by Mary Gibson
‘There’s no money for bus fares over the West End, and anyway, she’ll make better money in the jam factory. They’re crying out for girls, God knows, they don’t want the men any more since the war,’ he’d told her mother. So she had gone to Southwell’s and her dream had, if not died, at least gone into a long hibernation. Kitty suddenly interrupted her daydreaming.
‘What you smiling to yourself for?’ she’d asked, and suddenly Milly remembered where she was meant to be. She got up abruptly, pushing the chair back, so that it fell to the floor.
‘Come on, Kit, for chrissake, get yourself moving or we’ll miss the sewing circle!’ she said in real panic, scrabbling to pick up the chair.
Pat had been very generous with the drinks, round had followed round, and by now both Milly and Kitty were far too tipsy to walk straight. Pat and Freddie were about to walk out with them.
‘No, we’re going on our own!’ Milly protested, trying to push Pat’s hand away as he steadied her. She missed him and toppled forward on to Kitty, who bumped back on to the table, rocking the glasses precariously.
‘Mind the drinks!’ Freddie lunged for the slopping beer glasses.
‘All right, but I don’t think you’ll be getting much sewing done tonight!’ Pat eyed them both uncertainly. ‘I’ll come and pick you up later, Mill, come and get the stuff, all right?’
But Milly and Kitty were already stumbling out of the door. Milly started to trot, her friend lagging behind her, as they weaved their way along Hickman’s Folly. There was only one gas lamp in the street, so they stumbled several times in the soupy gloom of the foggy night. A figure came out at them suddenly, but it was only Quackers, a white-faced wraith of a man who never walked but only skipped and jumped across each paving stone, as though avoiding the unexploded bombs of no-man’s-land. The poor man had been ruined by shell shock and was mercilessly taunted by the local children as he crouched at loud noises, earning his nickname by shouting ‘Duck! Duck!’ Milly usually stopped to talk to him; he reminded her of Charlie, and couldn’t have been much older. But tonight they hurried on and had passed him long before he’d had time to warn them to duck.
When they finally arrived, breathless and giggling, at the Settlement, the doors were closed and the lights burning in every room. The lectures and clubs were obviously well under way. From inside came the strains of piano and violin, and a quavering soprano singing an old English folk song, a jaunty, country air, which seemed totally at odds with the soot-wreathed maze of crumbling courts surrounding the Settlement.
Milly caught Kitty round the waist and began to whirl her in a drunken country dance, which one of the missionaries at the Guild of Play had taught them when they were children. They ended by tumbling back down the curving flight of stone steps leading up to the Settlement door and were both on their backsides, laughing so loudly that Milly didn’t hear the door open. Backlit by the warm light from the hall, Miss Florence Green stood, waiting for their laughter to subside. Sweet of face and nature, Miss Green was Milly’s favourite at the Settlement. She ran the sewing circle and had encouraged Milly’s talent for needlework. She loved Miss Green because she was always totally impartial. She’d come to help the poor of Bermondsey, and neither cared nor enquired what religion they were. Catholics and Protestants alike were all welcome to whatever charity was on offer, in the way of free country holidays, clothes, food or medical care.
Milly spotted her at the door and waved in drunken gaiety. ‘Hello, Flo, me old cocker!’
As she pulled Kitty up, the two girls stumbled up the steps and Miss Green swung open the door to admit them. The young missionary stood facing the two girls, and Milly thought she read disappointment in her face.
‘Milly, I believe you’re inebriated,’ she said sadly.
If it had been anyone else, Milly would have given her a cheeky answer, but instead she breathed deeply and tried to focus her eyes on the plain, pleasant features of Miss Green.
‘Ever so shorry, Mishh Green,’ she mumbled, as she passed into the hall, ‘have we missed the sewing?’
She turned to Kitty for help. But her friend had unaccountably slumped to the floor and was now clinging to Milly’s ankles like a drowning woman. ‘Ohhh, I do feel bad, Mill. Can I just stay here and go to sleep?’
Miss Green sighed. ‘No, you can’t stay there, Kitty,’ she said firmly, and bent to grasp Kitty’s arms. ‘Quickly, Milly, you take her legs. Help me get her into the dining room.’
