The Surplus Girls Read online

  ‘Have you brought us owt this week?’ Thad demanded.

  Was that all she was to her family? The goose that laid the golden eggs? She stepped across to confront Thad. He might be taller than she was these days, but he was still a schoolboy in short trousers. Not for much longer, though. He would finish school the summer of next year.

  ‘I was there in the market when you two came racing through like a pair of hooligans, barging past all and sundry. Do you know who that lady was that you knocked down?’

  ‘We never knocked no one down.’ Thad gave a cocky sneer.

  ‘You jolly well did – and don’t answer back. You knocked over Miss Kirby, that’s who.’

  ‘Oh, her,’ said Thad. ‘The stupid old bag shouldn’t have got in our way.’

  ‘Miss Kirby from school?’ asked Mum.

  Dad snorted. ‘Interfering so-and-so, trying to tell me how to run my family.’

  ‘That was years ago,’ said Belinda. ‘She’s older now and she’s retired – and these two ran hell for leather through the market, bowled her over and didn’t stop.’

  ‘Who cares?’

  Turning on his heel, Thad shoved Jacob, but Jacob, unprepared for a quick exit, stumbled and the two of them got tangled up. Jacob lost his grip on the neck of the sack. It slipped from his grasp, hitting the floor with a smashing sound.

  Everyone froze; then Dad’s hand landed on Jacob’s shoulder. Belinda dodged aside so as not to get clouted by accident: it wouldn’t have been the first time.

  ‘What’s in here, then?’ Dad flicked at the sack with his toe.

  ‘N-nothing,’ stammered Jacob.

  He danced aside as Dad swooped on the sack, upending it and scattering pieces of china on the bare floorboards. There was a rectangular lid painted with ivy leaves, still in one piece but with a crack across the middle; and bits and pieces of what must be the matching dish.

  Belinda went hot and cold. ‘You’ve been thieving. No wonder you were running like that. You were running away.’

  ‘Nah,’ drawled Thad. ‘It were payment – weren’t it, Jake? We helped a stallholder and he gave us this to pay us.’

  ‘Rubbish.’ George stood up at last. ‘Firstly, no stallholder ever gave a piece of china as payment; and secondly, when did you ever do anything to help anyone? You nicked it.’

  Dad landed a sharp crack across the side of Thad’s head followed by a hefty slap that Jacob didn’t manage to dodge. He yelled and sank down the wall, crying, but Thad was made of sterner stuff. Nursing the side of his face, he jutted out his jaw defiantly.

  ‘To think that any lads of mine…’ Mum pressed her hand to her chest.

  ‘And what good is that to us now?’ Dad kicked at the pieces of china. ‘I can’t sell it in that state, can I? It’s no damn use to me.’

  ‘Dad!’ Belinda exclaimed. ‘You can’t punish them for stealing and then complain you can’t sell things on. What sort of example is that?’

  ‘Don’t you speak to me like that, telling me what’s what under my own roof. Go and lay the law down with your precious Auntie Enid if you want to lecture somebody, but don’t try it on with me. Is that clear?’

  ‘Is that clear, our Bel?’ added Thad in a soft sing-song.

  How had that happened? Thad and Jacob had committed theft, but she was the one getting it in the neck. By, there were times when she felt that she, George and Sarah were one family and the young lads were quite another.

  ‘I think I’d best go,’ she said.

  ‘She thinks she’d best go,’ mocked Thad.

  George gave him a clip round the ear. It should have come from Dad, but at least it had come from someone.

  ‘You two boys can get lost an’ all.’ Dad flopped into the armchair. ‘Don’t come back till teatime.’

  ‘Suits me,’ said Thad, ‘but before we go…’

  He trampled on Mikey’s matchstick construction. With an indignant yell, Mikey snatched at his ankle, yanked hard and brought him toppling down. With a series of mighty kicks, Thad jerked free, aiming a few kicks at Mikey’s head. With a bellow, Dad was on his feet. He wasn’t a big man, but he picked up his brawling sons and flung them into the hallway, with Jacob scrambling after them. He slammed the door, muttering darkly.

