Two for Sorrow (14 page)

She left the station without looking back, and walked around for a while with no purpose other than to put off the moment when she would have to return to Danbury Street without the child. Unable to face an evening alone in her room, she moved from public house to public house, determined to spend every penny of Sach's money on the one comfort available to her. When the only thing left in her pocket was the price of a ticket home, she caught the bus back to Islington and got off by the canal. It had just started to rain, and she hurried down Noel Road, wanting now to get to sleep before the numbing effect of the alcohol wore off. The narrow passage that led to the back of the house was dark but she felt her way along the fence, counting the gates carefully to make sure she chose the right one. She found the yard without a problem, but the tiny space was crammed with clutter and she stumbled against a policeman's bicycle, knocking it to the
floor with a crash and scraping her shin badly on the pedal. She swore to herself and rubbed her leg, but she had already seen a light on downstairs and knew that there was no chance of returning home unnoticed. Reluctantly, she climbed the three stone steps to the back door, aware that she stank of gin but long past caring.

‘Is that you, Mrs Walters?' called a voice from the kitchen, and Annie knew she had no choice but to brazen it out. Her landlady was sitting at the table with Mrs Spencer, one of the lodgers from the first floor. The women were drinking tea, and Annie didn't have to try very hard to work out what the main topic of conversation had been. ‘The baby not with you, then?' Mrs Seal added, as if reading her thoughts.

‘No. I've taken it to its new home—I told you I was going to.' Without thinking, she took the clothes that she had removed from the baby's body and threw them across the table, enjoying the shock on the women's faces. ‘Here you are—you can have these for your little one. Mine won't need 'em any more.'

Mrs Seal picked up one of the knitted booties and looked at Annie. ‘Poor little thing, carted round from pillar to post,' she said. ‘What sort of a start in life is that?'

‘Huh,' Annie scoffed dismissively. ‘There's no need to feel sorry for the child. She's gone to a titled lady in Piccadilly who paid a hundred pounds for her, and she's going to be an heiress.'

‘I thought you said the baby was a boy?' Mrs Spencer said, glancing across at Mrs Seal.

Annie was thrown for a moment; she had completely forgotten that she had lied about the baby's sex when she first brought it back to the house, although why she had ever thought that would protect her, God only knew. ‘I didn't say anything of
the sort, Minnie,' she said defiantly. ‘You must have misheard.'

‘I must have done,' Mrs Spencer said. ‘My mistake—sorry, I'm sure.'

Annie muttered a gruff goodnight and went through to her room in the back parlour. She could tell instantly that someone had been through her things while she was out: the baby's clothes on the bed were not as she had left them, and she was sure that she had closed the drawer in which she kept the feeding bottle and the Chlorodyne. There was nothing else for it—she would have to move on soon, although judging by the look of the girl at Sach's, it wouldn't be long before she was needed again and she doubted she'd be able to find another room in time. It was dangerous, but she would have to bring one more child here and risk the consequences. If Sach knew how close they were to being discovered, she'd be horrified—but Annie had to admit to a certain pleasure in the thought of taking Sach down with her. Edwards, too, if she had the chance: she knew that Sach and that girl were up to something, that Edwards's duties were more than just cooking and cleaning. She wouldn't be surprised if they were trying to cut her out altogether, but she'd be damned if she'd let them—not now, not after everything she'd done. There were plenty of other women who wanted her services.

She picked up the rest of the milk which she had bought the day before and poured it into a mug, then added a couple of drops of Chlorodyne to help her sleep. But as she lay down, she knew it would take much more to blot out the noises in her head, the roar and clamour of a train about to depart, and the sound of a child choking in the night.

Marjorie took a roll of narrow purple ribbon and carefully cut it to the right length, enjoying the peace and solitude of the workroom in the early evening. Everyone else had gone home an hour ago—most of the other women had families to look after—but she had gladly offered to stay behind and work a little longer: there was a long list of minor alterations and finishing-off touches to attend to after the various fittings that had taken place that afternoon, and she was in no rush to get back to Campbell Road to face another confrontation with her father. In any case, she had her own reasons for wanting time alone.

