Custard Tarts and Broken Hearts

by Mary Gibson

  She told herself she had no reason to doubt him. The unrest of 1911 had carried over into this year, erupting into more strikes; the coal miners came out in March and the London dockers again by May. Ted always wanted to be in the thick of it, at rallies in Wales or meetings in Poplar. But sometimes the details of his trips away were so sketchy that Nellie began to feel uneasy. Perhaps he’d finally got fed up with her and found himself another girl, one who wouldn’t be so prudish with him.

  Then one day towards the end of July, Lily came to her in a panic. ‘Nellie, I’ve got to talk to you about our Ted. Mum’s worried sick about him!’

  Nellie was immediately alert. ‘Why, what’s he done?’

  ‘Nothing… I hope, not yet. But Mum found some pamphlets in a jacket she was mending for him. Nell, I’m scared, they were full of anarchist talk about revolution, there was pictures of men with guns and bombs!’

  Nellie tried to calm her friend. ‘You know Ted! Sometimes it’s all talk, Lil.’

  But secretly Nellie was worried about what Ted might have got himself involved with. She remembered how angry he’d been when the soldiers turned their bayonets on strikers last year. The deaths of innocent bystanders in Liverpool and Wales had incensed him. Afterwards, when the soldiers got off scot-free, he’d gone on and on for days about it, saying it was murder and they weren’t even in the strike, just putting up shop shutters or standing in their gardens. He took it so personally, nothing she could say would make him let it go. Nellie had learned to look out anxiously now for a liquid fire in those green eyes; it was like something burning under the sea and some days it frightened her.

  During the latest dock strike this summer, she’d stopped asking him where he disappeared to for days on end, but her talk with Lily convinced her that she had to confront him. Even so, she waited more than a fortnight, looking for the right moment to face him, frightened of the truths she might uncover. When he asked her to go with him to a meeting at the Labour Institute she agreed with an enthusiasm that seemed to please him. She hoped that if she entered a bit more into his world, he would be less guarded with her. The meeting turned out to be a victory celebration of the latest fourteen-week dock strike, which had ended two weeks earlier with an agreement for a shorter working week. After the meeting, people clustered in groups, chatting and drinking tea. Ted drew her into the centre of one group discussing the latest politicians’ warnings of war with Germany.

  ‘War!’ he cut in. ‘They shouldn’t be worrying about the Germans. Don’t they know we’re already at war, with them, the rich bastards that take the food from our mouths. Time for them to sit up and take notice! They’ll know all about war then.’

  She was glad when it was time to leave, and as he walked her home after the meeting he was in high spirits at their victory. Putting his arm round her, he said casually, ‘I’ll be away most of next week.’

  Now was her moment and she steeled herself to take it. ‘What’s going on, Ted? Why do you have to be away so often? You’ve not got yerself a fancy woman, have you?’ She tried to sound light-hearted.

  Immediately his good humour vanished and he rounded on her. ‘There’s more things in life than courting, you know! I’ve told you time and again, it’s union work!’

  ‘You say it’s union work, but the strike’s over now!’

  He dropped his arm from her waist, jamming his hands into his pockets. ‘I don’t know why I bother with you,’ he sneered. ‘Didn’t you understand anything I was saying tonight? The strike may be over but the struggle’s not!’ He stalked away from her, brushing off her hand on his arm as she tried to hold him back. Ignoring his jibe, she persevered.

  ‘Well, just don’t do anything stupid, Ted Bosher,’ she said as firmly as she could. ‘You’ve got family to think of and you’ve got me, and…’ her voice broke. ‘If you get put away, it’ll break my heart.’

  He stopped her tears flowing with kisses and pretended not to know what she meant. When they passed a small alleyway just before Vauban Street, he drew her into the unlit byway. Putting his arms round her, he tilted her chin up towards him,

  ‘I’m not getting put away,’ he reassured her. ‘Anyway, they’d have to catch me first, and there’s only one person ever caught me…’ The sneer was gone from his beautiful mouth and for now all her questions seemed to have vanished.

  It was at such tender moments that Nellie hoped he might talk about settling down with her. When his voice turned soft, she saw a gentleness that belied all his violent rantings. Sometimes he would talk about a better world for ‘our children’ and then Nellie dreamed there might be a future for her and Ted. But increasingly she was losing patience and whenever his musings turned into a rant, she came back at him.

