A Woman's Place (16 page)

It opened at the very first rap as though Gran had been watching her from the window. She would have been told about the arrest.

Her elderly face was filled with concern. ‘I knew the moment I ’eard what you did that you’d be over ’ere before long. They was upset at you being arrested, and I suppose they’ve told you to pack your bags.’

‘Dad just told me to hop it, so I did.’

‘And I suppose you expect to go back as soon as he calms down.’

Eveline nodded and Gran heaved a deep sigh. ‘Well, you’d best come in. I think you’re going to be ’ere a bit longer than you think. Once your dad gets a bee in ’is bonnet it takes a while for it to leave.’

Standing back for Eveline to enter, she closed the door quietly. ‘Go on into the kitchen,’ she ordered. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve ’ad anything to eat yet. I’ve got some stew, you’d best ’ave some of that. I’ll make up the old bed in me spare room for you tonight.’

The old double bed had been there for as long as Eveline could remember even though no one had used it for years.

Feeling better after the substantial stew, although there had been food handed out by the wonderful welcoming committee as she left prison, she bathed as best she could in Gran’s old tin bath with three large saucepans of water that took ages to heat. But her clothes, put in a cupboard during those six days in prison, still stank of the place, making her ashamed of them. She should never have stalked out of her home like she had but at least paused long enough to collect a few clean things for herself. She would go early tomorrow and collect them. By that time her parents might have mellowed.

They hadn’t. In response to her request her mother wordlessly let her in, not going up the stairs with her but waiting until she came down again with a case filled with all she thought she might need. The door remained held open for her to leave.

Eveline faced her. ‘Mum?’

The face was turned abruptly away from her. From the kitchen where her father was shaving his chin, she heard his voice. ‘Shut the door, Mother, there’s a real blooming draught.’

Eveline took one more look at her mother’s averted face and walked out. As she left she looked up at the living-room window. Framed there were the faces of her sister May and her younger brothers, Jimmy and Bobby. Len had already gone off to work before she arrived.

May waved, but she couldn’t bring herself to wave back. Perhaps later she would go and see her married sister Tilly, maybe get some sympathy there though Tilly had no interest in suffragettes at all. Nor did her sister-in-law Marion, Fred’s wife, who she recalled had totally agreed with Dad last Christmas that they caused a lot of trouble for nothing.

Another thought came to her: to go and see if Larry was back in London yet.

It wasn’t an easy decision; her journey early next morning felt plagued by misgivings and an odd fear of facing him after what had happened. He had no particular interest in the suffragette cause. What would she say to him?

It seemed to take for ever, going to Liverpool Street, taking the tube to Sloane Square, walking for ages along King’s Road, finishing up outside Larry’s flat in Cheyne Walk. After busy King’s Road these quiet side streets felt so peaceful, she could have been miles from London. The Thames at high tide had a clean look to it, glinting in the mid-morning sunshine; no sheen of oil marred its surface, here was none of the clutter of tugboats and lighters and cargo vessels one saw further downstream around the Pool of London. All was calm and peaceful.

She breathed in the fresh tang of the river and felt instantly restored after what had been the most horrific week of her life. Glancing up to see that one of his windows was open, joy and relief flooded through her. He was at home.

Already she could feel his arms enfolding her as she pressed the bell to his flat. She had to wait a minute or so before the door opened and there he was. Seeing her, he looked a little taken aback. ‘What are you doing here?’

It was an odd question and for a moment she was lost for words. True, she hadn’t seen him for a few weeks, but she suddenly felt like a stranger.

Before she could say anything, he said, ‘Well, you’d best come into the hall. You don’t look too well.’

As she stepped inside, he asked, ‘Have you been ill?’

‘No,’ she replied in a small voice, feeling inexplicably embarrassed, wishing she hadn’t come. ‘Something happened to me while you were away.’ Almost in one breath she gabbled out what had taken place.

He stood silent for a while, as she remained there in the hallway watching him. He hadn’t asked her up to his flat but he must have noticed her glance towards the stairs. He took in a sharp breath.

‘Look, I’m sorry, Eveline. I can’t ask you up. I’ve got …’ He paused then hurried on. ‘I’ve got visitors.’

