A Woman's Fortune

by Josephine Cox

  Michael wheeled his bicycle down the side passage at Pendle’s and parked it in the backyard. He really must get some lights for the bike now the evenings were growing darker. It wouldn’t be long before he was cycling home in complete darkness.

  To Michael, sweeping the floors and keeping the premises tidy, every day was exactly the same. The men and the couple of women who made the shoes in the factory hardly acknowledged his presence as they sewed and hammered, glued and polished. Though everyone was pleasant enough, Michael had made no friendships among the employees. He felt that no one even noticed him, that he was just a part of the background of the place, rather taken for granted.

  He opened the back door and let himself into Pendle’s. The kitchen was empty. He’d seen the light on in the big front room as he’d passed, and Evie and Sue bending over their sewing machines, the table and chairs strewn with the cut-out shapes of garments. He switched on the kitchen light and reached for the kettle, which was empty and cold. There were a couple of used cups on the side, one of them Sue’s special cup with its matching saucer, but there was no sign of any preparation of food.

  He changed his shoes and went to see what time tea would be ready. He was hungry and he had hoped one of them would have started on some cooking by now.

  ‘Oh, hello, Dad,’ said Evie, hardly looking up. ‘I hadn’t realised it’s that time already.’

  ‘Hello, love. Are you both nearly finished?’

  ‘Well, I just want to get these darts in before I stop, Dad,’ said Evie.

  ‘And I’ve got this collar to do,’ said Sue. ‘If I stop in the middle it won’t look so smooth as if I carry on.’

  Michael hovered by the door.

  ‘Make yourself a cup of tea, why don’t you?’ said Evie. ‘We’ll eat when I’ve finished this.’

  ‘If you’re putting the kettle on I could do with a brew,’ said Sue. ‘We’ve been that busy this afternoon …’

  Michael went off wearily to do as he was asked. He had to admire Sue and Evie’s commitment to their work, but he felt a bit put out that they seemed to have less commitment to him as head of the household, and his need to be fed after a hard day’s work.

  He brought the tea through.

  ‘Thank you, lad. Just put it on the side there,’ said Sue, her eyes inches away from her seam.

  ‘Thanks, Dad. We really have been very busy today,’ said Evie.

  ‘So have I,’ Michael replied, defensively.

  ‘Good … good.’ Evie did not look up.

  Half an hour later Michael came back to see if they had nearly finished for the day. His stomach was rumbling by now.

  ‘Almost done, Dad,’ Evie said. ‘If you peel a few spuds I’ll come and see to our tea in a minute. You could put the oven on …’

  Another half-hour went by before Evie came through to the kitchen. The oven was on and the peeled potatoes sat in a pan of cold water.

  Evie could have been knocked over with a feather. ‘I’ll get these spuds on the boil.’

  ‘I thought you’d be finished long since,’ Michael said. ‘I have been at work all day, too, you know, love.’

  ‘Yes, Dad, and I’m sorry to keep you waiting, but Grandma and me are rushed off our feet this week. Maybe if we’re still hard at it tomorrow you could begin cooking?’

  Michael looked sulky. ‘Is this what it’s going to be like now – I come home and have to make everyone’s tea?’

  ‘Well, I do usually, Dad. I know you’ve been at work, too, but I’ve only just finished now. It’s been a long day.’

  ‘A working man shouldn’t have to make his own tea when there’s women in the house.’

  ‘Why ever not?’ said Sue, coming through, rubbing her eyes. ‘Why does your work mean you can’t help around the place? We’re all tired at the end of a long day. Those that get to the kitchen first can start on the cooking. That’s only fair.’

  ‘Well, I’ve never heard of that,’ said Michael. ‘Jeanie always got the tea ready.’

  Evie thought that maybe that was why Mum, who had always worked, had found somewhere she preferred to live and had upped and left, but fortunately she stopped short of pointing that out.

  ‘Well, while Evie and me are so busy, let’s see if you can help us out, lad,’ said Sue. ‘And then, when you’re extra busy at the factory, we’ll do the same for you. It can work both ways, can’t it?’

