All My Mother's Secrets Read online

  ‘Yes,’ said Annie, carefully pushing one of the stained sheets into the boiling water. ‘Friends. I mean it.’

  4

  November 1918

  The box mangle put the fear of God into Annie because if you made a mistake while you were running the sheets through it, your fingers would get crushed.

  The bed-like contraption took pride of place in the middle of the wash house and the Missus would give it a little pat now and again when she bustled past. It was, quite simply, her pride and joy because her old hubby had had a big win on the horses one year and he went out and bought it for her as a present.

  It had a big box filled with stones on the top, to press down on the sheets and blankets. You had to feed the sheets into it on a special roller, which was slipped under one end of the box, and then you turned the hand wheel and the box would move along, squishing the water out as it went. When it reached the end of the wooden frame, a chain action made the box reverse. You had to feed the sheets in carefully because sometimes that roller would slip and then you could end up with the whole weight of the box on top of your fingers. Annie had never seen it happen, but she’d been warned about it.

  Apparently, there was one dozy laundrymaid who never listened to Bessie or the Missus, and she had both hands as flat as pancakes now from getting her fingers caught in the box mangle and that would be no good when she came to get married because she wouldn’t even get a wedding ring on her poor, squashed little fingers, silly girl. She worked at another laundry these days, but no one seemed to quite remember the name of it when Annie asked.

  Bill was cranking the handle of the mangle to squeeze the water out of the sheets which hadn’t been ruined by imperfect bluing. Bessie was dunking woollen socks, one by one, in lukewarm water in one of the washtubs and giving them a stir with a little stick. Then they had to be rinsed in another tub and the water gently squeezed out by hand.

  There was a hand wringer for flannel nightshirts and the like, which you had to attach to the side of a wooden tub. Annie quite enjoyed doing it, but after a while your arms ached from turning the handle and, of course, the water spilled out and half of it went all over the floor and not in the tub where it was meant to go. All the flannels and the woollens then went into a basket to go upstairs to the drying and ironing room. Annie liked that best of all, because you got to put the socks over little wooden stays to reshape them.

  Flannel vests and underclothes were put on stretching racks which stood behind a giant clothes horse in the ironing room. There were wires suspended across the ceiling in there too, to hang the sheets when it was raining.

  Bessie slapped the first lot of woollens into the wicker basket on the table beside her. ‘I’ll take them up,’ said Annie, desperate to escape the boredom of the wash house, even for a moment, and to spend five minutes with her mum.

  The Missus was writing in her ledger in the hallway as Annie made her way up the narrow staircase, which creaked in protest when you stepped on it. The dark varnish had worn off the middle of each stair from the endless trips up and down made by the women fetching and carrying. The walls were flecked with black mould spots where the dampness of hundreds of days of drying wet clothes indoors seemed to have seeped into the building, and at the top of the stairs the wallpaper was peeling right off.

  The ironing room smelt nice, though, because the clothes were clean, but it was like a furnace in there, thanks to the black iron pagoda stove. The stove stood about five feet tall, with little ledges all the way around it, to put the irons on for heating. Its grille at the bottom was like a hungry little mouth which constantly needed feeding and that made Bill and the other laundry hands grumble as they lugged bucket after bucket of coke up and down the stairs, making sure that the stove was always piping hot.

  On freezing cold days, you were grateful for it, but most of the time it was hotter than holy hell up there, at least that was what Bessie said, which was why she worked in the wash house. Some of the ironers told Annie that was a load of claptrap, and Bessie was just ham-fisted and the Missus wouldn’t risk her scorching the customers’ best linens with her cack-handed ironing.

  The pressers thought they were a cut above the washerwomen because, they would say, there was a skill and a certain way of doing things with ironing, whereas washing was just dunking stuff in the soapsuds. Annie hadn’t repeated that to Bessie because then the fur would have really flown.

