A Daughter's Secret

by Anne Bennett

‘When they wanted our men to fight their wars and the women to run the country and make the arms for the men, that’s when,’ the first woman replied.

  Aggie knew all they said was true and yet, unbidden, for she seldom thought of that shadowy time in her life any more, she remembered the damaged young officers, with their haunted eyes and shaking hands, who had visited the club. But she said nothing and pushed the memory away.

  ‘Good job Polly’s Georgie got work in the end,’ Lily remarked as they made their way home one night. ‘I’d have hated to see her children out here begging.’

  Georgie had been out of work for two years after he had been demobbed. Aggie and Lily would have liked to help the Palmers, but Georgie wouldn’t allow it.

  ‘I do know how he feels,’ Polly had said. ‘It is bad to be beholden to people, but we all have to eat. Charlie and Clara would be barefoot if it wasn’t for the Evening Mail Fund, and, as it is, I am never away from the pawn shop.’

  Neither woman liked to see Polly as distressed as she was about money and she could hardly discuss any of this with Georgie as he already felt such a failure. They were as delighted as she was when an old mate from the army spoke up for him and got him set on at Fort Dunlop just off the Tyburn Road.

  All Polly had to worry about then was the black carbon dust that clung to Georgie’s clothes and became ingrained in his skin.

  ‘I tell you,’ she told the two women, ‘he comes home from work as black as any miner. And the stink of it seems to seep through the pores of his skin.’

  And yet when Charlie had left school the previous year, when he turned fourteen, Polly had no objection to him following his father. Jobs were still few and far between and, as she said, beggars couldn’t afford to be choosers.

  Aggie and Lily knew they were well off. They were well paid and they had good working conditions too. In fact, Aggie and Lily had full and happy lives as the years passed.

  The only regret that Lily had was that Aggie stayed single. Despite there being not that many men around, more than a few had shown an interest in Aggie, who still was a very attractive woman. She was always pleasant and polite to them, but she never went any further than that, and she told Lily she wanted nothing to do with men ever again.

  Lily, though, would have liked her settled. She was past sixty-five and she knew she wouldn’t live for ever. In fact there had been a few worrying times recently when she’d had trouble breathing that she had to hide from Aggie. She worried what would happen to her when she was no longer there.

  Aggie would be all right financially, at least in the short term, because for years Lily had been salting away money from her work on the streets and it was safely stored in the Post Office. Originally she had saved to visit her brother in America. Even when it became apparent that he didn’t want her there, she continued to save, because it had become a habit by then. Levingstone too had been extremely generous, and then there had been the work at the munitions.

  Lily wanted Aggie to have it all when she was gone. The lady at the post office told Lily that she would have to change the name on the book otherwise it would go to her next of kin, the brother in America, and she didn’t want that.

  So one night, she broached the subject with Aggie. At first Aggie didn’t want to hear anything about a time when Lily might not be around, and when Lily mentioned the money she threw up her hands in horror.

  ‘Lily, I don’t want your money. I don’t even want to talk about this.’

  Lily caught Aggie’s hands between her own and looked into her eyes. ‘Listen to me, bonny lass,’ she said. ‘One thing no one can do is deny the grim reaper indefinitely. If you don’t take this money then it will go to my brother when I am gone. He didn’t want me in any part of the nice clean life he had carved for himself in America, though it was my whoring put him there, and so I don’t want him to get his paws on my money. Now you and I have been through thick and thin together, and I love you like the daughter I was never allowed to have.’

  Aggie sighed. ‘Oh, Lily, I really don’t know what I am going to do without you.’

  Lily felt tears stinging the back of her own eyes, and in an effort to prevent them falling she said quite brusquely, but with the ghost of a smile, ‘Don’t take on, you silly sod. I ain’t intending to pop me clogs just yet, but I would rest easier if you would do this to please me.’

  Aggie wiped her eyes and tried to take a grip on herself. ‘All right,’ she conceded. ‘Maybe sometime, but we haven’t got to think about this now, have we?’