  Michael could not argue with that point, especially as Evie now had on her pinny and was spreading sausages out in a roasting tin.

  After they’d eaten he took himself off to the Red Lion, feeling unappreciated and sidelined. It seemed to him that, if he hadn’t come home, Evie and Sue would have carried on working until bedtime and gone without cooked food. Far from being head of the household, Michael feared he was becoming the one whose place was juggling pans on the stove, wearing a pinny. Work at the factory was very much like housework as it involved a lot of sweeping and tidying up, and now he wondered if he’d find himself being the cook in his own home. As he opened the door of the Red Lion and greeted his neighbours he felt far more at home than he had done all evening at Pendle’s.

  The telephone rang and Evie hurried to answer, her order book open and ready. But it was only George.

  ‘What did he want?’ asked Sue, after he’d rung off.

  ‘He’s invited me to tea at his flat above the shop on Sunday.’

  ‘Oh? Any particular reason?’

  ‘He didn’t say. Perhaps he wants someone to chat with. It must be lonely on a Sunday now that the band isn’t playing any more.’

  ‘I suppose … Did he say who else he’s invited?’

  ‘No, and I never thought to ask. Why?’

  ‘Just wondering.’

  The phone went again and Sue heard half of another conversation, also clearly not about ordering new clothes.

  ‘What was that about?’ she asked, when Evie, grinning hugely, came back in.

  ‘Well, I’ve arranged for a bit of maintenance work on the front this afternoon. There will be a couple of men with ladders. Do you think you’ll be disturbed by them? You could always go and see Miss Richards if you think they may be in your light.’

  ‘Maintenance? When was this decided?’

  ‘It’s a surprise, so don’t ask.’

  ‘Come and look now, Grandma,’ Evie said when the painters started to pack up.

  Sue got up stiffly and shuffled out of the front door to look.

  ‘Good heavens!’

  There, above the shop, where before it had said ‘Pendle’s’, there was a newly painted sign: smart dark blue with curly gold lettering: Goodwin and Carter, Dressmakers.

  ‘All right for you, missus?’ asked the painter.

  Evie studied Sue’s face. She looked amazed but also very pleased.

  ‘Oh, Evie, love, our own names over the shop. And so smart, too.’

  Evie thanked the painters and waved them off in their van.

  ‘Do you really like it, Grandma?’ she said when they’d gone.

  Sue couldn’t stop gazing at the sign. ‘Of course I do, love. It’s … it’s like we’re a real business.’

  ‘Well, even though there’s only the two of us we stuck with it and we’ve made a success of it. And now we’re officially Goodwin and Carter, for all to see.’

  ‘It’s grand, lass. I’m that proud of it. And I’m that proud of you, too.’

  ‘Thank you, Grandma.’

  ‘So it’s come to this, has it?’ said Michael grumpily, coming into the workroom from the back of the house, where he’d left his bicycle.

  ‘Don’t you like our sign, Dad?’ Evie asked. ‘We think it looks nice. There’s no need to have “Pendle’s” above the front. Mr Pendle left here years ago, according to Josie.’

  ‘Goodwin and Carter,’ said Michael heavily. ‘Well, it’s nowt to do with me, is it? Why don’t you two just take over the whole place with your sewing machines and your bits of stuff lying about the place? I’m surpr
ised you’ve left me a bed to sleep in, the way things are going.’

  ‘Oh, Dad, don’t be daft. You know we never take our work out of here,’ said Evie, disappointed. ‘We’ve always kept to our own space.’

  ‘It doesn’t feel like it to me,’ argued Michael. ‘It seems to me that this whole place is nowt but a dressmaker’s these days, and there’s no room or time for anything else – or anybody else – at all. I feel like I’m living at a dressmaker’s, not a home of my own.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Dad, I don’t want you to feel like that. It’s true the sewing takes up the whole of the big room, but it’s how we earn our living – Grandma and me – and it needs a bit of space.’

  ‘And what if I need a bit of space?’

  ‘Well, there’s the big kitchen. We’ve all always sat in there of an evening,’ said Evie.