  ‘Oh, put a sock in it, Ted, any kids you have would be bored to death, poor little buggers, before they starved to death. You can’t live on a soapbox, you know!’

  Then that soft glimpse of him would harden, the fire would ignite in his eyes, and she’d know she’d lost him.

  This was a year when summer simply refused to arrive; the damp spring had heralded long months of cool, wet days which now froze into winter. The excitement of the previous summer had all but faded from her memory, and though now most of the girls were union members there had been no more strikes for the custard tarts. That one glorious victory had won them a hard-earned pay rise and a cloakroom, but they had soon settled back into the inevitable routine of long days of back-breaking work. The only bright spot on their horizon was the Christmas ‘do’ at the Green Ginger, which Ethel Brown was organizing. She took up her station every Saturday lunchtime at the payroll office, black book and pencil in hand. It was the one time of the week the girls would be certain of having their money for the Christmas club. One Saturday morning, as Nellie and Lily were walking away from the office with their brown envelopes, Ethel stopped them.

  ‘Come on, you two, pay up – no sub, no pub! Nellie, I haven’t got you down for last week!’

  Nellie raised her eyes. ‘You don’t miss a trick, do you? I was a bit short last week.’ She ripped open her pay packet. ‘Here, two weeks!’ She pushed the coins into Ethel’s plump outstretched palm.

  ‘It’s that brother of yours,’ Ethel addressed Lily. ‘He’s skinting her, treats him like her little prince, don’t she?’

  ‘Don’t blame me for my brother, Ethel, it’s not my fault if he’s poncing off Nellie.’

  ‘Don’t talk about him like that!’ Nellie rounded on her friend a little more vehemently than she might have done if her own feelings of loyalty to Ted weren’t being tested so much.

  ‘All right, don’t be so touchy.’ Lily grabbed Nellie’s arm. ‘Come on, I’ll walk back up to Vauban Street with you.’ Lily linked arms with her as they walked, pulling her in close for warmth against the chill wind that blew up Spa Road.

  ‘You don’t seem very happy these days, Nell. Is it our Ted?’ she asked quietly.

  Nellie sighed. It seemed that since the chill dark nights had set in, her walks with Ted had grown less easy. She supposed she must be grateful that he still asked her to go with him to his meetings. At least she knew where he was, but she had grown bored with them and now confided to Lily.

  ‘His idea of a night out these days is a talk at the Labour Institute! I know the strike did us a favour, and I wouldn’t chuck the eleven shillings back. But I’m only seventeen, I’m still young! I get little enough time to myself as it is. When I do get a night off, it’s not my idea of a good time to spend it listening to Ted going on about the evils of poverty and the class struggle. I’m bloody living the evils of poverty, nobody needs to give me a lecture on it!’

  It struck her as odd, when she thought about it, that she felt the necessity to remind her friend that she was young. Perhaps it was because, these days, she felt as though she was becoming old before her time. The truth was that her father had become far more reliant on her since Bobby’s illness, and another year on her age had confirmed her as mother of
their family. It was taken for granted that, after a day’s work at Pearce Duff’s, she would come home to clean and cook and bring up the children. It was only because of Alice’s staunch support that she could even contemplate the luxury of a night off to spend with Ted.

  ‘Well, you’re not going to change him now, Nellie,’ was Lily’s response, ‘not if he won’t listen to Mum and Dad. Even our Ginger’s had a go at him, told him he’s getting in too deep.’

  But still, once Nellie was alone with Ted, her misgivings always melted away. He was so handsome and it made her dizzy sometimes, when he came strolling along with that loose-limbed stride, smiling at her, singling her out from all the other ‘custard tarts’ at the factory gates. Walking along the street with him, she felt she could be on the arm of a prince and it couldn’t have felt better.

