The Mill Girls of Albion Lane (11 page)

Lily went to the window and stood beside her sister, looking down on the flat stone roof of the outhouse. ‘Will you try to find another job?' she asked quietly. ‘If you do and Mother sees that you're making the effort, she may come round.'

Margie shook her head. ‘I've spent my life trying to please Mother, but the truth is I never will, not with you to measure up against.'

Lily was startled by her sister's rueful remark. ‘That's not true, Margie. I'm not the apple of Mother's eye, not by any means.'

‘Yes you are. You're a good girl, Lily – you're kind and clever and steady, all the things I'm not.'

‘If I am, then it's not as easy as it looks,' Lily argued. ‘It takes a lot of effort to be thought of as steady by the likes of Mother, believe me.'

For the first time Margie turned her head to look at Lily.

‘You're surprised?' Lily quizzed. ‘Don't you know that there's a part of me that would love to hitch up my skirt and ride tandem on Harry's bike like you, or to have my hair cut short if I had the courage? And wouldn't I just love to go dancing whenever I felt like it and not have to slave away five and a half days a week at Calvert's, week in, week out? Wouldn't we all, deep down?'

Another long silence developed as Lily and Margie followed two different trains of thought. Margie was the first to break it and when she did her tone was whimsical. ‘What would be your dream, Lily? If I could wave a magic wand, what would you wish for?'

Lily gave a little sigh. ‘There's no point even thinking about it.'

‘But if I could, what would it be?'

‘Promise me you won't laugh?' Lily squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. ‘All right then, if you could wave your magic wand I would leave Calvert's and set up in my own dressmaking shop. I would have my sewing machine on a table by the shop window and a little bell on the door that tinkles whenever a customer comes in. There would be shelves with bolts of cloth of all colours – cotton, wool and silk – and I would make a beautiful dress for one and sixpence plus the cost of the material.'

Margie's slender frame shook with suppressed laughter.

‘What? You promised!' Lily protested when Margie's giggles broke through. ‘Oh, I suppose a shop on Market Row wouldn't do for you, Margie Briggs. You'd be a princess wearing a ball gown and a tiara, or a Hollywood film star.'

‘Definitely not a dressmaker,' Margie laughed, and for a few seconds, silhouetted against the moonlight, the sisters were back to their old, warm familiarity. ‘I do have a dream, though, and it's to get away from mill work, just the same as you.'

‘And then what would you do?' Lily asked gently.

‘Why, I'd do all the things I love to do. I'd go to the seaside but not just with a bucket and spade. No, instead I'd get on board a white ship, an ocean liner, and I'd sail away across a blue sea. Or I'd go dancing in a grand ballroom like the Tower Ballroom in Blackpool and the most handsome man in the world would sweep me off my feet and carry me around in a Bentley like the one Harry drives, and he'd take me to meet his family in a house with a big garden and two more cars in the driveway.' With the smile fading from her lips, Margie paused to let Lily imagine the scene. ‘There.' She sighed, blowing softly on the window pane, which grew foggy from the heat of her breath. ‘Now you know.'

‘And it could happen,' Lily said, valiantly standing up for her sister's fading, unreachable vision.

‘And pigs …'

‘… Might fly!'

They stood side by side as their brief laughter turned to wistfulness again and then Lily hugged Margie and held her until Margie eventually drew away.

‘There's something else,' Margie murmured.

‘What is it?' Though Lily dreaded the reply, she felt she owed it to her sister to meet the problem without flinching. ‘You know you can trust me not to let on.'

‘Can I?'

‘Yes. I only want to help.'

‘Very well.' Taking a deep breath and summoning her courage to share the secret that would put paid to her pipe dreams once and for all, Margie took the plunge. ‘I'm in the family way,' she sobbed. ‘Help me, Lily – I'm six weeks gone. I don't know which way to turn!'

Margie's confession in the cold back bedroom at Ada Street confirmed Lily's worst fears; the ones that lay deep below the surface and couldn't be shared, that Lily felt had to be kept secret even from Annie and Sybil. But ever since Rhoda had made her dark prophecy, she had been building to this awful moment. For a while the shock of what she'd been told silenced her and she asked herself how Margie could have been so silly and reckless. After all, despite the trials and tribulations of their childhoods, she had been brought up to know better.