‘Oh.’

‘You don’t mind, do you?’

‘No.’

‘I’ll probably see you on Saturday at your meeting, then we can talk.’

‘All right.’

She felt thwarted, pushed away. She didn’t know what she’d expected but this stiff reception was odd. She might not see him as regularly as she would wish, but when she did, he was always all over her. This was quite different.

‘I’m sorry, Eveline, I really can’t …’

Someone was coming down the stairs, unseen as yet, but the tread was light and quick. A young, feminine voice called, ‘Who is it, darling?’

He turned as if stung. ‘Go back up! I’ll be there in a minute!’

Instinctively glancing upward, for a fraction of a second Eveline glimpsed just a flutter of long fair hair falling over part of a slender, bare arm and shoulder before their owner hastily withdrew. Not even her face could be seen.

Larry turned back to her with a ready grin. ‘My cousin,’ he said, then became urgent. ‘Look, you must go.’ He leaned quickly towards her, planting a light kiss on her cheek. ‘I’ll try and see you on Saturday.’

Before she could reply, she was ushered out of the door, having it closed on her.

For a moment she stood there, still with the sensation of those fleeting lips on her cheek. Her heart seemed to have forgotten to beat, making her feel faintly sick. His cousin. The one he introduced her to did have fair hair but not as fair as that she had glimpsed. It could have been another cousin, but that word,
darling
, purred this early in the morning, the slender arm, the naked shoulder not even displaying a wrap, and the long flowing hair, suggested a quite different explanation.

Slowly she turned and moved off, her thoughts in turmoil with no real answer, or rather, not one she could bring herself to face.

Last night, worn out by the ordeal of prison, she had slept like a top. Tonight she lay awake into the small hours, sick of heart, one minute telling herself she was being silly reading something sinister into what might have been totally innocent, the next seeing the signs she did not want to acknowledge.

Her pillow wet, she finally fell into a fitful sleep in which she was walking from the prison to warm sunshine and a group of women waiting to welcome her. But among them she could see her parents, their faces stern and unyielding. A rubber tube was sliding into her mouth even though she clenched her teeth, a tube so immense that her mouth became a cavern, then suddenly so narrow as to become an edge, an immeasurably thin, hard edge that seemed to be cutting right through her cheeks. Then abruptly it grew huge again, her mouth opening wider, wider. She could hear Larry’s voice calling, ‘Ev – wake up! Wake up!’ and felt long fair hair waving in her face.

Her eyelids shot open. Gran was standing over her, one hand holding her nightdress tightly to her throat as she shook Eveline’s shoulder with the other. ‘Girl, you’re ’aving a bad dream. I ’eard you call out.’

The reality of the dream had already fled yet she knew that for years to come this same nightmare would be waiting in the wings of the night’s unguarded small hours; what had been done to her in prison wouldn’t leave her so easily. This she knew as she gazed up at her grandmother.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said and saw the woman smile understandingly.

Her parents’ attitude hadn’t changed. These past two weeks Eveline had done her best to bury the hatchet but though some of the initial animosity had faded, Dad was still ignoring her, Mum still maintaining it was better to keep out of his way ‘You’ll just have to stay ’ere,’ her grandmother said.

Unlike the smaller flats hers at the end of the block had two bedrooms as well as parlour and kitchen. Grandad, when he’d had the shop, let the rooms above it and his family lived here opposite. When he died, Gran had refused a smaller letting, and was able to continue with the larger rent. ‘Never could abide being cramped up,’ she said, despite having one bedroom sitting empty.

Eveline was here now, with her clothes and her trinkets – an apt enough announcement to her parents that as long as Gran didn’t mind this was where she would be staying for the foreseeable future. But secretly she missed her family, the hubbub, sharing a bed with her sister May, their sleepy chats, exchanging the day’s events. Even after two weeks it still felt strange sleeping alone. The unused bedroom smelled damp and, even with a September sun streaming in, felt cold.

She tried to carry on as normal, going to her Saturday meetings where she was now looked up to by newer recruits since her imprisonment. Last week she had even been asked to give a small talk on her views as a first-time prisoner – a bit nerve-racking but something to be proud of.