  ‘All …’ said Michael sadly. ‘Once there were all of us Carters. Now it’s only me, facing a tide of sewing stuff piling up around me—’

  ‘No, Dad—’

  ‘My wife has gone off with a fancy man, my little lad is dead, and my other lad can’t stand the sight of me and has gone to live with folk who aren’t even his relations. And now you two have claimed the place entirely as your own and announced it with a ruddy great sign outside with your names all over it. Seems to me I’m a spare part here, a leftover. Not needed and not wanted.’

  ‘Now you know that’s not true, Michael,’ Sue said. ‘The old sign made no sense any longer. What would you have up outside?’

  Michael looked stricken. ‘I’d have nowt,’ he said eventually. ‘I’d live in a proper house, like we had in Shenty Street, not a rented shop.’

  ‘Well, those days are gone,’ replied Sue, looking hard at him.

  Evie wanted to argue with that but she knew better than to speak out against Michael when he was feeling sorry for himself.

  ‘Yes, we know, Dad. We all miss Shenty Street. But this is our home now.’

  ‘It’s not just you who lives here, Evie, you’d do well to remember that.’

  ‘I think,’ interrupted Sue loudly, ‘that I might finish up here for the evening and go and see about summat to eat.’

  ‘I’ll do it, Grandma,’ said Evie, getting up from the big table. ‘Come on, Dad, cheer up. It’s one of Mrs Sutton’s pies for tea …’

  She and Sue exchanged glances as Evie followed Michael out to the kitchen. She’d been so pleased with the new sign and now it felt like it was a kind of showing off. Maybe she should have considered her father’s feelings, but lately he was so easily cast into an ill temper that there was no pleasing him. Well, it was too late to do anything about the sign.

  No point, perhaps, but that didn’t stop her worrying as she lit the oven and wearily looked out some vegetables to go with the pie.

  She tried to remember a time when the whole family had been all together, and happy, and she had to cast her thoughts further and further back to the beginning of that last summer in Shenty Street, before Michael had fallen into debt with Mr Hopkins.

  I’ve tried so hard – all of us wanting the same thing, being a happy family – and at every turn it’s slipped away. No sooner do I get one bit right than another part goes wrong. If only I could make everything all right for all of us, for ever …

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  ‘I’ve had a letter from Marie Sullivan,’ said Sue, coming into the workroom with the letter in her hand. ‘It’s good to hear from her. It’s a while since we’ve been in touch. My fault, I suppose. I’m finding it hard work to be much of a letter writer these days.’

  ‘Are they all well, Grandma?’ Evie asked, watching her grandmother carefully. She was having one of her bad days, her eyes were bad and she was shaky on her feet.

  ‘They are. Geraldine’s engaged to be married.’

  Evie’s heart stopped beating for a moment. Not to her Billy?

  ‘Oh, I’m so pleased. Who’s the lucky man?’

  ‘Colin Fraser. Marie says he’s a lovely lad, very good-looking …’

  Evie felt her cheeks pinken in relief. Life on Shenty Street and Billy seemed a lifetime ago now, and she still felt so fond of him.

  ‘What about Mary?’

  ‘Still at school, being clever. Marie says she doesn’t know where she gets it from. And she says summat else, too. She asks if it’s true that you’re married.’

  ‘What? Where on earth did she get that idea?’

  ‘I dunno, love. She doesn’t say. Just asks if it’s true.’

  ‘Strange. Maybe she’s muddled me up with someone else.’

  Sue shrugged. ‘I reckon she must have. Oh, and she says Ada Taylor’s dead.’

  ‘Ada …? Billy’s mum? Good grief, she wasn’t especially old.’

  ‘Not like me, you mean,’ said Sue drily. ‘A stroke, Marie says. Found dead in bed by Billy.’

  ‘Oh, poor Billy. That must have been a shock.’

  ‘Aye, poor lad, as you say.’

  Sue went back to her sewing, leaning close to her lamp, and Evie resumed making her seams.

  After a while Evie said, ‘I do feel sorry for Billy.’

  ‘I’m the same, love.’

  They continued with their work and then the door to the workroom slowly opened and Letty came dancing in.