  Annie’s mum was the boss of the pressers, of course, but her mum’s sister, Aunt Clara, worked there too. Aunt Clara helped Nanny Chick out at home in the early part of the week and then would come in for ironing and packing, usually from Wednesdays onwards. She only lived around the corner from Annie in a couple of rooms in Steele Road, and sometimes, when Annie didn’t want to go home to find Bill hogging the best seat in the scullery, she might find some excuse to pop in on her aunt, who always had a ready smile and the kettle on.

  Annie peered around the door to the ironing room. Her mother was already hard at work at the long padded board which ran the length of the wall under the window, while the rough ironers were pressing sheets on the table in the middle of the room, using the heaviest ‘sad’ irons, which weighed about ten pounds each. Annie used to wonder why they were called ‘sad’, and nobody really knew, but Nanny Chick said it was probably an old-fashioned word for how solid they were. The irons all had padding around the handles because they got red hot and Annie was always amazed by how the women held the irons near to their faces to check the heat before pressing down on the cloth. When one iron got too cool, it was placed back on one of the ledges around the stove and another one was taken off. Each ironer had a tin bottle with a sprinkler head, to douse the clothes with lavender water as they ironed out the creases. The smell when the steam rose was quite delicious.

  Mum was humming to herself, working briskly with the smaller polishing irons on some collars. She’d shown Annie how to bring them up nicely. Mum passed the iron quickly over the wrong side of the collar, at the same time curving the collar after the iron. Once she’d reached the end of the collar, she repeated the process twice more. There was not a wrinkle in sight by the time she’d done.

  Her hair was pinned up in a bun, the way she always wore it, and her hips swayed a little as she ironed. There was no time for chit-chat in the ironing room, Mum made sure of that, but Annie liked to see her working when she got the chance. Her favourite thing was when Mum was goffering, doing the special wave on the edges of pinafores and baby bonnets. She used a pair of tongs which were heated on the pagoda stove, and she was so nimble, she never once burned her fingers on them.

  Mum’s features were fuller these days, because of the baby, but with her curled fringe framing her face, Annie thought – no, she was sure – her mum was the most beautiful laundress in the whole of Soapsud Island. She wished they looked more alike. Their hair was the same shade of glossy dark brown, like the shell of a chestnut at Christmas, but Mum’s had curls whereas Annie’s was straight. There was a roundness to Annie’s features which Mum didn’t share, especially her eyes. Annie often wondered if she’d got that from her dad because even though George’s hair was darker still, he had the same little round eyes but his were green. Her own eyes reminded her of two plain little coat buttons, but Mum’s had a life and a light and a sort of almond shape to them. Plus, Annie’s nose wrinkled when she laughed, which she hated.

  There were no pictures of her father anywhere in the house, so she couldn’t be sure if she took after him. Annie once tried asking Mum and Nanny Chick what her daddy looked like, but they always had things to do and dismissed her with a wave of their hands. Then Bill came along and the subject was as closed as his fist banging on the kitchen table.

  ‘Hello, love, what’ve you got there?’ said Mum, gesturing to the basket in Annie’s arms and wiping a bead of sweat from her brow.

  ‘Just some socks for the stretchers,’ said Annie. ‘Then I’m off to help Vera with the starching.’ She needed to make sure
that Vera got the quantities of starch to water right; too little and it wouldn’t stiffen anything and too much and it would end up all lumpy, like a bowl of Nanny Chick’s custard. All the shirts would be starched by hand, but the collars and cuffs and handkerchiefs were netted up and dunked in a big vat of the stuff.

  Annie was just making her way back down the stairs when there was a loud knock at the door.

  ‘Oh, not again!’ muttered the Missus, heaving herself out of the rocking chair and waddling down the hall, her stockings wrinkling around her fat ankles as she went.

  The knocking grew more insistent. ‘All right! All right! I’m coming!’

  Bill’s face appeared around the door of the wash house. The Missus turned and gave him a little nod and he nodded back. There were no underage girls in today because she’d told them all to stay home and the only dopey-drawers who’d forgotten and turned up for work this morning had just slipped out of the back door and was, at that very moment, skipping away down Antrobus Road.

  She pulled open the front door with a ‘Yes?’

