The Factory Girl

NANCY CARSON

A division of HarperCollinsPublishers

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright

MAZE

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2015

Previously published as The Love Match by Hodder and Stoughton 2002

Copyright © Nancy Carson 2015

Cover images © azsoslumakarna/ istockphoto 2015

Cover design © Lizzie Gardner

Nancy Carson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © May 2015 ISBN: 9780008134822

Version: 2016-02-22

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

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Chapter 1

The moment Henzey Kite’s clear blue eyes alighted on him she regretted it. Never in her young life had she seen a man so immaculate, so handsome, so desirable. His eyes, when he smiled, made her legs wobble like aspic. He oozed a calm self-assurance and a dangerous allure that compelled her heart and soul to sing out to him as wilfully as a nightingale calls its mate through bluebell woods. But he heard not her heart’s call. In any case, he was unattainable – as unattainable as the moon. Yet having seen him, no one else would do; and therein lay her regret.

The girl at his side matched him perfectly. She was strikingly beautiful. Henzey had spotted her once before, a week ago, on the evening she had first met Andrew. She was called Nellie, and she was Andrew’s sister; but Andrew had not introduced them. Everything about Nellie was exquisite, especially her dark hair, which was impeccably styled and framed her lovely face. Her skin was flawless, her clothes fitted to a stitch and her figure was inspiring. Yet everything about her was sublimely understated to the point of rendering her demure. Men would die for Nellie Dewsbury. She stood out like a fine cut diamond in a tray of gaudy baubles.

And Henzey wanted to be just like her.

Realising that she was staring at them both, Henzey turned away to appraise the fine set of framed water-colours that hung on the wall behind her. She must find time to do more water-colours; it would make a change from the pen and ink and charcoal drawings she’d been doing lately. Just fancy, if she were in a position to paint him and capture his calm self-assurance! The thought sent a warm flush of blood through her veins. But then she would spend her time just looking at him, ogling him, and doubtless get little painting done.

Standing unaccompanied, holding a glass of lemonade Andrew had brought her earlier, she noted how many people in that elegant drawing room were in fancy dress. One young man arrived dressed like Rudolph Valentino as The Sheik, another like Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer, and one masqueraded as an ancient pharaoh, obviously influenced by the recent excavations of Tutankhamun’s tomb. Couples began dancing to the strident sounds of a jazz band emanating from a gramophone standing in a corner. Henzey looked doubtfully at the highly-polished wood block floor, which was at the mercy of so many skidding, twisting, leather-soled shoes.

Sipping her drink, Henzey was aware that the party was growing noisier. All around her, people were shrieking with laughter. Clipped accents proliferated, sounding as foreign to her as the strange, rolling American cadences she’d heard in the talkies. She’d often imagined that people who spoke ‘posh’ would be stand-offish, so she was surprised at how friendly they were, towards each other at any rate. They were totally uninhibited, prepared to do things to make fools of themselves that she would never contemplate. Three young men took everybody’s attention when they held an impromptu competition between themselves to see who could dance ragtime best to a scratchy version of ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band’. A diminutive young thing in a long, blue dress elected herself both partner and judge for each. Henzey watched their tomfoolery and laughed.

‘Who’s this raven-haired girl here?’ she overheard somebody behind her say. ‘The one with the Egyptian bob. She’s absolutely too divine.’

His chum replied, ‘Sorry, old man. Never seen her before.’

She turned to see who had spoken, naturally believing they must be referring to Nellie. When it was obvious that the two young men were discussing herself, Henzey smiled, flattered. Blushing, she cast her eyes down.

‘Wouldn’t mind having a tilt at her. Love her dress.’

The dress had been bought specially for the party; black, with a low waist, short and straight. Save for the low back, it gave her a boyish appearance; the height of fashion. A matching headband and a row of long, black beads afforded the finishing touch. She looked beautiful, and respectable enough to be visiting the home of a wealthy family, her mother had affirmed with pride.

‘See how it falls over the cheeks of her backside? She’s an absolute peach.’

‘Faint heart ne’er won a fair lady,’ said the first. ‘Introduce yourself, man…Go on, before somebody else snaps her up. Sweep her off her feet.’

Henzey wished fervently that Andrew would return to her side. But the young man’s approach was thwarted nonetheless: a tall, willowy girl had been edging towards her, and overheard the boys’ comments. She was wearing an expensive-looking sleeveless, white pyjama suit with a green snake embroidered on the front, poised to strike. She carried a long black cigarette holder in one hand and a half-empty champagne flute in the other. Her head was wrapped in an unusual cloche hat, styled like a turban.

‘At the risk of ultimately dying a spinster,’ she articulated close to Henzey’s ear, as if to impart a great secret, ‘I would go so far as to say that some of these young men have a tendency to over-rate their own merit.’

‘Oh?’ Henzey replied with an interested smile.

‘You must have heard what they said just now?…They must believe they are some sort of rare species. Frankly, I blame their mothers. They’ve doubtless drummed into them that they’re worth their weight in gold. Such sentiments should have been directed at their elder brothers, surely? Those spared by the war.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Henzey could hear Andrew’s voice booming boisterously on the other side of the room, and she was trying to listen to him at the same time. ‘I didn’t quite catch what you said.’

‘I said, these boys have such high opinions of themselves.’

‘Oh, some of them, maybe,’ nodded Henzey. ‘One of my friends made me laugh the other day. She reckons all they’re interested in is getting their hands up your frock. I wouldn’t know, myself. I’ve only ever had a couple of boyfriends, and I certainly wouldn’t let anybody do that.’

The girl was already laughing. ‘I say! I wouldn’t have put it quite like that personally, but your synopsis has a ring of truth. You a local gel?’

‘Born and bred. My name’s Henzey Kite. I’m with Andrew, and he’s getting more drunk by the minute, by the looks of him.’

‘Margot Hartford-Giles.’ She offered her hand, and they shook. ‘Delighted to make your acquaintance, Henzey. So you’re with Andrew?’

‘If I ever get to see him again. My sister Alice is here as well somewhere, with Andrew’s friend, George. Do you know George?’

‘Know George? George is my brother, though that’s not something I should be crowing about. So, that little girl I saw him plying with drink is your sister, eh? She looks very young.’

‘She is. I’m supposed to keep my eye on her.’

‘It’s George you should keep an eye on, my dear – Andrew too. They’re like all the rest. They believe they’re a species of rare bird that should be kept in a gilded cage and have their feathers perpetually preened. If only they could rid themselves of this pitiful delusion.’

‘If only they could see themselves, some of them.’

Margot drew herself closer to Henzey’s ear and lowered her voice. ‘Frankly, you wouldn’t believe some of the things my friends say about men.’

‘But they’re not all as bad as you say, are they, Margot?’ She risked another glance at him with the fascinating allure, in time to see him leaving the drawing-room with the equally fascinating Nellie. ‘My brother’s all right,’ she continued, her eyes following them. ‘He’s fifteen and never had a girlfriend. He’s good to our mom, though, and kind to his horse…’

‘Oh, does he ride?’

‘Ride? Oh, no. He’s a milkman. The horse pulls his float.’

‘Oh, I see.’ Margot turned her head to conceal her amusement.

‘Mind you,’ Henzey continued, uninhibited by their cultural distance, ‘sometimes he tries to make everybody think as he’s better at everything than me and our Alice and our Maxine, but his brain ain’t quick enough. He thinks too slow.’

‘Like all men.’

‘He’s all right really, though.’

‘But it proves my point, Henzey.’

Margot took a gulp of champagne and Henzey swigged her lemonade. Increasingly, it seemed as if she was not part of her surroundings; a peculiar sensation, as if she were in a dream and observing, but detached from the party.

‘They’re all different, I suppose,’ Henzey said chattily, and smiled.

‘Oh, they fall into all sorts of categories. Do you know – in London, those on the social scene go out to dances practically every night of the season? Not any dance, mark you. Only very carefully selected ones. They owe it to themselves, you see, to be seen only at the right places. They get to know everybody on the social circuit, get to know everything about them – how much money they have, whom they hope to marry, even whom they’ve slept with.’

‘Slept with? You don’t mean…?’

‘Oh, please, don’t be shocked. That sort of thing’s par for the course these days, my dear. Whilst they’ll sleep with absolutely anybody, these socialites only fall in love with heiresses. But at least they are polite, which these days has to be admired. Immaculately dressed too. Most wear pristine white gloves so as not to mark your best silk dress with sweaty hands. Very commendable, what? Even their socks are beyond criticism, I’m told.

‘Then there’s the academic. Utterly boring. Can you imagine anything more tedious than discussing a collection of specialist books on the impact of treacle on furry worms, for instance?’

Henzey chuckled. ‘What a lark, Margot! You must get about a bit. What other sorts are there?’ She was beginning to enjoy Margot’s dissertation on today’s young men.

‘Well, I suspect the nightclub goon is worthy of mention.’

Henzey laughed. ‘The nightclub goon?’

‘You know the type. Tries to make himself look exactly like Ramon Novarro, or Ronald Colman. Hair sleeked down with hair-oil, perfumed like the inside of a whore’s handbag. Frankly, I fail to understand this fixation for emulating such people. Mind you, Henzey, the nightclub goon was doing the Charleston long before the rest of us had even heard of it. I must confess, I’ve panted with nightclub goons on many a dance floor.’

‘What about those with cars?’ Henzey asked out of self-interest, for Andrew had a car.

A man nudged Margot, placed a cigarette in her cigarette holder, and deftly lit it with a silver lighter as she put it to her lips. He smiled, looked Henzey up and down, and just as deftly moved on without a word. She drew on the cigarette as though her life depended on it, exhaling smoke in great billows. Henzey was reminded of a fiery dragon.

‘Frankly, the youth with a motor car is the worst of the lot. Absolutely reeks of engine oil. Usually got a horrid, grubby bandage on at least one finger. Conversation’s rather limited too – to carburettors and magnetos usually. And the only thing he’ll ever drive you to is drink. All he ever reads is motoring magazines, and his favourite pastime is to disappear into a smelly garage for hours on end with an equally smelly chum to hot the blessed vehicle up.’

‘What about his girlfriend?’

Margot sucked earnestly at her cigarette holder again. ‘I should say the jolly old girlfriend has to be rather slim to fit in the damn thing – like you. But whatever car he’s got, he’ll scare you rigid with his driving.’

At that, Andrew came along with a fresh pint of beer in his hand. ‘Ah, I shee you two have met,’ he said with some difficulty. ‘Margot is George’s shishter, you know. Up from Windsor for the weekend.’ He went to put his glass to his lips and slopped some over himself, which he tried to pat away with the flat of his hand.

‘Charming gel you have here, Andrew,’ Margot said. ‘Henzey and I are confidantes. Her opinion of men concurs generally with my own. What was it you said, my dear? Men are only interested in getting their oily hands up our frocks. That was it, more or less, was it not? I trust it’s not true of you, Andrew.’

Margot laughed like a donkey, and Henzey chuckled at her infectious sense of humour.

‘I’ve come to drag her away from you, Margot,’ Andrew said, a little wobbly on his legs. ‘I want to show her off to Nellie.’

‘Ah, Nellie. So be it. I’ll circulate.’

Henzey was still laughing, but stiffened a little at hearing Nellie’s name. She was longing to get a closer look at her hair, how she applied her make-up. Still holding her empty glass, she turned to follow Andrew. He led her into the breakfast room, and there she saw Nellie and her godlike companion talking and laughing with a group of people, some of whom she recognised from the roller skating rink.

But Henzey was feeling hot and light-headed. Her thoughts were becoming unfocused. ‘Andrew, would you get me some more lemonade first, please? I’m feeling a bit peculiar.’

He took her glass biddably, and was soon back at her side with a refill. She took a long drink, hoping it would clear her head. The last thing she wanted was to go down with a bout of flu.

‘Are you ready now?’

‘Yes, I’m ready.’

‘Helen, I’d like you to meet Henzey. Henzey…Helen.’

‘Nice to meet you, Henzey,’ she said with a smile.

Henzey smiled back. ‘Nice to meet you, too, Nellie.’ She tried to take in Nellie’s technique with make-up, but the handsome companion was proving a greater attraction. Her eyes swivelled towards him, and she smiled coyly in anticipation of the introduction. His eyes lit up in response, and Nellie witnessed the exchange.

‘Excuse me,’ she said severely, drawing Henzey’s attention again. ‘Was I not introduced as Helen?’

‘Helen?…Oh, sorry. I thought everybody called you Nellie.’ She blushed deeply at her blunder.

Nellie smiled, but too sweetly for it to be sincere. ‘Only family and close friends call me Nellie.’ Then her expression changed to frozen marble. ‘You’ve reached the status of neither…nor are you ever likely to, unless I’m very much mistaken.’

Henzey’s head was swimming, and Nellie’s aggressive attitude unnerved her. It seemed so unnecessary. She began trembling with embarrassment and disappointment.

He looked at Henzey with some sympathy. ‘That’s a bit unkind, Nell.’

‘Oh, er…this is Billy Witts. Nellie’s…er, Helen’s boyfriend,’ Andrew said meekly.

She looked at Billy Witts again, but this time in bewilderment. Her smile had disappeared, her blue eyes told of the hurt and humiliation she felt inside. Floundering, she looked to Andrew for support. But none came. He was too drunk to think straight. People were milling past Henzey, and the noise from the party seemed strangely overpowering. She was feeling queasy, hot, and her legs were shaking now.

‘Please excuse me.’ She turned away and heard Billy remonstrate with Nellie.

Andrew caught up with her. ‘Take no notice of her, Henzey. She’s probably jealous of you.’

‘Why should she be jealous of me? I’ve done nothing. All I did was call her by the name everybody else calls her by. She’s rude, your sister, and I thought she was so nice.’ Tears flooded her eyes. ‘I don’t feel very well, either.’

As she walked unsteadily past the kitchen, something clicked ominously in her mind. Something. She wasn’t sure what. It had some vital significance, but she could not pinpoint it in her perplexity. In the hall, she sat on the stairs and put her head in her hands trying to remember, trying to overcome the unaccountable swimming sensation in her mind.

Andrew said, ‘I’ll get you another glass of lemonade, shall I?’

She wanted water, but she was finding it difficult to form the words to say so. Lemonade would have to do. She closed her eyes and her head seemed to spin. With a start she stared around her and shook her head violently in an attempt to stem the awful sensation of giddiness. But she was so thirsty as well. Something was radically wrong. She must be ill. Andrew returned from the kitchen with another full glass and handed it to her. She quaffed the lemonade, staring vacantly.

‘I say! Are you all right? You look jolly pale.’

‘Oh Andrew, I feel terrible. I’ll have to get some fresh air. I think I’ll have to go home.’

He took her glass, put it down on the telephone table and helped her to her feet, as well as he was able in his own inebriated state. ‘Not yet. Come on, I’ve got a better idea. You can lie down on my bed and I’ll open the windows for you.’

‘Oh, I couldn’t go to your bedroom. What would people think?’

But she was incapable of further resistance. Andrew held on to the bannister with one hand and, with his other arm around Henzey’s waist, they lumbered awkwardly upstairs. He struggled to open the door to his bedroom. When at last he did, they entered and both slumped onto the bed. It finally dawned on her that she must be drunk. But she was by no means certain. She’d never been drunk before.

‘Have you put shomethin’ in me drinks, Andrew?’ she asked, not without some impediment to her speech. ‘Andrew, have you put anythin’ in me drinks?’

‘Oh, just a drop of Russian vodka.’ He sounded pleased with himself. ‘Just a teensy-weensy drop. George and I thought it would looshen you up a bit…help you enjoy the party.’

‘Oh, what you do that for?’ She sounded so disappointed. ‘I promished my mother…’

She passed out.

In her dream she was turning, revolving, spinning in a black velvet sky. Stars whizzed round her at a fantastic rate making her dizzy, and all she could hear was a high-pitched whistling in her head. She was searching, searching, but for what? She could not remember. The shrill whistling grew louder the dizzier she got. A burden of responsibility was hanging heavy upon her, she was aware. But the spinning, the endless turning, the stars racing by, the searching…this anxiety. If only she knew what she was seeking. It was making her feel sick.

An overwhelming need to vomit forced her to consciousness again and she sat up. She was surprised to see the hem of her dress round her waist and Andrew lying beside her, his hand stroking the bare flesh of her thighs between the tops of her stockings and her knickers.

‘Let’s have your clothes off, there’s a sport,’ he was saying. ‘Let’s shee you in the buff.’

She slapped his face with as much indignation as she could muster and, with an extraordinary effort, staggered off the bed. She opened the door and lurched from the room, stumbling. Just in time she found the bathroom, vacant for once, and retched into the lavatory. She shuddered at the awful bitter taste in her mouth. Almost at once, her head cleared. Again she heaved…And again. Her eyes were streaming…yet miraculously she felt better. But the spark of anger she’d felt was being fanned into a roaring flame by the thought of Andrew’s stupidity. What a downright cad to even think of lacing a girl’s drinks with vodka when she believed all along it was just lemonade? Had he and George done it just so they could take advantage of her and Alice?

Alice!

It was then she realised why she was so racked with anxiety.

She stood up. Her mind was clear. She washed her mouth and wiped the tears from her eyes, then cursed her own slowness of mind. ‘Alice! Oh, Alice!’ If anything had happened to Alice…She thrust open the bathroom door and stormed out. The door to Nellie’s room, the ladies powder room for the evening, was shut. Seeking Alice, she shoved it open angrily. It almost hit Nellie, who was just coming out.

‘Hey, I think “excuse me” is the expression you’re looking for, Miss.’

Henzey ignored her only because she had something more important to attend to. She rushed to the next door on the landing and thrust it open. In the darkness of the room she could just make out two people in bed. Instantly, they parted.

‘Is that you, Alice?’

A girl’s voice answered warily, ‘Hello, Henzey,’

‘Alice, you damn fool! What the hell d’you think you’re doing?’

‘Just talking.’ There was annoyance in her voice.

‘Get up, for God’s sake!’ But the sight of George in bed with her sister was too much. Henzey burst into tears, shaking with anger and disappointment at this lesson in human nature. ‘George, George! D’you know how old she is?…Do you?’

‘Sixteen, she told me. You were there, at the roller skating rink.’

‘I’ll tell you how old she is,’ she sobbed. ‘She’s fourteen. D’you hear what I said? Fourteen.’ Tears were streaming down her face.

‘Christ, I had absolutely no idea. She said she was sixteen. You heard her.’ He turned to Alice. ‘You told me you were sixteen, didn’t you? I distinctly remember.’

