A Woman's Place (8 page)

‘So, who is it?’ she prompted Eveline, who responded with a resigned sigh. You couldn’t keep anything from Mum for long.

‘Just someone I met.’

‘Nice, was he?’

‘All right, I suppose.’ To her relief the non-committal reply made her mother relent; suddenly she deemed immediate matters to be more pressing.

‘Well, don’t just sit there! There’s things ter be done so make yerself useful. The table’s still got ter be laid and the cabbage needs ter be strained and taters mashed.’

Mum moved past her towards the kitchen, pausing to look over her shoulder.

‘Come on then, blooming Miss Lazybones. Sausages are nearly done. I just got ter make the gravy.’

To her, plain sausage and mash was common fare. Saturday called for them to be done in the oven with onions and Bisto gravy.

‘Yer dad ought ter be closing up now and ready for ’is tea.’

She said it hopefully. If a customer banged on his door for a purchase they’d left until the last moment, even if he’d that minute locked up and drawn down the door blind, he’d open up for them: whether from goodwill or just to make that few extra pennies was never certain, though to pay rent on the shop and flat and feed a family every penny helped.

Tonight he’d closed on time, coming up the back stairs with the cash box under his arm, May following. Coming in he glanced at Eveline, grunted but said nothing. He didn’t approve of what he called idle gadding.

Len Fenton was a man of few words but expected his authority to be respected. Stocky, having become slightly bow-legged as the years wore on, he looked the typical London Cockney. Uneducated though he was, he still had a good head for facts and figures, and although he rarely aired his opinions, when he did everyone knew immediately where they stood. His taciturnity would sometimes give Mum the impression that it was she who ruled this roost, then one word, one look from him would tell her that she didn’t. All in all, things in this house went along smoothly enough. Only Eveline, being very much like him except that she talked more freely, was a thorn in his side more often than not.

To her relief Mum, involved in dishing up, eating, discussing the shop and the takings and the way money went out of the house, said no more about the someone her daughter had admitted to meeting.

The evening meal was a time for lively chatter. No one ate in silence. Her younger brothers, nine-year-old Jimmy and seven-year-old Bobby, were giving each other lip until Mum, who’d been ladling gravy on to little Alfie’s plate – at not quite three he still needed help with his food – turned and tapped each squabbling boy sharply on the head with the gravy spoon. This left traces of gravy which they spread further into their hair as they vigorously rubbed away the sharp little pain from the contact of spoon on scalp.

Seventeen-year-old Len was talking football to Dad. Very athletic, he was playing in his club’s Sunday match tomorrow and Dad was going there to cheer him on. May and Mum were discussing trivialities between mouthfuls of mash, cabbage and sausage but Eveline knew it was only a matter of time before Mum turned to her to hear more about this young man she’d met. It had to come – the way she kept glancing at her while talking with May.

‘So what’s ’is name, this bloke yer met?’ she finally asked as May got up to clear away the empty plates.

Dad had gone to sit in his well-worn armchair by the fire to study football results in the
Evening Star.
He looked up enquiringly, but Eveline didn’t return his look as she got up to help her industrious sister.

Mum’s eyes followed her. ‘Or didn’t he say what ’is name was?’

She didn’t like the way it was being made to look as if she had been casually picked up. She had to correct that.

‘Of course he said.’ May came in for the rest of the debris and Eveline busied herself gathering up the tablecloth ready to shake over the kitchen sink, keeping her eyes down.

There was no escaping her mother’s probing. ‘What was it then?’

The name already felt at odds with the world she lived in. ‘It’s … it’s Laurence. Laurence Jones-Fairbrook.’ Strange that she could remember it, she who never had a great memory for names. ‘Larry,’ she ended lamely.

‘Good Lord!’ her mum burst out. ‘You don’t ’alf pick ’em! You ain’t goin’ ter see that one no more, I can tell yer. Bloke with a stuck-up name like that – yer won’t see ’im again.’

Yes, she would – in three days time, at the pageant. And she was going to buy a new hat on Monday evening so as to impress him.

‘So, where did yer meet ’im?’

‘Up West.’

