The Buffer Girls Read online

  At the end of the street, Emily paused at a junction with a wider road, not sure now which way to go. An elderly woman was coming towards her, carrying two heavy shopping bags.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Emily ventured. ‘I’m new here. Please, can you tell me the way to the centre of town?’

  The woman stopped, set her bags down on the pavement with obvious relief and straightened her back, sighing a little as she did so. ‘Go that way,’ she said, pointing to the right, ‘and then take the second left into Rockingham Street and just keep going to the end. Turn left there and you’ll see where you want to be, but if you’re still not sure, duck, then ask again.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Emily paused a moment and on impulse said, ‘Do you live far from here? I can help you home with your bags, if you like.’

  The woman looked at her for a long moment and then smiled weakly. But her smile did not reach her eyes, which were dull and lifeless. ‘That’s very thoughtful of you, lass. I live just along here, but I’m on my way to my daughter’s in Court Eight.’

  Emily laughed. ‘Why, that’s where we’ve come to live. Come on, I’ll go back with you. You carry my empty basket and I’ll take both your bags. My,’ she added as she picked them up, ‘they are heavy. You shouldn’t be carrying these.’

  ‘I’ve got to help our Rosa as best I can. She’s been left with two little kiddies.’

  ‘Oh, I think I saw her yesterday when we moved in.’ Emily hesitated before asking tentatively, ‘The war, was it?’

  ‘Aye.’ There was a wealth of sadness in the woman’s tone. ‘Rosa’s me daughter-in-law really. It was – it was my son we lost. My only child. Ronald.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Emily said. She bit her lip to stop herself from blurting out about her father. At least he had come back to them even though he was a broken shell of a man. But no doubt this poor woman would think the Ryans were lucky in comparison.

  ‘He went in ’sixteen just after Violet – that’s the eldest – was born. He was on the Somme and lucky not to have been killed then. He was wounded and sent home and we all thought that was it – he was home for good. But no, he got better and back he went. And then –’ she paused and drew in a shuddering breath – ‘he didn’t come back.’ Surprisingly, her tone was a little bitter as she added, ‘But he was home long enough to leave his wife pregnant again.’ Then she smiled and her voice lightened. ‘Mind you, our Becky’s a little darlin’. We wouldn’t be without her now, but having an extra mouth to feed doesn’t make life any easier.’

  They reached the court again and went straight to the house where Emily had seen the young woman with two children. The woman paused with her hand on the doorknob. ‘I’d better introduce myself, since you’re going to be Rosa’s neighbours. I’m Clara Jacklin.’

  ‘I’m pleased to meet you, Mrs Jacklin, and I’m Emily Ryan. We’ve moved here for my brother to find work.’

  Clara Jacklin nodded and opened the door, not, at the moment, curious to know any more about the Ryan family. ‘Rosa,’ she called, ‘you there, luv?’

  Rosa turned from the sink, drying her hands on a ragged piece of towelling. ‘Aw, Mam, you shouldn’t have struggled with all that. I could have gone later, if you’d’ve minded the kids. Oh . . .’ She looked startled as Emily stepped through the door and set the two heavy bags on the table. Rosa was only young. She doesn’t look much older than me, Emily thought, yet already she was a widow with two youngsters, who were playing on the floor around her feet.

  ‘This is Emily. Her family have come to live across the yard.’

  ‘Yes, I saw you arrive yesterday. Thank you for helping Mam. It’s good of you.’

  Emily shrugged off her thanks. ‘We’ve come from a small village where neighbours helped each other. I thought it might be different in the city –’ her smile widened – ‘but I see it isn’t. Mrs Dugdale made us so welcome yesterday. This –’ she gestured towards the bags of shopping – ‘was the least I could do. Anyway, I’d best be going. Bye for now.’

  She reached the door but then turned back. ‘Oh, do you know where the Trippets’ factory is?’

  Rosa gave a little cry. Her hand flew to cover her mouth and tears sprang into her eyes.

  Startled by the young woman’s reactions, Emily said, ‘Oh, my goodness. I’m so sorry.’ She turned towards the older woman. ‘What have I said?’

  Clara Jacklin smiled sorrowfully. ‘It was where my son – her husband – worked. That’s all. His loss is still so raw with us. Any sudden reminder . . .’

  ‘Of course. I’m so sorry. I’ll ask someone else.’

