Miss Purdy's Class
Annie Murray
Miss Purdy’s Class
PAN BOOKS
Boxing Day, 1935
The bottle smashed through the window and shattered on the blue bricks of the yard.
‘You filthy stinking whore!’
His father flung the door open so that the children’s screams echoed round the yard. He lurched outside. Joey stood dry-eyed, paralysed in the one downstairs room.
There had been plenty of fights. He knew it was different this time.
‘I’m not stopping ’ere one bleeding minute more!’ Wally Phillips stood out in the yard, yelling back at the house. He was a thin, stooped man. ‘I’ve had all a man can take. Four bleedin’ whelps to feed and clothe, and that brat in your belly ain’t even mine! I’ve put up with your boozing and your carrying on . . . I ain’t slaving myself to the bone for you no more . . .’ He stumbled backwards and cursed, just managing to regain his balance. ‘You’re in here with your legs spread for any tomcat who calls at the door . . . You’re filth, Dora – there’s no helping you.’
The children’s crying did not abate. Joey froze somewhere deep inside. His father was circling the yard.
‘That’s right!’ Wally yelled. ‘You all listening, all of you? Call yourselves neighbours? What’ve you ever done for us, eh? Couldn’t stop my wife being a fuckin’ whore, could you? Lying here pouring my wages down her throat . . . What did I do, eh? Loved ’er, I did. In the beginning . . .’ He lowered his voice. ‘Christ, I did.’
For a moment he stood swaying, then he raised his fist and punched at the air so hard he almost fell over. He turned to go.
‘Dad!’ Joey fought to unlock his muscles. He ran outside, seeing his father striding towards the entry bare-headed, shoulders sagging in his threadbare coat. The boy tore after him.
‘Dad – don’t!’ A great sob forced up inside him, as though his chest was ripping apart.
Wally pushed him off with the force of a drowning man. ‘Don’t, son. I can’t. Just can’t. Look after your mother, Joey. You’ll have to be a man now. I can’t live with it no more.’
Joey reeled back, clutching at the sill, his boots crunching on the broken glass. ‘Dad!’ It was a weak, childish cry now, of despair.
Through the broken window came the screaming of his brother and sisters, and his mother’s coughing, on and on, from where she crouched on the bed they’d moved downstairs for her. She was in her twenties, her pale hair unkempt and straggling round her face. She coughed into scraps of rag which came away streaked with blood. Joey didn’t turn to look at her or his howling brother and sisters. He had eyes only for the dark figure hurrying away from them down the entry. A moment later, his father turned the corner and was gone.
‘You’ll never make a wife if you carry on like this before you’ve even reached the altar!’
Her mother’s bitter words propelled Gwen upstairs to the landing, where she stood in the darkness, hands clutching at fistfuls of her festive red skirt, her eyes squeezed shut. She could hardly believe herself! She had done the one thing the Purdy family never, ever did: she had made a scene. How had her inner feelings suddenly popped out like that in front of everyone? Their faces – how awful! Yet she could feel laughter threatening to erupt too. She’d
enjoyed
shocking them!
‘However am I going to tell Edwin’s parents? You’re abandoning him on the eve of your wedding – heaven knows what the shock might do to an invalid like his mother!’
This was too much for Gwen. She stormed back to the top of the stairs.
‘What are you
talking
about, Mummy? You’re being completely ridiculous – I’m not getting married for eight months! I’ve taken the job for two terms, that’s all. Until the end of the summer and then I’m coming home to marry Edwin. If it’s too ghastly I can always throw in the towel. Whatever is the matter with that?’
‘But
Birmingham
, darling!’ Gwen’s mother stood beneath the streamers criss-crossing the hall. Though colourful, they sagged joylessly. ‘Gwen, what has come over you? You’ve taken this job without a by your leave and the school sounds . . .’ Ruth Purdy gave a shudder, ‘. . . well, an absolute
disgrace
. There’s no telling what kind of rough people you’ll be dealing with! And there’ll be no time to plan the wedding properly. You’re being very selfish. You are my only daughter . . .’ Her mother’s voice was wheedling now. ‘Your father thinks it’s quite appalling.’
‘Does he? Since when has Daddy ever cared what I do?’ When she had made her announcement, carefully leaving it until after Christmas Day, her father had sat in the corner with his newspaper, opting out of family life as usual. His was the only unscandalized face apart from the baby’s.