One thing spoiling it was Connie’s absence these last two meetings. Eveline hoped she hadn’t given up, after being shown up before the others in court by her father paying her fine. She had written to Connie but had had no response.

Gran said, ‘She needs to feel someone’s on her side. She’d probably like to go but you don’t know what her people ’ave said to her to stop her. Keep writing. She’d like to know she’s still got a friend she can turn to.’

It was nice having Gran to talk to. She would listen and advise where Mum would shrug things off, being too busy looking after her family and the shop. But it was a relief to have the suffragette thing out in the open at last, even though she’d been given the sack for being absent while in prison along with having a police record now, another weight for her father’s fallen pride to bear.

She’d found another job, and just as well – her old office manager, Mr Prentice, had started to become a little too handy with his paws, laying them on her shoulders when leaning over to check her figures, letting them linger despite her trying to shrug them off, telling her she was as pretty as she was intelligent and how seldom the two went together, saying he’d help her get promotion – if she was interested, and if she was a good girl … the rest left unsaid, he would allow himself a meaningful tilt of his balding head. She knew what he was after and being sacked had got her away from him before it led to a nasty situation.

She was still doing office work; it was not so grand as a factory office, just a back room in a small clothing factory. Here she worked as the figures clerk with a girl who typed all the letters. The money wasn’t good but Gran took less towards her keep than Mum had. Of course Gran had only herself whereas Mum had a family.

She was far more approachable than Mum, and Eveline felt able to open her heart to her on things, telling her all about the forced feeding, at which she saw the downy face tighten. She could never have told Mum about it and certainly never have confided in her things of a more personal nature, such as what was vaguely perplexing her this evening.

Sitting in the parlour, Gran knitting, she was reading a library book, or at least trying to. Her mind kept flitting to Larry who despite his promise had not been in touch with her. Each time she thought of him she felt angry, hurt, let down, yet still she hoped and grew angry with herself for hoping. But how had he laid aside what had gone on between them? She tried hard to convince herself that he must still love her, though she’d never go there uninvited ever again. But her heart was telling her it was all over and her heart was breaking.

At the library earlier, she had bumped into Bert Adams, and although he was good-looking in a robust sort of way, she again upset herself by instantly comparing him with Larry: the rough accent, the stall-bought suit against Larry’s smart, expensive clothes and sophisticated, elegant manner. But it wasn’t about Bert Adams or Larry that she needed her grandmother’s advice but something more personal which was baffling her. She kept telling herself it could be quite trivial and not that she must be ill. Gran would know.

Her grandmother sighed and folding her knitting began putting it in its cloth bag, announcing it was time they both went off to seek their beauty sleep. Eveline quickly closed her book. ‘Gran, can I ask you something?’

‘Anything, love.’

‘It’s about me. I’m not sure but I think I could be ill or something.’

Quickly she explained what she would never have been able to speak to her mother about. Gran’s response was immediate and direct.

‘Lots of young girls don’t see their monthlies regular for the first few years. Some never do all their lives.’

‘But mine’s always been as regular as clockwork. It started when I was fourteen. That was four years ago and it’s always happened practically to the day. This should have happened four days ago, but it hasn’t and I’m worried I might be ill.’

‘Of course there can be that one time,’ Gran said. Eveline saw her looking at her oddly. She caught a hardly discernible shake of the head as though Gran had been thinking of something but had immediately brushed the thought away.

‘It’s probably shock from what you went through in that prison,’ she went on. ‘You’ll likely see by tomorrow or the next day, I shouldn’t wonder. A week’s delay now and then ain’t overlong. Unless …’ There came a small hesitation and that earlier look again touched her face. ‘You don’t seem to see much of that young man you was going out with. It wouldn’t be you and … No.’ She recovered with a shake of her head. ‘No, it’s probably the reaction from being in that prison place.’

But Eveline was ahead of her. Colouring, she turning quickly away, hoping the blush hadn’t been noticed. If it had, Gran gave no sign as Eveline leapt up, dropping her book down on the chair seat, her head lowered as if making sure it was properly closed.