Things a Bright Girl Can Do

  Now the family had lost Bill’s money and Dad’s money within two months. It was just like last year all over again. Every time they got themselves together, Nell thought fiercely, something else always bloody went wrong. Less money meant more belt-tightening. Less food – no meat, and more bread for everyone. More borrowing from Nell’s uncle, who’d only just been paid back the money he had lent them after the last crisis. It was exhausting. How much effort it took just to keep afloat. And for what? Two miserable little rooms, dark and damp and freezing cold in winter. What was the point of it all? What was the point of any of it?

  Even May failed to cheer Nell. In fact, May was beginning to irritate her, with her big, clumsy smile and her earnest insistence on the necessity of her mama’s latest loony social improvement scheme. It just seemed so … unimportant. Who cared about Germans in internment camps? Who cared about blimming pacifists who didn’t want to fight? What difference did they think it would possibly make?

  A bullet an inch to the left, and Bill would have been alive. A piece of shrapnel an inch to the right, and Dad would have been dead. Those were the things that mattered. Those were the things that made a difference.

  Everything else was noise and blether.

  Amiens

  France

  Arrived in Amiens this evening, for rest-break. Too tired to write. I send you instead the week’s drawings. Enclosed are a picture of:

  Corporal Aspey drinking tea.

  Private Mattingley and his new machine-gun.

  Two French children picking through a ruin.

  French prostitutes out in the sun. Don’t they look swell?

  Captain Lassiter’s horse. The horse, believe it or not, is called Blackie. A fine name for a war horse, I don’t think!

  I don’t imagine you can possibly know how much I miss you, and how much I wish I were home in the old nursery with you and the little girls, drawing your faces instead of all these blasted soldiers.

  Your own,

  Very weary,

  Teddy

  A tea shop on The Broad,

  Oxford,

  December 1915

  Teddy,

  I think I’m in love.

  Not with another man, don’t worry, but with Oxford. Teddy, I don’t know if I can explain to you what it’s like. For the first time in my life, people are taking me seriously. They listen to me when I say things, they pull me up when I say something idiotic (which I do, a lot), like I ought to have known better than that. They expect so much! It’s exhilarating. I’m not used to anyone expecting very much of me at all. Not like this, anyway.

  I tell you what else is exhilarating. The people – the other girls, I mean. It’s so strange to meet other girls who get excited by the same things I do. Did you feel like that when you started art school? There’s a girl called Miss Billingsley who’s in one of my tutorials and has rooms on my corridor. We spent about an hour yesterday evening sitting on her bed talking about how much we loved dear old Homer. Imagine doing something like that in Hampstead!

  I love my work too. It’s hard – of course it’s hard – there’s never enough time to read everything you’re supposed to read, particularly if you want to join societies and so forth, which I do – I’m in the debating society, and the bridge club, and the tennis club, and Miss Billingsley wants me to join the dramatic society next term, but I don’t think I will, because I’ll never get anything done if I do. But I love … just learning things. Working all day and knowing more at the end of it than I did at the beginning. The tutors are so clever too, and they know so much more than the mistresses at school did. I feel like my brain is being rewritten, all my nerves unravelling and reknotting themselves – it’s disorientating, of course, but it’s perfectly thrilling too. I feel like I’m unfolding, and I’m just wild to see what I’m going to unfold into.

  Teddy, I might not be the same person I was when you left me. I’m growing up. I’m turning into someone else. It’s marvellous, but it’s rather frightening too. I do hope you’ll still want this new Evelyn. I can’t bear the thought of having to be a grown-up without you.

  Best love,

  Evelyn

  Ice

  THE TWO LITTLE rooms in Coney Lane were almost unendurably cold. Coal was more expensive than Nell had ever known it, and food had to come first. Winters were always cold of course, but somehow this one felt more desperate than it ever had before. Perhaps because everyone was so hungry.

