Crooked Pieces (34 page)

Miss Sylvia went away for a while. She had been so close to her brother and it had been she who had nursed him and stayed with him during those last dreadful months.

I thought of how we had so often talked of our brothers together. It was a bond between us, a happiness shared. Now she has none, and I have three. I would swap them all to give Harry back to her, just for a year. Just for a day. To cure her pain. Is that a sin? Very likely. But does not the Bible say, ‘A life for a life’? It does not say whose it should be. Surely, though, if we could choose who lived and who died, would that not make us equal to God? Or to the devil?

Perhaps it is as well that we cannot. God knows, I am near enough to the devil already. I need no further shoving.

Sadly the Liberals won the election again, but only just, and it had one good result – they were so frightened by the people turning against them in such numbers that they finally allowed a bill to let
some
women have the vote be put before them. Mr Pethick Lawrence explained it to me. It is called the Conciliation Bill, and will give women the right to vote if they have property and are not married. I could not see how any woman could own property without a husband, but it seems it can be so. Though hardly ever.

There was such jubilation in the office when the news came through. ‘Of course, it is only a start,’ Miss Christabel insisted. ‘We must not raise our hopes too high yet.’ We
nodded soberly and tried to look as though we would never have dreamt of doing such a thing. Suddenly her face broke out in a great glittering smile. ‘But it takes only a chink in a dam for the torrent to break through. And we have made that chink at last. At last victory is in sight. A whole new world will soon be ours for the taking.’

How we cheered and danced and hugged each other. Even Miss Lake who doesn’t like people too close to her in the main. She went quite strawberry-coloured when Miss Christabel flung her arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze. You would have thought it was a handsome man had done it, the way she blushed. Still, maybe I would have, too, had Miss Christabel put her arm round me.

Fred was nearly as excited as I when I told him. ‘But this is wonderful news. The most wonderful news. This requires at least…three ices and two pieces of cake.’

‘Two ices and three pieces of cake. I do not want to get fat.’

He laughed till I thought he would fall over.

Afterwards we walked by the river and he held my hand like when it used to be worth holding. As we came to Westminster Bridge he stopped. Across the water we could see the Palace of Westminster, the Houses of Parliament.

‘Maggie.’

‘Yes?’

‘Do you remember that night you took me back to your lodgings?’

I stared at my scrawny knuckles poking out from my scrawny hands at the end of my scrawny arms. It seemed so long ago.

‘Yes.’

‘Do you remember what I said to you that night?’

‘You said so many things.’

‘I said I would not give you a baby unless we were married.’

My whole body stiffened like a rod.

‘Now that your cause is won…’

I raised my hand to stop him. ‘I cannot have a baby any more, Fred.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It is a side effect, Miss Annie says.’

‘A side effect of what? What are you talking about?’

I looked at him. ‘Of the starving. And the torture. I have… I…there is no more bleeding.’

It was like a light going out in his eyes. ‘You are barren?’

‘Yes.’ I could not bear to see him so unhappy. ‘So it will do no harm if I lie with you, if that is what you are asking. I will not be disgraced.’

This time he slapped me. ‘Don’t you ever speak like that again, Maggie Robins. Children or no children, I want you for my wife. And I will not lay one finger on you till that day comes. So let it not be long.’

We both cried. And then we held each other close and pretended we didn’t mind about the babies, for though I did not greatly want them, it made me sad to see how much he did.

That night I lay in bed and thought how I should soon be married and all this life would be behind me. No more
pug-faced
judges, prison cells, starving, torture, suffering. It would fade away into my memory like some cruel nightmare. And with it, too, would go the laughter, the hope, the striving, the comradeship, the longing for a new tomorrow. Now victory was in sight.

But it was not. The chink in the dam was soon sealed up again. Mrs Pankhurst said we should bide our time and see what came of the Conciliation Bill. Demonstrations ceased. We put on weight, regained our health. I started to bleed again. Life seemed so nearly good. For a little while.

Yet what came of it was what always comes of anything we are promised. Nothing.

