All My Mother's Secrets Read online

  ‘I’ll get Bill to put the word out around the Railway Tavern,’ said Mum, shaking out another dress. ‘I heard people were being laid off at the munitions factories now, in any case, with the war being done, so people are bound to need work.’

  ‘Tell ’em we are a hand laundry, a careful laundry,’ said the Missus. ‘It’s tradition. That’s got to mean something, ain’t it? It’s just people’s heads getting turned with all that new-fangled machinery in the power laundries. It can’t be good for the clothes.’

  Annie glanced over at Esther again. The colour had drained from her friend’s face.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Annie whispered.

  There, right on the front panel of the white dress Esther was working on, was the unmistakable ‘V’ mark of a searing-hot iron. The horrible black scorch glared up at them. ‘I don’t know how it happened, I swear,’ said Esther, tears pricking her eyes. ‘I tested the iron next to my face and everything. I must have pressed it too hard.’

  Vera was working away at the end of the board and suddenly piped up: ‘Oh, dear, Esther, you clumsy clot, what’s that mark there?’

  Mum came rushing over. ‘Ye gods and little fishes, girl!’ she cried. ‘What have you done?’

  Annie had never heard her mother swear but this was as close to it as she ever got. She wasn’t angry with Esther, it was more sheer exasperation and disbelief. Mum was shaking her head, as if she might look again and the scorch mark would be gone. But it wasn’t. It was still right there, slap bang on the front of some little girl’s best Empire Day dress.

  Esther stood there, wringing her hands. Annie put her arms around her to try to comfort her in some small way. Vera just carried on ironing, regardless. ‘Well, there’s work to be done. I’m not losing pay for slacking, that’s for sure,’ she said, under her breath.

  The Missus was beside them in a heartbeat, as Emma held the dress up to the light. Esther was crying now, big, fat tears rolling down her face. Her nose was all snotty and she was gulping for air. ‘I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean it to happen, I don’t even remember doing it!’

  ‘Oh, for the love of everything that is holy!’ shouted the Missus, her eyes bulging behind her dirty glasses. ‘Esther, my girl, you have gone and done it now. I can’t put up with this level of incompetence! First it was the sheets and now this. Whatever next?’

  Esther couldn’t speak and began to quake in her boots as the Missus yelled in her face: ‘Now, get your coat and get out of my laundry. You’re fired!’

  Annie made to follow Esther, to say she was sorry to see her go, but the Missus grabbed hold of her. ‘And where do you think you are going?’ she hissed, so Annie had to stay there, pressing more dresses, watching from the window as her friend left Hope Cottage for the last time, her shoulders drooping in defeat as she made her way down Antrobus Road.

  News of Esther’s sacking spread through the laundry like wildfire and Bessie couldn’t wait to get the full story of the dress disaster from Annie when she came back down to the wash house that afternoon.

  Word was that the Missus had gone around and paid a pound to the family of the little girl to hush up what had happened to the dress at Hope Cottage. She then sent the delivery cart up to Derry and Tom’s in Kensington High Street to buy a replacement dress, all out of her own pocket.

  Annie couldn’t prove it, of course, but she couldn’t help thinking Vera might have had something to do with it because she’d perked right up, the moment Esther left. In fact, she’d been humming to herself all afternoon and even linked arms with Annie, nattering all the way up Bollo Lane and across the railway tracks, after the Missus let them out early. Vera had a funny, tottering sort of walk because her boots were a size too small and she couldn’t afford new ones. Every now and again she’d stop and say, ‘Oh, Annie, me feet are killing me!’ so it became a bit of a joke between them by the time they’d got up to the park on Bollo Bridge Road.

  The bandstand was festooned with flowers as white as the little girls’ frothy dresses, and Annie felt the boom of the big bass drum right in her chest as the musicians struck up a marching tune. The Mayor and lots of very well-to-do people, including the vicar, were sitting on a special stage which had a tarpaulin over it for a roof. There were two great big swags of foliage slung across either side, with more flowers and greenery tied with ribbons across the front, and Union Jack bunting.

