Crooked Pieces (18 page)

‘Because… I think I may be unwell, and little Ann being so tiny…’

‘Ah. Well, perhaps the one after. I’m sure your handsome bobby will understand.’

I went redder than ox blood. How is it people always know about your business when you particularly do not wish them to?

‘I didn’t mean to interfere,’ she went on, noting my discomfort. ‘I just think it’s important to stay in touch with your family.’

‘It is. I do…want to. I will go soon, I promise. It is just I had sort of made an arrangement… I do not like to let people down.’

‘No, of course not. You are right. Families must not always be put before friends, much as they would like it.’

I thought this a strange thing to say, for I have always been told otherwise. ‘But would you not put your mother and sister above all others?’ I asked.

Miss Sylvia glanced at me, half ashamed. ‘If they needed me, of course I should, but sometimes they expect me to fall in with their plans, no matter the inconvenience. And that, I think, is…unnecessary. Besides I have another sister and a brother. Are they not equal claimants to my time?’

‘It is hard when you have a big family,’ I agreed.

‘Has your young man got brothers and sisters?’

I told her about Fred’s sister who may not sing. She said she thought that sad, but that Quakers were generally very good people. She asked me how Fred could be a policeman
and
a Quaker, so I told her he had left it.

‘What does his father say to that?’

‘I think he is unhappy, but Fred likes music and painting and all things that are forbidden by the Quakers. He especially likes painting,’ I added. ‘He took me to a gallery.’

‘Did you enjoy it?’

‘Yes, of course, but I told him they were nowhere as good as your paintings.’

Miss Sylvia laughed. ‘I’m sure they were.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘They were not. And Fred and I had a right falling out over it.’

‘Goodness. I hope I was not the cause of a quarrel between you.’

‘No, no. It was all right. He said he liked me to state my own feelings and stand by them. It was what he liked best about me.’

Miss Sylvia smiled. ‘He sounds a very astute young man.’

I had no idea what that meant, but was certain it was good. I should so like her to meet him. I am sure they would be friends.

This Sunday it was fine and sunny. We went to Hyde Park and strolled for miles and miles round it. It must be bigger than some counties, for you can walk for a whole hour and not see the same tree twice.

We talked and talked. It was as though we had known each other forever. Fred is nineteen. I am amazed. I had thought him at least twenty. He lives in rooms with a Mrs Blackett, north of Marylebone. She is a widow and a dreadful cook, he says. He thinks she may have poisoned her husband, not on purpose, with her suet pudding. I was pleased to tell him I could cook most things, including biscuits.

‘Perhaps you will cook me a meal one day?’ he asked rather wistfully.

‘Yes, if Mrs Garrud allows it. I should have to ask.’

‘Yes, of course.’

He told me Mrs Blackett has a daughter of thirty-seven who works in one of the great shops in Oxford Street. ‘She says she is a buyer, but somehow I don’t believe it.’

I said I thought it was strange to buy things from your own shop.

Fred laughed. ‘Buyers buy things for customers to buy. How else do you think they stock the shelves?’

I had not thought of that.

He says Mrs Blackett wants him to marry her daughter. This unsettled me. ‘And are you going to?’

He burst out laughing. ‘Not unless she knocks me out and dopes me. Besides Miss Blackett has been looking for a husband for the past twenty years, I would guess, but never found anyone quite to her taste.’

‘She must be very particular,’ I said, meaning ‘fit for Bedlam’.

‘Well, there you are. A humble policeman is not much of a catch, is he?’

I said I did not know and, fortunately, tripped over a sticking up root so did not have to continue. Fred caught my arm.

Our conversation turned to Mrs Garrud’s fighting classes, for she teaches us how to fall down and not be hurt by it. Fred was most interested. In the police they learn self-defence, he says, but it is mostly hitting people with a truncheon and blowing a whistle to summon assistance, so he does not think it can be half so useful as what I do.

‘What made you want to be a policeman?’ I asked.

He thought for a bit. ‘I liked the uniform.’

‘Surely that was not all?’ Though thinking how much I love
my office clothes I could hardly blame him.

He smiled. ‘No. Lots of reasons. I had an idea I wanted to serve my country.’

‘Why did you not join the army?’

He shrugged. ‘There are other ways of serving your country than charging around killing people.’

