"I'm so sorry, Mrs. Callaghan. Where will you go?"
"I'll go to me son in Liverpool. I'll be all right, luv." She patted my shoulder, "It's not your fault."
As far as I know. Father went blithely on, glad to be out of the raids, and never questioned the sudden departure of our sub-tenant. The next morning. Mother simply announced to him that, now she was rid of "that woman", she would go down to Shropshire that very day and bring the children back home. "It's safe enough here," she added.Father gave a vague nod of his head, and I wondered if he cared. Without being asked, I gave Mother a pound note towards the fares, and, when I returned that evening, Avril and Baby Edward, both looking thin and wan, were back with us for good. They were pitifully thankful, and, rent or no rent, I was very glad that they did not have to continue as evacuees.
We survived more than a month in that house without paying a cent of rent, though Mother collected the usual contributions from Father and me. The poor owners, not being used to dealing with recalcitrant tenants, never did manage to collect the money owing. Twice, Mother managed to squeeze money out of me to pay it, until my little savings account had nothing more in it, but, as usual, the money was largely frittered. The rent was never paid.
Finally, the young, pink-cheeked Captain came down to Moreton, on his first leave, and simply ordered us out within a week. He said, "Get out, or I'll have you thrown into the street." As a silent and saddened spectator of the scene, I felt he was much too kind, though I wasglad, for the sake of the children, that he gave us another week.
Father had begun to look much better. His hands had stopped shaking and regular sleep had eased the strain on his face. In the fresh air of Moreton, his smoker's cough had also lessened.
After the Captain had swept out of the house. Father said nervously that we should remain in Moreton. For once, Mother agreed with him. She took a day off and went house-hunting. She found, in a small back road, a jerry-built bungalow of incredible shabbiness. It looked as if only the brambles hugging its walls kept it upright. It was, however, to my mind much better than our Liverpool house. It stood in a garden, if a rough piece of fenced field could be called that. Someone, years before, must have planted roses round it, because we had hardly been in it a week when its thorny thicket became a great cascade of creamy rosebuds.
It had a dark kitchen, thick with grime, but big enough to hold a table for eating, and an even darker sitting-room. There were two tiny bedrooms and an indoor bathroom—which seemed a wonderfulluxury to me, after years of washing at the kitchen sink. Moreover, the kitchen fireplace also heated a hot water boiler behind it, so, whenever we had coal, we could have baths. It was partially furnished with the poorest and grubbiest of pieces, but when our furniture was added to it, it looked quite full. We were, however, chronically short of bedding and towels and china until long after the war was finished.
Because the cottage was so damp, it had lain empty for many years and had been badly neglected. Not even a refugee from bombed Merseyside had been willing to rent it. We soon discovered that clothes left in a cupboard for more than a week or two became covered with mould. But it did have two advantages—the rent was extremely low, and it was only a mile from the sea. So modest were my ideas that I thought it was paradise.
19
THOUGH Moreton provided a wonderful escape from the slums of Liverpool, residence there engendered the horrendous financial problem which I had anticipated. How were we going to pay the heavy train and bus fares to Liverpool?
Father paid his own without comment. Mother had to find money for her own and Tony's fares, and part of Brian's, and the housekeeping money had to provide these. Though Mother complained bitterly about this, she still seemed to be able to smoke and go to the cinema two or three times a week.
The drain on my own pocket left me with almost nothing. I was back again to working simply for food and roof.
Mother's magpie habits were much enhanced by her own dire need, and I had the utmost difficulty protecting from her my handbag containing the precious fares. Living in Moreton, there was no hope of
my being able to walk to a job across the river at the south end of Liverpool, though many times I walked from Central Station to the Dingle Bank Installation.
One morning, while running along the cinder track that followed the railway lines to Moreton Station, a girl of my own age came panting up behind me. She was very smartly dressed, and smiled at me as we ran together for the train, already signalled.
She fumbled in her handbag and produced a season ticket to show the porter at the entrance, while I went to buy a day ticket and, consequently, missed the train.
A season ticket, that was it! I felt like Paul enlightened on the road to Damascus. Every time I was paid thereafter, I bought a season ticket before I went home. This ensured that I could, at least, get as far as Liverpool.
The hike which I so often did out to the Installation was not a pleasant one. The way lay through badly bombed slum districts, and I must, in some way, have looked peculiar to the inhabitants, because whey-faced women in black shawls would stare after me and snigger; and men,hanging around the street corners with as Uttle to do as they had had in the 1930s, would eye me curiously. Perhaps, with my extreme neatness and old-fashioned spectacles, I looked too prim.
Mother used to borrow the season ticket in the evening, so that she could go to the cinemas in the city. Although this was illegal, I did not mind. She would often, however, try to hold on to it for use herself the next day, and on several occasions the fight to get it returned to me was so bitter that I nearly came to blows with her. She still had the fixed idea that she owned not only her daughters, but everything they had as well.
