A Mother Forever

  Elaine Everest

  A Mother Forever

  Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  A Letter from Elaine

  Dedicated to the memory of the twelve women and their foreman who died in the explosion at the W. V. Gilbert munition works, on the banks of the Thames between Erith and Slades Green, on 18th February 1924.

  Edna Allen, aged seventeen, of Alexandra Road.

  Alice Craddock, aged eighteen, of Arthur Street.

  Elizabeth Dalton, aged twenty-four, of Lewis Road, Welling.

  Alice Harvey, aged forty, of Arthur Street.

  Gladys Herbert, aged twenty-three, of Bexley Road.

  Stella Huntley, aged twenty, of Corinthian Road.

  Edith Lamb, aged twenty-three, of Upper Road, Belvedere.

  Ethel Pullen, aged eighteen, of Bexley Road.

  Polly Smith, aged eighteen, of Powell Street.

  Doris Sturtevant, aged eighteen, of Manor Road.

  Alice Sweeney, aged seventeen, of St Francis Road.

  Irene Turtle, aged twenty-two, of Maxim Road.

  Mr T. Jones, from East Dulwich

  1

  Erith, Kent

  August 1905

  ‘You’ve got ideas above your station, my girl. If your father was alive now, he’d want nothing to do with you. The Tomkins family have always known their place in life; he wouldn’t want us rubbing shoulders with those who think they’re better than us,’ Milly Tomkins said to her daughter.

  Ruby Caselton gave a big sigh and continued to pull a heavy rug from the back of the drayman’s cart, while he held the horse’s head steady. ‘It’s just a street of houses with hard-working people living in them. Could you take the other end of this please, Mum?’

  ‘What, with my bad ticker? You’ll see me into my grave, young lady. But then, perhaps that’s what you want – then there’ll be no one left to remind you of where you come from,’ Milly sniffed, folding her arms over her ample chest and turning away to look at the house the family were about to move into. ‘Those windows need a clean and the doorstep a good scrub.’

  ‘I can help you, Mum,’ George said, reaching up to help Ruby pull at the rug. It came tumbling off the cart, almost flattening him as he staggered back under its weight.

  Ruby couldn’t help but laugh as she watched her five-year-old son disappearing under the rug. ‘Lord love you, George. Thank you for helping all the same. Why don’t you carry that basket of groceries into the kitchen? Then I can get some food on the table as soon as we have this load inside. Your dad may be home by then, and he’ll be shouting for his dinner.’ She didn’t add that he never turned up until her work was done and he had no need to roll up his sleeves and help her.

  ‘He’s running true to form, I see,’ Milly snorted as she pulled her knitted shawl tighter around her shoulders. ‘That Eddie Caselton has a gift for sniffing out hard work and disappearing in the opposite direction. Now, your dad . . .’

  Ruby knew her mum was about to lead off about her dad being an angel amongst all men, and she just didn’t have the time or the inclination to listen. The drizzling rain had started again, and there was a definite nip in the air coming off the nearby River Thames. Added to that, the child she was carrying in her swollen belly would be entering the world within weeks. ‘Mum, leave it to another time, will you? I never knew Dad, and I have other things on my mind at the moment. I could kill a cuppa, so why don’t you go in and see to the kitchen, eh? You’ll find a meat and potato pie in that basket our George carried in. We can eat once this load is off the cart.’ She knew her mum was partial to a pie and noticed her eyes light up at once.

  ‘I’ll get cracking,’ Milly replied, licking her lips as she headed up the short path to the front door, her hands empty. ‘It’s no place for me out in this rain – not at my time of life, anyroad.’

  ‘You’ve got yer hands full there, love,’ a friendly voice called out from over the road.

  Ruby looked up from where she was examining the rug lying in a heap in the dust. She wasn’t sure if the woman watching from her gate was referring to her mum, or the furniture waiting to be unloaded and taken into the house. She stood up straight, wincing as a pain shot across the lower part of her back. As much as she’d been warned to take things easy, she’d gone against advice and insisted she could move the family into their new home without paying for hired help. It was their first proper home, as up to now they’d lived in rooms in a house shared with three other families near the river in Woolwich. There wasn’t a lot of money spare to pay for such things as moving men.

