Miss Purdy's Class (28 page)

‘I should have gone, I know, but I can’t face it. Alice has no idea where he is. I suppose she just thinks he ran off and left us. I don’t want her to know her own father was a liar and a cheat. A fraud. I was going to do it without him – show him I didn’t need him. But the truth is . . .’ Louise Wilson began sobbing then, her body shaking, and Gwen held her hands tightly, not sure what else to do. For a time the woman was unable to speak.

‘What a terrible time you’ve had,’ Gwen said.

‘I can’t . . .’ Louise Wilson gulped, trying to speak. ‘I . . . I never go out. I’m frightened. I don’t know how to live any more, and poor Alice has to go and do all the shopping and . . . I’m so useless. We’ve almost no money left now and I just don’t know what I’m going to do!’ She broke down completely then. ‘We’re going to starve if I don’t pull myself together! It’s bad enough that Alice has to live here in poverty with all these rough children. She looks like a . . . a
slum
child now – she’s even starting to talk like one! Look at how we live – I can’t even take care of her properly! I don’t know how to and I’ve no one to turn to. I’m so alone and sometimes I feel as if I’m losing my wits!’

‘Oh dear!’ Gwen said, helplessly. While she was sorry for Mrs Wilson, upset by her distress and the sight of this miserable, spartan house, she also felt stung by her dismissal of all the other children in this snobbish way. Dismissing Lucy Fernandez as nothing but a ‘slum child’, if you please! But she kept these thoughts to herself. After all, wasn’t that just how she used to think when she had first arrived? ‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Wilson. Is there anything I can do to help?’

Louise Wilson shook her head. ‘I don’t see what anyone can do. What’s going to become of us both?’

‘Well,’ Gwen said hesitantly, ‘I suppose you’ll have to go out and find some work.’

The woman looked at her in horror. ‘Work – what, round here? I’d have to go out and mix with all sorts of people and what work is there round here? In some filthy, dreadful factory with goodness knows who!’

‘Well – or a shop, perhaps? Surely that’s better than the pair of you starving?’

Gwen began to feel a little irritated. She thought about Theresa Fernandez and all she had been through. Theresa had certainly worked in factories when she came to Birmingham and it hadn’t been what she was used to either.

Mrs Wilson stared dismally ahead of her. ‘Bernard always used to say, “My wife will never need to work, you can be quite sure of that.”’ She gave a bitter laugh. ‘And now look at me.’

‘But I suppose . . .’ Gwen felt out of order giving advice to a woman older than herself, but it was common sense surely, wasn’t it? ‘. . . that really is the only thing you can do, isn’t it?’

Twenty-Four

‘So I offered to buy Alice some spectacles myself,’ Gwen said. ‘After all, the woman doesn’t seem to have two pennies to rub together, and poor Alice can barely see a hand’s width in front of her!’

She and Daniel were walking arm in arm in Light-woods Park. They reached the bandstand and turned to sit perched on the edge of it. It was a Saturday, grey and muggy, but Gwen couldn’t have cared less what the weather was like.

‘Well, I should say that was a very kind thing to do.’ He looked into her eyes. She felt his arm move round her back and she leaned nearer to him. As ever, being anywhere near to Daniel filled her with excitement, and a sense of being fully alive. And she was close to Daniel rather often now when he was at home. Sometimes he disappeared for days at a time – to Wales or to meetings in London – and she never knew when he would be back. When he was away she felt abandoned, but when he was here, he pursued her with an eagerness that made her breathless. It was as if she could not see round him. He blocked out the sight of anything else, of Edwin or her life before. A letter had arrived from Edwin that morning and she had seen his neat, careful writing on the envelope with a surge of guilt. But her feelings for Daniel were something with which she could not argue.

As they walked across the park, Daniel had been telling her about the meeting he had been to the night before, in a hall in Smethwick. He was excited. There had been much talk about Spain and how the revolutionaries were standing up to the landowners and the Church.

‘They’re turning the farms into collectives like in Russia. The revolution is starting to take hold there and we’ll bring it about here – I know it!’ Feeling coursed through him like a ripple of muscle and he gripped her arm more tightly. Suddenly, though, he turned abruptly, looking across the park.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Just checking. You never know if someone’s following you.’

Gwen burst out laughing. ‘
Following
you! Why on earth would they want to do that?’

