Her Ladyship's Girl (29 page)

In 1945, Alan was forty-two and I was only twenty-seven. The fact that I was so much younger than him added to his paranoia that I was seeing someone else – and maybe more than one. But he
was enough to put me off men for all time and I didn’t need any more of them in my life. In fact, I was getting increasingly fed up with Alan and his antics and I didn’t think I should
have to put up with this kind of existence. I longed to be free and single again. I loved my two children and wouldn’t be without them for the world, but the thought of living a life on my
own, without some madman constantly watching my every move, was like a dream that would never come true – until he died. Or I did.

Then I thought, what if I left him?

How much worse off would I be?

D
uring the war, women had been doing all the jobs men normally did – working in the factories and on the land and, now the men were coming
home, many of them didn’t want to be forced back into their traditional roles of housewives and mothers. The Equal Pay Campaign highlighted inequalities in the treatment of women in the
workplace, but old prejudices about women’s capabilities were still alive and used by the government to stall reforms. Nevertheless, things would never be the way they were again and
attitudes to single mothers were changing, as there were many more young widows than before. I was aware of these developments because I continued to read the newspapers, even after I left service,
and I knew it was time to go out on my own. So I found myself a cheap flat near St Pancras and went there to live, Alan-free, in September 1945.

I didn’t sneak out in the middle of the night. I told him I was going and I didn’t want him coming with me. He kicked up the usual hullabaloo and went off crying to his mother and
silly sister. They all came round and threatened me with court action for custody of the children. I told them to go ahead and try it. I was a good mother and earning my own money and well able to
look after myself and my children. Alan was a compulsive gambler who lost all his money and never gave me anything and he was violent and unstable, which the neighbours would testify to. They went
off with several fleas in their ears, but I knew it wouldn’t be the last I’d hear or see of them.

The flat was on the ground floor, and more accessible for the pram, and there was a little garden out back with grass and a line for the drying of clothes. The rent was reasonable and I was able
to take in washing and ironing jobs as well as going out to clean the houses. It was hard work and I didn’t get much time to rest, but I had the children with me and they weren’t
neglected in any way.

Then, in early 1946, I got a summons from the court saying Alan had applied for custody of his two children. I couldn’t afford legal representation, but there was a duty solicitor at the
court and he agreed to speak for me after a brief interview where I gave him the bare bones of what life was like with Alan Lane. I had no one to look after the children on the day, so I had to
bring them along to the court. The clerk let them sit beside me and I listened to Alan’s solicitor saying I dragged them with me when I was working and I had men friends back at my flat and
he made me out to be a right trollop. The duty solicitor asked him if he had any evidence of men coming back to my flat and, in response, Alan’s solicitor related the tale of the GIs helping
me to carry the pram upstairs in Finsbury.

‘Mr Lane was at home on that occasion, and a good job too!’

I gave my evidence about how Alan gambled all the money away and gave me nothing, so I had no alternative but to go out to work to feed the children. I also had statements from the neighbours
saying he was violent and unpredictable. His solicitor asked if there was any medical evidence of his violence. When he was told there wasn’t, he tried to turn the tables and insinuate I was
the violent one, and he said there was an instance of Mr Lane being admitted to hospital with a broken nose and cracked ribs and concussion.

‘I didn’t do that!’

‘No? Who did?’

‘The bouncers.’

‘What bouncers?’

‘In the gambling club.’

As it was an illegal gambling club, Alan whispered to his solicitor and the matter of his alleged injuries was withdrawn.

The judge did his summing up, after hearing all the evidence and the arguments to and fro. He said it wasn’t right the children should be dragged around to clean houses with me. I wanted
to say they didn’t clean the houses, I cleaned the houses and they played while I was cleaning them. But the duty solicitor told me not to interrupt or be impertinent. The judge also conceded
that Alan was wrong to gamble all his money away and force me out to work as a cleaner, but he did have a mother and sister at home who didn’t go out to work and could have cared for the
children while I was out cleaning. I didn’t like the sound of that, and things didn’t seem to be going my way. He said it wasn’t clear who, if either of us, was violent in the
relationship, so he was going to ignore that evidence altogether.