Alice shrugged, unconcerned. ‘I don’t see what all the fuss is about.’

Henzey was weeping copiously, tired, and drained of emotion. But she marshalled enough ardour to tell George what she thought of him. ‘Fourteen, sixteen, what’s the difference? Neither makes you any better. Neither makes you a knight in shining armour, specially after you’ve deliberately tried to get her drunk. I bet you think you’re really clever. I bet you and your stupid pals will have a good laugh over this, won’t you?’ She took a deep breath to help regain her composure. ‘Alice, come on. We’re going home.’

While Henzey waited outside the door, wiping away her tears with the back of her hand, Billy Witts appeared at the top of the stairs. ‘Hey, what’s going on?’ he asked. ‘Somebody says there’s trouble up here.’

Henzey burst into tears again.

‘What’s the matter, my flower?’ He sounded genuinely concerned. ‘What happened?’

‘It’s my sister…in there with that…that swine George…I’m taking her home. What time is it, please? We’re supposed to be home by twelve.’

‘It’s about half past eleven. Andrew brought you, didn’t he?’

‘He did, and some use he is, as well. He’s as bad as that George. He’s as drunk as a rat. Look at him in there.’ They both peered through the open door into Andrew’s bedroom. He was sprawled out on the bed, oblivious to the world. ‘If he’s supposed to be a gentleman, give me a rough miner any day of the week.’

At that moment, Alice appeared at the bedroom door bleary-eyed, her best dress crumpled, her hair tousled.

Billy said, ‘I’ll take you home. How far is it?’

‘Not far. But we wouldn’t want you to get into trouble with her ladyship.’

‘I said I’ll take you home.’

Henzey shrugged, feigning indifference, but he took it as her acceptance. Once outside, he led them to his car, which was parked in the street, and they drove off.

‘So what happened back there? I could see there was something wrong. What was all the fuss about?’

Henzey explained more fully what had happened at the hands of Andrew and George.

‘Did George put anything in your drink, Alice?’ she asked.

‘I dunno. Maybe he did,’ she answered. ‘I only had two. I feel all right – I think.’

‘I’m livid at that George, Billy. He must have tried to get her drunk. He took her to that bedroom, and she’s only fourteen. I daren’t begin to think what went on.’

‘Nothin’ went on.’

‘Something went on, Alice. I could tell by the state of you.’

‘Nothin’ went on worth mentionin’. We was kissin’, that’s all. What’s wrong wi’ kissin’?’

‘You said you were talking. Either way, you look as if you’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards. Your frock looks as if it’s been put through the mangle all crooked and you should see your hair. ’Tis to be hoped Mother doesn’t catch sight of you.’

Billy said, ‘Course, he don’t come from round here, that George. He came up from Windsor with his sister and her young man, just for Andrew’s party. He’s one of his university mates at Oxford.’

‘Well the sooner he clears off back, the better.’

Nobody spoke for a while, till Henzey said, ‘So how long have you been courting Nellie, Billy?’

‘About two years,’ he replied.

‘Mmm…I like her hair. Where does she get it done?’

‘That hairdresser in Union Street, I think.’

Billy smiled to himself. What little he’d seen of this girl he liked. She was not sophisticated like Nellie, but she was no less beautiful. There was something refreshing about her, even in her distressed state. He perceived within her an earthy passion, something indefinably basic, elemental. She had no airs and graces, yet she possessed undeniable self-esteem. She was like him; a born survivor with the potential to be a cut above the rest. There was hidden promise in her clear blue eyes, her red lips, so kissable, and her long, shapely legs. He changed to a lower gear as they turned into the Market Place, and glimpsed the few tantalising inches of her thighs that were visible as her short dress rode up her legs in the seat next to him. Pity she was so young. But with such potential all she needed was the rough edges knocking off her. She could be moulded into something really special.

The town was deserted. Henzey peered through the car window now at George Mason’s shop, and tried to push to the back of her mind all the questions her workmates would ask on Monday about the party. They were expecting her to be practically engaged to this wealthy Andrew Dewsbury she’d told them so much about. Now she would look such a fool. They were expecting a love affair at the very least. They had even called her Cinderella when she told them she had to be home by midnight.

‘I’m not looking forward to work on Monday,’ she said absently.

‘What on earth’s made you think of work?’ Billy asked.

‘ ’Cause we’ve just gone past the place where she works,’ Alice proclaimed, pointing. ‘At George Mason’s just there,’

‘You have to turn right here up Hall Street,’ Henzey said. ‘Anyway, how come you don’t sound like the Dewsburys and all that crowd, Billy? The first time I caught sight of you I thought you’d talk really posh, like them.’

‘I’m just an ordinary chap, who happens to be courting somebody who does talk posh. I can put it on when I have to.’

They travelled on in silence, listening to the thrum of the big Vauxhall engine as it reverberated between the red brick terraces in Kates Hill’s narrow, inclined streets. Eventually they turned into Cromwell Street.

‘Is this where you live?’

Henzey peered out. Iky Bottlebrush was mopping round the floor of his fish and chip shop before he went to bed. ‘Here’s fine, thanks. It’s very nice of you, Billy.’

‘It’s the least I could do. Andrew was in no fit state to bring you back, was he? And I should hate you to think all blokes are the same. By the way – what did you say your name was?’

‘Henzey.’

‘And your surname?’

‘Kite.’

He flashed her a broad smile. ‘See you around sometime, Henzey Kite.’

They clambered out of the car, shut the doors behind them, and crossed the street to walk the last few yards, stepping over the inky puddles that punctuated the pattern of damp cobbles. Smoke was curling into the dark, navy sky from the rows of chimneys that were lined up like soldiers on the slate roofs of the terraced houses. A dog barked in the next street, and a key turned in a lock, shutting out the night for someone. Under the light of the gas street lamp, Henzey stopped to inspect Alice again, and tried to smooth away the creases in her dress with the flat of her hand.

‘Hope and pray Mother’s not back yet,’ she told Alice as they walked on. ‘Hope and pray she’s still out with Jesse.’

‘Oh, I don’t care, Henzey. We din’t do anythin’…More’s the pity.’

‘What do you mean, more’s the pity? You ought to be ashamed. Would you have let him?’

‘I let him kiss me.’ She shrugged. It was of little significance to Alice. ‘We kissed with our mouths open…And he stuck his tongue in me mouth.’

Henzey shook her head in disgust. ‘Yuk!’

‘It was nice…I let ’im feel me Phyllis and Floss as well.’

‘Oh, Alice, you didn’t!’ She stopped walking, both for effect and to allow this alarming piece of information to sink in.

‘Why not? What’s wrong with that?…Come on, slowcoach. What yer stopped for?’

‘It’s just not right, Alice. A girl your age. You should think more of yourself. What if you got into trouble?’

‘We din’t do that, if that’s what you’m thinkin’.’

‘Well, the way you’re talking, nothing would surprise me.’

‘No, I only let ’im feel me Phyllis and Floss – only for a minute or two. Nothin’ else.’

Henzey sighed heavily, more troubled than Alice could appreciate, but resumed walking. ‘I blame myself. I should never have let you out of my sight. I should’ve known they might try to get us drunk…God, my head’s spinning again now…Oh, I hope I’m not going to be sick again.’

‘Mine is a bit now as well, an’ I only had two. Is that how drink makes you feel?’

‘Oh, Alice, I despair of you…’

They turned into the entry on tiptoe, lest their footsteps announced their return. The door to the brewhouse was shut and the house was in darkness. At least Herbert, and Maxine their younger sister, had gone to bed. Henzey lifted the door latch and entered. Embers slipped in the blackleaded grate, prompting a flurry of sparks to shoot up the chimney, but affording sufficient light for her to see where she was going. She felt on the mantelpiece for a spill, and kindled it in what remained of the fire. As it flared, she reached for the oil lamp that resided on the windowsill and lit it, trimming the wick to give less smoke. The old black marble clock said five to twelve. She turned and saw that the door to the cellar was shut. She rounded the old horsehair sofa her father always used to lie on, reached out and lifted the latch as quietly as she could. Her mother’s coat was not hanging there. She breathed a sigh of relief.

‘Upstairs, quick,’ she whispered. ‘She’s not back yet. And, in the morning, when she asks how we got on, say we had a smashing time.’

‘I had a smashin’ time anyway.’

Chapter 2

The back room at George Mason’s grocery store in Dudley Market Place was where the female staff ate their sandwiches and made pots of tea. It was small and whitewashed. The glass on the outside of the tiny iron-framed window, that afforded it some daylight, had not been cleaned in two decades, but a pair of second-hand chenille curtains had been hung at it years ago. A couple of creaky chairs with fraying squabs furnished it, along with a torn seat lifted from a charabanc that had been involved in a road accident. A brass tap rhythmically dripped cold water into a stone sink and, on top of a scrubbed wooden draining board, stood a gas ring, a black enamelled kettle and a selection of odd cups and saucers. In this room, secrets were revealed, souls were bared and an infinite amount of gossip was examined and disseminated.

Talk was usually about men. Henzey wondered how some of these girls she worked with got themselves into the cumbersome situations they confessed to, and decided they must be as immature as the boys they associated with. For instance, poor Rosie Frost, one of her workmates, had become involved with a young lad who was wanted by the police for burglary. He was lodging with Rosie and her widowed mother, using it as a safe house, abusing their good nature. At one of their dinnertime discussions, Rosie confessed she was having his child.

‘And do you love him?’ Clara Maitland asked. Clara was thirty, a childless widow, and a fine-looking woman, who was indifferent to the advances of optimistic suitors. She was well-fleshed but not overweight, her figure unsuited to the will-o’-the-wisp, boyish look that was in vogue; Clara had feminine curves and wore affordable clothes that tastefully accentuated them.

‘No, can’t say as I do,’ was Rosie’s half-hearted reply.

‘Then you’re a very silly girl, Rosie. Does your poor mother know you’re pregnant?’

Rosie shook her head and looked guiltily into her lap.

‘How do you girls get yourselves into such awful trouble? You must want your head looking, Rosie. Get rid of him; that’s my advice. Get rid of him…How old are you?’

‘Eighteen.’

‘Eighteen, and pregnant by a wanted criminal. My God! Wake up, child, and make something of yourself, and do it while you’ve still got the chance. Then when you’ve done that, try and find yourself somebody decent. Life’ll be a lot easier, take it from me. A lot easier.’

Rosie sighed heavily. ‘It’s easy to say find somebody decent. But who? Anyway, if I am pregnant, it’s me own fault.’

‘Your fault? I’d have thought he’d had a part in it, Rosie,’ Clara suggested wryly. ‘It takes two, you know. Some men are all too keen to take advantage of girls. They promise you the earth. You should’ve been firmer with him. You should have said no. You should’ve told him you’d have no truck with doing things you ought not to be doing unless you’re wed. You should’ve told him – if he wanted that, he should give up his burgling and make a decent, honest living by working, like the rest of us have to, and then marry you. Good God, what’s the world coming to?’

Clara was in full flow, but she took another bite from her sandwich and munched it while she waited for the reaction of her younger workmates.

‘I’d never marry ’im, Clara,’ Rosie said, and licked jam off her fingers. ‘I’ve been a proper fool, but I’m stuck with it now.’

Clara flicked breadcrumbs from her apron. ‘Well the doctor can’t get rid of it for you. It’d be more than his life’s worth. But I daresay there’s some old women who know how, if that’s what you wanted. It’s always risky though.’

‘No, I’m gunna have the child, Clara.’

Edie Soap, whose real name was Edie Hudson, had been listening while she filled the kettle and put it on the gas ring to boil. She sat down on the charabanc seat.

‘And you, Edie,’ Clara said, ‘just mind what you’re doing with that Arnold Jennings.’

Edie adjusted the fall of her apron and opened her sandwich tin. ‘Doh thee fret, Clara,’ she returned, in her deep voice. ‘I’n sid enough o’ that Rosie’s plight. I’m keepin’ me legs crossed an’ me drawers on. Me fairther’d kill me if ’e thought I was lettin’ any chap interfere wi’ me. Besides, I’m afeared. Our Araminta says it ’urts vile the fust time. ’Er says it doh ’alf mek yer yowk.’

Clara smothered a chuckle. ‘It can be a lot of pleasure with somebody you love.’

‘Arnold’s younger than you, isn’t he, Edie?’ Henzey commented, as she stood up to stir the tea in the pot.

‘By a year. I’ve took to ’im a treat, but the trouble is, I doh think I can stand ’is moods for long.’

‘What makes him moody?’ Henzey asked.

‘Sayin’ no to ’im,’ Edie answered. ‘He’s like a bear with sore arse.’

‘Well, you know what some of these young men are like,’ Clara warned. ‘They only care about themselves. Things are different now to how they were before the war. A lot different. There are more girls than boys now, so to some extent boys can take their pick. Trouble is, because of it, the boys expect the girls to be easy. Well don’t be…You mustn’t be.

‘I remember years ago my mother telling me about one of her friends, Bessie Hipkiss. She was in service at a really well-to-do house in Birmingham. Anyway, she fell in love with the master’s son, and they had an illicit affair for a while. Long enough for him to put her in the family way, anyway. But when poor Bessie asked him what they should do about it, he said the child couldn’t possibly be his and sacked her for her trouble. She was broken hearted. All she’d got were the wages they sent her away with and the clothes on her back – and nowhere to live. As it happens, she remembered my grandfather and came straight to him for help. Her parents knew him well when they were alive, you see. She didn’t want to be a burden, though. She just wanted the chance to make her own way. It turned out that he’d got an empty house – he was quite well off and owned some property – and he let Bessie have it for nothing. It was only a little back-to-back in Flood Street, and you know what a slum it is down there. Damp as the Dudley Tunnel, it was, and overrun with vermin. But she was glad of it. The trouble was, when she gave birth, she didn’t have just one child, did she? Oh, no, not Bessie. She had twins – both boys, and like peas in a pod, my mother always said.’

‘Twins?’ Henzey exclaimed. ‘Just imagine being in all that trouble, then having twins.’

Clara nodded. ‘She did her best to rear them, but she was poverty-stricken. Anyway, she fell ill and, when they were just two years old, Bessie died of consumption, poor soul.’

‘Oh, that’s terrible. All because the father denied all knowledge…What a rogue! So what happened to the poor little lads?’

‘As it happens, Henzey, they were all right. My grandfather, being well respected in Methodist circles, found a nice family who took in one of them. Trouble was, they were poor, and they could only afford to take the one.’

‘You mean they were split up?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘So what happened to the other?’ Henzey’s eyes were misty with tears by this time. She was deeply touched by the story.

Clara shook her head. ‘We never knew for sure. My grandfather took him away, but he wouldn’t say where, though we’d got a good idea. He reckoned he was sworn to secrecy. He just said the boy was going to be all right. My mother was certain sure he took him back to the house Bessie came from – to the boys’ father – to make him face up to his responsibilities. Bessie had told him who the father was. But I never heard anything else about either of those two children since. Sad isn’t it?’

‘When did all this happen, Clara?’ Henzey asked. ‘How long ago?’

‘Well I was only a child meself when Bessie died. It’d be about 1902. Those twins would be about twenty-eight now if they’re still alive.’

‘Grown men. It’d be interesting to know what happened to them, wouldn’t it?’

‘I’d dearly love to know…But listen, I’ve told you girls this story to point out what can happen if you’re easy. Men will always take what they want, and then, when they’ve took it, they’ll be off like a shot unless you handle them right. Keep your man interested by being just a little bit elusive. That’s what I always say. Before you give yourself to a man be sure he’s in love with you. Or better still, wait till you’re married.’

‘“Elusive”?’ Edie queried. ‘What the bleedin’ ’ell’s that mean?’

‘It means, be a bit mysterious, Edie. Don’t be at his beck and call. Let him worry about what you’re up to. Let him think you’re up to no good sometimes when he’s not around. Give him a hint occasionally that you might be interested in somebody else. It works wonders.’

Henzey glanced from one to the other, trying to gauge the girls’ reaction to Clara’s sage advice. ‘You do seem to know a lot about men, Clara,’ she said. ‘I wish I did.’

‘I’m thirty, Henzey, and I know what I’m talking about. I’m not sixteen, like you. I’ve been married and I enjoyed married life, and no man will ever replace my husband. I loved him dearly – I still do.’

‘Are you saying we’re all too young to be messing about with chaps, Clara?’

‘No, I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying you’re too young to be doing what you do in the marriage bed, but see as many young men as you like. Have some fun, but save yourself for one.’

Henzey said reverently, ‘Oh, Clara, you are sensible.’

‘I try to be. But what about you, Henzey? Have you seen that Jack Harper since you told him you were going to that party?’

‘I’ve seen him, but only from a distance. He doesn’t speak to me now…Has he been in the shop?’

‘Why? You missin’ ’im?’

Henzey nodded glumly. It had been more than two weeks since that party; two weeks during which she had all but forgotten Billy Witts, dismissed Andrew Dewsbury and his petulant sister from her mind, and started thinking again about Jack Harper.

‘No, we ain’t seen ’im,’ Rosie said. ‘I’d ’ave noticed ’im. I think ’e’s bostin’. I think you’m daft, Henzey, for givin’ ’im up, just for the chance o’ goin’ to a party with some lads you didn’t even know. Just ’cause they was well-to-do.’

‘Yes, yer know what well-to-do lads’m like,’ Edie agreed. ‘Just remember the story Clara just told we about that Bessie and her twins. He was a well-to-do chap what got ’er into trouble.’

Clara bit into an apple, then said, ‘The tea’ll be cold. Who’s going to pour it?’

‘I’ll do it,’ Henzey volunteered, and got up from the charabanc seat.

Henzey had made a sad error of judgement in allowing Andrew Dewsbury to take her to his party. It had been as much to the detriment of Jack Harper too, her regular escort, as to herself. Jack had always mooned over her like a lovesick fool, but she’d been prepared to put up with that, since he was generally pleasant company. Maybe she should make the first move towards reconciliation. His absence was feeding her guilt, and her guilt was clouding her true emotions, like disturbed sediment muddies clear water. She was starting to believe she was in love with Jack. Her mood was cheerless, disconsolate. Evidently he was upset with her, and she could hardly blame him. And she missed him more than she thought possible.

‘Yo’ could always goo round to the Midland Shoe shop and try and catch ’is eye,’ Edie suggested. ‘He wun’t ignore yer there. Specially if ’e thought yo’ was gunna buy a pair o’ shoes off ’im.’

