Kay Brellend - The Campbell Road Girls

‘You knuckle down if you want to,’ Lucy spiritedly interrupted. ‘I’m getting out before there’s a right royal dingdong.’ She gave Sophy a significant nod. ‘’S’all right for you’n Danny, you report to the master, but now Edna’s scarpered I’m the one at her beck and call.’

‘Can’t believe you’re really going.’ Sophy sighed. ‘You might not get this position you’ve applied for. With unemployment like it is there could be dozens of women after it. What you going to do then? Move back in with Mum in that poxy hole?’

‘Gonna keep applying for jobs in London,’ Lucy answered briskly. ‘To tell you the truth, it’s not just about Mrs Lockley.’ She avoided Sophy’s eye and stared out at rolling, verdant countryside. ‘I’m bored stiff here.’ She gestured with a hand at the quiet scenery. ‘What is there to do on me day off ’cept go and stare at cows or the sea, or window-shop old-fashioned frocks I couldn’t afford even if I wanted one.’ She shrugged in frustration. ‘I want to go in some of the big London stores and wander around just looking at all the lovely clothes ... and Yardley compacts and lipsticks and perfumes ...’ She broke off and giggled. ‘Then I’d go down the market with Alice and Beth and buy a dress that looks the same but costs a few bob instead of a few pounds.’

‘We’ve got a market here!’ Sophy stated huffily.

‘Yeah,’Lucy agreed wryly. ‘When I want fresh fruit ’n’ veg I’ll know where to come. But a cheap costume or a fancy silk blouse that don’t take me for ever to save for is gonna be hanging up down Chapel Street or Petticoat Lane.’

Lucy knew her sister was confused and alarmed by what she’d said. Sophy and Danny had been sweethearts since school age. The only ambitions Sophy had ever had were marrying Danny and securing regular work. Lucy knew it was all very sensible and admirable but she wasn’t yet ready to settle for just that.

‘I’m too young to get stuck in a rut out in the sticks. I want a job in town.’ She gazed earnestly at Sophy. ‘I never knew what it was to work in London. This was me first job, and I’m grateful to you for getting it for me, but perhaps I’m a city girl at heart. I’m going back there, Sophe, to find out ... and that’s that.’

After a short silence, Sophy put out a hand. ‘Let’s have a look then.’

‘Won’t be leaving fer a while yet, anyhow, so can work out me notice and a bit more if you want. Interviews are being held next month ’cos the girl who’s leaving is going off to get married, so no rush as such.’ She handed over the paper for Sophy to read.

‘You can work out yer notice ’n’ all,’ Sophy said grumpily, frowning at the letter.

‘Probably be stuck on a pallet in an attic with a few others,’ Lucy admitted with a wry chuckle. But even if her quarters were just a shared top-floor dormitory, Lucy would jump at the chance of it. Without a glance at the place, she knew it would knock living in a dirty room in a tenement house in Campbell Road into a cocked hat. But at least she’d be closer to her poor, ailing mum and would be able to visit her on her days off.

‘Put your notice in then, if you want to,’ Sophy said, thrusting the paper back at her sister. ‘Go and see if smog suits you better’n fresh air. But mark my words: I reckon you might just find you’ve jumped out of the frying pan straight into the fire.’

The crunch of feet on gravel brought the two young women to atttention. Tim Lovat, Danny’s brother, who worked as the master’s valet, suddenly appeared around the side of the house and waved to them as he sprinted closer. ‘Mistress is after you, Lucy. Stomping round with her chops on her boots.’ He grinned. ‘Rather you than me.’

‘If ... if ... if! I’m fooking sick of hearing about if!’

Reg Donovan shoved over two battered chairs as he strode towards the door. He’d hoped to escape further hostility between himself and the irate redheaded woman confronting him, arms akimbo. But Matilda Keiver was having none of that. Today she was prepared for him trying to take the coward’s way out. In a trice she was between him and the exit, though the exertion left her wincing and gasping. He’d listen to some more of what she’d got to say if it killed her. And it was what had nearly killed her that caused them constantly to scrap.

‘You might be fucking sick of hearing about it, Reg Donovan, but I ain’t,’ she wheezed. ‘Ain’t you in pain every minute of the day, is it? Ain’t you stuck indoors most o’ the time ’cos it’s an ordeal just getting down the stairs to nip to the shop. I’m suffering something chronic, and though it ain’t all your fault I blame you fer a good part of what happened.’

‘I can’t be having this argument over and over again wid yer, Tilly.’ Reg’s defeated plea for a truce had thickened his Irish brogue.

‘If you’d been where yer should’ve been that night, I wouldn’t be in the state I’m in, would I? Deny it, can you?’

‘I can’t! I know it ... you know it!’ Reg’s voice again thundered at the ceiling. ‘But what can I do about it now?’ His hands balled into fists close to his contorted features. ‘Give over about it, woman. I can’t stand having it thrown in me fooking face a hundred times a day.’

‘You can’t stand it ’cos it makes you feel guilty.’ Tilly was using the wall as support, whilst teetering on her toes in an attempt to keep her weight forward and away from the ache in her back.

Two years ago she’d come out of hospital after a stay of five and a half months following a dreadful fall that had almost killed her. It had finished off the man who’d deliberately sent them both hurtling out of a first-floor window in Campbell Road to certain death, impaled on railings below. Jimmy Wild had expired almost instantly, but then he’d already been mortally wounded when he’d turned up, intending to take Matilda to hell with him. Despite several broken bones and an iron spike piercing her waist, Tilly had miraculously lived to tell the tale ... over and over again, according to Reg. And Reg had had a bellyful of hearing it.

Despite her extraordinary luck in having survived, eating away at Tilly like a cancer was the knowledge that if Reg, the man she’d hoped to marry shortly after that stormy summer evening, had done what he’d set out to do and fetched them home a couple of brown ales, she’d have completely escaped Jimmy Wild’s lethal malice. Jimmy had always been a coward when it came to a fair fight with a man; he would have crawled away to die alone had Reg been the one to open the door to him that night. But instead of joining her in a drink at home the selfish git had forgotten about her brown ales and gone to the Duke with a pal for a few whiskies.

‘You got to admit now, you let Jimmy in that night, Tilly. No point kidding yourself over it.’ Reg had edged closer to the door and casually manoeuvred a hand in readiness to yank it open. He felt sorry for Tilly, but not a lot more, and he knew pity wasn’t enough to keep him with her. At forty-nine she was a decade older than he was. Once the age gap had been unnoticeable – in fact at times he’d had trouble keeping up with her – but now she looked her age. The stiffness in her bones following the accident sometimes had her hobbling like a pensioner instead of sashaying about as she had a few years previously. She’d taken a few tumbles since she’d been out of hospital, which had set back her recovery, but she was too proud and stubborn to heed anybody’s warning to take things easy or accept help with her chores.

The good times had gone; the only passion the engaged couple now shared was during fights and arguments. She wasn’t even a drinking partner for him any more. She’d been a patient for a long time in a Spartan hospital, and enforced abstinence had curbed Tilly’s addiction to heavy drinking. To dull her aches and pains she’d down a few tots at home so she didn’t have to smarten up and drag herself out. But Reg considered himself still a young man. He needed a bit of a social life and a breath of fresh air outside of the stinking room on the first floor of the tenement house in Campbell Road that they called home. Reg knew he needed to get away from her, not only so he could calm down, but to decide whether he ever wanted to come back. If it took a bit of honest cruelty to cut himself free he was prepared to use it.