  ‘No, no, it’s all right,’ Rosa said recovering quickly. ‘It’s a big square building in Creswick Street. It’s a fair way from here, though. Ron used to cycle to work. Sometimes he went up to Solly Street and through all the little side streets, but your best way would be to go down ’street, turn left into Broad Lane and then . . .’ Rosa reeled off a number of street names that Emily couldn’t remember. She didn’t like to press the young woman any more, so she thanked them and left, glad to escape from the gloom of the small house. She’d felt suffocated in there. Obviously, Rosa wasn’t coping very well, but then she was young and only had the help of her elderly mother-in-law. Emily sighed. The war had an awful lot to answer for.

  Seven

  The city centre was buzzing with people and Emily felt excitement rising within her. It was dinner time now and workers of all sorts had spilled into the streets for a quick half-hour’s break. Three girls were walking arm in arm down the pavement. They were wearing calico aprons, once white but now covered with black smuts. Even their faces were smudged with black, but they were laughing and singing together and calling out to people they knew. As Emily stepped to the side to let them pass, she heard her name called.

  ‘Emily!’ One of the girls stopped, pulling the two others with her to a halt too. ‘It’s Emily from near me.’

  ‘Oh Lizzie,’ Emily smiled, ‘hello.’ She hadn’t recognized the girl dressed in her working clothes, with her hair covered with a scarf and her face blackened.

  ‘She’s just moved into our court,’ Lizzie explained to her workmates. ‘She only arrived yesterday.’ She turned back to Emily. ‘I asked Mrs Nicholson about work for you and she said to come and see her tomorrow morning. One girl’s just left to have a babby, so she’s short-handed.’

  ‘Phyllis’ll likely come back once she’s over her confinement,’ one of the other girls said, but the third girl added, ‘No, she won’t, Nell. Her husband’s said she’s to stay at home and look after the kiddie and have his tea on the table every night when he gets home.’

  ‘Lucky her!’

  The three girls fell into gales of laughter and the one called Nell pulled a comical face. ‘Well, I wouldn’t let any man tell me what to do and that’s a fact.’

  ‘Mebbe that’s why you can’t find a feller, our Nell. Still –’ Lizzie turned back to Emily. ‘You want to give it a go, Emily?’

  ‘Of course, and thanks for asking.’

  ‘Don’t mention it. And I’m going to see the foreman about a job for that handsome brother of yours. I’ll let you know tonight.’

  ‘Ooo, has she got a brother?’

  ‘Trust you to get in there first, Lizzie Dugdale,’ the third girl said. ‘Why don’t you give the rest of us a chance?’

  It was on the tip of Emily’s tongue to say that Josh already had a girlfriend waiting for him back in Ashford, but she bit back the remark. She needed Lizzie to help them find work and if she were to let slip that Josh was already courting, the girl might lose interest and not be so helpful.

  ‘Come on, Ida,’ Nell said. ‘Time we were getting back.’

  As the girls hurried away with cheery shouts of ‘Ta-ra, luv’ and ‘See you tomorrow’, Emily turned away, thinking, I’ll have to watch myself; I’m getting as devious as my mother! It was not a feeling she liked.

  She delivered the shopping back home, helped Martha with household chores for
a couple of hours and then said, ‘I’m going out for a walk. You coming, Josh?’

  Her brother nodded eagerly. Once outside and walking side by side up the street, he confided, ‘She’s been going on at me all morning to get out and find work, but I don’t know where to start. And when you came in and said you’d got some sort of interview tomorrow with Mrs Nicholson, well, I thought she was going to burst a blood vessel that you’d found summat before me.’

  Emily grinned. ‘I’m not the important one, Josh. That’s all it is. Come on,’ she added, linking her arm through his. ‘Let’s go and see if we can find Trip.’

  ‘Trip? Do you know where to start?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Emily said firmly, her eyes sparkling. ‘Creswick Street. That’s where his dad’s factory is, so that’s where Trip will be. Right, I know we set off down our street and turn left but then I got a bit lost. Rosa said all the street names so quickly, I couldn’t remember them all.’

  After asking for directions twice, they found the big, square building and stood looking up at it in awe. ‘It’s huge!’ Josh said. ‘I’d no idea Mr Trippet was so – so . . .’ He was lost for words.

