Liverpool Miss

by Helen Forrester

  Whenever it was, my parents must have talked their way out of it. In those days, few would believe that neglect or ill-treatment of children occurred in any but working-class homes; and once my parents’ original social status had been established there would be a tendency to believe anything they said. From the day on which we saw the specialist, however, Mother saw that I received the same amount of food as the other children, and it was obvious that she gave priority to the buying of food over other needs. We still did not have enough to eat, but there was an improvement. I became concerned that in an effort to feed me, she would go without herself, and this caused a reciprocal concern for each other, which improved our relationship.

  As soon as I was able to stay up for most of the day, Mother began to use me as a housekeeper again, and I was dreadfully afraid that, once again, I would become the family’s unpaid general factotum. I never grudged helping in the house, but I did not want to be permanently at home.

  Little Edward was now nearly four and could talk well. He was a pleasant, confiding small companion, always asking questions, like Tony did. I would sit with him on my lap, his untidy brown hair against my cheek, quivering inside at the thought of being shut into a kind of slavery without any rewards.

  Long before I returned to work, I had taken out my text books and begun to study again. I pressed Fiona into reading aloud to me, so that I could practise shorthand and not lose speed. This bored Fiona terribly – she hated reading anything, but she was very good-natured and, on my behalf, she stumbled through business letters from the text book and the first few chapters of Jane Eyre. She would put down the book after two or three minutes, during which my pencil had scampered frantically across my notebook, and would ask bewilderedly, ‘How can you stand it? Why bother?’

  I would smile at her and say I liked it. Embryo maiden aunts must be able to earn, I felt, though I could not have explained it to her. I did not want to end up a nervous ghost in the house of one of my siblings, caring for their children, dependent on them for the smallest need.

  Sometimes, when Edward or highly strung Brian had difficulty in going to sleep, I would sing irregular French verbs or German declensions to them. Brian chuckled at the strange words, but Edward only needed a comforting hum and did not miss Little Bo Peep or her friends.

  Three of the children had not been up to the bedroom to see me at all while I was ill. Fiona, Avril and Edward tumbled straight into the big double bed on the other side of the room and usually fell asleep immediately, but I had not seen Alan or Tony, and Brian only immediately before he was sent to hospital. Now I was downstairs again, they looked as if they had all grown enormously during my absence.

  Brian had recovered quickly, and he and Tony had found good friends amongst neighbouring shopkeepers’ children; they played in their houses or in the street. They also went to choir practices and to the church services.

  Alan had made friends with one or two other office boys and clerks, and his pocket money was sufficient to enable him to go to the cinema, to boxing matches and to play cricket.

  Fiona did not make many friends. Like me, she had little money. She was also very slow moving, so that getting herself to and from school, keeping her scanty clothes clean and joining in an occasional game of tag or skipping with other girls in the street practically filled her day. Occasionally, on a Saturday afternoon, Alan kindly took her to the cinema, or she beguiled Mother into giving her twopence to go by herself. Continuous performances in the cinema had just begun to be common, and she sat all through the afternoon and two evening performances, seeing the same two films offered, over and over again. She would return about eleven o’clock at night, silent and bemused. As she approached her fourteenth birthday, she began to put her hair into rag curlers and to take a deep interest in her appearance. Boys in the streets around whistled after her, and she would run into the house blushing and bewildered.

  Because I had such intense pain during my menstrual periods, a pain which could not be hidden from the rest of the family because I used to scream with it, she dreaded the onset of this natural cycle, but when it came it was painless and she was much relieved. When I saw this, I asked the doctor if my pain could be at least reduced, but he laughed and told me to take a couple of aspirins, assuring me that it would go away when I was married. Through the years I got the same reply from other general practitioners.

