Free West End Girls: The Real Lives, Loves and Friendships of 1940s Soho and Its Working Girls by Barbara Tate

and I had a nervous feeling that it wasn’t all going to be as simple as I had supposed.
     
    As the second day melted into the third, I gradually became acclimatised to the conveyor-belt system. I was glad I now had a key, as it was evident that during the working day, I could do nothing but attend to Mae; the sink was still crammed with the same crockery it had held when I arrived. Numerous cups of tea seemed necessary to her existence; they were mostly left untouched, though, as they served largely as an excuse for a pause and a chat. I became a tea addict myself, and found something comforting and basic about making and drinking a pot. Basic comfort was needed in this new life of mine.
    While we were having a rare proper tea break, with the door to the flat shut, we heard a gentle but steady tramping of feet on the stairs. It sounded as though we were being invaded by an army of orderly soldiers. The steps halted outside our door and were followed by a polite knock. We stared at one another, then both made for the door, Mae slightly ahead. When she opened it, over her shoulder I saw a row of anxious choirboy-like heads, each surmounted by neatly slicked hair and balanced on top of a tidy navy-blue serge suit. There was a long silence as we all gazed at one another. The leading alto tried to say something but failed. Mae broke the silence.
    ‘Look, duckies, I’m just having a cup of tea.’ She paused. ‘Come back in a couple of years.’ She closed the door and leaned against it weakly.
    ‘Well, did you see that? Can’t have been more than sixteen years old, any of ’em. One would have been bad enough, but four! Blimey!’ She brooded over her tea for a bit. ‘I don’t know what kids are coming to these days. It’s bloody disgusting!’
    At the venerable age of twenty-one, I agreed.

Seven

    The next day I arrived almost at the crack of dawn. First I examined the wallpaper along the hallway, and decided there was so much of it missing already that there wasn’t much point in trying to stick back the loose bits. So I had a jolly quarter of an hour ripping it all off. While I was doing this, for the first time I noticed the array of ancient fuse boxes high up towards the ceiling. They hung off the wall, dangling a plethora of bare cables and cobwebs – surely they couldn’t work in that state. Then my eye caught sight of the thick black electric wire running along the angle of the ceiling and disappearing through a small hole in the wall into the building next door. So that was the secret! I shook my head and returned to my work.
    It was eerie, alone there in that large derelict building with all its locked rooms. Even the shop on which it all rested was boarded up and empty. But for the sound of a dripping tap somewhere, it was as quiet as the grave. The noises I made with my cleaning seemed out of place, and I could feel the ghostly inmates of the past watching my efforts. The pigeons on the window ledges outside didn’t help my nerves much either: several times I jumped with fright as, in sudden clattering batches, they launched into flight.
    Amongst the litter on the hall floor were a number of flyers in varying stages of decomposition, the tattered remains of a rates demand and a couple of mildewed Inland Revenue envelopes, optimistically addressed to ‘The Occupier’. I swept them up with the rest of the rubbish, then scraped away at the numerous lumps of chewing gum. Finally I scrubbed the stairs and passageway with strong pine disinfectant. I had just had time to wash the grime off myself when Mae arrived.
    ‘Crikey!’ she gasped. ‘I thought I’d come to the wrong house – smells like a bleeding hospital!’
    ‘By the way,’ I said, ‘did you know that we are using next door’s electricity?’
    ‘Go on! Is that a fact?’
    I took her down to show her the disappearing flex.
    ‘Well, what d’you know!’ She stared up at it for a while, then burst out laughing, ‘What a stinker ! That