All My Mother's Secrets Read online

  ‘Oh, leave off, Bill,’ said Bessie, giving Annie a little hug. She was one of the bob-a-day washerwomen who wouldn’t take any nonsense from the likes of Bill or any of the laundrymen. She was as broad around the beam as some of the carthorses and her threat of ‘I’ll squash you like ants’ wasn’t taken lightly. Bessie was like a mother hen to the laundrymaids. She’d lost her only son somewhere called the Western Front in the war; when he died she’d put on black and only ever wore that colour now. His name was mentioned in whispers around the laundry once when she didn’t show up for work and Mum went around to her house to check on her. After that, Bessie never missed a day, but Annie saw there were tears in her eyes sometimes, when she’d sing to herself while she was scrubbing.

  ‘She was just helping her mum as usual, weren’t you, chicken?’ said Bessie. ‘Now, come on, there’s work to be done.’ She gave Annie’s pale cheeks a little pinch. ‘You need some meat on you, girl! Been going without again to feed up that brother of yours, ain’t you?’

  Annie shook her head, but they both knew she was lying. Meat was rationed and Annie felt her little brother George, who was coming up to four, needed it more than she did. Mum wouldn’t have her going without, so Annie had got really good at slipping food into the pocket of her cardigan when no one was looking. Annie picked up a pristine white apron from the basket in the corner and put it on over her clothes. She could wrap her apron strings around her and tie them in a bow at the front these days because her waist was so tiny.

  The new girl in the sorting room smiled at her. She had raven hair pulled into two neat plaits, much neater than Annie’s hair, which she had barely had time to tie a ribbon in this morning.

  ‘I’m Esther,’ she said, smiling to reveal a gap in between her front teeth, which Nanny Chick always said meant that a person was going to travel.

  Vera seemed to be in a bit of a mood this morning, scowling to herself as she marched about, stiff as a board, her dirty blonde ponytail swishing about. Her pinafore was almost bursting at the seams because it was too small and her mum couldn’t afford a new one. With her long legs encased in black woollen stockings and her thin arms jutting out in front of her, she reminded Annie of a wooden doll. She thrust a box of soapflakes into Annie’s hands and then turned to the newcomer, wrinkling her little button nose: ‘We ain’t got time for idling, Esther, so you’d better go and get the soda.’

  The water in Acton was supposed to be the softest in London, but that was just a silly story peddled by the laundry owners because the scum still formed in the water, as sure as night followed day, so handfuls of soda were needed in each copper to get things clean.

  While Esther was busy getting the box of soda down from the shelf in the sorting room and Annie was sprinkling soapflakes into the boiling water, Vera hissed at Annie: ‘She’s a bleedin’ Kraut!’

  ‘Don’t be daft!’ said Annie, spinning round. ‘She didn’t sound German to me.’

  ‘But her grandad is, which makes her a half Kraut or a quarter or something,’ said Vera, conspiratorially, her eyes narrowing to slits. ‘Girls up at the Cambrian told me. She could be a spy!’

  Esther came back with the soda and a wicker basket full of whites.

  ‘Did you check ’em for stains?’ said Vera abruptly, ‘’Cos the Missus’ll do her nut if you start boiling things with stains on. We’ve got to treat them first, see?’

  ‘I know, that’s what they taught me down at the other laundry,’ said Esther, rather hurt. ‘I’ve made a pile of things over there to spot-treat with borax.’

  Vera looked a bit deflated but she wouldn’t let it lie: ‘Well, I think you’ll find we do things a bit differently round here at Hope Cottage, don’t we, Annie? It’s a better class of laundry than the Cambrian. Only the best work here!’

  Annie gave Esther an apologetic little shrug.

  ‘Come on, girls!’ boomed Bessie from the sink. ‘There’s three washboards here standing idle.’

