The Quality Street Girls. Penny Thorpe

than wasting it on enterprises that won’t get anyone anywhere; and thirdly (and forgive me if I think this is the most important), because today is a Friday, and when I were at school they taught me that the day that comes after Friday is Saturday, and that, madam, is when the school is closed. Now if you’ve quite finished, I want me’ dad. Fred!’ Reenie had to call out because Fred had disappeared further inside the pub. The Salvation Army devotee blanched and choked on her words. Reenie ignored her and turned her eyes to the doorway of The Old Cock and Oak.

      ‘He’s here, Reenie,’ Fred reappeared, ‘but he can’t walk.’

      ‘Well then tell him he doesn’t have to. I’m waiting with the ’orse.’

      ‘No, I mean he can’t walk. He’s blotto; out cold.’

      ‘Oh, good grief. Well, can someone drag him to the door, I don’t want to have to get off the horse or I’ll be here ‘til Monday.’

      ‘I’ll have a go.’ Fred turned to go back inside. ‘But he’s not as light as he used to be.’

      ‘Reenee,’ the do-gooder emphasised the Halifax pronunciation, ree-knee, and tried to assume an expression that was both patronising and penitent for her earlier mistake, ‘may I call you Reenie?’

      ‘No, you may not. Unless you’re gonna help with m’ dad.’

      ‘We’d be very, very glad to help with your father; it must be terribly hard on you and your family. Do you think you could bring him with you on Sunday to—’

      ‘No, I meant help lift him on the ’orse. Good grief, woman, are you daft? Fred! How’s he looking?’

      ‘Nearly there,’ Fred called out through gritted teeth as he attempted to pull the dead weight of Mr Calder out to his horse and daughter, then turned to a fellow drinker ‘Bert, can you give me an ‘and throwin’ him over Ruffian?’

      Bert held up a hand and said, before darting back into the pub, ‘You wait right there; I think I know just the lad for this.’ Bert brought out a bemused-looking young man who Reenie didn’t recognise, slapping him on the shoulder with friendly camaraderie and pushing him in the direction of the horse. He didn’t have the slicked hair with razored back and sides that the other lads round here had. His hair wasn’t darkened by Brylcreem; instead, he had fine, golden toffee coloured hair that fell over his left eye and gave him away as a toff. Straight teeth, straight hair, straight nose, and a smarter suit of clothes than anyone else there; to Reenie, he looked hopelessly out of place among the factory workers and farm hands. It made her like him instantly for joining in with people who weren’t like him. She might not have a lot in common with this posh-looking lad, but there was one thing; he looked like the type who would make friends with anyone.

      ‘Reenie, Peter; Peter, Reenie.’ Bert skimmed over the necessary introductions. ‘We need to get Reenie’s dad here over the ’orse.’

      Peter smiled and nodded, and with what seemed like almost no effort at all, he gathered Reenie’s father up and launched him in front of where Reenie sat, with his arms and legs dangling over the horse’s withers on either side. The landing must have been a rough one for Mr Calder because, though unconscious, he still managed to vomit onto the military-style black boots of the nearest Moral League man.

      The sudden eruption caused a shriek from the group’s ringleader who turned to Reenie, ‘Oh you poor child. You shouldn’t have to see such things at your tender age.’

      ‘Oh gerr’over yourself, woman. Everyone’s dad drinks.’ Reenie bent over to check on her father because although she was confident that he’d be alright, she thought it was as well to make sure. Her shoulder-length red hair dangled down the horse’s side as she dropped her head level with her father’s, reassured by his loud snore; silly old thing, what was he like? Her mother would laugh at him come the morning. Reenie looked up to thank the young man, but to her disappointment, he’d already gone. She had wanted to tell him that her father wasn’t usually like this, and not to mind the Sally Army crowd because they weren’t bad as all that if you weren’t in a hurry to get anywhere. She had wanted to say so many things to him, but she supposed it was better she get a move on and take her father home to his bed. It didn’t occur to her that the young man had gone indoors to fetch his coat and hat so he could offer to walk her home like a gentleman.

      Reenie pulled on Ruffian’s make-shift bridle and began to lead the horse away, then thought better of it and stopped to call over her shoulder ‘and my friend Betsy Newman’s in the Salvation Army and she says you six are pariahs! Go and help ‘em with the cleaning rota like they’ve told ya’, and stop botherin’ folks who’ve had an ‘arder week at work than you’ve ever known!’

      Ruffian snorted, as if in agreement, and guided his mistress home.

      Diana waited for Mary on the street outside; her father’s thick old coat wrapped tightly around her, and the wide collar turned up against the autumnal night. ‘She’s definitely not with him this time,’ Mary said, leaning one hand on the door frame of her mother’s soot-blackened one-up-one-down terrace as she hurriedly pulled on a well-worn shoe with the other hand ‘she’s promised she won’t see him anymore.’

      Diana didn’t respond; it was a waste of effort, and she was bone tired. She had spent all day at work in the factory, then had come home to find her stepbrother hadn’t paid the rent and had taken off with Mary’s sister Bess. Not that this came as a surprise; nothing came as a surprise to Diana any more. Mary’s sister was in thrall to her no good stepbrother, as only a silly sixteen-year-old can be. Diana had been a silly sixteen-year-old herself once, although it felt like a lifetime ago and not the mere ten years that separated her from that other person she had once been. Diana had been in thrall to someone equally unsuitable, and she knew that there was nothing to be done for Bess now.

      ‘She realises now that he’s no good for her.’ Mary was following behind Diana and kicking at her shoe to move back the loose insole that had shifted when she’d pulled on her winter shoes over bare feet. ‘I don’t know where she’s gone tonight, but I’m certain she’s not with him.’

      Diana didn’t ask why Mary was following her if she believed all of her sister’s promises; she didn’t need to. Diana was the oldest girl on their production line, and younger ones like Mary fell into line with whatever she said.

      ‘I mean,’ Mary went on as they turned the corner of Mary’s street and past the midnight blue billboard that announced that Rowntree’s Cocoa would nourish them all, ‘how do you know that it was definitely them?’

      Diana stopped suddenly. She disliked walking while talking; she disliked talking at all, and she thought that if she didn’t stop to say what she had to say then Mary would carry on kicking at her shoe rather than ask her to wait while she fixed it. Stopping killed two birds with one stone. ‘I saw someone who told me that your sister and my stepbrother were in The Old Cock and Oak in town and that if I didn’t hurry he’d have all my rent money spent.’

      ‘But could they have been mistaken? I mean, what were their exact words?’ Mary hopped on one foot as she tried to arrange her shoe without letting her bare foot touch the ice-cold cobbles of the dirty street.

      Diana sighed ‘He said “You want to get down to The Old Cock and Oak, Diana, before that no-good stepbrother of yours spends all your money. ‘The Blade’ as he likes to call himself is in there with the Good Queen, and he’s buying everyone a drink.” There’s no mistake; your sister is there with him.’

      ‘What does he mean ‘Good Queen’? Who’s ‘Good Queen’ when she’s at home?’ Mary looked genuinely confused.

      There was a long silence as Diana tried to decide whether or not to tell Mary what people called her; it might help her to do something about it, but then again it might not. Behind their backs Mary and Bess were known as the Tudor Queens; the porters on their production line had started calling Mary ‘Bad Queen Mary’ because she had a short fuse and no one had ever been able to get her to crack a smile. Her younger sister Bess was her polar opposite;