  But now, on this freezing afternoon in December, she was cursing her pauper prince. Ted was late. If she was his girl, then why didn’t he want to spend time with her? It was a question she could no longer suppress. She needed answers: why was he always away? Liverpool, Manchester, Hull. Everywhere but Bermondsey. Nellie’s early dream of how wonderful it would be walking out with Ted now seemed worlds away from the reality. Ted was late and it wouldn’t be the first time he’d let her down. Today she’d made arrangements for Alice to watch the boys and see to her father’s tea, so she could have this day free. Ted had promised her they’d go for a walk in the snow-trimmed park and then for tea in the café, before they went on to the music hall. This was to have been her Christmas treat and she’d been quietly excited all week. Nellie had so wanted to walk arm in arm with Ted under the park’s snow-laden trees and round the frozen pond, which looked magical, like a picture postcard, but after hanging around the park gates for an hour, she had lost hope and come to the Star, hoping to meet him here.

  It was so bloody cold! She stuffed her hands deeper into her fur muff and breathed into the scarf she had wrapped round her collar, trying to generate some warmth. She had worn her new dark blue coat with the silver-grey fur cuffs and had on the matching hat with fur trim. She had been paying into the clothes club all year for the outfit, and this was its first outing. Ted always took such care with his appearance. He had to have the best clothes and his suit never saw the inside of the pawnshop. She’d set her heart on this coat, so that she didn’t show him up. Her father was still suspicious of Ted, so he never came to the house, which was why she was now pacing up and down outside the Star Music Hall in Abbey Street, waiting for him to turn up. She stopped and stamped her small booted feet on the snow-caked pavement, but she could no longer feel her toes. Snow lay thick over the road, and the cobbles looked like tiny pillows outlined in black stitching. Looking up at the leaden sky, she judged more snow was on the way. She found herself wishing that Lily were home, so she could unload her feelings of disappointment; her best friend was always ready to hear complaints about her brother. But Lily and her parents were away, visiting family up north.

  Now she was losing patience. The crowd outside the music hall slowly diminished, and as groups and couples met up and went inside, she grew increasingly forlorn. It seemed certain she was being stood up. She had grown used to Ted’s sudden cancellations. They usually came with no warning and no explanations, but this was the last straw. She waited until the last of the crowd outside had shuffled eagerly into the Star’s lamplit warmth, then she gave up on him and started walking home.

  He’s just not worth it, she thought bitterly, and if he’s lost interest, he only has to say. I’m not going to shed any tears over Ted Bosher!

  But even as she thought it, a lump formed in her throat and she proved the emptiness of her promise by angrily brushing away a tear. Night was falling and the gas lamps lit up the snow with their hissing, flickering flames. For some reason, she remembered the anarchist pamphlet Ted’s mother had found and her blood turned colder than the icy flakes that began to fall on to her cheeks.

  It was as she neared the end of Spa Road that he jumped out on her, grabbing her from behind and putting his hand over her mouth to stifle her cry of surprise.

  ‘Shh, shhh, Nellie, it’s me,’ he hissed as he dragged her back into the alley where he’d been hidden. She knew he’d done something terrible when she saw his torn jacket. And he’s always so particular about his clothes, she found herself thinking stupidly. But now they were ripped, the arm of his jacket was shredded, and his leg was showing through a rent in his trousers.

  ‘Ted, what have you done? Look at the state of you, yer as black as Newgate’s knocker!’ He looked almost like a sweep, with his face and hands blackened. ‘Where’ve you been? I was waiting and I got so cold. Ted, tell me, for God’s sake!’

  Her voice was rising in an attempt to make sense of what she was seeing, but in her heart she knew exactly what had happened.

  ‘Shhh, Nellie, it’s all gone wrong. It was a bomb, an incendiary. I was only carrying it, it wasn’t meant to go off yet!’ His eyes were wild, whites stark against his blackened face. ‘Nellie, the police’ll be after me. You’ve got to help me!’

  His hands were shaking, but as she attempted to grasp them, he winced. They were both burned raw. Then she noticed his lovely gold hair all singed and blackened, an ugly burn shining red across his soot-caked temple.

  ‘Hide me, Nell, somewhere, anywhere, just till me mates can get to me.’

  ‘Where? Where can I hide you? Wait, Ted, I’ve got to think. Oh, look at your hands!’ They were trembling with pain and shock as he held them out to her. She took off her scarf and scooped up some snow, binding the icy cloth around his hands. It was all she could think to do. He looked almost as though he were handcuffed as she led him to the end of the alley. All the fire seemed to have gone out of him and he was as pliable and obedient as a child.