  ‘No time like the present,’ Lily said. ‘I want us to go up the post office and get it sorted this Saturday morning, and then we need never have this conversation again.’

  Eventually Aggie said, ‘I will do this, because you so obviously want me to, but I hope it is years yet before I benefit from it.’

  It was after this that Lily started to fail, almost as though now that she had put her house in order, she could give in to the illness that she knew was sweeping through her body. Aggie begged her to stay at home, to take it easy, see a doctor, but she took no notice.

  When she almost collapsed one late September afternoon, the firm wanted to call the doctor, but all Lily wanted was to go home. Aggie had to bear most of her weight in the street, and was surprised how light she was, for she had once been such a buxom woman. Had she been any heavier, Aggie might have had trouble getting her up the stairs, but she managed it, and once they had reached their rooms she helped Lily undress and put on her nightclothes. And then, with her tucked up in bed, she went for the doctor, despite Lily’s protest that she would be as right as rain in a day or two.

  The doctor didn’t think so. After examining Lily he went to find Aggie. ‘She has a tumour,’ he said. ‘It’s on her lungs.’

  ‘Is that serious?’ Aggie asked anxiously. ‘Will she recover?’

  ‘It’s very serious and I’m afraid it is just a matter of time.’

  Aggie’s hand flew to her mouth and blood drained from her face so effectively that the doctor was alarmed. ‘Is there anyone we can contact to be with you?’

  Aggie shook her head. ‘There is no one,’ she said, and realised bleakly how true that was. When Lily was no more she would be totally alone and that thought chilled her to the bone. But, she chided herself, this wasn’t the time to think of herself.

  ‘Have you any idea how long Lily has?’ she asked the doctor. ‘She has a brother in America. Should he be sent for?’

  The doctor looked at Aggie and wondered how he could tell her that her dear friend might be taken from her at any moment, when she seemed to have no one around to support her at all.

  However, Aggie was no fool, and when the doctor said gravely, ‘I think that her brother should be contacted immediately,’ she knew the words he was hesitant to say.

  ‘I have written a prescription for something to help with the pain,’ the doctor said.

  ‘Is she in a lot of pain?’ Aggie asked in surprise.

  ‘Considerable, I should say,’ the doctor replied. ‘And for some time too.’

  ‘She’s never said a word about that.’

  ‘She isn’t saying it now either. Not the complaining sort, I would have said. Anyway, this medicine might ease things for her, and if you soak a flannel with warmed camphorated oil and lay it across her chest it might ease the congestion there. Any chemist will sell it.’

  The nights were drawing in and the streets dusky when Aggie set off a little later for the chemist’s shop at Aston Cross. With her head down as protection against the mizzling rain she cannoned into someone who hadn’t seen her approach because she had her umbrella raised in front of her. They both apologised together, and then, in the pool of light spilling out from a gaslamp, they stared at one another.

  The other woman recovered her wits before Aggie and exclaimed, ‘Aggie! By Christ, you’re a sight for sore eyes, all right. Everyone thought that you had gone and dropped off the bleeding planet.’

  ‘Hello, Susie,�
�� Aggie said. In a way she wasn’t that pleased to see her, for she was a link to that part of her life that she would rather forget. But then she felt a little ashamed of herself. She smiled and said, ‘Not quite, as you can see.’

  ‘Is Lily with you?’ Susie asked.

  ‘She is, but she is ill in bed now. I’ve just had the doctor and I’ve come out to get the prescription made up,’ Aggie said. ‘What about you? What are you doing around these parts?’

  ‘Been to visit my mother in Upper Thomas Street.’

  ‘Oh, it’s a wonder I haven’t caught sight of you before.’

  ‘Not really,’ Susie said. ‘I seldom come near the place. Black sheep of the family, I am. Mom lives with my sister, Carol; has done for years. Anyroad, the old woman took bad and Carol sent for me. Don’t know if I done any good or even if the old codger was the slightest bit pleased to see me. I wouldn’t half like to see Lily again, though.’

  ‘Well, come with me to the chemist,’ Aggie said, ‘and then I’ll take you up to where we live now.’

