Tilly's Story

by June Francis

  ‘Terrible weather,’ he said in a posh sounding voice.

  Tilly glanced up at him but could make out little of his face. The brim of his trilby cast his upper features in shadow so she could only see his square chin, a sculptured mouth and a thin black moustache. ‘Yes, terrible,’ she agreed. ‘I always pity sailors in weather like this.’

  He made no comment, only saying, ‘Can you stand alone now? Only I have an appointment and am in a bit of a hurry.’

  ‘Yes, of course. I wouldn’t like to delay you,’ said Tilly, straightening up immediately, despite still feeling unsteady on her feet. ‘If I fall flat on my face I’m sure someone else will come along and pick me up,’ she added beneath her breath.

  He must have had extremely good hearing because there was the slightest of pauses before he said, ‘I beg your pardon?’

  She flushed. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean you to hear and it was rude of me to say such a thing. It’s just that I still feel a bit dizzy.’

  Another pause before he said, ‘Perhaps I could escort you to wherever you’re going. I suppose the person I’m meeting can wait.’ He took her arm.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Please, go. I can cope,’ said Tilly, infusing a note of cheerfulness in her voice.

  ‘Now you’re being awkward, Miss…?’

  ‘Moran. I’m visiting the Bennetts and I think I’m nearly there.’

  ‘They are my new neighbours and it will take us only moments to reach their house.’

  Tilly could not disguise her interest and stared at him intently. ‘So you’re Mr Parker.’

  ‘Yes. Leonard Parker. Are you related to the Bennetts? I have yet to meet them as I’ve been kept rather busy for the last few months and I believe they’ve been away.’

  ‘Yes. Aren’t you in shipping?’ said Tilly, as they walked slowly along the pavement.

  ‘I own a shipyard. You might have heard how bad matters have been in the shipyards and docks these past few months.’

  ‘Go slows, strikes,’ said Tilly. ‘But I was under the impression that most of the disputes had been resolved now.’

  ‘That remains to be seen. It has been an extremely costly business and I have to ask myself how long will it be before trouble breaks out again.’

  ‘I shouldn’t imagine the wives would want their menfolk out on strike at this time of year, not when they’ve families to consider,’ said Tilly.

  ‘No. But I can see us having trouble with coal supplies to stoke the ship’s boilers due to the miners’ unrest and strikes. Supplies of coal and coke are already low throughout the country and dwindling.’ He stopped abruptly. ‘What a subject of conversation for a young lady. Much too serious,’ he said ruefully.

  ‘I’m interested in what’s going on in my country and the wider world.’

  He smiled. ‘Very commendable, Miss Moran. But we are here now and I must leave you. May I apologise again for knocking you over. Perhaps we will meet again.’

  ‘Apology accepted. Although, the fault was as much mine as yours,’ she said, returning his smile.

  ‘I hope the rest of your evening is enjoyable.’ He raised his hat.

  ‘Thank you. I hope the same for you.’

  His mouth was suddenly grim. ‘I doubt it. But then life seldom goes the way we wish it to, does it?’ He did not wait for her to answer but hurried away.

  Tilly rested a hand on the gatepost, aware of a throbbing at the base of her spine. She watched him stride away purposely along the drive. She wondered where he was going and who he was meeting. Then she shrugged and pushed open the Bennetts’ gate and went up the path and along the side of the house to the rear. She knew the way so well now that doing it in the dark did not bother her. The glow of the oil lamp in her father’s quarters could clearly be seen and she expected that she would find him there.

  She was halfway down the garden when she suddenly noticed a shadowy figure and a moving beam of light where her father had begun to clear an area of brambles and weeds. Her heart missed a beat and she wondered if there was possibly a tramp hiding there. Then she realised that was a stupid thought because he wouldn’t be carrying a torch. Suddenly Mal’s voice spoke to her out of the darkness.

  ‘Is that you, Tilly?’

  ‘Yes, Dad!’ She wondered what he was doing there and how he had known it was her without shining the torch on her. ‘How did you know it was me?’

  ‘I heard yer speaking to someone at the front gate.’

