Keeping My Sister's Secrets Page 17

  ‘All right,’ she said, giving his arm a squeeze. ‘Count me in, I’m coming with you.’

  Susan’s next letter came from a hospital in north London.

  Dear Peggy,

  Things are pretty bad. They took Tommy away. Matron persuaded me to sign the adoption papers for a couple in Hampstead, but as soon as I had done it, I regretted it.

  They are not calling him Tommy any more. They changed his name to Reginald and they wrote me a letter saying how much they love him and will promise him the best of everything because they haven’t been able to have kids of their own. I will get a picture of him every year on his birthday, they said.

  I’m broken in pieces, Peggy. The day after he went, I slashed my wrists with a kitchen knife. The matron found me and I got carted off to hospital and now they are keeping me here, saying I am not right in the head. They won’t let me go until I say I’m happy about Tommy being with his new family. I don’t think I will ever feel that way.

  Write me when you can.

  Your friend,

  Susan

  Peggy was so shocked that she didn’t know what to say or do. It was worse than when the woman in the street had cancer and everyone knew but no one could say much about it. She looked at the address of the hospital and wondered whether she’d be able to go and see her at least. Susan didn’t even say whether she was allowed visitors and her writing looked scrawled, as if she had written it in a hurry. Peggy decided she’d write back, just keeping things light, and say she would come the week after next.

  After finishing her note to Susan and tucking it in her handbag, she had to find a way of sneaking out of work early to go to the meeting with George. In the end, she tried to leave ten minutes early while Edna’s back was turned, but her boss caught her putting on her coat.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going, Miss Fraser?’

  ‘I was just hoping to leave a bit early, miss. I’ve an appointment . . .’

  ‘With whom?’ A little smile was playing on Edna’s lips. She was enjoying every moment of the power she had over Peggy, at the thought that she might ruin her evening by making her stay late. ‘You wouldn’t be gadding off to the Chiswick Empire with the other girls later on, by any chance?’ Peggy knew that Sarah and some of the others had been planning a trip to see Vesta Tilley and Max Miller – who was meant to be hilarious – but she wasn’t going with them.

  ‘It’s a political meeting, actually,’ said Peggy, reddening with fury that Edna was doing this. All the times Peggy had worked late . . .

  ‘Politics?’ said Edna. ‘It’s best to keep your nose out of politics . . .’

  ‘I’m going to see Oswald Mosley speak.’ She had blurted the words out before she could stop herself.

  Instantly, Edna’s features softened and she came over to Peggy’s side. ‘My dear,’ she said. ‘I had no idea. Of course, you must go. It is such an honour to see him. He is so inspiring.’ She had a faraway look in her eyes. ‘I saw him at Olympia. Such an orator! He held the crowd in the palm of his hand. He has some very interesting ideas. If you ever need to leave work early to go to a meeting again, please don’t hesitate. I can let girls go early at my discretion.’ She gave Peggy’s arm a little pat.

  Peggy swallowed hard. She couldn’t believe her ears. Edna was a supporter of Oswald Mosley and his Fascist Blackshirts! She could hardly tell her that she was going to disrupt the meeting with George and his friends, could she? It was best to say nothing. Edna smiled beatifically at Peggy and, as Peggy was leaving, she heard her say, ‘No, Sarah, that will not do at all. Go back to your desk and start again. Your work really is disgraceful.’

  She caught the bus to Notting Hill Gate and then hopped onto the Tube to Stratford. On the way, she started to have second thoughts. What if there was a riot, like the one years ago in her street, when the mounted police had charged at them? Might she be better off just going to have a laugh at the Empire with the other girls from work? But when she caught sight of George, carrying his copy of the Daily Worker tucked under his arm, waiting for her at the Tube station, all her worries melted away. They could fight injustice together, the two of them. It was as if all the years they had chatted about politics as kids had a purpose now.

  Crowds were milling about outside the town hall, an imposing white-stone building with a tall, domed tower, and there were mounted police trotting beside a swarm of perhaps fifty policemen on foot. Women in black shirts, berets and long wool skirts strutted past, their waists accentuated by thick leather belts. They were met on the town hall steps by men in black polo necks and trousers, their hair slicked back. They greeted each other by raising their right arms to head height.

