Mary started to giggle.
The man in the bowler hat must have decided to walk up the stairs, because the main floor, opposite the tea merchant's door, was deserted.
"Graveyards, grizzlies, golliwogs, gamps, goats, tea shop, main floor, " I annoimced gravely.
Mary laughed, and waited expectantly for the next floor.
"Overalls, olive oil, ostriches, offlil, first floor, " I said, in the same singsong voice of a department-store elevator girl.
"Secretaries, sausages, soap, Somalis, shoes, Simnel cakes. " I flung open the gate at the second floor, stepped out and bowed to Miss Finch as if she were an honored customer and I a shopwalker.
But Miss Finch looked past me, her face immobile. I whirled round. The Assistant Presence was watching me, her eyes twinkling with amusement.
Horrified, I waited for the guillotine to fall. But she was laughing, as she wagged an admonishing finger. "The committee will be arriving. I saw Mr. Thompson walking up just now. "
"I'm sorry. Miss Dane, " said Mary, and with silent grimace.*' to each other we descended to the ground floor, while Miss Dane walked up to the Committee Room on the top floor which was not served by the elevator.
There was a sound of running feet in the hall, and a young man carrying a briefcase almost flung himself into the elevator. He was breathtakingly handsome, and his immaculate white shirt showed up a regimental tie to perfection. Before I could close the gates, he was joined by two white-haired ladies wiifting a soft perfume with them. They greeted each other; and, iifter peeping out to see if anyone else was coming, I carefully closed the gates.
The three passengers turned toward the gates and waited in silence as we traveled upward, like a small congregation listening to a priest reciting the Creed.
At the top, I positioned the elevator with a series of sharp little ups and downs, and then let the passengers out. None of them had said anything to either Miss Finch or me. The ladies loosened their furs and walked slowly up the remaining flight of stairs, while Miss Finch and I, like little marionettes, ran the elevator up and down, ferr ing other committee members. Later, I learned that many of these people were members of old Liverpool families famous for their charities through several generations. They were all concerned by the sad state of their native city, and they gave generously of both time and money in an effort to help their suffering fellow citizens.
As I watched them from under lowered lids, it sometimes felt odd to me that my grandmother and grandfather had probably wined and dined with these people or their parents, had done business with them, had attended balls and concerts with them; and, there I was, so hungry- that I could have eaten all the lunch waiting upstairs, running an elevator for them as if I were part of the machinery.
I had been tired at the end of the first day of work, but by the end of the second day it seemed as if everv- muscle had its own particular ache. My imagination boggled at the thought of how many stairs had been climbed, how many miles walked. Een Miss Finch, who was a strong, well-fed girl, looked worn out; and I had done the same amount as she had on less food than a prisoner of war could hope for. As I trailed home, I realized that on the following day I would have to do the same work without Miss Finch's help.
xt the end of the day one of the duties of the office girl, I discovered, was to collect any remaining outgoing letters, put them into their envelopes and take them to the nearby Genenil Post Office. There was always a flurr' on the part of the stenographers to bring down last-minute letters for signature b the Presence.
The Presence was a very hard-pressed woman and was frequently in the middle of phone calls or interv iews when the letters arrived. The stenographers laid the letters on her desk, thankfully
put on their hats and coats and went home. The Httle office girl stood outside the office and waited for the letters to be brought out by the Presence's secretary, who was a volunteer, and on some evenings she waited and she waited.
The office clock would tick remorselessly on toward Edward's and Avril's bedtime and the hour of night school. My stomach would tighten with fear of Mother's temper if I was not there to help. And night-school teachers could be very sarcastic if one was late for class.
Finally, the letters would be brought out. The pretty secretary would help me put them into their envelopes. Those to be delivered by hand were put on one side. With a smile of relief, the secretary would hand me the ones to be posted, and I would nm down the stairs, across the busy streets, and dutifully drop them into the post office's mighty maw.
