The Quality Street Girls, page 12
‘You’re coming with me, and you’re coming with me now.’ Tommo wrapped a nicotine-stained hand around Bess’s arm and tried to lift her off her feet towards the door.
Bess struggled as best she could. ‘Why can’t you just leave me here?’
‘Because I know you, and you’ll blab which way I’ve gone, and I can’t have no one on my tail tonight until I’ve spoken to a man at the Water Lane gate about some boxes.’
‘But you said that you were only here to see me,’ you asked me to get you through the gates because you said you missed my pretty face and that there was no other reason!’
‘Where do you think that coat of yours came from?’ Tommo snapped back. ‘How can you be so ungrateful? After everything I’ve given you! Do you want me to get caught? Is that it? Do you want me to get arrested? Because if you don’t you’re cutting it bloody fine if you want us to get away before your boss turns up with the night watchman.’
Bess had never thought about where Tommo’s money came from, and she felt stupid now. She’d snuck him in claiming that he worked for the Buildings Department, thinking that there was no harm in her young man waiting with her in the cloakroom for a kiss and a cuddle. ‘What’s in the boxes you need to talk to the man in Water Lane about, Tommo?’
‘Never you mind.’
Chapter Eight
Mary woke in a panic. She always woke at five o’clock in the morning, ready to start the fire in the parlour, and usually when she woke she could hear the sounds of the street waking: the rattle of the milkman’s waggon; the birds; the neighbours; the knocker-upper; but this morning there was nothing.
Mary had never asked her mother how she had become deaf, but maybe Mary had woken up today to inherit her mother’s deafness, and this was the start of it. She leapt out of bed and ran to the window, not noticing that she could hear the slap of her bare feet against the cold floorboards, and threw open the curtains. The window looked strange, as though there were nothing outside at all. Mary wondered if it was frost, but she was used to frost on the windows, this was different, this was sinister, and it had a strange kind of blue-white glow in the darkness.
‘What are you doing?’ Bess had woken up. ‘Come back to bed, you’re making me cold.’
‘There’s something wrong outside. Can’t you hear it?’
‘Hear what? I can’t hear anything outside.’
‘Precisely!’ Mary picked up the candlestick that sat on the bare floor beside their bed and lit it.
She carried it gingerly over to the window and inspected it more closely. ‘It can’t be!’
‘Can’t be what?’
‘Snow! There’s snow all the way up past the window.’
‘Mmm.’ Bess purred with contentment in her warm cocoon of blankets. ‘Does that mean we don’t have to go to work today?’ She didn’t seem concerned by the thought that they were completely trapped.
‘No, it does not. If we don’t go to work, we don’t get paid.’ Mary shivered. ‘We have to find a way out.’
A similar panic was unfolding in the other houses on the southern end of Mary’s street. The storm had blown the heavy snow in eddies and whorls through the night until it had settled in a drift on the steep hill. Then, as silent as death, the snow drift had slid down like a creeping avalanche to cover nineteen houses to the tops of their chimneys. As the street began to awake for a working day the morning revealed a clear sky, but the houses of Back Ripon Terrace had vanished beneath a blanket of white. Neighbours on the other side of the street were chasing back and forth to one another’s front doors. They were busy waking friends and relatives to help with the rescue mission, rummaging in their coal holes for scuttles to use as shovels. Everyone was doing anything to help dig out the people on the other side of their street who were, for all they knew, dead or dying.
Mary was ignorant of the rescue attempts going on outside. The snow had formed a perfect insulation against the noises of the world, and she was seized by a fear that the whole town, maybe even the whole country, was under so much snow that they would never live normal lives again.
Bess pulled the covers up over her dainty ears, and glossy ringlets, and sighed in contentment. ‘You worry too much. Just enjoy stayin’ in bed where it’s nice and cosy until it thaws and it’s time to go back to work. They can’t tell us off for not going in if we’re buried in the snow.’
Mary couldn’t think logically when she was afraid; the sheer number of problems to be faced overwhelmed her, and she froze. Mary told herself to focus and to think of just one thing that she could do as; she decided to wake her mother.
