by Anne Bennett
‘Okay then,’ Hannah said suddenly. ‘We’ll do it.’
And so it began from that September. They purchased a Remington typewriter, which they had up in the room they shared. Hannah used Josie’s notes and exercises and practised typing, the hieroglyphics called shorthand, and accounts in her room for hours on end, through the day and often into the evening after Angela had been put to bed.
At first, she thought Arthur might be alerted enough to investigate what was keeping her upstairs, but Arthur had found other interests which took him out of the house three or four times a week. Hannah didn’t know what these interests were, nor did she care, and used those nights to polish up her shorthand and accounts work as well as the typing, until Josie complained she was getting on faster than she was.
But Hannah had a goal. She wanted a good job that might command more than adequate wages. In her heart of hearts, she didn’t know how long she’d be able to stomach this sham of a marriage. In the back of her mind as she worked in the bedroom was the realisation that one day, this might be for real.
Pauline knew what was going on of course, though she said nothing of it to Arthur, but rather applauded what Hannah was doing and often came up and helped by dictating letters for Hannah to take down in shorthand and then type up. She had begun to feel sorry a while ago for the way the child treated her, that Arthur condoned by not correcting her, and also for the way Arthur treated her. It bothered Pauline when he told her things concerning the child that she found out later Hannah knew nothing about. If she wanted to better herself, well good luck to her. Now if only the child could take to her, it would mean everything.
Mind you, she had to admit the school had been good for Angela. She no longer screamed in temper, nor snatched at food or anything else. She ate daintily and said, ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you’ without being reminded. But once through the door of her home, she was still once more the kingpin, the one everyone kowtowed to, the one everyone rushed to satisfy when she issued orders in her imperious little voice.
She’d been taught a veneer of politeness, so she no longer showed her dislike of her mother quite so obviously, and Hannah was grateful even for that small improvement and tried, like the others, to please her. But still, when her father stepped through the door, it was as if everyone else had ceased to exist. It was to him she brought the news of the day at school, showing him her paintings and models.
Hannah knew the paintings adorned his bedroom and the crude constructions Angela had made lined his tallboy for she’d seen them when she’d tidied and she felt sad that she hadn’t been shown these things. Pauline advised her to have patience and really Hannah hadn’t any alternative; she could only hope and pray that she would be able to build something worthwhile with the child before she was much older.
Angela was now rising four and did academic work for part of the morning at the nursery and Hannah was explaining this to Gloria one afternoon in late autumn. ‘Arthur tests her every day on what she’s learned,’ Hannah said. ‘She never seems to mind anything her daddy suggests. The rest of us might as well not exist if Arthur is around, but then you know that, I’ve told you before. I can never seem to amuse or satisfy the child. Whatever I do, she moans that she’s bored and wants her daddy.’
‘If you ask me, you’re making a rod for your back giving the child all your attention the way you are,’ Gloria remarked. ‘You would be prepared to turn cartwheels so that that child would throw you a few crumbs of affection and she senses that.’
‘Aye,’ Hannah said. ‘And I know you think that daft and I know too that crumbs might be all I ever get, but without those crumbs, life wouldn’t be worth living.’
‘I know, lass,’ Gloria said gently. ‘But it’s no good for the child the way you have her, particularly Arthur, because he’s raising a wayward child with no thought for any but herself. It will come home to roost eventually, mark my words!’
‘Well, there’s no sign of it so far,’ Hannah said.
‘You need to stand back from it a bit. Get something else to fill your life. Have you thought any more about getting a job?’
‘Aye, but the point is, though I know accounts, shorthand and my typing speed is fast, I’ve no certificates to prove it. Josie has got on really well, but she’ll be taking exams in May. She says I’m as good as she is, but I don’t know.’
‘Well, I don’t know how good or bad you are,’ Gloria said, ‘but I do know employers won’t be beating a path to your door and you’d be better fixing your mind on something other than Miss Angela Bradley.’
Hannah knew Gloria was right, but she couldn’t seem to pluck up courage to go anywhere. Anyway, where did she go? The employment exchange, she supposed. She hadn’t looked for a job since coming off the boat in Liverpool and travelling to Leeds in 1938, thirteen years before, and even then Molly had already spoken for her and had a job lined up at The Hibernian.
