Two for Sorrow

Ronnie stubbed her cigarette out and joined her sister at the window. ‘It’s hard to believe that this is here at all,’ she said, looking across at the roomful of women, engrossed in a series of small individual tasks that made up a remarkably successful whole—a business which now occupied two houses in St Martin’s Lane and kept sixty people on the payroll, including thirty fulltime seamstresses. ‘The last eighteen months have been extraordinary, haven’t they? First Hamlet, and now Romeo—we’ve never had better notices than the ones we’re getting at the moment. Johnny’s certainly been lucky for us.’

‘And Josephine—if it weren’t for the success of Richard of Bordeaux, I’m not sure any of us would have had the freedom we’ve enjoyed since.’

They watched as their head cutter showed one of the newer girls how to work with a length of beautiful soft crepe, reassuring her when she got it wrong and patiently starting again at the beginning. ‘Look at Hilda,’ Ronnie said affectionately. ‘Do you remember when she taught us to cut fabric and make up costumes like that? She was the village dressmaker’s niece and we couldn’t tell one end of a needle from the other—who’d have thought that we’d all end up here?’

‘And thank God she still enjoys it as much as we do. I suppose we could have our pick of cutters and supervisors now, but I honestly think the whole place would fall apart if Hilda left us.’

‘Then let’s just pray that she doesn’t—and if good works will keep the sun shining down on us, then I suppose we can afford a few free frocks. You’d better get that girl over there sharpish with her samples.’

Lettice jotted some items down on a bit of paper and went out into the workroom to deliver her list. ‘Ask them to put it all on our account,’ she said, piling a glut of brightly coloured materials into Marjorie’s arms to be parcelled up. ‘And deliver the samples to Miss Bannerman at the club, with this letter. We’ve only got a few days to make any alterations, so if she can send a couple of the women round this afternoon, that would be helpful. But don’t be long—there’s still so much to do today. Take the bus, and get back here by lunchtime at the latest.’

‘With the change from the bus fare,’ Ronnie called, winking at the girl. ‘We know what you’re like.’

‘If you did, Miss, you’d blush,’ Marjorie said good-naturedly, winking back. ‘I’ll see you later if I don’t get a better offer.’

Marjorie went down the corridor to the small back room where the girls kept their outdoor clothes and rifled through the layers of coats and scarves which accumulated each morning, looking for her own modest raincoat. The racks held a hotch-potch of clothing, which functioned as a catalogue of styles from the last twenty years or more —the Motley sisters were fair with their wages but a good coat, once afforded, was unlikely to be replaced quickly for the sake of fashion, even here. The varying shapes and sizes reminded her of her last day in prison, walking down the line of discharge cubicles to the one where her own clothes awaited her, past a series of outfits which would have been the envy of any jumble sale in London—petticoats, skirts and hand-knitted jumpers, some in preposterous colours, others faded and drab; some torn and stained, others smarter and more respectable. It was a brief glimpse of lives waiting to begin again, and it mattered because it was the moment when women found their old selves, free of the levelling effect of prison and the loss of individuality—femininity, even—which was standard Holloway procedure.

She found her coat and tied the belt tightly round her waist, remembering how, at the end of her last sentence, a fur coat had graced one of the cells, removed from its mothballs and looking as good as new after months of careful storage. A black crepe de Chine dress was on a hanger next to it and, on the bench, washed and neatly folded, lay a pair of black silk panties, some stockings and a pale pink brassiere. Marjorie had stopped for a moment, transfixed by clothes which were so unfamiliar, and had tried to imagine how the underwear would feel against her skin. What sort of life would she be returning to if she owned clothes like that? she wondered, but the prison officer moved her roughly on to the end of the row before she could decide and she became Marjorie Baker again, equal to the best of them while she was inside but nothing special anywhere else. The sight of her own clothes mocked any illusions she might still have harboured. There was no need for a hanger here: the worn woollen cardigan, second-hand skirt and loose-fitting stockings—mended and torn again, just like her life sat in a shapeless pile on a chair. She had been brought in to Holloway in winter; now it was May, but no one at home could be bothered to bring her clothes better suited to a summer release and she had been too proud to accept the offer of something from the prisoners’ aid store. Shaking off the memory, Marjorie picked up the parcel and envelopes, then, as she noticed a lipstick poking out of one of the girls’ pockets, put it down again and helped herself. It would have been easy to take a few bob from these pockets, but the theft would surely be traced back to her and, in any case, she had never had the stomach for stealing from her own sort. She examined her reflection in a small powder compact which someone had obligingly left out, then put the lipstick back where it came from. Even now, six months after her release, she found it hard to get the thought of those other clothes out of her head. But that was her trouble—her mother had often said so, and Marjorie knew she was right. She was never satisfied, never had been. She always wanted something more.