The Government delayed and delayed, then fell out with the House of Lords until it looked as though Parliament would have to be dissolved and another election called. Fortunately we were saved from this, thanks to the King, who managed to fall ill and die before they got round to it.

Everywhere was gloomy, the shops all draped in black and many of the people, too. I could not see that it was such a sad thing for he was old and caught his fever on a holiday, so at least he had had a nice time first.

Fred and I watched the funeral procession and then had a picnic by the river. Some of the people passing tut-tutted at us and said we should show more respect, but I do not see that dead people can mind what you eat particularly, and besides, if we are to believe the churchmen, the King was probably up with all the angels having heavenly manna by then.

Mrs Grant wrote to say that Pa would like me to visit. At first I thought I would not for we should be bound to quarrel, but in the end I did and was glad of it. They were all so happy to see me and mighty happy to see a mutton pie and strawberries!

Little Evelyn is grown quite tall and very pretty. She reminds me so of Ma with her grey eyes and wavy brown hair. Like Ma once was. Baby Ann is walking though she does not
talk yet. Will shouts at her all the time but she does not mind him. Just smiles. Mrs Grant fair dotes on her.

Alfie is to marry Edith just as soon as he has saved enough for a proper bed, he says. I am surprised he does not build one, but he is still not good with numbers and it would be a sorry thing if it turned out the size of the coal box.

Evelyn cried bitterly when it was time for me to go. I promised I would come again soon if Pa agreed it. He came with me to the door.

‘Maggie…’

‘Yes, Pa?’

‘I am glad to have seen you.’

‘Yes.’

‘I would have…wanted…wished to… I never meant for you to stay away so long. I just wanted…’

‘What, Pa?’

‘I wanted you to be free. For your ma’s sake. For her. Because she never was.’ He stared past me like he was looking for the words in the street lamps. ‘And she should have been, Maggie. She was clever like you, bright as a star. I felt like I’d seen an angel the first time she walked by me coming out of church. It seemed like a miracle she could feel the same about me, but we married so young, and we had so little, and then you children came and the spirit just drained out of her. I watched it going, drop by drop, and did nothing. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t give her back her life, her freedom. I wanted to. I just couldn’t.’

I nodded. ‘I know Pa,’ though I had not known, for I had not believed him capable of such feeling. Had not known him. Had not loved him enough.

Is that how it would be if Fred and I were wed? Not a house in the country with a swing. Just a stinking hovel in some back street with babies sliding out of me like shelled peas. No, never. I would rather die. But surely Pa never thought that was how it would end for him and Ma? If she had hopes, he must have had them too. If she loved him, he must have been loveable, not the great lumpen drudge he has become. So when did it go wrong? Why? How can I stop it happening to me?
Fight on and God will give the victory
. But will he give it to us?

In June we held a giant procession for we had a new king and queen and with them, new hope. The Conciliation Bill had been read on June 14
^th
and passed without a murmur! No one doubted that by autumn the struggle would be over.

Everyone came from all over the country, and it was so grand and beautiful and peaceful. Like when we first started. Like Women’s Sunday.

How good it will be if we can keep on like this. Mrs Pankhurst says she is sure we are almost there. Two more readings and then the bill will go to the Lords who, she promised us, are far too dim and cowardly to gainsay the House of Commons.

The Asquith is doing all in his power to delay it but there are too many against him now, I truly believe. Although the rat, Churchill, and that pasty Lloyd George, with his whiney sing-song voice, have gone to great lengths to destroy the bill by saying it was not fair to all women which, of course, it is not. But, as Miss Christabel says, ‘It is better than nothing’. And once
some
women have the vote, it cannot be long
before the rest of us do. I am convinced of it.

Fred has written to his father to see if he may take me to meet him. Although he says we will be married no matter what, I know he would cherish his father’s blessing, and so should I. I feel for the first time in so many years that things are truly going to work out right. And I can do a double flip. Mrs Garrud says it is amazing after all I have been through. I tell her it is that that has made me strong.

