Washerwoman's Dream Read online

  But on a summer’s morning when the sun shone into her room, Winifred could forget the screaming and shouting, the rats and the dying man. There would be sparrows pecking in the yard among the weeds and wildflowers that somehow had survived from the garden of the man who had been there before. She knew his name. It was Tradescant. She liked the way it sounded, though it was a long time before she could say it properly. She knew about John Tradescant from her father. He had been gardener to King Charles I and had grown the first pineapple in London.

  She wondered what a pineapple tasted like and if it was anything like the apples Mrs Watkins sold in her barrow. Sometimes Mrs Watkins let her take an apple that had a brown speck in it. ‘Just bite off the bad bit, dearie. It won’t hurt you.’ Winifred would choose one and polish it on her apron before biting into it, feeling the tartness on her tongue and the juice running down her chin.

  Mrs Watkins often took Winifred with her when she went to the Cut to buy her apples. She was always careful to buy the cheapest apples, then she would spit on them, polish them on her apron and arrange them in a pyramid in her barrow. ‘People will always pay a halfpenny extra for a nice shiny apple,’ she would say as she trundled her barrow down the street. ‘Fresh apples, only a penny,’ she’d call out. ‘An apple a day keeps the doctor away.’ Winifred wasn’t sure how an apple could keep the doctor away. When she asked, Mrs Watkins patted her on the shoulder and said, ‘Poor folks can’t afford the doctor but they can afford a penny apple.’

  The Cut was an exciting place, with hundreds of people shouting their wares and people pushing barrows or driving horse and carts. ‘You has to keep your wits about you here,’ Mrs Watkins told her. ‘This place is full of thieves and pickpockets who’ll do you in for a dumpling.’ She kept her money in the pocket of her apron and fastened it with a huge safety pin. Once she threw an apple at a policeman when he told her to move on. But he let her go — she couldn’t have paid the fine. She had six children. Five of them had died. Now there was only Aggie.

  Lambeth Walk was another of the child’s favourite places. Sometimes she went with her father and mother on a Sunday if the weather was fine. In winter they would eat a penny pie for lunch or a dish of pea soup for a halfpenny, or maybe a hot potato with butter and salt. What she liked best was the ginger beer fountain, like a little piano on wheels. It had two pumps with brass handles that glinted in the sun. She loved the taste of the ginger beer with its bubbles that tickled her nose. Other times her father would buy her a glass of milk from the milkman on Clapham Common, while her parents sipped hot elderberry wine. She enjoyed being with her parents once they stopped bickering. But when they were in the middle of one of their quarrels she would creep outside the door and wait in the dark hall until the shouting had stopped.

  Winifred was neither happy nor unhappy. She knew no other life. She accepted the fact that babies died and that men beat their wives when they were drunk. She never questioned the public houses on every corner where men drank their meagre earnings after a hard day humping cargo on the wharves or toiling on the railway tracks. If their families suffered it was taken for granted. And yet she knew that there were rich people who lived in fine houses with gardens — her father pointed them out to her on their Sunday afternoon walks. She had seen children in the park with their nannies, the girls with ringlets tied with ribbon wearing velvet dresses with lace collars and long socks and leather boots, bowling hoops along the paths; the boys in sailor suits, sailing toy boats in the Serpentine. Winifred viewed them with curiosity, as if they were a different species, knowing that they played no part in her life.

  2

  SCHOOL DAYS

  WINIFRED HAD NO OLDER SIBLINGS or even friends of her own age to tell her what to expect when she started school. She had watched the children coming and going from school each day as she stood by her front gate. Mostly they ran past, yelling and laughing, though occasionally someone would yell at her, ‘What are you staring at, fish-face?’ or call her a guttersnipe if they saw her walking down the street helping Mrs Watkins push the barrow. Mrs Watkins would say, ‘Take no notice of them, dearie. Names niver hurt nobody.’

