The Buffer Girls (44 page)

Trip wasn’t quite right; there was just one matter unsettled in their lives. Tired though she usually was by the end of the day, Emily lay awake at night sometimes,
thinking about Lizzie. When the Ryan family had arrived in the city, her first instincts about the girl had been right: they would either be the best of friends or the worst of enemies. And they
had been both, but
Emily regretted the animosity Lizzie felt towards her now. She hoped that the girl and her mother were all right and wished she could go to see them, but Trip had advised her not
to go anywhere near the court.

Emily’s venture was doing well and already she was looking for another premises close by to set up another workshop. Whilst other places were hard pressed to find work, her buffer
girls
were fully occupied and often worked overtime to keep pace with the demand for their expertise. ‘We’re building up a good reputation for careful work,’ Emily reported back to her
workers, for the other three girls had accepted that this was now wholly Emily’s business.

‘I don’t know owt about running a business,’ Nell said firmly, ‘as I told you before. I’m just happy you’re employing
me and paying me a very fair wage,
Emily.’

Ida and Flo felt the same. For some time the youngest member of the small workforce had doubled as an errand girl whilst learning the trade of a buffer girl in her spare time.

Emily turned to Flo. ‘You’re coming along very nicely now, Flo, and I’m thinking of letting you become a buffer girl full time and we can look for another errand girl.
Are you
happy with that?’ She glanced at Nell and Ida.

‘We could do with another experienced buffer girl, Emily. You’re bringing so much work in now, we can hardly cope. And it’ll get worse.’

‘Hopefully.’

‘Eh?’ Nell looked at her in amazement and then, when she realized what Emily meant, she laughed. ‘The girl’s got big ambitions. Well, just so long as you keep me in
employment,
Emily Trippet, that’s fine by me.’

‘I’ll ask around. There have been a few buffer girls laid off recently, I’m sure there will be someone suitable.’

‘Don’t get just anyone. She’ll have to be good.’

The next day the situation was made worse. Ida came running to the little office where Emily worked in the corner of the workshop. She flung open the door, hair cap awry, her
eyes wide
with fear. ‘Flo’s been collared.’ Emily frowned; she had no idea what the girl meant, but she could see from Ida’s expression that something awful had happened.
She jumped up and ran out into the workshop to see Nell step back from her spindle, fling down the handful of spoons she was working on with a clatter and rush over to Flo at her machine. The young
girl was almost in a state of collapse
at the sight of her own blood.

‘She was learning dollying,’ Ida’s voice was shaky with tears. This Emily did understand; it was the final polish with a calico wheel before spoons and forks went to be plated.
‘Her finger rags got caught in the spindle and it’s cut her hand.’

Swiftly, Emily fetched the first-aid box that she’d had the foresight to equip, from a shelf above her desk and
hurried across the room to Flo. She staunched the flow of blood to reveal a
long gash down the edge of the girl’s left palm that refused to stop bleeding, but, thankfully, it didn’t look too deep.

‘I’m not going to hospital,’ Flo was crying. ‘I’m frit of hospitals. I’ll see ’doctor me mam goes to.’

‘There, it’s not as bad as we thought. I’ll bandage it up and take you home to your mam.
See what she says. Come along, and, whatever happens, you must have the rest of the
week off. We can’t have muck getting in it.’

As Emily steered Flo down the stairs of the workshop and through the grinders’ workshop to take her home, Ida whispered to Nell, ‘We can’t manage all the work we’ve got,
Nell, not even if Emily takes a turn at a wheel. We’ll just have to get someone else now.’

‘Have you heard of anyone?’

Ida shook her head.

For a moment, Nell was thoughtful then she gave a quick nod as if she’d come to a decision. ‘Leave it with me, Ida. I’ll have a think.’

The following morning, whilst Emily was busy in her little office, which had been partitioned off to keep out the flying dust, someone came tentatively up the stairs to their
workshop above the grinders’.
Emily heard the two machines slow down. She emerged from her office to see that both girls had stopped work. Ida was staring wide eyed, but Nell had crossed the
floor to meet their visitor. Emily turned her head and saw the girl standing at the top of the stairs, ready to flee if she was unwelcome.

‘Come on in, Lizzie,’ Nell said, taking her by the arm and leading her forward.

