Georgia (17 page)

She was still feeling cheerful when she arrived at work, bouncing up the stairs the way she did when she first started there.

‘Well that’s a good start to the day,’ Pop turned round from dumping some bales of cheap tweed on the floor. ‘Let’s hope the good mood lasts beyond tea-break!’

Georgia grinned impudently at him, a manner she’d learned from Janet and Sally. She’d been so frightened of him, and his machines on her first day that she almost wet herself, but now she knew his gruff manner hid a kind heart she often took advantage.

Pop still had a strong Greek accent despite living in England since he was eighteen. Portly, with thinning heavily-oiled hair it was hard to see him as the slim, handsome youth he was rumoured to have been. His dark eyes had faded a little, a melancholy olive face, thick fleshy lips and a large rubbery nose made Georgia think of an old clown. Yet perhaps it was true he’d been a hit with the ladies in his prime. He did have a comfortable, easy manner with women.

‘Can I make some tea now?’ she fluttered her eyelashes at him. ‘Our meter had run out so I couldn’t have one at home.’

‘You girls!’ Pop shrugged his shoulders. ‘One of these days I’m going to make you work like they do down at Switalski’s. On to that seat at half eight, standing over you till one. Maybe then I’d be able to get myself a decent car.’

Georgia took that as agreement, sliding into the staffroom before he changed his mind.

The staffroom was a joke. It was no bigger than a cupboard, the toilet adjoining it. A shelf for the kettle, three rickety chairs and the cracked window stuffed up with old rags.

From behind her in the main workroom she could hear Pop and Iris discussing the cloth and which patterns should be used. She had been excited when she first came here, imagining she would make good clothes, but instead to her disappointment Pop specialised in making frumpy, cheap things for old ladies. Sometimes Janet and Sally would dress up in them during the lunch hour. Drab, shapeless dresses with white collars and cuffs, always in browns, dark blues and greens. Then the pair of them would do a striptease, peeling them off, more like pantomime dames than the show girls they pretended to be.

While the kettle boiled Georgia watched through the open door. Janet was threading her machine, a cigarette hanging out the corner of her mouth, her blonde hair still in curlers with a shocking-pink chiffon scarf tied round them. Next to her was Sally her close friend, leaning forward whispering something.

They were both thirty, without husbands, and three children each. They even lived in the same block of tenement flats down near Charing Cross Road. Noisy, vulgar and aggressive, the pair had seemed like dragons on Georgia’s first day, yet now she viewed them almost with admiration.

Sally’s raven black ‘beehive’ stood up an alarming six inches from her head, a slick of greasy black fringe across her forehead, with lacquered kiss-curls fixed like cement on her ruddy cheeks. Her make-up was as startling as her hair. Heavy eyeliner and several coatings of thick mascara. Lips dark red and lustrous, a beauty spot painted on her cheek. Voluptuous and wanton, she scrutinised every man who had the misfortune to come into the workshop, dark, lust-filled eyes sparkling at their embarrassment.

Sally might be the one with the startling appearance, but it was Janet who had the real character and personality. By night she worked as a stripper, something she made no secret of. She could turn the most mundane of stories into comedy, and her observations about other people were bitingly astute.

Her daytime appearance, the headscarf, shapeless sweater, crumpled skirt and no make-up, was at odds with the glamour snaps they’d all seen of her. Once the curlers were out, the warpaint and false eyelashes on, the metamorphosis from plain Janet Willoughby to exotic dancer Nicole was complete. If Pop and Sally were to be believed she bore more than a glancing likeness to Marilyn Monroe when she wiggled seductively onto the stage.

If it wasn’t for the humour of these two women, Georgia might never have made it through her first week. They teased her, shouted, even swore at her, but an underlying sense of fairplay made them help and encourage her too, and when she was close to tears they had a knack of turning it to laughter.

‘You dun’alf talk posh!’ Janet had remarked on her first tea-break. ‘Why don’cha learn us to speak proper and I’ll show you how to strip?’

Georgia blushed scarlet, twisting her hands in her lap as minutes later Janet came out of the toilet wearing only a length of fabric and proceeded to do a peek-a-boo dance routine with it. She was convinced Janet was naked under the material, as first one shoulder was bared, then the other. The other women sang for her, clapping their hands and stamping their feet and as Janet dropped the fabric as a climax, Georgia covered her face with her hands.