  ‘Turns my stomach,’ said George, under his breath. ‘That’s the salute they use in Germany.’

  Peggy clasped his arm. Seeing Blackshirts close up brought it all home to her. She was revolted by their extremist views but now these Fascists were all too real and, from what she’d heard from George, they were dangerous and likely to get a bit handy if you crossed them.

  ‘There are about ten of us dotted about the auditorium,’ he explained as they were ushered inside. The odds seemed stacked against them: only ten protestors against a crowd of at least four hundred. ‘The rest of them are going to try to make a noise outside,’ said George, failing to see the colour draining from Peggy’s face. She hadn’t really thought about what this would mean. They were supposed to protest against a hostile crowd and there were so few of them. What would happen to them? Part of her wanted to turn back but George had a determined look on his face and, before she knew it, a man in a black shirt and red armband checked their tickets and gestured for them to take their seats. Peggy smiled nervously at him and noted with a chill the white lightning-strike embroidered into the band. She and George were sitting about ten rows back from the front of the room. In front was a little podium with a table draped with the Union Flag, and men and women dressed all in black sitting directly behind.

  ‘Mosley’s most loyal lieutenants,’ George muttered.

  A hush fell over the hall as Mosley appeared, wearing the same black uniform. Peggy was struck by his commanding presence; he stood a full head taller than most of the other men in the room and carried with himself a cool self-assuredness. A murmur started up and then Mosley saluted the room, prompting a chant of ‘Mosley! Mosley!’ which rose to a roar as the audience stomped and clapped. A line of Blackshirts guarded the ends of each row and they stood and returned his salute. Peggy felt George’s hand at her elbow; she’d frozen rigid at the sight of Mosley so she hadn’t noticed that everyone else was standing and they were starting to look at her oddly.

  Mosley cleared his throat and a hush fell over the hall. He looked out over the audience and began to speak. He was mesmerizing, just as Edna had said he would be, but what started as a speech about putting the needs of Britain first, protecting the home economy and bringing higher wages to the masses soon degenerated into hatred for immigrants and Jews in particular. Peggy thought of the lovely Jewish tailor who worked down at the Elephant and Castle and of her father’s secret Canadian Indian heritage and felt a chill creep over her. She reached for George’s hand and clasped it tight.

  Mosley had spoken for no more than ten minutes when a young, bespectacled man stood up and yelled at him, ‘Hitler means war, you fool!’

  George craned his neck. ‘That’s Lionel,’ he said.

  Peggy watched in horror as Lionel was seized by a Blackshirt and pulled from his chair. In a split second, another floored him with a punch. She felt George tense with fury beside her.

  ‘And so,’ said Mosley, looking on with a glint in his eye, ‘Our detractors discover, one by one, how uncomfortable it is to be on the wrong side of Fascism.’ There were cheers and laughter from his supporters as Lionel was dragged to his feet and thrown out through the double doors at the back of the room. His glasses lay broken in the aisle, crushed under a jackboot.

  Nonetheless, Lionel’s outcry w
as followed by a young woman and an older man who must have been about the same age as Peggy’s father. ‘Shame on you and your hatred!’ they shouted and disappeared beneath a hail of blows from Mosley’s guard, who roughly ejected both of them into the arms of a waiting police officer. Blackshirts patrolled the aisles, looking for troublemakers.

  ‘George, please don’t,’ whispered Peggy, her eyes growing wide with terror.

  But he was already on his feet. ‘Fascism means murder! The people do not support you!’ shouted George. A Blackshirt grabbed him from the row behind and pulled him back into his seat and a tussle began. Before she knew what she was doing, Peggy hit George’s assailant with all her might, in an attempt to make him loosen his grip. Suddenly, a pair of arms was around her waist and in an instant she was being carried, backwards, out of the hall.

  Peggy kicked, hard, pushing her heels into the Blackshirt’s shins, but he would not let her go. ‘Now, miss. Now, stop that!’

