The Factory Girl (10 page)

Intrigued, he had taken a butcher's and had felt his eyes light up at a range of small silver
objets d'art
, a quantity of necklaces and pendants and had seen how he could make money to keep his shop ticking over, a shop that in that short while was proving to be a white elephant with all the signs of his having to crawl back to his father admitting defeat.

It wasn't the money but the humiliation. His father, a hale and hearty but overbearing man giving out that deep-throated guffaw that had always brought him down as a child trying to do his best and failing in his father's eyes, would bellow, ‘I knew you'd fall by the wayside. Always have.'

Here had been an opportunity to make good, at least to keep going and show his father he was made of stronger stuff after all.

Herbert had asked if he could take the stuff off his hands, pay him what he thought it was worth. ‘You're the first one I thought of,' he said. ‘I've only just started this lark and am a bit chary of trusting anyone I don't know. You don't have to, of course, but we could work together, you and me – I find the stuff and you get rid of it. Do us both a bit of good,' he'd added meaningfully.

He knew of the problems his old pal had with his father from those quiet confidences in the trenches when each man thought the day might be his last.

‘Will there be any risk?' he'd asked.

‘Why should there be?' had come the reply. ‘You ain't got ter pass it on or anything and leave yourself wide open. You
make
jewellery, don't you? Get yourself a small smelter, melt down the precious metal, use the stones to make other things, and the gold and silver to mount 'em with. Easy.'

And so it had become a regular thing. This summer he had branched out, begun selling to the trade, or at least that part of the trade that asked no questions.

Slowly he'd found one outlet, then another, and on the way had found others coming to his door after dark, furtive figures trying to make a living out of thieving, accepting what he said was the going rate. He had put his ear to the ground and found out what was usually offered to these people and they'd very often leave with disappointed faces at the small reward for all their efforts, but in this business it was a buyer's market every time. They did probably deal with others, but anywhere they went it would be much the same, take it or leave it! He never told Herbert about them. As far as Herbert was aware, he was his only client. Nor did he tell Geraldine. As far as she was aware, he was making a success of his business and that was all she needed to know.

It had been a lovely Christmas and New Year, the ghost of the Great War being slowly laid to rest and the new decade promising a more happy future to look forward to. A totally modern era stretched ahead of them – the horse-drawn vehicle fast disappearing, people who could afford them taking to cars, all travel done by motorised vehicles. Aeroplanes no longer made people gaze up at them in awe. Airships carried the wealthy across the Atlantic to America and back. The first plane ever to fly across the Atlantic had done so in three stages and Alcock and Brown had flown one non-stop across it. Young women had dispensed with corsets altogether and were wearing the new brassiers, dresses were looser with hems creeping up to calf length and sometimes a fraction shorter. People were beginning to enjoy the Jazz Age and indeed Tony had already taken her to a dance where jazz musicians had been playing.

Geraldine felt lucky to be young in this part of the twentieth century. The only fly in the ointment was an endless round of strikes for better pay, wages unable to keep up with rising prices so that for a time, announced the Government, rationing had to be imposed.

But for her the future looked rosy. Tony spent Christmas with her people, seeming to quite enjoy the sort of Christmas East End families indulged in, and had bought gifts, a turkey, a huge box of chocolates for Mum, a large tin of tobacco for Dad who rolled his own cigarettes – ‘No taste in them shop things,' Dad always said. He'd bought Fred a pair of roller skates, ‘To get you around your errands faster and soon you'll be given promotion, you'll see.' For Wally there was a leather cigarette case and for Evie a pair of gloves. He was totally at ease as though this was his family and Geraldine felt a little sad for him that he had no interest in going to visit his own. He did not speak about it and she wondered how deep the rift had been. One day maybe he would tell her.

He'd got nothing for Mavis, she living in her own home and hardly around when he called on Geraldine, so he didn't really know her. He said how awkward he felt but Mum told him not to be silly and anyway, when Mavis came for Christmas dinner she hardly acknowledged him, still seeing him as a jumped-up snob who'd have her sister in tears when he finally got fed up slumming it.