The others laughed at that.

‘Never,’ Clara said decisively. ‘Never run after a man, no matter how much your heart might be aching. Promise me you won’t, Henzey.’

Henzey shrugged, and handed the first cup of tea to Clara. ‘I just think it’s my fault. I think I was rotten to him…I think the first move should come from me.’ She turned away again to serve the second cup to Rosie.

‘I’m sure he’ll get over it. In no time he’ll…’

The door opened unexpectedly, and Arnold Jenning’s face appeared. ‘Henzey, there’s a chap outside askin’ to see yer.’

At once her heart jumped and she coloured up. ‘To see me?’ It was too much to hope that it might be Jack.

‘Talk of the devil…’ Clara said confidently.

‘A stroke o’ luck, if yer like,’ Rosie affirmed. ‘Save yer runnin’ after ’im, eh?’

Henzey put her cup of tea down on the draining board and stood up, smoothing the creases out of her apron. She flicked her hair out of her eyes, and smiled with anticipation at the others, her heart pounding now. It was a God-sent opportunity to make it up with Jack, just as they’d been discussing. She walked through the door and through the stockroom, her heart in her throat. When she entered the shop Phoebe Mantle, one of the other girls, nudged her.

‘Here, Henzey. That’s the chap out there.’ She pointed outside to a man who had his back towards them. ‘He came in askin’ for yer. He said he’d wait outside. He’s a bit of all right, I can tell yer. Who is he?’

Henzey looked up and peered through the window. ‘Good God!’ she exclaimed. Her feelings a mixture of apprehension and delight, she went to the door, suddenly conscious of her working clothes.

In the street the cold October air clung to her. It was a grey day and threatened rain. The red brick façades of the buildings around her looked shabby under their film of grime, the legacy of more than a century’s emissions from the foundries, forges and ironworks. People were ambling along unhurriedly from store to store, gazing covetously into shop windows; some stood and gossiped; a woman tugged impatiently at the hand of a grizzling, unwilling child, and scolded him.

‘Fancy seeing you,’ Henzey said, smiling. ‘This is a surprise. What brings you here?’

Billy Witts scratched the back of his neck casually. ‘Just passing. I thought I’d call to see if you were all right after your spot of bother at the party the other week.’ His voice was rich and mellow, and his easy drawl, neither broad, nor particularly cultured, sounded attractive to Henzey.

She felt herself blushing. ‘Oh, don’t remind me.’ She rolled her eyes sheepishly. ‘We were both all right, thanks. It’s nice of you to come and ask, though. Did it go off all right after?’

‘I believe so. To tell you the truth I didn’t go back after I dropped you off. I went home. Nellie was in one of her moods and she’s best left alone when she’s like that. I’m not really one for parties meself, specially the sort that Andrew and his mates throw. Course, he’s gone back to Oxford now. And so’s George.’

‘God help Oxford, that’s all I can say. So how’s Nellie? Or should I say Helen, since I’m neither close friend, nor family?’

He smiled at her jibe and shrugged. ‘Oh, she’s all right.’

‘You don’t sound too sure.’

He gave an evasive little laugh. ‘Yes, she’s as all right as she’ll ever be. I was concerned about you and your sister, though. She looked a bit the worse for wear, your sister. You both did, to tell you the truth. Did you get into trouble with your mom and dad?’

A black and white mongrel appeared and sniffed at her apron. She bent down and stroked its neck, and it trotted away contentedly across the street to the market stalls. ‘We were lucky, Billy. Our mom always goes out on a Saturday night and, by the time she got back, me and Alice were in bed. As far as she was concerned, we had a great night.’

‘And your dad? Was he still up?’

‘We haven’t got a dad, Billy.’

‘Oh. Sorry for mentioning it, Henzey. Trust me to put me foot in it. Really, I’m sorry.’

‘Oh, it’s all right. You weren’t to know.’

‘Anyway, fancy those two gawbies spiking your drinks. You’re best off without the likes of Andrew and George.’

She tutted diffidently. ‘I know that now, but when somebody asks you out, you expect them to behave like gentlemen. You expect to be able to trust them a little bit. Or am I just being naïve?’

‘I think you were unlucky. Haven’t you got a regular sweetheart, Henzey?’

‘Not since the party.’

‘Get away with you! I can scarcely believe that. Somebody as lovely as you? Men must be falling at your feet.’

She gave a dispirited little laugh. ‘Flattery will get you everywhere, Billy. I was going out with somebody but, because I wouldn’t go to the Palais with him on the night of that party, I haven’t seen him since. Shame really. I wish I’d gone with him now. I expect he thought I was mucking him about.’

‘Never mind, Henzey. Just keep smiling. You’ve got a lovely smile, you know. It’s your fortune, believe me.’ His eyes lingered on her face for a second or two. ‘Ah well, I’d best be off. Give me regards to your Alice, will you? You never know, I might pop and see you again sometime.’

‘Oh, anytime, Billy. Any time you’re passing. It’s grand to see you again.’

Henzey could hardly believe Billy Witts had actually called on her. She could hardly believe he remembered her at all. Her heart danced, wondering why. Could he be interested in her? If not, why had he called? As he walked away, she admired his physique. He was tall, slim and athletic-looking. Henzey liked tall men. At five feet six in her stockings, an inch or two taller in her heels, she was bound to. She especially liked tall men who were clean shaven, devoid of moustaches, tattoos and other adornments she considered superfluous. Billy Witts qualified nicely. Always he was immaculate. He was courteous, too – to her at least – and that implied far more masculinity than brashness or well-developed muscles. Any woman would fancy him. When he smiled, his eyes creased and twinkled, and she felt she would be able to trust him with her life. He was about twenty-four, she reckoned. Funny, though, but every new man she fancied seemed to be significantly older than the one before.

Seeing Billy Witts, so unexpectedly, lifted Henzey from her melancholy over Jack Harper and clarified the murkiness. But it also stirred up the loathing she felt for Nellie Dewsbury.

That feeling was intensified when one Tuesday – it was the 16th of October – Henzey and Clara Maitland went to join the crowds for the official opening of Dudley’s new Town Hall. Stanley Baldwin, the Prime Minister was there to perform the opening ceremony. All the local dignitaries were present, and the two friends had insinuated themselves into a good place to view the proceedings, lining the steps to the new entrance. Over the heads of the crowds they could see a cavalcade of cars approaching. There was a buzz of excitement as, one by one, the cars pulled up. At last Mr Baldwin stepped out with the Mayor of Dudley and Lady Mayoress, to some cheers and, predictably, some jeers. Four cars later, a man with a ruddy complexion alighted with his wife and another, younger, trim-looking girl. Henzey saw, to her great surprise, that it was Nellie Dewsbury.

Henzey nudged Clara urgently. ‘Look! There’s that Nellie Dewsbury I told you about,’ she whispered. ‘That must be her mother and father.’

As she swanked up the steps, Nellie caught sight of Henzey just a few feet away and gave her a look that would have withered a lesser mortal. Then she stuck her nose in the air and strutted uppishly into the Town Hall.

‘I see what you mean,’ Clara remarked. ‘Snotty devil, isn’t she?’

‘I hate her. Oh, I hate her. Did you see her? Did you see how snooty she was?’

‘She’ll get her comeuppance, Henzey. That sort always do.’

Henzey smiled, her annoyance abating. ‘I wish I could let her know that her Billy’s been to see me. That’d nark her good and proper.’

Billy began calling regularly. At first it was no more than once a fortnight, but soon his visits became more frequent. They would chat for only a few minutes, then he would depart. It seemed to Henzey that they were becoming good friends, yet he rarely spoke about Nellie, inclining her to believe there was something amiss with that relationship. Why else would he keep calling on her? Yet he never once asked her out. She was dying to be asked; not least because of the opportunity it presented to wreak revenge on Nellie, whose unkind words at the party still haunted and hurt her, especially as she’d previously admired the girl so much.

Henzey looked forward to Billy’s visits and, as each one approached, she would make a special effort to look good. If he was a day or two late she would fret, forever glancing through the front windows of the store, and would smile with pleasure and relief when she saw him arrive outside. Her workmates recognised her infatuation, and she suffered endless teasing.

‘Nice frock you’m wearin’ today, Henzey,’ Edie Soap commented one morning in December as she was restocking shelves with blue bags of sugar. ‘Billy due?’

‘How should I know?’ she answered sheepishly. She had just struggled in from the stockroom with a fresh tub of cheese and was cutting it, ready for it to be displayed. ‘I never know if or when he’s coming. He just turns up.’

‘I reckon ’er’s took with ’im,’ Edie said to Rosie and Clara. They were making neat parcels of groceries for those customers whose orders were to be delivered.

‘I’d be took with ’im, an’ all,’ Rosie answered. ‘I wish ’e’d come an’ see me.’

‘Come on, Rosie,’ Edie said. ‘He’d have no truck wi’ you and your big belly.’

Henzey smiled, and wished she could assume some claim over Billy. But she could not. He only ever came and talked to her. She could not say he was hers, and it was looking as though she never would.

Clara picked up a Christmas pudding from the shelf behind her and nestled it into the box she was packing. ‘What’s he do for a living, Henzey? He always looks smart. His suits aren’t cheap, are they? And you only have to look at his shoes to know he spends a lot of money on his things.’

Henzey shrugged. ‘He works for himself.’

‘Not as a chimdey sweep,’ Rosie said.

‘Nor as an iron puddler,’ Phoebe Mantle offered.

‘He’s an agent,’ Henzey informed them nonchalantly. ‘He sells things. To the motor car factories. Things like electric motors for windscreen wipers…and things with adenoids in…’

‘You mean solenoids?’ corrected Wally Bibb with a chuckle. Wally was the manager and, while trade was quiet, he had no objection to their chatter.

Henzey laughed with the others at her mistake. ‘Oh, all right. Solenoids…He sells things with solenoids in to the car firms, like Morris and Austin and Clyno…and Vauxhall.’ Henzey thought the list sounded impressive.

‘He must make a tidy penny,’ Clara said.

‘I think he’s quite well-off,’ Henzey remarked with satisfaction. ‘He told me once he’d got a fortune put by in stocks and shares.’

‘Trying to impress you, was he?’ Wally suggested cynically, sharpening the blade of his carving knife.

‘I don’t think so, Mister Bibb. Why should he want to impress me? I’m nothing to him.’

‘He’s got no side on him, I’ll grant you that,’ Clara said. ‘He’s not one of those snooty toffs.’

‘He’s not a toff, Clara. Well not born a toff, at any rate. He comes from one of those terraced houses in Abberley Street up by Top Church. His family are just ordinary folk. But he’s done well for himself in the motor industry from what I hear of it.’

‘And the best of luck to him,’ said Clara. ‘How old is he? Twenty-five?’

‘Twenty-four.’

‘Young to have done so well. He’ll end up a millionaire at that rate.’

‘Or a bleedin’ pauper,’ Wally muttered cynically. ‘Anyway, I thought you said he’d got a fancy bit. I thought you said he was knockin’ off Councillor Dewsbury’s daughter.’

‘Oh, her,’ Henzey replied with disdain. ‘He’s courting her for the time being, yes. But I don’t think it’ll be for much longer. He doesn’t seem that taken with her.’

Wally scoffed. ‘That’s what he tells you, Henzey. Whatever he tells you, take it with a pinch of salt.’

Wally annoyed her sometimes. It seemed as if he was jealous of any man she was interested in. Adding fuel to these beliefs, she often caught him staring at her, which made her feel uncomfortable. Sometimes she could sense he was looking at her; at her breasts, at her hips, her legs, her waist. It was most disconcerting. But she could never be interested in Wally. He was in his mid-thirties, married, with several children; she wasn’t sure how many. He had short, stubby fingers, a big droopy moustache and greasy hair that smelled of rancid lard; and the hem of his long apron dusted his shoes when he walked. He was interested in photography and, once, he had asked Henzey if he could take some pictures of her on the Clent Hills, but she refused. The idea of him gawping at her through the back plate of his field camera while she posed, not knowing what dirty thoughts he might be thinking, did not appeal.

‘Well, I don’t really expect anything, Mister Bibb,’ Henzey replied, trying not to show her indignation. ‘I can never expect to have the likes of him, so I don’t suppose I’ll be too disappointed.’

‘But you can dream, Henzey,’ Clara encouraged. ‘You can certainly dream.’

Billy Witts was no academic, and his repartee was rarely sparkling, but he exuded a presence that was sufficient to compensate. This was especially so in business, where he proved to himself that it was no detriment to be endowed with more brawn than brain. As a freelance sales agent for manufacturers of motor car parts and accessories, he had nurtured many contacts in the trade and had fared remarkably well. Recently he had obtained contracts for all his agencies. Morris Motors had contracted to buy a new American type of window-winding mechanism, and Austin a new headlight that used a solenoid to dip the reflector. Vauxhall were fitting a high-frequency electric horn from a continental firm he represented, instead of the usual hand-operated bulb horns. A company from Birmingham with whom he had connections, called Worthington Commercials, which had recently gone into the business of producing three-wheeled vans, were promising to place orders. All this business netted him a tidy sum and would continue to do so for as long as the equipment was purchased. The motor trade was thriving, he told Henzey and, judging by the ever-increasing numbers of cars on the roads, she reckoned it must be true. Billy still lived with his mother and father but he had notions of changing all that soon enough.

Billy Witts was quietly taken with Henzey. She was an enigma; different to all the others. Whenever he saw her he couldn’t take his eyes off her lovely face. It was amazing that a girl so young, and with such exquisite looks, was so modest; she was not in the least conceited. If anything she underestimated her potential, yet at the same time she possessed tremendous self-esteem. Every time he saw her he expected her to say that she had started courting and he knew that, when that day arrived, he would kick himself for not being the lucky one to have snapped her up.

Just yet, though, he could not quite fit her in. Ideally, he would need to sever relations with Nellie and, even though things with her were at a critical stage, he was loath to do it just yet. Nellie was sullen, self-centred and demanding, and Billy was finding her possessiveness increasingly stifling, for he enjoyed other women besides her from time to time; but her family was rich. At first, of course, he found it flattering that the lovely daughter of a wealthy industrialist and town councillor was head over heels in love with him. Gradually, however, her shortcomings were eclipsing her virtues. Compared to Henzey, she had no virtues at all.

But one thing ensured his continuing interest in Nellie, and that was sex. It had become their mutual obsession; an art form; the only enduring feature of their liaison. It was like a drug, and his other women paled in comparison. Such a situation was not unique in the liberal atmosphere following the Great War, when torrid affairs were more readily accepted, especially among the wealthy. But he was actually growing to dislike Nellie, and yet he could not keep his hands off her. The relationship was thus rendered tolerable, but as unstable as nitro-glycerine.

His heart, however, was with Henzey. But, because she had to be lacking in sexual experience, he hesitated to involve himself. Whenever he encountered her he was entirely confused: he would behold her girlish innocence, study her striking face, her youthful figure, her wholesome demeanour and end up telling himself that she was as close to perfection as he would ever find. So after weeks of soul-searching, convincing himself that there was no future with Nellie, he finally made up his mind that somebody in his position really ought to have a girl as lovely and unspoiled as Henzey Kite on his arm, for all to admire.

Chapter 3

On Wednesday the 27th of March Henzey waited eagerly for early closing. Billy Witts had arranged to meet her at last, and promised to take her to The Station Hotel to celebrate her seventeenth birthday, which was tomorrow. She was wearing her best coat, and had taken a new skirt and blouse to work to change into. When the shop closed, she had duly changed, made up her face and gone out eagerly to meet him.

The fact that he continued to call on her – always during working hours – had been tormenting her. He was patently interested in her, and it had spawned her greater interest in him. Every time he appeared she would think that this must certainly be the day he would ask her out, but every time he left her, saying: ‘See you soon, then, Henzey.’ This relentless teasing was driving her mad and fuelling her fixation. She cared deeply for him now; her infatuation and curiosity had matured into love; but that love remained frustrated, unexpressed, because he’d allowed no outlet for it. It was unthinkable that love of such intensity as hers might be ignored. So she dared to hope that this one occasion – this sole dinnertime tryst – might just be the trigger to fire him into romance. He was so cool and collected, self-confident

At ten minutes past one, the appointed time, Henzey and Billy met by his rakish 1926 Vauxhall sports tourer parked in the Market Place outside Boots the Chemist. He greeted her with a kiss on the cheek – the first time ever – which made her tingle inside, and he told her how lovely she looked. As the swish motor-car pulled away, envious passers-by witnessed her happy, smiling face that was hiding a deal of nervousness.

‘So how’s it feel to be on your last day of being sixteen, Henzey?’ Billy asked as they drove past the open market.

She turned to look at his handsome face, scarcely able to believe that she had him all to herself, in the privacy of his car, without the staff of George Mason’s winking and nudging each other as they looked on. ‘Well, it’s year closer to being twenty-one.’

They pulled up on the front apron of the mock Tudor building known as The Station Hotel, an imposing structure, overlooking the railway station in the cutting below. Evidently Billy believed she looked old enough to take into a public bar.

He took her hand and led her into a comfortable and well-furnished saloon. There were men in there, businessmen, she presumed, by the look of their fine suits and starched white collars and cuffs. Some spoke to Billy, and some merely nodded, but she noticed how they all watched her. She sat on a settle that was finely upholstered in dark green moquette and Billy went to the bar, returning with a bottle of champagne and two lead crystal flutes.

Henzey flinched as the cork popped and hit the ornately plastered ceiling, and she laughed at her own nervousness. With a practised skill he filled the two glasses slowly, allowing the bubbles to subside.

‘I expect you’ve done that lots of times,’ she suggested.

‘But never before with you, Henzey. This is just our own private little celebration, and a chance to talk to you properly. I’ve been meaning to for ages. Bottoms up! Happy birthday for tomorrow.’ He raised his glass.

She did the same, sipped the liquid and the bubbles tickled the end of her nose. ‘You’re not trying to get me drunk, like your daft brother-in-law, are you, Billy?’

‘Hey, hang on a bit. Let’s get this straight. First, I ain’t trying to get you drunk – that’s not my style – and second, Andrew ain’t me brother-in-law. Nor ever likely to be.’

Her curiosity at his latter comment set her pulse racing.