  Bill was bailing hot water out of one of the coppers and into wooden tubs to soak the dirtiest colours. The smell of those filthy clothes mingling with the steam almost made Annie retch. She darted over to the wash house door to take a breath of fresh air before rolling her sleeves up. Then she grabbed a bar of Sunlight and her scrubbing board and plunged her hands into the hot water, wincing as the soap found its way into her cracked skin. ‘One, two, three, sweet Jesus, four . . .’ she counted under her breath, willing the smarting to stop. By the time she reached ten, it was usually better. She grabbed a dirty plaid cotton dress from the basket at her feet and started to rub it hard against the washboard, forcing the dirt out. Her arms were strong from all the scrubbing but not as big as the likes of Bessie, who had forearms like giant hams from years of elbow grease at the sinks.

  ‘Put yer backs into it!’ said Bessie. ‘And, Annie, not too much soap per piece, remember? There’s a war on.’

  The suds started to work into a lather and Annie found herself wandering into a daydream about the life of the girl who wore the dress, up at one of the big houses in Holland Park, to take her mind off the ache in her neck and shoulders. She turned the dress inside out and started to scrub again, with renewed vigour, noting the name stitched in neat red cotton in the collar: ‘Verity Felstone’. What was Verity doing now? Annie held up the garment. Verity Felstone was probably about the same size as she was.

  Perhaps she was nearly fourteen too.

  2

  November 1918

  Ten shillings a week: that was all Annie and the other laundrymaids earned for working from eight till eight and a half-day Saturdays. Even the poorest blokes prided themselves on bringing home about a pound a week, and they didn’t work much harder than the girls in Soapsud Island.

  Mondays and Fridays were Annie’s favourite days, though, because she got to see the horses. Annie felt the apple in the pocket of her cardigan. She was waiting for the right moment to sneak out into the yard.

  Through the window she spied Ed, the carman, leaning on the gates having a smoke, in his shirtsleeves and waistcoat. He was only a couple of years older than Annie, but with so many blokes away fighting, he had shouldered the responsibility of a grown man’s job. He stood around, his hands jammed in his trouser pockets, like the other carmen in the street, and he had that habit of talking out of the side of his mouth while he dangled a ciggie between his lips. But he hadn’t the lines and creases of the old-timers and his skin was still smooth, apart from a few downy wisps on his upper lip. Annie couldn’t help noticing that, or the way his grey eyes lit up when she came out for a chat.

  Bill was nowhere to be seen, which meant he was either having a sly drink in the cupboard under the stairs or lurking in his other favourite hiding place, the lavvy in the yard. The National Loaf, on rations, was just another excuse for a longer sit down, as far as he was concerned. With Bessie off making a mid-morning cuppa for everyone on the stove in the packing room at the front of the house – and the Missus making sure she didn’t use too much tea – Annie seized her moment to sneak out. She stepped outside into the yard and felt the cold air hit her lungs.

  Ed knew her routine. It was their little secret, the mid-morning snack for Moses, the horse. He pursed his lips for a moment as he inhaled one last time from his roll-up before chucking it to one side. ‘C’mon then, Annie,’ he said in a mock whisper, pulling his cap down over his head, so that he looked quite silly. ‘The coast’s clear.’

  ‘I got him a good one today,’ said Annie, crossing the yard quickly before she was spotted.

  Out in the street, Moses was waiting patiently. Ed never bothered to tie him up, he was such a good horse; he probably knew the route better than his driver and was content to stand still until it was time for him to leave. The cartwheels stood almost as high as the horse’s back and the covered carriage bore the name ‘Hope Cottage’ on both sides. Underneath was painted: ‘A country laundry – all items finished by hand’, which was supposed to lure more customers, as the cart ma
de its way around London. Annie thought this was a bit ridiculous because you only had to set foot in Soapsud Island, with its laundries jammed cheek by jowl with back-to-backs, to know that it wasn’t the countryside.

  Moses had a coat which was glossy black, like the lettering on the cart, and Annie held the apple out to him, just as Ed had shown her. Moses took a bite and chewed it and as he did so, Annie felt the softness of his muzzle. She spoke to him, quietly: ‘There you go, boy,’ and patted his strong neck. She was sure he liked that.

  The other girls wouldn’t go near the horses for love nor money, Vera least of all because she had got run over by one of the carts when she was little and had a scar which ran from her knee right up the outside of her leg. She showed it to Annie sometimes, to warn her from going too near Moses. The scar was still raised and red, even though it had happened years ago. But there was something calm about the horses, which Annie liked. What was more, you could whisper your secret thoughts in their ears and they would never tell anyone.

