The Gown(3)

Then the spun-out wretchedness of the years that followed, and all the while her certainty had grown that this was all she would ever know. The house on Morley Road and the workrooms at Hartnell, and the anonymous spaces in between. This life, this succession of gray days and cold nights and loved ones forever lost, was the furthest her dreams would ever stretch.

The sitting room clock chimed seven, startling Ann from her reverie. Standing by the table, a bundle of cutlery clutched in her hand, she tried hard to summon up an appetite for the supper Milly had prepared. It was a struggle, for the gammon was little more than gristle and fat, and the vegetables had collapsed into a grayish sort of paste. Even the school dinners of her childhood had been more appealing.

“Weren’t you going to turn on the wireless?” Milly reminded her.

The wireless, a big old-fashioned model in a walnut-veneered case, sat in the sitting room to the right of the fire. Ann switched it on and quickly set the table, having left the door between the two rooms ajar. By the time they’d eaten and washed up, it might even be warm enough to spend an hour there before bed.

No sooner were they seated than the blandly inoffensive music of the BBC’s Light Programme gave way to the news.

“On the last day of the coldest January London has experienced for years, Their Majesties the king and queen and the two princesses set off for the first stage of their tour of South Afri—”

“I can hardly hear,” Milly said abruptly. “Let me turn up the volume.”

“Yes, yes. Shh . . .”

“—have gathered along the route to wave the royal family an affectionate farewell, every single member of those half-frozen crowds wishing that they, too, could be transported from the bitter January afternoon to the fabulous sunshine of South Africa—”

“You wouldn’t catch me lining up to wave at them,” Milly muttered. “Not in weather like this.”

As if responding to Milly’s complaint, the newsreader turned to that frosty subject.

“Temperatures in London at midnight last night had risen to twenty—seven degrees, more than ten degrees warmer than earlier in the week. By the middle of the night, when snow was falling on parts of the capital, the temperature had scarcely dropped. But the winter has yet another blow for British housewives: a mass shuttering of laundries across the nation is expected unless coal supplies are increased.”

The kettle had boiled, so Ann went to the cooker and busied herself with making tea for them both. Only a scant spoonful of tea leaves for the pot, as the tin was almost empty. And no sugar, for she and Milly had both learned how to do without that small luxury long ago.

“I wonder if those girls know how lucky they are,” Milly said.

“The princesses? You always say that. Whenever they’re in the news.”

“But they are. Just look at how they live. All those clothes and jewels, and never having to lift a finger to do anything. I should be so lucky.”

“They work. No—don’t make that face. They do. Just think what it’ll be like for them on that tour. Day after day of the same boring conversations with strangers. Being stared at wherever they go. People being struck dumb at the sight of them. I doubt they’ll even see a beach, let alone have a chance to go for a swim.”

“Yes, but—”

“And no matter how hot it is, or how much their feet hurt, or how bored stiff they are, they have to keep smiling and pretend there’s nothing they’d rather do than cut a ribbon and declare that some little town in the middle of nowhere has a bridge or park named after their father. If that isn’t work, I don’t know what is. I do know I wouldn’t trade places with them for all the . . . well, for all the coal and tea and electricity in the world.”

“Of course you would, silly. You’d be mad not to want to be rich like them.”

“I wouldn’t mind being rich. But for everyone to know my name and expect something from me? Watch every move I make? That’d be awful.”

“I suppose.”

“I’ve heard stories from the saleswomen and fitters at work. Some of our wealthiest clients are the rudest ones. Ever so demanding, and they never bother to say thank you, let alone smile, and they definitely never send gifts to the girls in the workrooms. Compared to the princesses, or the queen? Those are the people who have it easy.”

“Fair enough,” Milly acknowledged. “So let’s be millionaires, and we’ll winter in the south of France, or down in the toe of Italy, and get suntans and be mistaken for American film stars.”

Ann had to smile at the notion of her or Milly ever being mistaken for a film star. “Wouldn’t that be lovely? To just hop on a ship or a train and go somewhere exotic.” To see something beyond gray skies and soot-dulled bricks and the backs of winter-dead gardens from the window of a train.

“Not so far as that. A few days at the seaside would be enough for me.”

Conversation faded as they set to work on the washing up, with Milly doing the washing to save Ann’s hands from chapping. It was scarcely half-past seven when they finished.

“Do you think we can light a fire in the sitting room? Just for an hour?” Milly asked.

“All right. But only a small one. I checked the coal store this morning and it’s almost empty. Goodness knows if the coalman will even come by this week.”