  A man was standing there, wearing a bowler hat and a very smart woollen overcoat. It was not the sort of thing you saw around Soapsud Island, to be honest. He had a clipboard tucked under one arm and a very tidy little moustache. He tipped his hat and revealed a few wisps of hair on a bald pate.

  ‘Good morning, I’m Mr Timms, from the council. I believe this establishment may be in serious breach of the Factory Act. May I come in?’

  It wasn’t really a question, as he already had a foot over the threshold. He was no taller than the Missus; in fact, he must have been about half her body weight, but there was something about his officious manner which seemed to have struck her dumb and she stepped backwards down the hallway to allow him in.

  He looked askance at the peeling wallpaper and caught sight of Annie peering over the banisters.

  ‘I believe, madam, you have several underage girls in your employ.’

  ‘No, that’s a lie!’ said the Missus, clasping a hand to her chest. ‘A vicious smear. Some of my girls may look young but they are all over the age of fourteen, I can assure you.’

  He sniffed and ran a finger over his moustache. ‘And I also understand you are employing a woman in the very late stages of pregnancy, which may be injurious to her health and that of her unborn child.’

  ‘Oh, Lord!’ cried the Missus, throwing her hands up. ‘Never! I would never do anything to harm a littl’un. What a lot of tripe!’

  He raised an eyebrow and she added hastily, ‘If you don’t mind my saying so, Mr Timms.’

  ‘Well, perhaps you won’t mind if I carry out an inspection?’ He pulled out his clipboard. ‘I have an authority here from the council and you know the Board of Trade are very keen to ensure that the working hours do not exceed the recommended fifty-four per week, and the council will take a very dim view of any hand laundries found to be flouting health and safety . . .’

  ‘Yes, no, well, of course. We have nothing to hide here at Hope Cottage! No women about to give birth here and no schoolchildren, are there, Bill?’ Bill had made his way along the hallway and was standing next to her, his thumbs tucked into his belt loops and the most sickly-looking grin on his face. He reminded Annie of one of the clowns at the funfair on Acton Green last summer.

  ‘No, all above board and shipshape, Mrs Blythe,’ he chirped.

  ‘Perhaps I could interest you in a nice, reviving cup of tea first?’ said the Missus, catching sight of Annie at the top of the stairs. The note of desperation in her voice was as clear as day. She needed to distract this council fella to give Emma a chance to get down the stairs and out of the front door, sharpish.

  ‘Most kind, but no, thank you,’ said Mr Timms, his moustache twitching, ‘I must press on. Let’s start with the upstairs rooms, shall we?’

  Annie got a bird’s-eye view of his bald head as he climbed the stairs. Her palms were sticky with sweat and she could feel her face was flushed too. She looked so guilty, it was bound to give the game away. When he went into the ironing room and caught sight of her mother, they would be done for.

  ‘And how old are you, young lady?’ He gave her a little smile and flashed very white teeth as he did so. Perhaps they were false; Bill’s teeth were yellow in comparison.

  ‘Fourteen,’ said Annie. He raised an eyebrow. ‘And a half,’ she added for good measure. ‘I’m small for my age, that’s all.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Annie Austin,’ she said.

  He gave a little ‘Hmph’ and jotted something on his clipboard. The Missus showed him another one of the drying and stretching rooms at the back, overlooking the yard, where some fancy lacework was pinned out to dry on the table and flannels were held in wooden stretching frames to stop them shrinking.

  ‘Very nice,’ he said, ‘but I want to see your workers.’

  He turned to Annie. ‘Why don’t you show me what’s in this room?’

  She stood rooted to the spot, unable to move or speak. He stepped past her and pushed open the door to the ironing room and she followed, her heart in her mouth, with the Missus hot on his heels, like a little lapdog. Two of the rough ironers had turned their irons out and stood idle at the table. A third was even toasting a piece of bread with her iron but Mum was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Just having our elevenses, Mrs Blythe, like we always do,’ said one of the rough ironers, brightly.

  ‘Yes,’ said the Missus. ‘I do make sure my girls always have a tea break mid-morning, mid-afternoon and not forgetting lunch!’ She made it sound like a restaurant rather than a hand laundry. Annie’s stomach rumbled at the thought of so much food.

