by Anwyn Moyle
‘Mr Lane was at home on that occasion, and a good job too!’
I gave my evidence about how Alan gambled all the money away and gave me nothing, so I had no alternative but to go out to work to feed the children. I also had statements from the neighbours saying he was violent and unpredictable. His solicitor asked if there was any medical evidence of his violence. When he was told there wasn’t, he tried to turn the tables and insinuate I was the violent one, and he said there was an instance of Mr Lane being admitted to hospital with a broken nose and cracked ribs and concussion.
‘I didn’t do that!’
‘No? Who did?’
‘The bouncers.’
‘What bouncers?’
‘In the gambling club.’
As it was an illegal gambling club, Alan whispered to his solicitor and the matter of his alleged injuries was withdrawn.
The judge did his summing up, after hearing all the evidence and the arguments to and fro. He said it wasn’t right the children should be dragged around to clean houses with me. I wanted to say they didn’t clean the houses, I cleaned the houses and they played while I was cleaning them. But the duty solicitor told me not to interrupt or be impertinent. The judge also conceded that Alan was wrong to gamble all his money away and force me out to work as a cleaner, but he did have a mother and sister at home who didn’t go out to work and could have cared for the children while I was out cleaning. I didn’t like the sound of that, and things didn’t seem to be going my way. He said it wasn’t clear who, if either of us, was violent in the relationship, so he was going to ignore that evidence altogether.
Clearly, according to the judge, Alan could provide the safest and most appropriate environment for the children. My heart sank – they were going to take the kids away from me. Plans already started formulating in my mind to take them back, abduct them, like I did before with Charlotte and run away to Wales with them. And the police sergeant would be on my side again and I’d live there forever in the coaldust and sheep dung and never come back to London again.
But the judge wasn’t finished yet. He said he was a traditionalist and he believed children belonged with their mother. Good, it was swinging back my way again. However, a wife and mother also belonged with her husband. The ideal scenario, in his view, was for me and Alan to reconcile our differences and get back together. That would solve all the problems. Alan was under obligation as a husband and father to provide for his wife and children and he should give me enough money to live on, so I didn’t have to go out to work and I could stay at home and take care of the children. He recessed the court so we could discuss it with our respective counsels.
We went to a private room in the court, while the children stayed outside with the uglies. Alan wasn’t happy about the money side of things and I didn’t want him back. Stalemate. My solicitor told me if I didn’t agree to the judge’s proposal, the court would award custody of the children to Alan and his family. It was either take Alan or lose the children. Alan’s solicitor told him if I agreed to the judge’s proposal and he didn’t, then the court would award custody of the children to me. Neither of us seemed to have any choice. It only left one issue to be resolved.
‘I’m not going back to live at Woodbridge Street.’
‘I’m not living in St Pancras.’
Both solicitors shook their heads in exasperation. I said if I went back to Clerkenwell, things would continue as they had before – Alan wouldn’t give me any money and his mother and sister would monopolise the children. They’d eventually find an excuse to get rid of me altogether. My solicitor said he’d explain that to the court and allow the judge to decide where we should live. Abduction plans resurfaced in my mind.
The court was recalled and the learned friends told the judge we’d agreed to his proposal. He was delighted about that. I think he saw himself as a marriage guidance counsellor as well as an esteemed m’lud. However, the issue of residence still remained. Alan’s solicitor argued that Woodbridge Street would provide a more stable family atmosphere for the children and the duty solicitor made my case about being marginalised by the uglies. Luckily for me, the judge was a traditionalist about this as well and believed that a man and wife should live together, independent of the wider family group, if at all possible. As there was an independent residence in St Pancras, then that was clearly the best option. And so it was resolved, Alan and I would live together again for the sake of the children and he would behave like a proper husband and father and support us financially. I didn’t believe for a single minute that this would happen.
But the judge did.
I asked the duty solicitor what I should do if Alan didn’t keep his side of the bargain.