Hope is a strange thing. It lifts you up, high, higher…and then it drops you down. So quickly. But always there is a little drop left. Like a seed, ready to grow again when the time is right.

Fred has had a letter from his father saying he will be glad to meet me. He is so cheerful. We are to go on November 20
^th
. It is his sister’s fifteenth birthday though, of course, we may not take presents. I asked Fred if I could bake some biscuits and he said it was worth a try! If not we will eat them on the way home.

It was not to be. I was a fool to think otherwise. I remember Reverend Beckett preaching one Easter about the thieves who were crucified beside Our Lord. He said one of them repented but the other could not – scorned Lord Jesus and said if he were truly the Son of God he would save himself
and
them. Reverend Beckett said that man was born of darkness. ‘Some people are born of darkness and can never be saved. They are the children of the devil. Fear them, for they will destroy your soul. They are destined for eternal darkness.’ I never thought then he was talking about me.

A Special Meeting. There is talk of a fresh election. If so, the Conciliation Bill will fall. We are to march upon the House. Only those chosen are to go. No one old or ill or still at school. There will be no more talking. We have been denied too long. We have had enough.

Mrs Pankhurst came to speak to us. She walked among us like a ministering angel, joking, encouraging, inspiring. Is this how the disciples felt when Jesus came amongst them? Is it a mortal sin to even wonder? What if Jesus had been a woman? How would the world be then?

She said we must keep on, no matter what. ‘In quietness and assurance shall be your strength. All your other kind of efforts have failed, you will now press forward in quietness and peaceableness, offending none and blaming none, ready to sacrifice yourselves even unto death if need be, in the cause of freedom.’

‘Even unto death’. I thought, what good will freedom do me if I am dead?

November 18
^th
1910. Black Friday, they are calling it. Why? Why do they do this to us?

Escorted by bobbies all the way to Parliament Square, suddenly they are nowhere. And who takes their place? Savages. Great brutish louts who seize us by the hair, the neck, the arms, flinging us at walls, pavements, cobble-stones; slapping, kicking and, if it is to be believed, dragging some of our women into alley-ways and forcing themselves upon them. And these were policemen. These are the men who serve beside the man I love. And he is one of them. Ordered by Mr Churchill to turn us back. This creature, this politician who
has smiled and nodded and pretended to be our friend. I do not understand why Jesus would choose to come on earth as a man for they are less than cockroaches.

All of them.

This morning I went to Marylebone. To the police station. I asked to speak to Fred. His friend, Sergeant Neal, came out of his office and asked could he help me? I said, no, my business was personal. He sent someone to fetch him. Fred came down. His face was pinched with fatigue. ‘Is it about last night?’

‘It is.’

‘Maggie, we did not know. No one from here was involved. Not one of us. You must believe that.’

I said, ‘Yes, I do. But you are all policemen and so were they.’

‘We condemn it. Condemn it with all our hearts. It should never have happened. Been allowed. Those men are a disgrace to their calling.’

Something inside me burst. ‘You condemn it so much that you close your eyes and hide yourselves away, Fred. Is that “protecting the people from villains?” I would call it “protecting villains from the people”. How long can you go on like that? A dog cannot serve two masters. You ask me to give over the Cause. When have I ever asked you to give over being in the police?’

‘Never.’

‘No, and I never will, because if you cannot see how wrong it is, I am not the one to show you.’ I turned and came away. So now my choice is made.

I am working harder than ever. It is the only way. Every time I hear a man’s foot on the stair I pray it will be Fred, come to take me back, to forgive me for treating him so wickedly, to tell me he understands what makes me say the things I say, act as I do. And he does. He is the only person on this earth who has stood by me always. When I was beaten, starved, tortured, hideous, he picked me up and loved me anyway. He showed me what life could be like. How there could be music and painting and poetry and laughter in amidst all this cruelty and poison. And I have thrown it all away.

Perhaps if I went to him, explained… What? That I made
him
choose because I had not the strength to do it myself? And he had.

Miss Christabel has just returned an article I passed for the printers.