Geraldine couldn't help smiling, remembering when she had felt jealous of Mavis getting married and there seemed no likelihood of herself ever finding the man of her dreams. Now she'd found one and to prove it, on New Year's Eve he quietly asked Dad for her hand in marriage; that given, he proposed to her on the stroke of twelve, to everyone's delight going down on one knee for it.

‘Fancy,' crowed Mum, while all the aunts applauded and came forward to hug her while the men came to shake Tony's hand, Evie giving him a huge, lingering kiss on the cheek, though Mavis for her part looked at the ceiling with a sour expression now that her doleful prediction of his going off into the blue seemed not to be coming true.

The following Saturday afternoon he had closed his shop and had taken her up the big jewellers in Bond Street to buy the ring.

She now flashed the half hoop of magnificent diamonds in front of Mavis, seeing envy reflected in those light-brown eyes. It would teach Mavis to snub her fiancé the way she had over Christmas and the New Year. Tony had done nothing to her, in fact had been polite and generous to all the family and could be excused for not having given her anything, the way she had treated him from the very start. If she was jealous, then let her really be jealous, Geraldine thought, trying hard not to be vindictive. The rest of them were well pleased, Mum especially.

‘I'm so glad for yer,' she said. ‘But once you two are married, yer won't look down yer nose at us, will yer?'

‘Look down me nose?' echoed Geraldine in amazement. ‘Why should I do that? We're hardly likely to be landed gentry, are we?'

‘I just thought,' mused her mother. ‘I mean, yer beginning ter talk posh, like yer was ashamed of bein' what you are.'

She hadn't really noticed. It had sort of crept up on her. Maybe it was Tony's influence. She remembered a time, only last year, when she'd made a conscious effort to improve her speech on first meeting him. Now it seemed to come naturally to her. Even friends at work sometimes pulled faces when she spoke so that she found herself making the same conscious effort to speak as she once had when with them. It wasn't difficult to revert, but just as easy to speak as she was now doing.

‘Don't be silly, Mum,' she said, trying to modify her speech. ‘I ain't trying ter be posh. I really ain't.'

‘Well, so long as it don't go to yer 'ead, all this money yer marryin' into.'

‘He ain't that well off,' she said.

With a grunt and a shiver from the freezing cold of the backyard, Jack Glover got gratefully back between the warm covers. It was three-thirty in the morning and he'd already been out to do a pee around one o'clock, his rest disturbed yet again. He'd gone to bed around ten-thirty, delaying his visit to the lav until the last minute and he would willingly bet his last farthing that he'd be woken up again around five by a bladder that felt it was bursting, to stumble downstairs and into the yard, hoping to make it in time to the lav itself, only to end up doing a dribble. It drove him mad. It spoiled his sleep and by the time he got up for work at seven he felt as if he'd hardly slept a wink all night.

Hilda came half awake, her rest broken by him getting back into bed.

‘Sorry, love,' he whispered.

That brought her more awake and she turned restlessly towards him, protesting at being disturbed. ‘'Ow many times yer been?'

‘A couple. An' its bloody freezin' out there.'

‘If it goes on like this you'll 'ave ter start usin' the po.'

‘Yer don't like me usin' one.'

‘Well, I must admit it do stink the room out by mornin'. Ain't like it's little girl's water. But sooner that than you catchin' yer death of cold out there, you're going to 'ave ter use it. But I ain't 'appy about it.' She fidgeted with the bedclothes around her chin. ‘It's gettin' worse, that bladder of yours. Worse than it was last winter. You'll 'ave ter try makin' it to the lav in time.'

‘I managed it this time. But when I pulled the chain and come out, a light come on next door. They must of 'eard me pull the chain.'

‘They know yer. They don't mind.'

‘Well, I do.'

‘I don't care if you do, Jack,' she groaned drowsily.

‘Yer would if you was me,' he shot at her.