  So the answer was as simple as that, thought Tilly. ‘What are you doing there in the dark?’ she asked, approaching across the grass with care.

  ‘Just checking something.’

  ‘What?’ She drew close to him.

  ‘You don’t want to know,’ he said, glancing down at the newly dug earth and placing something in his pocket.

  ‘I do. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have asked,’ said Tilly.

  ‘Not telling yer. Secret.’ He moved the beam of the torch and shone it in her face.

  She put up a hand to shield her eyes. ‘Don’t do that, Dad! You’ll blind me.’

  He lowered the torch. ‘Sorry, lass. What about a cup of tea?’

  ‘Yes. I’d like a cup of tea. I came to ask if you could do something for me.’

  ‘Anything I can do I’ll do it for you, daughter.’ He sounded pleased and then surprised her by switching off the torch. For a few moments Tilly could not see anything; she could hear her own breathing and that of her father, as well as the wind in the trees and the barking of a dog. ‘Come on,’ he urged, taking her arm. ‘I’ve some scones and jam that Joy gave me. She said that sugar’s come off the ration so we’ll be able to have more sweet treats. You’d like a couple of scones with your tea, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, Dad. I’m hungry. I’ve come straight from work.’

  ‘Enjoying the job, are you?’

  She sighed. ‘It’s a job. I’m thankful that I can earn my keep.’

  ‘That’s good. We need to work. It makes us feel useful.’

  ‘I’m not working to feel useful, Dad. I need the money. I have to support myself now I’m no longer living with Alice and Seb.’

  ‘Alice?’ He frowned. ‘Alice ran away from me. I didn’t want to hurt her and I need her to forgive me. Flora always forgave me.’

  Here we go again, thought Tilly, convinced as time passed that her father would never be rid of his guilt.

  ‘We visited her grave. Roses on the grave,’ he muttered. ‘Alice threw them away.’

  ‘Put it out of your mind. It’s in the past. Right now I need your help.’

  ‘Good. I like to be of help.’ Mal entered the outhouse and led her past a car parked on the ground floor towards a wooden ladder at the rear of the building. Tilly followed him up to a large room that ran the length of the building and was divided into living and sleeping quarters by a partition. Tilly knew from a previous visit that there was no plumbing in the building and that her father used the outside lavatory adjacent to the house and carried water from an outside tap at the top of the garden for his needs.

  Mal waved her to a well-worn sofa before putting a match to one of the rings of the camping stove he used for making tea, warming up soup and frying himself a chop or egg and bacon. After putting on the kettle, she watched him take something from his pocket and place it in a tin.

  ‘So what is it yer want me to do for yer, lass?’ he asked,

  Tilly winced as she eased herself down onto a cushion. ‘Have you ever mended your own shoes, Dad?’ she asked.

  ‘Aye, lass. Is it that what you want me to do for you? Mend a shoe?’

  ‘I have a hole in one of them from where a nail went through the sole.’ She took off her shoe and showed it to him.

  ‘I could fix that, get some leather off-cuts from the cobbler. I have a last downstairs.’

  ‘A last?’

  ‘Aye. I’ll go and get it.’

  ‘You don’t have to go now, Dad,’ she said hastily.

  ‘Aye. I do. I m
ight forget about getting the leather as soon as you go but if the last is there, staring at me with your name attached to it, I’ll remember.’

  She smiled. ‘If that’s what you want to do.’

  He jerked his head. ‘Aye. Ye keep yer eye on the kettle, lass.’ Picking up his torch, he left her and went downstairs.

  Tilly pushed herself up from the sofa and went over to the table, curious as to what her father had earlier placed in the tin. She took off the lid and looked inside. There were several items there such as a peacock’s feather, the kind of pebble one might pick up off a beach, a fir cone and several coins, but right on top was what appeared to be a badge with a bird emblem engraved in it. When she picked it up and turned it over she was proved wrong – it was a button. Where had it come from?

  She put it back and took two cups and saucers from a shelf and placed them on the table. She poured milk into the cups and thought about Mr Parker, wondering how old he was and whether, with his posh voice and being in shipping, he would have escorted her to the gate if he had known she was the gardener’s daughter. She realised she was in a peculiar position class wise; not that she had any time for class division these days. She found the scones and placed them on a plate in the middle of the table. When the kettle boiled she made tea. Her father had still not returned so she went and stood at the top of the ladder and called down to him.