  ‘Neither had I,’ Emily said in a small voice. ‘Makes you wonder why Trip was friendly with the likes of us when you see this, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Why he was allowed to be, you mean. Trip’s got no side to him, no hoity-toity ways but . . .’ He, too, fell silent for a moment before saying quietly, ‘Maybe that’s why his dad sent him away to the city. To live, I mean, not just to work.’

  ‘Perhaps we ought not to—’

  ‘Oh yes, we ought,’ Josh said swiftly. ‘Now we’re here, we’re going to see him.’ He laughed wryly as the factory hooter sounded and the workers came flooding out, hurrying homewards. ‘If we can find him in that lot!’

  Trip was one of the last to leave, as befitted the owner’s son. Emily’s heart lifted and she felt a flutter of excitement as she recognized the familiar figure wheeling a bicycle through the gates.

  ‘Trip! Trip, over here.’

  The young man in rough working clothes – dark trousers, worn jacket and cloth cap – looked up in surprise. ‘Good Lord! Josh and – and oh, Emily.’ He hurried across the road, leaned his bicycle against a lamp post and flung his arms wide as if to embrace them both. ‘How good it is to see you.’ He hugged Emily to him and then picked her up and swung her round. When he set her down, he glanced at each of them in turn. ‘But whatever are you doing here?’

  ‘My mother’s brought the whole family to Sheffield. She wants Josh to find work in the cutlery business.’

  ‘And,’ Josh took up the story, ‘she spoke to your dad, who said he hadn’t any vacancies at the moment but that he’d put a good word in with some of the other owners.’

  Trip frowned. ‘Really? Father said that?’

  ‘Yes.’ There was a slight pause as Josh added hesitantly, ‘Why, is something wrong?’

  ‘No – no, nothing. It’s just that we do have a vacancy that would be perfect for you. I’ve moved up the ladder as an apprentice a bit and the lad who took my place was useless. He was sacked two weeks ago.’

  ‘That explains it, then,’ Emily said. ‘It’s longer ago than that since my mother spoke to your father.’

  Trip’s face cleared. ‘Oh I see, yes, that’ll be it.’

  Although, to Emily’s sharp hearing, there was still a note of uncertainty in Trip’s tone, but then he said, firmly, ‘Right, no time like the present. We’ll go and see Mr Bayes this minute. Come on.’

  When Josh and Emily arrived home well after dusk had fallen, it was to find Lizzie, washed clean of all the grime of her job, her hair shining in the lamplight and dressed in a pretty floral dress, waiting with Martha. But their mother was in a fine old temper.

  ‘Where on earth have you been? Out gallivanting when I could do with some help with your father.’

  Josh put his strong arms round his mother’s waist, lifted her off her feet and swung her round. ‘Don’t be cross, Ma.’ It was his pet name for their mother, when he wanted to get round her.

  ‘Put me down and stop your silliness.’ Martha slapped him on the shoulder and he set her down on the floor again. ‘And why shouldn’t I be cross, pray?’

  ‘Because, Ma, I’ve got a job and I start on Monday.’

  Martha’s anger evaporated in an instant and her mouth dropped open. ‘How? Where?’

  ‘At Trippets’,’ Josh said with a wide grin. Today was the first time Emily had seen her brother smile since their mother had dropped the bombshell of her intention to move the Ryan family to the city.

  ‘Trippets’? But—’ Martha bit her lip and for a moment she looked uncertain.

  Quick to notice, Emily said, ‘What is it, Mam?’

  ‘Nothing, nothing,’ Martha said, a little too hastily. ‘Tell me how this has come about. Did you see Mr Trippet?’

  ‘No – we saw Trip.’

  ‘Thomas? Oh – oh, I see.’

  Emily could see that her mother’s mind was working furiously. ‘But – surely,’ Martha said at last, ‘Thomas isn’t in a position to hire folks. Is he?’

  Josh shook his head. ‘No, but he took us to see the foreman – a Mr Bayes. Of course, because it was Trip doing the asking, Mr Bayes said he was willing to give me a trial.’

  But what would happen when Arthur Trippet found out? Martha was thinking, but aloud she said, ‘Then that’s wonderful, Josh.’

  Lizzie pulled a face. ‘It sounds as if you don’t need my help now.’

  Emily put her arm round Lizzie’s trim waist. ‘Of course, we do. You’re going to take me to see Mrs Nicholson tomorrow, aren’t you?’