Not that there had been much to be satisfied with until now, she thought, picking her way carefully down the iron staircase which led out into the cobbled courtyard at the back of the premises. Being brought up in Campbell Road—the sort of street you had to lie about living in if you were to stand a chance in hell of getting work—wasn’t exactly the perfect start in life. Seven households shared number 35, and the Bakers had a room at the top, across the landing from a knife-grinder and his family. There was nothing unusual about their slum; the pattern was repeated all the way up the street, and she’d had to laugh back in May, just after she came out, when the old Poor But Loyal bedsheet banner was dragged out for the Jubilee, just like it always was for any day of national celebration. There it hung, amongst the tattered bunting and faded Union Jacks—but loyal to what? she had wondered. To a king who didn’t even know they existed? Or to the good old days of community life, when Campbell Road muddled through, immune to interference from outsiders? Surely the only people who truly believed that were the ones who had never lived there. As far as Marjorie was concerned, the only thing the street had going for it was its proximity to Holloway; at least she never had to worry about finding the bus fare home when they let her out.

She crossed St Martin’s Lane and cut through Cecil Court, passing between two theatres to get to Charing Cross Road. A bus was already in sight and she had to run to catch it, but the pavements were quiet at this time of the morning and she reached the stop in plenty of time. Although there was scarcely anybody on board, a man gave up his seat for her at the front of the lower deck. She accepted it with a polite smile, then looked steadfastly out of the window, making it impossible for him to benefit from his gallantry by forcing a conversation. If there was one important lesson that her father had taught her, it was that men were not to be relied upon for anything in life, and she had long since perfected a way of discouraging them from believing that her good looks were any reason to be hopeful. He was a waster, her dad—and had been for as long as she could remember. A builder’s labourer by trade, he travelled all over north London but they were lucky if he came home with thirty shillings a week and, when he wasn’t working, he was in and out of jail on a series of petty charges. He was a philanderer, too—she had known what that was long before she ever heard the word—and he had made the years that followed the war work for him, taking advantage of women who, with a shortage of men and no prospects of their own marriage, were prepared to lower their standards and settle for a share in somebody else’s. She hated his weakness and his cheap opportunism, but despised her mother even more for allowing it to happen. In her mother’s unquestioning acceptance of her lot, Marjorie had seen the image of her own future. It rang a warning bell in her head, louder and more lasting than any deterrent which an institution could throw at her, and it told her to make self-reliance her guiding principle—no matter how much trouble that brought or what the consequences were.

She rang the bell for the bus to drop her at Oxford Circus and strolled slowly down Holles Street, savouring the novel experience of walking through a decent part of town and having a reason to be there. This time, surely, things ought to be different? She had a new job—one that she was good at, which wasn’t the same, day in, day out; she had friends, some from Holloway and others found within the easy camaraderie of the Motley girls; and, for the first time in her life, she could see a way out of Campbell Road. It ought to be enough. Yet still the dissatisfaction gnawed away at her, still she knew that—sooner or later—she’d be chasing something else, proving her mother right. ‘We know what you’re like,’ Miss Motley had said and, while Marjorie knew that no malice had been intended by the comment, the predictable future which it hinted at—the impossibility of change—depressed her. She hesitated for a moment outside 20 Cavendish Square; then, when she was sure she was tidy and presentable, she walked boldly through the Cowdray Club’s doors, marvelling at how readily they opened for her. It was true, people did know what her sort was like—but they didn’t know what she could be; she didn’t even know that herself. Perhaps this time she’d have the chance to find out.