‘Mam!’ Mary rumbled down the stairs making as much noise as she could, hoping that some of it would penetrate her mother’s muffled, almost soundless world. ‘Mam, wake up!’
Mrs Norcliffe was sleeping in the chair by the fire; she always slept in a chair by the fire because their house had only two rooms, the bedroom upstairs and the kitchen parlour below. She awoke as she felt the rumble of her daughter’s footsteps on the stairs. Seeing Mary’s panic, she was immediately alert; she followed Mary to the window where Mary, candle in hand, was waving her arms and talking about the end of the world. Mrs Norcliffe nodded, and with a sigh picked up the tin bath, a coal shovel, and heaved herself up the stairs to the landing in her ragged slippers and old robe.
‘Go and get your sister,’ she said to Mary. ‘She can sit on my shoulders.’
Mary’s fear had now turned to an angry frustration that no one else in the house could see the full horror of their situation. She was dancing about on the landing floorboards in her bare feet trying to get her mother’s attention, but her mother was otherwise occupied. Mary let out a loud sigh of exasperation and went and did as she was told.
Mrs Norcliffe was positioning the tin bath tub directly below the landing skylight when Bess appeared reluctantly at the doorway, being shoved along by her elder sister. ‘Not dressed like that!’ her mother said, ‘Go and put some clothes on or you’ll freeze.’ Bess was hurried into some warm wrappings and then returned. ‘Alright, now climb up on my shoulders, that’s it.’ She leant forward and manhandled her daughter up into a sitting position for straightening up again. ‘Can you reach the latch on the sky light?’ Mrs Norcliffe turned to Mary. ‘Is she reachin’ it? Is she reachin’ the sky light?’
‘Yes, mother!’ Luckily, her mother could lip read.
‘Well then tell her to open it.’
‘You tell her to open it; she can hear you!’ Mary was hopping from one foot to the other; fists balled up in a pent up frenzy of anxiety.
‘Mary, tell her I’m not going to open it. There’s snow coverin’ it, and it’ll fall on me ‘ead.’
‘Good!’ Mary snapped at her sister.
‘What are you two saying to each other?’ Their mother tried to crane her neck to look up at the daughter on her shoulders. ‘Are you arguin’? I don’t want arguin’ I just want you to open the bloody skylight, do you ‘ear?’
Bess pursed her lips, reached up to the latch of the skylight and unfastened it. The window pane swung down, nearly knocking Bess off her mother’s shoulders and the pair of them wobbled precariously as Bess ducked and caused her mother to stumble. The snow did not fall. It was as Mary had feared; the snow was so thick overhead that it had formed a compacted mass that would defy gravity, seemingly forever.
‘Well, what are you waitin’ for?’ Mrs Norcliffe moved back into position. ‘Poke it, Bess. Poke it!’
‘How am I meant to poke it?’
Mary was now fuming, face red. ‘Mother. She says she doesn’t know what you mean.’
‘I mean poke it! Give it a poke!’
‘But Mary, my fingers can’t reach.’
‘Mother, she says her fingers can’t reach.’
‘I don’t want her to use her fingers; I want her to use the coal shovel, what does she think I gave it her for? Poke the snow with the coal shovel. I’m not standin’ here all day!’
Bess timidly stroked at the snow in the skylight opening and a little wet dusting of snow fluttered down all around them.
‘Don’t stroke it! Poke it!’ Mary was on the verge of hysteria.
Bess made a jab at the tightly compacted snow overhead, and a large clump came away and fell with a thud into the tin bath that their mother had carefully positioned below it. Mary could take it no longer; she stormed past them on the stairs, causing her mother to totter backwards and knock Bess’s head lightly against the swinging skylight window. Mary returned a few seconds later with a broom handle that she was carrying like a bayonet-wielding soldier charging into battle. She got to the landing and began attacking the skylight opening with the broom handle in a frenzy of stabbing as though the snow were some animate monster that threatened her very life. The snow was no match for Mary, and it collapsed into the tin bath rather than suffer any more.
‘I can see the sky!’ Bess squeaked. ‘I can see the sky!’