Sally grabbed her hands away, and to Georgia’s astonishment Janet was standing there wearing a pair of pink, old ladies’ bloomers and two paper roses pinned to a large brassière. The sight was so unexpected and hilarious Georgia almost fell off the seat with laughter, and she’d known then she could stand working at Pop’s.

‘Isn’t that kettle boiling yet?’ Pop glanced up from the cutting table at her. Iris at his side sniffed loudly in disapproval. She was supposed to be the forewoman, but her instructions were never carried out by anyone other than Myrtle. Iris was wearing a flame-red two-piece which clashed with her red hair, a silk rose was pinned to her lapel as if she were going to a wedding.

‘That’s not how it was done in my day,’ was her favourite whine, covering everything from Georgia making tea so early in the morning, to the way Irene swept the floor.

‘When was that? Domesday?’ Janet always retorted, sending Iris’s heavily pan-sticked face into a vivid flush of frustration. She spoke vaguely about having a man ‘in high places’, alluded mysteriously to ‘cocktails’ after work and sometimes to ‘our nest’ in Brighton.

Georgia still had no clear picture about where the woman really came from. It was all snippets with no substance, even her carefully cultivated accent was a fake, as sometimes in anger she dropped it, and sounded more of a cockney than Janet or Sally.

The kettle boiled behind her and Georgia turned to make a big pot for everyone. She heard Myrtle turn on the steam press and at the same moment Irene came through the door late.

‘Do you know what the time is?’ Iris’s high voice rose above a belch of steam. ‘This isn’t how it was done in my day. We thought ourselves lucky to have a job, you could be dismissed at a moment’s notice for unpunctuality.’

Irene didn’t answer, but by her shuffling gait coming into the staffroom to hang up her coat, Georgia knew it was one of her bad days.

Irene was not quite right in the head, as Janet put it, ‘A penny short of a full quid.’ No one seemed to know what exactly was wrong. She could turn up on time for a week at a stretch, neatly dressed, and chat about her elderly mother in the Oval, books she’d read, and television programmes, as normal as everyone else. But then suddenly she’d change for a few days, like today, coming in late wearing men’s trousers with a huge shapeless sweater thrown over the top, her dark hair all tousled as if she hadn’t brushed it, top teeth missing, lipstick up to her ears, her eyes blank. She would say the oddest things at these times, about men who followed her. Strange spirits in her house, and odder still she would profess to live in Kensington with a man called James.

But whatever she was like, she worked harder than anyone, sweeping up, pressing, sewing on buttons at twice the speed of everyone else. Sally said she was over forty, but to Georgia, the smooth, unlined face was that of a girl, only the missing teeth suggested Sally was right.

Georgia gave everyone a cup of tea and sat down at her machine with her own. In front of her was a pile of grey wool skirts, her job was to do merely the seams, then pass them over for pressing. Later Sally would do the waistbands and zips.

‘You coming to the jumble tomorrow?’ Janet shouted at her over the noise of her machine. ‘Our Lyndsey’s gonna take the other kids to the park for a bit so we can have some peace.’

‘Peace at a jumble?’ Sally roared back. ‘Have you warned her about the scraps you get into?’

Georgia felt suddenly dizzy as the hot tea went down in one long gulp. She sat back in her chair, wiping her brow with one hand. The paraffin stove seemed to smell much worse than usual and the hiss of the press sounded as if it was right in her ears.

The workroom was spinning. One moment Pop was standing on her right, the next on her left and the sickly smell of Iris’s perfume caught her in the throat.

Weakly she got up, groping almost blindly across the room, and as her stomach churned she put her hand over her mouth and ran the rest of the way to the toilet.

‘What’s up with ’er?’ she heard Sally shout, but her head was over the pan, vomiting as if her entire insides were coming up.

On and on it went until there was nothing left but green bile. She stood up and leaned against the toilet wall, so weak she felt she could slide to the floor.

‘Ow long’s this bin goin’ on?’ Janet’s voice behind her startled Georgia.

For a moment Georgia just stared at the older woman. There was no laughter now in those dark almond eyes, no hint of malice or sneering. Just sympathy and understanding.

‘About a week.’

‘Does ’Elen know?’

Georgia shook her head.

‘When did you last get the curse?’

‘Just before Christmas.’

‘When did you go with ’im?’

Tears came then. The sickness was going now but Janet had voiced her own fears and made it reality.

‘It was my birthday, January sixth.’