She shifted her chair round slightly to get more light, then selected a strong wire hairpin from one of the boxes in the centre of the table and bent it into the shape of a horseshoe, with the prongs about an inch apart. These decorative additions to the main evening gowns were often more time-consuming than the dresses themselves, but they were not difficult and, as she set about creating the fabric violets which would complete Mary Size's outfit, she found that the calm, methodical nature of the work helped to eclipse the tensions of the day. Why had the argument with her father upset her so much? she wondered, placing the ribbon over one side of the hairpin, then drawing the long end over and under the other prong, giving it a half turn to make sure that the satin stayed
on the outside. It wasn't as if it was unusual—not a day went by without a row over something, and there had never been any love lost between them. Holding the ribbon taut, she repeated the process until she had made enough loops, then twisted a fine piece of wire around the centre of the material to form a stem. When she had made sure that everything was in place, she removed the hairpin and crushed the centres together to make the petals of the flower spread out, then wound the rest of the ribbon around the wire, finishing at the bottom with a tight knot. Was it because she had more to lose now, and he had dared to encroach on the new world she had created for herself? Or had she recognised a streak of opportunism which had surfaced recently in her own character?

Patiently, Marjorie cut a few more lengths of ribbon and carried on working until she had made enough single flowers to form a small corsage. She tied them together, her fingers deftly arranging the fabric to look as natural as possible and, as she looked down at her hands, she was surprised to see that they were barely recognisable as her own—comparatively well cared-for now, and with no sign of the dirt and bitten nails that she had grown used to. They were her best asset, and she needed to look after them—it was the first thing Mrs Reader had said to her when she arrived at Motley back in May, and Marjorie had surprised herself by heeding that and all the other advice which the head cutter had passed on. She was quick to learn, and as soon as Hilda Reader spotted her enthusiasm and potential she had made sure that the girl was given every possible chance to develop them, working her hard as she taught her the stitches and techniques involved in high-class couture—the hand-rolled hems and fine pin-tucks,
the fringing and beading, the delicacy of embroidery by hand and machine; helping her to understand the different weights and qualities of the fabrics, and how they would be transformed by stage lighting. Under Mrs Reader's patient but demanding eye, she had gradually learned to work at the speed which a busy house like Motley required—and, for the first time in her twenty-three years, Marjorie knew what it was to be genuinely grateful. It made no difference to her now whether she was working on costumes for the theatre or more conventional clothes for the sisters' boutique range—it was the magical transformation of the materials which delighted her, the privilege of being surrounded by things which were beautiful.

So why had she risked all that with one rash decision, tricked by her father into a complicity that shamed and horrified her? Perhaps he was right—genes would always out, no matter how hard she fought against them, and a child's life was mapped out even before he or she was born. She looked around the workroom, so full of colour and individuality—walls covered with sketches of historical costumes and glamorous theatrical production shots, shelves groaning under the weight of art books and gallery catalogues from which the Motleys so often took their inspiration, small personal items left next to the sewing machines by several of the girls, implying a sense of ownership and continuity—and compared it to what she was used to: long rows of treadle sewing machines, overlooked by two prison officers, where the only embroidery to be done was the stencilling of a number on a mailbag; no banter and no company, other than a few old drunks languidly teasing out coir to fill mattresses, the joints of their hands swollen with rheumatism; and certainly no creativity or beauty—just
automatic, monotonous work, the relentless blue of prison uniforms.