  Mornings were the worst. Not nights so much; they all slept snuggled up together in bed, so that was all right. But waking up with the ice tracing delicate, fern-leaf patterns on the inside of the window panes, the contents of the chamber pot frozen under the bed, stumbling up and out of bed to fumble with your bare hands for your boots, to light the fire for breakfast … it was unbearable. Nell’s hands were raw and red with the cold, every day, all the time. She had chilblains on both her hands and her feet; red, swollen blisters that made her wince and cry out with pain when she walked or tried to use her hands. Washday was agony; plunging her wounded hands into the icy rinse-water, standing in the yard in the pale frost, turning the mangle-handle. Waking up the next morning to see the clean clothes hanging from the ceiling, all covered in a thin layer of frost. Having to brush off the frost before you put the linen on.

  It wasn’t to be endured.

  But you had to, all the same.

  All the family had chilblains. You just did, every year. Everyone did, even swells like May did. Even the babies did. No matter how many layers Mum dressed Siddy in, he was never warm. But this year it felt worse, somehow. Nell felt fragile and brittle, as though she’d lost all her reserves of strength, as though whatever it was that made her go on had broken. The littlest thing made her want to snap, and hit something.

  All the children had colds, all the time. Siddy had an awful cough, that made Nell’s heart clench every time she heard it. A baby like Siddy shouldn’t cough like that. And it was only a matter of time before one of them – Bernie probably – fell ill.

  Bernie had always been sickly. His life was punctuated with semi-regular crises – diphtheria, rheumatic fever, a bad attack of influenza which had nearly killed him when he was four. Bernie had always had a somewhat other-worldly quality, perhaps as a result of all his illnesses. He was openly and unashamedly their mother’s favourite.

  ‘You gives your kids the love they needs,’ she’d said once, and Nell thought this was probably true. Her mother had given her minimal interference in her life – something she had always been grateful for – and a defensive arm when she’d needed it. What she gave Bernie was long, sleepless nights sitting up with him when he was ill, work she could do from home when he was kept away from school, and a protective streak a mile wide.

  The morning when Bernie woke up, his skin burning hot to the touch and weeping, they called in the doctor. You had to, no matter what it cost. The doctor told them what they already suspected: it was pneumonia. A child could die of pneumonia. Nell’s mother went up to the infirmary looking for a bed, but was told all the beds were being used by soldiers, and civilian illnesses had to take second place.

  ‘Keep him warm, and give him plenty of fluids,’ the doctor said. He didn’t have time for more; both his partners had gone to the Front, and much of the infirmary’s work had been added to his case load.

  Keep him warm was easy to say, but nearly impossible to deliver in a world where the price of coal had nearly doubled since the war began. May’s mother lent them spare blankets and jerseys, she wanted to give them money, but Nell refused and May’s mother didn’t press it. Nell was grateful for the blankets, but nothing could alleviate the desperate coldness of their room except coal. And coal cost money.

  Nell needed a job. She knew she did, but it was hard to find one when she also had to sit with Bernie while her mother was at work. Bernie was not a difficult patient, but he was a demanding one. He would cry, and Nell wouldn’t know how to comfort him. His temperature gave him ha
llucinations – once he thought his father had come home from the war with one side of his face burnt away, like a man they’d seen in the garden at the infirmary – and he’d screamed and screamed and screamed. Another time he thought the Germans had invaded and were marching up the high street. This was exactly the sort of work Nell hated most – sitting alone with Bernie in a darkened room. She had always hated to be still.

  Once Dot came home from school and was free to sit with Bernie, Nell went job-hunting again. There was more work now than there had been at the beginning of the war and, at last, more interesting jobs were becoming available to women. There were women staff at the Underground stations, and there were rumours that women might soon be allowed to drive the omnibuses – imagine, a woman omnibus driver! Wouldn’t that be something? There were jobs more immediately connected with the war effort too. Nell knew a girl who’d got a job inspecting and cleaning guns brought home from the Front.