‘He’s under a court order to do so.’
‘Yes, but what if he doesn’t?’
‘You’ll have to come back to court.’
‘Can’t I just throw him out?’
He told me I’d have to convince the court that Alan was in breach of its order. They would probably fine him and, if he broke it again, he could risk going to jail. But all that would take forever and a fortnight and, in the meantime, me and the children would starve if I didn’t go to work and do the cleaning. But that was the reality of the situation and the legal eagles weren’t concerned with reality, only the letter of the law.
Alan moved into the flat in St Pancras in May 1946 and things went well for a while. He gave me enough money to buy food and I didn’t have to go out skivvying and he didn’t have to follow me to make sure I wasn’t going on the game. We even had sex again and I fell pregnant again. My daughter Estelle was born on 17 March 1947. This time I had the baby in hospital and Alan looked after the other two until I got back home after three days. And that’s when things changed and he went back to his old ways. He had a run of bad luck on the horses, combined with even worse luck in the casinos, and the money he was giving me dried up. I had three children to feed now. Charlotte was five and Daniel was four and they were both going to nursery school. So I was able to go out cleaning again and only had to bring baby Estelle with me, as long as I was finished in time to collect the other two from school. As soon as I started going back out cleaning, Alan put his jealous head on and all the bother started up again. I just couldn’t be having it.
Then I saw a small shop to let down the street from the flat. It had accommodation above it and the rent for both was all-inclusive. I decided there was an easier way for me to make money. I went along to see the letting agent and they said they needed an advance down-payment of fifty pounds. Now, I had about fifteen pounds saved up for emergencies from my cleaning money and from the child benefit allowance I was getting for Daniel and Estelle, after it was introduced in August 1946. But I didn’t know where I could get the other thirty-five pounds from. I racked my brains, but there was nowhere I could go and no one I could ask. Then I thought of Alan – and his horses. I didn’t want him to know I had fifteen pounds, because he would have searched the flat for it and created and kicked the walls and I didn’t need all that melodrama. I had to think of a way to get the information I needed from him.
I knew he kept racing sheets in the house, with lists of horses and meetings. I found one, but it meant nothing to me – just a list of eccentric names and all sorts of abbreviations and hieroglyphics that obviously meant something to racing punters, but nothing to me. I put the sheet in a prominent place where Alan would be sure to see it when he came in. True to form, he picked it up and started to peruse it. I nonchalantly looked over his shoulder.
‘What does it all mean?’
‘What does what mean?’
‘All those letters and squiggles and stuff.’
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘No reason.’
He gave me a suspicious look, but he liked to think of himself as an expert on all things to do with gambling and he couldn’t resist the rare chance to show off his knowledge to me. He explained that the numbers and letters told you the weight the
horse would be carrying, the trainer and the jockey and a bit about the horse’s racing history and the odds on the horse winning that particular race – which was what I was interested in.
Alan explained that short odds meant the horse was fancied and had a better chance of winning than long odds, which meant the horse was an outsider.
‘Say you want to double your money?’
‘Then you bet on evens.’
‘What about triple it?’
‘Then bet on two-to-one against. You double your money and get your stake back.’
I knew what had to be done. To come away with fifty pounds I had to bet my fifteen pounds on a horse with odds of three-to-one, then I’d win forty-five pounds and get my own fifteen back as well. I’d have my fifty pounds with ten pounds to spare.
‘But isn’t betting illegal?’
‘Not on the track.’
‘But you don’t go to the track.’
‘There are horse joints, just like gambling dens . . . there’s one in Gray’s Inn Road.’
After Alan went out the next day and I dropped Charlotte and Daniel off at school, I came back and studied the racing sheets for that day. I only looked for horses that were three-to-one. Then a name caught my eye – Mari Lwyd – and I remembered the bony skull and the fiery green eyes and the snapping jaws of that skeleton horse from days gone by. I saw it as a sign – a premonition. It had to be this horse.
