by Mary Gibson
‘I’ve got to, Johnny. I’m sorry.’ She felt mean denying him, but he knew the consequences of losing any one of her jobs. The Marigold cleaning alone would buy her coal for the week, and if this morning was anything to go by, she’d need it. ‘I’ll come tonight, after the French class is over. I promise.’
*
With thumping head and shivering limbs, she somehow managed to sweep, mop and polish the bars of the Marigold, and she was never gladder to see the Boutle’s coke ovens. She knew that with a day or two of breathing in the metal fumes again she’d be fine. It was just like Mrs Bacon’s hair of the dog: the poison was also sometimes the remedy. But Miss Dane caught her draping herself around the oven. ‘Go home, Kate!’ she ordered. ‘If you’re shivering you can’t seam straight anyway.’
‘No! It’s not a bad bout,’ she stuttered. Trying desperately to control her trembling limbs, she walked, under the suspicious eye of the supervisor, to her bench.
After cleaning the bookshop during her dinner hour, she didn’t know how she would get through the afternoon, let alone keep going till the French class. But Marge and Conny covered for her. Marge gave her aspirin and Conny helped her out when her arms and hands shook too violently to hold the soldering iron. Somehow, she survived the day and after work dragged herself to the bookshop to set up the class.
She was surprised to find Ethel waiting for her. Bookselling duties on Monday evenings were usually given over to a volunteer.
‘Kate, I’m afraid you won’t be needed tonight, the French class is cancelled – Nora is unwell.’
‘Oh, what’s the matter?’ Kate said, hoping her delight at being let off wasn’t too obvious.
‘I believe she had an accident at home.’
‘Is it serious?’
‘I think not. Mrs Cliffe tells me she’s had a fall – some bruising, nothing broken, thankfully.’
‘Is there anything I can do?’ she asked, hoping there wouldn’t be.
‘Well, as you mention it, I suppose it’s possible the students may wish to stay and practise conversation. In which case, perhaps you could give them refreshments as usual?’
She nodded wearily and Ethel stopped. ‘Are you quite well yourself? You’re looking slightly flushed.’
Kate felt sweat drench her whole body. ‘No. I’m fine.’
‘If you’re sure…’
Forcing a smile, she nodded and went upstairs to set up the room. She had just stood on a chair to get the cake tin from a high cupboard when she heard footsteps on the stairs.
‘Class is cancelled. The French teacher’s not coming!’ she shouted, hoping no one fancied conversing in French tonight.
‘Au contraire, le professeur de Français est ici!’ the musical voice rang out, and Kate swayed, light-headed now with fever. She tumbled down from the chair, sending the cake tin clattering to the floor. Nora rushed into the scullery carrying an armful of exercise books, which she dropped in order to help Kate to her feet.
‘The French teacher is here! Are you hurt?’
‘No. But I think the cake’s had it.’
As Nora bent to retrieve the scattered cake, Kate noticed her smooth cheek bore the shadow of a bruise, hidden by a thick layer of pale make-up. A dark purple ring beneath her eye was more difficult to disguise.
‘Should you be here, Nora? Ethel said you couldn’t come because you’d had a fall!’
Nora was usually graceful in all she did, but as she gathered up the notebooks, she winced.
‘There was no fall and I’m fine. I stupidly walked into a door, I’m terribly short-sighted!’
She struggled to take off her white fur collar. ‘Anyway, I’d much rather be here than languishing at home!’
It was painful to see how brightly she hid her injuries, which seemed as if they extended well beyond her beautiful face.
Kate spent a grateful hour resting in the scullery. Lulled by the sound of Nora’s lilting French, she dozed off, only to be woken by the cacophony of the class singing some French folk song.
After the students had demolished scones and tea, Kate was clearing up when Nora came to say goodbye.
‘Here, let me help you,’ Kate said as Nora struggled to put on her fur collar. Then, seeing that the poor woman could hardly raise her arms to put on her hat, she asked, ‘Shall I?’
Nora nodded and Kate placed it on top of her sleek, dark hair. The woman must have had a cracked rib and you didn’t get one of those from walking into doors. It wasn’t her place to say anything, but what if this had been Conny or Marge? Would she just let it go?