Mrs Norcliffe seemed unruffled by her eldest daughter’s murderous outburst. ‘Is the hole big enough to climb out through? No? Then keep diggin’ at it, the bath’s not full yet.’
Bess had now become interested in the enterprise and was ready to put the shovel to use on the remaining snow above them.
‘That’s right, keep at it. There we are.’ Mrs Norcliffe shrugged off her youngest daughter, who flopped to the floor like a ragdoll and then pulled herself up in triumph, brandishing the coal shovel as a symbol of victory, despite the fact that Mary had done most of the work for her. ‘You can put the tea chest on top of the blanket box and climb out that way to get to work. Don’t forget to shut it behind you, and you can dig a path to the front door when you come home. Now don’t wake me again before six o’clock in the morning, it’s ungodly.’
‘But Mother!’ Mary was looking with renewed fear at the open window. ‘That’s the roof! How are we meant to get down?’
‘Put the old tea tray in a sack and slide down. Did I not raise you to have any sense?’ And with that Mrs Norcliffe padded her enormous bulk back down the stairs calling back ‘And hurry up, you’re letting all the heat out!’
When Mary eventually put her head out through the sky light, wrapped up against a cold that she was certain would be apocalyptic, she saw that the drift of snow was not covering the whole of Halifax, nor even the whole of her street. She could see other heads appearing in the same way through other skylights, and as she scrambled up onto the snow drift that was now their roof she became visible to busy figures below in the road who let up a cheer. In fact, every time another neighbour escaped the snow, there was a cheer and comradely laughter. The inhabitants of the street slowly recovered from the initial fear that half their residents might have been frozen to death in their beds. Each time they released another captive friend from their natural igloo there was fresh hilarity, embracing, and shoulder slapping as though they hadn’t seen one another in years.
Mary crept cautiously down the steep bank of snow, like an upside-down crab, falling on her bum every so often and struggling back up again. Bess, meanwhile, whizzed by on a sack and tea tray as her mother had suggested, gleefully calling out, ‘Wheeeeeee!’. Bess landed, as luck would have it, in the arms of a handsome young coal haulier. She fluttered her eyelashes demurely, as some of the other men made cat calls and wolf whistles in appreciation of Bess’s overtly coquettish display. This made Mary even more annoyed.
Waiting for Mary at the bottom of the snow slide that was now their home was Mrs Grimshaw. She helped the girl to stumble down the last few feet of the steep bank, and then offered her a thermos of hot coffee. ‘There you are now lass, take a sup o’that, it’ll warm you.’
‘Thank you.’ Mary was sheepish as she’d always thought that plump, red-faced Mrs Grimshaw from three doors down didn’t like her much, but here she was, brushing the snow off Mary’s coat and making sure she got warm before she set off for the factory.
‘Here, take this for later, luv.’ Mrs Grimshaw took something from her coat pocket and pressed it into Mary’s palm; it was a neatly wrapped coconut eclair, as blue as the shadows on the snow slopes around them. ‘Just don’t tell your sister.’ And she gave Mary a wink.
It was a rare treat, but it meant more than that, it meant that Mrs Grimshaw cared about her. Mary thanked the woman with the rarest thing she had to offer in return: a smile. At that moment a friendship was born. ‘You don’t know how lucky you are, lass.’ Mrs Grimshaw called after Mary, who was heading off in the direction of the factory. ‘I’d give my eyeteeth to be going back to Mack’s for a shift. Best years of my life.’
Mary waved back to her neighbour; a little pang of guilt in her heart that she often took her job for granted. ‘Come along.’ Mary said to her sister, catching hold of her arm as she caught up with her. ‘We can’t waste any more time, we’ve missed an hour of shift already.’
As they pushed through the heavy sprung double doors to their workroom, Mary could see that Mrs Roth had been waiting for her. The wiry, sour-faced woman sprang from her overlooker’s seat above the busy line of girls and scampered over to the door to intercept the two sisters.
‘What time do you call this?’
‘We got snowed in, Mrs Roth. I’m very sorry.’ Mary looked contrite.
‘I’m not,’ Bess said it quite happily, and inwardly Mary sighed with a bone-deep exasperation. There would be repercussions for saying something so foolish, but Mary knew that it would be no worse than a telling off; the worst had already happened: they were losing an hour’s pay by not being on the line.
