The Songbird

by Val Wood

  Poppy called back at home and found that her father had risen from his sickbed and come downstairs. He was sitting in his chair by the range and Lena was scurrying round him, clearing up from the morning’s baking, her face set and her mouth pinched.

  ‘I have to go out again,’ Poppy told Lena. ‘Is there anything I can get for you? Do we need meat for supper? Chops or anything?’

  ‘No,’ Lena said sharply. ‘I’ll get it. I’ve ordered some mince. The butcher knows what I like. You can help Albert in the shop when you come back,’ she sniffed, and glancing at Joshua she added, ‘That’s if you’re not too proud.’

  ‘I’ll never be that,’ Poppy said quietly. ‘I know who I am and where I belong.’

  Lena flushed and turned away. ‘I need some help,’ she muttered. ‘I’ve a woman in mind to come in and do the rough. I’ll slip out and see her a bit later.’

  ‘Fetch her here, why don’t you?’ Joshua said in a low voice. ‘I’d like to see who she is before we tek her on.’

  Lena put her hand on her hip. ‘Well, if you don’t trust my judgement!’

  ‘It’s not that,’ he began, but Lena had turned and gone to the sink, and Poppy could see how her father was worn down by the pettiness and so was giving in to Lena. She too felt powerless, for if she argued with her she might leave, taking Albert with her as her father had said, and then there would be no-one to help him.

  She made coffee for her father and Lena, and then prepared to go out again. ‘I won’t be long,’ she told him. ‘I just need a few things.’ But she didn’t tell him that she was going to see Nan.

  As she went through into the shop she heard raised voices. ‘Look at this!’ a woman’s voice complained. ‘Why, I wouldn’t chuck it out for ’pigeons, let alone eat it myself. I don’t know what’s come over this place.’

  Albert was staring sullenly at the customer and fingering a soggy bread loaf. ‘Looks all right to me,’ he muttered. ‘We’ve not had any other complaints.’

  ‘Not yet you haven’t,’ the woman stated. ‘You wait till dinnertime when folk come to eat it.’ She looked up as Poppy came through the door. ‘Poppy!’ she said. ‘About time you came home! What’s going on here? Can’t get a decent loaf o’ bread. Can’t get a cup o’ coffee.’

  ‘Hello, Mrs Thomas.’ She was a long-standing customer of both the grocery and the coffee shop. ‘What’s the trouble?’

  Mrs Thomas took the bread from Albert and handed it to Poppy. The outside of it was crisp, but the inside where it had been pulled apart was soft and doughy and uncooked. ‘That’s the trouble. Can’t expect Mr Thomas to eat that! It’ll make him right badly. It’s not ’first time it’s happened,’ she said. ‘I’ll start making my own again and tek it to ’baker to be cooked!’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Thomas,’ Poppy said. ‘I don’t think the oven can have been hot enough. Albert, give Mrs Thomas her money back and another loaf if you have one.’

  ‘What’s this? What’s this?’ Lena had heard the raised voices and come marching through from the kitchen. She snatched the bread from Poppy and examined it. ‘Why, you’ve cut it with a knife while it was still hot, haven’t you?’ she said. ‘Anybody’ll tell you that you should break bread with your fingers when it’s just out of the oven. Give her her money back, Albert,’ she said aggressively. ‘But we’ve no bread left. Sold out!’

  ‘Sold out! Already? At this time of a morning? Then you’re not making enough,’ Mrs Thomas accused. ‘Or mebbe you can’t sell it.’ Mrs Thomas snatched the money from Albert’s hand and headed for the door. Then she turned back. ‘All these years I’ve been coming here, but this’ll be ’last time!’

  ‘Mrs Thomas!’ Poppy called futilely, but she had gone, her long coat swirling on her short body and her hat bobbing furiously.

  ‘Oh, let her go,’ Lena said callously. ‘We can do without folks like her!’

  ‘But she’s been coming here for as long as I can remember!’ Poppy was dumbfounded. ‘When I was little she used to bring me bon-bons and sugar mice.’

  ‘Did she?’ Lena sniffed. ‘Well, them days are gone.’

  Poppy walked briskly towards the High Street, trying to rid herself of anger. Lena has the wrong attitude towards customers, she thought. She should be trying to please them, give them what they want, not what she wants them to have. And what did Mrs Thomas mean when she said that you couldn’t get a cup of coffee? There was always coffee at Mazzini’s.