‘That was a bloody big door you walked into, wasn’t it, Nora? You know what I do when I walk into them sort of doors? I get a soldering iron from Boutle’s and I bash the living daylights out of them!’
The French teacher looked at her in astonishment and for an instant Kate thought she would get the same chilly response as before, but this time Nora smiled and then put a hand to her ribs. ‘Don’t make me laugh, Kate, it hurts. But really, you’ve got entirely the wrong end of the stick… or soldering iron!’
Kate didn’t know what to believe now. But if the woman didn’t want to confide in her, she couldn’t force her to. She knew how lonely it could feel when you were the one being bashed and no one else seemed to think it worth noticing or stopping.
‘All right. But if you need any help… at home, let me know. I’ll come over, do your cleaning, make a cup of tea. Though I expect you’ve already got a cleaner…’ She stopped short, feeling suddenly shy and stupid.
Nora put a hand on her arm and said, ‘I may not need a cleaner, but I do need a friend.’
*
As they walked out into Bermondsey Street, now dusted with a fresh fall of snow, Nora’s fur collar fluttered around her neck and Kate hugged herself, feeling as if she might faint.
‘Chibby’s sent the car.’ Nora walked to a black Daimler idling outside the bookshop. ‘Do you live nearby, Kate? Or can we drive you home?’
As she asked, Kate suddenly collapsed across the bonnet of the car. She was aware of never wanting to move from the deliciously warm spot and only reluctantly let go, slipping to the wet pavement.
She came round to find herself being lifted into the plush leather interior of the car by Nora’s driver. Now it was her turn to have brandy forced down her throat. It burned like liquid fire and she choked.
‘Sorry, miss!’ She was horrified to have embarrassed herself in front of this perfect woman.
‘You’re not well. Why didn’t you say? Tell me where you live. You can’t possibly walk home.’
Kate couldn’t think of anything worse than Nora seeing the place she lived, but though she protested, Nora refused to let her out of the car till she gave the chauffeur instructions. As the Daimler turned into the long, dark lane, she noticed the chauffeur’s head darting from side to side. It no doubt seemed a place not to linger at night, ending as it did at the river stairs. It didn’t help that the pub was turning out, and he probably feared for his boss’s car.
‘I’ll be all right from here,’ she said, reaching for the door.
‘No! We’ll help you up – it’s a garret, isn’t it?’ Nora said, scanning the rooftops.
‘He’d better stay here,’ she said under her breath. ‘He looks a bit nervous and you don’t want anything to happen to your husband’s car.’
Nora seemed to consider that. ‘I’ll come, then.’ And she helped Kate into the house and up the stairs to the garret room, lit only by the moon bouncing off snow on the rooftops. It was better if the place stayed in darkness, thought Kate – then the beautifully turned-out Nora would not see her two frocks hanging on a hook, or the threadbare blanket, or the crate she used as a food cupboard. But Nora found the lamp and lit it, flooding Kate’s shame with light.
Thankfully she stayed only long enough to help Kate to bed and to add a coat to the blanket. Kate was dimly aware of her saying goodnight before she fell into a feverish sleep. It was only when she woke
up the following morning to a banging on the front door that she remembered her promise to Johnny.
She crawled out of bed and called down to the Wilsons’ rooms, in a voice that scraped her throat like gravel, ‘Could you let him in!’
But it wasn’t Johnny. It was a delivery, which the youngest Wilson boy carried up to her, and when she opened the box, he gasped. ‘Look at all that grub!’
It was a food hamper. Tins of Scotch broth and salmon and ham, boxes of biscuits and porridge and packets of tea. Enough food to feed her for months.
‘Who brought it?’
‘Some bloke in a grey uniform. He come in this posh black car. Give me this for you too.’
The note, written on thick cream paper, read: To speed your recovery. Nora.
She gave the Wilson boy some of the tea and biscuits and a tin of salmon, with instructions to give them to his mother. ‘No eating the biscuits on the stairs!’ she said, and he gave her a grateful grin before clattering downstairs shouting, ‘Mum! Guess what Kate give us!’