  Bessie appeared at the sorting room door with a steaming tin mug of tea and motioned for Annie to get back into the yard. She knew full well what Annie got up to feeding those horses when no one was watching, and there was no harm in it, but she wouldn’t have her idling too long.

  Vera and Esther sat on the back step and drank theirs, gratefully sipping the scalding liquid.

  ‘So, is your dad away fighting, then?’ said Vera, watching Esther closely.

  ‘No, he died when I was little, so it’s just me and Mum now,’ said Esther quietly, ‘and Grandad.’

  ‘My dad’s away at the Front,’ said Vera, before Annie could say sorry to Esther, or tell her that she knew how it felt to have lost her father. ‘My dad says the only good German is a dead German.’ And she spat on the ground, right in front of Esther’s feet, a glob of spittle, glistening on the cobbles.

  The colour rose in Esther’s cheeks and she looked away.

  Vera got up. ‘I’ve gone off me tea,’ she said. ‘Smells bad out here. Smells rotten, in fact, like a stinking Hun.’

  Annie could see the tears welling in Esther’s eyes. She reached out and touched her arm.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Esther, moving her arm away from Annie’s touch. ‘You don’t have to be friends with me. It was the same at the Cambrian. They made me leave in the end. Everyone knows about my family. Everyone hates me.’

  ‘I don’t hate you,’ said Annie. ‘I don’t even know you, Esther, but you seem like a nice sort.’

  ‘My grandfather is from a place called Belarus, near Russia, but he’s naturalized British,’ Esther said, gazing into the distance. ‘Not that it makes any difference round here. He’s had so many bricks through the window of his cobbler’s shop up in Churchfield Road, he’s had to close it.’ She blinked, looked away and then wiped her tears with the corner of her apron.

  Annie pulled her to her feet. Esther was just a girl, like her, who needed to work to earn money to help the family. If she was seen crying on her first day at the laundry, it could well be her last. The Missus didn’t like a fuss.

  ‘Come on, we’d better get back to it,’ said Annie. ‘Just ignore Vera, she’ll come round, you’ll see.’

  Bill was poking and prodding at the next lot of sheets in the copper in the wash house while Vera started rinsing the coloured cottons, pointedly ignoring both Annie and Esther.

  Annie got the muslin bag of Dolly Blue to put in the final rinse of the sheets, to bring them up nice and white. There was something pleasing about seeing how white the linen turned once it had gone through the bluing rinse. That little blue bag was like magic if you ever got stung by a wasp. It took the pain right away, Bessie had showed her that. She was just dunking the Dolly Blue in one of the tubs when there was the most almighty commotion at the front of the house. She could hear the Missus shouting, ‘No, you can’t come in!’ and Bill moved faster than she’d ever seen him shift in her life.

  Annie and Esther followed, with Bessie in hot pursuit – she was never one to miss the chance to pick up good gossip.

  Annie’s mother, Emma, was making her way down the stairs from the ironing room. She was the top ironer in the whole laundry, which made Annie proud, a silk-presser and baby-pleater, who did all the fancy work on the finest of the clothes. More than that, she was the unofficial deputy for the Missus, the go-between for the rough washerwomen, who would listen to reason when it came from her lips.

  She moved slowly but determinedly, her starched apron swishing on top of her full skirt and her blouse still done all the way up to the neck, despite the heat and the huge bump she was carrying.

  ‘I know you’re in there, girls!’ came a voice through the letterbox. ‘You should be in school! Come out now and you won’t get into trouble.’

  ‘There’s no kids in here, love,’ said the Missus, leaning against the door. ‘This is a respectable laundry business!’

  Six little bodies cowered under the table in the packing room. Bill went in and grabbed a sheet, throwing it over the table, so they were obscured.

  ‘Open the door if you’ve nothing to hide!’

  Emma stepped forwards and opened the latch.

  ‘Whatever is the matter?’ she said, calmly. ‘Can’t you see we are working?’