Home at last, I took off my hat and coat and hung them on a peg in the hall. There was no night school on that second day of work. But there was homework to do, English essays to write, arithmetic problems to solve, shorthand to practice. Then there were the beds, left from the morning, waiting to be made, dishes to wash up, Edward and Avril to wash and put to bed, clothes to be washed or sponged and pressed, all the thousand and one tasks of a large family. I sighed as I entered the back room.
The room looked different.
Everybody was present, except Fiona and Avril whom I could see through the window. They were skipping in the backyard.
The window! It was shining clean and the grubby net curtain which usually covered it had been washed.
I glanced around. The big, old-fashioned iron grate with its side oven shone with blacking. The battered wooden chairs had been polished till all the nicks and chips in them appeared covered. The upturned paint drums had been scoured. The mantelpiece, usually littered with bills and replies to Mother's begging letters, was dusted and tidied, the papers neatly stacked under a well-washed stone, and the alarm clock ticked merrily in the dead center. The worn linoleum on the floor was speckless, and the piece of coconut matting in the center had obviously received a good beating.
Mother was sitting by the fire. She had changed her work
dress for a shapeless, grubby cotton frock and her bare feet were thrust into a pair of old carpet slippers. The varicose veins on her legs showed in sickening knots, and her face was lined with fatigue. She had started to darn the boys' socks ready for them to put on again in the morning, and she was frowning heavily as she pushed the big needle in and out. She looked up as I entered.
"Goodness, Mum," I exclaimed, as I looked around admiringly. "You have been busy. The room looks lovely."
"Humph." She looked down at her darning again.
I eased around the Liverpool Echo and gave Father a cautious peck on the cheek, in the hope that I was forgiven for going to work. And then I leaned over and gave Mother an equally careful kiss. But Mother, for once, did not seem angry with me. She said, "Hello, dear," rather absently and went on darning.
I picked up Edward and gave him a hug. He laughed at me as I put him down, and then scrambled away under the table, where, judging from the dialogue, Brian and Tony had established a castle. Their imaginations were so fertile that they were able to create a whole strange world out of almost nothing, and it probably saved them in some degree from the effects of the savage reality of our life.
Mother said very mildly, "There's some dinner in the oven for you, dear."
Alan looked up from his book, and said, "Hello. It's sausages. " He sounded cheerful and his red-rimmed, bright blue eyes were, as usual, friendly in their expression.
I grinned at him, and then I looked back at Mother. Sometimes I was more cifraid of her when she was being kind than I was when she was not. Carefully, I moved around the back of her and opened the heavy oven door. Two sausages sat on a plate accompanied by a good tablespoonful of dried-up cabbage and a whole potato. I whipped the hot plate over to the table, found a knife and fork and thankfully sat down to eat. From time to time, I took a peep at Mother's clouded face.
"The dinner's nice, " I said appreciatively. This brought no response, so I added, "You must have worked awRilly hard today. Mum." I looked again around the room and wondered where she had got the soapp, the polish, and the blacking. There had never been
any money for such things while I had been keeping house.
The floor must have been scrubbed with a scrubbing brush, which we did not possess.
Father rose, picked the teapot off the hob, and brought it to me. He looked down at me with an odd expression on his face—as if he were trying to warn me. "Here you are, old girl," he Sciid kindly, as he put the pot down on the table. "Have some tea."
What had I said that I should not have said? "Thanks, Daddy."
Mother stabbed a sock to death. "I have not been working here," she announced icily. "I have been in Lewis's all day, demonstrating automatic toasters."
Alan did not look up from his book, but the eyelid furthest from Mother went down in a clear, slow wink.
"That must have been interesting," I said finnly, as I poured a cup of well-boiled tea. "I've never seen an automatic toaster."
"I hope I never see another," said Mother with feehng. Then her rage burst out of her: "Alice—that Alice—had the temerity to walk into this house this morning, without permission, and clean this room. She actually let herself in. It's outrageous!" Mother rolled up a pair of socks and flung them into the fruit basket we used as a sewing box.