  Avril, short for her age though sturdy looking, still raged helplessly when our parents quarrelled or whenever she was in any way frustrated. Like me, her birth had been bitterly resented, and in her first years she had been left almost entirely to the care of servants. Now, however, I noticed that Mother had begun to recognise a fellow spirit, for they were surprisingly alike, and the little girl clung to her mother in a very moving way. Yet another stray cat had attached itself to our household and Avril seemed to get some comfort from cuddling it and pretending that it was a baby. It submitted very patiently to being wrapped in a piece of blanket and held upside down.

  As I waited for my lethargic body to gain strength, I watched the children come and go, each intent upon his or her own business. I began to realise that life does change; nothing lasts for ever. When I had first come to Liverpool and had been plunged into sudden, frightful poverty amongst coarse and scarifying people, it seemed as if we would always be small and helpless. But it was not so; the children were growing vigorously, despite poor food.

  All growing things push against each other, each fighting for air, space and sustenance, and large overcrowded families are no exception. And I observed that, as each child grew in strength, it fought quite ruthlessly for a place for itself, giving very little thought to the plight of the others. I saw that the family unit was not as tightly locked together as my parents were fond of imagining. And I was plunged into melancholy when Mother preached to me the need to go without, give up my life to the care of the children. Why could they not help, too? I would ask angrily. And the retort was always the same, ‘You are the eldest.’

  But, in truth, they were better at avoiding it. Alan was the eldest boy and automatically more privileged; he was my father’s hope. Fiona pretended to be much more stupid than she really was, and she was more frail. Brian and Tony kept out of the way, and Avril had such a colossal temper that even Mother was silenced by it. Amongst us toddled Baby Edward, serene and self-assured, too small to have to worry.

  Too sick myself to do a great deal, I sat and watched them, corrected them if they seemed to be doing anything of danger to themselves, made the meals and the fires, and wondered once if they would go hungry for my sake.

  The answer, I believed, was that of Shaw’s Pygmalion, ‘Not bloody likely.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  When I returned to work, the mood of the City seemed more cheerful. The previous winter it had been hung with crape for the passing of King George V; Edward VIII, my adored Prince Charming, had come and gone, and was an exile with his Mrs Simpson. Now we all looked forward to a coronation, that of George VI and his plump little Queen, Elizabeth. It seemed also that there was a trifle more work available, though the lines of unemployed were still very long.

  I said a mental ‘Hello’ to Minerva, looking down from the dome of the Town Hall. Belief in ancient gods never quite dies – it remains, mixed with the myths and legends of one’s people, in the background of one’s mind; and I believed that Minerva would help her people, if she could, and even, perhaps, an ugly little stepchild like me. It was not an active belief to be expressed in prayers; but just a cosy feeling like that given by a St Christopher medallion or the ownership of a black cat.

  I was still very weak, and was thankful that I now worked most of the time on one floor of the office, though I was constantly under the subduing eye of Mr Ellis. I was allotted a wooden chair and a corner of a table on which to do my work. I became very quick at the tasks given me; and, whenever I had the chance, I would retire behind the stacks of files on the excuse of helping to put some of them a
way, to read, spellbound, the files’ contents. They were moving stories of human suffering, sometimes covering many years, set down in unemotional prose by succeeding social workers. In some cases, I was acquainted with the family concerned, and it was interesting to see a social worker’s opinion of them. I chuckled sometimes, because the priorities of the family and those of the social worker were often at odds. Most of my neighbours had the aim of surviving with as little pain and as much immediate enjoyment as they could obtain.

  I learned the name of the women I had observed on the way to night school. They allowed men to play with their bodies in the same way as cows allowed a bull. Now the files told me that this was wrong; it was sinful. And I began idly to wonder about the relationship of men and women and about love. Surely there was something more to it than the conversation of the mill girls I had met on holiday had led me to think. I came across the words fornication and adultery, Bible words that I had not previously thought about. The dictionary was not very helpful.

  I remembered the knowing laughter of Cristina Gomez when she had referred to Alonzo’s goodness as a husband; perhaps she meant more than the fact that he gave his wages to her each week. Perhaps the wild, unearthly dreams I sometimes had were prompted by my coming into the beginning of womanhood; I blushed when I remembered them.

