell you this story about a girl I went to school with, who works the machine next to mine. Let that say it for me.

  ‘In my time as a machinist I’ve seen the usual accidents, I’ve had a burnt arm and twice been run through by the needle. In the staymaking factories we say a needle through your finger shows you’ve served your apprenticeship, don’t we? But recently I saw an accident, one I shall never forget, and it’s that which has made me determined to get this union started.

  ‘If there’d been a safety-guard on the machine, this accident couldn’t have happened. If there had been an emergency switch
, it wouldn’t have been so bad. But it did happen and it was bad and it happened because the bosses don’t bother about us. We’re not people, we are “hands”, just so many hands pushing hundreds of miles of elastic and cortiel through the machines.

  ‘The girl who had the accident is the same age as me. She is very pretty. She likes dancing, going to the pictures, and pretty clothes. She’s engaged to be married. She was just like all the rest of us. But not any longer, she isn’t.’

  She looked at Kate and held her eyes, momentarily reliving that terrifying moment, the horror of it flowing into her voice and expression as she told the audience about the accident.

  As they listened to the horrific tale, women and men shuddered, and men turned down the corners of their mouths squeamishly.

  ‘I’m proud of her, so should you be, because although she still wants her old job back, she’s here to support the start of our union branch.’ Lu indicated Kate, who stood up. Dressed to kill as she always was, thinner than when she went into hospital, but looking pretty and defiant, Kate walked forward, unfastening her scarf as she went dramatically to uncover her swathed bandages. Gus Greenfield gallantly helped her on to the raised platform, where she stood between him and Lu, facing the audience.

  ‘I haven’t got much to say, but I’m going to say what I’ve been thinking about laying there in hospital. This sort of thing happens because we are women, and because there’s a lot of unemployment. We get treated like dirt, and nobody cares if we lives or dies, just so long as there’s two women for every job. If I was a railway labourer got injured, I would have had a union solicitor to fight a case for me. Like Lu says, we women and girls are skilled workers, we deserve better treatment, but we won’t get it till we respect ourselves and make our bosses respect us. So join the union!’

  Fifty members signed up that night. Fifty in an industry of twelve thousand. An industry that outdid the naval dockyards in contributing to the economy of the town. But fifty was good. Fifty was a start.