A Family Affair Page 4

  She clambered over the stile where the stubbly field met the highway. Three young beaux on bicycles wished her flirtatious good mornings before she stepped, smiling in response, onto the cobbles to reach the other side of Birmingham Road. A carter hauling sacks of coal steadied his horse while a tram rattled past and she caught up with it while the conductor alighted to change the points. She walked on, not heeding the passengers who turned their heads to look at her. In the middle distance, the black, foreboding headgear of the vast Coneygree Collieries loomed like the artificial skeletons of huge automatons. As she passed the grim Coneygree Brickworks and its great marl-hole like a giant pockmark on the landscape, she wondered whether working as a brickmaker might be cleaner than coremaking. She dearly wished she could get away from coremaking. She felt she was worthy of work more dignified, cleaner; a job where she did not have to wash her hair every other night because of the filthy atmosphere. Maybe, now Jake was in charge and they no longer seemed impoverished, she would be allowed to find a job working in a nice shop. Even working in the brewery with all its steam would be better than the foundry.

  As she reached the gates of the Coneygree Iron Foundry the familiar, acrid smell of scorched sand and burning metal filled her nostrils. She headed for the time office and had her time-card stamped. In the ablutions block where she donned her headwear and her dusty brown coverall she greeted other girls who worked alongside her with a chummy smile. Conversation was generally robust and Clover indeed learned much more about life in their company than she would if she’d stayed at home helping her mother. Despite the overtly strict moral conventions that were supposed to inhibit sexual activity outside of and before marriage, it never ceased to amaze Clover just how many young women she knew who were manifestly flouting it. Ramona’s confessions had only served to confirm the notion. But where did all these girls find out about such things? Who coached them?

  ‘Have you and that Ned Brisco started courting then?’ one of her friends, Selina, asked.

  Clover was changing her boots, for it would not do to be seen walking in public in unsightly working boots. She smiled reticently and tugged at the laces. ‘We’re just friends, Selina.’

  ‘You seem to spend enough time with your heads together. I wonder as you ai’ wed the chap a’ready.’

  ‘He hasn’t asked me. Besides, he’s too preoccupied with his own interests to worry about the likes of me,’ Clover answered tactfully.

  Selina’s expression suggested she did not believe her. ‘Would you marry him if he asked you?’

  ‘He’s not likely to ask…Hey, come on. Look at the time. Old Ratface Mason will be docking us a quarter-hour if we don’t hurry.’

  So Clover, Selina and the others trooped across the dusty yard to the core shop. Their machines were already set up to produce the cores that were required later for insertion into moulds that were to fashion gear casings, electric motor housings and the like. The atmosphere was dense and smoky and the constant roar of the blast furnace, that melted the concoction of iron ore, scrap, coke and limestone ready for casting, meant they had to shout to each other to be heard.

  Clover pressed a foot pedal and the two halves of the corebox that bore the impression of the core she was making closed together with a sibilant hiss of compressed air.

  ‘Me and Charlie have decided to go to the seaside at Whitsun, Clover,’ Selina shouted over the din.

  Clover pulled on a lever and black sand, like a sudden fall of soot, was forced into the iron corebox under air pressure, filling the precisely machined space inside it. Black sand these days was a mixture of Bromsgrove red loam sand and fish oil, and smelt none too savoury. It was soft and easy to work and, by the time the cores came to be used, they would be cured hard and dry. In any case, oil sand was eminently preferable to muck sand, a mixture of coal dust and sand, with strands of hemp and horse manure to bind it together. When Clover opened the corebox again, the sand would have taken on the shape of the intricately engineered recess. The result was called a core. The molten iron would be poured into the mould at an exact, predetermined position, and would solidify around the core. By the time the iron cooled, the core would have disintegrated leaving its impression; a hole through the casting that its design and purpose ordained.

  ‘Where to?’ Clover asked. ‘Which seaside town?’

  ‘We thought about New Brighton. There’s a train early from Dudley Port.’