  Mollified a little, though with her impertinent glance still on Josh, Lizzie said, ‘Tell you what, Emily, why don’t we go across to see her right now? I know she’s home.’

  ‘Will she mind?’ Emily was a little doubtful about troubling the woman after a long day at work.

  ‘Not the missus, no. Come on and then you’ll both be fitted up with a job on the same day.’

  As they walked across the uneven cobbles, Lizzie confided, ‘I’d so hoped we’d all be working together at Waterfall’s. Ne’er mind, at least we’re living close by.’

  She knocked on the door and, after a brief pause, it was opened by a tall, fresh-faced young man with short, wiry red hair. He was still dressed in his working clothes but his smile was warm and welcoming. Though he glanced at the stranger briefly, it was to Lizzie he turned, his gaze never leaving her face.

  ‘Hello, Billy. Is your mam in?’

  ‘Come in, Lizzie luv.’ As they stepped into the light of the kitchen, he added, ‘And who’s this?’

  ‘My new friend, Emily Ryan. They’ve come to live next door to us and she’s looking for work. I just wondered if your mam—’

  ‘Of course.’ He turned and shouted over his shoulder. ‘Mam, visitors for you.’

  The door from the inner room opened and a plump, middle-aged woman came in. She was round faced and smiling, yet the smile did not reach her eyes, which held a deep sorrow. But then Emily remembered. This poor woman had lost three of her family to the war. Billy was the only one she had left now. The Ryan family thought they had been hard hit, but it was nothing in comparison to Mrs Nicholson’s loss or, for that matter, Rosa Jacklin’s. She nodded to both girls as Lizzie said swiftly, ‘Emily here is looking for work and we wondered – I wondered – if you’d give her a trial as a buffer girl, missus.’ Even at home, outside working hours, Lizzie still called the woman the name she was known as by the buffer girls in her charge.

  Ruth Nicholson looked the newcomer up and down. ‘Well, you look presentable enough, but you won’t by the time you’ve worked at a buffing wheel for a day. Are you sure it’s what you want to do, lass?’

  ‘I have to find work quickly, Mrs Nicholson. I’d be very grateful if you’d at least give me a chance.’

  ‘You’ve not done any of this sort of work before, then?’
/>   Emily shook her head. ‘We’ve come from a small village in Derbyshire, but my mother wants my brother to have a chance to better himself.’

  Lizzie grimaced. ‘He’s only gone and got himself a job at Trippets’ today. I was hoping he’d come to Waterfall’s too, but . . .’ She shrugged in disappointment.

  ‘Well, well, we can’t have Trippets’ getting all the promising ones, can we?’ The woman was thoughtful for a moment and when Lizzie said softly, ‘Her dad can’t work any more. I expect you can guess why,’ Mrs Nicholson sighed and said, ‘All right, lass. I’ll give you a try. Come in with Lizzie in the morning and we’ll get you kitted out and see how you shape up. We’ll start you off as an errand girl. The last one left last week and I haven’t had a chance to find a replacement yet. I’ll give you a trial, at least.’

  Eight

  It was no hardship for Emily to be up early. At home – as she still called Ashford – she and Josh had always started their work at seven o’clock every weekday morning.

  ‘That way,’ Josh had said, ‘we can allow ourselves an afternoon off on a Saturday and we can still see Trip then and on Sundays, when he’s home.’

  The four youngsters had been friends from childhood. They had attended school together, but when he was nine years old, Trip had been sent away to boarding school.

  ‘He’ll not want to know us when he comes home,’ Josh had said dolefully. ‘He’ll have made some posh friends.’

  But Josh had been wrong. Trip was only too pleased to see them and when they asked him about his new school, he’d pulled a face. ‘I hate it,’ he’d said. ‘I wish I could come back to school here, but Father won’t hear of it. So it looks as if I’ve got to grin and bear it until I’m old enough to leave.’

  To the nine-year-old boy and his friends that seemed an awful long way off. All they could do was spend as much time together as they could in the holidays. Trip didn’t even come home at weekends in term time. Emily left school at thirteen and started working for her father, often going to Bakewell Market to sell the candles on a stall with her mother. When Josh reached the same age seventeen months later, they expected that he, too, would leave school at the end of term and begin work with Walter. But even then, Martha had had grandiose ideas for her son.