  She knocked on Nan’s door and thought how shabby and rundown the area was. Some of the houses in the court were left empty when tenants moved out to the newer streets out of town. Only the very poor who couldn’t afford a higher rent stayed in the old town courts.

  She only half expected Nan to be at home and was surprised when the door opened and both Nan and Mattie stood inside. Both were wearing old coats with shawls over the top, and when they invited Poppy in she realized why. There was no fire lit in the grate and the room was freezing.

  ‘Poppy!’ They both greeted her with pleasure. ‘How grand to see you.’ Nan gave her a kiss on her cheek and Poppy felt the coldness of her face. ‘Have you come home for Christmas?’ Mattie asked. ‘Come on, come and sit down and tell us all that you’ve been doing.’

  ‘Sorry there’s no fire,’ Nan murmured. ‘We – we were just going out. Not that there’s any hurry,’ she added hastily. ‘We’ve plenty of time to talk to you.’

  Poppy gazed at her. ‘Tell me where you were really going, Nan! Are you looking for work?’

  Nan nodded. ‘Aye. Well, we’ve been out this morning already. We’ve both just come back.’

  ‘Are you not working either, Mattie?’

  ‘Onny at night,’ Mattie said. ‘’Flour mill’s stood off some of ’workers till after Christmas. They’ll take us back then,’ she said brightly. ‘At least – that’s what they said.’

  Poppy pondered. Last night she had offered to help Lena with the morning’s baking, but she had refused her, saying that she and Albert had a routine, so whilst she was having an extra sleep in bed this morning Nan and Mattie were trawling round looking for work. Unsuccessfully, it seemed.

  ‘I’m sorry you felt you had to leave, Nan,’ she told her. ‘It’s not the same without you. And Pa misses you too.’

  Nan shook her head. ‘I couldn’t stand it any longer,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t an instant decision. I knew one of us, me or Lena, would have to go; and it’s just bad luck that Mattie came off work on ’same day.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Mattie chipped in, ‘that’s enough about us. What about you? Tell us about London, and Brighton. Was it really exciting? Oh, how I wished I could have gone with you that day you got on ’train.’

  ‘Charlie met me at King’s Cross,’ Poppy told her. ‘He hired a cab and took me to my agent.’ She went on to tell them about Miss Battle and the awful lodging house and having supper at the Marinos’. And then she told them about going to Brighton and being on the same bill as the Terry Sisters and Anthony Marino, who had written ‘Forever True’ and played for her at her last performance.

  ‘So – this pianist, is he ’son of ’people with the café?’ Mattie had worked it out. ‘And is he nice? ’Pianist, I mean?’

  ‘Yes,’ Poppy said enthusiastically. ‘He is. He’s lovely! I was so nervous and he was so good and helpful towards me.’

  ‘You were nervous?’ Nan said. ‘I can’t believe that!’

  ‘It was different being away from home,’ Poppy explained. ‘Nobody knew me, so I had to prove myself.’

  ‘And did you?’

  Poppy nodded, pressing her lips together in embarrassment. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I think so.’

  ‘Any news of Tommy?’ Mattie asked. ‘Has he written?’

  ‘No.’ Poppy shook her head. ‘Pa’s not well, but when he’s up and about again he says he’ll go and enquire at the shipping company. He’s getting really worried now.’

  ‘Your pa’s not well?’ Nan frowned. ‘Not with ’same thing as
’day I left?’

  ‘I think so,’ Poppy said. ‘The doctor said he’d probably eaten tainted meat, but Lena pooh-poohed that and said he’d picked up a contagion from somebody. But Pa thinks it might have been a bad piece of pork.’

  Nan tutted and looked angry and frustrated. ‘I wasn’t going to say anything, but I’d better tell you. Lena’s not using ’same butcher any more. I went into Brown’s,’ she explained. ‘I was looking for work but I asked if he still supplied Mazzini’s. Apparently Lena hasn’t shopped there for some time.’

  ‘She’s buying cheap meat!’ Poppy gasped. ‘The pork might have been rancid. And if it wasn’t cooked enough—’

  Nan nodded and bit her lip. ‘You can die of that,’ she muttered. ‘That woman’s a menace.’