  ‘Guess what,’ she demanded, planting a kiss on each of their heads. ‘The very best news.’

  ‘Best tell us before you explode, then,’ said Sue.

  ‘Jack and I – we’re getting married!’

  Evie clasped her hands together with joy. ‘You’re right, Letty, it is the very best news.’ She stood to give her friend a big hug. ‘Oh, I’m so happy for you.’

  ‘And then we can discuss the wedding dress while we drink our tea.’

  ‘You want us to make it?’

  ‘Who else? I want something pretty that I can wear later, made by my very favourite dressmakers.’

  ‘I think, then,’ said Evie, ‘I’d better take you to the shops.’

  Michael was getting used to cooking when he got home in the evenings, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. Since Letty Mortimer had asked Evie and Sue to make her wedding dress, the sewing took up more time and seemed, somehow, to take up more space, too, although the materials were never allowed to spread from the workroom into the rest of the house. And every time he came home from work, there was that fancy sign proclaiming the place was a dressmaker’s, shouting to the world that it wasn’t his home. It didn’t feel like his home now, with no wife, no sons. He wasn’t needed.

  After a week of cooking for everyone, Michael decided that he’d had enough.

  ‘I’m home now, Evie, so you can stop messing about and cook our tea,’ he announced, standing in the doorway of the workroom.

  Sue was immediately furious. ‘Evie’s not going anywhere. It’s our money that mostly pays the bills, Michael Carter. If we’ve work to do we’ll stick at it until it’s done. There may be days to come when there is none. It’s no different from the laundry we had in Shenty Street, just drier.’

  ‘But you never carried on of an evening with the laundry and expected me to make the tea,’ objected Michael.

  ‘I think you’ve got a short memory, lad,’ retorted Sue. ‘I remember darning and mending and altering clothes well into the evening, and Evie doing the ironing then, too. It was Jeanie who stopped to cook for everyone.’

  ‘Well, Jeanie’s gone,’ he said bitterly, ‘so one of you will have to do it instead. We’ve still got to eat. What could be more important than womenfolk providing for their men?’ Michael asked crossly.

  ‘We are, Dad! That’s exactly what all this work is about, providing for all of us.’ Evie felt what she was explaining was so obvious that Michael was wilfully not understanding.

  ‘Well, I don’t know what was wrong with the stuff you used to do – repairs and curtains and that,’ he said sullenly.

  ‘Is that really what you want us to do, Dad? Repairing other folks’ old clothes so
that you can get your food on time? We can do better than that – and we are doing. And if you don’t like it, well …’

  ‘Right then …’ said Michael. ‘I’m off to get summat to eat at the Lion. You two can do as you like,’ and he stomped off to the Red Lion, slamming the front door behind him.

  Evie put down her sewing and took a deep breath.

  ‘It wouldn’t be like your dad to make much of an effort for very long,’ sighed Sue. ‘Pop a couple of potatoes in the oven, love, and we’ll carry on for a bit until they’re ready.’

  ‘He could have done that for us instead of making a fuss,’ said Evie, getting up resentfully, but her concentration was shattered now and she didn’t want to go on.

  ‘Will you thread this needle for me, love?’ said Sue. ‘I’m finding it hard to see the fine stuff now the evenings are drawing in.’

  ‘How are your eyes, Grandma?’ It wasn’t like Sue to mention her difficulties.

  ‘Not so good, love. This right eye is getting worse, I know it. It’s a good thing it’s only bad in the one eye or I think I’d have had to give up by now.’

  ‘Oh, Grandma. What would I do if you couldn’t do your sewing? What would you do?’

  ‘Well, Evie, love, I know the answer to the second question and so do you. I’d make your father’s tea.’

  Evie smiled a tiny smile and squeezed Sue’s hand.

  ‘As to the first, we’d manage. I wouldn’t be completely useless. We’d have to organise ourselves differently, that’s all. I’d do all the cutting out and you’d do the sewing. Don’t worry, love. It’s not come to that yet, though I think we should be prepared.’ Sue had obviously been thinking this through.