Though she had twice the strength of Miss Green, Milly was less help than she would normally have been, and while they were struggling with Kitty a man poked his head out of one of the lecture rooms.
‘Can I help?’ he said to Miss Green, who nodded gratefully. As he lifted Kitty in his arms, Milly’s unfocused eyes thought she recognized him. She followed him as he carried her friend to a chair in the empty, oak-panelled dining room where, slumped and insensible, she immediately began to snore.
‘Thanks ever sho much...’ Milly couldn’t remember his name.
‘Bertie... Hughes, and you’re very welcome.’ He smiled and, as he left, laid a hand on Miss Green’s shoulder, whispering something Milly could not hear.
‘You sit down too, Milly dear,’ Miss Green said, bringing up another chair. ‘You’re not fit for sewing tonight, I’m afraid.’
‘Oh, that’s not fair, I want to finish Mum’s dress!’ Milly protested.
Miss Green pulled up a chair close to the two girls. ‘Milly, if you can’t walk a straight line, I doubt you’ll be able to sew one tonight. You don’t want to spoil all your hard work, do you?’
The woman’s good sense penetrated Milly’s foggy, drunken haze and she began to feel ashamed of herself. What must Miss Green think of her, turning up here, of all places, blind drunk? But whatever she thought, her voice remained calm and gentle. Milly’s home life was no secret and the woman had gone out of her way to make her feel comfortable in this wood-panelled imitation of a country house, amidst the slums.
‘There’s plenty of time to finish it before Christmas. You two can sleep it off in here, till we lock up. No one will disturb you.’
And with that, Miss Green glided out and back to her more sober pupils in the sewing circle.
Milly called a beery thank you after her and addressed an oblivious Kitty. ‘God love her, Kit, that woman may be a proddywack, but I’ll give a shilling for a pinch o’ sugar she’ll end up in heaven.’
Soon Milly had joined Kitty in her beer-fuelled slumber and it wasn’t until almost eleven o’clock that Miss Green came to rouse them.
Pat was waiting outside, with his engine running. She said a quick goodnight to Kitty, then jumped up a little shakily on to the running board and into the cab. Soon they were rattling down Shad Thames, the long, narrow canyon of warehouses running parallel to the river. A group of noisy dockers, working night shift at Butler’s Wharf, swore as they were forced to jump out of the path of the lorry. During the day the street was packed with lorries and carts, but was now largely deserted. Iron gantries criss-crossed above them at crazy angles, linking warehouses on either side of the road, blocking out the stars and adding to the claustrophobic feel of the narrow street. Milly was glad when they arrived at Pat’s small lorry yard. Halfway down Shad Thames, it was little more than a space between two warehouses, bricked in at the back and with wooden double gates added at the front. Pat edged the lorry into the yard and jumped out. Milly went to follow, but he put out a hand to stop her.
‘Stay there and shut your eyes. What you don’t see can’t hurt you!’ he said, grinning. ‘Can’t have you witnessing a crime, can we?’
Ignoring his advice, she kept her eyes open. In the wing mirror she could see him lounging at the open gate, smoking. Soon she heard another lorry pull up and, slumping down in the greasy seat, she reached through the open window to angle the mirror for a better view. She was now quite sober, but the lorry smelled strongly of cigarette smoke and petrol fumes and she was feeling queasy. S
he craned her neck and saw Pat giving the driver of the other lorry a wad of pound notes. The other driver was well built with fair hair and although her view was obscured, she felt sure it was Freddie Clark. Soon there came a thumping and scraping as the two men transferred box after box of tinned food on to the back of Pat’s lorry. The whole transaction took less than half an hour, and once the other lorry had driven off, Milly heard Pat pulling tarpaulin over the contraband.
‘Let’s have a look then,’ she said, joining him at the tail board.
He started piling tins into a sack, then presented them to her. ‘Your mother’s going to love me!’ he said.
The words were hardly out of his mouth when they heard a loud whistling and the sound of many booted feet, ringing along Shad Thames.
‘Shit! Coppers! Quick, under there!’ Pat shoved her towards the back of the yard, hastily covering her with a pile of old oily sacks. ‘Don’t come out till they’re gone!’ he ordered.