  At either side of the stage, on chairs lined up on the grass, were wounded soldiers wearing the soft, blue flannel suits given to them by the hospital. Some of them had crutches beside them and their arms or legs were bandaged; others wore eyepatches and one had half his head wrapped up so that just a little tuft of hair was visible. Annie didn’t want to stare, but one soldier had skin which looked so red and bumpy all down one side of his face, it was as if he had been left in front of the pagoda stove in the laundry for too long and melted. Some other soldiers had arms or legs missing. Those were in wheelchairs near the front, with pretty nurses in starched uniforms, smiling behind them. Their trousers and jackets were folded up and pinned so that the spare bit of material where their limbs should have been didn’t flap about. They all looked young, so young, compared to the Mayor, whose thinning salt-and-pepper hair lifted in the breeze as he stood, proud and tall, and addressed the crowd.

  In front of the stage was a maypole with a garland of white roses on the very top and a gaggle of excited girls and boys holding their ribbons, waiting for their headteacher, Miss Frobel, to give them the orders to start skipping about on their eager little legs.

  A crowd had already gathered to see the dance and the fancy dress Peace Parade, but first the Mayor spoke: ‘My lords, ladies, and gentlemen, on behalf of the borough, may I extend the warmest welcome to our returning heroes at this, our celebration of our most glorious Empire and our victory in the war to end all wars.’

  Some important people on the podium clapped loudly at that bit and the vicar tightened his grip on his Bible. A nurse leaned forwards and helped a soldier light a cigarette. His hands were shaking.

  ‘Acton welcomes you all home. We are grateful for your sacrifice and the borough is pleased to announce we will soon be building Homes Fit for Heroes, new homes, right here in Acton.’

  There was polite applause from the crowd, the majority of whom didn’t care too much about the new council homes because they’d still be crammed into a couple of rooms off Bollo Bridge Road and sharing an outside lav with a family upstairs, regardless. They really wanted to see the children dance around the maypole, which was being held steady by four little boys, seated at the base, one of whom was picking his nose in a quite determined way.

  ‘Without further ado . . .’

  But the Mayor was drowned out by the arrival of the fancy dress parade led by three rows of boys in short trousers and jackets, bugling with all their might, creating such a din that Annie and Vera had to stick their fingers in their ears. Behind them came children dressed as farmers, nurses, sailors, soldiers and firemen. There was even a Lord Nelson and a Britannia, with a huge red plume of feathers sticking out of the top of her helmet. She was followed by the Angel of Peace – that annoying Nancy from around the corner in Beaumont Road, wearing a sheet, with a white dove on a wire fixed to the back of her head. It was a source of amazement to both Vera and Annie that she had managed to get that role for herself, because she spent half the week washing shirts in the Cambrian instead of going to school. Nancy was the tallest girl in Soapsud Island, so she certainly did make a striking angel, though.

  ‘And that is lovely and quite enough, thank you, boys!’ trilled Miss Frobel above the racket, smoothing the folds of her dress, which had been bleached to a dazzling shade of white.

  The bandmaster, his belly just about contained in a little bum-freezer of a jacket, turned and gave her a bow, before raising his baton, and the band struck up a rousing rendition of ‘Rule Britannia’. Miss Frobel, for reasons best known to herself, started waving her arms in time to the music to
conduct the children dancing. The boys and girls set off, skipping and bobbing around the maypole, clutching their ribbons for dear life. Annie caught sight of George, pale as a ghost, weaving in and out. Some of the laundrymen joined in the chorus, ‘Britons never, never, never, shall be slaves’, and everyone clapped and cheered at the end.

  One fella went a bit over the top and carried on singing, long after everyone else had finished. He was swaying from side to side, with a bottle of beer in his hand. ‘Rule Britannia, that’s right, Rule bleeding Britannia . . .’

  ‘Oh, look, some old drunk,’ said Annie, nudging Vera in the ribs, as the band played on to try and drown him out. He was unshaven and his shirt was untucked. He staggered and bumped into a crowd of laundresses, who shoved him back. Two coppers grabbed hold of him and there was a bit of a tussle before they took hold of an arm each and marched him off out of the park, sharpish.