Wishing she had the energy to make some breakfast from Nora’s gift, Kate instead went back to bed. Pulling up the blanket, she felt the softness of fur against her skin. Nora must have covered Kate with her coat, the white fur collar still attached. Perhaps, she wondered, across the gulf of wealth and class that separated them, it really was possible to find friendship.
*
When next she woke, soft, golden light from a low sun slid through the dormer. Had she slept all day? Johnny! She’d promised to go back last night. What must he think of her? She got out of bed too quickly and steadied herself, testing her limbs. She could stand, but she felt a cold wave of nausea wash over her. Metal fume fever could bring on sickness, but by now it ought to be abating. Perhaps she should eat. She opened some of Nora’s biscuits and felt better. Then, dressing warmly, she emptied the box of food and put Nora’s coat inside it. Hoping he’d be home, she went to Johnny’s.
Dressed in his old corduroys and jumper, his hair uncombed, he looked drawn and pale.
‘I’m sorry – I’ve not been well,’ she said in explanation.
He pulled her inside and held her tightly for a long time.
‘Thank God you’re here. I didn’t know what had happened to you – but I couldn’t leave her last night.’
She felt his heart thumping in his chest. Then he held her at arm’s length. ‘What happened?’
‘I’m all right now. I fainted at the bookshop, but I had a guardian angel. The French teacher drove me home! All I could do was fall into bed and I’ve slept all day. Johnny, I’m so sorry I couldn’t come and help you with your mum.’
He led her to his mother. ‘Her chest sounds bad, but then it always does, with all the fags and drink… She just can’t seem to get warm.’
He pulled up several blankets she’d thrown off. He must have been to the pawn shop to redeem them.
Kate put a hand to his cheek. ‘You’re a good son, Johnny. Go to bed for a bit and get some sleep. I’ll watch her.’
She sat with Mrs Bacon while Johnny slept, and after an hour she went upstairs. She didn’t like to wake him, but she had to work tonight. He’d looked so exhausted he’d probably sleep for hours, and when she crept into the room, it was obvious he’d just dropped onto the bed and fallen asleep on his back, his arms flung wide. He hadn’t had time to shave and his hair was tousled. He looked so young and so vulnerable that her heart went out to him and she leaned over to brush back his hair. He woke with a start. ‘Is she all right?’
‘Yes, yes, she’s still asleep,’ she said, sitting on the bed. ‘But I’ll have to go soon, I’m due at the bookshop.’
He pulled her down beside him. ‘Well, I’m not letting Ethel have you.’
She nestled into his arms and felt his cheek against hers, not minding the rough stubble of a day’s growth. He’d left the gas lamp burning and now, in its cosy glow, it was the most natural thing in the world to feel the length of his body against hers and his breath on her cheek and his lips on her mouth.
Eventually she pulled away and said, ‘We need to get up. I’ll make us our tea.’
‘I don’t know how you’re going to do that when there’s not a scrap of food in the house.’
She explained about the hamper and he said, ‘Nora looks a bit on the cold side, but she’s got a good heart.’
‘She’s not really cold at all.’
‘Her husband must be pretty well off to have a Daimler.’
‘I don’t know. I think it’s her money, not his. Martin told me she used to live in a chateau in France!’
‘But that’s no guarantee of anything. The aristocracy’s not what it was, not since the war – and it must be even worse in France.’
She knew he wouldn’t want to be impressed by her knowledge, mostly because it had come from Martin.
‘Well, whoever’s money it is, I don’t think they’re happy.’
‘And how do you know that? Don’t tell me, Noss Goss has been asking questions again!’ he teased.
‘Don’t you call me that!’ She thumped his arm. ‘It’s been bad enough putting up with it all these years from Janey.’
He mollified her with a kiss. ‘You’re right, I suppose I don’t like being called Rasher much. But I think Noss is just a compliment to your enquiring mind!’
She gave him a sidelong look. ‘Well, this enquiring mind is going to the bookshop. It’s the elocution class tonight. Come on, get up!’
After they’d eaten and she was putting on her coat, he said, ‘You shouldn’t be out in the cold. Surely they can put out the chairs and make their own tea?’