  ‘You for the war or against it?’ said her mother affectionately, when Nell told her about this. But Nell couldn’t answer. She was for defending England against the Germans, and against the way the war seemed to trample on women like her mother, and children like Bernie. And herself. Perhaps, when it came down to it, she was just against being the one who was left out of things. Again. She agreed with Miss Pankhurst that the war seemed to benefit the bosses and no one else. And yet … she watched the soldiers marching up the East India Dock Road and dreamed secret dreams of being a new Polly Oliver, who cut her hair close, and stained her face brown, and went for a soldier to fair London Town.

  Except she was in London Town already, and it wasn’t particularly fair. And neither was France, by all accounts.

  Spring was coming. There would be another offensive; there always was, in spring, and by then Dad would be back out there and no doubt would be in it. The longer he was over there and Nell was stuck here, the less happy she was about it.

  It was in this mood that she came across an advertisement at the Labour Exchange. Positions available at a new shell factory which was opening on the edge of London. It would mean leaving home and finding digs near the factory, but the money was all right. Twelve shillings a week. Even once she’d paid her room and board and someone to sit with Bernie, there’d be money left over to send to Mum and the kids. The more she thought about it, the more exciting the idea was. A life of her own, away from Mum’s watchful eye. A room in a boarding house, perhaps with other girls who worked at the factory. Her own bed! Good money to spend on tobacco, and newspapers, and whatever else she wanted. And to be connected to the battlefields that were swallowing up the boys and men of Poplar. Perhaps she might make a shell that Dad would one day fire at someone, or one of the boys from the street – Moshe Ayers perhaps, or Jimmy Mitchell. Perhaps her hands would save somebody’s life – or destroy it.

  Even that was strangely exciting. The violence of the Suffragettes had always excited Nell, the joy of letting out all that pent-up energy and frustration by kicking a policeman, or smashing a window, or making yourself a Saturday night and taking it to a meeting stuffed into the pocket of your jacket. The bombs I make could kill people, she thought, as she copied down the address of the factory. Not could. Would.

  The only thing was, how in heaven’s name was she going to explain it to May?

  Respect

  MAY’S MOTHER WAS out at a campaigning meeting. Nell came round for dinner.

  Nell had been coming round for dinner a lot more recently. She’d been a bit reluctant about this at first – ‘It’s charity, ain’t it?’ – but May had been firm.

  ‘It’s helping your mother. Just think of all the food you would have eaten at home – she can feed it to everyone else. And, besides, it’s campaigning work. You can keep the plight of the East End women burning bright in the minds of prominent suffrage campaigners like Mama. Just think of all the good you’ll be doing.’

  May and Nell ate dinner alone in the dining room. It was a sort of vegetable stew, followed by apple pie. Mrs Barber still talked wistfully about a nice chop, but she had owned that vegetarianism did at least make cooking easier, now meat was so shocking expensive.

  Nell was quiet throughout dinner. She still looked out of place at May’s table, although she and Mrs Barber seemed to understand each other. Mrs Barber – unlike most people when first presented with Nell – had accepted her without question, a result, presumably, of all the ‘funny folk’ May’s mother was in the habit of bringing home after Fabian and suffrage meetings. That meant a lot to Nell. But she had admitted to May that she found the whole concept of servants odd.

  ‘Ain’t it queer, having someone live in your house who ain’t family?’ she’d asked May.

  May said, ‘Mrs Barber sort of is family. I mean, she looked after me quite as much when I was little as Mama did.’

  ‘She ain’t family if you pays her to do it,’ said Nell, firmly.

  May was sure Nell was wrong – she loved Mrs Barber just as much as she loved her mother – but she could see how peculiar the whole thing must look from the outside.

  After dinner, the two girls went up to May’s bedroom. Outside, it was dark. May drew the curtains, and dimmed the gas. She had always liked the intimacy of the semi-darkness, particularly with Nell there. She held out her hand.