  Smiling at the ruddy-faced neighbour, she replied, ‘You could say that,’ and then grimaced as another pain consumed her. She reached out to hang on to the side of the cart to help her stay upright.

  ‘My Lord, you shouldn’t be up on your feet in your condition. When are you due?’ the woman asked as she hurried to Ruby’s side and supported her. ‘You’re coming with me,’ she added, not waiting for an answer as she guided Ruby towards her own open front door.

  ‘Not for another month – but my furniture . . .’ Ruby gasped, unable to say much more.

  ‘Don’t worry your head about that. It looks to me as though there’s a baby wanting to be born. Sometimes they just can’t wait,’ her new neighbour advised. She paused to take in Ruby, who was so thin that she looked no more than a child herself. Her face was far too pale, and her blue eyes were circled in black shadows. She didn’t look well enough to deliver a healthy baby. ‘My oldest two are home from work for their dinner soon and they’ll have that lot shifted,’ she continued, in a voice Ruby knew she wasn’t meant to argue with. At that moment she didn’t even have the power to speak as yet another pain, like she’d never known when having her George, swept over her. She leant against the woman for support.

  After being almost dragged up a steep flight of stairs, Ruby was gently helped onto a large brass bed. ‘I’m just going to put some newspaper and old sheets down and then we can make you comfortable. Will you be all right on your own, just for a couple of minutes?’

  Still unable to speak, Ruby nodded as she took deep breaths until her body stopped complaining.

  ‘By the way, I’m Stella,’ the woman said. ‘Stella Green. And although I say it myself, you’re in good hands now – so don’t you worry, hear me?’

  She stepped out into the hallway – which was no more than a small space at the top of the stairs, with another door opposite the bedroom they were in – and bellowed: ‘Donald, get your nose out of that book and down to Mrs Leighton’s. Tell her there’s a baby wanting to be born. After that, get down to the corner and look out for your brothers. Tell them I want ’em home now, and they aren’t to dawdle. Do you hear me?’

  ‘Yes, Mum,’ a young voice shouted back, followed by the front door slamming shut.

  Stella bustled back into the room, her arms full of linen. ‘Now, I’m going to have you stand up for a minute while I put these sheets over the mattress. Do you think you can start removing your clothes? I have a nightgown for you to wear.’ She shook out a white, high-necked voluminous gown and laid it over a nearby chest of drawers. ‘Once we’ve settled you, I’ll get the fire lit.’ She nodded towards a blackleaded iron grate.

  ‘I can’t thank you enough,’ Ruby whispered as she unbuttoned her shabby brown coat. She wished she wasn’t wearin
g her oldest clothes underneath, although her best clothes were not much better.

  ‘That’s it, lovey, get every stitch off. We women don’t have any secrets from each other,’ Stella smiled, trying not to looked shocked at the threadbare undergarments Ruby passed to her. ‘Now, let’s get you settled, and I’ll make us a nice cup of tea. There’s no knowing how long this’ll take, although I’d lay money on the child being with us today rather than tomorrow. I’ll just pop down to the kitchen and put the kettle on the hob, then I’ll be back. Will you be all right?’

  Ruby nodded her head. ‘I can’t thank you enough. I was fine not half an hour ago and now . . .’

  ‘And now you’re about to be a mother.’

  ‘I am already,’ Ruby winced. ‘George is over the road with my mum. He’s five,’ she added with a sharp intake of breath. ‘Can you let them know where I am, please?’

  ‘I’ll take care of everything. You just rest,’ Stella said, hurrying from the room.

  Ruby closed her eyes, trying to take stock of her situation between waves of excruciating pain and a heat shooting through her body that made her feel faint.

  When Eddie had come home the week before and thrown a set of keys onto the kitchen table, she hadn’t known what to think. ‘What are these for?’