Billy casually took a Black Cat from his silver cigarette case, tapped the end down, put it between his lips and lit it. When he had exhaled his first cloud of smoke he began twirling the champagne flute on the table, gazing into it, pondering Nellie a moment. Nellie was becoming insufferable when she had her clothes on; hard work these days. It was even worth considering forfeiting her share of the Dewsbury fortune; worth considering forfeiting the possibility of a seat on the board of the Castle Iron Foundry. Henzey was far more agreeable. Her lack of sophistication and unassuming manner were refreshing, and far more suited to his own temperament.

‘Me an’ Nellie have been going through a bit of a rough patch,’ he said at last. ‘I’ve decided to finish with her – give her up. We couldn’t go on like we have been. It was a waste of time.’

Henzey looked into her glass, too, watching the bubbles, like tiny stars, rise to the surface. She said, ‘I bet she’s heartbroken.’ She wanted to say more – a lot more – and a thousand questions begged to be asked.

‘Heartbroken? Maybe she is, maybe she ain’t. She’ll get over it, whether or no.’

‘How do you get on with her mom and dad, Billy?’

‘All right, I suppose. Her mother gets a bit above herself sometimes, but old Walter Dewsbury’s a down to earth Black Countryman.’

‘It’s funny, I imagined him to be ever so posh being a councillor. Like Nellie and Andrew.’

‘Blimey, no,’ he scoffed. ‘Walter’s a foundryman. Have you ever heard of a foundryman with airs and graces? Calls a spade a spade, does Walter, and swears like a trooper. He talks broader than me.’

‘Oh, you talk nice, Billy,’ she assured him. ‘But how come the son and daughter are so lah-di-dah?’

‘It’s how they’ve been educated. They’ve been to private schools. Cost a fortune an’ all, I imagine. But still, Walter’s made a lot of money over the years. He could afford it.’

Henzey sipped her champagne and shuffled prettily on the settle, her back gracefully erect. Billy watched her, admiring the way she held her head. He noticed her neck, so elegant, her throat so pale, her skin so clear, the soft fullness high in her cheeks provided by a delicate bone structure; that ultimate beauty that would never fade. Her thick hair yielded a fine lustre, and its colour was a rich dark brown, with an occasional strand of red, like a random thread of burnished copper, glistening as it caught the light. Long, dark lashes enhanced her soft, blue eyes and, when she smiled, intensifying the delicious contours of her lips, he yearned to kiss her. This girl was irresistible, he told himself, and he was a fool for trying to resist. Never in his whole life had he known a girl so lovely, and yet so natural.

‘I’d like to take you out Sunday, Henzey.’

Her heart missed a beat, but she smiled brightly. ‘Oh, that’d be nice. Thank you, Billy. Where would we go?’

‘I thought a ride out into the country. I could call for you after dinner. The nights are drawing out a bit now, and we could stop on the way back for a drink in a nice country pub.’

‘I’d really like that. What about Nellie, though?’

‘Well, I hadn’t intended inviting her, to be truthful.’

She laughed self-consciously. ‘I didn’t mean that.’

She blushed a virtuous shade of crimson and lowered her eyelids as she regarded her drink. Inside, her heart was dancing and, for a few seconds, she did not know what to say, though a hundred things flashed through her mind. The trouble was, nothing seemed really appropriate to how she felt.

Billy took Henzey home in the middle of the afternoon. As they said their goodbyes he handed her a small package, beautifully gift-wrapped, which he’d taken out of his pocket. Not to be opened till tomorrow, he said. But even more than receiving this gift she was elated that she was going to see him again on Sunday. She could barely think straight. It was a dream come true. Oh, she loved him all right. And this time she knew there was no chance of getting bored like she had with Jack Harper. How could she possibly get bored with Billy knowing that her arch-rival, Nellie Dewsbury, might still be vying for Billy’s affection? The fact that Nellie would do all she could to hold on to him was a challenge she would meet head on and parry, no matter what it took. Henzey vowed that as long as she drew breath she would do everything in her power to possess Billy. She had had two boyfriends before, so she had learned a thing or two about men.

Over and over in her mind she relived the two hours they’d spent together in The Station Hotel’s lounge bar. She felt much closer to him now. The thought that she would have him all to herself on Sunday left her trembling with anticipation. Soon she would be able to express this frustrated love that had been smouldering within her heart for so long. She imagined romantic evenings over candlelit dinners, visits to nightclubs in Birmingham, to theatres and art galleries. She imagined picnics on hot summer days, in green meadows dotted with daisies and buttercups in the Worcestershire countryside. There would be walks in parks among beautiful flowers and shrubs, and garden parties at the smart homes of his well-to-do friends. It would be a whole new world. And she must get out her sketchbook and pencils at the earliest opportunity and draw him, since that too was a sublime expression of love.

On Saturday evening after tea, the Kites sat around the table talking desultorily, before Alice went upstairs to get herself ready to go ‘chapping’. Maxine, Henzey’s youngest sister, then decided she would go to bed early to read Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge. Herbert, her brother, went up the yard to the privy, but saw no point in taking the Sports Argus with him as it was too dark by now to read it, with nowhere to stand the oil lamp. So Henzey and Lizzie, her mother, were left together, ready to clear the table and start the washing up.

‘Are you going out with Jesse tonight, Mom?’ Henzey asked.

‘We might go to The Shoulder of Mutton later.’

Lizzie began clearing the crockery, stacking it together as she sat. ‘Our Alice told me earlier that The Bean might be shutting. Did you know?’ ‘The Bean’ was the firm in Dudley that made Bean Cars, and Henzey had not been present when Alice announced its impending closure. It was all too obvious what it implied. ‘They’re selling no cars,’ Lizzie went on. ‘They reckon they’re too dear. Folks can’t afford them. She’ll be out of a job.’

Henzey took the teapot and drained it into her own and her mother’s empty cup, remembering how they had struggled for years to make ends meet; how her mother had had to find work to keep them from starvation. After Henzey had found a job at George Mason’s things had improved enormously and, since Alice had been employed at Bean Cars, and Herbert had begun working in Jesse Clancey’s dairy business, things had become even better.

‘There’s a job going at George Mason’s, Mom. Rosie’s leaving to have her baby. If Alice sees Wally Bibb he’ll very likely set her on.’

Resigned to a long conversation, Lizzie settled back on her chair again and watched Henzey add milk to the two cups, ready for another cup of tea. She said, ‘It’d be better than nothing, our Henzey. You can’t pick and choose these days with so many out of work. Will you put a word in with Wally Bibb for her?’

Henzey shook her head, recalling how he was continuing to look at her so lecherously. She did not want to be beholden to Wally. She wanted to owe him no favours. ‘I’d rather not. It’s best if she goes herself and doesn’t even mention I’m her sister. He’ll take to her all right when he sees her. He enjoys a bit of glamour round him.’

‘What’s the best time to catch him?’

‘If she goes in her dinner break she’ll catch him.’

‘Then let’s hope she can get the job. It’d be nice for you, as well, having our Alice working beside you. Her wages have come in handy. I don’t know what we’d do if you lost your job as well, our Henzey.’

‘You wouldn’t have to worry about things like that if you and Jesse got married, Mom. It’s time you did.’

Lizzie sighed. ‘Yes, maybe it is. It’s his mother, though – old Ezme. I should be back where I was before, looking after your father, except I’d be nursing her instead. I didn’t mind so much with your father. It was hard work, but at least I was married to him. But I’m hanged if I’ll nurse old Ezme. The thought of having to look after her puts me right off. She never could stand me, and she never could stand my mother before me. There’s no love lost between us, Henzey. If we all had to live under the same roof as Ezme, it would be Bedlam.’

‘It wouldn’t bother me very much, Mom. Maxine would be at school, and the rest of us would be out at work all day.’

‘But I wouldn’t be. Not if I was married to Jesse. I’d have to be at home.’

‘Couldn’t you just grin and bear it? She might not live that long.’

‘Ezme’ll live forever, just to spite me.’ Lizzie sighed. ‘Anyway, we’ll see. Who knows what the future might bring?’

‘What’s the matter, Mom? You seem fed up?’ Henzey had thought for some time that her mother seemed depressed.

‘Oh, it’s nothing.’ She smiled in an effort to look brighter. ‘Just one of my moods…Now then, madam…who’s this Billy, who sent you a card for your birthday? I’ve noticed you mooning over him for ages.’

Henzey smiled coyly. ‘I can’t keep anything from you, can I?’

‘I was a young girl myself once, our Henzey. I know what it’s like being in love when you’re young.’

‘D’you remember that party Alice and me went to ages ago? I met Billy there.’

‘Oh? And what’s he like?’

‘I think you’d approve. He’s twenty-four…’

‘Twenty-four?’

‘Yes, twenty-four, handsome, steady…and well-off…’ Henzey smiled challengingly. ‘Anything else you want to know?’

‘I think twenty-four’s a bit old for you.’

‘Well I don’t think so, Mom. I like men older than myself. Younger chaps are too stupid. Look at Jack Harper, and he’s twenty-one.’

‘Jack Harper,’ Lizzie repeated reflectively. ‘I see what you mean.’ She picked up her cup and sipped her tea, holding it in front of her with both hands, her elbows on the table.

Henzey said, ‘Anyway, what about Jesse? He’s nine years older than you. You haven’t heard me mention that he’s too old for you.’

‘Yes, but that’s different…So is this Billy working?’

‘Works for himself. He’s got plenty money, like I told you. And a nice car.’

‘Well he must have plenty money to be able to buy you pearl necklaces.’

Henzey smiled again. ‘You noticed it, then?’

‘I could hardly miss that glistening round your neck like I don’t know what. Are you taken with him?’

‘I like him a lot,’ she said quietly, looking down at the table cloth. ‘I’ve liked him a long time.’

‘Then you’d best let me meet him. When are you supposed to see him?’

‘Tomorrow. We’re going for a ride in the country.’

‘Well just mind what you’re doing, our Henzey. You’re only just seventeen, remember.’

That last Sunday in March was a blustery, wet day. The month had come in like the proverbial lion and was going out like one. Once out of Stourbridge and on the road to Kinver, Henzey noticed how the winter-yellowed meadows were taking on their spring greenery, bright even under the dark, rolling clouds. Trees swayed boisterously, and the wind boomed against the canvas hood of Billy’s car. The windscreen wipers struggled to maintain visibility in the squalling rain. It was not ideal weather for a trip into the countryside with a new beau, but one that she had eagerly looked forward to, rain or shine. The weather did not matter; the fact that she was with Billy, did.

In Kinver, Henzey was still intrigued by the houses hollowed out of a sandstone rock face on the outskirts of the village, though she had seen them before on her Sunday school trips as a child. People still lived in them, and neat they looked too, with nets at the leaded windows and brightly painted front doors. The main street was deserted as they drove through it. Any Sunday afternoon in summer it would be teeming with folk ferried in by the Kinver Light Railway, which was really just a tram that looked like a charabanc on rails. The village was noted for its public houses but, by this time, they were shut for the afternoon, and those who had been supping in them earlier were doubtless all having their after dinner naps by now.

Once through the village, Billy parked the car under some trees on a patch of ground off a narrow lane overlooking Kinver Edge, a natural beauty spot. Drops of water fell from the bare branches above and drummed intermittently on the motor car’s hood. Henzey wiped the inside of the misted window with her gloved hand and peered out at the landscape, unspoilt, despite the ravages of the wind and the rain.

‘Let’s go for a walk,’ she suggested.

‘We’ll get soaked.’

‘Oh, Billy, we’ve got our hats and coats. Come on, let’s have a look round.’

She stepped out of the car and pulled the collar of her coat up round her neck, and her pretty cloche hat more firmly on her head. The rain on her face, the tranquillity of the woods, the meadows and the smell of damp grass, were like a tonic. After the constriction of rows and rows of houses, of factory chimneys, of the crowded, jostling town centre where she worked, she allowed herself to wallow in this rural expanse. But, best of all, she found herself walking with Billy’s arm around her waist. She nuzzled her head against his shoulder momentarily and looked up into his eyes as they walked back down the hill they’d just driven up. He caught her glance and smiled.

‘Did you go out last night, Henzey?’

‘No, I stayed in…I told my mom about you…’

‘Oh?’

‘She wants to meet you.’

‘Honest? What have you told her?’

‘Oh, that you’re twenty-four, that you’ve got a car, that you work for yourself in the motor industry…that you’re always smartly dressed…’

‘And what did she say to that?’

‘She says you’re too old for me.’ She grinned at such a ridiculous notion, and he laughed.

‘Oh? And what do you think?’

‘I think boys my own age are immature…What about you, Billy? Did you go out last night?’

‘I went to the Tower Ballroom at Edgbaston.’

‘Not with Nellie, though?’

‘No, not with Nellie. With the usual crowd.’

But Henzey knew that Nellie was part of the usual crowd. ‘Was Nellie there?’

‘Oh, yes, she was there.’

Henzey felt a bitter pang of disappointment, like a stab in the heart, but she tried not to let it show. An image flooded her mind of Billy dancing with Nellie, who was clinging to him. Did he take her home afterwards? Did he kiss her goodnight? She was longing to know, but she tried desperately to let him think she was not particularly concerned. So when did he intend telling Nellie that he was seeing somebody else? The thought of waiting days, weeks, perhaps even months for him to pick his moment, horrified her. She’d assumed he would give up Nellie straightaway. That would be the honourable thing to do. That’s what she would do. But she was judging Billy by her own standards. If she wasn’t careful he would have her dangling on a string like some mindless puppet. He would still be seeing Nellie, and she’d be just a bit on the side. Under no circumstances could she allow that to happen; her self-esteem was far too high. She had to show him she was worthy of more. She had to let him see that she would not be so manipulated. Oh, she wanted Billy desperately, but he had to come to her in his own time, under his own steam, because he wanted to. It must also be on terms that suited her. So, she had to be the stronger attraction.

At the bottom of the hill they turned right into another quiet lane overhung with trees and ivy. It was steep, narrow and winding, with the village church at the top, its ancient bell-tower overlooking all like a sandstone fortress. Rain was spattering their faces as they walked huddled together.

‘Let’s not talk about Nellie,’ Billy said, uncomfortable with the subject.

‘I don’t want to talk about her anyway.’

He detected a note of scorn, of detachment in her voice. He did not wish to alienate her. Best to justify last night’s encounter and be done with it.

‘Henzey, I know I told you I’d finish with her, and in my own mind I have already. It’s just that…’

‘It’s just that you haven’t told her yet.’

‘Right. I haven’t told her yet…I haven’t had the heart to tell her. But I shall. As soon as it’s right.’

She shrugged dismissively, but her mind was awhirl. ‘It’s up to you, Billy.’

‘Last night was arranged ages ago, not just with her, but with the folks who were with us. It was an engagement party, see? Friends…Look, I don’t feel anything for Nellie now. I’d much rather have been with you. Just bear with me, eh?…Can you bear with me?…You’ve got to understand, Henzey, that I feel nothing for her. It’s just that I don’t want her to do anything stupid.’

‘Billy, I’m not making a fuss, you are,’ she said, though there was a hell of a fuss going on inside her head. ‘I’m not worried about Nellie, so you don’t have to account to me for what you did. If you still love her, all well and good. If you don’t, you don’t. I’m looking no further than that. I like you, Billy – a lot – but I don’t intend to compete with her, so don’t expect me to. If you still want her, have her. That’s all right by me.’ Already she had learnt never to declare her true feelings this early in the game.

‘One thing I like about you, Henzey, is that you’ve got your head screwed on good an’ proper. Anybody would think you were as old as me.’ He put his arm round her again and gave her a hug.

Yes, this was the way to handle Billy: pretend to be indifferent, then offer him some bait and keep repeating the process. He was not going to be easy to manage, that much she could already discern, but the challenge made him all the more interesting.

Within a few minutes, warmed and breathing hard after the steep climb, they reached the village church. Some way beyond the church lay the churchyard, and from its high vantage point they could see the countryside laid out before them for miles. Billy suggested they have a look at the inscriptions on the gravestones; they held a fascination for him, he said. As they ambled through, noting the names and the dates, making little comments about them, Henzey conjured up images of those people all those years ago whose names and dates of death she read; images of their homes, their families, habits, fears, loves, heartbreaks. They had lived and breathed, had been flesh and blood, and now they were all but forgotten. How had they lived? What mark had they made on their community? How had their lives affected those who came later? Had they been happy?

This last question was the most important. For to live and be unhappy made living pointless. For a few moments she pondered whether happiness was God given, or whether you have to strive for it. Indeed, she felt she knew the answer. Already she had seen enough of life to know that people often make their own happiness and their own unhappiness. It’s up to each of us to make ourselves and each other happy, she told herself. Nobody can do it for us. And if we turn out to be unhappy, usually we have nobody to blame but ourselves.

She did not communicate these thoughts to Billy. They were deep, and she did not know him well enough to speak of such things. He would probably be inclined to think she was mad. Besides, he was one of those elements likely to influence her future happiness. It all depended on her. It all depended on whether she made the right decisions, when the time came, to ensure her own future happiness.

From inside the church they could hear children’s voices singing.

‘Sunday school,’ Henzey said with a smile. ‘Don’t they sound angelic?’

They moved on, looking at the gravestones. Henzey’s feet were getting colder and wetter all the time. She shivered, and Billy laughed.

‘What’s so funny?’

‘I bet when you agreed to come out with me for a Sunday afternoon spin you didn’t reckon on spending it in a soaking wet churchyard.’

She chuckled. ‘Oh, anything for a lark.’ She looked around her at the rain, still falling, splashing off the graves. She listened to it trickling down the drainpipe of the church and exiting over a drain. ‘I’d like to come here again some time, Billy. You remember I said I like drawing and painting?…Well, I’d love to do some water-colours of this place. Look at the view. Would you bring me back one day when the weather picks up? You know, if…’ If they continued to see each other, was what she wanted to say, but the words would not come out.

‘’Course I would. That’d be interesting for me as well. I’ve never known anybody before who paints seriously.’

Suddenly the wind whipped up and the rain became torrential. Billy suggested they shelter inside the church till it eased off. As they entered quietly, one or two of the children turned round to look at them. Their Sunday school was just drawing to a close and the teacher was telling them to say their prayers every night when they went to bed, and that she would see them all again next Sunday afternoon. Henzey and Billy sat in a back pew while they filed down the aisle on their way out. Those children whose parents could afford to buy them raincoats, donned them. Henzey smiled at each of them and waved goodbye as they departed.

