The Girl Now Leaving

by The Girl Now Leaving (retail) (epub)

  ‘And not enough money to buy it.’

  ‘Oh, Lu! You should just hear yourself.’ She jumped out of bed and opened Lu’s cupboard where her swingback coat and two dance dresses hung over gold dancing shoes and a pair of high-heeled patent courts. ‘You earned enough for these.’

  ‘It took me months of slog and going without… and I won a bit of money. Factory work is terrible, I shan’t stop there for ever.’

  ‘But you got them. I couldn’t get things like these, it wouldn’t matter how hard I worked or how long. I only got my coat to come here because I got some field-work with your aunty and she helped me make the skirt and this night-shirt on her machine, and Joycey got some cheap shoes off the traveller.’

  ‘Your pa would never let you go.’

  ‘He let Duke.’

  ‘Duke’s a man.’

  ‘He couldn’t say anything. My ma did as she liked, so did my pa. It wouldn’t hardly be fair if he said I couldn’t.’ They lapsed into silence. Lu lay imagining what it would be like with Bar here every day. Three people in the house again, except that it would be a sister who would live there instead of Kenny. She envied girls who always had some tale to tell about one or other of her sisters. They could go together for weekends at Roman’s Fields. But she could not visualize Bar in a dance hall. As she drifted into sleep, Lu wondered why she had always supposed that Bar must be happy working in the stables. When Lu visited Roman’s Fields they spent hours trying out hair-dos and practising dance steps. Why wouldn’t Bar enjoy those things too?

  Next morning she awoke early, her mind still buzzing with what Bar had said last night. She had been disturbed by Bar when she put her coat over her night-dress and went downstairs and across the yard to the lavatory. She’d heard the lavatory flush, the back-door latch click, the kitchen tap squeak and water gurgle through the pipes, stairs creaking, Ray’s voice, Bar’s voice, the kettle being filled, cups being set out, scullery chairs being pulled out from the table. There was not much privacy in the jerry-built terraces of Lampeter Street.

  An element she hadn’t considered in her fantasy of Bar living here as her sister was Ray. Not just Ray, but Ray and Bar. Ray with Bar… With Bar as a lodger… Bar could never be a lodger, but living with them, she and Ray would meet like this every day. It would be throwing them together. Ray said he was much too old, but it wouldn’t be long before he stopped thinking about that. Lu sat on the side of the bed unpinning her hair. Good God, what the hell am I thinking about? It’s not my affair if Ray and Bar…? If they what? If they fell in love and got married. Bar would still be a sister. Lu and Bar and Ray would all be closer; they all loved one another.

  But Bar would be Ray’s wife. Ray’s wife would not go to the Pier Ballroom on Saturday nights. Ray’s wife would not jump on the train after work on Saturdays and spend the weekend messing around at May and Ted’s, would not go riding on Mr Barney’s horses, not venture out on to the quiet Sunday lanes in the van. Ray’s wife would sleep with Ray, and Lu would have the single back room to herself. Not the same thing at all as the original fantasy.

  Ray shouted up the stairs, ‘Tea, Lu!’

  With her big baggy working cardi over her night-dress, she went down. Bar was seated at the scullery table, her coat demurely buttoned. Ray fetched a chair from the other room. He was dressed as he usually was first thing on Sunday mornings, in his working trousers and yesterday’s shirt without a collar.

  He had put some bread under the grill and, as he was taking it out, he said, ‘Barbara was just saying she’d like to live in Pompey.’

  Bar twisted her pigtail round in a bun and fixed it with a bone pin on top of her head before she added, ‘I don’t want to stop a stable-hand for ever.’

  Lu said, ‘We could give it a try. It won’t be easy getting a job, but there’s got to be something.’

  ‘1 know where there’s one going if it hasn’t been took already.’ Her cheeks blushed red with excitement.

  ‘Where? How do you know?’

  Bar smiled. ‘It was plain there for all to see where we went yesterday. If you’re sure I could be your lodger, I’m going after it.’

  Lu protested, ‘You can’t go on your own. You don’t know Portsmouth.’