  ‘You wanted your own home, didn’t you?’

  ‘It has been my dream ever since we married,’ she’d answered, unsure of what he was getting at. She knew not to antagonize her husband when he’d had a drink, and by the smell on his breath, he’d visited the pub on his way home. He’d changed so much in recent times.

  ‘I’ve been doing a bit of debt collecting for Cedric Mulligan and someone who owed him money settled his debt with the deeds to his house, along with the contents. The only problem is, it’s down in Erith. What’s for dinner?’ he asked, as Ruby started to feel giddy with delight. Eddie didn’t seem to understand that her dream was to get away from the slum area where they lived and to bring their son up in a better neighbourhood. With their baby due in September, she wanted nothing more than to have a lovely home with a bit of a garden and nice neighbours. Here in the part of Woolwich where they lived, she was frightened to step outside their door, and on more than one occasion she’d come home to find it open and someone ransacking their rooms. Her mother, Milly – who lived with them, much to Eddie’s consternation – had taken to barricading herself in her room each evening in case of unwanted visitors. They lived close to the Thames, where at low tide the stench from the river reached every nook and cranny of the place they called home.

  ‘Where in Erith is it?’ she asked as she pulled a mutton pie from the oven and put it in front of him. ‘I’ve eaten,’ she added, in case he asked why she wasn’t sitting down to join him. He never did ask. Of late she’d gone off her food, and anyway, there was little to put on the table from the meagre money Eddie gave her to keep the family. Before they’d moved to these rooms, she’d taken in washing and cleaned at a local pub; but when Eddie got behind with the rent on their last place and they had to do a moonlight flit, she’d given up doing the laundry work. There wasn’t any space for such things in their new rooms.

  ‘Alexandra Road. Not far from the river and the town. The houses have only been built a short while.’

  A new home, she thought to herself. Was her dream coming true already? But there was usually a catch with anything Eddie was involved with. ‘So why is the person giving up his home?’ she asked. She knew that if she had a proper house, rather than renting a few rooms in a building, she’d hang on to it until her dying breath. A house of her own, and one that was so new, was beyond her wildest dreams. Once she’d moved in there’d be no getting her out of there, that was for sure.

  ‘He had no choice,’ Eddie said as he put down his knife and fork, not speaking until he’d swallowed what was in his mouth. For all his shortcomings, Ruby did admire his manners when eating his food. The decent side of Eddie was still there and surfaced sometimes. ‘The bloke is a builder, and he owned six houses in the road. This one was handed over to settle his gambling debts. Cedric wants to hang on to it and knowing we’ve got a second nipper on the way, he asked if I’d be interested. Mind you, you’ll have to clean yourself up a bit when we live down there. It’s not quite as posh as the Avenue where the nobs live, but it’s up in the world a bit from this doss-hole.’

  Ruby bristled. ‘I’ve been out doing my cleaning job. I’ll not wear my best bib and tucker to get on my hands and knees to scrub the floors of the Red Lion,’ she threw back at him. ‘So how much rent do we have to pay to Cedric?’ She was wary of the amount being outside of their earnings, and with her not being able to work as much while the baby was dependent on her, she didn’t want to get into debt with Cedric Mulligan and be out on their ears with nowhere to live.

  ‘He wants more than we pay for this place, but I thought your mother could have the small bedroom and chip in a bit. She could also look after the kids while you worked.’

  ‘That’s bloody good of you,’ Ruby sniffed as she turned her back on her husband and started scrubbing the saucepan she’d left to soak in the chipped china sink. There again, if it meant moving up in the world she could put up with her mother’s ways for a bit longer and perhaps, once things were better and they could live without Milly Tomkins’ contribution, she could have one of her sisters take on the responsibility. It was time Fanny and Janie did more to help their mother. Older than Ruby, both women worked for their husbands, who were in the wholesale business, doing well for themselves up in Bexleyheath. Yes, she thought, nodding her head to confirm her decision, that was a plan and she’d stick to it. ‘I think we should consider taking the house, Eddie. Once I’ve finished here I’ll get myself tidied up and go down there and give the place the once over. There might be time to pick up a few bits and bobs down the market to make it more homely,’ she said, thinking of the money she’d hidden away under a loose floorboard inside a battered tobacco tin.