It was a gesture that touched Billy. There was a warmth in this Henzey Kite he’d never witnessed in anybody else. She seemed the essence of kindness and affability. In the same situation, Nellie would have glowered at the children. She would have been impatient for them to be out of her sight. This girl beside him was so very different. As the Sunday school teacher closed the door behind her, Billy put his arm around Henzey’s shoulder and drew her to him. When she looked up at him, her eyes bright, her face wet from the rain, he kissed her full on the lips, tenderly, gently.

Oh, it was a delicious first kiss and long-awaited, but she was suddenly struck by the realisation that they were inside a church and should respect its sanctity, so she broke away.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘We shouldn’t, Billy. Not in church.’ She feared the heavenly host might see and hear, and wreak immediate vengeance. ‘It isn’t right.’

‘Well, it ain’t wrong either.’

He kissed her again, defiantly, more ardently this time. Every time, as she tried to pull away, laughing and uttering feeble excuses, his mouth followed hers till she resigned herself to his kisses and enjoyed them the more. She shut her mind to the sanctity of the church and, when he eased her down so that she was lying on the pew, she was surprised, both at his forwardness and her own passiveness, for she offered no further resistance. His caresses were mesmerising. She was unable to resist. Indeed she did not want to resist. He unbuttoned her wet coat as he kneeled between the pews on a hassock, his lips still on hers. She felt his hand slip inside her coat to her waist, her hip. Her arms were around his neck, then she held his face as she heard herself sigh with pleasure at his touch. He kissed her wet eyelids, her flushed cheeks, her forehead, and then again touched her lips with his own, as gently as a butterfly settling on a flower. Then, to her horror, he thrust his tongue into her mouth, and she tasted him with some shock…But it was not so bad…It was quite nice really…In fact it made her feel all weak inside, and so much closer to him. Jack Harper had never kissed her like this.

But they were in a church. The door was unlocked, open to anybody. The world could have walked in. The vicar might come in. God, what if the vicar walked in and saw her wantonly draped over his pew? There must be some law against this. At the thought of divine retribution she struggled and managed to sit up.

Billy ran his hand through his hair, for want of something to do with it, and smiled. ‘Blimey, you don’t ’alf kiss nice, Henzey. I got really carried away there.’

Feelings of guilt swept over her; not guilt for kissing Billy; not guilt for merely enjoying it. The guilt was for enjoying it inside a church; for the possibility of being caught.

‘I think we should go outside, Billy…’

With a smile he conceded, stood up and pulled his coat to. As Henzey also stood up and faced him, he drew her to him and kissed her again, lingering over the sensuality of her lips, so soft, so accommodating. They shuffled out of the pew, he took her hand and they moved towards the main door of the church, then walked out into the rain looking hungrily into each other’s eyes. Henzey leaned against one of the sandstone buttresses. Her arms went round his neck again as the rain teemed down, running in rivulets down her face, which was upturned to receive more delicious kisses.

She allowed his hands to wander inside her coat again, fleetingly over her bottom, her thighs. Willingly she would have lain in the soaking grass with him, but when he felt her breasts, even though her heart pounded, she deftly moved his probing hand away in case he might think her cheap. His right thigh docked between hers in another sortie, and she sighed, inducing him to kiss her even more passionately. The rain drenching their faces did not matter, nor did their cold feet in the wet grass. Even the wind blowing and gusting so rudely was intrusive. But, to Billy’s surprise and disappointment, Henzey broke off their embrace and moved away from the buttress.

‘My God!’ she sighed. ‘To think Nellie’s had your kisses all to herself.’ She took his hand, inviting him to follow her. ‘Shall we go, Billy? Else we’ll never dry out before I get you home to meet my mom.’

Chapter 4

That Sunday night Henzey walked down the entry with Billy Witts to bid him goodnight. It was half past ten. He had stayed for Sunday tea, for supper and had enjoyed the company and the hospitality of the Kites.

‘Nice of your mom to invite me to your house next Saturday night,’ he said.

‘Yes, but I won’t expect you if you’re still seeing Nellie.’

She was standing facing him, her arms folded. In the dimness of the entry he saw the catchlights in her eyes. Never before had he seen eyes so beautiful, with such a look of gentleness and honesty, as at that moment in the half-light. He took both her hands and held them down by her side. Their bodies touched and, as he leaned his head forward to kiss her, to taste again her lips, her heart beat faster. Whilst he had been sitting in the house, talking, laughing with the family, confident and at ease, he was still contemplating their afternoon out. He liked this girl; she was so refreshingly honest, and he realised that Henzey would never commit herself until she was certain that Nellie played no further part in his life. He also perceived that when – if – she did commit herself it would be whole-heartedly. That commitment would be his for the taking.

It presented him with a great dilemma. He had in mind his intense sexual encounters with Nellie, and how much they meant to him.

‘I’ll be finished with Nellie by Saturday,’ he whispered, unsure of the truth of it; but he kissed her convincingly enough. ‘So shall I see you Tuesday night?’

She shook her head, slowly, deliberately, meeting his eyes directly. But if he’d been able to read her expression accurately in the darkness he would have read her look of uncertainty. She wanted him for herself so much, that to refuse him was breaking her heart. Heeding Clara’s advice was decidedly painful.

‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Are you doing something else?’

She shook her head again. ‘No, but I’m not going to see you till you’ve finished with Nellie,’ she whispered coolly. ‘If that’s what you decide you want to do. When you have, you can tell me what happened, and how she took it. If you don’t…well…you won’t turn up here, will you? And I shall understand, Billy. At least we’ll know exactly where we stand.’

She was aching to hug him tight, to give him her love, but how much better to lose him now than to hurl herself headlong into an affair that might end in heartbreak because she was too soft in the beginning. Billy had to know she was not going to be a pushover. She had her standards, and she intended to implement them. A week gave him plenty of time. If he failed to do it there would be little point in carrying on, for this new affair would deteriorate into a charade. She was certain she had given him enough of a glimpse of how things could be. She could do no more. The rest was up to him.

On Tuesday dinnertime Alice found time to present herself in front of Wally Bibb at George Mason’s. He offered her a job at a shilling a week less than she was getting at Bean Cars, but she accepted it gladly, since it was almost certain that she would not have a job in the office there much longer. Shop work was not exactly what Alice wanted. Her heart was set on the glamour of being a private secretary to some suave company director, but it would do till such an opening came along. When Henzey asked Alice later what she thought of Wally, she replied that she’d probably have to watch out, because he kept looking at her bust.

‘Oh, I daresay he was trying to see where it had got to,’ Henzey quipped, and dodged as Alice went to swipe her playfully.

Henzey had kept out of the way while Alice was interviewed. Afterwards Wally asked her if she was any relation, since he reckoned Kite was not that common a name. She admitted Alice was her sister, and Wally made some sarcastic comment about there being safety in numbers, which seemed to amuse him.

But her mind was not on Alice, nor Wally, nor George Mason’s. As the week wore on, Henzey was becoming disconsolate, certain that Billy was out enjoying himself with Nellie Dewsbury. Each night as she lay in bed thinking, she would imagine them together. She pictured them laughing, holding hands, kissing. As sleep escaped her, and the night induced more disturbing images, she saw them making love with all the passion and commitment of a latter day Romeo and Juliet. The more she thought about these things the more she convinced herself that it was so, and the less chance she believed she had. She yearned to be with him again, to hear him laugh, to feel his lips on hers, to hold his hand, to feel his manly arms around her. If only she had agreed to see him on Tuesday night she might not be tossing and turning now, unable to sleep. If only he would call at the shop tomorrow. He would only have to smile at her and she would know. She would know immediately that all was well. But she did not know, and it was torture. This uncertainty was torture, and she still had this night to get through, and then two more to follow.

She was certain she had driven Billy away with her feigned indifference. How could she have been so sure of herself? How could she have been so arrogant? She could no more dictate to Billy Witts what he should do than he could dictate to her. Now she was angry with herself for ruining the best opportunity ever to find happiness, with a man who really suited her, a man she admired in every way. She liked him so much. No. It was more than that; it was much more than that. She loved him. Even more than that; she loved him desperately.

As they left the shop on Saturday evening after work, Clara Maitland and Henzey stepped out into the bustle of market traders packing away their wares, and across the street to Clara’s tram stop. The days were getting longer, and it was still light, but the overhead wires, from which the trams drew their power, were swinging in the wind that was yet vigorous.

‘I haven’t seen that Billy all week, Henzey,’ Clara said, avoiding a handcart. ‘Hasn’t he been to see you? It’s unusual. Have you upset him?’

‘If I have I never intended to,’ Henzey answered, her eyes misting.

‘Oh?’

‘I haven’t told you, but I went out with him last Sunday afternoon. He stopped for tea and for supper and my mother invited him to our house tonight for my birthday…But I don’t expect he’ll come.’

They paused while a man loading sacks of potatoes onto a lorry blocked their way. He apologised for holding them up, and they walked on.

Clara said, ‘I suspect he hasn’t been to see you just to make you think about him all the more. Absence making the heart grow fonder, and all that. I wouldn’t think much of him if he accepted your mother’s invitation, then didn’t have the grace to show up.’

‘Oh, I don’t think it’s just that, Clara…’

‘What then? There’s something else?’

‘Well, I thought he’d given that Nellie Dewsbury up. At least that’s what he led me to think.’

‘And he hadn’t?’

‘No. So I told him I wouldn’t see him again until he had. I told him only to come tonight if he’d finished with her.’

‘Well, good for you, Henzey. He sounds a bit of a cad after all.’

‘I suppose I’ve put him off. I suppose he thought I was a bossy little madam. Did I do the right thing, d’you think, Clara?’

‘You did exactly right. You’ve let him know you weren’t going to be manipulated, or swept off your feet.’

‘Oh, but I’m swept off my feet, all right, Clara. I’m swept off my feet good and proper.’

‘And that’s what makes it hard for you, eh? Did your mother like him?’

‘She must’ve. She invited him tonight…’

‘Well, if he doesn’t come you’ll have lost nothing, Henzey,’ Clara said resignedly. ‘You’ll have escaped a lot of heartbreak. That’s the best way to look at it.’

But that was not the way Henzey wished to look at it. In the intensity of her infatuation she had her heart set on Billy Witts. Come the evening, Henzey contemplated him as she undressed herself, ready to put on her new frock, just in case he did turn up after all. If he did come, it would be to claim her, and she knew he would be far more demanding than Jack Harper had been. Jack was never any trouble to keep at bay. Only occasionally would she allow him to kiss her. But she was much more of a woman now. Her natural awareness of things sensual and erotic was infinitely more acute, and her emotions were intensifying, accelerated by her enduring hopes and dreams of being Billy’s girl. As she recalled how he had taken her in his arms and kissed her, her heart beat faster and her body seemed to glow.

It occurred to her that she might not want to keep Billy at bay at all. Her new adult emotions were less ambiguous, more profound. She was contemplating more and more what it would be like to go all the way with a man. Of course such things were for marriage and not before, and she understood that, but still she couldn’t help wondering. She closed the door to the bedroom and sat naked on her bed. With her eyes closed she gently squeezed her breasts, imagining Billy to be doing it, and an unfamiliar warmth of desire lit her up. She stood up, and for the first time seriously scrutinised her own slender body in the tall mirror standing in the corner. He breasts were firm and supple, and she saw how her nipples had awoken in response to her own sensuality, each standing proud like a small, pink raspberry on a smooth, cream blancmange. She stroked the skin of her stomach. It was silky smooth. Her face was fine-featured and strikingly beautiful, though she considered her nose too long and her eyebrows too thick. She twisted sideways and turned her head to inspect her body in profile. Her waist was tight, her neck elegant, her stomach gently rounded. Her legs were long, well-shaped and unblemished, and her buttocks protruded neatly. Without even trying she possessed the sort of figure every modern, young woman was striving for.

By this time Henzey was earning eleven shillings a week and could afford to buy a nice dress and decent shoes occasionally. That day she had been shopping and bought a pair of silk French knickers, and a blue, waistless dress the same colour as her eyes, in crepe de Chine, loosely fitted at the hips. It was barely knee length, and her flesh-coloured silk stockings enhanced the shape of her legs. Her lustrous, dark hair framed her face, and she rounded off the whole effect with a long string of glass beads and a dab of her mother’s Chanel No. 5 behind each ear. When she emerged into the scullery even Herbert commented on how lovely she looked.

On tenterhooks, she helped her mother with final preparations while Alice and Maxine changed into their Sunday best. The closer the hands on the clock moved towards half past seven, the more she trembled inside, praying silently that he would arrive, but resigned to the certainty that he would not. When her mother spoke she failed to hear, her thoughts only with Billy. Lizzie smiled to herself at her daughter’s preoccupation, and understood; she had been there herself.

But prompt at half past seven she heard a motor car pull up outside the house. Her heart pounded with anticipation as she ran into the front room where the table was laid out for a meal. She peered through the lace curtains. It was him. It was Billy. She breathed a sigh of profound relief and smiled, rushing to the back door to greet him, keeping her fingers crossed that everything had gone the way she wanted.

‘Here, I’ve bought you some flowers,’ he said, producing a bouquet of roses from behind his back when she opened the door to him. He smiled at her expression and placed a kiss on her cheek, which made her blush since her mother witnessed it. But everything was all right. He had come to claim her after all.

‘Oh, Billy. Red roses. Oh, they’re beautiful. You shouldn’t have, but thank you ever so much. Aren’t they beautiful, Mom?’

‘You’d better put them in some water right away,’ Lizzie replied.

The evening went well, and Henzey was pleased to see that her mother seemed less tense than she had been for some time, more able to enjoy herself. Jesse, too, was bubbling with even more humour than normal. It was good to see them so happy.

Afterwards, in Billy’s arms, as they stood in the entry as he was about to leave, Henzey said, ‘It would mean a lot to me if my mother and Jesse got married. I’ve dreamed about it for ages now.’

‘They seem well suited.’

‘Oh, they are.’

‘That Jesse seems a genuine sort of chap. Is he anything like your dad was?’

‘In some ways. Except my dad used to get upset with people. He was so deep sometimes – very serious. Other times he was just the opposite – soft as a bottle of pop. Jesse never gets frustrated or upset like my dad used to. Good as gold he is with us, ‘specially considering he isn’t our dad. He thinks the world of our Herbert.’

‘It seems to me he thinks the world of all of you, Henzey. I think your mom’s lucky to find somebody like him.’

‘I think he’s lucky to get my mom.’

He gave her a hug. ‘That as well. She’s a lovely looking woman for her age, your mom. I can see who you get your good looks from.’

Henzey shrugged. ‘Everybody says I’m like my father. I loved him, Billy. He was a lovely man. I did some drawings of him when he was alive. I can show you them one of these days.’ She forced back a tear. This was not the time to weep after so pleasant an evening. ‘So what about Nellie?’ She had been dying to ask. ‘You finally broke it off with her?’

‘Last Monday night. I went round to their house, and we went for a drink at The Saracen’s Head. We talked things over and decided to part friends. She took it better than I thought she would. I think she was half expecting it.’

‘Any regrets?’

‘No regrets, Henzey. No regrets at all. I’m happy if you are.’

‘Oh, Billy, I’m happy,’ she breathed, and snuggled into his open coat like a kitten seeking warmth. ‘You’ll never know how happy.’

He gave her a hug. ‘I’ve been dying to see you all week. D’you know, most o’ the time I couldn’t even remember what you looked like. Daft ain’t it?’

‘So why didn’t you come and see me? I’d have been glad to see you. I was dying to see you.’

‘I dunno, really. It was a sort of punishment for me. A test, in a way, denying myself the pleasure of seeing you. I knew it’d be all the sweeter when I did. The waiting made me all the more anxious. I haven’t felt like that for years. It was a sort of perverse enjoyment.’

She wallowed luxuriously in his embrace. ‘Mmm. I know what you mean. It’s been the same for me, Billy.’

‘Anyway, I’m certain of one thing, after it all.’

‘What’s that?’

‘That I’m in love with you.’

She trembled inside at his unexpected confession of love, while he bent his head and kissed her on the lips, a long, lingering kiss.

At length, he said, ‘Shall I see you tomorrow? We could go for a ride out into the country like last Sunday. The weather’s due to pick up. What do you reckon?’

‘If you promise not to take me round any more churchyards.’

Henzey had never been so happy. At last she had the love of Billy Witts. Boys like Harold Deakin, Jack Harper and Andrew Dewsbury paled into insignificance. But she had known them to good advantage; even Andrew Dewsbury. They had given her the experience she needed, to know how to handle men. Everything had been in preparation for this love of her life at the ripe old age of seventeen, and she knew it. Now she could not imagine life without Billy. He was her life, all of a sudden.

But there was something else afoot.

‘Me and your mother are gettin’ married on the 28th of April,’ Jesse announced one evening, with Lizzie at his side.

Henzey, utterly surprised, embraced her mother and then Jesse. ‘All my wishes are coming true,’ she said, weeping tears of joy at the news. She had Billy Witts and soon her mother would be Mrs Lizzie Clancey. ‘Oh, wait till I tell Billy. He’ll be that pleased. How’s Ezme taken the news?’

Lizzie smiled. ‘Let’s just say she’s come round to accepting it. She didn’t at first, but she does now.’

The next time the rent man called, Lizzie gave notice that they wanted to vacate their house by the 4th of May, which would give them ample time to shift everything to the dairy house, their new home. Henzey suggested to her brother and sisters that for the first few days after the wedding they should continue to sleep in the old house, thus giving their mother and Jesse a brief honeymoon alone.

And so the ceremony took place at St John’s church, Kates Hill, at twelve o’ clock, after matins. It was conducted by the Reverend John Mainwaring who knew the bride and groom well. Lizzie looked significantly younger than her thirty-nine years and quite radiant in her short cream satin dress with its fashionable uneven hemline. Maxine was the only bridesmaid and Dr Donald Clark, Jesse’s lifelong friend, was best man. Henzey wore a new short straight dress in cinnabar red with the row of pearls Billy had given her, and Alice, a beige flouncey dress and a borrowed fox fur. They all looked exquisite, enhancing the reputation they were rapidly acquiring of being the best-looking girls in the parish. And that reputation also included Lizzie in the eyes of a great many.

Later that evening when the hangers-on had left and Alice, Maxine and Herbert had drifted back to number 48, Billy Witts announced he ought to leave, too. It was after midnight and he’d got to be up early next morning. Henzey duly fetched her best hat and coat from the hall and gave Jesse and her mother a goodnight kiss.

‘It’s been a happy day for me seeing you two married,’ she confessed. ‘I know you’ll be happy.’