I wrote down all the details and put Estelle into her pram and walked down to Gray’s Inn Road. I’d been in and out of the illegal casinos with Alan so I knew what to look for – an inconspicuous side door with men coming and going. I stood close by it for a long time. My mind was in turmoil. How could I justify doing this? I was no better than Alan. What if the horse lost? Fifteen pounds was a fortune to throw away and I’d had to work hard to earn it. I should wait, save up some more money. But it would take me ages to get fifty pounds and the shop would be gone by then and I’d never get another chance.
I waited.
I watched the faces of the men going in. Who could I trust to put the bet on? It was a lot of money and they might just run off with it and there would be nothing I could do. No, this was wrong. I couldn’t risk it. I was about to turn away and leave when I saw a familiar face across the street, coming out of a bank. It was Mr Harding, from Hampstead and all those years ago.
‘Mr Harding! Mr Harding!’
He was the perfect choice. He was well-to-do and no one would bat an eyelid at him placing fifteen pounds on a horse. That’s if he’d agree to do it for me. He looked in my direction and hesitated. Then he smiled and came across the street.
‘Moyle . . . Anwyn . . . am I right?’
‘Yes, Sir, it’s me.’
I could smell that scent of sage and cedarwood, and feel his breath on the side of my face – like before, in the library. It was intoxicating. I forgot why I’d called him over.
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘Yes . . . yes, I would.’
He took me to a tea-shop called Hepworth’s in the Gray’s Inn Road. Estelle was asleep in her pram. He noticed my limp.
‘What happened to you, Anwyn?’
‘An accident.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘It’s all right. I’m used to it.’
We sat together in the tea-room and talked for a long time over a pot of Earl Grey and a plate of scones. I told him about my life since leaving Hampstead and how I was married now with three children. He told me he was still living with his wife in the same house. I asked him about Miranda Bouchard and he said she’d remarried – the rich Earl. She gave up the house in Chester Square and went to live in Wiltshire. She rarely visited London because the social season wasn’t what it used to be before the war and things were totally different now. He very seldom saw her and I noticed the sadness in his eyes when he said that.
It was obvious there was still something between them – but it was something that could never be allowed to flower in the stiflingly closed society in which they moved and manoeuvred. He was married and she was an aristocrat whose family needed money – and it didn’t matter if they were in love. Love had nothing to do with family or tradition and doing the honourable thing – the decent and not the decadent thing. I almost asked him if they were lovers but I didn’t need to know.
It felt strange sitting there, talking like two ordinary people – no longer master and maid. The old order was changing and I was no longer a naive teenage girl but a twenty-nine-year-old woman. We seemed to talk forever and I got the feeling he wanted to ask me something, but he never did.
‘It seemed urgent.’
‘What did?’
‘You calling to me, as if there was something that needed urgent attention.’
I suddenly remembered the bet and looked at the clock on the tea-room wall.
‘Oh, God, it’s too late.’
‘For what?’
I felt ashamed to tell him what I wanted him for – it seemed so inappropriate now. But he insisted on knowing and eventually I explained that I needed fifty pounds to rent a little shop to start up a washing and ironing business and the only way to get the money was to risk my savings.
‘Rather foolhardy, don’t you think?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Why don’t I loan you the money?’
‘Oh no, Sir. No!’
‘Of course I must. I owe you.’
‘You owe me nothing.’
He said he did, as it was his fault I was let go from the scullery maid’s job all those years ago. I told him he did me a favour, but he wouldn’t take n o for an answer. We walked back to the bank and he drew out fifty pounds and gave it to me. He said I could pay him back when my business started making a profit. I knew where to find him. I thanked him profusely. We said goodbye and he held on to my hand for a long moment and smiled and then disappeared into the coalescing crowd on Gray’s Inn Road. And I just hoped Alan wasn’t stalking me on that day, because he’d really have something to be jealous about this time.
