A Daughter's Shame

by Audrey Reimann

  When it went quiet Lily would leap back up the stairs fast, because Doreen had told her about people who got in touch with heavenly spirits who banged on the table, bringing messages from beyond the grave.

  When she reached the top of the stairs she’d wait on the landing until she heard the back gate close, then she’d go back to bed and say her prayers, just as she did when Mam went out to the Angel, and Lily lay awake in bed in the dark, empty house.

  ‘Oh God,’ she prayed. ‘Don’t let anyone see her. Please God. She won’t be in the public bar. She has to mind her reputation. She will be in that private room at the Angel. It’s that big old pub in the Market Place, God. I’ll never tell another lie. I’ll never think bad things if you look after Mam. She has to have a bit of life. Send her home safe, God. Don’t let her fall over in the street like a common drunk, will you?’

  A common drunk, a woman, had been fined five pounds and her name put in the paper for being caught drunk in the street. There were terrible goings-on in Macclesfield; the real scandals almost as bad as the rumour and gossip everyone indulged in. Cases were reported about well-known men, some of whom owned small factories, picking up women in alehouses or out on the street in broad daylight. They gave them drink and took them to the fields and lanes in motor cars and there, in the fields, intimacy took place.

  When Lily asked Mam what intimacy was, she said. ‘Have you been listening to common street gossip?’

  ‘No, Mam. Honestly,’ Lily said. ‘I just want to know what it means.’

  ‘Some women will do anything for a shilling or two,’ Mam said. So Lily read the paper assiduously. There had been a long-running case in the Courier of a girl who claimed that the owner of one of the small mills was the father of her baby. He had picked her up in his motor car two Saturday evenings running and had taken her to the bluebell woods for intimacy. She was suing him for fifteen shillings a week for the baby’s keep. The man denied it, saying that the girl had done this intimacy before, with other men. The judge said he hoped the day would soon come when paternity could be established by testing the blood, instead of having all this wrangling and waiting to see who the child looked like.

  The girl got her fifteen shillings. The baby was his spitting image.

  After all this reading Lily discovered that intimacy had something to do with babies, but she did not know what. She knew very well what ‘drunk’ was, though. Mam drunk was very different from Mam sober.

  When Mam came home from the Angel she’d stand at the foot of the stairs yelling, ‘Our Lil. Come down here!’ Lily would go downstairs to see to her and help her to bed, relieved that she was home safely but shamed at Mam’s ramblings and grumblings as they struggled upstairs. Then, not content to sleep it off, Mam would stagger about her bedroom, dropping things in the darkness. She then slept for an hour before stumbling noisily downstairs to find something to eat.

  Once, she came into Lily’s bedroom and swayed against the door jamb. Lily started to cry. ‘Don’t get drunk, Mam. Don’t die.’

  ‘Die?’ Mam slurred. ‘Die? Who said die?’

  ‘I have no dad,’ Lily cried. ‘I would have nobody if you died, Mam.’

  ‘If I did–,’ Mam lurched nearer. ‘If ever anything happens …’

  Lily was afraid Mam was going to fall. She jumped out of bed and slid an arm round Mam’s waist. Mam leaned her weight against it and they both toppled on to the rug at the side of the bed. Mam gave her a skenny-eyed look and muttered, ‘If ever anything happened to me … don’t tell anyone. Except … except Mr Chancellor!’

  ‘I will, Mam,’ Lily said. ‘I promise I won’t tell Grandpa or Nanna.’ She heaved Mam to her feet and took her back to bed. She would never tell a soul about the state Mam got into. Least of all Mr Chancellor.

  The next day Mam was pale and ill. Before Lily left to catch the motor bus up to Lindow Mam said, ‘About last night. I am sorry. I’ll make it up to you. Do you love your Mam?’

  ‘You know I do. I’ll always love you. No matter what you do.’ Lily went off with a heavy heart that was not stilled until she had spent a few hours with Sylvia and Magnus.

  Sylvia was a pupil at the Macclesfield Girls’ High School but Magnus had a tutor for lessons and spent all his spare time at the mill with his father. He had not had any injuries for two years, none of the bleeding into his joints that came at the least knock and kept him confined to bed, the lower half of his body under a protective cage so that not even the sheets should touch the great purple areas of haemorrhage under his skin. It was believed that he had outgrown his haemophilia since going twice a year to Edinburgh, to receive treatment from a specialist there.

