The Sugar Girls

by Duncan Barrett

  While Gladys was generally the instigator of any mischief, there was one area in which Betty was a less than positive influence. Discovering they were both Plaistow girls, she suggested that Gladys should call for her in the mornings, so that they could get the bus to work together. Betty lived in Egham Road, just three streets up the Beckton Road from Gladys, who duly set off early the next morning to knock for her friend. But when she rapped on the door of the little house that Betty shared with her sisters, there was no reply.

  She put her hand through the letterbox and, just as she expected, felt a string with a key dangling at the end of it. In an area where everyone knew each other and there was nothing worth stealing, this was common practice.

  Pulling the key through the letterbox, she let herself into the house. She could hear snoring coming from upstairs and, following the noise, discovered Betty lying fast asleep in bed. Her friend could only be woken with a series of very vigorous shakes, and by the time she was finally up and dressed they had both missed the bus.

  From then on, it was down to Gladys to drag her friend out of bed every morning, and the two of them lost at least a quarter of an hour’s pay each day through lateness, a fact that didn’t go unnoticed by Gladys’s mother Rose, who took half her daughter’s wages each week for housekeeping. ‘Don’t expect me to charge you less just because you’ve lost pay,’ she warned her. With her husband Amos working in the docks, where the men seemed to be constantly on strike, she couldn’t afford to be indulgent.

  Rose did give Gladys extra money to buy breakfast, but most of it ended up in the hands of the tobacconist on the North Woolwich Road. Since pay day was on Friday, by Thursday morning Betty and Gladys would ask the shopkeeper to sell them individual cigarettes because they didn’t have enough money for a packet, and, with no money left for the bus, they would have to walk to and from work.

  The girls soon discovered a cost-free method of transport: thumbing down one of the many lorries that trundled past the factory gates. The practice was all the more attractive to Gladys because she knew how much Miss Smith disapproved of it. The Personnel department had recently relocated to a new office block at the front of the refinery, where a grand Portland stone entrance now stood in place of the old factory gate. This meant that The Dragon had the perfect vantage point from which to catch her girls hitchhiking, and as soon as she appeared thumbs would hastily be thrust back into pockets. But try as she might, she couldn’t put a stop to the practice.

  As the belle of the ‘Beauty Shop’, Maisie was particularly skilled at stopping traffic, especially with one hand on her hip and her eyelashes fluttering. One morning, a couple of lorry drivers were so taken with her that they begged her to accompany them for the entire day. One was heading for Hitchin, the other for Bury St Edmunds, and they both tried their best to convince her of the delights of their respective destinations. Maisie deliberated for a while, before choosing Bury St Edmunds, on the condition that Gladys and Betty were allowed to accompany her. Betty declined the invitation, scared that Uncle Charlie would notice her absence, but Gladys jumped at the chance to play truant, despite the loss of a day’s pay, and spent a happy eight hours out in the countryside.

  The next day, Betty and Gladys were trying to thumb a lift home when a lorry carrying sand drew up next to them. They congratulated themselves, thinking that the driver was about to let them on, only for him to lean out of the window and offer a lift to Maisie, who was standing a few feet away.

  Before Maisie had a chance to reply, Gladys shouted, ‘Cheers, mate!’ She yanked open the door of the cab and jumped in next to him, dragging Betty up after her.

  ‘What about me?’ wailed Maisie from the pavement.

  ‘Sorry, love, looks like you’ve been beaten to it. You’re welcome to hop on the back, though,’ said the man, with a disappointed shrug.

  Maisie emitted a loud sigh and stomped off towards the back of the lorry, where she clambered onto the tailboard. ‘Ooh, she won’t like that,’ giggled Betty, as she and Gladys made themselves comfortable.

  The lorry made its way over the viaduct, out of Silvertown and towards Canning Town. It was a windy day, and in the wing mirror they could see small clouds of sand blowing off the vehicle each time a gust went over it.

  They turned right onto the Barking Road and approached Trinity Church. ‘You can let us off here, mate,’ Gladys told the driver. She and Betty hopped out of the cab, shut the door and ran round to get Maisie.

