by Clare Harvey
‘I didn’t know.’
‘It’s a difficult time. There’s a lot to take in when a beloved family member passes. Please don’t be embarrassed, madam.’
‘Embarrassed?’
‘It’s easy to lose sight of the details when your mind is elsewhere, as I’m well aware, what with my own father—’
‘Yes, I heard. Please wish him a speedy recovery,’ she says.
They both look down at the letter, with the invoice for an amount that almost equals what she and Mother had saved for her teaching college fees.
‘I just wanted to give her a decent send-off,’ Zelah says at last.
‘You did her proud,’ he replies.
It is so warm. She can’t think properly in this heat. Muffled sounds filter through the tight-shut window: the clop of horses’ hooves, the droning zoom of a motorbike. He pushes the letter towards her across the counter.
Zelah thinks of the phone call she’s had to make to the teacher training college. Yes, in view of the circumstances they can hold her place open and she can begin a week or so late. But if they do not receive their fees by the month’s end they shall assume she’s had second thoughts about taking up her place.
The funeral director quoted her a much lower price than the amount printed on the letter. But the old man is in hospital with pneumonia, and not expected to recover. His son manages to look both apologetic and insistent.
Once she pays for the funeral she’ll have no money left for her teaching course, Zelah realises. But the funeral has to be paid for, and where else is the money to come from? She’ll have to carry on working as a housemistress until she’s saved up enough again, and how long will that take?
All of a sudden Zelah’s dreams of a teaching career disappear, like a soap bubble on a hawthorn bush.
There was a grinding rush, then, and a roar as the machinery was turned back on. Zelah’s mind whipped back to the present. She wiped her hands over her overalls and reached down to the technical drawing on the clipboard. What was it tonight? More motor housings. Right, better get back to it. No point dwelling on Mr George Handford and what might have been. He’d duped her. He was a married man, and that was that. She was stupid to think she could have had a second chance at love.
Violet
Vi grabbed the clipboard and walked out quickly before Mr Tonks noticed. They’d been talking over dinner – something that called itself chicken stew, but she was buggered if she could find a single piece of chicken in it – and one of the girls from Bay Five said she’d heard that Dame Laura Knight would pay a fee to whomever she chose to paint. Arthur Laskey grinned at that and started striking ‘artful’ poses, and Eva Parker said if he thought he’d get his ugly mug up on a gallery wall he had another think coming. In any case, Dame Laura was here to paint the girls, that’s what Mr Handford said.
They had been watching Dame Laura, seated at the table with some of the management, had seen her stub out her cigarette and head for the door. Off to the lavvy, no doubt, Arthur Laskey said – even dames had to take a leak at some point – and she’d be using the special WC upstairs, the one they’d had installed for the King’s visit. Mr Tonks said they called it the ‘throne room’, and it was reserved for visiting dignitaries and directors only. Arthur made a comment about the King’s arse and Eva Parker said he was being a traitor to his country, but Arthur just laughed, and said he was really going to enjoy the shit-on pie they had for pudding. Eva said she hadn’t realised it was chiffon pie today, that was her favourite, and Arthur laughed even harder. Then they all got up to go over for their pudding, and Mr Tonks left his clipboard on the table.
So Vi took her chance. Dame Laura would be on her way to the mezzanine level, where the offices were. Most of the staff would be on dinner break, and if someone saw Violet up there? Well, she had a clipboard, didn’t she? – you could go anywhere in this place if you had a clipboard.
Out of the double doors she went, and up the stairs, following Dame Laura. Even though everyone was on dinner break, and most of the machines shut off, the factory still made a kind of low mechanical purr, like a half-sleeping house cat – not like the ginger tom that used to stalk the bombsite up their street at home, yowling for lady cats and slaughtering sparrows.
Up the stairs, past all those posters telling them to work harder to beat Hitler and to ‘be like Dad, keep Mum’ and all. Up to the mezzanine level where the offices cut into the side of the factory wall, and the corridor was open like a balcony, overlooking the shop floor.