  There was a heated silence. Belinda gathered up the folded ironing and took it into the bedroom, flicking aside the tatty old sheet that was strung across the room to give a semblance of privacy to the sleeping arrangements, Mum and Dad on one side, George and two younger boys in the other bed with the third lad sleeping on a mat on the floor on a rotation basis. Poor Sarah had to make do with a straw-filled mattress in the other room and no matter what shifts she worked in the hotel, she could never lie down to sleep when their kitchen-cumsitting room was in use.

  Belinda laid the ironed garments on Mum and Dad’s bed, looking round as Mum followed her into the room.

  ‘Thanks for sticking up for me against Dad. I’d have pretended I hadn’t worked this morning if I’d known he was going to ask for my money.’

  ‘That’s all right, love. We both know he’d only waste it.’ Mum edged closer. Her tongue flicked out and licked her lips. ‘But you can let me have some, can’t you? I only stopped him so you could give it to me.’

  It was dark before Belinda reached home. Some folk made a show of shuddering when she said she lived near Stretford Cemetery, but that was just them being daft. Their cottage was at the far end of a row down an unpaved lane, no more than a cinder path, and once you got halfway down, it wasn’t even that, just a dirt-track that turned to slop after a few days of solid rain. The lane had no board at the top with a road name, but it was known locally as Grave Pit Lane. Everyone knew it as that. Ben’s letters, addressed to End Cottage, Grave Pit Lane, Stretford, had all arrived.

  The telegram had arrived.

  As she approached End Cottage, Belinda’s heart lifted at the welcome sight of the lamplight’s soft glow behind the thin curtains. If you thought about it, the cottage was nowt special. It had low doorways and low ceilings, which had made Ben and his ma and his nan joke the first time she visited them there that it was a good job she was nobbut five foot two; and it had no indoor pipes, just a water pump out the back, and candles and oil-lamps instead of gas-light. The rooms were small and the upstairs floors sloped, so that if you hauled yourself out of bed before you were properly awake, you stumbled about like a drunken sailor.

  So no, it was nowt special.

  But at the same time, it was the best place in the world; even more so after a visit to Cromwell Street.

  Chilled through, Belinda let herself in, gloved fingers fumbling with the catch, but being cold became a pleasure of sorts as the mingled smells of onion and ginger enveloped her. She knew what that meant: poor man’s pudding, which was like toad-in-the-hole but with onions and potato instead of sausage, followed by ginger pudding and custard.

  She hung up her shawl on the peg inside the door. The paper parcels with her pieces of fabric felt vaguely damp. She slid them onto the shelf where they kept the clothes brush. It wouldn’t be tactful to come barging in with them. Say hello first. Take your time.

  Coward.

  Grandma Beattie looked over her shoulder from where she stood in front of the range. It was a colossal beast that ate up most of one wall and took an age to blacklead, but, properly tended, it kept the cottage toasty-warm in winter. A dumpy woman all in black, Grandma Beattie was of an age to wear a headdress at all times, even indoors, and her iron-grey hair had a modest covering of black lace – well, it wasn’t really lace, just some fine black cotton that she had tatted in a loose pattern.

  Belinda went to her, slipping an arm round her ample frame. ‘Grandma Beattie, have I told you recently that you’re an angel?’

  ‘Get on with you. I knew you’d need summat hot inside you on a day like today.’

  Auntie Enid smiled across from the cramped window-seat, where she was knitting scarves for the poor by the light of an oil-lamp. The
Sloan household might not be well off, but never let it be said they didn’t do their Christian duty. The scarf dangling from her needles was a rich royal blue, which, in the golden glow from the lamp, was jewel-coloured compared to Auntie Enid’s black garb, the black crêpe on the over-mantle shelf and the black fabric draped around the treasured studio portrait of Ben.

  ‘Don’t put your shawl on the peg, love,’ said Auntie Enid. ‘Hang it over a chair by the range. It must be damp.’

  Lifting a chair closer to the range, Belinda fetched her shawl. She glanced at the parcels. Now was the moment. She braced herself. They would be disappointed, of course they would. Hurt, even, and she didn’t want to hurt them. She slid the parcel with the mauve into the folds of her shawl and returned to the range. All she had to do was produce the parcel and say, ‘Look what I bought. I hope you don’t mind, but…’

  Grandma Beattie bent to open the oven door, sliding the dish inside, careful not to spill batter. Heat poured into the room. ‘There.’ She straightened up. ‘Did you buy yourself summat, lovey?’