‘Really, Maggie, are you sleeping on the job? Where are the quotation marks, the commas? You’ve even let “Asquith” by with a small “a”. Whatever we think of the man, we must at least spell his name right.’

‘I’m sorry, Miss Christabel.’

‘Yes, well, I can see you’re tired. What about if I ask Mrs PL if you can pop down to The Mascot for a day or two? Put some colour back in your cheeks.’

I said I would rather not just at present.

‘Fair enough, but we must have more attention to the job. This election may be the turning point. Even the men are starting to rally round us now. Poor Alfred Hawkins had his leg broken being chucked out of one of Churchill’s rallies. Still, do them no harm to find out what it feels like for a change. I’ll leave this with you, shall I?

‘Oh, by the way, are you still seeing that bobby friend of yours? Because if so, perhaps you can wheedle the names of some of his thuggee colleagues out of him. Lord Lytton plans to raise last Friday’s abomination in the House. Not that he got anywhere after the Jane Warton business.’

‘Which business was that, miss?’ I asked, to change the subject.

Miss Christabel flapped her hand in front of my eyes. ‘Wake up, Maggie. Surely you heard? Oh, no. I think you were in prison. Lady Con got it into her head that she was receiving special treatment on account of her social position, so she cut off all her hair, dressed herself in rags and got herself arrested as a seamstress called Jane Warton.’

‘What happened?’ I asked, feeling quite sick.

‘Oh, dreadful. They fed her without any medical checks. Same as the rest of us. What they didn’t realise is she has a chronic heart condition. She’ll never recover. Our first real martyr, you might say. We’re all so proud of her. Anyway, back to what I was saying. See what you can glean. There has
to be some use in consorting with the enemy.’

The words burst out of me. ‘He’s not the enemy. He’s the truest friend I ever had.’ But she was gone. And I thought, what need of an enemy, with me to fight for you?

Tonight I went back to Marylebone police station. It has been a fortnight and I cannot think, cannot eat, cannot sleep. I cannot live this way. I asked if I might speak to Constable Thorpe. I did not know what I would say. Sergeant Neal came out of his office.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you yet again, Sergeant Neal.’

‘It’s not a problem. What can I do for you, Miss Robins?’

‘I wanted… Is it possible?…I know I shouldn’t… Can I just please speak to Fred, just for one moment? I promise I won’t be long.’

He was looking at me in a funny way – surprised – shocked, even. Embarrassed. ‘Did you not know?’

‘Know what?’

‘I felt sure he would have… He isn’t here, Maggie.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry. I thought he was on duty Wednesday evenings.’

‘He is… He was.’

I stared at him.

‘He’s gone, Maggie. Left. Resigned from the force.’

‘But where… Where has he gone? What did he say? Surely…’

Sergeant Neal shook his head regretfully. ‘He didn’t say anything. Only he had had enough. It wasn’t for him. He was tired of being a policeman.’

I went round to his lodgings. He had left the week before. The landlady’s daughter, Miss Blackett, answered the door. I
could see what Fred meant. She scowled at me when I asked if she knew where he had gone. ‘He didn’t say. I expect he’ll be writing to me with his address as soon as he’s sorted, though. Not that I shall be able to pass it on.’

‘No, of course not. But perhaps if you could just…’

I saw her looking at me, looking the way the wardresses do before they come marching in with their straps and manacles and funnels scaly with rotting mucus. Triumphant. The Chosen Ones. Come to visit judgement on the sinners.

Inside and out, these Chosen Ones are everywhere, it seems to me. And what sort of a God is it that chooses them? Am I not a thousand times better to be one of the Rejected when my fellows are Miss Christabel and Miss Annie and Miss Sylvia? Better to be next to them in hell than with Miss Blackett and the brutes in heaven.

I turned and walked away.

So this shall be my life now. The Cause. It is so much easier, better, to be dedicated to one thing and one thing only. Before I was always torn between my love for Fred and my duty to my work. As Miss Christabel said, ‘A dog cannot serve two masters.’ Well, I am no better than a dog but I shall serve this cause harder than anyone ever did. I will make Miss Christabel proud of me, and Mrs Pankhurst, too. I will make up for all my weakness and cowardly behaviour in the past. Nothing shall ever frighten me again, for to be frightened you have to be afraid of losing something and I have nothing left to lose.