  ‘I won’t be a minute,’ he shouted. ‘I think I’ve found it.’

  A few minutes later he was back upstairs, brandishing a cast-iron implement that appeared to have two human shaped feet. He stood it on the table on one of them. ‘There ye are, lass. Come back in a couple of days and I’ll mend that shoe for yer,’ he said. ‘And I might as well put a new sole on the other while I’m at it. I bet it’s wearing thin.’

  She agreed. ‘I’m doing more walking now, Dad, than I’ve ever done.’

  He stared at her worriedly. ‘Yer’ve lost weight and yer need some fat on yer during the winter. Keeps yer warm.’

  She agreed but knew there was nothing she could do about that. So sooner or later she was going to have to visit her family in Chester, not only to see how they were but to collect her winter coat.

  She poured out the tea and as they drank and ate the scones, she told him about meeting Mr Parker. Mal did not interrupt her but when she finished, he said, ‘He shouts at her.’

  ‘Who?’ asked Tilly, surprised.

  ‘Her! The nosy one who looks over the fence and watches what I’m doing. I told her to go away and complained to Eudora about her. She said most people were nosy and we’ve nothing to hide.’ He frowned and muttered. ‘She wants to be friends with the neighbours, but why? Yer can’t always trust those living close to yer and that woman is funny in the head if ye ask me.’

  Tilly had thought that a possibility and suspected that Alice would have said it was like the kettle calling the pot black where her father was concerned. ‘Have you ever had a proper conversation with her, Dad?’

  ‘No, lass. And I don’t want to either. I’m staying away from strange women. There was another one that called round there and I didn’t like the sound of her at all.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Tilly, wondering if Mr Parker had a lady friend, one of these bright young things you could read about in the newspapers.

  ‘She had a voice like a rusty gate and was as common as muck. I heard them talking. They didn’t know I was listening.’

  Tilly wondered what on the earth the beautifully spoken Mr Parker could have to do with a woman her father referred to as common as muck. ‘What were they saying, Dad?’

  ‘She was threatening him but he was as nice as pie to her and said that he would see her right.’

  ‘Perhaps she was a wife or daughter of one of his workers,’ said Tilly.

  ‘Yer could be right, lass, but I was glad when she left because she reminded me of Mother,’ said Mal dourly.

  They fell silent after that and soon after Tilly left. To her dismay, when she went outside she discovered that the wind had suddenly dropped and a freezing fog had descended. Fortunately it was not yet dense enough to prevent her finding her way and she arrived back at the shop safely. She found Mrs Wright just closing up and was informed that Wendy, Minnie and the boys had gone to the Palladium, having been given complimentary tickets by their uncle.

  ‘At least they shouldn’t have any trouble finding their way home from there,’ said Tilly.

  ‘How was your father?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Did you see Mrs Bennett?’

  Tilly shook her head. ‘Only Dad. I’ll go up to my room now, if you don’t mind? I’m tired and there are a few things I have to do.’

  ‘You’ve had something to eat?’

  Tilly nodded. ‘But I wouldn’t mind a hot drink. OK, if I make myself a cocoa?’

  Mrs Wright said, ‘You do that and you can make me one while you’re at it.’

  Tilly went and made the cocoa. She took hers up to bed with her. That night she had the strangest dream of a soldier coming towards her through a fog. He was followed by an old woman holding a kite in the shape of a big bird. It swooped down on the soldier and then the three of them vanished into thin air. She woke with a start and, despite her aching back and bottom, she wrote down the dream while she could remember it before going back to sleep again.

  When Tilly woke the following morning, it was so cold in the room that she did not want to get out of bed. But she dragged herself out from beneath the covers and padded across the cold linoleum to the window to check on the weather. She could hear no sound of traffic and when she drew back a curtain, she could see only a blanket of fog. She was filled with mixed feelings. It looked like there would be no getting to work that day, which meant she would be short of a day’s wages that week but a day off was extremely attractive. She went back to bed and snuggled beneath the blankets and went back to sleep.