  The children Winifred met and talked with were mostly working for their living at the Cut, or scavenging by the Thames. They were too busy to go to school. She’d heard her father’s stories about the schoolroom at Bath where he got a good whipping if he didn’t learn his lessons. ‘Sometimes I couldn’t sit down for a week,’ he used to tell her. ‘Still, it did me no harm.’ And she wondered if school would be like that for her. She didn’t think she’d like to be whipped if she made a mistake.

  Mrs Watkins was no help. Her education consisted of a few weeks tuition at a Sunday school ‘We learned about God and the Bible. I niver thought it much help when your belly’s empty. But sometimes they gave us a slice of bread and scrape, and a bag of boiled lollies at Christmas. My poor old Ma, God rest her soul, had sixteen children … she was fair worn out. She died when I was ten. I was the eldest living. It fell to me to take care o’ the others.

  ‘My Da took to the drink somethink awful after Ma died. He worked in the mines. They used to dish out the wages at the hotel on a Saturday. Many the times we went hungry because he’d spent all his money. I’d stand outside the hotel with the young’uns, shivering in the cold with only a few rags on my back, trying to git him to come home. But it made no difference. Sometimes a neighbour sent us in a bit of cold mutton, or a loaf of bread. Sometimes we ate grass … But no matter. That’s in the past.

  ‘I look at it like this. Schooling don’t make you no better than anyone else. I don’t sell any less apples because I can’t write proper … I know how to mind me money … it comes natural to most folks. That’s the most important thing. You can’t learn that from books. Our Aggie’s not much different. She were only ten when she went to work in the steam laundry. Book learnin’ ain’t much help when you’re washin’ shirts all day.’

  When Winifred told her father what Mrs Watkins had said, he explained, ‘Everyone has to go to school. You wouldn’t understand, but the Government passed an act that once you turn five … It’ll be all right. You’ll be able to read books.’

  Because her birthday was in November, Winifred started school at the beginning of 1888. Her education was to last for a further two to three years until she left for Australia.

  * * *

  Wyvil Road School was only a few hundred yards from Tradescant Street on the other side of South Lambeth Road. The imposing two-storeyed building was built of the dark brick typical of the time. The boys entered through the main gates in South Lambeth Road; the infants and girls, who were educated separately, entered from a side street.

  It was here that Winifred learned to read and write. She was one of a large class of children who were crowded into long desks which sloped in rows down to the front of the room where the teacher sat at her table.

  Winifred’s first day at school was one of bewilderment and terror once her father had left her in the care of the headmaster, who handed her over to one of the senior girls.

  ‘Molly Smith, look after Winifred Oaten. She’s new. Take her to the infants’ room and tell Miss Jones I sent her.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Molly Smith curtsied.

  Winifred stared at the big girl. She was wearing a navy woollen skirt, a white blouse under a red cardigan, and long black woollen stockings with lace-up boots. Winifred looked towards the front gate; she wanted to go home, but her father was out of sight. Tears prickled her eyelids and her bottom lip trembled.

  The big girl gave her a little push. ‘Cry-baby. Come on, the bell will be going soon. I want to finish my game of hopscotch.’ She grabbed Winifred by the hand and hurried her along, pausing to ask, ‘What does your old man do?’

  ‘He paints things.’

  ‘My father’s an engine driver.’ The older girl tossed her head. ‘And I’m an ink monitor.’

  Winifred didn’t have the faintest idea what an ink monitor was an
d she had a stitch in her side from hurrying. Molly Smith came to a halt beside some steps leading up to a porch. ‘Up there. That’s where the babies go.’

  The child stood there, bewildered. The older girl sighed, ‘Just my bleedin’ luck. Come on,’ and she dragged Winifred up the stairs and to the door of a large classroom, where a woman was bending over stoking a coal fire. The woman turned when she heard Molly knock.

  ‘It’s a new girl, miss. Sir told me to bring her here.’