Things are going well again. Men as well as women are flocking to the Cause. There are plays about suffragettes, songs, poems and every day the papers are full of it. Mrs Pankhurst’s great friend, Dr Ethel Smyth, has written a piece
of music specially. It is called ‘March of the Women’ and when we first heard it a lot of us thought we would rather hear cats fighting on a tin roof, but we are all to learn it in time for our next demonstration, before the coronation. If we sound as bad as the choir that sang it to us I should think the Parliament will give us the vote just to go away.

The Government has some plan to count everyone. I cannot think why. What difference does it make how many people there are unless you intend to feed them or educate them or cure them when they are ill, and for sure this government will not do that.

We are to avoid it (you can only be counted in your own home, it seems. A bit like poor Mary having to go all the way to Bethlehem, I suppose, and we all know what trouble that started).

Great events are being arranged to occupy us on the day. There are to be concerts and parties and dancing – anything to keep us out till past counting time. Miss Sylvia and I are going to go roller-skating. You have wheels tied to your feet and then you skid round and round forever. At least I shall, for no one has told me how to stop. Miss Sylvia says if we get tired she knows at least three parties we can go to. One with a fortune-teller. I am so looking forward to it. Perhaps the Government can be persuaded to count the people every month. It is just the sort of thing they like to spend their time on in order to avoid the proper business of the day. Wait till we get the vote. Then they will have to work for their money. No wonder they fight it so hard.

This Prime Minister, Asquith, is surely closer to the serpent than any man born. With all the country on our side, and half the world, to judge from the letters pouring in, he ups and
changes the bill that was to give us our rights at last. In its place, the Manhood Suffrage Bill. Votes for all. Oh yes. All men!

Mrs Pethick Lawrence was close to tears. ‘After all this time. All our efforts. The suffering. The imprisonment. The… All for nothing. Nothing. Worse than nothing.’

‘But if this bill is passed, will that not pave the way for our own?’ Miss Kerr sort of whispered.

Mrs Pethick Lawrence threw up her arms in despair. ‘No. A thousand times, no. Do you not see, if all those men who are without a vote are granted one, do you truly believe they will continue to side with us? To fight on our behalf? Once they have achieved their goal?’

Miss Kerr looked very chastened. ‘They might.’

Mrs Pethick Lawrence gave a mournful sigh. ‘If only I had your faith, Miss Kerr. However, experience has taught me that altruism is a preserve of the Chosen Few.’

I looked up ‘altruism’.
Unselfishness
. I can only think her Chosen Few are not the same as mine. And if they are not, then maybe neither is anything else. Maybe none of them think the same as me. Want the same things. Would that be so surprising? I am from a different world. I could live a hundred years amongst these people and not be one of them. I read somewhere that there was a queen who, when she died, they cut her open and found the word ‘England’ carved right across her heart. Well if the same thing happens to me, they will find ‘Stepney’ writ on mine. And how they will laugh.

Oh, I am so tired. So tired of it all. Fred, I miss you so much. I am so alone.

Today I thought I should go mad. I had thought and thought so hard, lain awake half the night trying to persuade myself out of it. In the end I decided if the sun was shining in the morning I would do it, but if it rained or was even a tiny bit cloudy, I would not. I was woken by the sun on my face.

It was a beautiful card. A giant green tree all covered in silver tassels with presents laid at the foot of it and a family – boy, girl, mother and father all gazing at each other and smiling. Inside it said, ‘May the blessings of the season be with you.’ I had wanted to write something extra but, though I spent half the morning scribbling little messages, none of them seemed right, so in the end I put, ‘with love from Maggie’. On the envelope I wrote: Constable Fred Thorpe, Hadlow Village, Buckinghamshire. At lunchtime I ran all the way to the post office before I had time to change my mind and posted it in the great box outside.