Sighing heavily, she put the finished violets down and walked over to the row of tall windows which overlooked St Martin's Lane. The first flakes of snow had begun to fall, fulfilling the promise of the day's cold, and Marjorie watched the people on the pavement below hurrying into theatres or public houses, shaking the weather from their Friday-night clothes and laughing as the ultimate symbol of Christmas began its gentle veiling of the city. Why did everything seem so much more desperate as Christmas got closer? The sense of disappointment and longing was even stronger than usual, the briefest moments of happiness all the more intense. December was always marked in her house by the biggest rows of the year, and the pressure to please only increased the greatest worry—money. It had peaked when she was about twelve, when they still lived outside the city; her mother belonged to a loan club, and she always drew on it a couple of weeks ahead of Christmas. Marjorie remembered how she used to love putting the money out on the kitchen table; it couldn't have been more than a few quid, but she would set some by for the kids' presents and use the rest to pay back debts from the year; the small piles of coins built up on scraps of paper—IOUs or shopping lists. Marjorie was washing up at the sink, listening to her mother hum one of the familiar carols while she did her sums; her father was by the fire, reading his paper. Then one of her little brothers called out from the next room and her mother went to see what he wanted; her father must have gone out after her, because when Marjorie turned round a few minutes later, they were both standing in the doorway, looking accusingly at her across the table, where one of the piles had
disappeared. There was a hell of a row and Marjorie stormed out; she knew that her father must have pocketed the money—later, her mother had admitted that she knew as much, too, but it had been easier to blame her daughter. That was a talent her mother had, finding anyone to blame but the person at fault; it was a trait that ran throughout Marjorie's fractured family, with her parents at the centre of it—by turns resentful, uneasy, lost, as if they could no longer remember who had trapped who.

Frustrated, she turned away from her reflection in the glass and went through to the small clients' fitting room to fetch the next job on Mrs Reader's list and tidy up after the last of the appointments. In spite of her mood, she had to smile when she saw the bottle of vodka and two glasses that Geraldine Ashby had smuggled in with her earlier that evening. Marjorie was under no illusions as to Gerry's interest in her, and she saw no reason to be coy about it; what intrigued her, though, was that the feeling was mutual. She was surprised by how much she liked Geraldine—not because of her wealth or her title, but because she was unpredictable; she resisted what was expected of her, and to a girl whose petty acts of rebellion had got her in and out of trouble since she was fifteen, that sort of spirit was dangerously attractive. Marjorie picked up the bottle to throw it away before it was discovered, then thought better of it and poured herself another drink from what was left. There was a cutting from a magazine on the wall in front of her, a piece from last month's
Tatler
with the headline ‘Nurses to benefit from theatrical coup'; the photograph showed the Motley seamstresses and some of the members of the Cowdray Club standing in the workroom, preparing the clothes for next week's gala, and there was a smaller picture underneath of
Noël Coward on stage with Gertrude Lawrence. Ronnie and Lettice had bought copies for all the girls to take home, and Marjorie thought again of what her father had said—her new friends were not all they seemed. She knew what he meant, and yet there was something about this world of glamour and make-believe that seemed more real to her than anything else she had ever known. The taste of it had made her reckless, and encouraged her to make promises to Lucy which she had no idea if she could keep. Lucy didn't seem bothered, though. Half the time, Marjorie got the impression that the girl was only humouring her anyway, and—emotionally—Lucy often seemed more grown up than she was; perhaps that's what having a child did for you. Still, she thought, holding up the dress that was to be altered and looking at herself in the mirror, this plan was more solid than most, and it was stupid to have doubts when it was too late to do anything about them.

As she carried the gown carefully back into the workroom, a tailor's dummy in the corner caught her eye, next to a roll of deep-blue silk. She knew it was waiting to be transformed into a cape to match one of the evening gowns for the gala, and that it would be the first job on Hilda Reader's list in the morning. She never tired of watching as the cutter worked from the designs that the Motley sisters produced, interpreting their sketches into a three-dimensional garment by pinning, draping and cutting the material, apparently without effort. It was a great skill, and Marjorie had been so thrilled when Mrs Reader said she was almost ready to try it herself. She liked Lettice and Ronnie, and was in awe of their talent; obviously she wanted them to think well of her, but it was Hilda Reader—the woman who had first had confidence in her, the mother she wished she'd had—who she really wanted to impress, and
what better way than by making the cape herself, now, when everywhere was quiet? It was a risk, but it would be worth it to see the look on the head cutter's face in the morning, and it would keep Marjorie's mind off other things.