  The woman advanced to meet them, her long black skirt swishing as she walked. Underneath, Winifred caught a glimpse of black-polished high-buttoned boots. She was wearing a white shirt-waist with a high collar and long leg-o’-mutton sleeves. When she spoke, her voice was soft and melodious and her face softened into a smile. ‘Thank you, Molly. You can go now.’

  Molly turned and hurried out the door and the teacher bent down towards Winifred. ‘What’s your name, child?’

  ‘Jane Winifred Oaten.’

  ‘And what do they call you at home?’

  ‘Just Winifred.’

  ‘Well, that’s what I’ll call you. It’s a lovely name.’ She took out a large book and wrote in it. ‘There, you’re on the roll now.’ Winifred stared at the writing in the book. She had never seen her name written down before. It was something to tell her father. She thought that perhaps she might like school after all.

  Miss Jones led Winifred into the hall where there was a row of pegs. ‘Put your school bag there and your bonnet. Now come with me.’ She took her by the hand and walked her outside. Winifred watched as a boy pulled a rope, making a bell clang. ‘That’s the school bell. You must always try and get here before the bell goes.’ She led Winifred to where a group of small children was standing in two lines and put her at the end of the front line, saying, ‘Today’s Monday. We have school assembly. You must stand very still and be quiet,’ and she walked down to the other end of the line.

  Just then Winifred felt a violent push from behind and she almost fell over, and then someone tugged at her apron and she staggered backwards. She turned around and a freckle-faced boy with ginger hair poked out his tongue. She faced the front again. A man with a stick was walking towards them. He stopped in front of Winifred. She could feel her heart thumping in her chest like a frightened bird. Her throat felt constricted. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked. She stared at him in panic. He was tall and thin and wore a black suit. His cold blue eyes seemed to bore into her and she hung her head, terrified. He poked her in the chest with his stick. ‘What’s your name?’ She was unable to speak. She wanted her father. She wanted to be back home again, eating bread and sugar in Mrs Watkins’s kitchen. School was horrible and she began to cry.

  Then she heard Miss Jones’s voice. ‘This is Winifred Oaten. She’s only new today.’ Winifred threw herself towards Miss Jones and buried her face in her skirt. The woman pulled away. ‘Come now, Winifred, you mustn’t go on like this. You want to learn to read, don’t you?’ She held out a white handkerchief. ‘Blow your nose and stop crying.’

  Winifred did as she was told. She felt better now and looked around the playground. A boy was playing the bugle and two other boys were hoisting the Union Jack up a flagpole until it fluttered in the breeze. She watched as the children stood to attention and chorused, ‘I honour my God, I serve my Queen, I salute my flag.’ Then the man with the stick called out, ‘Quick march,’ and the children turned and began to march, groups breaking off to go into their classrooms. Her group was last. They straggled along in two lines, sixty small children, with Winifred leading the way, holding the teacher’s hand.

  She was still confused after lunch when she heard the bell and followed her class back into their school room. She was also hungry. She had eaten her two slices of bread and dripping when the bell went for the first break and had had nothing left at lunchtime. While the older children sat in groups, she sat alone, feeling miserable and wishing it was time to go home. She knew that now she had started school she had to go every day. The idea frightened her; the squeaking of the slate pencil on the slate made her blood run cold and she had trouble shaping the pot-hooks that Miss Jones drew on the blackboard. She sat there after lunch feeling queasy, her stomach empty, even though she’d had a big drink of water from the tap when she went to the lavatory. Now the water she’d drunk made her want to go to the lavatory again. She fidgeted, twisting and turning until Miss Jones said, ‘What’s the matter, Winifred? You have to learn to sit still.’

  ‘I want to pee,’ Winifred said.

  ‘You should have gone at lunchtime.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Well, go then and hurry up.’

  The child opened the classroom door and went into the corridor. She could hear the sound of singing coming from the room on the end, and the hum of voices as children recited the twice-timestable in another room. She had no idea how to find the lavatory and stood there confused until a door opened and a girl came out. ‘I’m looking for the lavatory,’ Winifred said.