  ‘All’s well?’ she said.

  Nell nodded.

  ‘Yeh,’ she said, but she didn’t look all right. ‘I just …’ she hesitated, then she said, all in a rush, ‘There’s something I got to tell you.’

  ‘All right,’ said May.

  Nell looked away, into the shadows at the corner of the room. She couldn’t seem to meet May’s eyes.

  ‘I got a job,’ she said.

  ‘A job?’

  ‘Yeh.’

  May was aware of something hovering just out of sight. A big bad wolf waiting to eat her up.

  ‘What job?’ she said, warily.

  ‘In a factory,’ said Nell. She hesitated, then added, with obvious reluctance. ‘Making bombs, like.’

  May had known it was coming – what else could it be, what other kind of job would make Nell so wary? But it was still a blow.

  It was Barbara from school all over again. It was exhausting, being hated, especially exhausting being hated every single day, especially, especially exhausting being hated every day by people who used to be your friends. Nell was a refuge. There was too little safe ground for May right now. There were too few places where she didn’t have to justify herself. This news was a betrayal, and it hurt more than she knew it ought.

  ‘You aren’t going to take it, are you?’ she said.

  ‘I have to,’ said Nell. ‘It’s Bernie …’ and then, hopelessly, ‘You know how it is.’

  ‘I do not!’

  ‘No,’ said Nell, wearily. ‘You don’t, does you?’

  ‘I’m sorry about Bernie,’ said May. ‘I really am. But – it’s not asking much, is it? Not taking a job. People do all sorts of things for their principles, much worse things. They go to prison! They go on hunger strike!’

  They go to war, Nell thought, but she didn’t say it. They go to war, and they die, like Bill died, like my father might, and if you don’t give them the weapons they need to fight with, they can’t just turn around and come home, no matter what the Quakers say. They just die.

  And we’ve had enough death in our family already. Bill died. And it was my fault. Those things I said … And I never apologised neither. (This had been bothering her more and more as the weeks had gone on. Bill had apologised for the things he’d said, and it had never even occurred to her to do the same.) If Bernie dies and it’s my fault too … I can’t bear it.

  And you shouldn’t need me to tell you this, she thought, with a spark of fury. Nobody should need to be told this. What sort of a person thinks principles are more important than a little boy?

  ‘It ain’t me,’ she said. ‘It’s Bernie! I told you! You can’t ask someone else to die for what you believe in
!’

  ‘Why not?’ said May, swift as her mother. ‘The government is, aren’t they?’

  It was the final straw.

  ‘Can’t you just …’ she said. ‘Can’t you just bleeding stop? For one minute? You sound clever, but it ain’t the same thing at all, and you know it! Them soldiers – they volunteered. My dad volunteered. Bill volunteered. And they didn’t do it cos they’ve been duped by the government, neither! They done it cos it’s their duty, cos they’re brave, cos they want to – to defend their country! To protect their families! To stop the Kaiser coming over here and turning England into bleeding Germany!’

  ‘Your dad didn’t volunteer for anything!’ May said shrilly. ‘And Bill didn’t join up because he was brave! He joined up because he was sick of staying at home and being treated like a kid! You said—’

  Nell felt like she’d been slapped. People didn’t say things like that. You just didn’t. Somebody’s brother died, you didn’t tell them he wasn’t brave. You didn’t use them as a point in an argument. You had a bit of Goddamn respect.

  What sort of a person was May that she didn’t know that?

  Nell couldn’t believe it. She couldn’t. She was so angry that if May had been her wife, she might have hit her.

  ‘Don’t you say a word against my father!’ she said. ‘Nor Bill! My dad volunteered to fight the Boers, and it’s the same thing! He’s been out there for years, keeping you and your stupid mama safe, when he might have been killed any minute, and all you can do is sneer at him! And how dare you say something like that about Bill? How bloody dare you? For Christ’s sake, have a bit of respect!’

  May had gone white.