  Bar shook her head. ‘Of course I do, we walked all over the town yesterday. I’ve been finding my way around since I was three.’ She rearranged the long twist of her hair, and encircled her head with it. ‘Do I look all right? They won’t want anybody who don’t look nice.’

  Lu said, ‘For goodness’ sake tell us where you’re going.’

  ‘No. If I get the job it will be a nice surprise.’

  It was six-thirty when she returned. Lu was just making a pile of dripping toast for tea when Bar tapped the front door and came in. Her prim coronet of hair had gone and her long black mane hung beautifully around the shoulders of her cheap coat. Her eyes shone, her cheeks were flushed and she greeted them with an open-armed twirl. ‘I got it! I got it! I started straight away. And look,’ she delved into her pocket and brought out a handful of assorted small coins, ‘a down-payment on my first week’s lodging money.’

  Lu had never seen Bar demonstrate such exuberance.

  ‘Tips!’ Bar said. ‘I don’t know how much there is, but it don’t matter. I got the job, ten-and-six a week. It’s long hours, but I already work long hours at the stables. Plus tips. A bit extra for summer work because they open late. I get a bit of a snack during the day when things are slack. If they’re pleased with me – and they were, they said I was just what they was looking for, they said it was really good getting a girl with long black hair, because that’s what their daughter has got, and customers will think I’m family… it’s a family business. I start proper on Tuesday. That gives me time to go home and get my things. Is that all right with you?’

  ‘For goodness’ sake, tell us what the job is.’

  Bar threw off her coat and took a drink of the tea. ‘Guess.’

  Ray said, his face showing the pleasure he was experiencing watching this lovely display of ebullience, ‘Waitress in one of the cafes?’

  ‘How did you guess that?’

  ‘Couldn’t think of anything else that opens Sunday and gets more custom in the summer months. Which one?’

  ‘Palccino’s.’

  Lu said, ‘They’re famous, you know.’

  ‘I know. Mr Palccino (he’s called Papa) told me that they supplied ice-cream to the old king when he visited the Navy. They had some other girls went for the job last week, but Mrs Palccino (she is always called Mama Palccino), she said she wouldn’t take any of them because they wore powder and scent. She didn’t say it like that (she speaks funny like “door-to-door Indians” but not the same).’ Bar tried to mimic Mama Palccino. ‘“They all a-stink like a-bath salt. People not like a-bath salt with ice-cream.” She told me that half a dozen times. She said Papa Palccino is very fussy about the way his ice-cream is served up (he can’t hardly speak any English). I won’t be allowed to do the scoops straight away, only take the orders and carry them to the tables. She said she liked my hair, because it smells fresh. I smell “like a-girl”.’ Bar giggled with delight. ‘She says a lot about how things smell. I didn’t tell her that last Friday I smell-a like a-stable.’

  ‘What are you going to do about that?’ Lu asked. ‘You are supposed to be back at work on Tuesday.’

  ‘I’ll go back as early as I can tomorrow morning. Go up to the stables and tell them I’ve left. They don’t owe me any wages, and they docked me for the two days off, so I don’t owe them anything. Go and tell Ma and Pa, and your aunty, and then catch the train back and start on Tuesday morning. I told Mama Palccino – don’t that sound silly, I expect I’ll get used to it – she said she would keep the notice out of the window till Tuesday afternoon. And if I go back, she will take me to the store and buy me two white overalls and some caps and aprons – I said I liked red, and she said she did too. I told her, “Mama Palccino, I said I would be back and I wil
l; I don’t never say things I don’t mean.” I just wanted to get things straight right from the start. She said all right, she would throw the notice away. That’s how I knew there was a job going… the notice, it was in the side window when we went there yesterday afternoon. Didn’t you see it?’

  Lu shook her head. ‘It wouldn’t have registered if I had.’

  ‘It did with me. “Young girl wanted to wait on tables.” All the way on the tram I kept wondering whether I was young, and then thinking what you said about there being a dozen girls for every job going, so I kept my fingers crossed. I think I was meant to get the job, don’t you?’

  Ray said, glancing at Lu, ‘You realize Lu won’t be here for a couple of days next week.’

  ‘I know. I won’t get in your way. I expect you won’t hardly know I’m in the house.’