‘How? How did yer come by meeting a bloke with a name like that?’

It was getting harder by the minute. She ignored the throaty cough from her father signalling his interest as well. She ignored too the stare from May. May, not working but seen as the good daughter, the stay-at-home who seemed to prefer household chores to going out of an evening; May being held up time after time as an example to herself.

‘I just met him, that’s all,’ she said a bit too sharply and hurried out to the kitchen with the tablecloth. Shaking it over the pots and pans lying in the sink she quickly folded it and thrust it in a kitchen drawer.

Even out here there was no peace. May’s eyes were on stalks behind her round, steel-rimmed glasses. ‘Yer can tell me,’ she said.

‘Nothing to tell,’ Eveline retorted. ‘I just met some bloke, that’s all,’ she said sharply and as Mum came into the kitchen, she made off to the toilet, to sit and think of Larry Jones-Fairbrook just for a few minutes, daring Mum’s wrath at seeing her as again trying to escape the washing-up.

May watched her go as Mum began sprinkling soda into the hot water she’d poured into the basin from the kettle to start washing up with swift energy and much noise, while May wiped and put away in the kitchen cupboard.

Mum was right when she called Eveline a lazy little cow gadding about when she should be pulling her weight at home. It didn’t worry her that Eveline didn’t pull her weight – she enjoyed basking in Mum’s approval of her as against her sister. She didn’t go out a lot, not as much as Eveline, though when she got to her age it might be a different kettle of fish.

Having stayed at school right up to fourteen, she’d got a job straight away but ten months later had been laid off. She hadn’t gone after another, happy being at home helping around the house while Mum was in the shop, and sometimes, like this afternoon, she’d work down there while Mum got dinner ready. Dad gave her a little salary and Mum gave her pocket money.

She was aware that Mum saw her as being cheaper than employing someone, but she didn’t mind. Housework was better than getting up and going out to work and when she was in the shop she met lots of people. Everyone knew her. She lapped up remarks on how efficient she was and it kept her in Mum’s good books, not like Eveline.

This evening there was something different about Eveline. She met lots of boys though none of them lasted. But this one, whoever he was, she was being unusually secretive about. May had never seen her glow like this before and she itched to find out more about it, but Eveline was being so cagey.

In the bed they shared she began tentatively to probe and this time it seemed Eveline couldn’t keep whatever it was to herself any longer.

‘I’ve met someone, someone really wonderful. But if I tell you where, you must promise you won’t tell Mum and Dad. It’s important. If you do, I’ll lose him, and I will kill you. My whole life will be ruined.’

‘I promise,’ she said, and she meant it.

Sitting upright she gazed down at her sister. Whatever Eveline might think, she was no sneak. In fact keeping secrets was exciting, knowing something no one else knew.

It was a wonderful tale: the suffragette procession, this unusual friendship Eveline had struck up with this Constance person whose family were apparently upper middle class; now this young man who by the sound of it was also pretty well off. And why shouldn’t a person like that fancy her sister, whose pretty features, dark brown hair that glowed so healthily and light brown eyes were enough to turn every young man’s head in the land?

Ever the romantic, tending to live off other people’s exciting lives, May felt suddenly important. Her sister’s fate lay in her hands; she was now sworn to secrecy. If Dad knew where she was going he’d put a stop to it, make such a ruckus that Eveline’s life wouldn’t be worth living and she might never see this Larry again. Oddly enough it would be to her advantage, to the advantage of them all, if Eveline and this young man did become serious. Money would rub off on the rest of them. This was a secret to be kept all right.

Constance walked slowly through the platform barrier in Paddington Station. Her train was already there and breathing heavily like a contented old bull.

She was in no particular rush to get home. Her Saturday afternoon meetings were a boon, an escape from a family that was growing ever more possessive, worse since her traumatic rejection of Simon. But she had no intention of being one of those demure and obedient daughters of the privileged who at eighteen came out, finished, polished, primed for marriage.

Already gossip had spread concerning her callous spurning of poor Simon Whitemore. How could she do such a thing? Her family wasn’t speaking to her, her father even threatening to cast her out, Simon must be out of his mind with grief, and he such a catch, a most suitable suitor, she must be completely mad; so went the comments.