  Down from the back of the lorry stepped a figure that was almost unrecognisable. Whilst they had been sheltered in the cab, the wind had been blowing the sand from the truck all over the unfortunate girl, turning her once blue uniform a dirty yellow. Every strand of her beautiful blonde hair had been individually coated, lending it the appearance of a stringy, mop-like wig, while her angry face looked as if it had been given the heaviest powdering of its life. Worst of all, her long fake eyelashes were full of the particles, which sprinkled down her cheeks each time she blinked.

  ‘Ooh, Maisie,’ giggled Betty, ‘you do look a sight!’

  With a hoot of laughter she and Gladys legged it up the Beckton Road, before Maisie could get her revenge.

  For Gladys, having a close female friend was a new experience. She had always hung around with boys before, kicking a ball about in the park with John (‘Bum Freezer’) and his gang of local lads. But they had now all gone off to do their military service, and Betty – who lived in a house full of giggling girls – was encouraging her to follow new pursuits.

  One week, she persuaded Gladys to go out with her to the Tate Institute, the company’s social club opposite the Thames Refinery. Every Friday the turbans in the Blue Room would tower a little higher than usual, since all the girls were wearing rollers underneath them in preparation for the weekend, and many hours would be dedicated to getting ready for the ensuing night out.

  Gladys didn’t own any rollers, nor any cosmetics to speak of, and she had learned the hard way that getting ready in her own house was perilous. One time, she had applied tea bags to her legs to make it look as if she was wearing stockings. As she had walked down the stairs towards the front door, her father had burst out laughing and shouted, ‘What’s that shit you’ve got on your legs?’ before hurling a cup of cold water over them, causing the tea to run and ruining the effect.

  Fortunately, Betty invited Gladys to get ready at her house, where there were no parents around to interfere. ‘I’ve got some new curling tongs we can use on your hair,’ she told her excitedly.

  Gladys turned up in Egham Road at the appointed hour, wearing a white, spotted calf-length dress with a flowery border. It was the girliest thing she owned.

  When Betty opened the door to let her in, she looked suitably impressed. ‘This is going to be so much fun!’ she said, as she ushered Gladys into the front room. There, her sister Mary was already getting dolled up in front of the only mirror in the house.

  ‘I haven’t brought anything with me,’ whispered Gladys.

  ‘Don’t worry, all we need is a good lippy,’ said her friend, grabbing a lipstick tube from her sister. To Gladys’s horror it was bright cherry red and a peculiar, stubby shape.

  ‘Now stand still and say “Ooo”,’ said Betty.

  Gladys distorted her mouth into the necessary shape and Betty set about drawing on her lips with a look of intense concentration.

  ‘Not too much,’ she attempted to say with her mouth still open.

  ‘Don’t move or you’ll spoil it,’ replied Betty. ‘It’s got to look full-lipped. Right, now for the next step.’

  She began smearing the lipstick all over her fingertips and reached out her hand towards Gladys’s face.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Gladys yelled, pulling away.

  ‘Your rouge, silly,’ said Betty. ‘Stay still.’

  Betty rubbed her fingers in a circular motion on each of Gladys’s cheeks, before standing back to admire her work.

  ‘Ain’t yo
u going to do her eyebrows?’ asked Mary, frowning.

  ‘She hasn’t got any,’ said Betty. Gladys was so fair that her brows were non-existent. ‘Maybe a bit of mascara?’

  Gladys put her foot down. ‘No way are you putting that stick anywhere near my eyeball.’

  ‘All right then,’ laughed Betty. ‘Now for your hair.’

  She put her new metal curling tongs on the stove to heat up. When they were ready, she made Gladys sit on a chair while she stood behind her. Gladys could feel her yanking great clumps of hair onto the tongs and rolling them up painfully tight, holding them for what seemed an eternity while they emitted a sizzling sound. After a while a sulphurous odour filled the room.

  ‘Betty, is it meant to smell like that?’ asked Gladys anxiously.

  ‘Yeah, it just means your hair’s heating up,’ said Betty. ‘Don’t worry, it’ll soon go away.’