The first policeman was already at the gates. She heard him shout. ‘Donovan, get out here!’
Milly was trembling beneath the sacks and feeling sicker than ever. Stifling her retches, she strained to hear what was going on at the yard gate. As more police arrived, there was a great deal of scuffling. It sounded as if they were removing the tarpaulin from the lorry.
‘Going into the wholesale business, Pat?’ she heard a policeman say.
‘What about it? That’s not illegal,’ Pat replied calmly. ‘They’re seconds, dented.’
‘Whether they’re dented or not, I couldn’t say, Patsy, but I’m bloody sure they’re bent.’
She heard the coppers laugh loudly, and one said, ‘You got any more stashed away? What you got down the end there?’
Milly held her breath, silently repeating Hail Marys as she waited to be discovered under the sacks. Stray bits of dust and sacking were getting down her throat and she gagged on her prayers.
Then another policeman, obviously in charge, called out. ‘All right, lads, we haven’t got all night, let’s escort the gentleman back to Tower Bridge nick for a nice cuppa! Oh, and we’ll be confiscating your lorry, Donovan.’
‘I could do with a cuppa, strong, two sugars!’ she heard Pat say cheekily, and wondered if he’d be less cooperative if she hadn’t been bundled under a load of sacks at the back of the yard. She heard the lorry reversing out, but waited for another ten minutes before emerging from her hiding place. She shoved at the gates and groaned as they resisted. ‘Oh, Pat Donovan, I don’t think my mother’s going to love you after all, and neither am I!’
She was locked in.
9
When the Bough Breaks
December 1923
Milly looked around the yard for a means of escape. She soon realized Pat had landed her in a prison every bit as secure as Tower Bridge nick. On either side were the sheer, brick walls of two warehouses; at the back was another unscalable wall. The gate was the only way out. She gave it a good kick, but the outer padlock held fast. If she couldn’t go through, she’d have to go over it.
She began searching for something to stand on. Though the fog had lifted a little, the crescent moon gave scant light, and as she stumbled around the yard her foot caught on a hard metal box and she fell heavily on to the oily cobbles. She swore silently, sod you, Pat Donovan, and your bloody tins of soup!
The box wasn’t large enough to help her over the gates, but thinking it might contain tools that could break the padlock, she lifted the lid. She drew in a sharp breath. Pale moonlight traced the unmistakable outline of a gun. She stroked her finger lightly along the barrel, feeling it slick and icy from the night fog. Her legs trembled as she got to her feet. Whatever Pat was involved in, it was far more dangerous than a few tins of stolen soup. With a thumping heart, she carefully closed the box, shoving it deep under the pile of sacks. She had to get away. What if the police came back?
Trying not to panic, she felt around the rest of the yard till she found some empty tea crates. Dragging them one by one to the gate, she piled them up like steps. Then clambering up to the top crate, she let the sack of tins fall to the ground, before swinging over the gate and dropping surefootedly to the other side. She checked each direction quickly, then grabbing the sack of tins, sprinted off down the dimly lit Shad Thames. She hurtled round Dockhead and didn’t stop till she arrived, sweating and heaving for breath, at her front door.
Since Milly’s exile, her mother always left the key on a string inside the letterbox, so she could come and go at all hours. She crept into the passage. No one was stirring, but as she let herself into the bedroom, Elsie roused.
‘What time is it?’ she murmured as Milly turned her over and slipped into bed.
‘Not late, go back to sleep.’
‘Phew, you stink of oil, you’ve been in Pat’s lorry!’ Elsie pushed herself up on to her elbow, peering at Milly in the darkness. ‘And what’s in that sack you put under the bed?’
‘Mind your own business.’
‘I’m telling Mum,’ Elsie threatened.
Milly dug her sister in the ribs. ‘Don’t you say nothing, hear me?’
Elsie might be a daydreamer, but it sometimes surprised Milly how much she took in. Everyone in Arnold’s Place called her ‘Polly Witch’ because sometimes her oft-ridiculed dreams came true. She’d recount a dream about someone visiting them, and sure enough that person would turn up. At other times the effect was more sensational. Only last year she’d gone around telling everyone that she’d dreamed of twins being born and the next week, Mrs Williams, who didn’t even know she was pregnant, gave birth to two identical tiny boys. This had sealed Elsie’s reputation as the prophetess of Arnold’s Place. It unsettled Milly intensely, especially when there were things she’d rather keep secret, for Elsie had a way of looking sideways at her before revealing just the very thing that Milly had been hoping to keep to herself. Like tonight’s escapade.