Christmas was nearly upon them again. Angela’s birthday had been as lavish as ever and had included a sumptuous tea, organised games and a puppet show. Almost the entire nursery school had been invited and Angela showed off on her father’s present to her, a large three-wheeler bike in bright red and silver, with a huge bread-box on the back between the back wheels, that she’d allow no one else to touch, let alone ride.
For Christmas, Hannah knew that Angela was having a majestic rocking horse and a doll’s house that would almost take up one wall of her bedroom. She only had to say she wanted something for her father to buy it. But there was nothing Hannah could do about that.
She had her head down against the wind as she made her way up Erdington High Street, and she almost careered into someone. ‘Hey, steady!’
‘Oh, Doctor Humphries, I’m so sorry.’
‘It’s all right,’ the doctor said, looking Hannah up and down. ‘This wind is pretty fierce. How are you now? You must be all right for I never see you in the surgery.’
‘Oh, I’m fine.’
‘How’s Angela? How old is she now?’
‘She’s fine,’ Hannah said. ‘She was four in November and is at nursery full-time, leaving me and Pauline falling over one another in the house. I’m thinking of getting a job for myself in the New Year.’
‘Oh? Doing what?’
‘Well, I’ve been practising secretarial skills,’ Hannah said. ‘Josie’s learning at school and she teaches me and I practise at home.’
‘Are you any good?’
‘I don’t know. Josie says I am, but I’m not sure myself.’
‘Do you know shorthand and typing?’
‘Yes, and accounts.’
Vic Humphries scrutinised the woman in front of him who had been so ill in the weeks and months following her baby’s birth that she’d almost tipped over into the abyss of true mental illness. She certainly looked better than she’d looked then, but there was still something in her manner, something not right.
She certainly, on the face of it, didn’t appear to have problems. Her husband was in full-time, obviously well-paid employment, she had help in the house and the child was full-time at a private school. Certainly, that was the view of the neighbours – many of them he’d treated had given him their opinion of Hannah Bradley. He’d gathered they thought her uppity and above herself and far too good for the likes of them.
Doctor Humphries had never got that impression in the weeks she’d been going to the surgery for treatment over three years ago when she’d been so ill after Angela’s birth. In fact, he’d felt then that Hannah was lacking in self-esteem and certainly not totally happy. He applauded her decision to teach herself skills to enable her to better herself, though he knew most employers would need vital pieces of paper as proof that she could do what she claimed.
He was in a bit of a hole himself, but if he was to offer a position to Hannah, was he doing it totally because he felt sorry for her? She might be useless. But then he dismissed that. He thought her an honest person and he was sure she would not say she was any
good if she wasn’t. He decided to take the risk.
‘You wouldn’t care to give me a hand, would you?’
‘Work for you?’
‘Yes, don’t sound so shocked,’ Doctor Humphries said. ‘The point is, my secretary went down to London in a rush when her father died suddenly four days ago. I held the post for her. But just this morning, I got a phone call to say that she can’t leave her mother and that she’ll be looking for a job down there to be nearer to her.’
‘But you don’t know if I’m any good,’ Hannah said.
‘I know you’ve got to be better than me,’ Doctor Humphries said. ‘I jab at the typewriter with two fingers. I was on my way to put a card in at the employment exchange, but I’m rushed off my feet now what with the colds and flu and similar infections of winter and such, and I haven’t time for the rigmarole of interviewing. If you could just help me for a few weeks, I would be grateful.’
Hannah accepted the opportunity the doctor was offering her and when Arthur kicked up when she told him about it she hit back. ‘You never give me a penny piece for myself, unless you want to impress the Banks. Well, I’m fed up with it and that’s the truth. Anyway, I thought you’d be pleased that I was out more and probably will see less of my daughter. That always seems to please you.’
‘It seems to please you equally, my dear. You’ve never had time for her. Angela’s always been just a nuisance to you.’