  After a good twenty minutes Gladys could bear the stench no longer. ‘That’s it, I’ve had enough,’ she said, jumping out of the chair. ‘Let’s see what it looks like.’

  Bracing herself, she walked towards the mirror to see the results of Betty’s makeover.

  She was surprised at how plump her lips looked – so full that they were literally spilling over into the surrounding face. Coupled with the shiny red orbs of her cheeks, she almost appeared to be on fire.

  Her hair certainly matched the look. There were singed ginger curls sticking up in some places, straight bits hanging down limply in others, and a number of gaps where the hair had burnt off completely and fallen out. Her head reeked of burnt hair fibres.

  ‘Betty!’ she screeched. ‘You’ve burnt me hair!’

  Betty came to join her at the mirror. ‘Gawd, I have, haven’t I?’ she said, clapping a hand over her mouth and beginning to giggle. ‘Oh Gladys, it’s burnt to a crisp!’

  ‘Yeah, thanks, I can see that,’ said Gladys, looking bitterly at her reflection.

  Mary came running over to get a look too, and also collapsed into giggles.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Betty, attempting to get a grip on her laughter. ‘I’m sure once we’re at the Institute it’ll be too dark for anyone to notice.’

  Situated on the corner of Wythes Road and Albert Road, the Institute, built by Henry Tate in 1887, was a red-brick building with a pointed, gabled roof. A queue had formed outside, and Gladys and Betty walked over to join it, Gladys keeping her head down as much as possible so as not to attract attention.

  ‘Hey, Betty – over here!’ came a shout from further up the queue. There was Maisie, looking every inch the film star, her blonde hair in glossy waves. Gladys reluctantly followed Betty over to where she stood. ‘Oh my Lord,’ said Maisie, taking one look at Gladys, ‘what’s happened to you?’

  ‘Betty done it, the dopey cow,’ replied Gladys.

  ‘I was doing me best!’ Betty protested, beginning to giggle again.

  ‘It’s a bit whiffy,’ said Maisie, wrinkling her perfect little nose.

  At last they reached the front of the queue and walked into the building. They went past a huge ornate mirror, which Gladys did her best to avoid, and into the dance hall. It was like nothing she had ever seen before – a grand room with imposing pillars running along the sides and a big revolving mirror ball in the centre throwing out spots of light. On a stage at one end a band was playing a waltz, while on the floor a hundred or so couples were dancing in time to the music, moving in a circular motion around the room.

  Suddenly the dizzying scene came to a halt. A man stepped up to a microphone on the stage. ‘You pull me up in the morning and pull me down at bedtime, but whatever you do, don’t get me in a twist,’ he said mysteriously.

  There was much excited chattering before a woman in a yellow dress shrieked, ‘Got it!’ Waving a pair of knickers in the air, she bustled through the crowd and made her way up to the stage, dragging her sheepish-looking partner behind her. Once there she presented the knickers to the compère.

  ‘Well done!’ the man grinned. ‘And she hasn’t even got them in a twist! What’s your name, sweetheart?’

  ‘Jean,’ she beamed, squinting under the lights.

  ‘Jean has just earned herself and her bloke two free drinks at the bar – give them a round of applause,’ he said, as everyone began clapping. ‘I’d better give these to you for safe keeping, mate,’ he winked, handing the knickers to the woman’s embarrassed boyfriend, as the music started up again.

  ‘Er, let’s sit this one out,’ said Gladys, heading for some tables at the edge of the room, where lots of young girls were sitting gossiping and pointing at boys. Gladys, Betty and Maisie installed themselves on some chairs nearby with glasses of lemonade, and watched as more unlikely items were brought up onto the stage in return for prizes. Maisie spotted Joycie, Joanie and Rita from the Blue Room, who had just arrived, and waved to them.

  ‘Oh my God, Gladys, what happened to your hair?’ asked Joanie, as she plopped down in a chair next to them.

  ‘Ask Betty Brightmore!’ said Gladys, glaring at Betty, who looked guiltily down into her lemonade and emitted a snort of laughter.