Some of her friends had already approached her, eager to know the facts. What could she tell them but what they had already made up their minds to? Others were pretending it hadn’t happened, looked awkward in her presence as if there had been some tragedy. One way or the other she was the unwilling centre of attention and it was hateful.

She walked slowly along the platform going over last Saturday evening as she recalled Bentick and Agnes standing ready to clear the first course and serve the next – mute, deaf and expressionless as good staff ought to be. She’d been conscious of a sort of masochistic glee that behind those rigid countenances they took in the small drama.

If only she had known she wouldn’t have been so smug. Perhaps a maid hadn’t been such a loyal servant and that’s how it had all got out. Father took care never to discuss family business at table, even though Bentick was trusted to the umpteenth degree. No, there’d been tittle-tattle from Agnes outside work.

Things like this could never happen to Eveline Fenton. She’d probably marry whomever she wanted. There came as well a small prickle of envy over the young man who’d come up to Eveline at the refreshment table, practically ignoring Constance. How could the daughter of a tradesman attract a person of such obvious means? Admittedly Eveline was pretty, vivacious, had a charming figure. But so had she. She however had the upbringing to know not to flutter her eyelids at any man …

Connie stopped sharply. What was she thinking?

Angered at having such uncharitable thoughts, she told herself she didn’t envy the interest the man had shown in her friend but Eveline’s self-assuredness. Nor should a suffragette harbour envy towards another but she could not help feeling just a little thwarted by this afternoon’s events.

She thought again of Simon. Perhaps she should have thought twice before behaving as she had. She had upset everyone, and for what – to prove a point? After all, he was intensely good-looking in a stuffy sort of way, like her father, and it had got on her nerves. But engaged to him she would have been looked upon as someone of consequence, instead of suffering this sense of being left out when another drew a young man’s eye. Perhaps if she were to apologise to her father, say she would accept Simon’s offer of marriage if it wasn’t too late, this sense of envy would disappear.

Moving on down the platform she found she’d walked its entire length, realising it only as a jet of steam released from the engine in a terrific shriek made her jump. Hastily she retraced her steps, in her confusion clambering into the last carriage to drop into the one vacant seat by the window looking out on to the platform; the other three window seats were already taken.

The minutes ticked by as she fought to catch her breath. The carriage began to fill, the door continually opening to let someone in, along with the smell of engine oil and coal smoke, before being pulled shut with a bang by its leather strap; ladies brushed by her in their long skirts and laden with parcels dangling on strings, men with exaggerated gentlemanly politeness sidled past, effortlessly hoisting their attaché cases on to the sagging net rack, one of them helping to put a lady’s bulky parcel up for her.

Connie hardly noticed, her eyes gazing without really focusing on the stream of people going home either from work or shopping.

The train whistled, shook itself, making the carriage jerk noisily, and began to move, puffing and juddering, slowly and with effort to gather a little speed. Connie settled back and resigned herself to looking over some of the pamphlets she had picked up at the meeting, trying not to think too much.

A figure racing by her window made her glance up. Recognising the figure she felt her heart leap. He glanced in but noting the full carriage, he raced back, just managing to keep up with the moving train. She expected to see him come to a stop, defeated. She too felt suddenly defeated, knowing she wouldn’t see him at Perivale this Saturday. The train pulling out fast now, she saw the platform deserted but for a guard looking somewhat put out by some fool having jumped into a moving carriage.

It could only have been the next carriage back from hers. He couldn’t have got any further. Why did she feel such excitement? For the rest of the journey, she was unable to digest one word of her pamphlets for thinking about him. In her mind’s eye she could see him grabbing the carriage door handle, yanking the door open and making an agile leap into the moving carriage with someone maybe grabbing him to stop him falling back.

As she got out at Perivale her eyes began searching the carriage before hers, already emptying, but there was no sign of him. It couldn’t have been him after all. Deflated, she made her way to the exit, giving up her ticket, her mind momentarily taken up by the first spattering of rain that had been threatening all afternoon. She had no umbrella.