was intrigued. ‘So who did you do it with? That boy you’re courting?’
‘’Course. Sammy.’
‘How long since the first time?’
‘Last Christmas. I was seventeen, Clover,’ she said reassuringly. ‘I mean, it’s not as if I was a child.’
‘But where did you do it? I mean, if it was Christmas?’
‘Me and my father were going to my gran’s for our Christmas dinners, but he wanted to go to the Jolly Collier first for a drink. So he left me in our house by myself getting ready, and I was supposed to meet him at my gran’s after. Anyway, Sammy called to bring me my Christmas box. I gave him a big kiss for it…you know…and one thing led to another…I locked the door and we ended up on the hearth in the front room, me with me nightdress up round me waist.’
‘God…But what if you’d got pregnant, Ramona? Think of all the trouble, the disgrace.’
‘Oh, I won’t get pregnant. Sammy pulls it out a bit sharp when he’s ready to…you know…’
Clover digested this thought-provoking information for a few seconds while they turned the corner by the Junction Inn. Watson’s Street, where Ned lived, stretched narrowly to their right, a steep hill that took you to the top of Cawney Hill and its tiny twisted streets, its back-to-back cottages and its disused quarry. But Clover decided not to point out Ned’s home; it would be too distracting and she wanted to explore this fascinating subject more. So they began the climb up Hill Street with its row of terraced houses on the right and its allotments on the left behind a small row of cottages.
‘Some of the girls I work with at the foundry do it with their sweethearts,’ Clover admitted at last. ‘They tell me all about it.’
‘And do they like it as well?’
‘They must do. They’re at it every chance they get.’
Ramona chuckled. ‘See. It ain’t just me then, is it? You’ll have to get yourself a chap, Clover.’
‘I think I’d be too scared to let him do anything, though. My mother’s never allowed me to have a chap. She’d have a fit if I ever got into trouble. Maybe now you’ve come she’ll allow it. Especially if your father allows you to see this Sammy.’
‘But he don’t know we do that, Clover. Lord above, he’d kill me if he knew, so keep it under your hat.’
‘Oh, don’t worry, Ramona.’ She smiled reassuringly. ‘Anything you tell me is just between the two of us.’
Ramona chuckled. ‘It’ll be nice sharing secrets, won’t it?’
It had been some time since her mother’s wedding when Clover walked to the Coneygree Iron Foundry in Tividale early one sunny morning in May. It would be her twentieth birthday next week and she wondered what present her mother might afford her. A new summer dress for best would be nice if she were allowed to choose it herself. As she walked on, past St John’s church and over Brewery Fields to the Birmingham Road, she pondered how her life had surprisingly changed for the better since Jake and Ramona had become a part of it. Clover had always lived in the shadow of her mother’s dominance, had accepted it with resignation, but now she felt a new freedom. Jake was in charge and, if nothing else, he was even-handed where she and Ramona were concerned – so far, at least. Mary Ann could no longer impose her restraining and often unfair moral and social code on Clover any more than she could on Ramona. It allowed for a certain latitude she had never enjoyed before. She was even allowed to visit Ned Brisco’s workshop some nights, where she helped him construct his new flying machine. And she did not have to return till ten o’ clock.
She clambered over the stile where the stubbly field met the highway. Three young beaux on bicycles wished her flirtatious good mornings before she stepped, smiling in response, onto the cobbles to reach the other side of Birmingham Road. A carter hauling sacks of coal steadied his horse while a tram rattled past and she caught up with it while the conductor alighted to change the points. She walked on, not heeding the passengers who turned their heads to look at her. In the middle distance, the black, foreboding headgear of the vast Coneygree Collieries loomed like the artificial skeletons of huge automatons. As she passed the grim Coneygree Brickworks and its great marl-hole like a giant pockmark on the landscape, she wondered whether working as a brickmaker might be cleaner than coremaking. She dearly wished she could get away from coremaking. She felt she was worthy of work more dignified, cleaner; a job where she did not have to wash her hair every other night because of the filthy atmosphere. Maybe, now Jake was in charge and they no longer seemed impoverished, she would be allowed to find a job working in a nice shop. Even working in the brewery with all its steam would be better than the foundry.
As she reached the gates of the Coneygree Iron Foundry the familiar, acrid smell of scorched sand and burning metal filled her nostrils. She headed for the time office and had her time-card stamped. In the ablutions block where she donned her headwear and her dusty brown coverall she greeted other girls who worked alongside her with a chummy smile. Conversation was generally robust and Clover indeed learned much more about life in their company than she would if she’d stayed at home helping her mother. Despite the overtly strict moral conventions that were supposed to inhibit sexual activity outside of and before marriage, it never ceased to amaze Clover just how many young women she knew who were manifestly flouting it. Ramona’s confessions had only served to confirm the notion. But where did all these girls find out about such things? Who coached them?
‘Have you and that Ned Brisco started courting then?’ one of her friends, Selina, asked.
Clover was changing her boots, for it would not do to be seen walking in public in unsightly working boots. She smiled reticently and tugged at the laces. ‘We’re just friends, Selina.’
‘You seem to spend enough time with your heads together. I wonder as you ai’ wed the chap a’ready.’
‘He hasn’t asked me. Besides, he’s too preoccupied with his own interests to worry about the likes of me,’ Clover answered tactfully.
Selina’s expression suggested she did not believe her. ‘Would you marry him if he asked you?’
‘He’s not likely to ask…Hey, come on. Look at the time. Old Ratface Mason will be docking us a quarter-hour if we don’t hurry.’
So Clover, Selina and the others trooped across the dusty yard to the core shop. Their machines were already set up to produce the cores that were required later for insertion into moulds that were to fashion gear casings, electric motor housings and the like. The atmosphere was dense and smoky and the constant roar of the blast furnace, that melted the concoction of iron ore, scrap, coke and limestone ready for casting, meant they had to shout to each other to be heard.
Clover pressed a foot pedal and the two halves of the corebox that bore the impression of the core she was making closed together with a sibilant hiss of compressed air.
‘Me and Charlie have decided to go to the seaside at Whitsun, Clover,’ Selina shouted over the din.
Clover pulled on a lever and black sand, like a sudden fall of soot, was forced into the iron corebox under air pressure, filling the precisely