‘Why else? You said there were lots of reasons?’

‘To get away from home, mainly, I suppose. I was suffocating. The village is so small and everyone there knew my father. I felt as though I was being judged all the time, compared with him and his achievements. And of course, I could never measure up.’

‘I’m sure that’s not true,’ I said with perhaps more feeling than I should have done.

He glanced at me and smiled. ‘Also I heard rumours a beautiful young suffragette was in danger of getting lost in Downing Street and might need rescuing.’

I blushed very red but could not help myself. ‘If you had not come along then I don’t know what would have happened to me.’

‘Oh I expect some other lucky man would have come to your rescue.’

I shook my head. ‘I doubt it. That tobacconist was all for pushing me under a cab. It was the road sweeper saved me.’

Fred looked quite angry. ‘Why did you not tell me? I would have clapped him in irons.’

‘The road sweeper?’

‘No. The shopkeeper, of course. No, better – I’d have had him lashed to the back of the cab and dragged down Pall Mall and back three times.’

I said, ‘I can see the army would be no place for someone as gentle as you.’

We sat by the river. Some men were diving into the water. They came out mighty quick with their teeth all chattering so it seemed a pretty silly thing to do with Easter not yet on us. A group of young ladies were watching them and clapped like mad, so I suppose that was what drove them in the first place. I was just wondering to myself if I would dive into icy water to catch a man’s eye when Fred asked, ‘Would you like a man the better if he jumped in an icy river for you, Maggie?’

‘Only if I was drowning.’

We laughed ourselves stupid. The bathers gave us a very funny look.

Ma is not well. At first I thought maybe she was starting a new baby, for she looked as sick and yellowy as ever, but when I asked if there was another coming she shook her head. ‘Nor will be, Maggie.’ I was glad for, God knows, she has enough to deal with Alfie and Evelyn and Will and little Ann, and Lucy who is worse than any of them.

I had made up my mind that I would try to talk some sense into my sister before I left. I had brought her a book. It was called
Enquire Within
and stuffed full of ideas, like how to feed a family for sixpence, what to put on a burn, the best cure for flea bites – everything you could need to know, and more besides. I greatly hoped it would have a bit about the bleeding for Lucy is gone thirteen and sure to start it soon, but I could find nothing. I knew I should have to speak to her straight out for I should not like her to find it out as I did – for all the ladies were kind and gave me shortbread. Ma will
say nothing, I am sure. I sometimes wonder if she understands herself, or why would she keep having children, which must hurt a good deal more than the bleeding? And if Lucy’s should start when Frank is home… I think he lied about putting a baby in me. I think you have to start the bleeding first. But he knows how to do it. I know he does. And if the fancy takes him…

I wonder if Fred knows how to make a baby. I hope not, for he is the finest man I ever met and I would so love to marry him and be with him forever. But not to have that…to have to…for all Frank says it is a sign of his affection and if I truly love him I will not refuse. I do love him. I am so proud to have a brother that is tall and fine and handsome, when half the men are cripples in my street. To see the girls nudge each other and gaze at me so enviously when we are out. But you cannot live forever at the playhouse, or wandering round the fair in your best clothes. Some time you must go home.

When I was little I believed everything he told me – that I was a fairy he had found in a ditch and brought home to Ma to be her daughter; that he was truly a prince and I was a princess and that one day we would go back to our palace and never be hungry again but I must not tell a living soul. It was our secret. He used to steal potatoes from the market and we would share them when the others were asleep. And when we had eaten the potatoes he would give me a kiss and we would tuck our arms round each other to be warm and pretend we were a king and queen and anything we wanted we could have. It was our secret. And then there was another and another. So many secrets. Only now I hate them.

I do not know if it is because I live in such fine conditions
now, but the house seemed to me dirtier and smellier than I had ever remembered it. There were the baby’s soiled rags just dumped on the kitchen floor with flies buzzing round them. The pans were stacked up dirty in the sink, and a sack of rotting carrots in the corner which, I swear, were there the last time I was home.

Ma was in the front with Ann asleep in her arms. The back door, having broken its hinge, slammed shut behind me and I was fearful it would wake the baby, but she hardly stirred.

Ma looked up and smiled when she saw me. ‘Maggie.’