‘You are coming with me!’ Mrs Roth snapped at Bess and drew her roughly by the arm in the direction of the overlooker’s office.
Mary didn’t try to object because she assumed that this was nothing more sinister than a telling off for answering back. Mary was mistaken. She took her place on the line and began apologising to the girl that had been struggling to do without her all morning, oblivious to what her sister Bess was walking in to.
In the overlooker’s office, the Union shop steward and the Quality Street production manager were waiting impatiently.
‘Her ladyship has deigned to join us at last.’ Mrs Roth pushed Bess forward into the office.
‘It was the snow; I couldn’t help it. You can’t blame me for the snow.’
‘You are not here so that we can discuss the excuses for your lateness.’ Mrs Roth assumed a position of authority behind the desk, although she had to stand because Mr Booth the production manager had taken her seat. ‘You are here to tell us what you were up to with that young man that I saw you with last night in the cloakroom.’
Bess’s wide eyes became even wider as she saw the difficulty of her situation. She was glad that her sister wasn’t there to hear this; her sister always worried unnecessarily. This situation was certainly unfortunate, but she thought it would probably be alright. Bess decided to follow Tommo’s instructions and lied. ‘I don’t know.’
‘What do you mean you don’t know?’
‘He was just some lad who was passin’ and asked directions. I don’t know him.’
‘You seemed to know him pretty well last night when—’
‘That’s quite enough, Mrs Roth.’ The shop steward intervened. ‘If Bess says she doesn’t know him then that’s all there is to it.’
Mr Booth, the production manager, wasn’t in quite such a hurry to jump to either conclusion. ‘Bess, can you tell me please, in your own words, what occurred between you and the man you saw last night?’
Bess shrugged, and the naturally innocent look of her face did the work for her. ‘I was waiting for Reenie, and this lad comes in askin’ where to go to find the employment office, so I gave him directions and then Mrs Roth came in, and they had a shoutin’ match.’
‘I did not have a shouting match with him. And you seemed to be very well acquainted with him. As I walked towards you down the corridor, I distinctly heard you say the name “Tommo”.’ Frances Roth was ready to defend her reputation.
Mr Booth stopped her short and asked, ‘Is this true, Bess?’
‘No.’ Bess contradicted her employer with a well-meaning smile. ‘You must have heard me say ‘tomorrow’. I told him where the employment office was, but I told him he wouldn’t find anyone there until tomorrow.’
Mrs Roth had opened her mouth to speak, but Mr Booth got in first. ‘Where did he go after the argument with Mrs Roth.’
Bess shrugged.
‘And where did you go? You weren’t there when she got back, were you?’
Bess shook her pretty doll’s face. ‘I had to go home with Reenie, she came to collect me. I didn’t know I was supposed to wait.’
Mrs Roth was clearly incensed that Bess’s version of events was being believed, but she kept her anger bottled up behind tight, white lips.
‘I think we’ve heard all we need to hear.’ The shop steward stood up and looked at Mr Booth. ‘Can we let her go now, sir?’
Mr Booth took a deep breath and then said, ‘Yes, yes, you can go now, Bess. Thank you for your time. And remember that if you do see that young man in the factory again, you must alert Mrs Roth immediately.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Bess said it as though she meant it and then darted off out of the overlookers’ office.
‘You didn’t believe all of that, did you?’ Mrs Roth was outraged.
‘I don’t see why we shouldn’t.’ Mr Booth stood up and fastened the buttons on his jacket. ‘She seemed perfectly innocent of the whole thing.’
‘Reenie! Now you’re here you can tell Mary your big news! I haven’t breathed a word; I wanted to save it for you.’ Bess said.
‘Don’t say you’re leaving. Oh, Reenie, we’ve only just made friends with you.’ Mary looked genuinely worried; she didn’t wish to be selfish, but having Reenie around was all that was preventing Bess from losing her job. As long as Reenie was keeping up Bess’s piece rates they were safe for a while longer. And if she was honest with herself, Reenie was the best friend she had.