Still trembling with fright and the exertion of her escape, she tucked her feet under Amy, who lay like a warm lapdog at the foot of the bed, and eventually fell into a fitful sleep.
The following morning, Milly’s mother woke her with a whispered, ‘Did you hear about the shenanigans last night? Pat Donovan’s been nicked with a lorryload of stolen tins down at his yard!’
How she’d found out so quickly was a mystery, but it seemed Pat’s arrest was already known to everyone in Arnold’s Place. Pat’s mother, old Ma Donovan, who lived in a cramped court of six houses just off Hickman’s Folly, was apparently already being visited as though she were in mourning.
‘I’ll have to go and see that poor mother of his!’ Ellen Colman shook her head sympathetically, though Milly hardly felt the woman deserved any. She’d lived off Pat’s thieving for years, had even encouraged it.
Milly was relieved that at least her mother didn’t know about her own narrow escape. While she’d gratefully accept any goods ‘off the back of a lorry’, Mrs Colman wouldn’t want her own daughter to risk arrest. She’d brought them up to be good Catholic girls and clung to the illusion that her family was ‘respectable’. Milly thought her father had put paid to that fantasy years before.
‘The old man’s on earlies. While he’s out of the way, come and have a bit of breakfast with us,’ her mother urged. ‘At least I’ll know you’ve had something to eat.’
Milly didn’t need much persuasion. She got ready quickly. The times when she could eat at her own table with her mother were few enough. But when she came downstairs and sat at the table, there was Elsie’s pale pixie face opposite her, with those slightly upturned grey eyes, like clear accusing pools. She gave her a fierce glare while their mother’s back was turned and mimed a strangling motion. But her sister stared at her, unblinking.
‘Mrs Knight told me, when I was scrubbing the step this morning,’ her mother turned towards her, while slicing a loaf held against her flat chest, ‘that her old man said you was drinking in the Folly with Pat last night.’
She
dumped a slice in front of Milly and pushed the dripping basin towards her. As Milly helped herself, Elsie piped up.
‘She was in ever so late, Mum, she woke me up, and she hid this big sack under the bed.’
Mrs Colman looked sharply at Milly. ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, don’t tell me you had anything to do with it, Milly!’
‘Stop stirring it, you!’ Milly gave Elsie a sharp kick in the shins and turned an innocent face to her mother.
‘He just gave me a few tins of stuff, but I wasn’t there when he got nicked!’ she lied. ‘I was at the Settlement last night, you can ask Kitty if you like!’
Her mother’s face fell. ‘Oh, Mill, don’t you bring no trouble home to my door! If I haven’t got enough of it, with the old man, I don’t want you turning out like...’
Her mother left the words unspoken, but still they stung Milly. There were so many unspoken words between them these days, and so few opportunities for talking. But her mother’s implied criticisms and disappointments smarted more than the Seville orange juice trickling into the myriad unseen tiny cuts on Milly’s hands, at work.
‘Oh, don’t start jawing me, Mum. I see little enough of you, without you starting on me!’
Her mother pursed her lips and handed Elsie the knife and loaf. ‘Here, cut yourself and Amy a slice, no more’n one each!’
Undoing her apron, she announced, ‘I’m going to church.’
It was a weekday, but Mrs Colman had taken to going to early morning Mass whenever her home life felt particularly precarious.
As soon as she was gone, Milly launched herself out of her seat.
‘You little nark!’ She lunged for Elsie, but before she could reach her, the bread knife flashed between them and Milly rocked back, only inches from the blade.
Elsie’s temper could be as swift and terrible as the old man’s. And though Milly didn’t believe Elsie would harm her, knowing her sister’s unpredictability, she opted for caution. She backed away, picked up her slice of bread, pulled her coat off the back of the chair and strolled out of the kitchen, chewing on the bread, just to show Elsie how unimpressed she was.