"Alice cleaned it? " I exclaimed.
"She did and I am furious."
"She did a marvelous job," I said, with honest admiration.
Mother's chin quivered, and her thin chest heaved, as she seized another sock and thrust her hand into it.
"/ will decide when my house needs cleaning! / will not have a peasant walking in and out of here, as if she owned the place. "
I was so tired that I thought how marvelous it would be to come home every day to a clean, tidy house. So I said pacifically, "You know, Mummy, if she did not charge very much, it might be worth getting her to do it regularly. It would save us both. "
"She didn't charge anything," interjected Alan. "When she brought Edward home, she said it gave her something to do while her mother was having a nap and that Edward liked being in his own house. "
"Where did she get the blacking from? And the polish?" I inquired, as I scraped my plate.
Alan laughed. "She brought her own."
Mother caught her breath, and I looked quickly across at her. She was biting her lower lip, and a tear ran down her face. Suddenly I understood her humiliation, and instinctixely I jumped up and went over to her. I put my arm round her shaking shoulders.
"Try not to cry. Mummy," I urged. "Everybody knows you've been ill, and she probably thought she was being kind and helpful. People around here help each other. They always seem to know where help is needed, because they gossip so much."
Mother nearly choked. "I don't want them gossiping about me, " she shouted. "When I want help, I'll pay for it. "
Father had been watching the scene over his newspaper, and now he said exasperatedly, "You shouldn't be upset. The girl meant well. She's not going to do it again, I'm sure."
"She certainly will not," snapped Mother. "As you observed, I settled that point once and for all."
I felt as if Mother had stabbed me with her darning needle. Don't let it be so, O Lord. Please! I almost whispered aloud.
But it had happened. Alice had been dismissed as firmly as I had been the previous day. And I had yet to tell my parents about my dismissal and reinstatement.
"What about Edward? " I asked, trying to keep calm.
"Oh, you will have to stay at home. This idea of going to work is ridiculous. See what an upset it has caused to all of us. xnd you are worn out. "
I was worn out. Mother so rarely looked at me unless I had done something wrong that I was surprised that she had noticed. But the gulf opening in front of me was so abhorrent to me that I gained a fresh surge of strength. And I fought back as if defeat would mean certain hanging in the morning.
Every member of the family joined in the battle. Mother had hysterics, Father roared, Edward howled. Avril, stretched to her full thirty inches of height, shook her finger at us all and demanded in frantic tones that we stop. Alan took my part with reckless abandon. Fiona wept and screwed her piece of skipping rope into knots as she swore she was not going to stay at home, as I suggested. From the castle under the table, the sounds of knights preparing to go out to slay a dragon ceased, and two scared faces peeped out.
"who is going to see that the boys don't get into trouble?" Mother asked dramatically, as they emerged.
"I will," shouted Alan.
"They're big enough to look after themselves," I screamed, most unfairly.
Brian and Tony began to bellow as they, poor innocents, suddenly became the focus of the quarrel. They must have felt that they were being abandoned by all of us.
Sometimes, in those difficult days, I identified myself with an alley cat which I had once seen engulfed in a football crowd racing down a train platform from a football special. Slipping, sliding, slithering in and out among the hobnailed boots, fearing all the time that small paws would be crushed, wispy tail agonizedly trodden on, expecting any moment to feel a steel toe in the ribs flinging it over the platform edge into dark, unknown depths, finding, for a second, shelter by a pile of luggage, only to be caught up again in the ruthless rush . . .
This time I thought that Minerva had forgotten her stepchild.
The abuse was largely verbal, but the threat of physical punishment was always there. The elder children when young had all felt the weight of a cane and sound spankings with a hand, and occasionally both Father and Mother would strike out quite hard at one or the other of us. I do not think it occurred to any of us, even Alan who was growing quite tall, to strike back.