At half past two Miss Lake came bursting into the office. ‘You’ll never guess what. Miss Davison is arrested.’

This was nothing new.

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘Oh, a very audacious thing. She put a lighted taper into the pillar-box outside the main post office.’

I felt my throat tightening. ‘What happened?’

‘Well, two bobbies rushed forward and dragged her off to the police station.’

‘To the things in the box?’

‘Goodness, I don’t know. Burnt to a cinder, I expect. What a whiz idea, though.’

I went home for Christmas. Mrs Grant was there and wearing one of Ma’s old aprons. I know it was wrong of me but I spoke sharply to her. Not about that – something stupid like the way she sliced the mutton. She looked so wretched that I could have bitten my tongue off. Lucy thought it a great joke.

Later I said I was sorry. Mrs Grant looked so relieved. ‘Maggie, I understand. It was foolish of me. I did not think. I had left my apron at home and did not want to spoil my best skirt, that is all.’

We both knew this was not true, but Ma is gone now, and Mrs Grant has had more than her share of grief. Why should she not scoop a ha’p’orth of happiness out of what comes her way? Pa seems a sight better tempered, and the children are clean and fed and Mrs Grant is past the age for birthing, so where’s the harm? It’s a hard life for a woman without a man.

Thankfully no one asked about Fred. Too busy eating. I dreaded that Lucy would say something but she held her peace till the evening when I was getting ready to leave. Then she showed me a pretty blue bangle. ‘Guess who gave me this?’

I shrugged. ‘Pa?’

She snorted with scorn. ‘When did our Pa ever give anyone a present?’

I took a breath, ‘Frank, then?’

I swear if the Asquith needed a female serpent for company my sister Lucy would serve. Her slitty pale eyes fair gleamed. ‘Fred.’

‘You are a liar.’

‘Am I? Am I? Well, why don’t you ask him yourself? If you can find him.’

I could not help myself. I took hold of her hair and shook her till she screamed like a boiled cat. Pa came running and pulled me away, but not before I had a fistful of her scraggy locks.

‘What’s this? Maggie, let go. What are you thinking of? Leave go your sister
now
.’ So I did because if I had not, I would have killed her.

Lucy hauled herself into a corner, whimpering like some half-eaten rat.

Pa shook his head in despair. ‘What is it between you two that there is never a moment’s peace when you are together?’

‘Ask her,’ I spat.

‘I’m asking you.’

‘Nothing. There is nothing between us. Nothing.’

Bull’s-eye! I broke the whole of the front window, all full of dummies daubed in jewels and silk and top hats. There they stood, sprinkled with glass like diamond dust, their proud bony noses poked up at the sky as though nothing had happened, and I swear they looked more real than the nobs they copy.

Mrs Pankhurst had fooled the Government into thinking we would gather on March 4
^th
. While they were stretching their brains round how to crush us, we flocked into the West End on the 1
^st
and broke every shop window between Marble Arch and Tottenham Court Road.

Better still, my stone went into Marshall and Snelgrove where that pickle-faced crow, Miss Blackett, works. Buyer or not, she will have her work cut out to clear that lot up.

The police, expecting nothing, were slow to come after us
although when they did arrive they looked in no mood for jokes. I had told my team to run straight for Mrs Garrud’s. As fast as we got there she had us out of our clothes and into fighting garb, our weapons hid beneath loose floorboards in the studio. Seconds later came the screech of whistles and furious thumping on the door.

‘Quick, girls. Bicycles.’ And down we went on our mats, peddling the air for all we were worth. Mr Garrud let them in. Six great bobbies came thundering up the stairs and there they stopped, great whiskery chops hanging open.

Mrs Garrud, cool as a cucumber, turns to them. ‘May I ask the reason for this interruption? Girls, you may lower your legs now. Just lie on your fronts and practise your breathing.’

One crimson-faced sergeant steps forward. ‘I beg your pardon, ma’am, but we had information that some suffragettes were seen entering this house. They have caused a pile of damage to the Oxford Street shops just now and it is our duty to try to apprehend them.’