She went along the open corridor, the metal fretwork floor letting up all the burnt air from below, the railing smooth under her right hand. To her left, all the offices had glass windows, looking out onto the corridor, like shop fronts. A secretary in the pay office looked up from a filing cabinet. Vi strode on, hugging the clipboard against her chest, all the way along to the far end, by Mr Handford’s office, where there was a shut door with ‘WC’ in black lettering, at eye height.
She stopped outside the toilet door. It was a risk. She was being stupid. If it went wrong she’d be hauled up in front of the boss for accosting a famous artist. She could lose her job. And then what?
She heard a flush from inside. Vi shuffled, began to turn, clogs clomping on the ironwork. If she went back now, they’d probably only just have sat down again. Mr Tonks might not even have noticed his clipboard was missing. She could leave it by the cutlery tray and pretend he’d left it there all along.
She heard the tap turning on. She didn’t have to go through with this. She began to move away, then stopped. Because here was a chance, and it could be the only chance she’d get, to do something about the trouble she’d gone and got herself into.
The door opened. What to say? How to start?
Dame Laura emerged. ‘I’m sorry if I kept you waiting,’ she said. She smiled, and was almost past and gone by the time Vi managed to choke the words out.
‘Paint me!’ Vi said.
Dame Laura stopped, turned, still smiling. ‘I’m terribly sorry, but that’s not how it works, dear. You see, I need to do a series of sketches of different girls at work on the machines, and find faces and equipment that will really work together for this piece. It’s a question of finding the match, don’t you see? The right faces, the right composition, the right context, all of that. Because the painting has to tell a story. It’s really not just the case of painting the first pretty face I come across.’ Dame Laura reached over and touched Vi’s cheek then, with the tip of her nicotine-stained forefinger, her fingernail gently scratching the skin. ‘And you are a pretty girl – I’m sure you get told that all the time, don’t you?’
Violet wanted to say something, but the words wouldn’t come.
‘Well, in any case, it was lovely to meet you, dear. I shall be sketching for the rest of the night throughout the factory, so I’m sure I’ll find my way over to you at some point. And I tell you what, I’ll do an extra sketch for you to keep – give it to one of your boyfriends, if you want?’
Something gave in Violet, then, and the words broke free. ‘I need the money,’ she said.
There was a pause, with Dame Laura looking at her, tilting her birdlike head to one side and blinking her round eyes. ‘My understanding was that you factory girls were rather well paid,’ she said. ‘Especially the night shift.’
‘I send it all home,’ Vi said. ‘Apart from the twenty-two shillings for board and lodging and the bit I keep back for my essentials.’
Beyond Dame Laura, at the end of the open corridor, the door was opening. Dinner time was almost over. The management would be back any moment. Vi should be on her machine, not up here ambushing a famous visiting artist on her way out of the lavvy. Oh heck. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. It was very rude of me,’ Vi said.
‘What do you need the money for?’ Dame Laura said.
‘Beg pardon?’
‘What – or who – do you need the money for?’
Violet gripped at the clip
board, digging her palms into the edges. She cleared her throat, but said nothing, looking through the metal fretting at her feet and seeing the chopped-up top of a bald head moving below, hearing the clunk-chunter as equipment was re-set for the post-dinner shift.
‘I’m not likely to be persuaded if you won’t give me a reason, dear,’ Dame Laura said. Vi looked up at the old woman’s face, but she could hear footfalls, feel the ironwork shudder as someone approached. It was almost too late.
‘I’ve gone and got myself in trouble and I need to get out of it, is all,’ Vi said.
‘I see,’ said Dame Laura. And there was Mr Handford, suddenly at her shoulder, coming back to his office.
‘Good evening,’ he said, but he paused by Dame Laura, and his expression said what-the-hell-are-you-doing-up-here?
‘Evening, Mr Handford. I found this and thought I’d bring it up to see if I could find who it belonged to,’ said Violet, holding out the clipboard.
Dame Laura turned and grinned as if he were the prodigal son or something. ‘George!’ she said, putting a hand on his white jacket. ‘Marvellous to see you. I was just chatting to one of your wonderful workers!’