  ‘Come on, I know somewhere I can take you.’

  ‘The bomb was for a protest over at Westminster,’ he explained, sounding exhausted as they scuttled along in the snow-lit shadows. ‘I was just taking it to load on to a boat up by Tower Bridge and it exploded.’ They darted from gas lamp to gas lamp, afraid of being seen, until they reached the corner of Vauban Street.

  ‘We’ve been planning it for months, making the bombs in a lock-up under one of the railway arches,’ he gasped as he paused for breath, his back to the wall of the corner house.

  ‘Well, thank God you never got there, you could’ve killed someone!’ She rounded on him angrily. ‘Don’t you care about anyone else? And didn’t you even think of what this would do to your mum, or Lily, or me?’

  He grabbed her then and pulled her close. She tried to push him off, but he spun her round, shielding himself behind her. Then she heard the footsteps, muffled in the snow, but slow and deliberate, on the other side of the street.

  ‘Copper!’ he whispered into her ear, and she stayed very still until the footsteps retreated. Glancing over her shoulder, she checked the policeman had gone.

  She looked him full in the face, despairingly. ‘Oh, Ted, what’s this got to do with our life? You can’t think anything of me, not to drag me into this.’

  ‘It’s only for tonight, Nellie. Once they know what’s happened, the others will help me lie low. Please, Nell.’

  With a feeling of dreadful certainty that she would pay for her folly, she relented and led him quietly down Vauban Street to her old hiding place, Wicks’s carter’s yard. She helped him squeeze through the locked gates, just as she’d done the night her father threw her out. She crept with him past the stable blocks and, leading him into the cart shed, she helped him lie down by the hay bales, covering him over with straw. She felt his whole body shaking as she tucked the straw round him as though he were a sick child, but when she went to leave, he clung to her.

  ‘Don’t leave me, Nellie. I’m sorry but I had to do it, there’s more at stake than our little lives. We’ll always be ground into the shit if we don’t fight back. Don’t you see?’

  She stood above him, pity and anger ming
ling in her heart. She looked around the shed and inhaled the acrid smell coming from the horse dung in the yard.

  ‘Well, you’ve certainly landed yourself in the shit now, Ted Bosher, haven’t you? I’ll be back when they’re all asleep. Stay quiet and I’ll bring some stuff to clean you up.’

  ‘Get me a drink of something if you can, Nell, I’m right shook up.’

  He held up his burned hands, which were still trembling, and she heard his teeth chattering. She nodded and made her way back to her house. She was considered old enough now to have a key of her own and as she eased open the front door, she cursed him to herself, ‘You stupid bloody fool, Ted Bosher, you’ve ruined me, I reckon, and everyone else that ever cared about you too.’

  She attempted to sneak upstairs without alerting her sister and father, who were still up, but as her foot creaked on the stair, Alice called out.

  ‘That you, Nellie?’ She came out of the kitchen. ‘You’re back early.’

  Taking in Nellie’s tear-stained face, her sister simply shook her head. ‘He upset you again? He’s not worth it, love.’ And this time Nellie agreed with her.

  Later when all was quiet in the house she eased herself out of bed, trying hard not to disturb Alice. She put on her old work coat in the passage and crept out with a bottle of her dad’s brandy and some clean rags from the kitchen for bandages. Ted was in the stable where she’d left him. His whole body was still shivering and she made him sip the brandy slowly through his chattering teeth. Then she cleaned up his face and hands and bound his burns. She stayed with him till near dawn, lying on the straw and holding him tightly, with the growing fear that she would never again hold him like this. He slept fitfully, but she was wide awake and in the false light that the snow cast through the window she saw the glint of metal at the back of the stall. It was Sam Gilbie’s old penny-farthing. She remembered that night she’d ridden it across the yard and later made that fateful promise to look after Lizzie Gilbie’s children when she was gone. It seemed a lifetime ago. Did she really make that promise? She often saw Sam delivering at Duff’s or at Wicks’s yard after work. They always spoke in a friendly way to each other, but there was never a suggestion of anything more. Though there certainly had been nights when she’d lain awake worrying about how she would manage if she were ever called upon to take care of another family, her life had been too full of her own responsibilities and her heart too full of her own dreams to leave much room for Sam or old promises.