Clearly, according to the judge, Alan could provide the safest and most appropriate environment for the children. My heart sank – they were going to take the kids away from me. Plans
already started formulating in my mind to take them back, abduct them, like I did before with Charlotte and run away to Wales with them. And the police sergeant would be on my side again and
I’d live there forever in the coaldust and sheep dung and never come back to London again.

But the judge wasn’t finished yet. He said he was a traditionalist and he believed children belonged with their mother. Good, it was swinging back my way again. However, a wife and mother
also belonged with her husband. The ideal scenario, in his view, was for me and Alan to reconcile our differences and get back together. That would solve all the problems. Alan was under obligation
as a husband and father to provide for his wife and children and he should give me enough money to live on, so I didn’t have to go out to work and I could stay at home and take care of the
children. He recessed the court so we could discuss it with our respective counsels.

We went to a private room in the court, while the children stayed outside with the uglies. Alan wasn’t happy about the money side of things and I didn’t want him back. Stalemate. My
solicitor told me if I didn’t agree to the judge’s proposal, the court would award custody of the children to Alan and his family. It was either take Alan or lose the children.
Alan’s solicitor told him if I agreed to the judge’s proposal and he didn’t, then the court would award custody of the children to me. Neither of us seemed to have any choice. It
only left one issue to be resolved.

‘I’m not going back to live at Woodbridge Street.’

‘I’m not living in St Pancras.’

Both solicitors shook their heads in exasperation. I said if I went back to Clerkenwell, things would continue as they had before – Alan wouldn’t give me any money and his mother and
sister would monopolise the children. They’d eventually find an excuse to get rid of me altogether. My solicitor said he’d explain that to the court and allow the judge to decide where
we should live. Abduction plans resurfaced in my mind.

The court was recalled and the learned friends told the judge we’d agreed to his proposal. He was delighted about that. I think he saw himself as a marriage guidance counsellor as well as
an esteemed m’lud. However, the issue of residence still remained. Alan’s solicitor argued that Woodbridge Street would provide a more stable family atmosphere for the children and the
duty solicitor made my case about being marginalised by the uglies. Luckily for me, the judge was a traditionalist about this as well and believed that a man and wife should live together,
independent of the wider family group, if at all possible. As there was an independent residence in St Pancras, then that was clearly the best option. And so it was resolved, Alan and I would live
together again for the sake of the children and he would behave like a proper husband and father and support us financially. I didn’t believe for a single minute that this would happen.

But the judge did.

I asked the duty solicitor what I should do if Alan didn’t keep his side of the bargain.

‘He’s under a court order to do so.’

‘Yes, but what if he doesn’t?’

‘You’ll have to come back to court.’

‘Can’t I just throw him out?’

He told me I’d have to convince the court that Alan was in breach of its order. They would probably fine him and, if he broke it again, he could risk going to jail. But all that would take
forever and a fortnight and, in the meantime, me and the children would starve if I didn’t go to work and do the cleaning. But that was the reality of the situation and the legal eagles
weren’t concerned with reality, only the letter of the law.

Alan moved into the flat in St Pancras in May 1946 and things went well for a while. He gave me enough money to buy food and I didn’t have to go out skivvying and he didn’t have to
follow me to make sure I wasn’t going on the game. We even had sex again and I fell pregnant again. My daughter Estelle was born on 17 March 1947. This time I had the baby in hospital and
Alan looked after the other two until I got back home after three days. And that’s when things changed and he went back to his old ways. He had a run of bad luck on the horses, combined with
even worse luck in the casinos, and the money he was giving me dried up. I had three children to feed now. Charlotte was five and Daniel was four and they were both going to nursery school. So I
was able to go out cleaning again and only had to bring baby Estelle with me, as long as I was finished in time to collect the other two from school. As soon as I started going back out cleaning,
Alan put his jealous head on and all the bother started up again. I just couldn’t be having it.