  Lily told him that he was growing tall and slim and handsome, like his father. She loved to be with Sylvia and Magnus at Archerfield, but her life in Macclesfield had become one long round of fears. Doreen had begun to follow her about after school, spoiling every move she made towards friendship with anybody else, enticing the new friends away, making a big, showy fuss, giving them things, making Lily look foolish when she let them see how upset she was.

  Lily waited until she got home before crying, to Mam, ‘Why does Doreen hate me?’

  Mam said, ‘She’s jealous.’

  ‘She’s not!’

  ‘Listen Lil,’ Mam said. ‘Doreen’s a nice girl but she wants everything you have. When I make a new coat for you, within hours Minnie Grimshaw’s round here asking me to make one the same for Doreen.’ She took a handkerchief and wiped Lily’s eyes but she had a faint smile on her face so Lily recoiled, cried harder and pushed Mam’s hand away. Mam shrugged and stood back. ‘I can only tell you, our Lil,’ she said. ‘She’s jealous!’

  ‘Why? What have I got? She has more than I have.’

  ‘Like what?’ Mam’s voice went high with impatience.

  ‘Like a dad!’ Lily cried. ‘Dads watch over their girls. All the girls say, “I’m telling my dad. He’ll fix you.” If I had a dad he’d fix Doreen. And friends. Everyone likes her best. You do.’

  Mam said, ‘I don’t like her better than you, you silly!’

  ‘Don’t call me silly! That’s what she calls me.’ Mam said nothing and Lily asked again, ‘Why does she hate me? Why is she jealous?’

  Mam said, ‘Because you’re prettier. Because you’ll go a lot farther.’

  She was not all those things. She wished Mam didn’t see them as better than everyone else. Lily had no dad, no best friend, they had no savings and Mam ‘went in for drink’ like the lowest of the low. Lily pleaded, ‘Tell her not to call me Silly Lily.’

  ‘You should say “Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me!”’

  ‘It’s not true! Names hurt. You don’t like it if Nellie Plant says things about you! Tell Doreen to stop.’

  Then Mam, trying to put some iron into Lily’s soul, sighed and said, ‘If you don’t stand up to a bully your life will be misery. Fight your battles. Take the battle to her! Beard the lion in his den!’

  Finally she understood what Mam meant.

  It was December, frosty underfoot, and just as it was coming light at about half past eight – she had gone early to school to avoid Doreen but Lily had to run the gauntlet. Doreen and eight of her gang were waiting in Fowler Street, the narrow cobbled lane near school.

  Doreen left the others grouped together, leaning against the wall of one of the cottages. She came forward. ‘What did you say to my mother about me, Lily Stanway?’

  Lily was shaking but she stood her ground. ‘I said nowt!’ Then she was mad with herself for saying ‘nowt’ just to be like the others.

  Doreen curled her lip up at one side. She was taller than Lily, broader, and her thick brown pigtails hung heavy down her back. Her eyes narrowed. ‘Say you’re sorry!’

  ‘Aye. Say yer sorry,’ chorused her troop. They tried to be threatening but Lily was not in the least afraid of them. There were a few seconds of silence, and she knew, in those few moments that if Doreen killed her
she wouldn’t say sorry. And knowing she would not apologise gave her soul the iron it needed. Her face was burning. She was dragging freezing, foggy air into her lungs with loud rasping noises and at the same time she was filling with a powerful energy and the knowledge that it was now or never. It was time she stood up for herself. Lily put her shoulders back like Mam did then went forward until her face was right up against Doreen’s.

  ‘Bugger off!’ she yelled, exactly like the carters’ lads. ‘Bugger off, Doreen Grimshaw. Great fat bully!’ There was a shocked silence as her words rang out on the still air. The onlookers drew breath as one, and then quickly let it out with long sighs of pleasure. Lily’s eyes never left Doreen’s face.