It wasn’t true, but Hannah, weary with arguing with Arthur, didn’t bother denying it. She turned her head impatiently and then bitterly wished she had challenged Arthur, because standing in the doorway, where she’d heard every word, was Angela. She cast her mother a baleful look and ran.
Hannah saw Arthur’s curled lip and the satisfied look on his face and she cried, ‘You’re a fiend! An unnatural fiend!’ She went off to find Angela, but she was already upstairs, buried in Pauline’s arms. Pauline hadn’t known what had sent Angela flying up the stairs sobbing and she’d comforted her without knowing what had brought it about for Angela had been too upset to tell her.
When Hannah came into the room, Pauline had tried to coax Angela to speak to her mother, but to no avail. ‘No,’ she declared, her voice muffled as she spoke into Pauline’s shoulder. ‘She doesn’t like me and I don’t care because I don’t like her either and I wish she’d go right away.’
Defeated, Hannah turned, left the room and went downstairs where she sat alone in the kitchen. ‘She’s but a child,’ Pauline said later. ‘She was hurt and lashed out. It meant nothing.’
‘Pauline, she’s only ever just tolerated me.’
‘Oh, Hannah, you take too much notice of her childish outbursts.’
‘So would you if it was you they were directed towards.’
Pauline had to agree. Her initial feelings of wishing to usurp Hannah’s place in the child’s heart had disappeared in the sympathy she’d developed for Hannah’s position. She’d lost her two young daughters to influenza, but at least she thought they’d died loving her. She didn’t know how she’d have coped if they constantly rejected her and pushed her away as Angela did her mother. And sometimes guilt niggled at her that she hadn’t helped the situation. But she did think it might help Hannah’s self-confidence that Angela was unwittingly battering away at to take the job the doctor offered and she said so.
‘You don’t see it as another admission of failure?’
‘No, not at all, quite the opposite.’
‘Angela heard me agree with Arthur that I always thought her a nuisance,’ Hannah said suddenly.
Pauline shook her head. ‘I can’t see you saying that.’
‘No,’ Hannah said with a sigh. ‘I didn’t say it, Arthur did, but I didn’t bother arguing. He often says similar things and I just let it go. I didn’t know, but Arthur did, that Angela was right behind me. That’s why she was so upset and that’s why she said what she did to me.’
Pauline had wondered why the child had been upset. But she thought the situation had been Arthur’s fault, not Hannah’s. He’d hurt the child he purported to love to gain a point over his wife. ‘I’ll talk to her,’ she promised. ‘Try and get her to see that …’
‘Don’t bother, Pauline,’ Hannah said with a sigh. ‘She’d not believe anyone over her father. If he told her hell would freeze over, she’d believe him. Let it go. But this has decided me, I’m taking that job. Maybe I’ll make a better fist of being a secretary than I have a mother.’
‘Don’t degrade yourself.’
‘I’m not, Pauline. Really I’m not,’ Hannah said. ‘I’m just facing facts.’
Chapter Thirteen
Doctor Humphries, or Vic as he insisted Hannah call him out of the patients’ earshot, seemed delighted with Hannah’s decision and the day she began it was easy for Hannah to see why. The whole place was in a terrible muddle; patients’ files dumped on any available surface, unanswered letters scattering the desk and bills and accounts stuck haphazardly on to a spike.
Added to that, the whole place was grubby and a queue of people were outside waiting for the doors to open. ‘As you can see, it’s a bit of a mess,’ Vic Humphries said.
‘Aye, I see that,’ said Hannah, but she was thinking to herself that the place couldn’t have got so bad in a few days. His last secretary, she decided, must have been bone idle.
‘I’ll tidy it up after surgery,’ she promised. ‘You’ll have to open the doors up now. It would cut you in two out there and you’ll have them all go down with double pneumonia if you’re not careful.’
Hannah was kept busy after that. Taking the names and addresses was easy, but finding their files, with no obvious system in place, was a nightmare and one she resolved to remedy as soon as she could.
Christmas came and went and by the New Year, Hannah and Vic had a routine going. The National Health Service was well underway by then and the waiting room was often packed, but now that it was better organised, it was easy for her to find files and patients’ notes and have them ready for Vic as he called each patient in.