  George tried to stand again and carry on speaking but was silenced by a punch in the mouth from a Mosley supporter, not in uniform. ‘Shut it, mate! I came here to hear him speak.’

  Then Peggy was through the doors and dumped at the feet of a waiting police officer, who scolded her, ‘What is a nice girl like you doing getting mixed up with that Commie lot? Just think of your parents and how ashamed they’d be. Now, get along home.’ He pulled her to her feet, just as George tumbled through the doors, his lip cut and bleeding.

  The police officer pulled out his truncheon and raised it above his head but Peggy threw herself in front of him, ‘No, please. He’s with me.’

  ‘Off with you both, then!’ said the copper, opening the doors to the town hall and shoving them into the fracas unfolding outside. A mob of Communists was engaged in a running battle with the mounted police and the sound of horses’ hooves clattering up and down the road was punctuated by the shouts of men trading blows with each other.

  George looked at Peggy, who had started to cry. ‘Come on,’ he said, putting his arm around her shoulder. ‘We’d better get out of here.’

  They ran along the high street and up a side road, until the shouts of the protestors and the yells of the police grew more distant. They stopped in a doorway, under a gas light, to catch their breath. Peggy pulled out her best handkerchief and started to dab George’s lip, which was still bleeding. ‘Look at the state of you!’ she said.

  He pulled her to him. ‘It doesn’t matter, Peg, we did what was right. We stood up for our beliefs.’

  They were both flushed from running so fast. Glancing down, she noticed then that her best work dress was torn; a beautiful blue dress she had saved up for and sewed from a Paton’s design with her Singer sewing machine.

  George reached out and touched the rip in the material. ‘Oh, Peggy, I’m so sorry. Your lovely dress – it’s ruined.’ He felt the edge of the torn fabric, just touching her skin underneath.

  Her heart beat faster, as she felt his arms around her waist. Their eyes met. He leaned forwards, brushing his mouth against hers. She tasted the blood from his cut lip but she didn’t care. She just wanted to kiss him and to feel his hands on her body. It was a desire she couldn’t stop and she didn’t want to, not now, not ever.

  18

  Kathleen, May 1937

  Kathleen never wanted to eat another orange as long as she lived. Crate after crate of those bloody oranges arrived from Spain every day on barges up the Thames and they came tumbling down the chute to the picking lines where she worked alongside dozens of other girls, all of them with hands red raw from the fruit acid. The peeling room was kept chilly to stop the fruit going off and the cold seemed to make her hands worse. Her skin was covered in little keens where it had cracked and the orange juice seemed to find its way into every little cut, stinging like mad.

  Nanny Day had been up to the pharmacist and spent good money on some ointment and lint for her, which helped when she dressed her hands overnight but, come the morning, it was back to work in the factory and back to peeling again. At least she was handy with the knife and hadn’t cut herself to ribbons like some of the new girls.

  Kathleen had been at Hartley’s for nearly two years and considered herself quite senior now. Miss Bainbridge, her supervisor, seemed to like her and gave her the responsibility of looking after the new girls, which is how she came to be on picking. A glut of oranges meant it was all hands on deck and all the new girls had been put to work there. Some of them were so dozy, it made Kathleen wonder whether they were the full shilling or not. One of them, Nora, seemed to have her mouth open catching flies all the time and Miss Bainbridge had given Kathleen permission to chivvy her along a bit.

  Nancy had been taken off filling and was put to work down the line from Kathleen. They’d occasionally catch each other’s eye and make each other laugh. Nancy would sometimes get a song going, which was fun until Miss Bainbridge came along and told them all to be quiet.

  ‘Are you coming to the dance on Friday,’ she yelled over to Kathleen, once Miss Bainbridge was safely out of earshot. The council had opened the parks for dancing in the run-up to the coronation celebrations of King George VI next month. It had been the talk of the factory for weeks.

  ‘Yes,’ said Kathleen, who hadn’t told her father she was going out dancing. ‘Don’t know what I’m going to wear, though. How about you?’