  She was trembling with rage when Doreen slapped her hard across the face. Lily staggered backwards and fell heavily, landing winded in a pile of horse muck in the middle of the street. Her best coat was covered in it. Mam had only finished it yesterday. Now she had nothing to lose but her life. Screeching with fury, she leaped up and grabbed Doreen Grimshaw’s pigtails and dragged her down to the cobbles. They were rolling, punching, kicking and screaming for what seemed like hours. Doreen was the stronger and every blow sent Lily reeling backwards until she got her wind and charged Doreen again. Again and again she went for the girl.

  She used her chapel trick to concentrate on what she had to do. ‘Keep hitting her. Hold her down,’ she ordered herself. ‘Don’t stop. Don’t cry.’ And she thought, right to the end, that she was losing because she could hear Doreen’s supporters shouting, ‘Give it to ’er, Doreen. Go on!’

  There were sharp, stabbing pains in her knees, in her ribs, in her stomach. Her ankles were wrenched and her stockings torn and filthy. Her hands were grazed, stinging, smarting but she fought on, holding Doreen’s head, trying to bash Doreen’s face into the spread-out dung on the cobbles. Then she heard first one, then a few more urging her on – the poor boys who wore mission jerseys and police charity clogs. They had not gone into the boys’ playground but were stamping and cheering for her. ‘Come on, Lily!’ they yelled. ‘You’re winning!’ They must be wrong. Doreen had not begged for mercy. Doreen covered her head with her arms as Lily tried to pull her to her feet so she could hit her again, until, with blessed relief, she heard the school bell.

  The fight was over. The shouting stopped. The boys’ clogs went ringing on the cobbles, clanging towards the school gate. Doreen’s friends ran ahead into the playground, and with grazed hands Lily bashed her clothes before slinking in after them.

  Lily and Doreen were seized by their head teacher who stood over them while they washed. ‘I’m ashamed of you,’ she said. ‘I never thought I’d see the day my two cleverest girls would behave like street urchins.’

  ‘It wasn’t me, miss,’ Doreen whined. ‘Lily Stanway started it. I’m telling my mother when I get home.’

  ‘That’s enough!’ Miss Kirk was sharp. ‘I’m going to speak to both your mothers. I will not have my pupils brawling in the street.’

  Lily was in awe, like everyone else, of this terrifying authority but in spite of the fact that every bone in her body was protesting in pain, though Mam would be angry about the fight and the coat, she knew as Miss Kirk spoke, that nothing in her life would ever seem so important as having fought Doreen Grimshaw and not lost.

  She’d done it. She had shown them all. When pushed too far she could prove that she was a soldier’s daughter. She felt as if she’d won her dad’s medal. Nobody would beat her now.

  Miss Kirk said, ‘I won’t cane you. I’ll speak to your mothers. Shake hands. Promise never to fight again.’

  Doreen closed her eyes as she took Lily’s hand. From now on she would be wary. She would never challenge Lily again. What Lily had not expected was that Doreen would make a pretence of friendship for her. She would say nasty things but with the ‘You know me, I speak my mind’ sort of preamble of one who is entitled, through closeness, to be critical.

  The other surprise outcome was that Lily made a friend. Shandy – Shirley Anderson – was the nicest girl in the school. She didn’t belong to anyone’s gang, and now she became Lily’s bosom pal.

  Lily felt as if she had won not just a battle but a campaign. She would meet challenges head on now. She began to assert herself, to shout ‘Mind your own business!’ and ‘See if I care!’ in public – on the streets – at every intrusion and insult that came her way.

  Frank and Elsie’s first quarrel came on a blustery March morning, a Wednesday half-closing day. Elsie was doing the shop window, first thing, because Frank took her to bed on Wednesday afternoons. It was risky. The three nights a week were safe because he was always round this end of town and had keys to her back door. Wednesday afternoons were different. Last week he missed bumping into Howard Willey-Leigh by a whisker. There was nothing between them, but Frank didn’t like Howard.

  Tackling the window would take her mind off the niggling doubts she had. Frank didn’t try to teach her those highbrow things or recite poetry to her any more. She couldn’t remember when it had stopped, but sometimes it seemed as if he wanted to provoke a quarrel, to justify a waning interest. Last night they had a tiff – about Nellie Plant, who was still at Chancellor’s though her designs were hideous. Elsie took a pail of water and a soapy cloth through to the shop and set to, trying not to dwell on last night. But it kept coming back …

  Last night, when he came in, he gave her a beery peck on the cheek and immediately pushed the table out of the way and wedged the armchair against the stair door, in case Lily came downstairs. Lily never came down at night. ‘What’s the hurry?’ she whispered.

