Chapter 19
19
JULY 1968
Eloise
‘Eloise? Eloise, come on, come and have your dinner with us.’ Janice was beckoning a hand and shouting as Eloise somewhat hesitantly began making her way towards the patch of grass in the hope that one of the girls would invite her to join them again. Her second day helping out in Samuel Hudson and Sons Textile Mills’ General Office, and this time she’d come prepared, having got up early to make sandwiches to eat once the klaxon sounded to down tools.
‘Eloise, what are you doing ?’ Muriel, nursing one of her heads and looking for aspirin, had come into the kitchen in her housecoat, her feet, despite the warm July morning, ensconced in fluffy pink mules.
‘I’m making a pack-up,’ Eloise had said, standing at Muriel’s newly acquired LEC fridge and gazing into its chilly depths. ‘Only there doesn’t seem much to put into it.’
‘A pack-up? What on earth is a pack-up?’ Muriel closed her eyes, drawing long red talons across her forehead. ‘Surely you’re having lunch in the directors’ dining room with Daddy and Brian and… and… the others?’ She waved a pale hand in Eloise’s direction, indicating her daughter must know who the others were even if Muriel herself, having nothing whatsoever to do with the mill – other than spending its profits – did not.
‘Brown Windsor soup and the roast of the day?’ What had sounded an absolute feast yesterday, had she been invited to join the directors, now sounded utterly stuffy and banal compared to a picnic shared – hopefully – with the girls from the weaving and mending sheds. ‘Mummy, what can I put in my sandwich?’
‘Well, you’re looking in the wrong place for the bread, to start with. The bread bin’s over there.’
‘Yes, I know that, but what can I put in it? We must have some cheese and… and tomatoes or something.’
‘Of course there is. You’re just not looking in the right place.’
‘Is there no white sliced bread?’
‘Mother’s Pride? Oh, for heaven’s sake, Eloise.’ Muriel tutted her distaste, but finally relented. ‘There’s a large sliced loaf somewhere. It’s the only thing that’ll keep Michael from starving to death once he’s home, this afternoon. You know what thirteen-year-old boys are like.’ Muriel’s sour face softened at the thought of her favourite child. ‘Just don’t take it all or he’ll soon be complaining when he needs feeding. And don’t let anyone in the office see you with the stuff, Eloise. They’ll think it’s what we eat here.’
‘Nothing wrong with Mother’s Pride,’ Brian said, coming into the kitchen and shaking his keys in Eloise’s direction. ‘Lived on the stuff when I was over at Huddersfield Tech. Come on, if you’re coming. Dad went an hour ago; he’s off to Bradford. Five minutes,’ he warned when he saw Eloise collecting bread, butter and a huge hunk of Gorgonzola.
‘Is this the only cheese we’ve got?’ Eloise sniffed at the package. ‘I can’t make a sandwich with this.’
‘No, you can’t. That’s for your father – insists on the stuff after dinner. Oh, I don’t know, Eloise, just eat with Daddy in the dining room. You are a Hudson, after all. I’m taking my head back to bed.’ Muriel had picked up a copy of Woman’s Own and her cup of tea and left the kitchen, giving a string of instructions to Mrs Baxter, the daily, on her way out.
‘Don’t see how she can go back to bed without her bloody head,’ Eloise had muttered to herself and, hearing Brian impatiently revving up his little Austin-Healey on the drive, had grabbed the forbidden cheese, placing huge sticky lumps of the stuff between two slices of white bread, before hastily wrapping her lunch in greaseproof paper and heading for the door.
* * *
‘Eloise, don’t be so stuck up! Come on,’ Janice shouted once more in her direction as she made her way across the scrubby patch of grass towards them.
‘She’s the boss’s daughter, Janice,’ Eloise heard Gail mutter under her breath as the rest of the girls, bright as a flock of tropical birds in their different-coloured nylon overalls, turned as one in her direction. ‘She’ll be off to the directors’ dining room for her dinner. Or at least to the office canteen.’
‘Thank you.’ Eloise, finding herself tongue-tied under the girls’ continued scrutiny, went to sit beside Janice, folding her long legs underneath herself like a newborn colt.
‘Blimey, what’s that’s smell?’ Susan, to Eloise’s right, swallowed her mouthful of currant teacake, sniffing the air like a Bisto Kid. ‘It’s your bloody feet again, Andrea.’