Lizzie wrapped her arms around her. ‘Thanks, my flower. You don’t know how much that means to both of us.’

‘Goodnight, Mom. Goodnight, Jesse.’ Henzey took Billy’s hand. Billy raised his free arm in a gesture of goodnight and they left the newly-weds to their first night together.

As Henzey and Billy walked across the street, Lizzie watched them from the front room window of the dairy house. She watched as they stood by his car holding each other in a clinch for about five minutes, pecking at each other’s lips occasionally, looking into each other’s eyes and laughing.

‘Are you coming to bed, Lizzie, or are you gunna stand ganning on them pair all night?’ Jesse called from the bedroom, after settling his mother for the night.

Lizzie dragged herself away from the chink in the curtains and climbed the stairs. ‘I just wanted to make sure Billy hadn’t gone in the house with her at this time of night.’ She kicked off her new shoes with relief and slumped onto their new, supple bed. ‘If they do, I’ll know they’re up to no good. I just don’t trust that Billy, Jesse.’

For Henzey it had been the happiest day of her life. For once she lay alone in bed – in Lizzie’s big bed – wide awake, thinking over what had happened that day. Life really was going her way now and she had every reason to be happy. Not only was her mother married to a man they all loved and respected, but she herself was deeply in love with a well set up young man. Who knew where it might lead eventually? Best not to dwell on it, but she fostered a few hopes and wishes already. Love was new, exhilarating and, every time she even thought about Billy, her pulse raced and butterflies stirred in the pit of her stomach. She would not see him tomorrow – she didn’t on a Monday – but he had promised to take her to meet his family soon and, on Saturday night, they were due to go to The Tower Ballroom by the reservoir at Edgbaston. She did not know yet what they would be doing on the other nights of the week, except on Wednesday, which was May Day. Doubtless they would join the throngs in the castle grounds that day and go for a drive into the country in the evening. She didn’t mind what, just so long as she was with him.

Henzey rolled onto her left side in the bed and shuffled herself comfortable. Yes, she really had got the better of Nellie Dewsbury. Whatever heartbreak Nellie was going through, somehow it served her right. Whatever that horrible girl was feeling she was only reaping what she had sown.

With these thoughts running through her head she was as far from sleep as it was possible to be. She sighed and closed her eyes again, and her thoughts meandered to her family. They, too, were settled. Herbert was doing well in Jesse’s dairy business, and Jesse had suggested they become partners when he was twenty-one. Already they were considering taking on other men and expanding the business. In an atmosphere of increasing economic gloom, it was fortunate that they were doing so well. Alice was coming fifteen and seemed to have settled in at George Mason’s. Henzey had taken her under her wing to some extent, showing her what to do and putting her right if she erred. She had also warned her about Wally Bibb whom she did not trust. Maxine was excelling at school, though that was to be expected, for they were always being told that she was the brightest girl in the class and she should go to university since more of them were accepting girls. But Maxine was set on music and her ambitions lay no further than her cello.

At last Henzey felt sleepy. She turned over and smiled contentedly again as she curled up in the big wide bed, all warm and snug. Soon she was dreaming of Billy Witts.

Henzey happily fell into the routine of seeing Billy Witts about three times a week. She had met most of his family, who were very nice to her. At weekends they went dancing at The Tower Ballroom in Edgbaston; one night in the week they usually went to the cinema and twice already he had taken her to posh restaurants. On Saturday mornings, while she was at work, Billy liked to play golf and, on summer Sunday afternoons, he usually played cricket for St. Thomas’s church team. She had accompanied him to a couple of matches. Those of his friends she had met seemed to like her as far as she could tell, and a girl-friend of one of them, Marjorie Lycett, told her how glad she was that Billy had finally ditched that snotty Nellie Dewsbury.

When Billy brought Henzey back home to the dairy house at night he would swing his Vauxhall through the wide entry and into the yard and stop the engine while they said goodnight. And sometimes it would take them a whole hour. Henzey knew that it would have been so easy to get carried away with Billy, for he always left her longing for him, breathless and tingling all over; but happy, for he wooed her with fine words.

She wanted him. He lit her up like a firecracker whenever he touched her, but she dare not make the running and he certainly seemed in no hurry, however passionately they kissed. But she never allowed herself to become preoccupied with such thoughts. Rather, she enjoyed being in love, with all the attention and sweetness it brought, and was content to let such physical matters take their course. Besides, she did not want to get into trouble, like Rosie Frost. She wanted no guilty conscience that she had gone against her mother’s wishes. Sex should be confined to the marriage bed; and she was happy to wait.

Then one Wednesday in the middle of May, when Henzey had come home from work, she went upstairs to change. Her mother was half-undressed in her bedroom, posing in the cheval mirror at the side of her dressing table. The door was open and as Henzey walked by she caught sight of Lizzie in profile. She stopped to talk, leaning against the door jamb, and saw how much weight Lizzie had gained.

‘I was just trying on this new frock,’ Lizzie said, pointing towards a heap of floral patterned voile. ‘Jesse and me have been invited to a Masonic do on the first of June. He reckons they might invite him to join. It’s his life’s ambition now to be a Mason.’

‘Coming up in the world, eh? Come on, then. Let’s see your new frock. I bet you’ve had to have a bigger size again. You’re really putting weight on, Mom. It must be contentment.’

Lizzie took the dress and slipped it over her head, adjusting it as it fell around her body.

‘Mother, it looks like a maternity frock,’ Henzey commented innocently. ‘You’re not that fat.’

‘No, not yet I’m not,’ she sighed. ‘But I soon shall be.’

‘Not if you watch what you eat.’

Then it dawned on her.

‘God! You’re not pregnant, are you, Mom?’ Henzey sat down on the bed and looked at her mother.

Lizzie turned away self-consciously. ‘Yes, I am, our Henzey.’

‘But you shouldn’t show yet.’

‘Henzey, I’m four months.’ Lizzie walked over to the window and stared out across the field behind the house and the vast industrial landscape that was spread out before her.

‘But you’ve only been married a fortnight…You mean you got married because you had to?’

Lizzie did not reply.

‘And all the time you’re preaching to me to mind what I’m doing? That I’m only seventeen…My God!’

Henzey felt ashamed of her mother, but she’d said enough. Never before had Henzey spoken to her like that, and she half expected a slap across the face for her trouble. Yet no slap came. For long seconds Henzey was silent while she tried to collect her thoughts. Abruptly, she stood up and turned away from Lizzie, biting her bottom lip in anger and distaste. Then, just as abruptly, she sat down again. Her mother – her own mother – had been having sex with Jesse before she was married…And at her age…It was disgusting. It was absolutely disgusting. It came as such a shock that Henzey felt she’d been punched in the stomach.

Lizzie remained at the window, looking out.

Henzey shook her head slowly in disbelief, then spoke again, quietly, composed. ‘What am I supposed to say, Mom, when folks start making jokes about my mother and the milkman?’

Lizzie remained silent.

‘And how d’you think our Herbert’s going to feel when his mates start laughing behind his back, making sarcastic comments?’ Henzey continued. ‘Dear God, what sort of an example d’you think you’ve set our Alice and Maxine? Come to that, what sort of an example d’you think you’ve set me, after all your preaching and finger wagging? Good God, Mother! I can hardly believe it.’

Lizzie continued to look outside with glazed eyes. Everything Henzey said was true. Every example she cited, as to the consequences for the family, she had herself considered. It was as if their roles had been reversed, as if Lizzie was the errant, wayward daughter and Henzey the fraught and angry mother. Now Lizzie felt ashamed –thoroughly ashamed. She had no wish to alienate her daughter over this, nor any of her family. What she needed above all was their understanding and their support, but particularly from Henzey.

Henzey saw her mother’s shoulders shaking and, at first, she thought she was laughing in defiance till she turned round and saw tears streaming down her agonised face. Lizzie took a handkerchief from a drawer in her dressing table and wiped her eyes. Then she sat on the bed by Henzey’s side and turned to face her, taking her daughter’s hands.

‘Don’t be judge and jury, our Henzey,’ she wept. ‘But for the grace of God it could be you pregnant.’

‘Then, Mother, for the grace of God I’d have to call the child Jesus,’ Henzey replied indignantly, ‘because it’d be another virgin birth.’

‘Oh, our Henzey, I knew it’d be like this when you found out. I wanted to tell you from the outset, but like a fool I decided against it.’ She wiped away another flush of tears. ‘I hoped you’d understand. It’s not as if Jesse and me are kids. We love one another and we wanted one another. We haven’t stalked out like a tomcat and a tabby to do it behind the miskins and then run off. It’s meant something to us – try and understand that. Don’t forget, either, that we aren’t too old for that sort of thing, even if you might think we are. We would’ve got married whether or no. My being pregnant has only made it happen sooner.’

‘Maybe I shouldn’t have expected you to be a saint,’ Henzey said quietly, ‘but I never dreamed you’d get pregnant. My own mother. It’s so damned stupid…And at your age.’

‘Well, I confess I hadn’t counted on it, our Henzey. And I’ll confess to you that at first I didn’t want the child. But I’m stuck with it, nevertheless.’

‘Does Jesse want it?’

‘Oh, he’s happy about it. He’s like a dog with two tails. Can’t you tell? He reckons we won’t get a look in when it’s born. He reckons you girls’ll bring it up.’ She looked up at her daughter beseechingly, tears again filling her eyes, which now were showing signs of puffiness. ‘Henzey, I don’t need your condemnation, I need your support. It’ll be hard enough as it is without me feeling you despise me. Try to imagine yourself in this position. You’d want my support if it was you that was pregnant.’

‘If it was me that was pregnant, Mother, I’d consider it my just desserts.’

But it was not in Henzey’s nature to be hard, least of all with the woman who had carried her, fed her, sacrificed everything for her and brought her up against all odds. Especially when she was crying. Always she’d hated to see her mother cry. It reminded her of when she was a child, how she would be filled with anxiety at the sight of Lizzie weeping over her poor, invalid father. It was the same now. Already she was regretting her harsh words. She began weeping herself and opened her arms to Lizzie. They held each other tight, letting the tears flow unabated. Lizzie needed Henzey’s encouragement, she needed her love and not least her friendship. Henzey could no more refuse these things than she could walk out of her life.

There was instantly a new bond; a new kind of love; a mutual respect that had not manifested itself before. They both felt it. Henzey sensed her own maturity and, for the first time, realised her mother’s fallibility. Lizzie was merely flesh and blood, prone to all its weaknesses and likely to be submitted to its derision unless they outfaced this thing together. And Lizzie realised that her daughter was no longer a child; she was a woman and could be addressed thus. Why had she overlooked it all this time?

Henzey spoke again, softly, tenderly. ‘What about the others, Mom? What shall we tell them? And when?’

Lizzie blew her nose. ‘I’m only really worried about our Herbert now. He’s the one who’ll feel it most, like you say. He’s sixteen in a week or two, and he’ll be ever so sensitive to it. I hope he won’t be awkward, because Jesse will never stand that off him. I’m not worried about the other two. They’ll think it’s lovely to have a baby round the house.’

‘Then why not ask Jesse to have a word with Herbert. He’ll take it from Jesse more easily. He’s got a way of explaining things.’

Lizzie agreed. ‘Come to think of it, he can tell our Alice and Maxine, as well.’

‘I’ll tell them if you like. Oh, I’m sorry I was so horrible to you, Mom, but it was such a shock. You can’t imagine. I never dreamed…I promise I’ll help all I can. What other folks think doesn’t matter, does it? As long as we’re all happy. I mean to say, you’re married now anyway and everybody knows you were about to get married. It’ll be nice having a baby round the house. Oh, I shall be able to take it for walks and buy it little coats and little shoes. Me and Billy will take it rides into the country, so’s it can have some fresh air. You’re right, Mom, you won’t get a look in.’

‘I suppose you’ll spoil it rotten,’ Lizzie said, smiling now through her tears.

‘Oh, I expect so. When’s it due?’

‘Donald Clark’s given me the first of October.’

Chapter 5

Polling day was always more like a carnival than the serious election of a new government, and the one in 1929 was no different. Children were not at school, and they followed the candidates around, creating a din, banging draw tins and dustbin lids with sticks, and each getting a penny for doing it. This was designed to get the people out to vote. Coloured rosettes were in abundance, pinned on coats everywhere; red, white and blue for the Conservatives, yellow for Labour. Folk had put posters in their windows hailing one or other of the candidates, and even shop windows and pubs advertised their favourites. Carts and their horses were decorated in the colours of their owners’ political persuasions, as were any available lorries and vans. They toured the streets, some urging people to vote for Cyril Lloyd, the Tory candidate, others for Oliver Baldwin, the renegade Labour son of the Conservative Prime Minister, who had held a political meeting the previous evening in the Board School at Kates Hill.

Spirits were high, people were loud in acclaim of their preferred contender and even louder in their revilement of the opponent. Newspapers were full of electioneering, praising one party, denigrating another, and had been for weeks. Today, the people would decide it all, one way or the other. The trouble was, it would not be known who would form the government till some time tomorrow. Meanwhile, the public houses fared remarkably well out of it.

Billy collected Henzey at about half past eight that evening after taking his mother and father to vote. The weather was picking up encouragingly and, because of the lighter evenings, they decided to go for a ride out to Baggeridge Wood where it would be peaceful and quiet, away from the palaver of electioneering. Henzey was looking forward to having Billy all to herself for a while. He was feeling guilty, however; he wanted to take her home early, and told her so as they sat in the car under a tree watching the sun go down over Wolverhampton.

‘Oh, Billy, why?’ she said, with bitter disappointment. ‘I thought we might go to the Town Hall after to hear whether Cyril Lloyd or Oliver Baldwin won the Dudley seat.’

‘I can’t, my sweetheart, sorry. I’ll have to pick my father up from The Gypsy’s Tent just after ten. He’ll be legless. He’s the same every polling day.’

‘But I can wait in the car while you fetch him. Then we can take him home together.’

Billy sighed inwardly, wishing to show neither his frustration nor his guilt. ‘No, I’d best drop you at home first. God knows what sort of state he’ll be in. I don’t want you to see him like that. His language will be foul, especially if he’s had a rough time with his Labour mates – he’s ever likely to spew up in the car. I’m sorry, my angel, but it’s for the best. Besides, I suppose I’ll have to stop and have a drink myself. I won’t be able to get away that quick.’

‘Well, it’s hardly been worth seeing you. If you’d said so before I wouldn’t have bothered. I could’ve gone to the Town Hall with Florrie Shuker, or our Alice. Or even with Jesse.’

‘And how long have you been so interested in politics?’ There was sarcasm in his voice.

‘I’m not particularly interested in the politics,’ she said, ‘but it’s a nice atmosphere, with all those people late at night waiting to hear who got in. I just thought it’d be nice to be a part of it – with you, Billy. Still, it doesn’t matter.’ She sighed disconsolately. ‘Your family comes first.’

Henzey was acutely hurt. The men at work had been talking about going to the Town Hall later. It was a lovely idea and she’d been certain she could persuade Billy to take her, too.

‘Henzey, if I don’t get my dad home he’ll probably be set upon, just for wearing a red, white and blue rosette. It’s a rough area and, besides, when he’s had a drink he wants to fight every bugger, especially Labour folks.’

That bit was true. But it was only half the story. The other half he had no intention of confessing. Billy still possessed a jacket belonging to Nellie Dewsbury and he had already arranged to return it to her that night. Earlier, she had called at his house to see him, to ask when he could return it. He was not at home, but his mother innocently agreed an arrangement for him to deliver it to her on the night of polling day, as Nellie had suggested. Billy knew that Walter Dewsbury and his wife would be involved in the electioneering, so they would not be at home, and he recognised at once the intention in Nellie’s scheming. He was unable to resist what was a very tempting offer, especially as he had been celibate for so long.

Henzey saw little profit in arguing. In accepting his excuses she resigned herself to losing that battle and Billy delivered her home. After a quick goodnight kiss, off he went. She entered the house forlorn, pouting and disheartened, but never doubting his fidelity. The thing that upset her most was that it would be another two whole days before she would be with him again. Now she would not see him till Saturday night when they went dancing.

Henzey opened the door to the dairy house.

Something was wrong. Whether it was a manifestation of her discontent or her cheerless mood playing tricks, she could not tell; but there was a strange atmosphere. Normally this new home of theirs was vibrant since they moved in, embracing them like a benign, old uncle, who had once lost them and suddenly found them again. It was a happy house, but now it felt cold, empty and peculiarly sad. It was something she could never have defined. Just a feeling, but a weird feeling.

She heard lowered voices upstairs, and called out, ‘Yoo-hoo!’

Lizzie answered. ‘Henzey? Is that you?’ She came to the head of the stairs, looking anxious. ‘Thank God. Is Billy with you?’

‘No, he’s gone.’

‘Damn. We could have done with him to fetch the doctor. Looks like Ezme’s had another stroke.’ She walked downstairs towards Henzey, her voice still low. ‘She’s in a bad way, Henzey.’

‘I can fetch Donald. It’s only five to ten. I’ll be all right.’

‘Let’s hope he’s still sober. I’d ask our Herbert to go, but he’s out God knows where. Alice and Maxine should be back any minute. You’d better go, our Henzey. But be quick. And be careful. You know what they’re like on election night. If you see any fights walk on the other side of the horse road.’

So Henzey went out again. As she rushed down Cromwell Street, she saw Alice and Maxine coming the other way with two boys. She explained what had happened, that she was on her way to fetch the doctor. Seeing it as a way of staying out later, Alice agreed to accompany Henzey. Maxine said she would let their mother know where Alice was.

‘How come you’m ’ome so early?’ Alice enquired.

‘Billy had to go early to fetch his father from the pub.’ Henzey tried not to sound concerned.

‘Oh…An’ ’ave a drink ’imself, I daresay.’ Alice’s tone was tinged with cynicism.

‘I daresay. That’s up to him. I can’t dictate what he should or shouldn’t do.’

‘Yer can try. I would. If he tried to get rid o’ me early I’d play hell up. You’m too soft with ’im, Henzey. Yer let ’im boss yer about an’ everythin’.’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘Yes, yer do. Just ’cause he’s got a motor and a pocketful o’ money. He thinks he’s everybody.’

‘I think you’ve got a tainted view, Alice,’ Henzey said, ruffled by Alice’s observations, even though she recognised that there was an element of truth in what she said. ‘He doesn’t think he’s everybody at all, and he certainly doesn’t own me.’

‘Have yer slept with ’im yet?’