Hilda sighed. ‘Time summer comes round yer'll 'ave to try an' make it to the lav,
and
pull the chain. I can't 'ave the smell all through next summer like last year – goin' out there dowsing it down with carbolic every mornin', people thinking we're dirty. But even carbolic's better than the smell you create sometimes. An' I won't 'ave yer not pulling the chain, don't matter what the neighbours think. That pan's stained as it is without you addin' to it with yer wee lying in it fer hours. I scrub that pan day in, day out, and it's still stained. You'll just 'ave ter learn ter pull it when yer go in the night.'

‘I ain't 'aving every bloody neighbour knowing I've got an affliction.' He had sat up, his voice grown louder. Retaliating in no uncertain terms, Hilda sat up too, irritated by his sudden show of belligerence.

‘Yer lettin' 'em all know now, though. Why don't yer shout out a bit louder, Jack? People across the road can't 'ear!'

He lowered his tone instantly, his voice adopting a note of pleading. ‘I can't 'elp this, gel. Wish I could. 'Ow d'yer think I feel, dripping like a bloody tap, all me mates laughin' at me if I'm not careful. I'm ashamed, gel, I am.'

She too lowered her voice, immediately sympathetic. ‘I know. But if it goes on much longer, you're goin' to 'ave to speak to the doctor. Yer've 'ad this trouble over a year now. You'll 'ave ter see a doctor about it.'

‘I know what that'll mean. Me sent to orspital. I can't afford time off work goin' to orspitals. What if they kept me in?'

‘They won't keep you in,' sighed Hilda, snuggling down under the covers again. It was cold sitting up. ‘More likely the doctor'll give yer some medicine to stop it. We can't go on like this. You're going to 'ave to see 'im.'

With that she turned over, away from him, obliging him to lie down and seek some sleep before it was time to get up and go to work. At the moment he was fortunate enough to be working, him and Wally together. At the moment they were bringing in money and perhaps if she put a little aside out of her housekeeping, she herself going without a few things, there'd be a bit of savings if Jack did go into hospital, though she didn't reckon it that serious to warrant it.

She lay on her side, eyes wide open as she thought about it. There was the Hospital Savings Club, contributions of just a few pence a week which sometimes she begrudged paying when Jack was out of work – that might help provide a little towards it if need be. National Insurance certainly wouldn't provide much. To her mind Lloyd George was quick to take from the working man but slow to hand out when it was needed and a few pence at that – an old Welsh thief was what she referred to their Prime Minister as being.

Her biggest worry was that if Jack had to be off work for any length of time it wouldn't be easy to get back. That's how it was in the docks, a hard life for sick people. You only had to look at the lines of ex-servicemen trudging along the gutters with their harmonicas, their off-key voices, their pleading eyes and their placards, forgotten heroes, living on pennies from passers-by.

She heard Jack begin to snore gently. Soon it would develop enough to raise the ceiling and she'd better find some sleep before it began keeping her awake for what was left of the night. She'd worry about it all tomorrow – not half as bad in broad daylight. Perhaps this trouble Jack had wasn't as serious as the nights made it seem. There was, though, one thing about his affliction for which she was thankful – he no longer claimed his marital rights for fear of disgracing himself. Humiliating for any man. But she was forty-seven and had just about had enough of that lark. Since young Fred was born, she'd had two miscarriages and one stillborn. Had she gone on like that she might not have seen many more years, that's how constant childbearing could drain a woman, but it wasn't easy to explain this to a man.

Fortunately, and she did feel fortunate if sorry for Jack, he being as he was avoided the unpleasantness of telling him she didn't want him pulling her about any longer, that she was past that sort of thing. Under normal circumstance he wouldn't be past it, certain he could go on enjoying it until they carried him out of the house feet first. She was sorry for his trouble but she could now put her hands together. Many women in their forties couldn't, still in the throes of adding to their families.

In his sleep Jack gave a loud snort, held his breath for a second then let it out in a throaty rumble that had Hilda closing her eyes in an effort to fall off to sleep.

It was Monday evening and Hilda and her daughter sat alone in the back room. Jack had gone to bed early as he often did these days, having emptied out before retiring, needing to get as much sleep in as he could before being obliged to get up for another visit. Wally and Fred were out. Evie would be due home in half an hour from a friend's house down the road. It was an ideal time to unburden herself on to Geraldine.