  Mr Timms walked over to the ironing table, which was covered by a long tablecloth, and flipped the cloth up, peering underneath. He stroked his moustache. You could have heard a pin drop.

  ‘Well, the ventilation in this room is inadequate, Mrs Blythe, but you could remedy that by opening a window,’ he said, eventually. ‘Particularly if your workers are eating at their work stations, which is something we don’t encourage.’

  He walked over to one of the ancient sash windows and yanked it upwards, letting a blast of cold November air into the room. The sheets, which were suspended on wires criss-crossing the room above their heads, started swaying to and fro.

  ‘Of course,’ said Mrs Blythe, grimacing at the thought of all the heat escaping. ‘Fresh air does everyone good, don’t it, girls?’

  The pressers nodded in agreement.

  ‘And how many women do you typically have working here in this room?’

  ‘Early on in the week, probably four, or perhaps three, like today,’ said Mrs Blythe, casting her eyes around the room, wondering where on earth Emma was. ‘End of the week maybe seven.’

  ‘I see,’ said Mr Timms. ‘Let’s go and look at the wash house, shall we? How many women down there at the washtubs?’

  ‘Half a dozen,’ said Mrs Blythe, ‘not counting my three laundrymaids.’

  ‘I see,’ he said, his little moustache twitching a bit, ‘I’m interested to see the state of the floor. Loose tiling can be a health hazard and a breeding ground for disease, especially if the drainage is poor.’ He sighed. ‘As it so often is in these cases.’

  The ironers waited until the stairs had stopped creaking, so that they were sure the factory inspector had gone off into the wash house downstairs, before pulling back a little makeshift pair of curtains underneath a wire sorting rack, where the freshly ironed clothes were placed. Emma had crawled under it to hide and had to be hauled to her feet, as she was almost bent double.

  ‘Oh my Gawd,’ she said. ‘I think I’ve lost the feeling in me legs, girls! It was like trying to conceal a blooming elephant, hiding me in there!’

  Annie rushed over and hugged her mum.

  ‘Are you all right, is the baby safe?’ said Annie.

  ‘Don’t worry, chicken, it’s all all right and it will take more than some fussy little bloke from
the council to stop me working,’ she said, stroking Annie’s hair and holding her close. ‘We are laundry girls, ain’t we, and without the likes of us, where would the posh men be?’

  The gas lamps in Antrobus Road were lit by four o’clock in the early winter afternoons, casting a yellow glow through the smoke from the coal fires, which rose above the houses in Soapsud Island.

  It was on one of those cold November days, when the smog caught you in the back of your throat, when Jack, the laundry errand boy, came running down the street in the failing light with news which would change everyone’s life.

  ‘The war is over! The war is over!’ he yelled, flapping a copy of a newspaper.

  There was a near-stampede on the stairs as the pressers came charging down to read the headlines and Bill nearly put his back out picking Mum up and spinning her around. Aunt Clara and her friend Dora stopped folding clothes into hampers in the front room and came out to see what the fuss was about, and the washerwomen joined Annie and the laundrymaids in the yard outside, as shouts went up the length of the street.

  Annie peered out of the gates of Hope Cottage to see workers from the other laundries streaming out into the road, hugging each other. Some of the women were wiping their eyes on their aprons while the laundrymen threw their caps in the air.

  One of the fellas from the Sweet Lavender Laundry came running along, shouting: ‘Everyone round to the Railway Tavern! It’s a knees-up!’

  A gaggle of women and men had gathered at the front of Hope Cottage and the Missus stood on the front step with her arms folded. ‘I don’t care if Kaiser Bill himself is riding on the top of my delivery cart down Acton Lane!’ she shouted. ‘Get back to work, or I’ll dock your pay!’ But her protests fell on deaf ears. Bill was already leading the men from the other Soapsud Island laundries off for a celebratory pint or three around the corner, to the pub on Bollo Lane, and the women were following, even Mum, swaying from side to side as she walked, arm in arm, with Aunt Clara and Dora and the ironers. They were spread right across the road, laughing as they went.