‘Alice! ’Course I haven’t slept with him. What do you think I am?’

‘Nor let ’im do anythin’ to yer?’

‘Course not!’

‘Huh! You’m a bit slow. I thought you was potty about ’im…Or is it ’im what’s slow? Mind yer, I’d want ’im slow. I wun’t want ’im to touch me. I think he’s a smarmy sod. He gives me the creeps.’

‘Good,’ Henzey replied indignantly. ‘For goodness sake, Alice, if you can’t say anything nice about him don’t say anything at all. Keep your opinions to yourself…Quick – let’s cross over the road…’

Two grown men, the worse for drink, tumbled out of The Fountain public house fighting. Had they been sober they would merely have agreed to differ. As fists flew the pub emptied as all the patrons followed the men outside, cheering and jeering, inflaming the situation. Somebody smashed a glass, and in an instant, most of the other men seemed to be involved, flailing their arms like persons drowning.

‘Quick, let’s get out of the way,’ Henzey said to Alice, and they both ran, diffusing their argument.

Soon, they were back home, riding into the yard in Dr Donald Clark’s Morris. Henzey could smell drink on him. Even she could tell that it was a bad time to call Donald Clark out when he’d had three or more hours of solo drinking. Yet his brain and his body seemed immune to the effects of whisky. He drove his car capably enough and his speech, though limited to just a few monosyllables, did not sound slurred. Henzey felt sorry for him. Why should a man so patently intelligent try and dissolve his brain in alcohol? What was it that drove him to it? What demons lurked inside his head provoking him to consume the stuff at every opportunity? From what was he trying to escape? What was he trying to blot out from his mind?

They entered the house and Donald stumbled on the first step as he went to climb the stairs. Quickly he righted himself and went on up with his bag while Henzey remained downstairs with Alice and Maxine.

Henzey heard hushed voices upstairs again. Soon, Donald came down with Lizzie and Jesse. After a few minutes they heard him saying good night and Jesse thanked him over and over for coming out to his mother. Then they walked into the sitting room where the three girls were already sitting, waiting for news. They heard Donald’s motor car start up and move off.

‘How is she?’ Henzey asked.

‘She’s bad, poor soul,’ Jesse replied quietly. ‘She’s sleeping. Somehow, I don’t think she’ll pull through this as easy as she did the last one.’

Lizzie said, ‘You can never tell with a stroke, Jesse. She might be as right as rain tomorrow.’

Jesse shook his head. ‘But then again she might not.’ He sat down on the sofa and sighed heavily. ‘Fetch us a bottle o’ Guinness in, Lizzie. I could murder a drink.’

‘I’ll get it,’ Maxine said. ‘Mom, would you like one?’

‘Yes, go on then, our Maxi. It’ll help me sleep.’ She looked at Jesse. ‘This means we won’t be able to go to the Masonic do on Saturday. Had you forgotten it?’

‘Bugger me! You’m right, Lizzie. And I’ve really been looking forward to that. I don’t suppose they’ll be in a rush to ask me again if we don’t show up at this one.’

‘Oh, ’course they will,’ Lizzie consoled. ‘It can’t be helped, your mother being poorly. Anyway, you can always go without me.’

‘Don’t be daft, Lizzie. I couldn’t go there without you. Not on Ladies’ Night.’

‘There’s nothing to stop you both going, Jesse,’ Henzey said. ‘Billy and me could stay in and keep an eye on Ezme while you went out. If anything were to go wrong Billy could always drive down to Donald’s and fetch him.’

Jesse and Lizzie looked at each other seeking consensus. Lizzie knew how much going to the Masonic Lodge on Saturday meant to him. He did not want to miss it, and if there was a way they could both attend he would take it gladly. Lizzie nodded and Jesse shrugged his consent.

‘I imagined you’d want to go dancing,’ Lizzie said.

‘Well we would normally, but it’s not important. Billy won’t mind.’

In any case, after giving precedence to his family tonight, he could hardly complain if she made a similar appeal on Saturday. She was not motivated by vindictiveness, since she felt not one ounce of malice, but she thought that she could help Jesse and, in so doing, might feasibly make Billy realise that he had hurt her by dumping her at home so early. Perhaps he should be made to realise that.

‘Henzey, you’re a treasure,’ Jesse declared.

‘Well…as I’m such a treasure…can I go to the Town Hall and wait for the election result?’

‘Not on your own you won’t, madam,’ Lizzie answered. ‘And neither Jesse nor me can go now, on account of Ezme.’

Jesse said, ‘Didn’t her Uncle Joe and Aunt May say they were going? She could go with them.’

‘She could, but then she won’t want to get up for work in the morning.’

‘I shall be up like a lark.’

‘As long as that’s a promise. If they’re not still at home, they’ll be up The Junction. Put your hat and coat back on.’

Uncle Joe and Aunty May lived next door to number 48, where the Kites used to live before moving across the road to the dairy house. Henzey found them in The Junction as her mother had suggested. They were about to go to the Town Hall with Tom the Tatter, who had his best suit on with a grubby old cap and a dirty, white muffler. Phyllis Fat and her husband, Hartwell Dabbs, had decided to go too, as had Colonel Bradley, who was a woman, but cursed and drank like a navvy.

‘Ain’t yer courtin’ tonight, our Henzey?’ May asked.

‘I’ve done my courting tonight, Aunty May. Now I’m going out to enjoy myself.’

May chuckled at Henzey’s apparent indifference to courtship.

They walked steadily to the town, through the Market Place, where one or two revellers were sitting on the empty market stall trestles, some with their heads in their hands, the worse for drink. Others were singing noisily.

By the time they reached the new Town Hall, all lit up with electric lights, a sizeable crowd had gathered. There were intense debates between some on the vices and virtues of the three main parties. Half a dozen constables broke up a brawl between a Labour supporter and a Conservative supporter and then their truculent wives, who were pulling each other’s hair out in handfuls. Others laughed at the political fervour of some of their fellow citizens.

‘Just look at them daft buggers,’ Tom the Tatter said from under his cap and unkempt hair, which always seemed as one single unit.

‘What they arguin’ about, I wonder?’ May said.

Hartwell replied, ‘I ’eared ’em. The Labour chap was on about gettin’ rid o’ the peers.’

‘From Dudley?’ Phyllis asked.

He shrugged. ‘From anywhere, I reckon.’

‘Why, the saft sod. There’s ne’er a pier in Dudley. Where’s ’e think ’e is? Soddin’ Blackpool? Yo’ can tell ’e ai’ a local mon.’

The Town Hall clock struck midnight.

‘Shouldn’t be long now,’ Colonel Bradley commented, looking up at the sky as if the darkness might yield a clue as to any likely change in the weather. She took a hip flask out of her jacket pocket and took a slug of whisky. ‘Come and stand by me, young Henzey. You’ll get a better view here.’

Henzey did as she was invited.

‘I shun’t get too excited yet,’ Phyllis Fat crowed. ‘There’s still some more dignit’ries what ai’ in yet. ’Ere’s some more on ’em now by the looks o’ things.’

Three limousines pulled up. Henzey, standing on the steps of the art gallery opposite with Colonel Bradley, noticed the Mayor and his family alight from the first car. The second one disgorged Councillor Walter Dewsbury and his wife. Next out of the same car, to her surprise, came Andrew Dewsbury and she shuddered as she recalled his birthday party. She waited and craned her neck to get a look at Nellie, but Andrew was the last person to get out of the second motor car. Nellie obviously had better things to do. The third vehicle deposited somebody Joe maintained was Alderman Hickinbottom, and his wife.

Another quarter of an hour passed before the Mayor, with Councillor Dewsbury, Alderman Hickinbottom and half a dozen others, stepped out onto the balcony above the Town Hall entrance. One man started to blow into the huge microphone in front of him. After they’d all shuffled into suitable positions, the returning officer looked round, nodded, blew into the microphone again, then announced the count. Oliver Baldwin had taken the Dudley seat for Labour and there was raucous cheering.

Next day revealed how the general election had ended in stalemate. Labour had won most seats but the Conservatives had polled most votes. Stanley Baldwin remained at 10 Downing Street and it was hinted that he would reshuffle his cabinet. Because it was up to the Liberals to decide who should govern, it was far from over yet. Many reckoned that the lowering of the voting age for women from thirty to twenty-one, the ‘flapper vote’, had helped Labour.

On Saturday evening, Billy arrived at the dairy house to collect Henzey. He wore a navy blue three piece suit, white shirt and Paisley tie. As Henzey opened the door to him he handed her a bouquet of roses and kissed her.

‘To say sorry for last Thursday night. Am I forgiven?’

‘You didn’t have to bring me flowers, Billy. They are beautiful, though. Thank you.’ He stepped inside. ‘Before you say anything else, I’ve got a confession to make – I went to watch the election results after with Aunty May and Uncle Joe.’

‘Oh?’

‘At least I’ve got an idea what our new MP looks like. I wish you’d been there, though. I saw the Dewsbury family, but Nellie wasn’t with them.’

‘Wasn’t she?’ he grunted evasively, then followed her into the sitting room. He sat down next to Alice, who had her nose in a book. She greeted him summarily. ‘Aren’t you ready yet, Henzey?’

She shook her head.

‘How long shall you be?’

‘We’re not going anywhere, Billy. Leastwise I’m not. Mom and Jesse have already gone out and I have to look after Ezme. I don’t mind if you still want to go out without me, though. Let me just go and put these roses into a vase, then I’ll explain.’

Herbert was out with Edgar Hodgetts, his pal, and Alice and Maxine both said they had arranged to meet a gang from Oldbury at the roller skating rink. Henzey returned with her blooms in an earthenware vase, which she put on the table. She sat down beside Billy on the sofa and explained more fully what had happened.

‘You don’t mind do you, Billy?’

‘Oh, I can hardly mind after what happened on Thursday. So how is the old duch?’

‘She’s ever so poorly. Doctor’s been again today. Anyway, how was your dad on Thursday? Was he drunk, like you said he’d be?’

‘As a bobowler. It’s a good job I went to fetch him. Mind you, he’s been drunk ever since he heard the result.’

‘Would you like a drink? I’ll get you a bottle of beer from the kitchen if you like.’

He said he would, so she fetched a bottle and glass and poured it for him. He took a long drink, then put his glass on the floor at the side of the sofa while she took the empty bottle out. She came back sipping a glass of sherry.

‘Might as well have a drink myself, even if we are stopping in.’

She sat beside him again. He stood up, took off his jacket, threw it over one of the armchairs and sat beside her again companionably.

‘I’ve missed you this last couple of days, Henzey. I really have.’

She snuggled up to him. ‘Ooh, tell me again.’

He chuckled. ‘I have, honest. I’ve really missed you. I’ve been thinking about you all the time. I don’t mind that we’re stopping in tonight. At least I’ll have you to myself.’ He took another quaff of beer.

Henzey took a sip of her sherry and smiled contentedly. ‘You know, I like this house,’ she commented, looking round her. ‘It’s so much bigger than the one we lived in over the road, isn’t it?’

‘Your mother’s got it nice.’

‘Oh, it’ll be even nicer in time. You should see upstairs now.’

‘I’ve seen upstairs. Well, I’ve seen the new bathroom.’

‘You should see the difference now. Come up with me and have a look. I’ve got to go up and check on Ezme again, anyway.’ She took another sip of sherry and put it on the table as she arose from the sofa. Billy followed her upstairs.

Henzey gently opened the door into Ezme’s room and walked over to where she lay. The old lady seemed to be sleeping soundly enough, but grunted once.

‘God, she looks pale,’ Billy whispered.

‘Poor old soul. If I ever get like that I hope they’ll put me down. I never want to suffer. I’m too much of a coward. I remember my dad…’

Billy took her hand. He led her out of the room and out of the mood. ‘Nice, big landing,’ he said brightly. ‘Now show me your room. I’ve never seen your room.’

She feigned primness. ‘My room? Hey, I’m not sure that’s quite the proper thing for a young lady to do,’

‘Oh, it’ll be all right, Henzey. I shan’t disgrace you by being indiscreet.’

She laughed and, still with her hand in his, she led him along the landing to the room at the end, overlooking the back of the house. It was small and, in it, was a new single bed with a pale blue bedspread, a dressing table, covered with an assortment of make-up and bottles of perfume, and a tall cane whatnot standing in a corner bearing a cyclamen in flower. The walls were painted in a cool, pale blue and the woodwork was white. A photograph of her father as a very handsome young man hung on the wall opposite her bed.

‘I say, this is really nice,’ Billy enthused. ‘Did you pick the colours yourself?’

She sat on the bed, looked around her, and nodded. ‘I like it. It’s all my own. A whole room to myself. I can still hardly believe it.’

He sat beside her. ‘It’s cool, like you.’

‘What is?’

‘Blue. It suits you. Reflects your personality…and it matches your eyes.’

She flashed a smile at him for the compliment. ‘Think I’m cool, do you? D’you mean cold?’

‘No. Definitely not cold, Henzey. Not you. Cool. Sometimes a bit aloof. Like when I got here and you said I could still go out by myself if I wanted. As if you didn’t care.’

‘Oh, Billy, is that how I seem?’ She looked at him earnestly, and she wrapped her arms around him. ‘Billy, I do care. Maybe more than it shows. Maybe more than is good for me.’

He saw the love shining unmistakably at him through her soft, sincere eyes, and he kissed her. His lips felt so good. It would be forever impossible to have a surfeit of his kisses. She could happily kiss him till eternity. She offered no resistance when he pressed her backwards so that she was lying on the bed; no resistance at all. Gently he rolled on top of her, their lips still touching, and she realised the joy of having his weight upon her. After a while they broke off their kiss and his lips brushed her throat and her neck, as light as the touch of a feather, then lingered at her ear. As she felt his warm breath she experienced sensations up and down her spine that she could not control. She could feel him pressing against her, urgently, and her heart beat faster at the pleasure of it all. They kissed more, lingering, savouring each other’s lips. He rolled on to his side and she shuffled to face him, smiling trustingly. His knee slid between her thighs and she liked the feel of it. But the familiar mental barriers arose inside her head like intruding demons.

With no hesitation Billy unfastened the buttons at the front of her blouse and she knew that from this moment, unless she stopped him, there would be no turning back. The familiar fear of getting into trouble taunted her, though she desperately wished to fight it. Now Billy’s hands, so smooth, so caring, were inside her brassiere, gently fondling her breasts. It was such bewildering pleasure. As she felt his mouth on hers again she thought of her mother, and what would happen if she allowed herself to give in to her physical desires and got into trouble as a result. While she desperately wanted to be whisked along on this tide of passion, she wrestled with the years of indoctrination. She was being pulled one way by apprehension, the other way by yearning. It was like a tug of war.

But desire was gaining the upper hand.

Her blouse was all undone, the shoulder strap of her underslip was halfway down her arm and her brassiere was loose. She wriggled and thought she was going to burst with ecstasy when Billy’s tongue settled on one of her nipples, teasing it unmercifully as it hardened. He undid the waistband of her skirt and opened it up with his delving, free hand. Her underslip was up, baring her midriff, and he nuzzled his face into her soft belly, venturing lower and lower with his mouth. Before she knew it, her skirt was off, slid under her bottom and down her legs. His hand stopped to explore the smooth, bare flesh above her stockings before he kissed her there, too. Her heart was pounding hard, and her breathing was in faltering gasps. She wanted him. God, how she wanted him, feeling his warm, gentle kisses all over her body, tingling, tantalising, so scandalously tempting. What on earth would her mother have to say if she could see her now, down to her underwear, her underslip around her waist, her brassiere there, too, and Billy sprawled over her, kissing her thighs?

It was then, with thankfulness and relief, that she remembered there need be no guilt any more. She had been freed of it. There could be no more threats. Her mother had condoned this sort of thing by her own example. Her mother had behaved like this, also lured by love and by desire; by her own admission; before she was married.

So could she.

She sighed vocally at both the realisation and the astounding sensations Billy was inducing.

‘My angel,’ he breathed, pushing himself up the bed to face her and to lie alongside her again. ‘Have I shocked you?’

‘Shock me a bit more,’ she breathed. ‘Shock me a bit more.’

‘Henzey, I want you.’ His voice was as soft and warm as his kisses. ‘God, how I want you.’

She sighed at the clean, manly smell of his skin. She sighed even more as he slid her knickers down her legs. ‘Oh, Billy, I love you so much.’

As she lay there afterwards she did not know how she felt. Maybe she had expected too much. Maybe she was expecting some magnificent, automatic fireworks display or something, but none came. Billy lay beside her, quiet, still. She could feel the sweat on his forehead as she stroked it while he fought against sleep. She began to feel cold so she pulled up the bedclothes. Her emotions were half delight that she had given herself, that she had committed herself fully to the man she loved so much, but they were also half disappointment. Billy seemed content but where was the satisfaction for her? Still she felt unfulfilled, hungry after what should have been a feast. She was still aching to be loved, still tingling inside. She turned to Billy and he opened his eyes. They kissed briefly and he smiled, his arm going around her, his hand gently squeezing a cheek of her naked bottom. She loved him beyond her wildest imaginings. The feel of his skin against hers was a delight she had never known before, never properly imagined.

‘What time is it?’ she asked.

‘About nine, judging by the light. We don’t have to get up yet, do we?’

‘Alice and Maxi won’t be back before half past ten.’

He kissed her again, more fervently this time. ‘Jesus Christ, I love you, Henzey Kite. I didn’t know how much till just.’

She pushed herself against him. Within a few minutes he wanted her again.

There was a fireworks display after all. Her eyes were closed but she saw bright lights, dancing, shooting everywhere, cascading in plumes, soaring, bursting, lighting her up, making her smile and gasp and sigh profoundly at the beauty of it all.

At last she understood. At last she knew what total pleasure was, what real love was. At last she understood why she had always felt so empty and unfulfilled when they had merely kissed passionately before. At last she was a woman, utter and complete. At last she understood why her mother, and so many others like her, had so easily fallen into the oldest of nature’s traps. Who could blame them? Never had she experienced anything like this. Never had she dreamed that there could be anything so sublime. It was a revelation. And she knew already that she was addicted.

Outside, the light of that first day of June had dimmed. All was quiet except for the sound of a distant motor car and the plaintive barking of a dog on Cawney Hill. She got out of bed, picked up her clothes from the floor, and got dressed. She woke Billy. He, too, slid out of bed and stood, holding her tight before she rearranged the sheets and blankets. While he dressed she tiptoed into Ezme’s room. The curtains were still open and the grey dusk afforded just enough light to see that the old lady still lay undisturbed, exactly as they had left her before they went to bed. Henzey took a match and lit the oil lamp on the bedside table, for Jesse had not seen fit to disturb her with having gas lights fitted in her room while she was so unwell.