  When the dance came to an end the crowd applauded, and then there was a lull as everybody dispersed to get drinks. As soon as the next number was announced all the single men in the room, who had been hovering at a safe distance from the lines of seated women, made their way over and began asking them to dance. Maisie was soon snapped up by a cheeky blond man who looked as if all his Christmases had come at once.

  Meanwhile Gladys noticed the gossiping girls suddenly fall silent as a tall black man approached them. He was the only non-white person in the room and stood out like a sore thumb.

  ‘Would you like to dance?’ he asked, smiling at one of the girls and holding out his hand.

  ‘No, ta,’ she said, looking down at her feet.

  He moved along to her friend. ‘How about you, Miss?’

  ‘No, thanks,’ she said, turning her head away.

  A third girl feigned an interest in her fingernails, and the man retreated to stand in the corner. He looked downcast, and something about his expression made Gladys think that he was used to standing on the sidelines.

  To Gladys, who had spent her early childhood living in Draughtboard Alley, the girls’ reactions were downright ridiculous. ‘Right, that’s it,’ she said, standing up and putting down her lemonade.

  ‘Gladys, what are you doing?’ asked Betty, clutching at her arm.

  Gladys brushed Betty off, swept her frazzled red hair out of her face and marched over to where the man stood.

  ‘I’ll dance with you, mate,’ she announced, enjoying the surprised expressions of the three girls who had rejected him.

  The man gave her a grateful smile and quickly took her hand.

  Once on the dance floor, his confidence seemed to return. The number was a quickstep, and Gladys’s partner was a nifty dancer. She felt heads turn towards them as they glided around the room, but remembering her singed hair she tried not to make eye contact with anyone.

  When the music stopped, she was keen to get out of the spotlight. ‘See you then,’ she told the man, hurrying over to her chair and thirstily grabbing her lemonade.

  ‘C’mon, Gladys, you can’t sit this one out,’ called Betty, who by this point had found a partner of her own. ‘It’s a jive!’

  Maisie had swapped her blond for a tall, dark, handsome stranger and was also heading onto the dance floor, as were Joanie, Joycie and Rita. Out of the corner of her eye, Gladys saw her former partner approaching her again. ‘Would you like another dance?’ he asked her.

  She turned to see his hopeful face and realised every other girl nearby had done a swift vanishing act, leaving her, once again, as his only option.

  ‘Oh, go on then,’ she said. ‘Just one more.’

  Four dances later, despite sending beseeching looks to her friends, Gladys had still not managed to shake him off. Clearly her act of charity was destined to last all night long. D
oesn’t this bloke ever get tired? she thought to herself.

  When the next number was called she acted quickly. ‘Oi you,’ she whispered to Betty, ‘you owe me a favour. Sorry, mate,’ she said, turning to the man, ‘I’m going to have to dance with poor Bets because she doesn’t have a partner.’

  Before he could answer, she had whisked the surprised Betty onto the dance floor and they were whizzing away across the room.

  7

  Ethel

  Ever since she and Archie had fixed a date for the wedding, Ethel had been counting down the days until she became an official member of the Colquhoun family. As if 14 April wasn’t already engraved on her heart, Freddie James, one of the engineers on the Hesser Floor, had been chalking up the number of days remaining on a beam overhead. Every morning he would greet her excitedly when she came into work, bellowing across the floor, ‘Only fifteen days to go, Ethel!’ or ‘Only ten days left now!’

  At last the week of the wedding was upon her. Archie was scheduled to arrive home on Wednesday night, giving them a couple of days to get things ready before the big event on Saturday, and Ethel was determined that it should go absolutely perfectly. Archie was only coming home from the Army for his usual three weeks of leave, but she had been told that they could get a special licence to get married more quickly than would otherwise be possible.

  When she arrived at the town hall to put in for it, however, she found that not everyone was as keen to make the special day a success as she was.

  ‘Sorry, no can do,’ an official informed her breezily from behind his desk. ‘You both need to apply in person at least three days before the wedding.’

  ‘We can’t,’ Ethel replied. ‘My fiancé won’t be home until Wednesday night, so the earliest he could come in is Thursday.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ the man responded, leaning back in his chair and sucking in his cheeks. ‘Looks like you won’t be getting married after all, then.’