‘But who's the father?' Lily asked sternly after the news had sunk in. ‘Try to stop crying, Margie, and tell me.'

Her sister wept regardless. Her shoulders shook and she bowed her head but said nothing.

‘Please say who it is,' Lily begged, though she still felt weak at the knees with shock. ‘It's bound to come out sooner or later.'

‘Not if I don't want it to.' Margie took a deep breath and stopped sobbing, roughly wiping away the tears as she raised her head. ‘I don't. And that's that.'

Lily recognized Margie's habit of quickly crying away her distress then putting a tight lid on her emotions – a trait she got from Rhoda, Lily realized when she thought about it later. ‘And you're not to tell Mother,' she insisted. ‘Promise me you won't.'

‘All right, I promise,' Lily said, almost choking over the words.

Sworn to secrecy, she tried other avenues with Margie. ‘And you're quite sure?' she insisted.

Margie clicked her tongue impatiently. ‘Do you think I don't know the facts of life?'

‘No, that's not what I'm saying. But have you been to see Dr Moss?'

‘And tell him what? That I'm two weeks late and it's all I can do to stop myself from being sick every morning?'

‘Oh, Margie, I didn't realize.' Looking back, Lily could see how her sister's bad moods and reluctance to get up for work were warning signs that she shouldn't have overlooked. ‘Why didn't you tell me?'

‘Because it's to do with me, my business – not yours.'

‘How can you say that?' It hurt Lily to think that Margie hadn't trusted her enough to ask her for help. ‘We're close, aren't we – you and I? We tell each other everything. Surely you know that I won't judge—'

‘Ah, but you do,' Margie interrupted with a penetrating stare that unsettled Lily. ‘Deep down you do judge me for getting myself into this mess.'

Lily felt another hot, awkward flush of guilt and her thoughts scattered in the face of Margie's challenge. Then, when she was able to speak again, she blurted out the first thing that came into her mind. ‘Let me look for a place for you to stay – somewhere by the seaside perhaps.'

‘I'm all right here with Granddad. Why do you want to send me away?' Margie's face darkened. ‘Oh, I see what it is – you'll be unhappy for me to stay here and for people to tittle-tattle!'

Lily hesitated a second time – two pauses that later filled her with shame. Back at home and thinking it through, she wished with all her heart that she'd been braver and more loving, telling Margie no, she would stand by her wherever she chose to be, whatever people said. The impulse was there, but an old Chapel morality held her back – the knowledge that Methodist fingers would point and tongues would wag.

‘You are, you're ashamed of me,' Margie concluded and her mood shifted into a settled bitterness which she didn't break out of, even after Lily had talked herself out and prepared to leave. ‘You're not to say or do anything, you hear?' Margie warned. ‘You're not to tell anyone about this – not Sybil or Annie or Evie. And you're not to bother me about it either.'

‘What do you mean, “bother” you?'

‘I mean you're not to come back to Ada Street until I'm good and ready.'

‘Margie, you can't cope with this all by yourself. It's not right – I'm your sister and I want to help.'

But Margie was adamant and hissed out her response as she took up position by the window. ‘No. I've thought about it and I've decided that I want to be left to work it out in my own way.'

‘Please, Margie …'

Margie's back was turned, her thoughts already elsewhere. ‘I want you to go now,' she said with steely determination.

Rebuffed, Lily knew there was no point continuing to hit her head against a brick wall so she said a reluctant goodbye and carried the heavy burden of Margie's resentment out of the room and down the stairs, past Jesus with his lantern and Granddad Preston peering out of the kitchen without saying a word.

‘Look after her,' Lily said, in tears and practically running from the house.

The old man waited and listened. Five minutes after Lily had left, he heard Margie sobbing in the room above.

Despite the cold, wet weather, Lily decided not to take the tram home. Instead, she would walk along Overcliffe Road in order to clear her head and reorder her thoughts before she reached Albion Lane, ignoring the rattle and spark of the trams as they overtook her laden with passengers hidden behind steamed-up windows. She paid no attention either to the occasional motor car and the steady stream of men on bicycles still coming up the hill from factories in the valley below.