  Lu expected Ray to have something to say about that, but he didn’t; what he did say was, ‘You and me might be able to get back on our old footing with somebody else in the house.’

  ‘She’s a bit like Ken in that respect: they’re not such earnest people like you and me; they don’t want to change the world like we do.’

  That gave Ray something to think about. He thought Lu wanted to be in a different world, not change the one she was in. If she did, he didn’t see much sign of revolutionary fervour in the kind of fake Hollywood life she seemed to live when she could.

  * * *

  Bar moved in to Number no the day before she started her job at Palccino’s Ice Parlour. The busy summer season had just begun. She found it all so stimulating that for a few days she never seemed to stop talking and laughing. There was no doubt she refreshed the crumbling little terrace house and the jaded relationship of its two occupants like a cheerful new coat of paint.

  ‘I brought my picture, Lu. Can I put it up with yours?’ The well-remembered first photos in the meadow with the poppies were put together on the mantelpiece, Lu with poppies in her hat looking out timidly, Bar, her wild bush of black hair starred with ox-eye daisies, grinning fearlessly, directly into the lens of Ted’s camera.

  ‘Just look at us, Lu. Who’d have thought then that you’d be goin’ off to Paris and I would be living in a big city? Pa give me five gold sovereigns for a rainy day (would you look after them for me, Ray?), and my ma sent two of her ornaments to remind me that I must go home and see them sometimes on my day off. And she give me the gold earring she’d been saving for if I got wed, but she said I should have it now so I had something nice to wear to show I’m not just anybody. Duke’s got the other one, he got it on a chain because he said it was too fancy to wear, so Pa gave him his out of his own ear. That meant a lot to Pa, you know, it was the last bit of his old ways. Ma said she would buy Pa a new one for a wedding ring.’

  The earring was fancy, but very distinctive and beautifully embellished. The heavy gold in one ear and her hair tied back in a ribbon, as she took to wearing it now, gave her a particularly feminine appearance. She believed that her new appearance made her blend in with the modem city girl; she was wrong, she stood out as an exotic exception. When men’s eyes were upon her as she walked towards them, and after she had passed by, Bar did not notice, she was interested in just one man, and she would see him every day.

  * * *

  There were mixed feelings amongst Lu’s workmates when they heard that one of their own sort had been chosen to go abroad with the boss to show the new ‘Princess’ line. It wasn’t surprising that there were some who thought it was just a better way than George’s of trying to get a girl’s clothes off, but nobody who knew her was foolish enough to say that to Lu’s face. Some thought that having a common factory girl modelling the latest style would bring ‘Queenform’ down to the level of Woolworth’s, and Old Mr Ezzard would turn in his grave. The majority, especially the ones working on the prototypes being made exclusively for the Lascelles store, thought it was modern and a kind of Hollywood thing to do. Kate said, ‘It’s real rags to riches, taking a poor girl and making her into a princess. “Princess”, see? You might get your picture in the paper even.’

  That had never occurred to Lu. Miss Lake said, ‘Kate Roles was always able to carry anything to the nth degree. There will probably be something in the trade journals – the garment, not the model.’

  Lu and Cynthia Lake were booked on the night crossing. Mr Ezzard had flown over ahead of them. The train to London was ordinary passenger, except that they travelled second class, which was quite superior and roomy compared with the normal third class by which working-class people ordinarily travelled. She eyed the splendour of first class, but did not wish that for herself, at least not for the moment. Second was enough for now.

  Once on the boat-train, Lu, in a window-seat opposite Miss Lake’s, leaned back into the plush comfort and rested her head against the fresh white linen antimacassar and felt so thrilled she almost felt sick.

  Outside on the platform, the last-minute stages of preparation for departure were going on: passengers hurrying, porters running with bags, others pushing baggage carts, carriage doors banging, hissing steam, and indistinct voices echoing in the vaulted roof of the station. Within the comfortable compartment, Lu felt both a participant and voyeur of the drama in which only she and the other travellers on this expedition, on this particular boat-train, were involved. It was a unique set of circumstances which she felt sure she would never forget.

  Gradually her sick excitement subsided into a warm, pleasurable elation and she could relax.

