by Mary Gibson
Her mother frowned and she began to nervously pluck at her bottom lip.
‘Mum, I reckon he’s set himself up at that woman’s pub over in Whitechapel. I think he’ll be gone for a while.’
Her mother was silent. Surely she must have seen this day coming? But perhaps she’d got so used to living under his tyranny, she couldn’t imagine any other life.
‘Mum,’ Milly persisted, ‘we’ve got to work out how you’re going to live.’
To her dismay, her mother’s head dropped and she threw up her apron to cover her face. Milly heard her muffled wailing prayer.
‘Oh Gawd, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, bless us’n spare us’n save us’n keep us, what am I going to do now?’
In spite of Milly’s best efforts it took a couple of hours to dispel her mother’s fears that she and Amy would end up in the workhouse. Milly stayed with her, until at last she calmed down enough to admit that the old man leaving might be a blessing in disguise. Back at Storks Road that night she decided she must spend an hour with Jimmy. His new favourite toy was Mrs Salter’s gift and they played with the rabbit till she felt she had her child back again. Then she took him on her lap and sang him one of her mother’s old favourites. ‘Mother, I love you, I will work for two. You worked for me, a long, long time, and now I will work for you.’
‘Again!’ the little boy said, contentedly sucking at the rabbit’s ear. And she sang it again and again, till all traces of his earlier rage had left those calm, brown eyes. ‘There’s Mummy’s boy.’
She kissed him gently on the forehead and took him up to her own bedroom, where she lay down next to him. Waiting for him to drift off to sleep, she began to walk every possible path ahead of her. She and her mother were facing the same future. Neither of their husbands might be returning, and if that happened, she must be the one to ensure they didn’t all end up in St Olave’s Workhouse. She lifted her hand above her head; moonlight coming through the window made shadow patterns on the wall. This was a favourite game of Bertie’s to lull Jimmy at bedtime. Now she waggled her fingers, making for him a swan, a dog, a deer and a snake. If only those fingers could conjure enough money to keep them all safe. But perhaps they could! It would be her own nimble fingers – sorting fruit at Southwell’s, picking hops in Kent, sewing clothes into the night – that would keep them all afloat.
Soon the shadow patterns soothed Jimmy into peaceful slumber. She herself slept only fitfully, fully clothed, curled up next to Jimmy, and in the early light woke with a start, stiff and frightened. She had been dreaming that Bertie was home. He’d come through the door, calling for his beautiful girl, but he was more vibrant, more glowing with health than she had ever seen his pale grocer’s face in reality. His smile was radiant, but as she ran to embrace him, he turned, and still smiling over his shoulder, walked out of the house. The dream left her bereft, as if life had taunted her with wonderful possibilities, only to snatch them away.
She’d slept a few short hours and it was now just past dawn. Groaning at the stiffness in her limbs, she eased herself out of bed and went downstairs. She took out the dress she’d been working on before Bertie’s accident, and began to sew.
It was a simple navy shift, with a nautical feel, long white collar over a straight bodice, the low waist emphasized by a white band. After two hours’ work, Milly was satisfied. She wrapped the dress and put it with another she’d made, identical, but in a different size. She’d intended to wait till she had enough money to rent a stall, but there was no time for that. She’d have to hang the dresses from the pram, and hope for the best.
Later that day Milly came home from the market with enough money to pay the rent on Storks Road, and some to spare. Pleased with her morning’s takings, she decided to buy her mother some groceries when she dropped the children at Arnold’s Place. With two children in tow, she didn’t want to cart the shopping all the way from Tower Bridge Road, but when she reached Hughes’ shop she hesitated, embarrassed to go in. She hadn’t set foot in the grocery since Bertie’s dismissal. For a while she fiddled about with the pram, making sure Jimmy was well strapped in at one end and Marie contented at the other. Then, determined not to let the Hughes stop her from shopping in her own street, she pushed through the door, making certain the bell rang loud enough to ensure she couldn’t be ignored. Short, with wispy hair and a pudgy face, the man behind the counter looked nothing like Bertie. He gave her a stony stare.
‘We don’t give tick.’