  Playing for time, she draped her shawl over the chair, easing the parcel out of sight under it on the seat as craftily as any magician.

  ‘You’ve been out all afternoon,’ said Auntie Enid, ‘and you’re not the sort to spend all that time trailing round the shops. I expect you went round your mum’s, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’ And to the market. I bought—

  ‘I bet you gave your mum some money an’ all,’ said Grandma Beattie.

  ‘Well, yes.’ There was still time to own up. Still time to produce the parcel.

  ‘There, we said she would, didn’t we?’ Grandma Beattie said in a pleased voice to Auntie Enid.

  ‘Aye, we did. We knew you wouldn’t get owt for yourself.’ Setting aside her knitting, Auntie Enid rose, her thin face with its hollow cheeks and lined mouth softening into a smile. ‘That’s why we decided to give you this now.’

  What? A gift? She couldn’t produce her parcel now, not if she was about to receive something. But she could reveal it afterwards. Make a fuss of the gift, then half-laugh, perhaps blush, and say, ‘Actually…’

  Auntie Enid reached under her knitting bag. ‘Here. This is for you.’

  Belinda saw what it was and her hand faltered. A photograph of Ben, a copy of the studio portrait on the over-mantel shelf, but with a black crêpe sleeve over it with a window in the material to display the picture. Fastened to the top righthand corner of the sleeve was a red paper poppy. Poppies had been sold in November to mark Armistice Day and she, Auntie Enid and Grandma Beattie had each bought one, weeping as they pinned them to one another’s clothes. The heavy thud of her heart was surprisingly calm. Auntie Enid held out the photograph and she took it in both hands. Less chance of dropping it.

  ‘It’s his anniversary in a day or two,’ said Auntie Enid. There was a catch in her voice. She sniffed and carried on. ‘Four whole years. We were worried about giving it to you on the day itself in case it got too emotional.’

  ‘But with you supposedly buying yourself summat nice today, and us knowing you wouldn’t,’ said Grandma Beattie, ‘this seemed the perfect day.’

  Belinda swallowed. This was a generous, heartfelt gesture and she loved them for thinking of it. Her very own picture of Ben: she would treasure it. Yet after what she had purchased today…

  ‘We got the idea when it were the anniversary of burying the body of the unknown soldier a few weeks back,’ said Auntie Enid, ‘and that’s your poppy sewn on there. They’re going to sell poppies every year from now on so, after every Armistice Day, when you take yours off, you can sew it onto the photograph-sleeve. Look, I made it slightly large, so you can add your poppies to it. What d’you think?’

  Her stomach knotted. She raised her fingers to her throat, inside which a painful thickness threatened to suffocate her.

  ‘Oh, the poor love,’ said Grandma Beattie. ‘She can’t speak. She’s too upset.’

  No, too guilty. What would they think if they knew that while they had been busy planning this sentimental surprise, she had been planning – what had Miss Kirby called it? – to go into half-mourning? And, worse, she had bought a pretty patterned cotton an’ all.

  ‘Put it by your bed,’ said Auntie Enid.

  ‘Ben’s face will be the first thing you see every morning,’ said Grandma Beattie, ‘and the last you see at night.’ She sighed, adoration of her handsome grandson in the lingering breath.

  ‘I’ve moved your library books aside to make room,’ said Auntie Enid. ‘Up you go.’

  Carrying the precious photograph in one hand, she picked up her shawl in the other, bending over the chair to scoop up her parcel. Aware of their gaze lovingly following her every move, she managed to remove her other parcel from the shelf. The stairs were steep and her foot caught in her trailing shawl. An image swooped through her mind: the photograph falling – glass smashing – parcels tumbling down the stairs, working themselves open in the process – a splash of mauve and patterned pink. She righted herself and hurried to her room, a tiny space that used to be Ben’s until she moved in.

  ‘I’ll sleep downstairs when I’m home,’ he had said, leaving the words and when we’re married, we’ll get somewhere of us own dangling in the air between them.

  The bed she slept in was Ben’s bed, the cupboard she used was his, as was the small table, waiting now for Ben’s picture so that she could have it at her side as she slept and when she woke. Oh, Ben. Old sorrow washed through her, a strangely sombre feeling, a stillness.

