Secrets to Keep (18 page)

As Aidy made her way to her table, her eyes darted this way and that. Thankfully there was no sign of Imelda. Hopefully she had got away with her lateness.

Colleen accosted her as soon as she slid into her seat, simultaneously pressing the button to start up her machine and grabbing the garment she had just finished making up before the dinner-time hooter had sounded.

‘Where yer been, Aidy?’ her friend demanded.

‘It’s a long story, Col. I’ll fill you in later. I need to press on.’

So intent on getting on with her work was she, Aidy didn’t notice Colleen was trying to tell her something. Quickly checking the cotton was threaded through her machine correctly, she placed the neckline of the dress under the needle foot, pinned a collar in place, pressed her foot down on the pedal and began to attach the collar to the dress. Over the drone
of her machine and the forty-nine others, Aidy realised Colleen was shouting at her. Stopping what she was doing, she flashed an irritated look at her, snapping, ‘I hope it’s urgent, Colleen. You know I’ve a lot of catching up to do.’

‘It’s more than urgent, Aidy, it’s critical. Hardwick wants to see you in her office. She told me to tell you you’re to report there immediately you show up.’

Aidy’s face paled. ‘She knows I’m late back?’

‘“Late back” is an understatement, Aidy. You’ve been missing half the afternoon. She’s been here several times, asking where you were. I tried to cover up for you, told her the first time you’d gone to the privy, the second you’d had to go again ’cos you’d got a stomach upset, but the third time she wasn’t wearing it. Told me to send you to see her if you did happen to show your face this afternoon. You’d better go.’

Imelda Hardwick’s office was no bigger than a broom cupboard. She was sitting on an uncomfortable wooden chair at a small cluttered desk, her face wearing a pensive frown as she concentrated on the paperwork she was looking through. When a highly worried Aidy tapped on her open door, announcing her presence, Imelda looked up at her blankly for a moment before she quickly turned over the sheet she was looking at and said sardonically, ‘Oh, so you
have decided after all to grace us with your presence?’

Aidy blurted, ‘I’m so sorry I was late back this afternoon, Mrs Hardwick, but you see …’

Imelda held up a warning hand to stop her. ‘You’ve been absent without permission. That on its own is a sackable offence, but on top of your poor performance lately … well, I have no choice but to dismiss you.’

Aidy froze. She couldn’t lose her job. How was she going to support her family? A vision of the workhouse reared up before her and she cried out, ‘Oh, please, please, Mrs Hardwick, give me another chance. Once you’ve heard my reason for being late back …’

Imelda cut in, ‘You’re not dead, Aidy, so there’s no excuse for you not being at your bench. If I am seen to let you get away with flouting company rules, the other women will be expecting the same treatment. Worse than that even, if my bosses find out I’m not doing my job properly, I could lose it.’ Especially in light of what is going on, she thought. She might have a soft spot for Aidy but not at the expense of her own job. ‘Your wages and cards have been made up for you, ready to collect on your way out.’

Colleen was mortified when Aidy returned to her machine to collect her personal belongings. She’d
thought that her friend and work colleague was in for a good dressing down, but the sack! Not wanting to face the same situation if she was caught slacking, she hurriedly assured Aidy she would pass on her goodbyes to the rest of her colleagues, Aidy herself being too upset and humiliated due the circumstances. They promised they would get together as often as time allowed them to, but both knew that as matters stood that was a tall order.

Aidy walked off the factory floor carrying her handbag, her face stricken with worry. An uncertain future faced her and her family with no wage coming in. She was acutely conscious that many of the other workers were looking at her with understanding and pity.

She needed to find a replacement job as soon as possible, though she knew the odds were stacked against her in the current work climate. She wasn’t expected home for about another hour, so decided to use that time checking shop window cards and vacancies posted outside factories in the vicinity, praying that a firm had a job she was capable of doing.

It proved to be a fruitless search. No vacancies for skilled machinists were posted on any of the factory notice boards, and the shop jobs she saw did not pay a wage anywhere near what she needed to keep a roof over her family’s head and them all fed.