Next day, I went to the letting agency and paid the deposit of fifty pounds and signed the lease for a year. I still had my savings and I used that money to paint the shop after I’d cleaned it all up and washed down the walls and the window. It had a little kitchenette out back and the floor was in good condition, so all I needed was to install some clothes rails and an ironing board. I also bought a second-hand top-loading washing machine on instalments and ran water pipes to and from the sink in the kitchenette. It was all makeshift and I had to take the washing up to the flat and hang it on the line in the garden to dry, then take it back down to the shop to iron and hang on the clothes rails. I put a sign in the window.
WASHING, DRYING & IRONING
REASONABLE RATES
Business was slow and, for a while, I thought it wouldn’t take off. I was competing on a small scale with the Chinese laundries in Central London, and St Pancras wasn’t exactly an affluent area where people could afford the luxury of having their linen washed and dried and ironed by someone else. Alan wanted to know where the money came from to open the shop, so I lied and told him I won it on a horse. He laughed, then he remembered me asking him all about the racing sheets and he was constantly trying to get me to pick winners for him after that. I picked a few and I don’t know whether they won or not, but he seemed happy enough. I never did find out whether Mari Lwyd won that day – and I didn’t want to know either.
A few weeks after I opened, a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith pulled up outside and the driver brought in bags full of stuff to be washed, dried and ironed.
‘Who’s washing is this?’
‘From Viscount Huntingdon’s house.’
‘Really?’
He confirmed that my shop was recommended by a Mr William Harding, so they were giving it a try. I was still skivvying for the upper-class. But I welcomed the business.
‘When will it be ready for collection?’
/> ‘Tomorrow?’
‘That soon? Wonderful. The housekeeper will be pleased.’
The next day, a Bentley pulled up, with washing from the home of the Marquess of Aylesbury. The next day more came from another high-class house. I was struggling to cope with it all in the end. I worked night and day, keeping the children with me in the shop when they weren’t in school or with Alan.
But it was my business.
What I did.
Chapter Twenty-two
It wasn’t long before I could afford one of the latest Bendix Deluxe front-loading washing machines and an automatic dryer. I had them plumbed in properly and didn’t have to have water pipes running all over the place. I installed some chairs and a couple of tables and tarted up the kitchen and sold tea and snacks to anyone who wanted to wait, and the little shop soon became a local meeting place for gossiping and chinwagging and some days there would be queues waiting for their washing. Some didn’t bring washing at all, just came in for a cup of tea and some company. But it was getting too much for me, so I had another two front-loaders and another dryer installed and employed a girl to help me out.
I was too busy building up the washing and ironing business to worry much about Alan and, as I wasn’t going round other people’s houses any more, he was happy that I’d stopped ‘soliciting’. And anyway, as long as I kept picking winners for him, I could do whatever I wanted. The 1940s rolled into the 1950s and Estelle grew up enough to go to school with the other two. I had six front-loaders now and four automatic dryers and I expanded the kitchen into a cafe. The latest trend in America was for Laundromats and Wash-A-Terias, as they called them, where the machines were coin-operated and people came in and did their own washing and drying and all you had to do was come round and collect the cash. But they still hadn’t invented a machine for doing the ironing, and I didn’t think they ever would.
My mother died in 1952. She was only fifty-one, but the hard life she lived finally took its toll on her and she gave up the ghost and followed my father to the Summerlands. I went back up to Llangynwyd for the funeral and I brought the children with me – Charlotte was ten and Daniel was nine and Estelle was five. I was thirty-four. We travelled by car, because Alan had taught me to drive and I bought myself a second-hand Vauxhall Velox saloon. The wake was over by the time we arrived and I didn’t want the children to have to walk behind the coffin in the old way. So I drove to the cemetery, behind the mourners, and told them to stay in the car while the gravediggers threw the clay in on top of her.