  Clover carefully eased the fragile core from its mould, inspected it and set it down gently on the table behind her. Then she began the whole process again. In a day, she would produce up to a thousand such cores.

  ‘Let’s hope the weather holds, Selina,’ she called.

  ‘Why don’t you come with us, Clover, you and Ned?’

  ‘I doubt if he’ll have time. Besides, I’m supposed to be helping him with some work. I’ll ask him though.’

  ‘Yes, ask him. Too much work’s no good for nobody. Going to the seaside would be a nice change.’

  At half-past twelve they had a half-hour break. Clover spent it with Ned outside in the warm sunshine, eating sandwiches as they sat on a crate of castings that were destined for Indian Railways, Lahore. She asked him if he fancied accompanying her to New Brighton with Selina and Charlie.

  ‘If the weather’s fine I’d rather try out the model of my new flying machine,’ he replied predictably. ‘I’ve done some wing-load calculations, Clover, and I reckon I need to increase the wingspan a bit.’

  Clover took a crunching bite out of a rosy apple.

  ‘I’m making some changes to the tail as well.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I’m incorporating hinged flaps.’

  ‘I see.’ She didn’t. She never did when he launched into his technicalities.

  ‘I’ve been going over and over everything I’ve ever read about flying machines and one thing’s struck me, Clover.’

  ‘What’s that, Ned?’ She bit into her apple again.

  ‘The Wright Brothers have a patent for controlling direction and height by warping the wings in flight. All it does is induce drag – and it’s drag that gives you control. After four years of knowing about it, none of the Continental aviators have taken any notice at all and that’s why they can only get their machines to hop a few yards at a time. But I reckon I can get the same effect by incorporating flaps in the wings and the tail wings. Something a bloke called Sir George Cayley suggested a hundred years ago.’

  ‘A hundred years ago?’ Clover repeated, incredulous.

  ‘Oh, Sir George Cayley dedicated his life to the pursuit of flying. As long ago as 1809 he flew a full-size glider, unmanned at first but later with a young lad on board. Everybody seems to have forgotten the work he did. But I haven’t.’

  ‘Does that mean all my good work covering the wings was for nothing if you’re increasing the wingspan?’ she asked.

  ‘No, not all of it. Just bits. I need to test it all first on my new model, though. I’m certain it’ll work. I’m modifying the rudder as well.’

  ‘I hope all this will be worth it in the long run,’ Clover said. ‘Mind you, I have to admire your patience, Ned. And your determination.’

  He smiled warmly. ‘It’ll be worth it, Clover. I’ll be rich one day from making and flying these machines. You’ll see. Then I might even ask you to marry me.’ He said it as if in jest but Clover knew that this attempt at flippancy was merely a device to disguise how earnestly he meant it.

  She laughed dismissively. ‘Is there any fear of you achieving it in this century then?’

  ‘Well if I don’t, it won’t be for want of trying.’

  The hooter sounded and Clover picked up her lunchbox and the empty bottle that had contained her tea. ‘See you later, Ned. Shall I come and help you tonight?’

  ‘If you want. It’d be nice to see you.’

  Clover returned home to the Jolly Collier just after six o’ clock that evening. Although she had had a good wash in the ablutions block at the foundr
y and thoroughly brushed her hair, she felt she did not look her best. So when she popped her head round the door from the passage that led into the taproom and saw Ramona talking to none other than Tom Doubleday, she found herself in a dilemma: whether to stop and say hello and risk Tom’s silent disapproval of the way she looked in her working clothes, or allow Ramona, who looked delightful in a clean, pale-blue cotton dress, to have him to herself.

  But before she could escape, Tom had already spotted her. He smiled over Ramona’s shoulder and hailed her to join them.

  ‘Oh, I daren’t. I’m filthy. I must have a decent wash down and change before tea. And my hair…’ Clover rolled her eyes.

  ‘It’s lovely to see you,’ Tom assured her, seeing nothing untoward in her appearance at all. ‘Let me buy you a drink.’