‘Yes. Ma, I’m sorry I’ve not been home before, but we have been rushed off our feet, truly. Mrs Pethick Lawrence has a grand scheme to raise twenty thousand pounds, can you believe? So we must write to everyone who ever breathed.’

Ma nodded. ‘Twenty thousand pounds is a lot of money.’

‘More than there is in the world, I shouldn’t wonder. I wish I had it.’

‘It would be a fine thing.’ She shifted the baby and I saw that she had a great mucky bruise on her arm.

‘How did you come by that, Ma?’

‘What? Oh, this. It’s nothing.’

‘Did Pa do it?’

‘No. No. I don’t know what it is – I seem to bruise so easy these days. Mrs Grant says I lack iron in my blood. But what’s to do about that, except keep munching lumps of coal? And they’re more use on a fire than in my belly.’

I sat down. ‘I’ll ask Miss Annie. She’ll know what will mend you. I’ve a mutton pie and turnips for our dinner, and a baked custard for after. And here.’ I gave her three pounds that I had saved.

‘Oh, Maggie, you mustn’t give me all your money. You’ll have nothing to live on.’

‘I will. Mrs Garrud feeds me like she’s fattening me for Christmas, and my lunch is never above a sixpence. That’s with a jam tart.’

‘You’re a good girl, Maggie. I’m glad it’s turning out well for you.’

I felt a great slap of guilt to be so fortunate, and my own mother sitting in this tip. ‘I’ll get the dinner on. What time will Pa be in?’

‘Four o’clock, he said. Alfie’s with him.’

‘Where’re Evelyn and Will?’

‘Lucy took them to the park.’

I was relieved to hear that. ‘Is she being better now, Ma?’

Ma was quiet for a moment. ‘It’s not easy for her, living here.’

‘It’s not easy for anyone. That doesn’t mean she needn’t help, and go round acting like it’s everyone else’s fault. If she minds so much she should come to the meetings and learn how to do something about it.’

Ma shook her head. ‘She’s a child, Maggie. You can’t ask her to see things as you do.’

‘I was a child when you sent me to Park Walk.’

‘I meant it for the best, Maggie. Surely you know that now?’

‘Yes, I do now, but that’s because I’m grown up.’ Ma smiled and looked down at the baby who was stirring. ‘And,’ I went on, ‘Lucy could have had my post at the Roes but that she was too lazy and stupid to take it.’

Ma sighed. ‘She’s not like you, Maggie. You’re the clever
one. None of the others could have done what you have, with help or without. Even Frank…’

‘Yes, and that’s another thing. I cannot bear how she talks of Frank as though…as though…’ I stopped for Ma was staring at me, almost like she was afraid. I took a breath. ‘It is so long since I have seen him, Ma.’

She looked away. ‘It’s better that way.’

My heart was thumping. ‘Why do you say that?’

Ma wiped her hand across her forehead. ‘Maggie, I am not well. Please believe me, it is for your own good. I want you to have a chance in life. Away from all this. Away from…what it brings with it. Frank is part of that. He is my son and I love him more than my life, but I know him. I know what he is like. He must be best. If he sees how you are bettering yourself, learning so many things, earning a good wage, mixing with important people, he will dislike it. He will try to drag you back.’

Her words cut through me. I had always thought she loved him best.

‘How can you say that? How can you speak so ill of your own son?’

‘Because he
is
my son. And because he is like his father.’ She slumped back in her chair as though a ton weight was lying on her. ‘He is so very like his father.’

I do not think that Ma and I had ever had so long a conversation in our lives.

I watched her drag her feet across the room to fetch the baby’s milk. From behind she could have been my gran. Why are you so old? I wanted to cry out. Why can’t you be like Mrs Pankhurst? So elegant and beautiful. She has grown up
children, too. How can I be proud of you when you are so…worn out by life?

I managed to clean up a bit before dinner. I washed the pans and put the baby’s clothes to boil, then swept the floor and flung the carrots out into the yard for dogs or rats to get them. Ma sat on with the baby, one asleep, the other dozing. How they managed it with all the clattering and clanging, I could not fathom.

Pa and Alfie were quite merry when they came in and the two of them fell to chuckling about nothing at all, as far as I could tell, like a pair of buffoons.