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WOMAN OF THE CENTURY

She came into the world screaming like a banshee on the very stroke of midnight in the year 1900, pushing her way out of the womb with a full head of black hair and light hazel eyes that glowed with luminous strength. Her screams raised the hair on the nape of her midwife’s neck like a field of grass in the wind.  Before the chimes of Big Ben were still, she was cradled against Mother’s breast but she would not settle.  She squirmed and squalled until the matron had to come and remove her.

When Mother and Auntie Irene brought her home a few days later, she was still so small that when Father picked her up she fit easily into the palm of one hand.  He held her up to the light breaking through the window, poked her milky white skin and said, ‘Why, she isn’t nothing bigger than a baby bunny.’

The name stuck.  From that moment on, everyone called her Bunny.  Her registered name was forgotten to everyone but Mother.

While Bunny was suckling, Victoria, in her coal black dress, glowered down on coal black London from countless pictures on countless walls.  London lumbered along in a coal black fog while the rest of the world was retooling for the new age of petroleum, men were dying in the colonies, children were coming out of the mines in the North, workers could be compensated for injuries on the job, airships were flying and Grace retired from cricket.

Mother and Father had just left service.  He took up trade as a cobbler and she made wine, and distilled gin at home.  They had just moved into a terraced house not far from the Chelsea Embankment.  It was a gift bequeathed upon Mother on the death of their childless employer and it had the unusual luxury of indoor plumbing. 

Bunny took her first step the day Victoria died.  Father rejoiced while Elgar poured out Pomp and Circumstance.

Bunny spoke her first word as Father howled out like the Hound of Baskerville after reading that  they had stopped killing each other in South Africa.  In an effort to calm him down, Mother mentioned volcanoes were going off in the French West Indies.

As King Edward and his diplomats were putting an end to trouble in Northern Nigeria and Pankhurst was getting the girls for the Social and Political Union, Bunny found herself confined to the kitchen watching the domestic future she faced.

On the day Marie Curie became the first woman president of the Sorbonne, Father found Bunny playing in the coal scuttle.  She was black from head to foot.

‘As black as the Queen of Sheba!’ said he.’Ye like the darkness, ye shall visit it.’

He jammed the scuttle in one of her small hands and the shovel in the other and down they went.  Down into pitch black hell where it was hard to breath and the rats scuttled above their heads.

She didn’t get out of the kitchen until she attended her first lessons.  Ghandi had organised passive resistance in South Africa and the cubists exhibited in Paris.

King Edward was dead, Schiele had been arrested for his ‘immoral’ drawings  and the Mona Lisa had been stolen from the Louvre by the time Bunny was able to read or write.  Her education still emphasised the domestic crafts.  Collecting coal from the cellar and distributing to the various burners in the house on Redhall Street was her main responsibility.

On the day Pygmalion was published, she lit the candle, picked up the scuttle and shovel and descend into Hell.  Bunny could not bear the thought of a lifetime of scuttling coal, but it never occurred to her that one day she might find something more useful in the cellar. 

In a huff she grabbed the scuttle and went to the cellar door.  She could feel the musty tongues of damp air licking her ankles through the crack at the bottom of the door.  As she turned the knob and pulled the creaking slats of wood open, she stalled for a moment as always.  She should have bribed her little sister Sarah to do it, because Sarah didn’t seem to be afraid of anything, least of all the coal cellar, but Sarah was out with mother.  Perhaps it would have been better if she had found some way of putting it off until they came home, but Father wouldn’t have it.  She just wanted to get this nasty business out of the way as quickly as possible, so she clomped down the narrow risers, banging the walls with the scuttle just as Auntie Irene had showed her. 

‘The rats will disappear into their hiding places long before you reach the bottom,’ Auntie had promised in that ever so cheerful sing song accent of hers. 

Auntie Irene understood in a way Mother never did.  Mother never went near the coal cellar.  One always knew where to find Mother, either at the kitchen stove or up to her elbows in the laundry tubs next to it.

When Bunny got to the bottom of the steep stairs, she threw the scuttle at the coal heap just to make sure that no surprises would be awaiting her.  She ducked when scurrying claws raced along the beams above her head.  She ran quickly to the bucket, shovelled black nuggets of anthracite into it, then charged for the stairs. 

