and I thought how heavenly it would be to lie in a bath full of it, to ease the cramping pain. And the soap – how lovely it smelled.
There was a quick tap-tap of high heels on the linoleum on the landing. The door burst open and in flew the Head Cashier. She was a small woman, swathed in a green overall, a rigid disciplinarian. Today, her forbidding expression boded ill for anyone she met. I hastily busied myself drying my hands.
She ignored my good morning. ‘Where are the girls?’ she demanded. ‘Everybody is late.’
I trembled. Without exception, all the younger employees dreaded this ferocious lady. Her Assistant was never known to open her mouth, and her Junior Clerk was so frequently reduced to tears that her eyes seemed permanently lachrymose and her nose was red from much mopping.
‘Well?’
I started to say that I was going downstairs to work immediately, when such a sharp, tearing pain hit me that I clutched the white roller towel and let out a moan more like the shriek of a woman in childbirth.
‘Good gracious, girl! Whatever’s the matter?’ Her usual bitter expression vanished.
My senses were leaving me, and I whispered, ‘It’s my period.’
She was much shorter than me, and elderly, but she said firmly, ‘Pull yourself together. Now, put your arm round my shoulder. I’ll help you into the Committee Room. You can sit down there.’
Eyes clenched shut, mouth open as I continued to groan and gasp, I thankfully put my arm round her shoulder and she supported me into the adjoining room. She dumped me on to a wooden chair and then put three other chairs together, and assisted me to lie down on them. The wood of the curved seats was not comfortable, but it was better than having to stand.
A couple of books from the bookcase were put under my head. She arranged me on my side with knees tucked up in a foetal position. Then she stood back, hands on hips, and surveyed me.
I could not control the deep, primeval groans that burst from me, as the pain surged in ever-greater waves. Tears would come later, when the agony was gone and I was left exhausted.
‘Poor girl,’ she exclaimed suddenly. ‘It’s worse than childbirth.’
Childbirth was something I hardly understood at that time, but much later in life I found that indeed she was correct.
‘I’ll get the office girl to make some strong tea,’ she promised, ‘and I’ll send up some aspirins.’ The scarifying Department Head had vanished completely and a very understanding woman had emerged. She did not waste time telling me to be brave or to stop the noise I was making. ‘You lie here and try to relax yourself – it might help.’
I whimpered, ‘Thank you – but aspirins don’t help much.’
‘They should if you take enough. We’ll try what four tablets will do.’
I curled myself up tighter, as another roll of pain went through me. ‘Mr Ellis...?’ Mr Ellis was the head of my department, a man of few words, usually very tart ones.
‘I’ll deal with him,’ she promised, and whisked out of the room.
It seemed a very long time before the door opened slowly and the office girl slid in with a tray of tea things. The girl was a replacement for my friend, Sylvia Poole, who had left to take training as a chiropodist. I wished frantically that Sylvia was with me. She was so sensible. I was very cold and was lying on my back, knees up, swaying them from side to side, unable to find easement, and threatening to fall off my perilous perch. As each peak of pain was reached, I would put my clenched fist against my mouth to muffle a shriek, and then moan, a noise which came from the depth of my being and had nothing to do with will.
The tea tray was put on another chair drawn close to me, and the frightened little girl, a mouse, aged fourteen, fumbled in the pocket of her blue overall. ‘She said I was to give you these.’ She handed me four aspirins from one pocket and then, very shyly, a sanitary towel from the other pocket. ‘She said I was to help you while you put it on.’
That meant I had to get on to my feet and make a trip to the cloakroom. I lay with eyes closed, wondering if I could do it.
‘She said to tell you to take big breaths,’ announced the girl, watching me pop-eyed, as if I were something in a cage.
‘Ask Miriam Enns to come and help me,’ I winced. Miriam was a stenographer, one of three who worked in a small office next to the Committee Room. She was in her late twenties and had been very kind to me. A dedicated Communist, she tended to attempt to recruit quite ruthlessly, so I had begun to avoid her, since I was not politically minded. I was too engrossed in trying to stay alive, to sidestep Mother’s terrible tempers, to educate myself, to be a good employee. To survive was all I asked of life.
Miriam came running. ‘Whatever happened?’ she asked. Her reddish hair drooped smoothly round a pixie face. She had a big mouth which could curve into a smile so sweet that one could hardly believe in the strong Party Worker lurking within. But she had the physical strength I needed very badly.
The moment she saw my contorted face, she understood. I had taken refuge before in her little office on several occasions when I had been struck like this while at work.
Miriam looked down at the tea tray and sent the office girl away. ‘OK, love. Have the tea first. Have you got any aspirin?’
I opened my clenched hand, to show the four tablets.
She raised her eyebrows. ‘That’s a lot.’
I took a large breath, as instructed. ‘The Cashier said – take four,’ I gasped.
‘Well, I suppose she’d know.’ The Cashier was never referred to by name, only as She or The Cashier. I called her Madam when I had to speak to her.
‘Oh, Miriam!’ I nearly screamed.
‘You’ll be all right, dear.’ She poured the tea and held it to my quivering lips, while I swallowed the aspirins. Then she sat by me and chafed my hands and talked about seeing a doctor.
‘I did, Miriam, and he just laughed – said I’d be all right when I married.’
‘The stupid fool,’ she exploded. ‘Consult someone privately.’
‘Miriam, I don’t have money for things like that.’
She was referring to doctors who practised outside the National Health system. I was registered with a National Health doctor and it was difficult to change one’s physician under this system. I felt I was lucky to have one doctor on whom to call, never mind anyone else. In suggesting a private physician, Miriam was, for once, allowing her middle-class instincts to outweigh her socialistic convictions.
I choked down the aspirin, and then we staggered to the cloakroom like a pair of drunks. Miriam kept one foot against the door, so that no one could enter, while she helped me wash myself.
Back in the Committee Room, she rearranged the chairs and I lay down again, while she ran downstairs to take dictation from one of the senior staff.
The pain did not go, and I longed for home. I suppose that the Charity could not afford a taxi to send me home – they were very short of funds – and I certainly could not go on the tram. The Society did own a car, but it was in use all day taking workers to visit clients in distress.
For a while, I continued to lie on the chairs, but then removed myself to the linoleum floor, where I could move more easily. The floor was very cold, but it was flat. Nowhere in the building, which housed some twenty-five women, if one included the employees of a tea company on the ground floor, was there a couch or easy chair for staff use. There was no place where one could eat a packed lunch, except for the minute kitchen adjacent to the Committee Room. Truly, the tailor’s child is the worst clad, and we lacked facilities which were increasingly being provided by thoughtful employers.
Halfway through the morning, the Cashier sent the office girl in with more tea and two more aspirins.