  After leaving Nan and Mattie, Poppy went to Scale Lane, intending to call on Mr and Mrs Chandler. Perhaps, she thought hopefully, they’ll have news of Charlie. Mr Chandler was in his chair by the window of his workshop, his arms outstretched as he pulled thread through a welt to attach to the sole of a shoe, and Poppy mused that he was sitting in the selfsame position as when she saw him the last time. Does he only rise from his chair when he goes to bed? she wondered. Does he never take a walk outside to find out what is happening in the world?

  He looked up as she knocked on the door and signalled for her to come in. ‘You’re back then?’ was his comment.

  ‘For a while, Mr Chandler. I’m playing at the Grand Theatre and then I’ll be going back to London.’

  ‘Hmph. Seen anything of my son? Or is he too busy to keep in touch with you as well?’

  ‘I saw him in Brighton,’ she said. ‘But that was when I first went down there. I wrote to him to say I was coming home for Christmas.’

  ‘I’ve written to him several times.’ Mrs Chandler stood in the doorway to the house. ‘But he hasn’t replied. I expect he’ll write when he’s run out of money.’

  They can’t know about his new venture, Poppy thought. And it’s not up to me to tell them.

  ‘Are you still wearing them shoes he made for you?’ Mr Chandler asked.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Poppy said eagerly. ‘I always wear them when I’m on stage. They’re lovely. As a matter of fact,’ her tongue ran away with her, ‘the Terry Sisters who were on the same bill as me asked if he’d make some for them.’

  Mr Chandler grunted, and Mrs Chandler, without commenting, sat down at the sewing machine. Poppy thought it was no wonder that Charlie wanted to leave home when his parents were so dour and taciturn. At least her father had always encouraged her in her singing, even though he was reluctant to let her go.

  ‘Aye, well. He wanted to make shoes for ’rich and famous,’ Mr Chandler muttered, knotting the ends of the thread. ‘Mebbe those stage folk would be a start, though I doubt they’ll be rich even if they’re famous.’

  ‘I’m sure they are not, Mr Chandler. I haven’t met anyone yet who is.’

  Poppy walked back along Whitefriargate looking casually in the shops. She’d stopped to look at a grey and red wool costume in the window of one establishment and then turned to walk on when a small elderly woman almost bumped into her. ‘I beg your pardon,’ Poppy said. ‘So sorry.’

  It was Mrs Thomas. ‘Well, Poppy,’ she said, looking up at her, and Poppy thought that either she had grown or Mrs Thomas had shrunk. ‘Have you come home to look after your da before that woman ruins him? I’ll not shop there again until she’s gone and there’s others feel ’same!’

  ‘I don’t know what to do, Mrs Thomas,’ Poppy said miserably. ‘Pa took her on because she’s a baker and because she knew my mother.’

  ‘Pah!’ Mrs Thomas bristled. ‘She’s no baker! Where did she learn to bake, that’s what I’d like to know? Not round here, she didn’t. And as for knowing your ma, I don’t believe that either. I don’t remember her being about, and I’d known your ma for a long time.’ She shook a finger. ‘I reckon she heard as your poor ma was dying and kept her eyes and ears open. Then when opportunity came, when your da was at a low ebb, she turned up.’

  She nodded solemnly at Poppy, who was astounded at this discourse. ‘And as for that son of hers. You take a look at him.’ She tapped her nose. ‘If I’m not very much mistaken, he’s having a dip into your da’s medicine cupboard.’ She patted Poppy on the arm and said, ‘I’m sorry, but there’s onny one thing you can do, young woman. You’ll have to stop at home or your da will be ruined.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Poppy’s conscience smarted. Mrs Thomas’s words had hit home. She was telling her that she was being selfish by concentrating on her own wishes, when she ought to be staying at home as a good daughter should, running the grocery shop with her father. It was totally unheard of among the people they knew for a young woman to go off to live her own life away from her family.

  My father is so generous and caring, she mused. He only wants us to be happy and fulfilled. Although she had a suspicion that when he told Tommy he could go to sea, he was presuming that he would come home after having had a taste of it. But he’s wrong there, she sighed. Tommy seems to have settled into seafaring life so well that he doesn’t even have time to write.

  The following day she walked down to the Queen’s Dock, which was situated behind Savile Street, and looked at the ships just as Tommy used to do. From their bedrooms above the shop they were used to hearing the clang of iron and steel, the hoot of steamers and the shouts of porters and seamen as they went about their daily business. This ten-acre dock was once the biggest in the country and had served the whaling trade, which gave Hull its first major industry.