  A tall woman, as slim as an ironing board, stood glowering at her. ‘I’m Miss Frobel, the headteacher of Rothschild Road School,’ she said. ‘And I believe some of my pupils are moonlighting here instead of attending lessons. It simply will not do.’

  ‘Well, I’d invite you in, Miss Frobel, but a laundry is a dangerous place with lots of hot irons – you might get your fingers burned – so of course there are no children here,’ said Emma. She was smiling but the note of determination in her voice was unmistakable.

  The teacher craned her neck to get a view down the hallway.

  ‘It is a private business,’ said Emma, firmly. ‘So, if you don’t mind, you should be on your way before someone calls the police, because you are causing quite a disturbance, if you don’t mind my saying so. People will think we’re being robbed!’ Heads were poking out of doors and windows the length of Antrobus Road to see what the fuss was all about.

  Miss Frobel stiffened and clasped the top her little walking cane, which was shaped like a bird: ‘You haven’t heard the last of this!’ And she stormed off down the front path.

  Mrs Blythe collapsed in her rocking chair and started fanning herself: ‘Oh, that’s all we need! Thank goodness you saw her off, Em.’

  ‘You might need to tell the girls to go to school for the next few days at least,’ said Emma. ‘Just in case she comes back.’

  ‘But I need them here!’ cried Mrs Blythe. ‘It’s bad enough losing half my best pressers to the munitions factory – and they needn’t think they’re coming back here with their yeller fingers touching all my white linens after the way they left me in the lurch!’ Yellow hands were the telltale signs of the munitions factory girls, whose fingers were stained from the explosive powder they packed into the shells.

  ‘And Mavis even left to drive a blooming tram up in Ealing. I’ve never heard anything like it in all my life!’ Mrs Blythe was never going to let that one drop, either, even though Mavis, one of her rough ironers, had been gone a full six months. Annie had stepped in to cover some ironing duties and was already on collars and cuffs, not that Mrs Blythe seemed to have noticed.

  ‘Whatever will I do when you are off having the baby?’ said Mrs Blythe, wringing her hands, warming to her theme. ‘Oh, I shan’t cope, I shan’t!’ Her jowls jiggled as she shook her head.

  Bill got a glass out from the cupboard under the stairs and opened the tap of the beer barrel and poured her a drink to shut her up. That usually worked.

  ‘There, there,’ said Emma, patting Mrs Blythe on the shoulder, as if she were soothing a child. ‘I won’t be gone long, you’ll see. I was barely off two weeks with George, was I now?’

  Annie felt that funny, queasy feeling in her s
tomach again, watching her mother’s belly and thinking about how little rest her mum must have had the last time the baby came. Nanny said she was still as white as a sheet and wincing when she fastened her back into her corsets so she could come back to work at the laundry.

  Bill puffed his chest out and adjusted his neckerchief as he gave Emma a little peck on the cheek: ‘She’s a diamond, my Emma is, Mrs Blythe, a proper diamond.’

  My mum is a diamond, thought Annie, because she is worth so much more than you.

  Annie turned to go back to work in the wash house but she couldn’t help murmuring under her breath, ‘She wasn’t always yours.’

  3

  November 1918

  Annie lay awake that night, trying to remember her father’s face.

  Her little brother, George, nestled like a sparrow next to her, his legs all tiny and spindly sticking out of his nightshirt and his chest puffed out. She did her best to keep him warm because she didn’t want him crying for their mother. That would only make Bill angry and he would come lumbering in and yell, ‘Be quiet, for God’s sake stop whining or I’ll give you something to whine about!’ That would upset Mum too and she would stand there saying, ‘No, Bill – don’t, please, he’ll be quiet now, won’t you, George?’ with such a pleading look in her eyes.

  Annie would shush him as best as she could, but poor George’s bones ached and there were dark circles under his eyes. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. It was just the way things were, but Annie couldn’t help noticing he was a lot smaller than the other kids in the street who were the same age as him.

  She listened to the windows rattle as another train passed by and George’s wheezing started up again. As she closed her eyes tightly, she tried to imagine her father’s face once more, but there was nothing – only the dim glow of the gas lamp from the hallway throwing shadows up the wall.