Unfortunately the toe of her shoe caught the hem of her smock and sent her sprawling, extinguishing the candle.  She lay on her belly in the pitch black, blind, so dense was the darkness.  She was terrified, but she did not call out.  The Hunters were the sort of family who extricated themselves from difficult situations, independently when possible, for the price of rescue was to be the butt of conversation for some weeks. 

She picked herself up into a squat and felt for the candle.  Her searching hands found the bucket still bearing half of its original load.  The shovel lay next to it, but the candle had rolled off into the dark somewhere.  She was certainly not going after it.  She collected what she could and made for the faint light bleeding down the stairs from above. 

With her heart clogging her throat, she clambered up the hard wood risers, banging her shins and knees on every one of them.  Her breath exploded with a gush of relief when she gained the warmth of the kitchen.  Mother was standing in the doorway looking down upon her, aghast.

‘Don’t you look like a refugee from the Crimea,’ she said quietly, shifting baby Gerald from one hip to the other.  ‘Really Bunny, can’t you do anything without making a grand drama out of it?’

‘Oh Mother,’ Bunny groaned, getting up and wiping her sooty hands down the front of her smock. ‘I tripped that’s all.’

‘You didn’t find Jack the Ripper down there then?’

‘Perhaps,’ she retorted as she set the scuttle down in its proper place next to the stove.

‘Is that all you managed to bring up?  You’ll have to make a second trip.  The buckets upstairs have to be filled and it had better get done today or I’ll have your father sort you out!’

‘But Mummy! Margie’s coming by any minute and I’ve got to wash my face and change my smock!’

‘Margie can wait.  Now get the coal or I’ll make sure you father hears of this when he is home.’

Bunny picked up the coal scuttle again.  ‘Honestly Mummy,’ she said, ‘You’d think Father was your henchman the way you keep threatening us with him.’

‘Well if you would do your chores with the same enthusiasm that you have for running the streets with Marie Triple I would not have to.  Bunny, without a doubt, you are the laziest young lady in all of Redhall Street.’

Suddenly six year old Sarah pushed past Mother and pointed at her older sister. 

‘Gosh!’ she cried, ‘ Don’t she look like a darkie Mummy! Don’t she!’ . 

‘Yes she does dear,’ Mother agreed as she set Gerald down on the floor.

Bunny took the scuttle and pressed it into Sarah’s hand.  ‘You do the coal this morning and I’ll do  the wipe-up on the dishes for you tonight.’

She didn’t give the red-head a chance to disagree before she flew up the kitchen stairs, along the main floor corridor and upstairs to the bathroom.  Unfortunately the door was locked.  She banged on it with her fists, but groaned when sister Barbara’s voice came through the thick wood.

‘You’ll have to wait your turn,’ the muffled voice called out, and the malicious satisfaction was not disguised.

‘Bunny!’ Mother screamed from the kitchen. ‘Do your own chores.  Get down here his minute!’

Bunny stamped her feet in frustration and tugged at the tangled black hair above the temples.  Then, to make matters worse, the bell at the front door jangled.  It was Margie.  Bunny looked in the tiny hallway mirror and grimaced at her blackened face.  She spit on the hem of her smock and tired to wipe it off but it only smeared more.  The door bell rang again.  She whirled and raced down the stairs.  The dismal landing at the bottom wasn’t made any more cheerful by a weak light that leaked through the frosted panes of glass set in the door. 

Bunny yanked the door open and there stood Margie wearing the most perfect blue jumper that Bunny ever had the misfortunate to covet.

‘Pity, ‘ said Margie, ‘ You really ought to speak to your mother about getting a charwoman.  My mother will recommend one if you like.  Every decent family ought to have a charwoman to attend to the coal.’

‘We’ve already got one.'

‘You do?’

‘Yes me.’

They held hands and had a little laugh.

Bunny broke away calling  ‘I’ll be back in a flash,’ over her shoulder as she stormed off down into the kitchen.

Sarah was sitting at the table stuffing more porridge into her already loverloaded mouth. 