‘No, it bloody well isn’t,’ Andrea said indignantly. ‘Stop having a go at my feet.’ She bent over, grabbing hold of her stockinged foot and sniffing it before thrusting it towards Susan. ‘See!’
‘Ugh, summat smells,’ Rita agreed. ‘What is it?’
‘Are we sitting in dog shit?’ The girls all turned to inspect their own patch of grass, while Eloise unwrapped her cheese sandwich.
Following their noses, the girls turned again, this time to Eloise.
‘What you got in that sandwich, love?’ Janice spoke first.
‘Cheese,’ Eloise said.
‘Not Kraft slices!’ Janice exhaled, waving the evidence of her own orange, but odourless, cheese sandwich in the other’s direction.
‘Oh, sorry!’ Eloise was scarlet. ‘It’s Daddy’s Gorgonzola. He does like a bit every evening after dinner. Mummy’s not keen on it, but…’ Eloise broke off when she saw that, for some reason, her words appeared to amuse the others. ‘I’m so sorry, but I’m starving.’ Eloise bit into the pungent sandwich, her expression immediately acknowledging she’d been overzealous with the amount of cheese. ‘Golly, that is strong,’ she eventually stuttered. ‘Shall I go and sit somewhere else?’
Janice patted her leg as Eloise began to rise. ‘No, don’t be daft…’ She broke off as four navy-overalled men in their early twenties walked past, the girls’ attention now thankfully off Eloise and her smelly sandwich.
‘Ooh, Janice, you’ve gone all red.’ Jean elbowed the girl.
‘No, I haven’t.’
‘Haven’t you got anywhere with him yet?’ Susan spoke through her too-ambitious mouthful of Wagon Wheel biscuit.
‘She’d have told us if she had,’ Jean said. ‘Y’aven’t, ’ave you?’
‘I’m doing my best,’ Janice said, pulling at her long dark fringe to hide her red face. ‘He’s off to the Regent Rooms on Saturday night. I asked him.’
‘I wouldn’t bother with him, Janice,’ Gail said. ‘Now that Paul McCartney’s free again.’
The others turned. ‘What? He’s finished with Jane Asher?’
‘She finished with him. On the telly. On Saturday night. On the Simon Dee show.’
‘No!’
‘Yes, didn’t you know?’ Gail nodded. ‘Don’t suppose you know Jane Asher?’ She turned to Eloise who, having demolished the overloaded sandwich, was now wishing she’d brought a drink with her. ‘I mean, you’re a posh lass like her.’
‘’Fraid not,’ Eloise said.
Attention away from herself and back on Eloise, Janice said, ‘So, are you just here for the summer? Helping out? Are you going back to school in September?’
‘Golly, no, I’ve left school now. I came back from Switzerland last week.’ Eloise shook crumbs of Gorgonzola onto the grass.
‘Switzerland? Were you on holiday?’
‘No, I was at school there. Just for a year.’
‘One of them finishing schools?’ Janice asked. ‘See, I said you could be a model. Did you walk around all day with a pile of books on your head?’
‘Well, not all day .’ Eloise smiled. ‘I hated it, to be honest. I was really homesick. I missed my granny.’ Eloise reached for her camera. ‘It was Granny who bought me the camera.’
‘Blimey, a bit different from St Mede’s Sec Mod, I bet?’ Susan stared. ‘What did you learn? What were you finishing?’
‘Herself, you moron.’ Janice laughed. And then, turning back to Eloise, ‘What did you learn there, love?’
‘Oh, you know…’
‘No, tell us.’ All the girls leaned in.
‘Well, primarily the school taught etiquette, manners, how to manage a household. Some cooking – which I wasn’t wonderful at – a lot of French, which, again, I’m probably no better at speaking than when I went there. Deportment and how to dress.’
‘Department? Like Lewis’s department store in Leeds? I’m after a job there actually. Must be better than this place.’ Then, remembering it was Eloise’s dad who owned this place and handed over the brown paper packet with her wages every Thursday afternoon, Gail shut up.
‘Deportment.’ Eloise smiled.
‘What’s that, then?’
‘Oh, you know, how to carry yourself, alight from cars without showing your pants and the like. How to cut a pineapple and eat an avocado…’
‘Avocado…?’ Gail pulled a face.