  ‘You’re on,’ said Susie, and fell into step with Aggie, holding the umbrella aloft over the two of them.

  When Susie saw Lily propped up in the bed, she knew she was looking at a dying woman. There was no sign of this, though, as she said to Lily in a jocular manner, ‘What did you mean, you old bugger, running out on us without a word like you did?’

  Lily let her eyes slide around the room and saw the door was closed and that Aggie was nowhere in earshot, before saying in a husky voice that rasped in her dry throat, ‘I had to do it that way. It was safer for Aggie.’ She closed her eyes as if the effort of speaking had exhausted her, and her chest rattled.

  Susie felt immensely sorry for her, but to mention it would do no good and so she said, ‘Do you want to tell me why? I don’t want to tire you.’

  Lily smiled grimly. ‘I’ll tell you,’ she gasped. ‘And don’t worry about tiring me. I will soon have all the time in the world to sleep.’ And then she went on, ‘That time that Aggie was beaten up, remember?’

  ‘Yeah, I remember.’

  ‘Well, it were Finch very nearly killed her, and later did for Alan Levingstone as well, but you probably worked that out.’

  ‘Sort of,’ Susie said. ‘I mean, we all know what the vicious sod is capable of. Don’t blame you getting Aggie away either. He nearly tore the place apart looking for her and dain’t believe we dain’t have as much as a hint of where you might be.’

  ‘That’s why she had to be kept off the streets,’ Lily said. ‘He’d have found her easy – not that she was mad keen doing that, anyroad.’

  She stopped, too breathless to go on. Susie’s eyes were sympathetic as she watched her friend of many years fighting for breath. Eventually her chest stopped heaving quite as much and Susie poured her a glass of water from the jug by the bed and helped her drink it. At last Lily was able to go on.

  ‘Any job you needed references for,’ she said, ‘’cept for the munitions, that is. They couldn’t get enough people to do that sort of work and we were at Kynoch’s in Witton until an explosion almost destroyed the place in the summer of 1918. After that we got them precious references, found jobs at HP Sauce and we moved here.’

  ‘God,’ Susie breathed, ‘so Aggie was almost under Finch’s nose all the time. That bloody man is evil. And I’ll never give a hint of where you are, so don’t fret.’

  Lily knew that Susie would never betray her, but she was suddenly incredibly tired and Susie saw the difficulty she was having keeping her eyes open. ‘Lie down and rest yourself, Lil,’ she said.

  Lily didn’t protest and Susie helped her. She settled on the pillows with a sigh of contentment and her eyes were closing as Susie stole from the room.

  ‘Will you let me know if anything happens?’ Susie said to Aggie, and Aggie knew what she was saying. Yet she said, ‘How? I never go anywhere near that area.’

  ‘I wouldn’t expect you to,’ Susie said. ‘If you tell our Carol, she’ll get word to me. Lots of the girls will want to pay Lily respect.’

  ‘Ah God, Susie, I don’t know what I’m to do without her.’

  ‘And it won’t be long. You do know that?’

  ‘Course I know,’ Aggie said. ‘I am not blind, and the doctor said as much anyway. I’m going in to work tomorrow and trying to arrange time off. I think I have holidays owing. If I have to have it without pay, then I will. Lily was always good to me and I won’t leave her now.’

  Susie nodded approvingly. ‘You do right,’ she said. ‘She thought the world of you.’

  Aggie was too choked to speak. She managed to take down the address, then shut the door on Susie, leaned against it for a minute and let the tears trickle down her cheeks.

  Aggie shared one tragic week with Lily, tending her gently and watching her deteriorate rapidly. She had sent a telegram to her brother, telling him how ill she was. He replied that he was making arrangements to come home to see her. She only hoped he made it before Lily lost her tenuous grip on life.