‘Mum wouldn’t let me do the coal!’ she blurted , spraying bits of  oatmeal across the table.

‘I certainly wouldn’t,’ said Mother.  ‘Bunny, you must live up to your responsibilities.  Father expects it of you.’

‘Yes Mum,’ she said plunging her head under the kitchen tap, and scrubbing her face in the freezing water with the harsh dish soap until her eyes smarted and skin prickled.  She shook out her hair and buried her face in a course linen towel.  She threw the towel over the chair and ran back into the hall.

‘Bunny, you come back here right this instant!’ Mother screamed.

‘Yes Mum,’ Bunny called back as she tore off her sooty smock and pulled on her drab grey coat, winking at Margie like a sly cat.  She wrenched open the front door.  Both girls slipped out, closing the door ever so quietly behind themselves.

‘Let’s get out of here before Barbara can catch up,’ Bunny yelped with glee and the two girls careened off down Redhall Street.

They came to a puffing halt on the King’s Road.  Margie popped into the confectionery shop to pick up her daily dose of barley sweets while Bunny waited outside, leaning against the grey brick wall and watching workers roll huge oak casks along the sidewalk.  Their backs were bent and clouds of vapour lingered around their gaping mouths.

‘Coo, like bloody horses,’ Bunny muttered to herself.

A large yellow trolley creaked by and the faces of a dozen women looked out at her.  They were uniformly dour under their pinned up hats and their pinned up hair.  There was one dark face, in one dark window.  She was eastern and her flashing eyes set off by glossy skin caught Bunny’s attention.  She smiled and the dark woman smiled back, a quick spontaneous smile that flashed an amazing set of brilliant, enamel teeth. 

The two-decker trolley rumbled on its way and Margie came out of the shop and bumped her shoulder.

‘Daydreaming again,’ Margie chided.

Bunny just sniffed in response.

The two girls continued their fast pace through the crowded street.  They passed an eel and pie shop and stopped for a moment to examine the trays of slime in the window.  Traces of fog loitered in the dark corners of the street.  The sky was its usual deadly grey.

Margie’s fingers crept up the back of Bunny’s neck.  A tremor shot up through her spine.  She shuddered in half pleasure, half panic.

‘OOOh who are you thinking about kissing?’ asked Margie showing rather too much gum in her smile. 

‘No one you know.’

‘That’s impossible.  I know everyone you know.’

Bunny sniffed at her again.

‘Let’s try…’ Margie persisted in her annoying way.

‘Try what?’

‘Kissing.’

‘On the lips?’

‘Well perhaps not touching lips.  But almost.’

‘But that wouldn’t be kissing.’

‘I suppose not.  But shall we try it at any rate?’

‘Honestly Margie, you do act the absolute fool sometimes.’

‘Perhaps, but I’d still like to try.’

‘What, here, on the street?’

‘Are you out of your mind! I would get sent away to school for sure if I ever got caught!’

And as if to be reminded of the danger of such thoughts, Mrs. Triple appeared out of nowhere.

‘Margie?’ she said.

‘Yes Mum.’

‘What are you two hanging about on the streets?  People will think you are a pair of streetwalkers.’

‘Oh Mother.  Please.’

‘Don’t answer me back,’ said Mrs. Triple as she lifted her out of fashion veil. ‘ You’re not an adult yet, no matter what airs you put on.’

‘Ye Ma’am,‘ Margie answered a little too seriously.

‘Now you two get along to where you are supposed to be immediately.  Honestly Margie I wish your poor departed father was here to put the cane to you when necessary.’

Both of them fled without hesitation.  When they stopped Margie said, ‘I wish I had your Mum.’

Before Bunny could answer Barbara ran up to them. 

‘You’re going to get it when Father gets home,’ she sneered.  ‘Mother had to do the coal and she’s steaming.’

‘Pooh!’ Bunny retorted haughtily. ‘Don’t tell your older sister what’s what.’

‘You’re not even a year older than me!’

‘But look at you and your stringy hair.  You look like a rat.’ 

Despite her cavalier attitude Bunny was concerned about what Father would say when he got home.  She would rather face the Vicar than deal with Father in a mood.

 

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