In its glow Ezme’s complexion was like wax. Henzey touched her face with the backs of her fingers, half expecting her to react. But there was no reaction. Ezme’s face felt cold as clay. She was dead.

Chapter 6

Ezme Clancey was buried on the 7th June 1929, the same day that Ramsay MacDonald announced the Cabinet that was to form the country’s second only Labour Government. The very same day, Jesse tactfully explained to Herbert that Lizzie was going to have his baby, though Herbert had guessed as much, since his mother’s belly was swelling appreciably. At first he was piqued and told Jesse that it was indecent at their age, but he accepted it well enough when Henzey asked him why on earth he should resent it at all. Lizzie told Alice and Maxine, but they were predictably excited.

Billy celebrated his twenty-fifth birthday the day afterwards, a Saturday, by taking Henzey out to dinner at The Grand Hotel in Colmore Row, Birmingham. They were joined by some business friends, Harvey and Gladys Tennant, a couple in their late forties, and Neville Worthington with his very attractive wife, Eunice, who was in her late twenties. Henzey estimated that Neville was in his mid-thirties. The event was a double celebration. Billy had just invested five thousand pounds in the firm that belonged to Harvey, Tennant Electrics, which manufactured small electric motors. The investment meant that the firm could expand by broadening their range, to meet the new demand for small electric motors to drive windscreen wipers. Billy was to become a sleeping partner, and he would have a greater incentive to sell their products to the big motor manufacturers. He could not fail to make even more money.

Neville Worthington was the eccentric owner of a family firm producing commercial vehicles, and Billy had recently won a contract to supply Tennant Electric’s wiper motors to him. He thus felt inclined to nurture the relationship with this new client, and saw this occasion as an ideal opportunity. It turned out to be a very successful and interesting evening for Billy. Henzey, however, was overawed by the extravagance of their guests, by the way they spoke so beautifully, and by the obvious trappings of wealth. She was all of a sudden immersed in another world, far removed from the whitewashed scullery walls, the blackleaded grates and the dilapidated brewhouses of Cromwell Street. But her outward appearance would have fooled anybody; she was wearing an expensive, red, silk pyjama suit that Billy had chosen and paid for; and she looked the very epitome of young feminine beauty and sophistication.

She was, however, a little subdued. Seated at Billy’s right, with Neville Worthington to her own right, she gazed with eager interest at the haddock with shrimp sauce that had been set before her. She watched Eunice Worthington, waiting for her to take the lead, to ascertain what cutlery she should use for this course.

Talk at first was about Ramsay MacDonald’s new Labour cabinet.

‘The only glimmer of hope,’ said Neville, ‘is that there are no radical extremists there. At least he seems to be attempting to maintain some credulity.’

‘Except for that woman he’s appointed Minister of Labour,’ Harvey Tennant scoffed. ‘I mean, a woman in the Cabinet, for God’s sake…’

‘You mean Margaret Bondfield,’ Eunice said evenly.

‘That’s her. I mean, really! She’s a damned trade unionist.’

‘Yes, she’s the chairman of the TUC,’ Eunice added.

‘Precisely. What does she know about government? What does she know about the problems facing employers and factory owners like ourselves, eh, Neville? She’s a trouble maker, mark my words. Neither your business nor mine will prosper while the likes of her are in such elevated positions. Baldwin should have held on to the reins, I maintain, and parleyed with Lloyd George for the Liberals’ support. Frankly, I rue the day women were given the vote.’

Billy astutely perceived tension arising from this political discussion. Eunice Worthington had said little, but he could tell she was a suffragette in spirit and would be at odds with Harvey if the debate allowed to progress. He wished to avert trouble. ‘How did you do at Epsom, Neville?’ he asked astutely. ‘Did you back the winner?’

‘Trigo?’ Neville replied. ‘No. Didn’t even see the race, Billy. Still dining. Met Peter Bennett of Lucas down there.’

‘What? The Peter Bennett? The Managing Director?’

‘Joint Managing Director, isn’t he?…Thought so…Talked for ages. Missed the race completely.’

‘I see that Douglas Fairbanks’s son has married,’ Gladys said irrelevantly, directing her comment at Henzey, who so far had said little, guessing that it would bring her into the conversation.

This was more in Henzey’s line. She took advantage of the prompt, and swallowed her piece of fish. ‘Yes, and he’s only nineteen,’ she replied as if she were an authority. ‘That girl he’s married, though, Joan Crawford, is much older. Twenty-three, according to the paper.’

‘Do you not condone a man marrying a girl some years older than himself, Henzey?’ Neville asked, evidently preferring this conversation.

She looked at him, with his unfashionable long hair and thick, full beard, and their eyes met momentarily. In that brief instant she saw such an appealing look of soulfulness in his eyes. ‘Well, I just can’t see what contentment she would find marrying a boy so much younger than herself, that’s all,’ she remarked. ‘I prefer men a bit older than me. Younger men always seem so boyish.’

‘I see. You seem to have a very mature outlook for someone so young. So…how long have you known Billy?’

Neville was regarding her keenly; it seemed he could not take his eyes off her and she found it disconcerting.

‘Oh, quite a long time now, but we’ve only been courting about three months.’ She smiled politely, then finished her last piece of fish, placing her knife and fork together neatly on her plate, ready for it to be collected. She still felt the urge to gather everybody else’s empty plates and stack them in a heap, as she had done on a previous visit to a restaurant. But Billy had told her firmly not to demean herself again by doing the waitress’s job.

Henzey was not sorry when dinner was finished and they retired to the hotel’s lounge to take coffee. She made for one of the settees which, with another similar one and a couple of armchairs, were grouped convivially around a low, round table. She hoped that Billy would settle beside her, but Neville was too quick and eased himself into the same settee before Billy had even thought about it. Fortunately, Neville was affable and Henzey found him easy to talk to. They spoke politely about this and that and she asked him about his family. He had been married to Eunice for four years and had a young son, he told her as a wine waiter approached seeking orders for brandies.

‘You’re a lucky man, Neville,’ Henzey commented, ‘having a lovely child and a beautiful wife who, I imagine, thinks the world of you.’

‘Yes, I am a lucky man to have a lovely child…’ He paused deliberately. This lack of acknowledgement of Eunice made Henzey curious, although she ventured no further comment. He continued: ‘Have you and Billy talked of marriage?’

She shook her head and smiled. ‘After three months? Anyway, I’m too young yet.’

‘Sensible, Henzey. Very sensible. Lately, I take a dim view of marriage.’ He spoke quietly, intimately, only to her. ‘I see so many people unhappily bound by its restrictions. I see so many people hurt by the consequences of marital foolishness.’

‘Oh, that’s a shame. I’ve never looked at it like that. I’ve only ever known people happy in their marriages. Where they love each other I mean.’

‘Oh, love’s a different thing altogether, Henzey. You mustn’t think I take a dim view of love – I certainly do not. To love passionately and be loved in return is a gift of God. But marriage isn’t always like that. Romance can quickly disappear from marriage. It can end up a sham – as nothing more than trying to be nice to each other for the sake of peace and quiet. If you’ll pardon me for being blunt, love-making can degenerate to merely satisfying one’s basic physical needs, usurping the romance and passion you enjoyed before, that you never dreamed would slip away so insidiously.’

Henzey blushed. ‘I think that’s a cynical view, Neville.’

‘Maybe it is…But real passionate love is something quite different, wouldn’t you say? Real passionate love is what makes life worth living. Without it we might as well be dead.’

‘I suppose.’ She felt his eyes burning into her again, and she felt uneasy. It was evident he found her appealing, and now it seemed he was sounding her out, assessing his chances. Perhaps love was lacking from his life, inducing him to say these things.

The wine waiter returned with a tray of brandy glasses, each with an inch or so of the deep amber liquid swishing around.

‘What I miss more than anything in my marriage, Henzey,’ he said after he had taken a glass and sipped it, ‘is love. I mean real physical, ardent, energetic love…The sort of love that leaves you breathless and utterly exhausted. But totally satisfied.’

She avoided his eyes. What was he trying to say? She glanced guiltily at Billy but he was too deeply engrossed in conversation with Eunice to notice. Henzey felt naked under Neville’s scrutiny and felt inclined to cross her legs. It seemed an appropriate thing to do. But, to her surprise, Neville’s words did not offend her. Rather, she found them stimulating. It was a change to hear a man be so direct about love and passion without sounding either sloppy or apologetic.

‘You know, you’re a fine-looking girl, Henzey. I hope you don’t mind me saying so…’

She looked at him and smiled. ‘No, I don’t mind you saying so at all, Neville. I’m very flattered.’

‘I look at you and imagine you to be a very passionate young woman, you know. You have that look about you…I don’t mean to offend…It’s just that I do find you extremely attractive. Extremely attractive. Billy’s a jolly, lucky chap. I hope he appreciates you.’

She shrugged, and smiled. ‘I hope so, too.’

Neville Worthington picked up his bottle of Exshaw’s No. 1, his favourite brandy, poured himself a last one and took it upstairs to his bedroom. He sat on the bed and loosened his bow-tie with his free hand before taking a sip and placing the glass on his bedside table. As he bent over to untie his shoelaces he sighed heavily. Henzey Kite was occupying his mind. He wanted her, and such ardent desire for a woman had not taken him like this since his first encounters with Eunice. He sighed, kicked off his shoes and stood up again to put away his bow tie and unfasten his cuff-links.

‘Don’t forget to put your shoes in your wardrobe, Neville,’ his wife said as she drove a brush through her stylishly cut hair.

‘In a minute, when I’m undressed.’

‘…Otherwise you’ll fall over them and wake me up if you have to get up in the night.’ Eunice was at her dressing table in her white silk pyjamas. A shop-full of beauty aids stood randomly on top of it. She took one small dainty pot, dipped her fingers into it and proceeded to rub a creamy substance over her face. ‘No doubt you’ll forget them altogether.’

‘Well if I do happen to fall over them and wake you in the night, rest assured I shall not tumble into your bed.’

She made no reply. Neville removed the coins from his trouser pockets and let them tumble onto his tallboy. Then he undressed himself, and took the clean pyjamas the maid had placed on his pillow while he was out.

‘I enjoyed this evening, Eunice. Didn’t you?’

‘Towards the end. Not during the meal.’

‘Actually, I found it all rather stimulating.’

‘I suspect you found talking to that young girl rather stimulating. More so than talking to that other woman. What was her name?’

‘Henzey.’

‘Not Henzey, the older woman.’

‘I’ve forgotten.’ He pulled his pyjama trousers on.

‘Strange how you can remember Henzey’s name but not that other woman’s.’ Eunice began removing the cleansing cream with a damp face towel.

Neville tied the cord of his pyjamas. ‘It’s hardly strange, my dear. You also remembered it, evidently. Anyway, Henzey was by far the more interesting of the two.’ He sat on his bed again and reached for his drink.

‘And by far the more attractive.’

‘That as well.’

Eunice turned to address him. There was an earnest look on her face. ‘But Neville, you’d never attract a girl like that until you altered your style.’

‘Oh, and I thought she seemed quite taken with me.’

She laughed scornfully. ‘You fool yourself, Neville. Look at your awful beard and your disastrous hair. Do you realise I have never, in all the years I’ve known you, seen you without that damn beard? You had it when we were first introduced, and you’ve had it ever since – all through your Oxford days.’

‘So what? That’s me. That’s how I am.’

‘But you’re only twenty-nine, dammit, and you look forty-nine. Young ladies nowadays go for the smooth, clean-shaven look in men – short, neat haircuts. I mean, look at that Billy fellow she was with…he’s fashionable…typical of the type of young men women go for. I can understand why she finds him appealing.’

‘Surely girls prefer someone more masculine?’

‘On the contrary, girls today prefer a more feminine-looking man…Not that he’s feminine…Not by any stretch of imagination.’

‘And some girls try to look like boys with their flat chests and short haircuts. It’s a strange world we live in.’

Eunice continued peering at her moistened face in the mirror of her dressing table. ‘The point I’m trying to make, my darling Neville, is that if you altered your style I might find you more attractive. What is it that compels you to want to look so…so eccentric?’

‘It’s how I want to look, no more, no less. It pleases me. I dislike shaving. I dislike having my hair cut more than is necessary. And anyway, people remember me all the easier for it. And that’s good for business.’

‘But you look like somebody from the last century. It makes you look so old. Whom are trying to emulate, for God’s sake? Leon Trotsky? It’s not as if you have a poor physique. You have an excellent physique.’

He pulled back the covers of his single bed and slid between the sheets. ‘I’d like to invite Billy and Henzey over to dinner one evening. Can we fix a convenient date?’

‘I…I think not. I have no wish to entertain them here.’

‘You said a minute ago Billy was very appealing. Do make up your mind, Eunice.’

‘What I said was, I could understand why that young girl found him appealing, unlike that other man, that Harvey. He’s an old-fashioned, bigoted, high Tory. Please don’t embarrass me by inviting them here. If you wish to meet them alone at a restaurant that’s up to you. But please don’t involve me.’

Neville lay back and closed his eyes, urgently seeking a mental image of Henzey. ‘As for Harvey and his anonymous wife,’ he said, ‘I hadn’t intended asking them.’

Neither spoke more. Neville sighed unhappily and snuggled down in his bed. He ventured no further conversation, remaining silent, trying to sleep. But sleep eluded him for a long time after Eunice had slid into her own bed and turned out the light. He tried to imagine this young Henzey Kite lying naked in bed with him; the feel of her warm soft skin against his; her silken mouth; his thigh gripped lovingly between hers; her arching back as his tongue drove her wild, probing her secret places; her appreciative vocal sighs as he thrust hungrily into her. His throat went dry just thinking about it.

But eventually the erotic fantasies were eclipsed by more mundane thoughts. Meeting Henzey Kite also focused his mind on the shortcomings of his marriage; shortcomings he regretted, but was unable to change in the short term. His marriage used to be very satisfactory, but now it was a compromise; an arrangement; a result of the marital foolishness he had spoken about to Henzey. He wondered how long it might survive in this hideous state. Eunice was a beautiful woman, and desirable. They lived together without sleeping together, and though there was seldom any open hostility between them, mainly for the sake of their son, neither was there any visible affection. Yet there was a glimmer of hope. Eunice had said that if he chose to shave off his beard and have his hair cut decently she might find him more attractive. She had said that before, but why should his beard and his hair make any difference? She married him with his beard and his hair, why should she despise it now? He would divest himself of it as a last resort; only if absolutely necessary.

For Neville took refuge behind his beard. It was a form of protection; a disguise to prevent recognition. He wore it just in case one particular person were to recognise him first. He knew it was spurious, a notion conceived in his youth that had developed and intensified over the years. He had never confided his thoughts to Eunice about it, hence she saw him merely as somebody completely out of step with fashion, and was unaware of his concern.

It was generated by the knowledge that he once had a twin brother. He could not remember him and did not even know his name, but the odds were that he was still alive, possibly round the next corner, and might even come seeking him. That being so, Neville wanted to be able to recognise his twin first, without being recognised himself. It was irrational on the face of it, he knew, but important to him. In the event, it would offer him the choice of either turning away or making himself known, depending on what he perceived in the man.

Neville only knew what Magdalen Worthington, his adopted mother, had told him: that he was the son of his father, Oswald Worthington, by one of the housemaids of the time, whose name was Bessie Hipkiss. Neville believed that Bessie had died in abject poverty when he and his brother were but two years old and that his twin had been taken into the care of a Christian family of very moderate means in the Black Country, while he was subsequently delivered, as a last resort, to the large, elegant house of his father. The intention, apparently, was that his father should rightfully be made to face all responsibility for him. The trouble was, by that time his father was dead. It was fortunate indeed that Oswald’s young widow, Magdalen, was still grieving, and was more than happy to accept the return of anything that was her husband’s, especially a son, albeit by another woman. She took Neville in as her own and doted on him, ensuring that he had the very best of everything, including the best education money could buy.

As he turned restlessly in his bed, dissatisfied with the state of his marriage, Neville’s thoughts turned to his real mother and he wondered what she was like. He would dearly love to know more about her, to see a photograph of her. But how to go about finding out? Who, twenty-seven years after her death, would remember somebody as insignificant as Bessie Hipkiss? Who would possibly remember a particular housemaid put in the family way by a male member of the family that employed her, out of the hundreds of such beguiled and unfortunate young women who littered society? If only she could have lived a year or two longer so that he might have some memory of her, however vague.

And this brother, the existence of whom Neville was so ambiguous about…He actually hoped he would like him, because he longed to talk to him about their mother, about how he felt now at their being parted. Sometimes he felt as if he was only half a person, that there was another half somewhere, waiting to make the whole. It was a strange feeling. He would love to know whether his brother felt it, too. Someday he might meet him. He would know him immediately; they were identical twins after all, or so he’d been led to believe. If and when that day came, he hoped any differences in their circumstances and upbringing would not render them entirely incompatible.

Chapter 7

By the end of July, the government had announced plans to increase unemployment benefit, and forty-eight countries had signed the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war. Lizzie was even bigger, but at no time did she suffer the things normally associated with pregnancy, such as morning sickness.

From the point of view of business, Billy Witts began to worry; he was finding it ever more difficult to achieve lucrative deals, due to the general economic climate. But he and Henzey had been making love regularly for two months, which helped take his mind off his finances. Love-making concentrated Henzey’s mind on their relationship. It was the ultimate expression of her feelings for Billy and, often, she pondered Neville Worthington’s words about energetic love that made you breathless and exhausted. It did not apply to Billy and her, but she reckoned things must be approaching something akin. At least she thought so.

She had finished half-a-dozen watercolours and three pencil sketches of Billy besides, her favourites of which she’d had framed and were now hanging on her bedroom walls. He warranted being a subject of her paintings. He was the one who had appeared in her life like a whirlwind and swept her off her feet. The reason he fascinated her so much was because he kept her guessing. She was intrigued that he had resisted her for so long in the first place, and that intrigue turned to fixation, and then to love.

If Billy had never come along she could have comfortably existed with no male companion. Hitherto she’d been perfectly content to open doors herself, pull on her own coat, without any masculine courtesies. In any case, on a practical level, doing things for herself was by far the fastest way. But Billy was now a part of her life and she was content.

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