  Lily never saw her brother, however, for she slipped into a coma and died two days later. When finally Aggie’s tears were spent, she sent for the doctor and, remembering her promise to Susie, went to see her sister, Carol, who promised to relay the message. Then Aggie went to tell Polly, and she cried too at the loss of that kind and feisty woman. She went back with Aggie that night and helped lay Lily out. Aggie hesitated to do more, certain that Lily’s brother would like to make arrangements for the funeral. However, the day after Lily died, Aggie received a letter from her brother, expressing regret that he would be unable to return to England after all.

  Aggie felt such anger as she remembered all the years when he never once came near the sister who had reared him, or invited her over for a short visit to meet his wife and children. She knew it would have meant the world to Lily and now he couldn’t even come to the funeral. Well, Aggie decided her dear friend would be tossed into no pauper’s grave. She would be buried with dignity.

  Lily’s funeral was held in Aston Parish Church and was attended by a great many people, colleagues from HP Sauce and the prostitutes from Lily’s earlier life. Aggie was glad to see, however, that the latter were all respectably and decently dressed, and no one could possibly have guessed what their profession was.

  She was particularly pleased about this because she would have hated Polly and George to find out about her earlier life when they thought she had been in service. Charlie and Clara, now fifteen and thirteen years old, had also insisted on coming, and Aggie was gratified to see how much they had thought of Lily.

  She had written to Jane, who had never returned to Birmingham from Cheshire, but married a local man there. Jane had sent a telegram back saying she would be there to say goodbye. Aggie remembered how well they had got on and was glad she had asked her. She knew she would like to see Jane again too, but wished they could have met under happier circumstances.

  There was also someone else watching the cortège going into the church, then come out again, and the hearse and the mourners make their way to Witton Cemetery where Lily was to be buried, and that someone was Finch. The rent on the houses had been due that day, and although Finch employed a rent man, he knew the women were scared of him so he sometimes used to collect the rents himself. His menacing presence never failed to give them the jitters and he enjoyed that. Kept them on their toes, he thought, for he didn’t stand any messing about by any whore.

  So that morning when he called at two houses and got no reply he was annoyed because the girls were to go nowhere until the rent was paid. However, the door of the third house he knocked on was opened by a prostitute that had been working the streets for just two years and was one of the few in that area not attending Lily Henderson’s funeral. Knowing this, all the other women had given her their rent books and money to pay Finch when he came.

  She knew nothing about the fixation Finch had about Aggie because it had happened long before her time. So when Finch asked wh
ere the women had gone to she saw no harm in telling him they had all gone to a funeral at Aston Parish Church.

  ‘The woman used to live around here,’ she went on. ‘Name of Lily something. Lily Henderson, or something like that.’

  Finch couldn’t believe his luck. So the old trout had kicked the bucket, and about bloody time too. He had always known that Aggie and Lily were together somewhere and he knew Aggie would be at the old crone’s funeral. Maybe it was time to renew their acquaintance, he thought as he climbed into his car and turned it towards Aston.

  By the time another week had passed, Finch knew all there was to know about Aggie: where she lived and worked, what time she left home in the morning, what time she finished work, and that she walked home alone. He wondered what he should do with that knowledge. He could just leave her alone, let her continue the way she was. Why should he concern himself with the little scrubber? He didn’t know the answer to that himself except that Aggie had got under his skin like no girl ever had before, and he hated that.

  Anyway, why should she go around as if she was as respectable as the next girl when he knew where she came from? She had no right to mix with decent people and to try to pass herself off as one of them. As far as he was concerned, once a whore always a whore, and he knew exactly how to teach Aggie a lesson. Now that October was halfway through, it would be pitch-black by the time that Aggie left work each night, and that suited his purpose very well.

  Lily had been such an integral part of Aggie’s life for so long, her dying had left a gaping hole that no one else could fill. She thanked God that she had her job to occupy her waking hours, and the company of her colleagues, who were sympathetic because they had seen how close the two women had been.

  Most of the workers looked forward to it being Friday but Aggie didn’t. As she bade farewell to her workmates and started for home that evening, she knew she had two days of loneliness stretching out before her. Polly had urged her to visit them, but Aggie hesitated to do that at the weekend with Georgie home. The weekend was a family time and, with Lily gone, the worst days in the week for her.