Daniel whipped round, angrily. ‘You don’t understand. We’re seen as enemies, party members. Enemies of the state. They want to keep an eye on what we’re doing.’

She stared back at him. Was he exaggerating? It seemed both awesome and frightening. If Communism was so good, why were they worried about it?

‘You should come to the meetings, Gwen
fach
.’ His anger was soon gone. ‘Come and join the revolution and make it happen. We need everyone – not just the poor and oppressed. We’re all workers and we all need to join the struggle.’ He looked deeply into her eyes. ‘Come with me. Come and join us.’

At that moment Gwen felt she would go with him anywhere, but she felt very inadequate. ‘The trouble is, I don’t know anything about politics.’

Daniel’s dark eyes seemed to drill through her. ‘But you know about justice and about right. It’s deep in you – I’ve seen it. You believe that the poor should have a say in their own lives, don’t you? That they should be able to take control of the work they do instead of leaving it in the hands of capitalist owners who rake off all the profits?’

She nodded. Yes, this sounded reasonable and right and true. She tried not to hear Edwin’s voice in her head telling her not to tangle with this. Edwin did not believe that women needed to involve themselves in any sort of politics, which he saw as messy and fundamentally vulgar – let alone this sort of politics.

Daniel led her to the bandstand then, and they sat leaning close together.

‘I suppose I should come,’ she said. ‘I’ve never heard you speak to a meeting.’

‘Oh, I don’t do all that much speaking. There are plenty of others with things to say. And a lot to organize. Getting the word out, communicating with the workers – there’s always so much to do and we always need more people to help. But everyone who works for the party considers it an honour to further the revolution.’

Gwen immediately felt humbled that she was privileged to be asked to join something so momentous. It was a feeling she often had with Daniel when he talked about Russia and Spain, about Rosa Luxemburg organizing the party in Germany and being shot, about revolutionaries all over Europe who were drawn together by the class struggle for justice and equality. She felt for the first time in her life as if she were being asked to be part of something important. And what she had seen in Birmingham, poverty and squalor among working people such as she had never known about before, had brought the injustices right before her eyes and into her heart. She wasn’t sure how any of this fitted together or what should be done about it: she just knew it was wrong. But Daniel seemed to know and she wanted to learn from him. She wanted to be with him every possible moment.

‘I will come with you,’ she told him. ‘I want to understand.’

His arms squeezed her tightly. ‘My lovely Gwen. My comrade.’

At that moment a black, springy dog bounded across the park towards them and sniffed round their knees. It was so full of life, it made them both laugh.

‘Go on, boy – off you go!’ Daniel said stroking its head. The dog took off again. It made Gwen think of Edwin’s father’s dog. A terrible stab of guilt went through her, with the thought:
How can I marry Edwin after this
?

Daniel stroked her back and she felt him looking at her. She knew that as soon as she looked into his dark, challenging eyes, she could only surrender to him, the effect he had on her was so overwhelming. She gazed across the park from under the brim of her hat.

‘Gwen.’ His deep voice twisted right through her. ‘Look at me, girl.’

Turning her head, she looked into his eyes and for a moment they sat quite still, caught in each other’s gaze.

He stroked her cheek. ‘You’re so lovely.’

Once again, they were reaching for each other, and she held him close. There was nowhere else she wanted to be. She had never told Daniel that she was engaged to be married. Her ring, with its tiny sapphires, was still tucked into its little silk-lined box.

Alice Wilson came and stood shyly by Gwen’s desk. She was wearing the spectacles Gwen had collected for her the day before.

‘I can see leaves!’ she reported with a huge smile. ‘And . . .’ She looked wonderingly round the classroom. ‘. . . everything on the blackboard, and faces and . . . and
ants
outside!’

Gwen laughed, delighted.

‘This is from my mother,’ Alice said, suddenly sober. She produced a piece of folded paper from her pocket.

‘Thank you, Alice. You go to your seat now,’ Gwen said.

‘Dear Miss Purdy,’ the note read in a neat hand. ‘I am very grateful for the help you have given to Alice in getting her spectacles. It was very kind of you. Sincerely, Louise Wilson.’

Gwen frowned at the stiff little note. She felt very sorry for Mrs Wilson. She seemed trapped as much by her pride as her sudden poverty.