  ‘He’s brought the pictures of the wedding, Clover,’ Ramona chipped in. ‘Come and have a gander. They’re ever so good.’

  Self-consciously, Clover stepped into the taproom and sat next to Tom. There were possibly a dozen other men in there, smoking, drinking, cursing, some playing crib. At one table a group were playing shove-ha’penny and beneath their table a mangy German shepherd dog lay, keeping a weather eye on the begrimed boot of one the more animated players whose foot shot out unwittingly from time to time in his excitement.

  Tom picked up the album from his lap and handed it to Clover. Smiling with anticipation she opened it and looked at the first photograph.

  ‘God! Look at Mother. She’s actually laughing,’ she said, delighted. She flipped over to another. ‘Oh, ’struth, look at me. I look awful.’

  Tom craned his neck to see the offending photograph. ‘To tell you the truth, Clover, I thought how nice you looked.’

  With a glow of satisfaction, she looked first at Tom then at her stepsister. ‘Has he been flannelling you like this, Ramona?’

  ‘He says I look like Ellen Terry,’ Ramona answered flatly.

  ‘Ellen Terry?’ Clover pulled a face of disapproval.

  ‘I said you look more glamorous than Ellen Terry, Ramona.’

  ‘I should hope so,’ Ramona said, her voice characteristically croaky. ‘She’s older than a flippin’ conker tree. She’s older than Mother.’

  ‘I only meant,’ Tom explained, ‘that you have similar poise. You must admit that Ellen Terry has poise. She’s very elegant.’

  Ramona smiled and looked at Tom warmly. ‘I believe you. Thousands wouldn’t.’

  ‘This is a good one of you, Ramona,’ Clover said generously and held a photograph up for her stepsister to see. Ramona agreed that she liked it.

  ‘Let me buy you a drink, Clover. May I?’

  ‘Thank you, Tom. A glass of lemonade wouldn’t come amiss. It’s thirsty work I’ve been doing all day.’

  Mary Ann appeared at the door from the passage, in stern mode. ‘Clover. Come and help me with the tea now you’m back,’ she said curtly.

  ‘Have you seen the photographs, Mother?’ Clover waved the thin album at her to buy more time with Tom.

  ‘Yes, I’ve seen them,’ was the terse reply. ‘Now I could do with some help in the scullery.’

  Clover looked disappointedly at Tom and then at Ramona. ‘I’d better go. Shame about the drink.’

  ‘Another time,’ Tom suggested, his face manifesting equal disappointment.

  ‘Yes, another time.’ She smiled her apology. ‘Coming, Mother.’

  Tom Doubleday appeared again in the taproom of the Jolly Collier a couple of days later. Clover spotted him as she returned home from work. Self-conscious about her dowdy working clothes, she flitted past the door hoping to be unseen, but Tom caught sight of her and waved. She waved back but scurried out of sight into the security of the scullery. Later, as she was peeling potatoes at the stone sink, she peered through the window and saw Tom Doubleday talking and laughing with Ramona outside. A pang of jealousy seared through her. Never in her life before had she experienced jealousy and it was not a pleasant feeling. Suddenly, her heart was beating fast and she felt hot; she hated Ramona for being in Tom Doubleday’s company, for luring him away. Just as suddenly she hated Tom Doubleday for spurning her by being so obviously taken with her stepsister. She’d hankered for Tom Doubleday since the day she met him and Ramona must have known that. Ramona surely didn’t want him; she’d got this Sammy she’d talked about. Could the girl really be so thoughtless, so selfish as to take the man she wanted?

  At tea Clover hardly spoke and didn’t even acknowledge Ramona. But nobody seemed to miss her contribution to the conversation that was growing more intense by the minute.

  ‘Six more free houses will take our ale, Mary Ann,’ Jake announced. ‘And an off-licence in Castle Street. As soon as we can brew the extra beer they’ll start selling it. Things am really looking up.’