  She turned and cut back towards Monument Bridge, then waited as the bridge was raised to allow a tall-masted barge to come through the Whitefriargate lock. The lifting and lowering of locks and bridges to let the shipping traffic through frequently delayed pedestrians and road traffic.

  Poppy was going again to see Nan and Mattie, to offer them the tickets that Mr Hart had given her for Pepita. Tomorrow was Friday and she had asked her father if he would like to see the comic opera, but he was still feeling low, he said, and didn’t want to.

  ‘You go,’ he’d suggested. ‘Ask Mattie if she’ll go with you, and find out if Nan has found work,’ he added anxiously. ‘I’d like to help her, but she’s so proud I know she wouldn’t accept any money.’

  Poppy knew this to be true, so had decided to give the tickets to them both as a treat, and she would buy one for herself. As she waited for the bridge to be lowered, she saw someone waving to her from the other side. It was Mattie, barely recognizable, muffled up as she was in several shawls. It was an extremely cold morning and Poppy was wearing a warm coat with her fur hat and muff.

  ‘Poppy! Where are you off to?’ Mattie asked.

  ‘I was coming to see you.’ Poppy smiled. ‘To ask if you and Nan would like to come with me to see Pepita at the Grand.’ She saw the doubt appear on Mattie’s face and swiftly added, ‘I’ve been given complimentary tickets. Pa isn’t well enough to come and I don’t want to go on my own.’

  ‘Oh! When?’ Mattie asked eagerly. ‘We can’t come at night as we’re working at ’King’s Head and if we give up even one night they might sack us!’

  ‘A matinee then? Tomorrow or Saturday?’ I should have realized that Mattie and Nan couldn’t afford to give up an evening for something as frivolous as entertainment, she thought. ‘I start rehearsals next week.’

  ‘Saturday then! Lovely.’ Mattie’s face lit up with enthusiasm. ‘Ma is out this morning anyway. She’s found temporary work at ’wash-house and won’t be back till later.’ Then she frowned. ‘Is your pa no better, then?’

  ‘I think he’s over his sickness,’ Poppy said. ‘But he’s very low-spirited. Come and have coffee with me, Mattie,’ she said impulsively. ‘Here.’ She looked back along the street towards where St John’s Church and a group of shops and a coffee shop stood. ‘This place is all right, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not as good as Mazzini’s,’ Mat
tie grinned, linking arms. ‘But it’ll do.’

  They went into the coffee shop and Poppy ordered coffee, cakes and scones, for she wondered if Mattie had had any breakfast. And she might not have had, judging from the way her eyes glistened when the waitress brought the food.

  ‘The thing is, Mattie,’ Poppy said thoughtfully, ‘I wanted to talk to you or Nan. I wasn’t just coming to ask about the theatre tickets.’

  Mattie licked her buttery fingers. ‘Mm? Aren’t you going to have a cake?’ Her eyes were enormous, Poppy thought, and she saw what she hadn’t noticed last time, that beneath her shawls Mattie had lost weight.

  ‘I don’t think I want anything,’ Poppy said, even though she knew she could have eaten something. ‘You finish them. I’m worried, Mattie, and I don’t know what to do.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I shouldn’t bother you,’ she said guiltily. ‘You’ve got more worries than I have.’

  ‘What are friends for?’ Mattie asked. She rubbed her fingers together to dispose of crumbs and then pressed Poppy’s hand. ‘We’ve known each other a long time.’ She drew her eyebrows together anxiously and narrowed her eyes. ‘You’re not in any kind of trouble, are you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Poppy asked innocently. ‘Trouble? No.’ She shook her head. ‘Oh! No!’ She flushed. ‘Nothing like I think you mean.’ She recalled Mattie’s giving her advice on women’s matters when she didn’t know who else to ask.

  ‘That’s all right then.’ Mattie gazed at her. ‘But young girls can get in trouble, especially when they’re on their own away from home.’

  Poppy swallowed. ‘I suppose so,’ she said. ‘And especially in the sort of business I’m in,’ she admitted, thinking of the Terry Sisters who had stayed out all night. Then she laughed. ‘But no-one has propositioned me yet.’

  ‘No?’ Mattie raised her expressive eyebrows. ‘What about that pianist feller you told us about? Didn’t he want to take you out for supper or anything? That’s how it would start.’