The clatter and whine of an electric tram travelling through the Market Place roused Lizzie from her daydreams. Stall-holders were loading their trestles beneath the red and white awnings with everything from fruit, vegetables and rolls of velvet, to brass fenders, lamp oil and crockery. Horses clip-clopped over the cobblestones, drawing rumbling carts, and a motor car spluttered as it passed circumspectly in the direction of St. Thomas’ tall spire at the top of the town. A man riding to work on a bicycle took pains to avoid getting his narrow wheels caught in the tramlines. Already, awnings were out over many of the shop fronts and Lizzie could see others being drawn down. A hawker was selling fly papers outside the front door of E. C. Theedham’s, Ironmongers and Cutlers, where she worked, and bid her good morning.
She saw May Bradley walking towards her from the opposite direction, and waited. They entered the shop together and headed for the passageway at the rear where they generally hung their coats. Today, they had only their baskets to deposit before entering the small back-room to titivate their hair. May looked at herself in the mirror and rearranged a wayward wisp. Despite their age difference the girls got on well. They first met when Lizzie started this job, some couple of years ago, and soon they began to meet socially.
May was down-to-earth, with a ready smile, and a wit that was at first beyond Lizzie. She was an attractive girl with a slender waist and an ample bosom, and she had an abundance of dark, wavy hair that framed a pleasant but hardly striking face. When Lizzie invited May home to tea one Sunday afternoon to meet her mother, it was Joe Bishop, her brother, then twenty-two and looking more like his late father every day, who monopolised the conversation, amusing May with his humorous quips. Later, when it was time for May to leave, Joe offered to escort her home, since it was dark. He insisted there was no need for Lizzie to trouble herself accompanying her friend. May accepted bashfully, thanked Eve for her hospitality, and that was the beginning of their courtship. Eve was hopeful that Joe had found himself a nice, homely girl, at last.
May turned away from the mirror to speak to Lizzie. ‘When you was at church last night with your mother, me and Joe went for a drink in The Junction, and while we was in there, we saw Arthur Dowty, your next door neighbour. He says as how him and Bella am flittin’. He says it’s ’cause of Jack Hardwick’s pigs. Anyroad, when we got back I said to Joe as we ought to think about rentin’ that house ourselves. If we could have it, we’d get married. That way, we’d still be close to your mother.’
Lizzie fastened the ties of her pinafore behind her. ‘Wouldn’t the pigs bother you as well?’
‘Oh, I’m used to pigs. Me father always kept pigs. He’s a pig himself. Anyroad, if the pigs was there afore we, we couldn’t rightly complain.’
Lizzie shrugged. ‘I suppose not. But how soon are Bella and Arthur flitting?’
‘As soon as they find somethin’ else, they said.’ May continued to fiddle with her hair in the mirror. ‘There’s plenty houses to rent. It shouldn’t be long.’
Lizzie’s smiling eyes lit up her face. ‘Another wedding to look forward to. Oh, I’m that happy for you, May. I’m sure that our Joe’ll make you a lovely husband, though I say it myself.’
‘Yes, and if you get him a big enough piece of wood, I daresay he’ll make you one, Lizzie.’ May tried to keep a straight face.
‘Oh, I think I’m a bit too young yet, May,’ Lizzie replied innocently, not having caught the humour in May’s comment. Then she said coyly, ‘I think me and Stanley Dando might start courting, though.’
‘Oh, young Stanley, eh? What’s brought that on?’
Lizzie sat down and explained excitedly how Stanley had all but abducted her to the back pew in church, even held her hand, and told her that cousins could marry. But she failed to say that her mother seemed not to approve.
‘Well, he seems a pleasant enough lad. He’s nice lookin’, an’ all, there’s no two ways. But remember you’m only sixteen, Lizzie. It’s no good courtin’ serious at sixteen.’
‘I know that. But when I’m eighteen, I’ll be old enough to get wed. That’s less than two years off. A good many girls get wed at eighteen.’
‘Not if they’ve got any sense they don’t. It’s generally ’cause they’ve got to if they’m that young. You’d break your mother’s heart if that happened, you know. Just remember she’s been through all that before with your sister Maude. And look what happened to her.’
‘Oh, May, I wouldn’t do anything like that. What sort of girl d’you think I am?’
‘Like any other, I daresay, so liable to get carried away.’
When Lizzie left school at twelve years old she had found a job at the Dudley Bucket and Fender Co-operative and made a friend of another girl, roughly the same age, called Daisy Foster. They soon bettered themselves at another firm, operating small guillotines, cutting coils of brass into lengths ready to be pressed into parts for paraffin lamps. They stayed for two years, not just learning the job, but learning about life, listening to the other women gossiping over the hollow rattle and thumps of hand presses, and the fatty smell of tallow. Most of the girls they worked with were older, and Lizzie was amazed at the unbelievable things some of them used to tell her about their men, the amazing antics they performed with them and, most surprisingly, how often. Lizzie didn’t know such things were possible, but it all sounded intriguing. Those girls told her things she would never have known about had she stayed at home. By autumn, however, the two girls had tired of the oil lamp factory, and found jobs at Chambers Saddlery in Hall Street. Lizzie, however, did not take to working with leather and its dark, sickly odour, whereas Daisy did. Thus they split up when Lizzie left to seek other employment.
‘I know a lot of girls do do it, May … you know? … before they get wed I mean … But I wouldn’t, even if I wanted to. I’d be too afeared of getting caught.’
‘Yes, well … It’s somethin’ you need to bear in mind, Lizzie.’
‘Do you and our Joe do it, May?’
May registered no outward change in her expression, continuing to preen herself. ‘That’s between Joe and me.’
‘Well, have you ever done it? With anybody, I mean?’
‘Lizzie! Honestly!’
‘It isn’t that I’m being nosy,’ Lizzie persisted, trying to justify her questioning, ‘but I can talk to you about things. I’ve got nobody else to talk to, and I want to know about things like that. I want to know what it’s like, and everything. I need to talk to somebody about it.’
May turned round and grabbed her pinafore from the hook on the back of the door. ‘You’ll learn soon enough when you do get wed, Lizzie, and not before if you want my advice. There’s no rush … Tell me about Stanley, eh?’
Lizzie smiled again, modestly. ‘I keep thinking about his lips, May … and how much I want him to kiss me. I only have to think about him and my legs go all wobbly. D’you think I’m falling in love?’
May shrugged. ‘So you’m not interested in Jesse Clancey any more?’
‘Well I would be if he’d asked me out. But he seems more interested in our Sylvia.’
*
Kates Hill lay about a mile south east of Dudley town centre, overlooked only by the old Norman castle on the next high ridge. It was a warren of narrow cobbled and muddy streets, each like a gorge, lined with rows of red brick terraced houses and little shops. Some of the