This was plainly untrue as she could see the familiar slate hanging at the end of the counter. He obviously knew who she was. She shouldn’t have been shocked at the depth of the Hughes’ disapproval of her, but perhaps she’d grown so used to being Mrs Hughes, she’d forgotten she was once Milly Colman. Still, she was determined not to disgrace Bertie by making a show of herself. She clenched her fists to control her temper and swallowed the tart reply that rose to her lips.
Pulling her purse from her bag, she said, ‘I can pay.’
‘Well, I don’t want your custom here,’ he said, placing his squat hands on to the counter. ‘You’re not welcome in my shop.’
She stared back at him, then, about to turn round and simply walk out, something in her snapped. She could swallow her own pride but this man was insulting her husband, and that she could not let him get away with. She turned swiftly, shooting out a hand to grasp the lapel of his white overall. His eyes widened with shock and he pulled away, but this only strengthened her grip. Forgive me, Bertie, she said silently, knowing this would only confirm the Hughes’ opinion of her, but she didn’t care.
‘First of all, it’s not your shop, it’s yer uncle’s. And in case you don’t know it, I’m your cousin’s wife and you should have more respect when the poor man’s lying in Guy’s at death’s door!’
She shoved him away, sending him crashing into an oil can, but as she flung open the door, he recovered enough to shout after her. ‘And he’s only there because he’s hooked up with the likes of you!’
She didn’t look back. With trembling hands she pushed the pram down Arnold’s Place, her breath coming in short gasps, grateful that she had her back to the shop and Hughes could not see the angry tears his words had caused to flow.
27
Tuppence for the Tram
May–September 1926
The confrontation in Hughes’ shop had shaken Milly more than she liked to admit. Her marriage to Bertie had given her a place to hide, a place to play at being a normal wife and mother, but Bertie’s absence, combined with his cousin’s disdain, had ripped that protection from her and now she felt again like that vilified, unmarried mother who could be scorned and ignored and insulted at will. Her charmed time with Bertie had perhaps softened her too much and now she felt she must rebuild the calluses. She missed her old thick skin, and the cruel wit that could ward off an insult as easily as a thump from one of her strong arms. She needed to toughen up, but only until Bertie came home, she told herself, just until he was back by her side.
The other thing she needed to do was find a job. Who knew how long Bertie would be in Guy’s, and though Dr Salter had waived all the fees, she still had to find two rents and feed two families. She would have to go back to Southwell’s. Bertie wouldn’t like it, but he wasn’t here to object. She only hoped that her help on the picket lines had gone unnoticed.
Outside the factory gates, a large board had been erected: Former strikers wishing to reapply for their jobs are to report to the works office.
Obviously strikers weren’t being allowed to walk back into work, not without the humiliating exercise of begging for their old jobs. She joined the queue of men and women that stretched back from the factory gates, all the way to Southwell’s Wharf on the river. Almost at the end of the queue she came upon Kitty and a group of the other jam girls.
‘How long have you been waiting?’ she asked Kitty.
‘I’ve been back every day since the strike ended. They keep you hanging about then send you home, say there’s a backlo
g. But it’s punishment really. They could open the gates and take us all back in a morning, but the buggers won’t do it. But how’s Bertie, love?’
‘He’s no better and money’s getting tight. I’ve got to go back to work, Kit, that’s why I’m here.’ She peered anxiously down the queue.
‘Oh, you’ll be here all day! But it’s only strikers have to go through all the rigmarole, and you weren’t on strike! New applicants can walk straight in!’
‘But that’s not fair – I could be taking your job. I won’t do that.’
Kitty put a hand on Milly’s arm. ‘Don’t be a dozy mare. You need that job and I say good luck to you, if you can get it. Go on!’ Kitty shooed her off and Milly reluctantly made her way back to the factory gates. She began searching for her old champion, Tom Pelton, and found him outside one of the warehouses.
‘No, no, no, you silly sod, don’t lift it like that!’ he was shouting at a young boy, struggling to manoeuvre a seven-pound stone jar off a trolley. He was obviously unused to lifting heavy objects. Tom spotted Milly and raised his eyes.
