Custard Tarts and Broken Hearts

by Mary Gibson

  And right now she had other more pressing burdens to bear. Shifting her attention from the penny-farthing back to Ted’s sleeping form, heavy in her arms, she felt numb with cold and the weight of him. Looking down at his troubled face, she knew she couldn’t abandon him and it was loyalty to her own first love which kept her here, holding him so tightly.

  About an hour before dawn, Ted reckoned he should make his move. Slightly calmer and warmed by the effect of the brandy, he’d told her he had been transporting the bomb in a handcart full of tea crates. It was meant to look as though he was making a collection from the docks, and he had got as far as St Thomas’s stairs on the riverbank near Tower Bridge, when the bomb exploded. The cart and crates had taken most of the blast, otherwise he would have been floating in bits down the Thames. He reckoned the area would be crawling with police by now. The anarchist cell’s lock-up was in one of the many workshops housed in the arches beneath the railway viaduct that bisected Bermondsey on its way up to London Bridge.

  ‘We agreed to meet back there if anything went wrong,’ he explained.

  Nellie shook her head, appalled. ‘Listen, don’t tell me any more about it, I just don’t want to know. I’ll help you this once, not for you,’ she lied. ‘It’s for your poor mother’s sake. What she’s done to deserve a son like you, I don’t know.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be so hard on me, Nellie,’ he said. ‘I know you love me.’

  ‘More fool me,’ she said, but silently wondered whether she really could love a man who would blow innocent people to kingdom come. He might be beautiful on the outside, but as Nellie looked back into his long-lashed eyes she could see only ugliness and pain reflected in their green depths. He tried to kiss her, but she turned her face and began to help him to his feet. The streets would be deserted by now and she had a chance of getting him to the arches unseen. From there, his friends could get him to a doctor and then out of London to lie low, he said.

  ‘Here, lean on me,’ she ordered. She knelt down beside him; he smelled of soot and charred flesh. Hooking his arm over her shoulder, he staggered as she struggled to ease him up. He groaned with the pain in his arm and leg, and tried to muffle his cries in her hair. They staggered forward across the icy cobbled yard, with the snow falling around them. Ted was dragging his injured leg behind him, with Nellie taking his weight on her shoulder, but the pain was too great. Suddenly Ted howled and Nellie fell to her knees, tumbling Ted over into the deepening snow.

  ‘Shhh, try to be quiet, Ted!’ She clamped a hand over his mouth to stifle his groans.

  Then she heard a sound up by the yard gate. She looked up. The gate was being unlocked and as it swung open she saw a figure, silhouetted against the pewter dawn sky. He was muffled in a scarf and had a cap pulled down over his face. He had spotted them.

  12

  Alibi

  The figure at the yard door sprang, launching himself across the icy cobbles to where Nellie knelt by Ted. He skidded to a stop.

  ‘What’s going on here?’

  She recognized the startled voice. ‘Oh, thank God it’s you. Sam!’

  Sam Gilbie looked straight past her at Ted and the two men stared at each other. ‘What the bloody hell have you got her involved in now, Bosher?’

  Ted was silent, apart from his breath coming in short gasps.

  ‘Sam, he’s in trouble bad and he’s hurt, you can blame him all you like later on, but he’s still your family, ain’t he?’

  Sam looked at Nellie. His fists were clenched and she could see the muscle in his jaw tightening. ‘Frightened to tell me what you’ve been up to, Ted?’

  ‘What do you know?’ Ted’s voice rasped.

  ‘Oh, I can guess most of it. Your anarchist friends have been round trying to recruit us all at one time or another, but there’s not many of us fool enough to agree to what they had in mind.’

  Ted’s voice came dry and croaky between hoarse breaths.

  ‘Someone’s got to make the sacrifice. You two, you’re both the same, blinkered. You don’t see where the real evil is, the bosses that want it all for themselves and dare to shoot us, dare…’ his voice was rising in anger ‘… when all we ask is our due…’

  ‘Oh, Ted, just shut up,’ Nellie cut in. She’d had enough of his rhetoric for one night. ‘Yes, it’s a hard bloody life,’ she snapped, ‘and don’t I know it, and doesn’t your mother know it. But you’re talking about murder, however you try to pretty it up, murder of some mother’s son, so just shut up about it.’

  She looked at Sam. ‘I know it’s a terrible thing to ask you, Sam, but can you help me get him down to the arches? Once he’s there, he says his friends can help him. I wouldn’t ask, only he is your family.’

  Sam was silent for what seemed an age and then he seemed to decide. ‘If it was up to me, I’d shop him tonight, but it’s you I’m thinking of.’

  He moved swiftly then, with a strength that surprised her. He lifted Ted over his back in a fireman’s carry and took him to one of the carts.

  ‘Nellie, help me.’

  She ran to help him lower Ted on to the back board of the cart.

  ‘Cover him over with this sacking and I’ll take him out now, as though it’s me early morning round. We’ve got to be quick, though, before old Wicks gets in.’

  She grasped Sam’s hand as he went to harness the horse. ‘Thank you for this, Sam. I’m so grateful, you’re forever helping me out.’

  ‘I don’t want you to feel beholden, Nell,’ Sam said in a low voice. ‘I just want to make sure you’re all right and then we’ll say no more about it.’

  She reached up and kissed him on the cheek. ‘I won’t forget it, Sam.’

  He put his hand up to rest on the spot she had kissed. ‘Nellie, why did you agree to help him in the first place?’