When Aidy arrived home she found Marion huddled under the blanket beside Bertha on the sofa. Bertha herself, although still dopey from the effects of shock and the morphine she had taken earlier, was struggling to listen to a story Marion was reading to her out of a tattered children’s book. George and a friend were on the rug in front of the range, swapping cigarette cards. There was no sign of Betty. Worried about her serious predicament and what could happen to them all if she didn’t resolve it, despite herself, Aidy took her frustration out on George and Marion.

‘Couldn’t either of you have set the table for dinner?’ she barked at them. She then told George’s friend, ‘You’d better get off home before your mother comes looking for you.’ At her tone of voice the boy grabbed his cards and scarpered out like the devil was on his tail. Then she ordered George, ‘Clear those cards away and go and fill the water jug.’ He didn’t need another telling. She turned to address Marion next, ‘Stop mithering Gran. Can’t you see she’s not well? Go and find something useful to do.’

Tears filled Marion’s eyes. ‘But I was only …’

‘I don’t care what you were
only
doing. I said, get off the sofa and leave Gran in peace! You can set the table.’ She had a headache building at the thought of her siblings getting under her feet while she was trying to get the meal. ‘Look, I’ll collect the water
and set the table, you both just go out and play, but make sure you’re back in an hour and that you bring Betty with you. Go on then,’ Aidy commanded them.

During this time Bertha had been staring at her fixedly. She wasn’t that befuddled she did not know that something was seriously wrong with her granddaughter.

Aidy then snapped at her, ‘Do you need anything before I make a start on the dinner?’

‘Yes, I do, love. I need to know what’s got your goat. Summat has. You’ve snapped at us all like a mad dog at a bone.’ She eyed her granddaughter shrewdly. ‘I guess yer boss wasn’t happy you were late back to work?’

Despite not wanting to tell Bertha what had transpired so as not to worry her, it wasn’t right to lie to her. ‘No, she wasn’t happy, Gran. Not happy at all.’ Giving a deep sigh, Aidy went over to the armchair and sank down into it, clasping her hands in her lap. Head bowed, she said tremulously, ‘I got the sack.’

Bertha froze. She had suspected that whatever it was that was bothering Aidy was serious. But … given the sack?

Aidy could see that her grandmother was feeling guilty for the part she had played in bringing this about. ‘This is not your fault, Gran. I shouldn’t have
fallen asleep. You were just trying to wake me. It’s me who should feel guilty. You’ve suffered the agony of breaking your leg again and are facing another seven weeks on the sofa.’

Bertha pursed her lips, her eyes hardening. ‘If anyone is to blame it’s Pat Nelson for attacking me in the first place,’ she snarled. She was well aware of the economic situation in the country and that jobs were getting scarcer by the day, but Aidy needed encouragement, not despondency. In an optimistic tone she said, ‘Well, you’ll get snapped up by another firm, with your skills.’

Aidy sighed. ‘Maybe I would have a while back, Gran, but not for the foreseeable future, the way things are. I did a quick tour round several of the local factories and none was offering any vacancies for machinists. The jobs in the shop windows are all for cleaners or shop assistants, not offering a wage we could mange on.’

Still determined to offer hope, not hopelessness, Bertha said, ‘There’s a job somewhere with your name on it, love.’

Aidy flashed her a wan smile. ‘I hope so, Gran. But what’s worrying me is how long it’s going to take me to find it.’ She gave another deep sigh. ‘Look, it’s bad enough for me knowing you know about this, but I don’t want the kids to get wind and them be worried too.’

Neither Aidy nor Bertha heard the back door open and someone come in to stand listening to them through the crack in the kitchen door. Or the sound of footsteps softly retreating.

‘Of course I won’t breathe a word to them,’ Bertha assured her.

A knock sounded on the back door then. Aidy’s shoulders sagged. She was in no mood for visitors tonight. ‘Are you expecting anyone?’ she asked Bertha. Her gran shook her head. ‘Unless it’s someone wanting one of me potions.’ Due to her incapacity, her supply of remedies was just about depleted, so it wasn’t likely she could satisfy the needs of whoever was calling.

The knock came again, more demanding this time.

Aidy sighed. ‘Whoever it is isn’t going to give up are they? I’ll peep round the kitchen curtain, see who it is before I answer it.’

