The Staircase Girls by Catherine Seymour

Author:Catherine Seymour [Seymour, Catherine and Peachey, Mal]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781509802906
Publisher: Pan Macmillan UK

ROSE

Cambridge 1954

Rose Hobbs chain-smoked Weights cigarettes, one after the other all the way down until they almost burned her lips. ‘If the cigs don’t get me, this cold will, that’s for sure,’ she joked to her new neighbours, Mr and Mrs Adams, as she plonked the kettle back on top of a slightly lopsided cooker in her scullery (which used to be the coal shed). Rose shuffled back into the kitchen and the spot she’d barely moved from ever since letting the couple into her house.

It was the winter of 1954 and Rose stood against the fire guard, constantly lifting the back of her skirt. ‘I think I may have got chilblains,’ she lightly complained as the couple sat at the table drinking hot, sweet tea from mismatching mugs.

‘That might be from standing in front of that fire,’ suggested the nice young woman, named Ann. She was clearly unsure of how personal to be with the bony, severe-looking Rose, whose dishwater brown hair showed red tints occasionally, like the sparks in her smoking fireplace. It was difficult to tell how old Rose was. She could have been anything from thirty to fifty, and in some way reminded Ann of her mother. Rose’s clothes were mostly hidden beneath a flowered pinafore wrap-over. Her thick grey socks and brown men’s slippers made Ann think of Mrs Mopp from the radio show It’s That Man Again. Her attitude was much friendlier than her mother usually was though, and for that Ann was glad.

‘Well, whatever they are, my legs have started to look like maps telling a story of where I’ve been . . . or what’s been there, eh?’ Rose laughed, showing a gold tooth. ‘S’pose it adds a bit of colour!’

The laugh turned into a cough, which Ann waited to subside before saying as gently as she could, ‘You ought to get that looked at.’

Rose caught her breath. ‘Well, I have precious few luxuries left in me life and I love the heat on me, I can’t stand the cold. Love me fags, an’ all and have to catch up on ’em ’cos I can’t smoke at work.’

Rose now worked as a bedder, and what she thought were chilblains would later develop into varicose veins, a not uncommon health problem among bedmakers of Cambridge colleges. So too was arthritis and housemaid’s knee. Bedders, as Rose was always the first to tell everyone, were on their feet or on their knees for long hours. She’d usually then laugh wickedly after saying that and add, ‘Mind you, it’s better than spending all that time on your back or on your knees, believe you me!’

Rose lived in Queen’s Meadow with her two sons, who looked as different to one another as two boys of a similar age could. The Adams had just moved into the other half of the semi-detached council house that Rose had lived in since it had been built. Ann and Fred explained to Rose how happy they were to be there, and how glad they were to have left the damp, cold and unsanitary Nissen hut they’d come from.

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