‘Come on, Milly, show him how it’s done, will ya!’ He threw up his hands. ‘See her.’ He drew the boy’s attention to Milly. ‘She could lift that and you at the same bleedin’ time. Now put a bit of effort into it.’ But the boy’s attempts ended with the stone jar toppling off the trolley, strawberry jam oozing slowly through the cracked top.
Tom groaned and turned away. ‘I give up.’ He shook his head. ‘There’s a hundred men out there could do this blindfolded. I’ve asked the managers to let me get ’em back to work, but will they? It’s ridiculous. The business is suffering. Anyway, what can I do for you, love? Sorry to hear about your husband, how is he?’
Sometimes she wished people wouldn’t ask. ‘Not so good, Tom.’ She took a deep breath. It seemed like she’d come at the wrong time to ask a favour. ‘Thing is, I don’t know when he’ll be out of hospital and I need to work. Have you got anything for me, Tom?’
‘Have I got anything for you?’ He rubbed his chin, keeping her waiting, then broke into a large smile. ‘Have I got anything for a girl who can actually do the job, ’stead of standing round waiting to be told what to do? You just made my day, love. I’ve got a picking room full of strawberries and all the new women I’ve taken on don’t know their arse from their elbow. Start when you like.’
The young boy behind them had cleared up the mess and now hovered behind Tom, holding the remains of the sticky stone jar in a sack. ‘Where should I put it, Mr Pelton?’
Tom pulled a face at Milly. ‘I’d like to tell him, but I’ll only have to repeat it in confession on Saturday!’
Milly felt elated and guilty at the same time. She looked for Kitty at the gates but she still hadn’t reached the front of the queue. It felt awkward to have gained from the vindictive rehiring procedure, but she was sure Tom Pelton wouldn’t rest till he’d got all his old girls back. With a family the size of the Bunclerks’, Kitty needed a job just as quickly as Milly did.
Visiting hours were strictly enforced at the hospital, two hours in the afternoon and two in the evening. This would be the last afternoon she could visit Bertie because she’d told Tom she would start work the next day. Even though the next two hours would be agonizing, it gave her comfort just to be near Bertie, to be close enough to hear his breathing. For however shallow, each breath meant he was still alive, still able to return to her.
As she walked to Guy’s Hospital, she saw the scene at the Southwell gates repeated outside all the factories she passed along the way. Crowds of dockers who’d been turned away from a day’s work huddled about wharves, and files of factory workers waited outside gates, hoping to be rehired. But they all had a broken, defeated air about them, as though, like Oliver Twist, they had been foolish enough to ask for more and now were being soundly punished for it. She remembered her favourite nun, Sister Clare, reading that book to them. She’d told them Fagin’s den was a ramshackle wooden building on Jacob’s Island, by Folly Ditch, a long-lost incarnation of Hickman’s Folly, before it had been paved over and ‘improved’ with brick houses.
But thinking of the Bunclerks all squashed into their damp, rundown couple of rooms, Milly realized that not much had changed. Brick terraces might have replaced the earlier dilapidated wooden buildings, but life was still as hard. It was no wonder people like Pat and Freddie kept turning to crime. Somehow it seemed much less of a struggle than earning an honest bob or two. They might have to spend a couple of years in prison, but at least they never went cap in hand to anyone. Her Bertie was so different. There wasn’t a dishonest bone in his body, and yet the strike had broken him, just as much as it had these dispirited dockers.
It was almost as though she had conjured him up with her musings, for just as she turned into the railway arch leading to St Thomas’s Street she spotted him ahead of her. That familiar stocky figure, with his bouncy, cocky walk, hands stuffed in pockets, sandy hair curling from under his cap. She slowed her steps, praying that the dim light beneath the arch had misled her, but some instinct must have alerted him and he whirled round. Now she was certain. Pat Donovan had done his time.
She halted, feeling trapped in the echoing tunnel, as the beating of her heart competed with the thundering of a train passing overhead. Seeing her momentary hesitation, he gave a bitter laugh.
‘What’s the matter? Brave Milly Colman, scared of me?’ His voice rang harshly in the brick vault.