‘Of course he cares.’ Her mother lowered her voice to hiss up at Gwen. ‘Don’t be so ridiculous.’
Gwen clenched her fists so that her nails dug into her palms. ‘Mummy, Daddy wouldn’t notice if I did the dance of the seven veils in the middle of the parlour.’
‘Don’t be vulgar . . .’
But Gwen could not contain herself. She could not keep the bitterness from her voice. ‘He’s only ever wanted the boys! In fact, let’s face it, he wanted Johnny to hand the pharmacy on to. Poor old Crispin hardly gets a look in either! All Daddy requires from me is that I keep out of his way and toe the line. Mummy – I am going to do this job in Birmingham. It’s not for long, and whether Edwin likes it or not is not the point. I’m not a vicar’s wife yet. I shall have the rest of my life to fall in with Edwin’s plans. And we
shall
sort out the wedding, but it doesn’t take eight months’ continuous labour. I’m sorry, I’ve made up my mind. You’re not going to change it.’
Ruth Purdy pushed her hands down into the pockets of her long cardigan in extreme agitation. She was a thin, faded version of her curvaceous daughter and was always terrified of what other people would think. And until now her daughter had been the sweet, biddable teacher at the local school of whom everyone thought so highly.
‘You’re a complete fool, is all I can say. You’ve caught a good man with a respectable profession, you’re teaching at one of the best schools in Worcester and now you want to go and live in a slum!’ She seemed ready to explode with anger.
‘Well, maybe I’m just what they need,’ Gwen retorted. ‘I don’t expect they get many good teachers there. I’ll be able to teach them all a thing or two!’
‘Oh really, there’s no talking to you.’ Ruth began to walk away. ‘You’ll live to regret it – and don’t be surprised if Edwin doesn’t think again about who he’s marrying. He’s not going to want a wife who just takes off without any warning. He’s quite a catch, don’t forget. There are plenty of others who’d jump at him, and it’d serve you right!’ She stalked back to the sitting room, closing the door hard.
Gwen put her hands over her face, opened her mouth and let out a silent scream which came out as a prolonged hiss of breath. She sank down on the top step.
Whatever happens
, she vowed,
I’m going. She’s not going to stop me
.
They’d all be there by the fire – her mother, two brothers and Johnny’s wife, Isabel. They had little James, and already another on the way. And now she’d broken her news they’d all be discussing her in that sober, let’s not really say what we’re thinking, oh-dear-what-a-shame sort of way, pretending that her mother’s cry of horror and her outburst at Gwen had not really happened, like a bad smell in the room which everyone would ignore out of politeness. Especially her sister-in-law, ‘dutiful, beautiful Isabel’, as Gwen secretly called her. She was dark-haired and endlessly serene like the Mona Lisa and she was another reason Gwen wanted to scream.
Gwen crept into her room and sat on the bed looking out at the apple tree. On the bedside table was a small picture in a frame. She picked it up, smiling ruefully. She really ought to have a picture of Edwin by her bed, with his thick blond hair combed back and his ever-optimistic smile. Edwin looked almost permanently like someone who’d just enjoyed a good cricket match. Instead she was looking at a picture of Amy Johnson, her heroine. She thought Amelia Earhart was wonderful too, though her being American made her seem more distant. Amy was her favourite. Gwen had clippings about all her famous flights: to Australia in her Gypsy Moth in 1930, then later to Japan, Cape Town, the USA. This was her favourite picture. It showed Amy in her flying helmet, goggles perched on her forehead, wearing a leather flying jacket, the high astrakhan collar turned up round her chin. Her strong face looked out from the picture, up towards the sky, as if she was seeing all the places she would soar away to. Gwen stared longingly. How must it feel to fly a plane by yourself? To climb into the cockpit and take off, away from everyone, knowing your life was in your hands alone?
She put the picture down and sighed. Lately she had felt so odd, thoughts and impulses bubbling up in her that she’d never known before. And the way she’d spoken to Mummy! Gwen wasn’t used to disapproval. She’d always tried to be good. She thought of Edwin: tall, good-looking Edwin, who was always so sure he knew right from wrong.
My fiancé,
she thought. Dear old Edwin, so good and solid. Her rescuer. She just needed to get this great restlessness out of her system, then she could settle down and marry him.
She sat staring out of the window as the winter sky darkened smokily outside.
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