  Wendy woke her by hammering on her bedroom door. ‘You’ve overslept, Tilly. We all have!’

  Tilly yawned and glanced at her alarm clock and saw that the hands stood at ten o’clock. She sat up in bed, winced and remembered colliding into Mr Parker last evening. ‘Is it still foggy out?’ she called.

  ‘Yes. The newspapers haven’t come this morning and only one customer has been in. Mam went outside and she couldn’t see her hand in front of her face. Minnie hasn’t gone to work and the boys have stayed home from school.’

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ said Tilly. ‘You could get lost in this weather. I’m staying at home, too.’

  ‘So what are you going to do with your day?’

  Tilly did not have to think long about that. ‘I’ll work on my novel,’ she replied.

  ‘Would you like me to bring you some tea and toast up?’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Tilly, pleased at the suggestion.

  She slipped out of bed and went over to the washstand and hesitated before pouring out some cold water. She splashed her face with it and washed her hands and, shivering, decided that was enough cleanliness for the moment. She found clean clothes and put them on as swiftly as she could: vest, bodice, knickers, thick black stockings, a petticoat and an old, long woollen skirt, jumper and cardigan. Then she dug out a pair of gloves from which she had cut the end of the fingers and put them on. Only to find when she sat down on her chair at her desk that its hardness caused her extreme discomfort.

  ‘Damn that Leonard Parker,’ she muttered. Getting up and putting her hand inside her lower garments, she gingerly felt the bone at the base of her spine. Could she have cracked it? Even if she had there was nothing a doctor could do. One couldn’t put a splint there, and besides, she could not afford a doctor’s fees. She was just going to have to suffer.

  ‘You decent, Tilly?’ called Wendy.

  ‘Yes.’

  She unlocked the door and Wendy entered, carrying a breakfast tray. Tilly took a pillow from her bed and placed it on her chair and, slowly, lowered herself onto it.

  ‘What’s
to do with you?’ asked Wendy, placing the tray on the desk.

  Tilly explained.

  ‘Blooming heck!’ Wendy sat in the basket chair and smiled. ‘So you’ve met the mysterious Mr Parker at last. Is he good looking? How old is he?’

  ‘I’d need to see him in the light to gauge his age. I can tell you that he has a black moustache.’ Tilly reached for her cup of tea and took a sip.

  Wendy raised her eyebrows. ‘That’s a great help. Most men in Britain have moustaches. Why I wonder?’

  ‘Fashion. Besides, I should imagine men find it difficult shaving under their nose. Easy to cut yourself. Have you seen a cut-throat razor?’

  ‘Yes. Scary,’ said Wendy.

  ‘Of course, there could be another reason,’ said Tilly. ‘Facial hair is a sign of manliness. Think of Samson in the Bible, when he was tied up by Delilah and all his hair and beard cut off, he lost his strength.’ She smiled as she reached for a slice of toast.

  ‘Mr Simpson doesn’t have a moustache,’ said Wendy thoughtfully.

  Neither does Don, Seb, Freddie or Kenny, thought Tilly.

  ‘The king does but the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York don’t,’ said Wendy.

  Tilly nodded. ‘You’re right. So what does that say about men and their opinion of themselves?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Wendy. ‘So is your hero going to have a moustache or be clean shaven?’

  ‘I’ll have to think about that,’ said Tilly, reaching for her notepad and reading what she had written during the night. ‘Perhaps he’ll be an ex-soldier.’

  ‘Not an ex-policeman?’ Wendy could not resist asking.

  Tilly raised her eyebrows. ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ll leave you alone,’ said Wendy hastily, not wanting Tilly to think too deeply about what she had just said. She got up and hurried from the room.

  Tilly finished her breakfast and after visiting the lavatory, she returned to her room and began to write.

  * * *

  ‘What do you think of this?’ asked Wendy, looking up from a newspaper when Tilly came in after leaving her shoes with her father a couple of days later. She had worn high heels to work and taken in a cushion and travelled on the tram. Neither had gone down well with Miss Langton.