  In truth, she’d been hoping that Albert, the lad who had caught her eye on her first day at work, was going to ask her but she hadn’t seen him for days. He’d been flat out with the barges of oranges, probably. They’d barely traded two words in as many years but every time Kathleen saw him something inside her lit up and she could tell from the smile on his face that he liked her too. At least, Nancy had said that she was certain of that and they discussed it a lot on the bus to and from work. But Kathleen hadn’t had time for boys, really. Her father didn’t want her getting involved with anyone and he told her as much. She was living mostly with him in Howley Terrace and sometimes with Nanny Day, just as she had done since Mum left. She loved going round to Nanny, where she got a bit more spoilt than she did at home.

  Mum was too busy working and then enjoying herself after work to bother her much. Kathleen didn’t begrudge her that. She’d spent years breaking her back bringing them all up. It upset her that her Mum and Dad were living apart, but their fighting when they were together was worse. At least this way, she got to see her mother happy and her father – well, he had made his bed with the way he treated their mother, so he had to lie in it, that’s what Nanny Day said.

  By the time Friday morning came, Kathleen had hidden her best dress and cardigan at Nanny Day’s house and she told her father that she’d plans to go to the pictures with Nancy after work, so he wouldn’t catch her out.

  He looked up from his breakfast. ‘Don’t you be back later than ten o’clock, or you’ll catch it, my girl.’

  ‘I won’t be late, I promise,’ she said.

  He hadn’t hit her in months but she knew that with Eva gone and Peggy grown up, she was the apple of his eye now, and that meant he would knock her back into line if she strayed too far.

  The whole factory was buzzing with the excitement of their night out, which soon made Kathleen forget her over-bearing father. One of the girls had brought in some lipstick and rouge and they all took a turn with that in the ladies’ loos, once they had clocked off. Kathleen had done her hair in rags the night before so it was almost as curly as Nancy’s.

  As they set out for Leathermarket Gardens, walking arm in arm in a long line, some of the girls started to sing ‘I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles’ loudly, attracting stares and a few wolf whistles. The Hartley’s girls had a reputation for raucous behaviour on an evening out. Behind them, a group of the Hartley’s boys walked along, lighting up their smokes and joshing with each other. Kathleen kept glancing back over her shoulder. She saw that Albert was among them and felt her heart flutter.

  Dusk was falling by the time they reache
d the park, which was already filling up. Open-air dancing was becoming quite a thing in the parks these days, with regular events in Wapping and Islington and now Southwark. The band was already tuning up in the little bandstand and a ginger beer stall was doing a brisk trade. Workers from Peek Frean’s biscuits mixed with those from Hartley’s and Sarson’s vinegar. It was as if the pantry of London had come for a big night out.

  Kathleen was beside herself with excitement, not least because she couldn’t wait to show off her new dance steps. Eva had managed to find a bit of extra cash for her to have some lessons with the little dance school down at the Elephant on Sunday afternoons. She’d kept it secret from her dad, who would have put his foot down to such nonsense, but her teacher, Miss Fawcett, said she was a natural. Over the past few weeks, Kathleen had mastered the foxtrot and the waltz, twirling around the dusty wooden floor at the Labour Social Club where the lessons were held. She’d only ever danced with other girls because the only boy there was Miss Fawcett’s spotty fourteen-year-old son and no one wanted to twirl around the dance floor with him! This was different. There was an air of expectancy. So many young people, maybe a thousand or more, gathered in one space but away from the prying eyes of their parents.

  The band struck up a tune and before long, girls and boys had paired up and were two-stepping their way, rather awkwardly at first, around the asphalt. A ring of spectators formed at the edge, some girls tapping their feet as a sign that they wanted to be asked to dance. Some unlucky ones never got asked and so they paired up with their friends. Kathleen stood nervously, and then a blond man she recognized from a few roads away shuffled up to her, offering his hand. She barely stood still all night. She’d had three, maybe four, dances before Albert tapped her on the shoulder.

  ‘How about a dance with me, then?’

  ‘I’d love to.’ She beamed back at him.

  He slipped his arm around her waist and gripped her other hand, quite tightly, actually. She put her hand gently on his shoulder as they broke into a quick foxtrot. It was so free, being in the open air, dancing together. Kathleen’s steps didn’t falter.