‘Oh Lizzie!’
Emily went at once towards her, her arms outstretched in welcome. But as she neared the girl, she saw that Lizzie was much changed. Gone was the merry look in her eyes,
her lovely hair was dull and lifeless. She was thin and her skin had a sallow complexion.

Emily took hold of her hands. ‘Whatever’s happened to you?’

Lizzie made a strangulated noise in her throat and then burst into
tears. Emily put her arms around her and led her further into the workshop, making her sit down on an upturned box. ‘Ida,
love, make Lizzie some tea, will you?’

‘I went to see Lizzie and her mam last night,’ Nell said, meeting Emily’s gaze boldly. ‘And told her to come and see you this morning. Emily, the pair of them are in a
terrible state.’ Nell’s face was a mixture of emotions. She
had once been close friends with Lizzie, but at the moment she was not sure how she felt. She needed to know just how much
Lizzie had been involved in – or had known about – her brother’s activities. Had she really been so wicked that she’d encouraged Mick to set fire to Nathan Hawke’s
workshops with Emily inside it? Nell and Emily sat down beside her, whilst Ida, having brought tea for the three
of them, started up her wheel again and carried on with her work.

‘Here, dry your eyes,’ Emily said, fishing out a clean handkerchief from her pocket. ‘Drink your tea and tell us how we can help you.’

‘Oh Emily, I don’t deserve it. After all I’ve done to you, how – how can you be so kind?’

‘Because she’s a kind person,’ Nell put in. ‘Much kinder than I’d be in her shoes, I reckon,
but we want to know the truth. So come on, Lizzie, tell us.’

‘I’ve come to beg your forgiveness, both of you, and to tell you that I never meant for you to be – to be attacked like that. Oh yes, I wanted some sort of revenge for what I
thought Josh had done to me, but only to ruin your business, to get it closed down, but never – ever – to harm anyone.’ She looked so pitiful, looking up
at them with eyes
brimming with tears and pleading for them to believe her.

‘But is the reason you’re so apologetic now because you want your job back?’ Nell asked bluntly. ‘’Cos I could see last night that you and your mam are on the
breadline.’

Lizzie nodded. ‘Yes, we’re – we’ve nothing. Steve Henderson’s gang broke into our house and took anything of any value and smashed everything
else. We’ve
nothing – and with Mick gone . . .’ She hesitated to mention his name, but it was the truth. He’d seen his mother and his sister never went short, but now he was lost to them. She
was shaking her head sadly. ‘We never knew what he was mixed up in.’

‘You must have known,’ Nell said tartly. Although she’d been the one to invite Lizzie here, she was determined to get at the truth
– the whole truth – and she was
not so forgiving as Emily. ‘Where did you think he was getting his money from?’

‘We – we just thought he was wheeling and dealing, maybe just a little bit on the wrong side of the law. We knew he ran pitch and toss games, that sort of thing, but we didn’t
know he was running a
gang
.’

‘He was leader of one of the worst in the city,’ Nell said bluntly.
‘He and his thugs used to meet folk outside their place of work on payday and just take their wages off them
for no reason at all. He ran an extortion racket and poor Mr Hawke fell foul of that.’

Emily frowned and turned to Nell. ‘What – exactly – is this extortion racket everyone keeps talking about? I heard Trip mention it.’

Nell laughed wryly. ‘Where they target businessmen – usually
small ones – and promise they will not smash up their premises if they’re paid money every week.’

Shocked, Emily stared at her, her mind working furiously. ‘But – but we never got threatened.’

‘Of course we didn’t.’ Nell nodded towards Lizzie. ‘Because, then, she was one of us, but after she fell out with you – both of us, really – we became a prime
target for Mick’s revenge.’

‘Did
you know about this, Lizzie? About what he was doing?’

‘No, I swear I didn’t and neither did my mam. You can ask her, if you like. She’s heartbroken. She was so proud of him, thinking he was clever and shrewd when all the time . .
.’

‘He was nothing but a nasty thug,’ Nell said.

‘Do you know where he is now?’ Emily asked.

Lizzie shook her head. ‘No, and that’s the truth, because
me mam says if he ever dares to show his face around here again, she’ll drag him to the coppers herself. She’s
so ashamed and so am I.’ Her voice faded away to a hoarse whisper.

Emily was thinking hard. She believed Lizzie, but maybe she was still being a bit gullible. She must consult Nell first before she said any more. She had grown closer than ever to Nell since
their shared horrifying
experience and she wouldn’t go against anything the other girl said.