‘How to find a rich, suitable husband. And what to do with him once you’ve found one – which I most certainly haven’t. You know, the best way to be a good wife and look after and support your husband.’
‘Hmm, not doing much to help the fight for gender equality and education there, then.’ Kath, one of the older girls, pulled a face.
‘Oh, Kath, just because you’re doing your sociology O level at night school, you think you know it all.’
‘You ought to get together with that lad in the carding shed,’ Janice advised once she saw Kath was about to retaliate.
‘Who, me?’ Kath snorted.
‘No, Eloise.’
‘Mr Hudson’s daughter with a lad from the carding shed?’ Gail sniggered and the others joined in.
‘That Asian lad. The good-looking one.’
‘Half of ’em are Asian in there. Are any of ’em good-looking?’
‘The one who’s always got his camera out?’
‘Better than having something else always out.’ Susan smirked. ‘My mum says I’ve to keep away from that lot. They’re not like us.’
‘He’s a really good photographer. I’ve seen some of his stuff…’ Janice started.
‘You need to be careful, Janice.’
‘You’re being racist, Susan,’ Kath said. ‘Stereotyping and being prejudiced.’
‘Oh, stop throwing words around you’ve just learnt from night class, Kath. I’ve no idea what they mean. And I bet you don’t either.’ Gail was irritable, turning her back on Kath. ‘So, Eloise, did you meet some right nice lads in Switzerland? Speaking French and smoking them right nice French cigarettes?’
Eloise smiled. ‘Not really…’
‘And have you got a boyfriend here, Eloise? What’s he like? Posh, like you? A bit stuck up…?’
‘Gail, shut up,’ Janice interjected before turning back to Eloise. ‘So have you got a boyfriend?’
Eloise shook her head. ‘’Fraid not.’
‘Well, I’m not surprised with your hair tied back like that. And no make-up on. Your eyebrows could do with…’
‘Shut up, Gail!’ Janice said crossly, seeing Eloise’s face fall. ‘Listen, Eloise, what are you doing on Saturday night?’
‘Saturday night?’ Eloise looked blank. ‘Staying in and watching TV, I suppose. I might be at Granny’s house.’
‘It was my birthday last week,’ Janice said. ‘I’m eighteen, so I can have a drink…’
‘Never stopped you before, Janice,’ Gail said, still smarting at being told to shut up.
Ignoring Gail, Janice went on, ‘We’re all going to the Rooms.’
‘The rooms?’ Eloise pulled a face. ‘What rooms?’
‘The Regent Rooms down Bradford Road, just out of Midhope town centre. We go most Saturdays, unless we’re off to the pictures.’
‘Up the Junction ’s on at The Essoldo,’ Susan said.
‘Ooh, it’s a bit mucky, isn’t it?’ Gail’s eyebrows shot up.
‘I went last week with Billy. It’s a look at society today,’ Kath started. ‘It’s about some rich posh girl played by that Suzy Kendall – she’s a really good actress, isn’t she? Anyway, she takes a job in a sweet factory to get away from her rich… her privileged upbringing because she wants to make her own living…’
‘She must be mad. Why would you work in a sweet factory, work anywhere, if you didn’t have to? If you had rich parents…?’ Gail trailed off as all seven girls turned to look at Eloise, who was saved from speaking, literally, by the bell.
Eloise gathered her things. ‘Thank you for having me,’ she said, as she did when leaving any social occasion. She stood, starting to walk back in the opposite direction from the girls heading to the weaving and mending sheds.
‘So.’ Janice caught up with her, taking her arm. ‘Are you going to come out with us on Saturday? I live in Little Micklethwaite, so you could come down to my house first if you wanted and we could get the bus together.’
‘The bus?’
‘Yes, you know, a big red thing that picks people up and takes them places?’
‘I’ll have to ask Mummy.’
‘Why? You’re seventeen, Eloise. Why can’t you just say you’re off out? Or wouldn’t your mum and dad want you going out with us?’
Eloise felt her face redden, knowing Janice had insight into the truth. ‘No, no, no, it’s not that at all…’ she stuttered.
‘Great, then come down to our house – it’s a fifteen-minute walk into Little Micklethwaite from the centre of Beddingfield where you said your granny lives. We can get the bus down to the Rooms together.’
Eloise left the girls and made her way back to the office, reluctant to be swapping the warm July sunshine for the overpowering fug of Lenthéric Tweed – Sandra’s – and BO – Carole’s – that permeated the air each afternoon as the warm summer days progressed.