  Vera turned to Annie and said, almost in a whisper, ‘That’s my dad.’

  She slunk back into the crowd, looking for somewhere to hide, in case people had overheard her.

  Annie followed, catching hold of her hand. ‘I’m so sorry, Vera, I had no idea . . .’

  Vera spun around, the shame of such a public humiliation etched on her face. ‘He says the war was all for nothing, all the talk of sacrifice. He saw his friends blown to bits next to him in the trench and others burned with mustard gas and then he came home, it was like nothing had changed except life got harder because there wasn’t so much work and then he didn’t want to work no more.’

  ‘I thought he had a job at the Du Cros factory.’ Annie’s little brother was obsessed with motor cars and loved seeing the Du Cros cars when they came gliding down the High Street from the factory on Acton Vale. ‘How on earth are you managing without his wages?’

  Vera was crying now: ‘There’s eight of us, Annie, eight of us in two rooms and me and Mum are bringing in the most with the laundry work. My brother – the one who is just a year younger than me – is a bootblack up at the station and the next one is a stable boy down at King Street and the others are supposed to be in school, except the baby of course, but half the time they are taking in bits of laundry at home, ’cos I showed them how to do it with a washboard and that. Just for pennies.’

  ‘Is that why you are still so angry with Esther?’ asked Annie, touching Vera’s arm. She could feel that her friend was trembling.

  ‘It wasn’t like the war hurt her or her family at all.’ Vera pulled away. ‘Doesn’t seem fair.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ said Annie, softly. ‘The family lost their shoe shop because of people lobbing bricks through their windows all the time.’

  Vera bit her lip. ‘I know, but it’s not the same as for the rest of us. My dad has lost his marbles, Annie, and I don’t think he is ever going to get them back.’

  ‘Is that why you did it?’

  ‘Did what?’

  ‘Burned the dress.’

  ‘I never did, and you can’t prove it!’ shouted Vera, colouring up. ‘That’s a stinking lie.’

  ‘But you would have had time, when Esther and me were over by the sorting racks, wouldn’t you?’ said Annie, as Vera avoided looking at her. ‘But it doesn’t matter now anyway, because Esther has lost her job, so it’s too late. But what I am trying to say is that it isn’t fair to blame her any more than it is to blame the likes of me.’

  Vera gazed into the distance.

  ‘He comes into my room at night, shuts the door, when the little ones are sleeping beside me and Mum is washing up in the scullery,’ she said. ‘He kneels down beside the bed and then he strokes my hair and says I’m the prettiest of them all and then he starts crying.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Annie, who really didn’t know what to say.

  ‘He talks about the trenches sometimes, the mud and the rattles going off to warn of the gas attacks, and men dying like they were drowning, all frothing at the mouth. He still has nightmares about the Hun, with their helmets like coal scuttles, charging in on top of them in their dugout, with their bayonets. It all sounds so blooming scary, Annie, it chills me to the bone to think about it. Mostly he just cries and strokes my hair. I told him I needed to sleep the other night, I was so tired, and he got angry and called me a name.’

  ‘What kind of a name?’ said Annie, who had overheard some choice language from the laundry hands but wasn’t sure what any of it really meant.

  ‘He said I was an ungrateful bitch and put his hands around my throat,’ said Vera.

  Her fingers touched the bruises on her neck. ‘Mum came in and stopped him and then he slapped her one. I don’t think he wanted to hurt me, Annie, truly I don’t. When he isn’t sitting at the table staring at the wall or crying by my bed, he is down the pub.’

  ‘Can’t someone help him?’ said Annie.

  ‘No,’ said Vera, with a sigh. ‘People see the injured soldiers in their blue uniforms and they feel sorry for them, but who feels sorry for my dad? He has all his arms and legs working just fine; it’s just his mind’s gone strange. Now everyone will think he’s just a useless drunkard . . .’

  Annie looked around her. Bill and the other laundrymen were playing hoopla and joshing with each other about who was going to knock the most coconuts off the shy, while nurses tried to cajole them into shelling out a ha’penny on another little flag for the hospital.