Alice had been eager as anything in class ever since she could see. And they had offered her a place dancing in the May celebrations, but she said she didn’t want to. On a cool but bright day the children celebrated the crowning of the May Queen, a sweet-faced little girl in Form Five who was the envy of most of the other girls. Some of them danced round the Maypole in white dresses. Noticing Alice watching the dance with Lucy Fernandez beside her, Gwen saw that this was obviously why she had refused to join in. If Lucy couldn’t dance, obviously Alice wasn’t going to either.

Millie’s wedding was to be the second weekend in May, and Gwen knew she would have to give notice to Ariadne that she would be leaving Soho Road. This was not nearly as straightforward as she had hoped. She tackled Ariadne one evening after the three of them had downed an unusual version of Lancashire hotpot, topped with slices of turnip instead of potatoes. Being undercooked, they had the consistency of a damp cardboard carton.

‘Could I have a word with you, Mrs Black?’ They were standing in the dark hall. Harold Purvis passed them and went up the stairs, belching gently to himself.

‘Ariadne,
please
. Is it something of a private nature?’ She drew Gwen into the front parlour, which was cold and full of dark, heavy furniture. Ariadne stood waiting with a pained expression as if preparing for bad news. Her lips were painted a hard, dark red.

‘I’m afraid I shall be needing to move on,’ Gwen said, wondering why she felt so frightened about this encounter. After all, she had every right to move to different lodgings if she wanted to. It was just that Ariadne always seemed to take everything so personally. ‘I shall be moving out at the end of the month.’

‘Oh dear!’ Ariadne’s face became such a mask of dismay that Gwen immediately felt horribly guilty. ‘Oh no! How very upsetting!’ Ariadne clasped her hand over her heart. ‘And there was I thinking my little abode here was a satisfactory lodging for a respectable young woman – and things seemed, just for once, to have settled into a harmonious situation. We’ve all been so happy here, you and I and Mr Purvis, haven’t we?’

‘Er – yes, haven’t we!’ Gwen agreed fervently. ‘Only it’s to do with a friend of mine.’ She explained about Millie and her need for a lodger and how it seemed the only thing to do. Ariadne seemed a little appeased.

‘Well, as long as it’s nothing I’ve done to offend you. Nothing you’ve found lacking here . . . My George would have been so disappointed in me if he thought I hadn’t provided adequately . . .’

‘No, not in the least! Staying here has been . . .’ No words seemed adequate. ‘Well – it’s been a home from home.’

This seemed to satisfy Ariadne, and all was well. However, the next day she announced to Harold Purvis at the breakfast table that Gwen was leaving. Harold took the news silently, though Gwen felt him eyeing her aggressively across the table. That evening Ariadne did not eat with them. She carried in the food – rissoles and blancmange – in silence, with a tragic face, and sat in an easy chair by the fire as they ate, shrouded in clouds of cigarette smoke. Harold was smirking in a way which made Gwen long to kick him, and the silence was too heavy to break.

‘Thank you, Ariadne,’ Gwen said as they left the table after this painful meal.

Ariadne did not even turn her head.

‘What on earth is the matter with her?’ Gwen demanded of Harold on the upstairs landing. She knew it was something to do with him from his snide, smug expression.

Harold stood with his hands pushed in his pockets. ‘Told her I’ll be moving on.’

‘You as well!
Why?
’

Harold leaned closer and Gwen flinched. ‘D’you think I want
that
?’ His mouth contorted with disgust. ‘Old bag of bones pawing at me all the time. When it’s you I really want . . .’ He reached out to her and Gwen stepped backwards.

‘Please don’t touch me, Mr Purvis. You know I don’t like it.’

Harold smirked. ‘You might if you gave it a chance.’

Ignoring him, she went back downstairs, to find Ariadne still hunched by the fire. She looked up at Gwen with tragic eyes, which immediately filled with tears.

‘I gather Mr Purvis is leaving too,’ Gwen said gently. She pulled up a chair from the table to sit beside her.

Ariadne nodded, her lips trembling. She had forgotten to put any more lipstick on and her lips were dull and puckered.

‘It’s cruel,’ she sobbed. ‘Him going and leaving me like this. And you – you don’t need him. I
love
him. I thought he was mine – my Harold! I thought he cared for me and would stay with me. And now he’s going away, casting me off like an old piece of clothing!’