She stopped suddenly, coming to a standstill as a figure in front of her stood as if playing a child’s game of statues, his arms raised slightly as he dropped slowly and noiselessly to a crouched position. The man in the blue mill overall, obviously sensing Eloise’s presence, turned slightly, immediately tutting and swearing under his breath at the flurry of activity from the adjacent privet.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ he snapped. ‘You’ve disturbed it now.’
‘I’m so sorry, what was it?’
‘The most beautiful song thrush. I’ve been trying to get a decent picture of it for days.’ The man – boy really, probably only a couple of years older than herself, Eloise thought – turned back to his camera, ignoring Eloise, who didn’t know if she should carry on speaking or simply walk away.
‘How d’you know it was a song thrush?’ she finally asked. ‘And not a mistle thrush?’
‘Brown above, with a white belly covered in black, drop-shaped spots. It’s smaller and a warmer brown than the mistle thrush.’ His voice, testy, was accented and when he turned once more, Eloise stared, feeling the air almost sucked from her lungs as she came face to face with what she knew to be the most beautiful face she’d ever seen. Coffee-coloured skin, the beginnings of a dark beard and huge brown eyes, which were now fixed crossly on her own.
‘Are you all right?’ The boy stared, almost impatiently, in her direction. ‘You’ve gone very white. You’re not going to faint, are you?’
Eloise immediately felt herself flush the unbecoming beetroot that appeared par for the course whenever she came face to face with an attractive male. Would it ever stop?
‘Sorry, so sorry…’
‘Oh, wow. Fab!’
Eloise turned to see who was behind her. What had suddenly delighted him? He relaxed his cross face into a smile showing the most amazingly white straight teeth.
‘What?’ Eloise, realising he was staring at her, put up a hand to her face, to her hair. Had she got the remains of the cheese sandwich round her mouth?
‘A Praktica Super TL.’ He breathed the words reverentially, and was reaching a hand towards where the camera was strapped over her shoulder when the klaxon warning rent the air again and a shout of, ‘Oy, Sattar, stop pissing about with that bird and get back on the shop floor.’
‘Does he mean me?’ Eloise was most indignant.
‘No.’ The boy smiled, heading off in the direction of the carding shed. ‘He means the song thrush.’
* * *
‘Eloise, dear, can I have a word?’ Dorothy Gray was waiting at the door of the General Office as soon as Eloise returned from lunch.
‘Yes, of course.’ Her head full of the beautiful boy with the camera, she couldn’t think straight or even speak properly. She took a deep breath, trying to concentrate on what the older woman was saying. Oh God, had she filed Wm Armstrong and Sons under Wm Armitage and Sons again like yesterday?
‘I don’t think sitting on the grass with the mill girls is quite the thing, dear. You get my meaning? You must come and eat your lunch with us in the office canteen. I should have taken you there from the start, but I got the impression you wanted to walk into the village to buy your lunch? Have a bit of a look round? Mrs Wilson has some very nice Sirdar patterns and wool to knit yourself a nice cardi…’
‘Mrs Wilson?’ Eloise shook her head slightly, not wanting to disperse the fading image of the boy from her mind.
‘Haberdashery, dear. She’ll put the wool away for you if you want to pay weekly…’
‘Right.’ Eloise frowned. ‘I can’t knit to save my life. And I really enjoy sitting with the girls. They’re so interesting. They’ve invited me…’ Eloise broke off, sensing danger.
‘Invited you…?’ Miss Gray leaned in until Eloise could smell the fish paste from the woman’s lunchtime sandwich on her breath.
‘Oh, just to sit with them every day at lunchtime.’ Eloise gave a little forced laugh. ‘It’s so wonderful to be out in the sunshine and fresh air, don’t you think? Now, you said you might let me try my hand with a few invoices this afternoon.’ Eloise was feeling brave. After all, her family did own the place.
‘As you wish.’ Miss Gray sniffed, reached for a monogrammed handkerchief up her sleeve and led Eloise to a somewhat battered Imperial on a desk at the back of the office. ‘But really, dear, I know for a fact Mr Hudson wouldn’t want you… fraternising with the men from the shop floor. But particularly with… you know… our Indian brethren…? Really not the ticket. Not the thing at all.’