  Mary Ann sighed and swallowed a mouthful of rabbit stew. ‘It’s all well and good finding places what’ll take the stuff, Jacob, but can we brew it fast enough? That lot in the taproom can soak it up as quick as ever I can brew it.’

  Jake picked a small piece of bone from between his teeth and set it on the side of his plate. ‘We need a bigger copper boiler. Six hundred and fifty gallon capacity wouldn’t be amiss. That’s eighteen barrels a brew, Mary Ann. Brewing six days a week, that’s one hundred and eight barrels. ’Course, we’d need half a dozen new fermenting vessels and all. And that grist mill we’ve got is buggered.’

  ‘And where d’you suppose the money’s coming from, Jacob?’ Mary Ann asked astutely. ‘’Cause I don’t suppose for a minute as it’ll stop at a new boiler and fermenting vessels. I daresay we’ll need an extension to the brewery, eh? Then we’m gonna need a new horse and dray and somebody to drive it.’

  Jake dipped a piece of bread into his stew and popped it, dripping, into his mouth thoughtfully. ‘Well, we’ve made a start,’ he said. ‘You see, Mary Ann, what you’ve gorra consider is the potential. In five years, if everything goes according to plan, we could own six or seven licensed premises besides this’n. You only have to see what Hanson’s have done to see as there’s money to be made.’

  Clover displayed little interest in the schemes and aspirations of her new stepfather. Let him get on with it. It was a different world to the one she inhabited. She was more concerned about Tom Doubleday and how he now seemed out of her reach. She excused herself from the table and went to her room sullenly. There, she sat on her new bed and sighed, full of frustration, full of animosity over Ramona. She gazed at the wash-stand with its ewer and bowl set and saw her face reflected in the mirror at the back of it. She was frowning. Yet she was not given to frowning. She must be in love with Tom Doubleday, else why would she feel like this? Her inborn common sense, however, suggested she had no prior claim over him. Ramona had just as much right to him.

  She stood up and rummaged through her wardrobe for a frock that would be suitable attire for sewing canvas pieces onto wing sections. A home-made one presented itself and she changed into it. If Tom Doubleday fancied Ramona who was she to complain? She could hardly blame him. After all, Ramona was a fine-looking, vivacious young woman. Doubtless, in no time, they would be doing together eagerly what Ramona had been doing with Sammy. Naturally, the thought did not please her. It did not please her at all. Deftly, she buttoned up the dress, then shook out her long dark hair, brushed it thoroughly and tied it up again. At least Ned would be glad to see her. At least she could rely on Ned.

  When she called for Ned at his home in Watson’s Street his mother, as usual, made a huge fuss of Clover. No, he’d gone half an hour since to Springfield House. He’d had another idea and couldn’t wait to get cracking on it. He’d said to send her over when she arrived, but would she like a cup of tea first? Clover replied that she’d not long had one and another would ensure she’d be dying to pee in an hour, when there was nowhere for a woman to pee at the stables of Springfield House since they’d demolished the old earth closet. She didn’t like to bother Mr Mantle, either, when he was so good anyw
ay about them using the old stables to construct Ned’s flying machine.

  So Clover bid goodbye to Florrie Brisco and carried on down Watson’s Street, turning right at Percy Collins’s greengrocery store. When she reached the top of Hill Street where it levelled out, she could see the blue slate roofs of Springfield House in Tansley Hill Road, a narrow, descending lane that was overhung like a grotto with tall trees.

  Now that Joseph Mantle had bought a Sunbeam motor car and housed it in a newly constructed garage on the other side of Springfield House the old stables were redundant and the horses and carriage long since gone. The stables comprised one building that used to be sectioned into stalls on one side and was long enough to accommodate a forty-foot wingspan. Ned realised he was lucky to have such a fine facility, and with no outlay. His mother had been instrumental in arranging for him to use the stables through her connection with the Mantles; she had been in service there for years before she married, and was highly thought of. She still called regularly and the Mantles welcomed her like any old friend. Indeed, Joseph Mantle took a keen interest in Ned’s project and often put his head round the stable door to check on progress.