  Over the last few days she had felt unable to eat, and at work had had to force herself to hold in her excitement, not wishing any of her mates to think that this meant more than an extra duty imposed by the Ezzards. Insincerely she agreed with girls who said it would be horrible having to eat frogs’ legs and stuff like that, and with others who said that she must take her own flannel because their dads knew for a fact that French people only used all that scent because they didn’t like washing. Now, though, having left all that behind, plus the stand she had to make against Ray, she could give herself entirely to the experience. This was a chance to leave Lampeter and the factory behind for a couple of days. The more she read of Kenny’s freedom and experience in foreign countries, the more she longed to find a way of doing something equally adventurous, and this was a start.

  At last the long train began to pull out with great ceremony. Only then did she become conscious of Miss Lake watching her. When she drew her eyes away from the scene slowly passing and gaining momentum, she met her chaperone’s eyes which, like her mouth, were smiling at Lu. Miss Lake leaned forward, slightly resting her arms on the table and her chin on her fists, and said quietly, ‘Well?’

  Lu, equally discreetly, said, ‘It’s like a dream. I’ve seen scenes like this loads of times at the pictures. I feel a bit like an actress.’ Her attention was caught again, this time by the snatches of London as it rapidly changed from the great capital of the Commonwealth to stretches of blackened houses and factories not much different from their own smoke-grimed streets.

  Miss Lake removed her velvet beret and laid it beside her. Lu, feeling nicely dressed herself, observed every detail of her dress and her actions, and decided that, if she modelled herself on Miss Lake – when she wasn’t being headmistress – then she couldn’t go far wrong. Long ago she had copied her way of speaking, sounding aitches in the right place, putting ts and gs where they belonged. Now she could observe the correct way to travel. ‘You never expected to find yourself leaving England on a boat-train, Lu?’

  ‘Oh I did, yes. Every film I see where there’s somebody leaving, I always imagine that it’s me. I’ve left on stage-coaches, aeroplanes and big liners. Have you ever been on a liner?’

  ‘I’ve travelled by air several times, and I’ve been as far as the Mediterranean on a steam-ship.’

  ‘If I was a boy I’d do the same as Kenny. Do you remember that poem we had to leam in Miss Nash’s class? “I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree”. That used t
o give me goose-bumps, that idea of just “arising” and “going”.’

  ‘Ideas like that do have great driving force. Gives one the impetus to do what one wants – without let or hindrance, as they say.’

  Lu was surprised at the tone, the enthusiasm with which Miss Lake concurred. ‘If that’s the case, then how did you come to arise and go to Pompey? Lampeter of all places?’

  Her reply was interrupted by a waiter serving refreshments and taking orders for dinner. Not recognizing a single item except beef – boeuf – on the impressive menu, Lu nodded at Miss Lake’s suggestions, trusting her not to order frogs’ legs. ‘You might say that Lampeter was my Innisfree.’ She pursed her lips, and smiled wryly in anticipation of Lu’s expression.

  ‘You’re pulling my leg.’

  Thrusting her fingers into her thick waves, and combing them back from her broad forehead in a gesture that Lu now recognized as a prelude to directness, Miss Lake went on, ‘This may sound rather patronizing, but I had an idea that I could do some good for children in Lampeter. I was born into a family who had a lot of everything. My father was, still is, a mill-owner… Lake’s of Shirebrook.’ She lit a cigarette. Lu followed her gaze to the new passing scene of suburbia: green, spacious, leafy and clean. ‘My father had this quality: he saw no harm in allowing a daughter to be educated. By the time I had obtained a degree in teaching, I knew what I wanted to do.’

  ‘A mill’s a factory, isn’t it?’

  Cynthia Lake nodded. ‘Though people who live in the south of England hardly ever think of them as other than the ubiquitous cotton mills of fiction – Mrs Gaskell’s North and South, you know? Eh lass, there’s trouble at mill.’

  Lu could have laughed aloud hearing Miss Lake talk like that: ‘Like Gracie Fields in “Sing as We Go”.’

  Miss Lake nodded. ‘Lake’s is a knitwear mill: they make stockings, jumpers, cardigans and suchlike.’