‘Ethel pays me to do it. I’ll come back later to see how your mum is.’
‘No. Go straight home to bed. I think she seems a bit better now, don’t you?’ he said with a hopeful glance towards the bed. Mrs Bacon did seem to be sleeping more calmly, so reluctantly she agreed and picked up the box.
He showed her to the door. ‘What’ve you got in there?’ he asked, tapping the box.
‘Nora’s coat – she lent it to me. But Mrs Cliffe’s teaching the elocution class, so I thought she could take it to Nora.’ She opened the box. ‘Beautiful, ain’t it?’
He looked up into her eyes. ‘It would be more beautiful on you. Try it on for me.’
‘No!’
‘Go on.’
It was good to see him looking more cheerful, and so she draped the coat with its fur collar over her shoulders.
He gasped. ‘I was right!’ He took her in his arms and kissed her. ‘It makes me wish I was a rich man, so I could buy you a wardrobe full of clothes like this…’
She gave him a gentle shove. ‘Well, I prefer you poor.’
*
Whatever she’d told Johnny about feeling fine was untrue. She was still in the grip of fume fever, but with the help of another night’s sleep and more of the contents of Nora’s hamper, she was able to force herself in to work the next day. Wednesday night at the bookshop had become one of her favourite times. The little kitchen was like a private box at the theatre and she’d begun to appreciate the play readings and the rehearsals. It was a surprise to find that Shakespeare wasn’t as difficult to understand as she’d thought. They’d read some at school, but it had seemed as dry as dust to her then. Only now that she heard them performed did the plays come to life. She quickly realized that if the actors were good, the meaning shone through the old-fashioned language. The group was rehearsing for a performance of The Winter’s Tale. And Kate was surprised to find that Ethel and Nora were among the cast. She knew that Ethel had been an actress before the Bermondsey Bookshop venture had claimed her – it explained her sometimes theatrical way of declaiming her instructions about what Kate should clean next: she was full of prithees and haplys, which Kate largely let go over her head – but Nora didn’t seem the theatrical type at all. Perhaps she’d just rather be here than at home.
Before long Kate found herself riveted by the story of mad King L
eontes, who cruelly abandons his daughter, Perdita, in that ‘desert place’. And though Archie Goss wasn’t a king or anything like, it made her wonder if something more than grief had been behind her own exile in East Lane. She’d certainly come off worse than Perdita – with an Aunt Sylvie instead of a kindly old shepherd to care for her. And yet it wasn’t so much this part of the story that moved her as that of the king’s falsely accused and harshly treated wife, Hermione – who was being played by Nora. Kate felt an almost electric chill at the lines which Nora spoke with such calm dignity:
I am not prone to weeping, as our sex
Commonly are; the want of which vain dew
Perchance shall dry your pities: but I have
That honourable grief lodged here which burns
Worse than tears drown…
She knew the truth behind the lines, she’d known women like that in her own family: tears rarely shed and love seldom expressed. But whereas Sylvie was hard, her Aunt Sarah was simply stoical. She knew Nora was only acting a part, but Kate was certain that the woman’s coolness was simply a protective shell that might fall away at the merest hint of warmth from another human being. She wanted to seek out that husband of hers and give him a crack with the soldering iron herself.
After the rehearsal, Nora came to the kitchen. ‘Thank you for the return of the coat, Kate. But I meant you to keep it,’ she said, holding it out to her.
‘Keep it?’ For a moment Kate couldn’t understand why, and then she realized how poor her garret must have looked, and how Nora must have noticed that she had just the one coat. The kindness only made her want to cry with shame.
‘It’s really kind but I couldn’t accept it.’
‘But why not?’ Nora’s direct gaze showed no hint of offence. ‘A gift from a friend, that’s all,’ she insisted, pressing the coat into Kate’s arms.
Kate herself had felt the weight and warmth of the coat as a sign of friendship, so why did she find it so humiliating to accept it? Because Nora had probably a dozen or more coats at home, and that made a difference. However much Ethel wanted the bookshop to be common ground for the mean streets and the Mayfairs, there was still a gulf much wider than the Thames to be spanned.