She began walking slowly towards him. ‘Scared of you? Do me a favour, Pat, try living with my old man, then see how hard you are.’ She brushed past, half expecting him to tag along as he had in those long-gone days when he would walk her home from the Folly. But instead he caught her arm, jerking her round.
‘Hold up, gel! I’m not the same stupid little git who fell for you, Milly Colman. You don’t survive in nick by being a Mary-Ann like that grocer of your’n.’
She tried to shrug him off, but his grip tightened.
‘Oh, I heard all about it, one tap on the head and he’s out sparko. Is that where you’re goin’?’ He shoved her aside. ‘Go on then, off to see yer wounded soldier. But don’t think I’ll let the likes of him keep me from my own son.’
Quickly regaining her balance, she let herself look him full in the eyes.
‘I haven’t got time for this, Pat. All this old flannel about your son.’ She shook her head. ‘It won’t wash with me. You’ve got kids from here to New Cross! You don’t care tuppence about my Jimmy! You’re just jealous I’m with Bertie. Now get out of my way. I’m going to see my husband.’
A flush crept up from his neck as he rammed his hands back into his pockets. ‘Don’t be too sure of yourself. You might still come running to me when Hughes don’t wake up.’
As he moved to grab her again, she dodged out of his reach, walking swiftly towards the arc of daylight ahead, all the while wondering, what if he were right? What if Bertie never did come back to her? Only when she reached the end of the arch did she look back, but Pat was nowhere to be seen.
Shaken and weary, she turned into the courtyard at Guy’s and mounted the stone stairs to Bertie’s ward. She thought of all the things she couldn’t tell him. Nothing about her money worries, not a word about going back to Southwell’s; nor about the old man going missing, and certainly nothing about Pat Donovan.
Bertie looked exactly as he’d done when she’d left him yesterday. She kissed his pale face and took his hand, shuffling the chair up close to the bed.
‘Hello, love, I’m back,’ she said as brightly as she could. But like a breaking dam, her attempts to reconstruct her old toughness gave way, and out of her loneliness, she found herself whispering to him half the things she had vowed not to.
‘I’m doing my best, my darlin’, but it’s so hard doing it all on my own. I’ve got too used to you being there with me. And then that git of a cousin of yours wouldn’t even serve me, said it was all my fault you’ve ended up here. And I didn’t give him a
wallop, Bertie, ’cause I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction, but oh, it knocked me for six and I don’t know why it should matter...’ She ended with a sob, glad after all that he couldn’t hear her self-pity. She lifted his hand and rested it against her wet cheek. ‘Take no notice, love.’
She kissed his palm and, getting up to leave, her eye was caught by a movement. She thought the unbandaged, winged eyebrow had moved. Holding her breath, she waited. Yes, there it was again. His eyelids flickered, then, gently as clouds parting to reveal a mild summer sky, the familiar blue eyes were open, still veiled with confusion, looking beyond her. She bent forward, placing herself in his line of sight.
‘Bertie?’
He blinked, some comprehension seeming to flicker there, but just as suddenly, his eyes closed again and she couldn’t bear the blankness.
‘No, Bertie!’ She caught his face between her palms. ‘You’re not going away again!’ And as she breathed against his cheek, his face seemed to ripple like a still lake beneath a gentle breeze, and, softly, his eyes opened. Through his parched lips came a sound. Milly leaned closer, conscious of tears streaming down her cheeks.
‘What, Bertie?’ she choked. ‘What are you saying, darlin’?’
‘Strike me dumb, Milly,’ Bertie whispered hoarsely, ‘you don’t half look a state, love.’
Though they hadn’t been the words she’d imagined he might speak when he woke, they were the sweetest he’d ever uttered.
‘Come here.’ He held up weak arms and enfolded her in the longed-for embrace. She smothered him in kisses, stifling his questions. When finally she let him go, he asked how long he’d been there.
‘A week! But how’ve you managed on your own – the coffers must be dry by now?’
‘You’re not to worry yourself. Mum’s been helping me, and Amy. She’s been a godsend too, though she wouldn’t thank me for saying so! And I’ve managed to sell a few dresses.’
Bertie shifted uncomfortably in the bed. She knew it still rankled that he couldn’t be the sole provider; now wasn’t the time to tell him about going back to the factory.