Mr Handford smiled at Dame Laura but his eyes flicked down to the clipboard Vi held out. ‘It says Mr Tonks, there on the top line,’ he said. ‘And I believe he’s the chargehand for Bay Six, so you’ll find him down there.’ He indicated with his head in the direction of the shop floor, which was now beginning to hum with activity. ‘Which Bay are you in?’
‘Bay Three,’ Vi said.
‘You can take it down to him yourself, then,’ Mr Handford said. ‘Now, Dame Laura, you said over dinner you had some questions about lighting and so forth. Shall we discuss it now?’
Violet realised she’d been dismissed, and nodded goodbyes to them both and began to walk away. As she pushed through the door, the bell went for the second shift, and she had to run, along the corridor, through the far door, down the stairs two-at-a-time, clogs slipping on the lino.
‘Careful, duckie!’ Eva Parker was passing the bottom of the stairs as Vi barrelled down, jumping the last three. And Vi half-hoped she would slip on the stairs, because that could solve her problem once and for all. But she landed upright, panting, cap skew-whiff. ‘You’re lucky you didn’t fall,’ Arthur said, slapping Eva’s behind as he caught up with them.
I have already fallen, Vi thought. I’m a fallen woman, for God’s sake. But she didn’t say that. She smiled and shrugged and said had Mr Tonks been looking for his clipboard, because Mr Handford had just told her to give it back to him.
They pushed through the doors and into the factory and she paused for a moment, lagging behind, clutching the clipboard, looking out over the shop floor, as people started to make their way back to their machines, and the level of noise rose like an audible tide.
It had been a stupid idea to ask the artist lady to paint her. Why would a famous painter want to paint a silly little slut like her?
Laura
The half-finished guns were a row of jabbing politicians’ fingers below her as she looked out over the North Shop floor. The factory reminded her a little of Aunt Thir’s lace factory in St Quentin: different smells, different equipment, but a similar feel – busy feminine heads bowed over twitching machinery.
She thought about that young woman, just now, demanding to be painted – the cheek of it! But it’s precisely what I would have done myself at that age, Laura thought. Paint me, pay me (ever the money-grabbing show-off, my girl), but whatever you do, don’t pity me. Better to be an upstart flibbertigibbet than a victim, any day. The girl needed money – best not to ask what for – and who could blame her for taking her chance where she could?
Laura’s eyes scanned the shop floor for the girl, but she couldn’t work out which one of the many bent heads was hers.
Cranes swung gun barrels across. White sparks flew like fireflies. Laura breathed in the thick-hot air and heard the dark-noise of it all. What a place to paint, trapped inside with the repetitive anger of the factory. She sighed and checked her watch. What would Harold be doing now? Sleeping, unless his neuralgia was bothering him, in which case he’d be wrestling with mangled sheets and banging his head against the pillow. A good wife would be with her husband, bringing beef tea and damp washcloths and respecting his opinions. And – and providing him with a family? Shush, now, Laura. Enough of that. Too late. Move on.
‘Everything all right, Dame Laura?’ She started. She’d forgotten George Handford was even there. ‘Yes, yes, just getting a sense of place.’ She looked down again and saw a young woman in a red flowery turban, slightly taller than the others, incongruously elegant in the way she leant in towards her equipment. ‘Who’s that?’ She pointed. ‘Over there, in the red.’ There was something about that young woman, the way she held herself. It was rather intriguing.
‘By the capstan lathe? That’s – that’s Miss Fitzlord.’
Laura turned to catch George Handford’s voice above the factory din, and saw the expression on his face as he spoke. There was a sort of pride in his eyes, but he hesitated, as if he wanted to keep her name a secret.
‘She’s quite paintable,’ Laura said.
‘I introduced you to her earlier.’
‘So you did.’ The showcase visit had all passed in a bit of a blur, being paraded around like royalty. Tiresome, in point of fact. She didn’t want to be seen as a celebrity – people put up walls, presented you with something they weren’t. But she remembered meeting that woman, now – good posture and bone structure. She turned back to look down at Miss Fitzlord as she worked. Yes, very paintable.