In fact, the hustle and bustle suited her since it allowed her to walk unnoticed along the high footpath overlooking the dark moor to one side and the glimmering town to the other. So much raw darkness, she thought, and so much wild, empty space beyond the maze of streets and factory chimneys, with the black canal snaking between tall woollen mills, all silent now that the workers had departed. Breathing in, Lily could smell smoke and soot and hear the faint rumble of town life, but she could glance to her left and see nothing but emptiness.

And so she grew calm and walked steadily as the mist turned to heavy rain, until a familiar figure on a bicycle drew in towards the kerb and stopped under a lamp post a few yards ahead of her.

‘Hello, Lily. You look like a drowned rat,' Harry observed, standing astride the bike in a pool of yellow light. He wore a dark grey raincoat over his chauffeur's uniform, with the cap pulled well down over his face.

‘That's not very nice.' Pleased to see him, Lily defended herself against the cheeky remark. It was typical Harry and probably true, since her coat didn't keep out the rain and she realized for the first time that she was soaked to the skin. ‘Anyway, what brings you this way? Are you on your way home from work?'

He nodded. ‘Mr Calvert let me off early. Monday is his night to go to a council meeting at the Town Hall, but they called it off at the last minute. It meant he didn't need me to drive the car.'

‘Lucky you,' Lily said, unable to suppress a shiver and surprised when Harry unbuttoned his coat, took it off and put it around her shoulders. His unlooked-for courteousness was new and quite a contrast to his old, teasing way with her.

‘Here you are, I'm your knight in shining armour,' he joked.

‘Is that right? Where are the dragons?'

‘Breathing fire down in the valley. Can't you see 'em?'

‘No.'

‘They're tucked up in bed for the night then. Anyway, this'll keep you dry, that's the main thing.'

‘You'll get your uniform wet,' she pointed out. ‘But thanks a lot, Harry. I appreciate it. I'll dry the coat off and bring it round to your house later.'

‘No, I'll walk with you,' he told her, continuing in the same gallant way. ‘I'd like to make sure you get home safe and sound.'

‘There's no need,' she argued.

‘But I want to,' he countered, swinging his leg over the crossbar and beginning to walk alongside Lily on the side that shielded her from the worst of the wind and rain. A few minutes ago, when she'd passed under a street lamp and he'd seen her from a distance – a lonely figure wrapped in her own thoughts – he'd set his mind on catching her up then stopping to talk. ‘What brings you up this way? Let me guess – you called in to see Margie after work?'

Lily nodded briefly, glad that the noise from a passing tram prevented her from having to give a fuller answer.

‘There's no need to go into details if you don't feel like it,' Harry went on after the tram had gone by. ‘But just to let you know – Evie spilled the beans to Peggy that Margie had run off.'

‘She did?' It was impossible to keep anything to yourself if you lived in this rabbit warren of terraced streets, Lily realized. She should have been cross and ready to scold Harry for gossiping, but somehow she didn't mind the frankness with which he opened up the thorny topic of Margie.

‘Yes, but try not to worry – families are always squabbling. Mine is, at any rate.'

‘Not Peggy surely? She wouldn't say boo to a goose.' Glancing sideways, Lily saw that raindrops had darkened Harry's uniform across the shoulders and down the front. He looked straight ahead and seemed not to notice, chatting easily as usual while she resisted an urge to draw near and slip a hand through the crook of his elbow.

‘No, not Peggy. Mind you, in our house it's only ever money we argue about, or rather the fact that there's nothing left in anybody's purse by the end of the week.'

‘It's the same for everyone these days, isn't it? We haven't got two pennies to rub together on Albion Lane, not after the bills are paid.'

‘But we all do a bit extra and we scrape by, eh?'

‘We do,' she agreed. Though they'd lived cheek by jowl since they were small children, Harry kicking a ball up against outhouse walls, Lily chalking hopscotch squares on the stone-flagged pavements, she realized this was probably the longest talk she'd ever had with him and that she was relieved to have her mind taken off the recent heart-breaking exchange with her sister.