  ‘Down the end of the corridor.’ The girl grinned. ‘I got sent out for talking. And I have to stay back after school and write lines.’

  Winifred had no idea what lines were, and without saying thank you trotted to the end of the corridor and into the brick annexe with its row of metal troughs, brass taps and porcelain WCs. She was too short to reach the toilet chain but found that by standing on the seat she could manage. She felt very proud of herself.

  The girl was still standing in the corridor when Winifred returned. ‘You’d better go back or you’ll cop it,’ she said. Winifred scurried along back into her classroom. Miss Jones was reading a story about hobgoblins and Winifred was sorry she’d left the room. She decided that tomorrow she would save something for her lunch and forget about big drinks of water so she wouldn’t miss hearing the story.

  Later, as she crossed South Lambeth Road, she saw Mrs Watkins hurrying along the other side. She was panting by the time she caught up with the child. ‘I told your da I’d watch out for you in case you got lorst. I told him you were a bright one and knew your way home. Your ma’s gone out. Come and sit with me and tell me all about it. I’ll make a cuppa tea and you can toast a bit o’ bread once I get the fire lit.’

  * * *

  One morning Winifred woke imagining she could hear the school bell ringing. With a sense of terror she leapt out of bed and hurried to the cupboard, taking out a slice of bread and spreading it with dripping. She ate it hurriedly, washing it down with a glass of water from the jug on the dresser. Then she dipped her flannel in the jug and rubbed it over her face and eyes, pulled her white flannelette nightgown over her head and hung it on a peg behind the door. She always wore her drawers and bodice to bed.

  In a kind of frenzied desperation she pulled on her long black worsted stockings, noticing there was a hole in the toe, then she sat on the floor to pull on her lace-up boots. Her brown and white checked dress was lying in a pile on the floor. It had a stain on the front from where she’d spilt the raspberry vinegar her father had brought home the night before. Winifred had been afraid to show her mother, knowing it would make her angry.

  After she had put on her dress she found a clean white pinafore in a drawer and pulled this over her head. She looked at herself in the mirror on her mother’s dressing table, relieved to find that the pinafore hid the stain, and picked up her hairbrush. She flicked it through her hair, wishing that she had a blue ribbon like some of the other girls. Instead, she fastened her hair back with a tortoiseshell clasp her father had bought her for her birthday.

  Winifred glanced quickly at the bed where her mother lay sleeping, the bedclothes pulled over her in a crumpled heap. She knew that if she woke her mother she would find her an errand to run or make her stay home to keep her company because she had one of her headaches. Winifred grabbed her sunbonnet from behind the door, picked up her school bag and an apple and ran downstairs to where Mrs Watkins was standing at the front gate, talking to Mrs Warby from
next door. Winifred called, ‘Good morning, Mrs Watkins, Mrs Warby,’ as she dashed past. She felt her cheeks burn when she heard Mrs Warby whisper, ‘Look at that poor child … pinafore strings undone, hair unbrushed. It’s a disgrace. That mother of hers. She ought to be ashamed.’

  The child paused briefly to gaze at a bucket of daffodils in the doorway of the corner shop. She wished she had some money to buy one. She’d already spent the halfpenny her father had given her on treacle-taffy. Still thinking about the daffodils, she dashed across South Lambeth Road without looking and almost ran into the path of a hackney cab. She heard the horse whinny and the voice of the driver calling out, ‘Watch your bleedin’ neck or you’ll git your bleedin’ head knocked horf.’ But Winifred didn’t pause to look back, intent on getting to school.

  There was no one else running along the road and no sound of children playing in the schoolyard. She knew it must be late as she hurried into the cloakroom and hung up her sunbonnet. In the classroom her new teacher, Mr Cornwall, was calling the roll. She imagined she heard footsteps behind her in the hall, terrified that it might be the headmaster. Once he had made her stay back after school and read out her name on Monday at assembly; she’d had to join the ‘late squad’ and march around the schoolyard as punishment.