Shedding hot, angry tears, I would threaten to leave home immediately, but since I had no money, even for a night's lodging, and could not go to join Fiona without the season ticket, it was an empty threat. She knew it, and once or twice I missed a day at the office, simply because she would not part with my train ticket. When Father once intervened, she said calmly that her work was more important to the war effort than mine was. I could have the ticket the next day because Icould then collect my wages, it being pay day. Once, when I was particularly distraught, after Mother had left, he lent me the day's fare, and I arrived late at work, to sign my name below the red line.
I was so used to being bullied that even at twenty-two years of age, I could be crushed. A lifetime of giving in to a strong and ruthless personality is not easily shaken off, as any beaten wife will testify.
I wondered frantically if I could be transferred to a job in Moreton, and I inquired at the Employment Exchange, but they would not even consider it. I was lucky to be where I was, I was told, and I agreed with them. Though the work was the most boring I was ever to do in my life, I truly loved each one of my colleagues in the office. The good nature which prevailed there was a revelation to me.
I had been to see Fiona, and had spent a happy evening with her. I considered asking her if I could share her flatlet.
I was quite worried about her. Although she liked her Uttle apartment and the money she was earning, she hated the factory and the merciless sexual harass-ment which she was enduring. She was also not popular with the other women on her assembly line, because she worked so fast. Her output had drawn the attention of the management, because she produced two and a half times as many components as the other women did. Their game was to idle as much as possible during the day, aided and abetted by their inmiediate male supervisors, so that overtime became necessary. Overtime was payable at one and a half times the daily wage, double time on Sundays and public hohdays. Fiona felt that this was cheating, and said so.
She soon found her overalls torn, her tools stolen, and she was verbally threatened. One day, she sat down on her chair and it collapsed under her, bruising her badly; the bolts holding it together had been loosened. She ate alone in the canteen, because nobody would sit with her.
When she went to the office to ask t
o be moved to another line, the Manager fondled her and told her she could work in his office if she became his mistress.
She took a day off and went to theEmployment Exchange to ask to be transferred to other employment.
The male clerk who interviewed her, asked, "Don't you know there's a war on?" Then he looked her over insolently, and added, "You probably brought it on yourself—painting your face and showing yourself off."
The idea of the wicked, painted woman still lingered in the lower middle class, but poor Fiona was speechless. She burst into tears and stormed out of the building.
A couple of days later, before I could ask her if she would like to share her flatlet, Father received an urgent telephone call at his office.
Fiona's young watchmaker had plucked up courage to telephone him, because he was so concerned about her. "She's at home with the flu. And the people she's working with aren't human—she's having a dreadful time," he told him. "She'd be better in the Forces—but she'd never pass the medical."
He gave Father Fiona's address, and Father took leave from his office and went straight over to see her. She answered the door in her nightgown, and it was obviousthat she had been weeping. When she saw him she burst into tears again and threw herself into his arms. He told me she was burning with temperature, so he got her back into the bed, and then collected a set of clothes for her and brought them to the bedside.
While she lay and sobbed, he packed everything he could find, and then persuaded her to get dressed while he went to see the landlady. She demanded a week's rent in lieu of notice, but he told her flatly that he could not pay it and that his daughter was so sick that he must take her home. Reluctantly, she allowed him to take out her luggage and agreed to forego the extra rent.
He had hardly exchanged a word with Fiona, except to tell her that he was taking her home, and she sat passively, occasionally sobbing, while he went to the nearest telephone box to call a taxi, and, afterwards, they waited in the hall of the building for it to arrive.
By the time Mother and I returned from work, they were both at home. Father had put a hot water bottle into my bed and persuaded his distraught daughter to getundressed and get into it. He had then left her, to go to the telephone box nearby to phone for the doctor.
"Fi, darling, whatever happened?*' I asked, as I rushed into the bedroom, followed closely by Mother. Father pattered after us in his carpet slippers, explaining what he had done.
We might, as a family, quarrel like caged cats, but we all loved Fiona, and we grouped round her to protect her like a solid phalanx of Roman soldiers.
She lay with eyes closed in exhaustion, and did not answer me. Instead, tears welled again from under the sweeping, black lashes.
So, on either side of the bed. Mother and I patted and cooed comfortingly that the doctor was coming. "And Daddy will make some tea and bring the aspirins, in the meantime," Mother said pointedly, glancing at Father, who was himself beginning to look rather haggard.
The doctor arrived in his usual rush. He was already half way across the living-room, having let himself in, before Father had eased himself out of the tiny bedroom in order to answer the bell."Now, what's to do?" he asked, as he charged into the wrong bedroom, did a fast reverse and came out into the Hving-room again. "Where is she?" he barked.
He was hastily ushered to Fiona's bedside. "Now, young leddy," he addressed her, as he snapped open his black bag and took out a thermometer. "Let's have your temperature first." She opened half-glazed eyes, as in the poor light, he leaned forward and thrust the thermometer between her lips. Then he leaned closer and ran a finger gently over one eyelid. "My goodness!" he exclaimed. "That's going to be quite a black eye. Have you had an accident?" He turned to Mother and inquired, "What happened?"
Mother looked at him, quite shocked, "We don't know—that is, she has been living on her own. I thought that swelling was from crying too much."