  ‘Come on. Get your clothes off.’ He was smiling, but he meant it. He was not patient as he used to be.

  ‘I can’t just turn it on like a tap,’ she said. ‘It takes a woman longer to get in the mood.’

  He pulled her towards him and kissed her roughly. He needed her. Now. She’d tell him later. His mouth was on hers and her body was leaping in response, as it always did. He unfastened her blouse, her skirt. His tongue was moving about hers and she was trembling as she tried to slow him down, taking her time as she took off his shirt and slid her hands round his hard, muscled back. He did the rest, threw their clothes across the room and, holding her, sank down on to the rug. Desire was leaping, burning through both of them as he pleasured her body, making her ready until she was whimpering for him. ‘My way?’ he whispered.

  ‘Yes. Oh, yes …’ she said. ‘Hurry …’

  Then it was over and they lay, limp and relaxed. He propped himself up and held her against him, her back to him while he held her breasts and tenderly kissed the back of her neck – trying to rouse her again. Elsie loved it when they lay like this; relaxed after their first loving, with hours and a longer, slow-burning lovemaking ahead of them. She said, on an impulse, because lately he had been casual, ‘Do you ever want to do it with anyone else, Frank?’

  He gave her a playful little tweak, held her fast and said softly, ‘What makes you think I don’t?’ And there was something in the way he said it – there was challenge in him. She pulled away, sat up and faced him, and said, ‘I think I’d get to know if you did.’

  He laughed, and she had to tell him to hush in case Lily heard them. He said, ‘There’s a woman of forty-five, a rich, well-kept widow-woman, and then there is that young lass who works in our design …’

  ‘Stop!’ Her peace was shattered. ‘Nellie Plant! I knew all along!’

  He did that – made her mad. It amused him to see her rise to the bait. He put his hands over his face and she saw his shoulders shaking with laughter as he said, between bouts of stifled laughter, ‘I knew it. You’re jealous!’

  ‘Of Nellie Plant? You must be mad. You’d want someone with a bit more class than Nellie Plant!’

  He threw his head back. ‘You’re right! Nellie Plant’s not my sort.’

  She was getting angry. ‘What is your sort?’

  He put his hands on her shoulders as if they were ac
quaintances. ‘One of my women, a hot piece, likes a bit of rough stuff … the common touch.’

  One of his women? He told her time and again that she was his only love. Jealousy flared, consumed her. ‘Don’t! How dare you say that?’

  He took his hands off, and, in a swift change of mood regarded her angry face. ‘Don’t get possessive, Elsie. I’m not answerable to you.’

  She stood up. ‘You’ve been happy to be possessed.’ She grabbed her clothes then kicked his things across the floor. ‘Get dressed. Go to Nellie Plant! Go wherever you want. I’m not answerable to you, either!’

  To her astonishment, for lesser tiffs had ended in endearments, loving caresses and assurances that she had nothing to fear, he dressed quickly and left without a word. That was last night. He’d be back this afternoon. He couldn’t stay away. He needed what only she could give him. He had told her so. He always told the truth, and not only in the heat of passion.

  She cleared the window, laid everything on the counter and was washing inside the glass when he came into the shop. ‘You’re early,’ she said breezily, as if nothing had happened yesterday. She backed out of the window. ‘It’s only just gone eleven.’

  He carried a long box, some kind of peace offering, and was dressed in his best suit, a navy-blue pinstripe with a white shirt and striped silk tie. He had gone to all this trouble to make up with her. ‘Here,’ he said. He put the box on the counter with the sheepish, apologetic look of a schoolboy.

  Elsie rinsed her hands in the bucket and dried them. ‘What is it?’

  ‘A china doll. For our Lil’s birthday.’

  ‘She’s a bit old for dolls.’

  ‘It’s an old-fashioned one. I thought she’d like it.’

  She pulled the lace curtain so nobody would be able to see through the shop. Frank edged towards the door. ‘Don’t stand there,’ she said. ‘If anyone comes in …’