In the kitchen she secreted herself to one side of the sink, tweaked the faded curtain aside and strained her neck in an effort to see who their caller was. Whoever it was they were standing too close to the door for her to make them out but it was a man, that much she could tell. Then he stepped back and she had a full view of him. It was Arch.

She let the curtain fall back into place in case he spotted her. Why was he here? Had he come to beg her to give their marriage another go? Had he heard
she’d lost her job and come to gloat? But then, did it even matter to her what he had come for? She was not yet ready for another face to face with him, still smarting from their last encounter. But was it fair of her to ignore him, not afford him even the courtesy of listening to what he had to say? She heard the clunk of his boots on the cobbles then, the back gate squeak its opening and closing. He had saved her the decision.

Returning to her seat in the armchair, she told her grandmother, ‘Whoever it was had gone.’ Outwardly she appeared calm and composed but inwardly her heart was breaking, her insides churning, her feelings divided. She still loved Arch, but was mourning the loss of the man she had thought her husband to be. The luxury of having time to come to terms with all this was not to be afforded her. She had people she loved beyond measure reliant on her to protect them. She had promised her dead mother she would, and had every intention of honouring that promise to the best of her ability.

Taking a deep breath, she announced to Bertha, ‘When the kids are in bed I’m going to work out how much to put aside for the rent and for coal … milk … gas. Well, if it comes to it, we can do without light, make do with candles. And what’s left … well, we’ll have to be very careful with until I get set on again. Thank goodness we don’t owe anybody
anything.’ Then a thought struck her. ‘Oh, yes, we do. I’d forgotten about the Doc’s bill.’

Bertha mused, ‘Time was a pie or a cake or a bit of cleaning and washing would have done that. But I suppose the new chap has to pay his bills in cash, the same as us. I’ve a few shillin’ in me remedy money jar, which might just about cover it.’

Aidy prayed it would or they’d just have to hope they didn’t have any need of his medical assistance for a long time to come.

‘J
ust let me get this clear, Mrs Kilner. Starting at six-thirty every morning, you’re expecting your domestic to clean out and fire up the boiler for the hot water. Then, after she’s seen to the breakfast and cleared away, to clean and polish every room in the house thoroughly, even the three guest bedrooms, whether they’re being used or not. Plus a weekly wash of all the windows on the inside, weekly change of all the bedding, and fresh towels in the bathrooms daily. She must tackle the washing and ironing and any mending on a daily basis, prepare lunch for yourself, then prepare and cook an evening meal for when your husband comes home. She must also provide a high tea of sandwiches and cakes for your afternoon visitors and several ladies’ groups when it’s your turn to entertain them, see to all the grocery and domestic supplies ordering, weekly black-lead all the grates, daily clean and polish all the boots and shoes. And
in what spare time she’s got, she’s to help you with any other jobs you may have for her to do …

‘She finishes in the evening when she’s cleared away the meal. Oh, and she’s to make herself further available on the evenings when you’re having a dinner party, which you do regularly, to help prepare, cook and serve the food, and clean up afterwards. Six and a half days a week, half-day off on Wednesday.’

Marjorie Kilner was a matronly, humourless fifty-five year old, married to a bank manager. Dressed in a tweed suit, a string of pearls around her meaty neck, she sat stiffly in a high-backed chair and shot Aidy a cold look. ‘Your hearing isn’t impaired. I am expecting exactly that of my domestic. But you did forget the weekly polishing of the silver.’

‘And the wage you’re paying is fourteen shillings a week?’

‘A generous amount in these hard times.’

Aidy quashed a burning desire to inform the woman that she may think herself clever for using that fact to her own advantage, but what she was actually doing was abusing those far worse off than herself. Aidy was desperate for work and didn’t care how hard or how long she had to graft to earn her pay. After five days of fruitless searching, deeply worried by now that she wouldn’t be able to pay the rent at the end of next week, she was getting to the stage of accepting anything. But the rent on the house
was eight shillings a week, and what would be left over from the pay this woman was offering, not even a miracle worker could feed, clothe and keep a family warm on. That was, provided she even had any energy or time left over to tackle her own chores after she’d laboured for ten hours a day, and sometimes even longer, for this strict task master.