"No. That's a blow." He took the thermometer from Fiona's Ups, and she gave a huge, shuddering sigh.
"One hundred and two," he announced, and then pursed his lips. "I want to Usten to your chest, and then you can tell meabout the black eye," he said very gently to Fiona.
Mother undid the buttons of the ancient, Victorian nightgown, culled from a second-hand shop, to expose, as she thought, the creamy whiteness of Fiona's breasts. "My God, whatever happened?" she exclaimed in horror. I gasped.
Most of Fiona's chest was scarlet and purple.
The doctor's eyes widened. He whipped a pair of scissors out of his bag, and without asking permission flipped the bedding off Fiona and cut down the length of her nightgown and of its sleeves. Her arms matched her chest. Very carefully, the doctor rolled her on to her side. Her back and buttocks were likewise covered with bruises.
He eased her legs apart. There was no sign of bleeding, but he sat down on the bed by her and, with extraordinary gentleness for such a belligerent, little man, he took her hand and stroked it. "Fiona," and when she did not reply, he said again, more urgently, "Fiona, Usten. You must tell me what happened, so that I can help you. Did someone try to rape you?""No." We could hardly hear the whisper.
"Well, what happened to you?"
"They caught me in the lavatory—and beat me—the women did. And when I ran out the men were laughing outside, and one tripped me up and I fell." Sobs burst from her, as Mother and I gasped at her explanation. "Then the women caught me again and kicked me and hit me with a broom."
She was weeping loudly now, and could not go on. The doctor, obviously as shocked as we were, let her cry for a minute, and then asked, "What did you do?"
"Well, one of the men protested that they were going too far, so they let me crawl away. Then I got up and ran to the assembly line, took my handbag, and ran out of the factory. The man at the gate shouted after me, but I just ran. Then I got the bus home to my flat."
She began to shiver, and the doctor hastily lifted the blanket over her. "You shouldn't have gone to work, anyway," he said almost crossly. "You've got influenza."Fiona moved restlessly on the bed, and then winced with the pain of it. "I thought I ought to go if I could. They need aeroplanes," she said simply. "But I did try to persuade the Employment Exchange to transfer me." She gave a deep shuddering sigh, and then went on, haltingly, to describe to the doctor what the counter clerk had said to her.
"Humph," the doctor grunted. "Well, it'll be a few weeks before you're fit for anything, young leddy. I'm going to check that no bones are broken, and then I'll give you something for the bruises and the temperature. Aspirin should help the pain for a few days."
Father got up from the old settee as we came out of the tiny bedroom. The doctor was furious at Fiona's state, and Father was horrified when he was told. "We must tell the police," he said. "She can't go back there."
"If you are agreeable," replied the doctor, "she certainly shall not. I'm outraged that the Employment Exchange wouldn't do anything to help her. Wartime restrictions—Registration for Employment Orders—or whatever—don't mean that anEmployment Exchange clerk can behave like a little tin god." He handed Mother a prescription form which he had scribbled out, and a second form saying that Fiona was unfit for work.
"What shall we do?" asked Father.
"Oh, I'll just keep signing her off, until you can get the Employment Exchange to transfer her. I'll talk to them if you like. I'd like to raise hell for that clerk."
"Thank you," Father replied. "It would help if you could talk to them. It would carry more weight."
Neither Fiona nor I ever knew if the doctor's complaint ever got back to the factory. We consulted our local policeman, who said Fiona could certainly lay a charge of assault. But she would need a lawyer— and lawyers cost money and we had none. The policeman recommended leaving it to the doctor and the Employment Exchange, unless Fiona wanted to claim damages.
Fiona was terrified at the idea of laying charges. "They were shouting after me that if I told anyone, they'd murder me," she shuddered. "No! No
charges."
The doctor kept Fiona on the sick list for six weeks. She sat in our wilderness ofgarden, when she was a Uttle better, and enjoyed the fresh air and sunshine, while occasional fighter planes zoomed overhead. Then, one day, a letter came for her from the Employment Exchange, saying that as soon as she was fit, she was to report for an interview, to the Income Tax Department, recently evacuated from Liverpool to a Moreton hotel.
Fiona's recovery was immediate, and she served as a tax clerk for the duration of the war. Her mathematics were even worse than mine, and she would often say, with a gale of laughter, that the Department of National Revenue never quite recovered from her ministrations.
20
IT was customary during the war, particularly amongst middle-class people, to volunteer one's services to organisations connected with the war effort. Because of the long hours of work and the difficulties of travel to Bootle, I had never done this. Sylvia Poole had, however, undertaken to do the secretarial work for a unit of the Air Training Corps, and she now asked me to share these duties with her, partly because she was not a shorthand typist.
Before I went to live in Moreton, I had been filled with delight at my new-found freedom in the first six weeks of my time with the Petroleum Board, so I had agreed. For the first time, I could afford extra tram fares, and I had a little leisure during the early hours of the evening to do something useful towards winning the war.
I had no idea what the Air Training Corps was, but during a lunch hour Sylvia gave me a fast course on the subject.
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