  In my isolation from anything that most other girls had, friends, affection, parties, dances, I had missed the usual slow discovery of sex. Whispered stories told between girl friends, the hints of it in magazines, discreet warnings and indications from mothers, had not been part of my experience. No boy had ever approached me. I had never worked out why Emile Zola’s Nana was so wicked; all she seemed to do was stay in bed. In our early days in Liverpool I could have been raped and I would not have understood what had happened to me. Perhaps it was fortunate that I had been so dirty, so grey in looks, that I merged with the grey-black city around me and had thus walked unscathed through streets that for centuries had been very unsafe. Now, I began to knit together the romance of the many novels I had read with the facts that the files and the mill girls had brought to my attention and to understand the happiness of Cristina and her husband. The thought of the Gomez couple brought home to me that whatever physical relation there was between husband and wife it could be an enriching experience. And I imagined that lonely single men bought that experience from prostitutes.

  Now that I was in the office most of the time, I came into closer contact with other members of the junior staff.

  We could find no common meeting ground.

  I was still grubby and untidy, though our landlord had had our house fumigated and I no longer feared passing bugs to the other girls. Even the fleas in the house had been reduced. Occasionally I caught head lice from the other children, who picked them up at school; and once I had to go to work with my head smothered in a heavy ointment to eradicate them; this caused a lot of stares and some open laughter, because my hair was pasted down against my skull, like a boy’s.

  Like any youngster, I wanted to be included in the girls’ conversation, much of which hinged on the films they had seen, the boys they had met and the radio programmes they had heard. Though I had not been to the cinema in Liverpool and we had no radio, I had read a great number of popular novels which had been made into films, so I could analyse the plots and discuss their themes. I sometimes broke into their gossip with an observation, which was usually received with stunned silence; and the conversation would be resumed, as if I had not spoken. This made me feel hopelessly stupid and I would be quiet for some time afterwards. When I made a mistake, however, they would address me brusquely.

  The first purchases I made with my increase in salary were a bar of soap and a packet of soap flakes. These were used up within a day or two by the rest of the family, but now, with a little money, I tried very hard to collect a few more clothes and to keep them clean. I hunted through the oddments table at the pawnbroker’s and I saved up for a pair of shoes from Marks & Spencers.

  I soon discovered that to have spare clothes was very difficult. Frequently, I came home to find the garments pawned or on Mother’s or Fiona’s back. This made me furious and my wicked temper would rise and for days I would be in disgrace for the outburst. I rarely borrowed from Mother and always asked specially; she had several hats and sometimes I would beg the loan of a change of headgear. I was confused. How did other girls cope with such situations, I wondered. What should I do?

  And the weakness from my illness persisted, despite the slight improvement in diet. The tremendous inborn strength which had carried me through years of hardship was gone. I was wracked with pains in my legs and sometimes in other joints, and the throat still tended to acquire threatening septic spots in it. I gargled with salt and water in the hope of clearing them, but it was only partially successful.

  So the strain for the first few weeks after being ill was very great, and I did not take much notice of my successor, Sylvia Poole, except to help her a little until she knew the office girl’s work. I was afraid to say much to her, because I expected to be snubbed. She had eyes as blue as speedwells, which stared, with considerable perspicacity, through thick, horn-rimmed glasses. Though much shorter than the rest of the staff, she seemed uncowed by them or even by the formidable Mr Ellis.

  I lived all my life in fearful apprehension, but she seemed to view life with a calm confidence. She had a firm, though light tread, and all her movements were deft and certain. I could not imagine a voluntary worker daring to complain to her that the tea was cold or that there was too much milk in it. Such complaints used to send me racing up to the kitchen in nervous haste, to fetch a fresh cup.

  In the privacy of the top floor kitchen, where at first I helped her make the tea, she asked me, ‘Have you been here long, Miss Foster?’

  ‘Forrester,’ I corrected.