I would not yield. Mother said she would go to see the Presence and would demand my dismissal. The organization had not, after all, purchased me, she said acidly.
Suddenly I remembered the Presence's words about a week's notice. Presumably, on my side, a week's notice would also have to be given before I could leave. I announced this triumphantly as fact.
"What rubbish," shrieked Mother. She was thrashing around the small room like a tiger, and the children moved mechanically to get out of her way as she advanced on each one of them.
Father, who was still sitting in his chair, as if it offered a modicum of safety, the newspaper crumpled in his clenched fists, said in a more normal voice, "She is correct. Either we pay a week's salarv to them or she must work the week. "
Fiona wailed loudly, "I don't want to stay at home. "
"You'll have to, " I said inercilessly. "I've done my hit. You must take a turn. It's only till Edward is hig enough to go to school.'
"I won't, " she screamed. She flung her skipping rope to the floor. "No."
"No," Mother flashed at me. "Oh, no. You are not going to push your responsibilities onto poor Fiona. She is much too frail, poor darling. "
NINETEEN
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The need to give notice saved me.
Fiona was ordered to stay at home with Edward for the following two days. Mother's contract with the toaster manufacturer expired on Thursday night; she would start a new contract it another store the following Tuesday. This, I argued, would give her time to arrange some fresh care for Edward.
Poor little Edward. Poor Fiona, red-faced and deeply resent-iil. Mother actually smiled, however, when I presented her with iy total earning for the week, less fourpence for contributions to National Health and Unemployment Insurance and another penny contributed to a hospital fund. She hardly heard me when I explained that the following week, I would be earning only an office girl's pay.
In the office, I ran so hard and whispered so softly that my ippointment was confirmed, despite my gauche manners and poor grooming.
A few weeks later, the other girls asked me to accompany them to the cinema. Bashfully, I refused, owning up that I did not iiave the money. They looked at me askance and did not ask me igain for a number of years; perhaps they thought I did not like them.
> Night school came to an end, and I passed the examinations, rhis gave me more time to help Mother at home. The office staff, in turn, went away for two weeks' holiday to the mountains or the seaside. They usually went with their parents and came back with breathtaking stories of the boys they had met. They giggled behind the stacks of files until Mr. Ellis roared at them to return to their work.
I had no adventures to share with the girls. I was not entitled to a holiday that year, and my world of screaming family rows, of [creditors, of pawnbrokers,of the lack of the most basic human needs, seemed to be so divorced from the experience of the staff
that there was no common ground. I was obsessed with the need to survive, with simple worries Hke how to scjueeze a pair of rayon stockings out of Mother, or even darning silk with which to mend the ones I wore. I was totally dependent upon the whims of Mother. She seemed to take it for granted that anything I earned was hers, and this idea stayed with her throughout my working life. Girls did not need money for expenses; boys did.
One day, the Presence told me sharply to tidy up my hair. It was pay day, and in despair, I took out of my nine shillings and sevenpence a single bright shilling. A comb cost twopence, some hairpins a penny. Ninepence would buy a good, stout pair of rayon stockings.
Mother was so infuriated that she tried to snatch Joan's old handbag off me in order to extract the shilling, but I whisked it under me and sat on it and tearfully refused to move.
Father came home and walked into the middle of the scene, and I appealed to him, because sometimes he did seem to regard me as a human being, even if I was a girl. Without any hesitation, he said I should keep the shilling, and have one each week, so I thankfully fled with my handbag to the kitchen and left my parents to fight it out.
The weekly shilling was usually spent on secondhand articles of clothing. But I soon learned not to leave any pieces of clothing at home unless they were wet from washing, because they would be immediately pawned; stockings or gloves would be used by Mother herself or given to Fiona. On days when there was nothing to take for my lunch, I would buy a penny bread roll from Lunt's bakery near the office.
Minerva's Stepchild Page 23