‘Sit there a minute, Lizzie. I want to speak to Nell.’

The two girls went downstairs and out into the street so that they could talk privately and not be overheard.

‘What do you think, Nell?’

‘Employ her, you mean?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you believe what she’s saying?’

‘I don’t know – that’s why I’m asking you.
You’ve known her a lot longer than I have. Do
you
believe her when she says her and her mam knew nothing
about what Mick was really doing?’

‘That’s the bit that worries me. Surely, they must have wondered why he always had so much money to splash around, but then,’ she smiled wryly, ‘mothers and sons, eh?
They can be very blind to their faults and see only the best in them. And I was every
bit as stupid over Steve when I first met him. For a long time I buried me head in the sand and refused to
believe that he could have anything to do with gangs. How wrong I was,’ she added bitterly.

‘And Lizzie?’

‘I don’t think she’s a bad person, just a bit silly and – and spiteful. She got a bee in her bonnet about your brother – that’s the root of it all.’
Nell sighed. ‘Oh, aren’t
we girls silly over fellers sometimes?’ She was thoughtful for a moment, but then she nodded. ‘We’d been friends for a long time before she
got besotted with your brother. Is she over him, do you think, or is she trying to get close to you again to carry out some sort of vendetta of her own?’

‘I’ll ask her straight out.’

‘All right, and if she seems to be telling the truth, then, yes,
we’ll give her another chance. Everyone deserves a second chance,’ she added wistfully and Emily believed Nell
was thinking of Steve. But the father of Nell’s child was not prepared to give up his nefarious life just yet. Maybe in the years to come, if he did mend his ways, perhaps Nell would be
prepared to give him another chance too. Emily hoped so. She would like to see her friend happy,
but for the moment her concern was Lizzie and her mother.

They went back inside and Emily took hold of Lizzie’s hand. ‘Listen to me, if you’re telling us the truth, Lizzie, and you promise you’ve no more quarrel with either me
or Nell, then yes, you can come back and work for us.’

‘But it’s Emily’s business now,’ Nell put in. ‘Not yours or mine. She’s the missus. You understand? It’s
called “Ryan’s” and we all
work for her.’ Nell prodded her finger towards Emily. ‘And I’ll tell tha summat fer nowt, Lizzie –’ Nell’s strong Sheffield accent seemed more pronounced
whenever she was pressing home her point – ‘this lass is going places and I, fer one, am hanging on to her coat tails.’

Lizzie’s tears flowed afresh. ‘Oh thank you, thank you. You – you don’t know what this
means to me.’ She stood up and flung herself against Emily, weeping tears of
gratitude against her shoulder.

‘It’s all right, Lizzie. It’s all going to be all right. I’ll call round to see you and your mam after work and bring you some food, just like she used to do for
us.’

‘Right, then, that’s settled and I’d better get back to me work, since we’re short-handed today,’ Nell said
briskly but, as she turned away, she added, ‘But
just remember, Lizzie Dugdale, one false step and tha’ll have me to deal with. Understood?’

Lizzie wiped her eyes and nodded. ‘Yes, Nell,’ she said meekly.

‘Tell you what,’ Emily said, ‘get yer hat on and I’ll take you shopping right now.’

The two girls looked at each other, both of them remembering the words Lizzie had said to Emily
when she’d first arrived as a stranger in the city. It reminded them of the friendship
they’d once shared.

‘Oh Lizzie, I’ve missed you so much.’ Emily hugged her tightly as they laughed and cried together.

Only now was it all really over.

Sisters in love. A family at war. A city in peril.

Rose and Myrtle Sylvester look up to their older sister, Peggy. She is the sensible, reliable one in the household of women headed by their grandmother, Grace Booth, and their
mother, Mary Sylvester. When war is declared in 1939 they must face the hardships together and huge changes in their
lives are inevitable. For Rose, there is the chance to fulfil her dream of
becoming a clippie on Sheffield’s trams like Peggy. But for Myrtle, the studious, clever one in the family, war may shatter her ambitions.

When the tram on which Peggy is a conductress is caught in a bomb blast, she bravely helps to rescue her passengers. One of them is a young soldier, Terry Price, and he and Peggy
begin courting.
They meet every time he can get leave, but eventually Terry is posted abroad and she hears nothing from him. Worse still, Peggy must break the devastating news to her family that she is
pregnant.