  ‘Er-Forrester. How long have you been here?’

  ‘Two years.’

  ‘As office girl?’ The blue eyes glanced sharply up at me, as she rattled cups on to saucers. The pretty red lips curved in a grimace. ‘I wouldn’t like to do this job for long.’

  I did not know how to answer. All the underlying terror of losing my job and not being allowed to take another seemed impossible to explain to someone of her temerity.

  Her smile was sweet and friendly, however, and gradually I began to relax with her. She had a very pink and white complexion and the suggestion of a double chin, which indicated plenty of good food. She had a charm, a gaiety about her which I longed to emulate.

  Finally, I answered her question.

  ‘Yes, as office girl. The job seems to offer a future, Miss Poole.’

  Again she made a disdainful moue with her mouth. She was a year younger than me, but her fearlessness and her self-assurance made me feel the younger of the two of us. To my astonishment, she did not seem to think my conversation stupid; and slowly I began to talk to her about all kinds of subjects.

  I had theories of history, and she patiently submitted to their being unloaded on her. I had done considerable background reading on the current political situation in Europe and I read every newspaper I could, either at home or in the library, so that, however misguided my ideas may have been, I had many of them. I had recently acquired two pen friends in Germany, who told me something of what they were being taught. Their letters were loaded with references to ‘our beloved Fuehrer’, and we shared surprise at anyone so monstrous being beloved. The basement waiting room held an ever-increasing number of terrified refugees from all over Europe, sent to us for aid, so we were more aware than many people of what was happening to Jewry, to trade unionists, to honest priests, under the beloved leader.

  When I described to her birds that I had seen or a flower peeping up between paving stones or how lovely the Greek church looked in the early morning sun, she did not snigger. And gradually the barriers went down.

  Sometimes we would walk out of the office together to catch our respective trams – walking
to and from work was impossible for me at that time because I was too weak – and conversation would pour out of me in torrents. All the pent-up knowledge, ideas, theories, came flowing out, to be tried against a cool and clear intelligence. In fact, for a long time I forgot the difference between a monologue and a dialogue. When I expounded on an idea that was particularly far out, she would respond, ‘But don’t you think, Miss Foster …’ and I would automatically correct her, ‘Miss Forrester’. She would politely repeat, ‘Miss Forrester … don’t you think that …’

  And my idea would begin to take a more sensible outline.

  Life suddenly began to be exciting, interesting. I could hardly wait to meet her again and share another reflection with her. Every joke, every amusing incident had to be recounted.

  Her parents had managed to keep her in school until she was fifteen and encouraged her to go to night school; her desire for better education was nearly as great as mine. She wittily reduced the office staff to size for me, and I ceased to be afraid of them. Her respect for my ideas added a little self-esteem to that already implanted by Emrys Hughes.

  One day, she became the target for the scorn of the other girls. She arrived with her straight brown hair transformed into a soft blonde, waved and curled about her face. The improvement in her looks was remarkable and I said so. But to bleach one’s hair, however good the result, was simply not approved of by lower middle-class society, and the staff retired behind the stacks of files to laugh and condemn.

  As she helped me sort index cards, she said with a scowl on her pretty face, ‘I don’t see any reason to look dowdy all my life. I’m going to make the best of myself.’ And undeterred by Mr Ellis’s startled looks, she added, in the days that followed, a subdued make-up to her already good complexion.

  I was fascinated by the transformation.

  Instead of buying soup in Woolworth’s restaurant, I spent one lunch time examining the contents of their cosmetic counter, and, greatly daring, bought a tin of Snowfire foundation cream and a box of face powder. Unfortunately, when I applied them, before the broken mirror stuck in our kitchen window, they did not transform me immediately into a beauty. The washed-out, sallow complexion was made somewhat whiter and the red acne boils were a little less apparent, but the black rings around my eyes looked even blacker, as did the thick black eyebrows. However, I hopefully applied these aids to glamour again when I went to work the next day. Nobody seemed to notice any difference.