‘She’s actually our welfare supervisor. She’s not normally on the tools.’
‘Yes, I think you mentioned. But she’ll do. I’ll paint her.’
‘A good choice. I’m sure we can arrange something.’
Laura wasn’t looking at him as he spoke this time, but even above the rising noise of machinery, she heard the inflection in his voice. The man has a soft spot for that young woman, Laura thought. I wonder how that will play out?
‘Indeed. And the other one, too.’
‘The other one?’
‘That girl who was here just now, with the clipboard.’ (Well, why not? The girl had had the gumption to ask and K was adamant that it should be a double portrait, just like those WRAF women the other year.) ‘Do they work on the same equipment?’
‘Well, no, but—’
‘But you can arrange it. I want to have them both together. Is there some piece of equipment that requires two women working together? What about that big machine over there?’
‘I think you mean the central lathe?’
‘Yes, that takes two, doesn’t it?’
‘One to work it and one to lubricate it, I suppose, but—’
‘Good, good. Have them work together on the central lathe, if you would.’
‘Very well. I’ll change the rota and see that there is something in place for you from tomorrow night, Dame Laura.’
Laura turned back to face him. And for a moment she thought that he was quite paintable himself, if he’d only stop frowning. She turned on her ‘Dame Laura’ smile. ‘Oh, I’m afraid tomorrow night won’t do at all, George.’ She tapped him lightly on the sleeve of his white coat. ‘I need to start straight away, catch the muse, as it were.’ She ignored his deepening frown. ‘Let’s get these girls together and make a painting, shall we? There’s no time to lose!’
Chapter 12
Violet
‘There’s no doubt about it,’ said Doctor Gibbs, looking at Violet over the top of her glasses. ‘You’re going to have a baby.’ Vi looked back at the doctor. The eyelids behind the gold-rimmed spectacles were webbed with wrinkles. Her hair, scraped back off her liver-spotted face, was streaked with grey. She was thin as a twig.
‘No, I’m not,’ said Vi, lowering her voice and leaning in a little over the desk. ‘I want to get rid of it.’
Because she had
the wherewithal now, didn’t she? Dame Laura was painting her. A few weeks, she reckoned it would take, and then there’d be the generous fee – enough to sort out this problem once and for all.
The clock tick-ticked. The doctor sat up straighter, pulling off her reading glasses. They hung on a gold chain, and bumped against her meagre bosom as she spoke. ‘Now, don’t be a silly girl,’ she said.
‘I’m not being silly. And I’m not a girl, I’m a woman. I’m a mobile woman, doing essential war work.’
‘Of course you are, dear. But now you’re going to be a mother, and I’m afraid that’s that.’ She fingered her stethoscope, which lay in front of her on the polished mahogany desk, as if checking that Vi hadn’t pocketed it.
‘I’m not married. I can’t have a baby,’ said Vi.
‘Well, you’d better get him to make an honest woman of you.’
‘I can’t. That’s not possible. So I’ve got to get sorted, see?’
The doctor drew in an audible breath and leant forward, glasses swinging on their chain above where her stethoscope lay. ‘You can perfectly well have this child. We can arrange to have it adopted.’
Violet thought of her old room-mate, Mary, being whisked off to the Home for Unmarried Mothers. She could even be pushing out her baby as they spoke, handing it over to some uniformed woman, to be passed on, re-named, to someone else, leaving Mary with a saggy stomach and heavy breasts and the memory of the pain of it all.
‘No, that’s not what I want,’ Violet said. She watched an expression of irritation pass over the doctor’s face.
The doctor cleared her throat. ‘We could, I suppose, get it fostered. Then when you find yourself another man, you could get it back. It’s a bit trickier to arrange, but I have some contacts – I could look into it for you.’ She pulled her mouth into an expression that was meant to be a smile, except that it wasn’t, and sat upright in her chair again. She made a note in pencil on Vi’s file, and placed it in the filing tray at the front of her desk, signalling that it was all settled.