Hannah soon understood the patients, those who needed sympathy, especially the elderly, and those that needed a no-nonsense approach. She recognised those who were apprehensive, the children trying not to cry and their worried mothers, the men who thought illness was a weakness and would rather be anywhere but there, and the workshy who came for another panel note from the doctor.
With them all she was polite but friendly. She remembered former ailments and asked about other members of the family and many would sing Hannah’s praises to the doctor in the surgery.
When surgery was over, Hannah would make her and the doctor a cup of coffee and go in with her shorthand pad, while Vic dictated letters he needed to write. Lunch was cooked and eaten in Vic’s kitchen upstairs. It hadn’t been the case at first. Then Hannah had arrived with a sandwich and flask of tea until Vic said it was ridiculous to bring a cold sandwich when there was a kitchen upstairs where she could cook herself something warm, so now Hannah heated up soup or something.
Vic was seldom there. He was usually out on his rounds and she often didn’t see him again till afternoon or evening surgery. She had plenty to occupy her, for as well as the letters to write, she had the accounts to bring up to date. Vic was remarkably lackadaisical about money matters, but the Government paid the doctor for each patient treated. Then there were the accounts for those who insisted on staying on as private patients and the bills for their home visits and drugs or treatment prescribed for them.
But still Hannah doubted her ability. She’d only agreed to help Vic out for a few weeks initially and felt sure when things settled down, perhaps in the spring, he would look around for a proper secretary with certificates and qualifications, and she didn’t want him to feel guilty about asking her to leave.
But as January gave way to February, every day the waiting room was filled with people with streaming eyes and hacking coughs and Vic was rushed off his feet visiting those unable to get out of bed
altogether.
Even the King succumbed to the lung disease he’d been suffering from for years and on 6th February, he gave up the fight. The patients in the waiting room were voracious over it. Princess Elizabeth would be the new Queen, the first Queen since Victoria. She wasn’t even in the country at the time, but in Kenya, and most remembered how frail the King had looked in the photographs in the newspapers as he’d waved his daughter off only a week earlier.
‘Don’t envy the task of being Queen, now any road,’ one old man said, and there was a murmur of agreement. ‘I mean, we’re supposed to be at peace, but we ain’t. We’ve got soldiers fighting in Malaya and Egypt, as well as bloody Korea, and now these bloody Mau-Maus in Africa rising up against one another.’
‘Yes,’ commented an old lady. ‘I thought Churchill would sort it when the Conservatives got in last October. Didn’t you? I mean he was good in the war.’
‘Good in the war!’ spluttered the first man. ‘Never even fired a gun. Only thing he was good at was shouting his mouth off.’
That seemed to be the consensus at home too. ‘Of course,’ Pauline said. ‘He’s an old man. I mean, to vote a man of seventy-six to lead the country, it’s madness. He’s living in the past.’
‘Yes, and it’s amazing how people who excelled in the war can’t revert to peacetime,’ Hannah put in. ‘I mean we’ve had ex-servicemen in the surgery suffering from stress and bad nerves and all sorts. First-rate soldiers and they can’t hold down a job in civvy street.’
‘War does dreadful things to people,’ Pauline said. ‘But let’s all cheer up. We can do nothing about the Government, at least not for a few years, nor nothing about the skirmishes, but we can prepare for a coronation.’
‘What do you mean, prepare?’ Josie asked.
‘A party,’ Pauline said. ‘Bound to be a party, isn’t there, for a coronation? I remember the coronation of this King in 1937. I was working at the big house then and they had a huge marquee and invited everyone from the village. The kitchen staff were working morning, noon and night preparing for it and on the day, village girls were pressed into service too. They organised games for the children, and a band played and people danced on the lawns. Oh, it was a wonderful day.’ But now there would be a young Queen on the throne, for Elizabeth was only twenty-six and the mother of two young children, Charles and Anne. ‘A New Elizabethan Age,’ the papers heralded it and though Hannah was convinced whoever was on the throne wouldn’t make the slightest difference to her life, coronation fever seemed to be gripping everyone else.