  Mum and Aunt Clara were sitting on the grass with Ivy, sharing a piece of cake, as the Mayor started handing out prizes of a penny each for the best dancers and the best costumes and so on. The Union Jacks at the front of the stage fluttered in the breeze. This was what people wanted: the kids turned out nicely and the music playing and the Mayor making a good speech, to say that everything was going to get better. They didn’t want drunks spoiling it, even if they were only drunk because they were trying to blot out what they saw at the Western Front.

  The two girls wandered around the park for a while, arm in arm.

  Eventually Vera said: ‘You know, you’re a proper pal, Annie, just to listen to me.’

  ‘I’m sorry I can’t make it better,’ said Annie, who couldn’t help wondering what would have happened if her father had survived the war. Would he have come home and cried by her bed and called her rude names or slapped Mum?

  Annie glanced around for George but couldn’t see him anywhere. Then she noticed that some of the nurses had rushed over to the maypole and one was saying: ‘Stand back, children, give him some air.’

  Her mum saw them too and handed the baby to Aunt Clara before picking up her skirts and running across the grass to where a small crowd had gathered. She screamed as she realized that the little boy lying on the ground, clutching his chest, was hers.

  ‘Make way,’ shouted a tall gentleman carrying a black bag. He ruffled George’s hair and sat him up, before pulling a stethoscope out of his bag.

  George’s breathing was shallow and wheezy as the doctor listened to his chest. Vera was standing right beside her: ‘Gawd, he don’t look too clever, Annie.’

  Annie flew to her brother’s side. She knelt down next to Mum and held his hand. He coughed and she instinctively put her best white handkerchief to his mouth, for him to spit in, because it helped to get that muck off his chest with all that coughing. She folded the hankie and was about to pop it back into her pocket, but the doctor stopped her. ‘Let me see,’ he said. She opened the folds of material. It was spotted with blood.

  ‘How long has he been having these symptoms?’ the doctor asked, the concern on his face plain for all to see. Other mothers started pulling their children away and one said, ‘Let’s hope it ain’t catching.’

  ‘He’s always had a bit of a weak chest, but I have never seen anything like that before,’ said Mum, almost by way of apology. ‘I thought it was getting better, now the winter has gone. It must be that he has worn himself out with all that gallivanting around the maypole.’ She gave a weak smile and then clutched George to her and he started to cry. ‘Will
he be all right, doctor?’

  The doctor stood up and Mum followed suit. They put their heads together. ‘I’d like to see him up at the hospital as soon as possible, this afternoon,’ he said, lowering his voice to a whisper. ‘And keep contact with other children to a minimum for now.’

  Then he turned to George: ‘No more gadding about today, young man.’

  Bill appeared at Mum’s side, as Annie took off her cardigan and wrapped it around George’s shoulders. Annie picked her little brother up. He really was light as a feather, it would be no bother for her to carry him all the way home to Fletcher Road. But Bill took him and popped him on his shoulders instead, making George laugh by jigging him up and down a bit.

  ‘Oh, Annie, I will never forgive myself if there’s something seriously wrong with him,’ Mum whispered, as they walked along, with people pointing and staring at them. Aunt Clara followed with Ivy. ‘Lots of littl’uns have a cough in the winter that won’t shift until the summer, don’t they?’

  Annie mumbled her agreement, but she couldn’t help wondering whether poor George had just been overlooked, with all the fuss over the new baby and everything else going on at the laundry. And she could have sworn she overhead Bill muttering under his breath: ‘Doctors’ bills, that’s all we blinking need,’ as they were leaving the park.

  6

  July 1919

  George was in the isolation hospital up Willesden Lane for six weeks before he was allowed home.

  The doctors had to collapse his left lung to give it the best chance of healing after an X-ray showed he had tuberculosis. Mum said that the doctors had a funny little wooden box with a contraption in it, which looked like a bicycle pump, and George had to lie on his side on a trolley and he screamed when the needle went into his chest.

  She cried when she told Annie and Nanny Chick about it, she felt so guilty, and then she stopped eating for a few days. Nanny Chick gave her what for and told her to pull herself together because there was no good her going to an early grave and leaving three littl’uns without a mother.