Then I saw a small shop to let down the street from the flat. It had accommodation above it and the rent for both was all-inclusive. I decided there was an easier way for me to make money. I
went along to see the letting agent and they said they needed an advance down-payment of fifty pounds. Now, I had about fifteen pounds saved up for emergencies from my cleaning money and from the
child benefit allowance I was getting for Daniel and Estelle, after it was introduced in August 1946. But I didn’t know where I could get the other thirty-five pounds from. I racked my
brains, but there was nowhere I could go and no one I could ask. Then I thought of Alan – and his horses. I didn’t want him to know I had fifteen pounds, because he would have searched
the flat for it and created and kicked the walls and I didn’t need all that melodrama. I had to think of a way to get the information I needed from him.

I knew he kept racing sheets in the house, with lists of horses and meetings. I found one, but it meant nothing to me – just a list of eccentric names and all sorts of abbreviations and
hieroglyphics that obviously meant something to racing punters, but nothing to me. I put the sheet in a prominent place where Alan would be sure to see it when he came in. True to form, he picked
it up and started to peruse it. I nonchalantly looked over his shoulder.

‘What does it all mean?’

‘What does what mean?’

‘All those letters and squiggles and stuff.’

‘Why do you want to know?’

‘No reason.’

He gave me a suspicious look, but he liked to think of himself as an expert on all things to do with gambling and he couldn’t resist the rare chance to show off his knowledge to me. He
explained that the numbers and letters told you the weight the horse would be carrying, the trainer and the jockey and a bit about the horse’s racing history and the odds on the horse winning
that particular race – which was what I was interested in.

Alan explained that short odds meant the horse was fancied and had a better chance of winning than long odds, which meant the horse was an outsider.

‘Say you want to double your money?’

‘Then you bet on evens.’

‘What about triple it?’

‘Then bet on two-to-one against. You double your money and get your stake back.’

I knew what had to be done. To come away with fifty pounds I had to bet my fifteen pounds on a horse with odds of three-to-one, then I’d win forty-five pounds and get my own fifteen back
as well. I’d have my fifty pounds with ten pounds to spare.

‘But isn’t betting illegal?’

‘Not on the track.’

‘But you don’t go to the track.’

‘There are horse joints, just like gambling dens . . . there’s one in Gray’s Inn Road.’

After Alan went out the next day and I dropped Charlotte and Daniel off at school, I came back and studied the racing sheets for that day. I only looked for horses that were three-to-one. Then a
name caught my eye – Mari Lwyd – and I remembered the bony skull and the fiery green eyes and the snapping jaws of that skeleton horse from days gone by. I saw it as a sign – a
premonition. It had to be this horse.

I wrote down all the details and put Estelle into her pram and walked down to Gray’s Inn Road. I’d been in and out of the illegal casinos with Alan so I knew what to look for –
an inconspicuous side door with men coming and going. I stood close by it for a long time. My mind was in turmoil. How could I justify doing this? I was no better than Alan. What if the horse lost?
Fifteen pounds was a fortune to throw away and I’d had to work hard to earn it. I should wait, save up some more money. But it would take me ages to get fifty pounds and the shop would be
gone by then and I’d never get another chance.

I waited.

I watched the faces of the men going in. Who could I trust to put the bet on? It was a lot of money and they might just run off with it and there would be nothing I could do. No, this was wrong.
I couldn’t risk it. I was about to turn away and leave when I saw a familiar face across the street, coming out of a bank. It was Mr Harding, from Hampstead and all those years ago.

‘Mr Harding! Mr Harding!’

He was the perfect choice. He was well-to-do and no one would bat an eyelid at him placing fifteen pounds on a horse. That’s if he’d agree to do it for me. He looked in my direction
and hesitated. Then he smiled and came across the street.