  That was the point, wasn’t it? She, Auntie Enid and Grandma Beattie had… stopped when the telegram came. All they had wanted, all they had hoped and prayed for, was his safe return and when that had been denied them, they had clung together, supporting one another in their desolation.

  But their grief had never moved on. Four years later, they were still in deepest black. Maybe that was how it was when your son or grandson died; maybe you never got over it. She could understand that. But she, Ben’s fiancée, much as she had loved him, dear and special as he would be to her until her dying day, she… she…

  She owed Auntie Enid and Grandma Beattie so much. When she and Ben had started walking out, they had naturally wanted to know about her background. She had been careful what she said, not wanting to be disloyal to her family, but had Ben spoken more freely behind her back? Anyroad, when they got engaged, his ma had gone round to Cromwell Street and offered to take her in.

  ‘It’ll be easier on you, less of a squeeze, and it’ll give me and Ben’s nan a chance to get to know her properly. It’s different for you, with several children, but with Ben being our only one, we want to feel close to his future wife.’

  She had made it sound like they would be doing her an enormous favour. Oh, how wonderful it had been to move into End Cottage. Truth to tell, it wasn’t all that much bigger than the two rooms the Laytons lived in, but the quiet and the orderliness had bestowed on Belinda such a sense of well-being that she had no desire to be anywhere else. It was the first time in her life she had had a room to herself, and who cared how small and cramped it was? It was perfect.

  ‘Ben calls me Ma and you can call me that once you’re wed,’ Auntie Enid said to her on her first day, ‘but until then I’ll be your Auntie Enid. He calls his nan Grandma. You can call her Grandma Beattie.’

  Auntie Enid, with Maggie’s help, had got her taken on at the mill, so she had been rescued not just from her old squalid home but also from her old job, which she had found more of a strain by the day. Living with Auntie Enid and Grandma Beattie had made her feel grown up. She wasn’t taken for granted or put upon. They treated her with affection and respect, listening to what she said and placing value on her because she was their Ben’s choice.

  She trailed her fingertips down the photograph. The black crêpe sleeve was a bit roomy, ready for sewing on more poppies over the years. One day, her lovely Ben would be surrounded by red paper poppies, the only s
plash of colour in his womenfolk’s swathed-in-black world. There would never be anyone else for her, but surely it wasn’t wrong – after four long years, surely it wasn’t wrong – to feel something inside her unfurling and looking forward to the coming springtime?

  She owed Auntie Enid and Grandma Beattie so much and they had her undying gratitude.

  But was she grateful enough to stay in deepest mourning for the rest of her days?

  Chapter Three

  ‘TELL ME ABOUT the material you bought on Saturday,’ said Maggie. ‘I hope you found summat fetching.’

  Belinda glanced round. What if anyone overheard? But that was unlikely with the fent room being so noisy, as it was the last chance for spoken conversation before they went to their looms and the clatter of the machinery drowned out all other sound and mee-mawing took over. Women hung up their shawls and put on their sacking fents to protect their clothes.

  ‘You’re all in black still,’ said Maggie. ‘You’re too young to look like a crow.’ She brightened. ‘Don’t tell me. You found yourself some reet pretty stuff that’s too good to wear for work.’

  Was your conscience housed inside your chest? That was where Belinda felt a pang. Her gaze went to Auntie Enid, in a group a few feet away. She spoke close to Maggie’s ear.

  ‘I know you mean well, Mags, but leave it for now, eh? Please.’

  Maggie wasn’t stupid. She too glanced in Auntie Enid’s direction. ‘I’ll have a word. I know what it cost her to lose her lad – God knows, I lost two of my own – but she can’t keep you in widow’s weeds for ever and a day.’

  ‘Please don’t say owt, Maggie.’

  ‘Suit yourself.’

  Maggie concentrated on tying her fent round her waist and filling the spacious pocket with the scissors and whatnot that she needed. Belinda felt guilty all over again. Now she had snubbed Maggie as well as going behind Auntie Enid’s back.

  Maggie was in a nowty mood most of the morning, which the others, muttering when they stopped for their mid-morning brew, put down to her having been landed with a new girl to train. Wanting to make it up to the friend who had always been good to her, Belinda offered to spend part of dinner-time helping Colleen practise the weavers’ knots that she had to be able to do in her sleep.