  ‘There’s nothing to look at. I’ve given notice here and we move on Saturday,’ he said, before tucking back in to the remains of his pie.

  Ruby winced as the baby kicked in protest, as if complaining at Eddie Caselton’s announcement. ‘I know just how you feel,’ she whispered as she gently rubbed her swelling stomach, protected beneath a voluminous apron. In the past, she’d questioned Eddie’s grand ideas if she’d thought they were not right for their family. However, on this occasion she was in agreement, although it would have been nice to have a little more time to plan ahead.

  ‘Now doesn’t that feel better?’ Stella said as she tucked clean bed linen around Ruby’s exhausted body and brushed a few stray hairs from her pale face. ‘I know it must have been a strain to be carried across the road by my Frank, but at least now you’re in your own home and can sleep in your own bed. We’ll soon have you as right as rain. Now, I’m going to leave you to sleep, and I’ll be back in a few hours with some broth I have simmering on the stove.’

  Ruby licked her dry lips. In the few days since she’d lost her baby, she’d hardly been able to face a morsel of food. The delirium following the shock of the birth had her new neighbour, along with her mother, fearing the worst. At the height of her illness as she tossed and turned, her body wracked with fever, she recalled hearing her mother say: ‘If she dies, I won’t look after the boy. He’s too much of a handful, and what with my dodgy ticker it’s best he goes into a home.’ Ruby had tried to call out to tell them she wanted George by her side and needed to know about her baby, but as hard as she tried, no one took any notice. Something deep inside told her to fight whatever was keeping her away from her beloved son. By the following morning the fever had started to subside, but then grief took over when Stella explained her baby had not survived the traumatic birth and had been taken away. As much as Ruby begged to see the baby, her constant requests were ignored. Her mother told her it was for the best, and that Eddie had agreed. Of her husband there was no sign. Stella informed her, bet
ween pursed lips, that men grieved in different ways.

  Alone at last, Ruby tried not to dwell on the past days, instead forcing herself to concentrate on her new home and the future. She was glad that her mother had thought to put new sheets on her bed rather than the much-boiled patched ones that she kept for daily use. She could smell a faint perfume of lavender, which reminded her of the dainty lace lavender bags she’d purchased on a whim when she spotted a young girl selling them in Woolwich market. An extravagance she could barely afford, but that week had been a good one, with Eddie not frittering away his pay packet on horses and beer. The sheets had been a gift from her sisters on her wedding day, and in those early happy months, she’d prepared her marriage bed with love. Later, as Eddie distanced himself from family life and acted more as if he was a single man, drinking to all hours and coming home when he pleased, she’d packed away her few good pieces of bedding and used the everyday sheets that had been purchased second-hand – not that they weren’t clean, she reminded herself. Wriggling to make herself comfortable, she gazed around the large room and gasped in delight. Eddie had informed her the previous tenant had left behind a few sticks of furniture in his haste to depart, but what she could see was more than the kind of old, knocked-about items she was used to. She was lying in a large brass double bed that faced two tall windows, between which was a dressing table with three shining mirrors. To her left was a chimney breast where a coal fire was burning brightly. Although still August, it had been a miserable, cold month. At each side of the blackleaded grate, a row of painted green and yellow tiles framed the fireplace and matched the darker green tiles in the hearth. She could see that someone had placed her two treasured photographs on the black iron mantelpiece.

  On the opposite wall stood a large wardrobe, and beside that a chest of drawers. Every piece matched and, twisting her head sideways, she spotted bedside tables – and all in what she assumed was walnut. Hadn’t she often stood gazing into the windows of the posh furniture shops, promising herself that one day she too would be able to afford such luxurious items? ‘Perhaps it is all a dream,’ she murmured as she fell asleep, with the worry lines around her lips starting to disappear for the first time in weeks.