‘Is that why you left ’ome? Did yer ma find out?’

One moment Georgia was just hanging her head in shame, the next she was caught in Janet’s soft arms. Her head on her shoulder, crying out all the fear and pain.

‘It’s all right little ’un,’ Janet whispered, kissing her hair and stroking her back. ‘We can’t talk now, but I’ll ’elp you, don’t you fret. At lunchtime I’ll come back to your place and you can tell me about it. Now dry your eyes and try to smile. We don’t want that nosy Iris getting wind of it, do we?’

‘Do you feel better now you’ve told me?’ Janet said softly, as she came back into the attic room carrying two bags of fish and chips from the shop across the street.

‘Sort of,’ Georgia whispered.

All morning she had thought of lies to tell. She even wanted to deny she could be pregnant, but once Janet sat down beside her in the other armchair, she seemed to know the right buttons to press to make her tell the truth.

Until now, Georgia had thought it was only women like her mother who could be relied on to be this sensitive. Janet with her curlers, plucked eyebrows and hourglass figure and bawdy jokes belonged to another world, yet she’d listened carefully, then went out to buy food.

‘I can take you to a doctor I know tomorrow.’ Janet handed her a newspaper wrapped parcel. ‘We ’ave to get it confirmed before we do anything else. He’s a proper doctor, but ’e’s bin struck off. If you go to an ordinary one he might just split on you. We’ll make out you’re sixteen anyway.’

‘But,’

‘I know, I know. You wants me to tell you we can wave a magic wand and make it right. I can’t do that love. Let’s just wait until we know for certain. It might just be the upset that’s stopped your period.’

Pop sent Georgia out on an errand later in the afternoon and used the opportunity to call Janet into his office.

‘What’s the matter with Georgia?’ he asked bluntly. ‘She’s been looking pasty for days. Is the job too much for her?’

He knew Janet was capable of covering up for another girl she liked, but he wasn’t in the charity business.

‘Just a tummy upset,’ Janet distracted him with one of her sultry looks. ‘She’ll be fine in a day or two.’

‘Is there something I ought to know about her?’ Pop was sure Janet knew something, she had that sly look in her dark almond eyes.

‘She needs a bit of tenderness,’ Janet said, perching unasked on his cluttered desk. ‘She ain’t got no one but ’Elen.’

Pop sighed. His material shop downstairs was the legitimate part of his business. He ran the workshop and his market stall without declaring either to the Inland Revenue. All his employees until Georgia had been ones like Janet who could be trusted to keep their mouths shut. He didn’t want any further headaches.

‘Don’t you worry,’ Janet picked up on his fears. ‘She ain’t some nark, or ever likely to be. Trust ’er Pop, she’s a good kid.’

As Janet went back into the workroom she smiled to herself at Pop’s naïvety. He’d been married for donkey’s years and had five children, the youngest Georgia’s age, yet he hadn’t suspected pregnancy. He might fiddle the taxman, but as an otherwise honourable man he was almost unaware of the evil some men were capable of.

Janet knew. She knew all right.

She was the same age as Georgia on VE night, just another silly little girl out dancing in the streets. The big American looked so handsome in his blue uniform, it seemed so right to go and have a drink with him.

She knew what it felt like to scream your lungs out, and she knew too, even as she was doing it, no one would come to help. The whole of England was out celebrating the end of the war and how many other simple girls lost their virginity that night?

‘I ’ope she don’t go the way I did,’ Janet thought as she made her way back to her machine. She was lucky she didn’t get pregnant, but she still hated what that man had turned her into. Off with any rich old man, taking what she could and using her body to trap them. At sixteen she saw Paris with one of them, trading her youth for nice clothes and the good life. Never mind who she hurt, as long as it wasn’t her.

Yet she wasn’t as tough as she thought, she still fell for Pete! Another fast-talking hustler just like herself. Just one year of wild good times, then everything turned sour. He sapped everything from her, the jewellery, the few bob she’d stashed away, he even took her looks. Why she stayed so long she never knew. Three kids, with each one she was pulled further and further down. Finally she ended up where she started, in Soho, a dirty, stinking rat hole of a flat without even a bath. He only came home in the end when he was broke, trying to push her out on the streets, anything for just one more stake. But she’d never done that. No man would make her sell herself in a doorway. Stripping was clean, taking the piss out of old wankers who couldn’t get it up any other way, while she fed her kids and tried to build a new life.