  She didn’t see judgement on his face, only puzzlement and anxiety.

  ‘He didn’t give me much choice, Sam. We were supposed to be having a lovely day together, walking in the park, then going to the Star, but of course he never turned up, which to be honest is not that unusual. Then he just jumped out on me and in this state – what else could I do, leave him on the street?’

  Sam looked at her as though that might have been the more sensible option, but he seemed satisfied by her explanation and began leading the horse back to the cart, where Ted lay groaning.

  ‘You best get back indoors, Nellie, before they wake up and miss you.’

  She nodded and left with a backward look at Ted’s shrouded form. She was sick with anxiety for him, yet there was a puzzling hollow in her heart as well. It felt cold as the icy dawn air. She wondered at how suddenly love could freeze and how when it did, it burned the heart that had once held it. She felt powerfully all the glamour of attraction surrounding him and yet, now it had the quality of a memory, she saw it evaporating among the violent images that had assailed her that night.

  An anxious week passed and she heard nothing from Ted. Sam had quietly let her know that he’d safely delivered Ted to the lock-up under the arches, but other than that she had no idea what had happened to him. She went to work as usual, cooked, cleaned, looked after the children, and tried to avoid her sister’s questions. Alice obviously noticed that her sister was staying home at night and her father looked pleased every time he received a negative answer to his repeated, ‘Not out tonight, Nellie?’ It helped that Ted’s name had rarely been mentioned in the Clark house, but from the anxious looks her sister gave her, it was obvious she thought that Nellie had been thrown over for someone else. Nellie let her believe what she wanted to; at least it meant she didn’t have to explain anything.

  It was strange to her that after more than a year of thinking of no other person but Ted Bosher, Nellie should suddenly find herself imagining a life without him. When Lily came home from visiting her family in Hull, Nellie risked asking her.

  ‘Have you heard anything from your Ted?’ She pulled Lily aside, as they were donning their white smocks and caps at th
e beginning of the working day.

  Lily looked over her shoulder, but all the other women were chatting in little gaggles or making their way on to the factory floor. She put her finger to her mouth. ‘I’ll tell you about it dinner time,’ she whispered.

  At least he had been in touch with his family. In the packing room Lily took up her place at the filling machine. Nellie was glad that today she would be the folder and paster in their little team; it required more concentration than either filling or packing. You had to be quick to avoid filled packets piling up on the bench, and God forbid that Albert should see she’d kept Maggie Tyrell waiting for a packet to load. At least this morning she would be distracted a little as she waited impatiently for the noonday hooter. When it finally came she and Lily walked quickly through the freezing streets to the coffee shop. They linked arms but said not a word. Anxiety was written on Lily’s face, so Nellie feared the news would not be good. As they sat in the steamy warmth of the coffee shop, divesting themselves of hats, gloves and mufflers, Nellie could no longer contain herself. ‘For God’s sake, Lily, tell me what’s happened to him, what have you heard?’

  ‘Oh, Nellie, me mum’s nearly died of grief over it. He turned up at me aunt’s house in Hull where we were staying. When he walked in, with his hands all bandaged and his hair singed off, I nearly fainted. There was such a row over it. Dad was for sending him packing, but Mum said to give him a chance. Not that he deserves a chance in my opinion, he’s broke her heart… and your’n too, by the looks of you.’

  Nellie shook her head, looking down into her lap. The truth was she hardly knew what state her heart was in.

  ‘I’ve been so worried about him, not hearing a thing. Did he tell you what happened?’

  Lily nodded. ‘Most of it.’

  ‘But how did he get up north?’

  ‘His friends got him on a boat going up to Hull from Surrey Docks. The story we’ve got to put about is that he had the chance of work on the boats up there, over two weeks ago, all right? Ginger’s warned his workmates what to say if any questions are asked.’

  ‘But what if someone asks the dock foreman at Butler’s Wharf? He’ll know Ted’s been working there for the past two weeks.’

  Lily looked shocked. ‘Didn’t Ted tell you? He’s hardly been getting any work at all, at most two days a week. The foreman’s not been calling him on, not since the strike. They pay you back one way or another, Ted says. But I can’t believe he’s not told you.’

  ‘Not a word.’ Understanding dawned gradually. ‘No wonder he was always cadging money off me!’ Nellie began to wonder what else Ted hadn’t told her. His frequent absences on ‘union’ business were obviously covers for whatever more sinister activities he’d become involved with. Lily took her hand across the table.

  ‘He told us, Nell, what you did for him, not that he deserved it, selfish git that he is.’

  ‘Oh, Lil, it’s done now. I only hope he’s learned his lesson.’ She paused. ‘Did he say anything else about me? Only, I would have thought he’d try to get word to me.’

  Lily shook her head. ‘I think he’s just concentrating on keeping his head down at the moment. I expect he’ll write when he’s settled.’ Lily paused, a pitying look on her face. ‘Nell, I think you’ve got to give up on him, love. He may have already got a deckhand job. He could be halfway to Russia on a cargo ship by now!’

  ‘Russia!’ Nellie sighed. ‘Well, at least he’ll feel at home, with all those Bolsheviks.’

  ‘I don’t care where he ends up, Nell, just so long as he’s not causing trouble for the family here.’

  The waitress had brought them steaming cups of coffee and plates of toast, and they were silent for a while as they ate. Nellie put her hands round the hot mug and sipped her coffee.

  ‘Don’t you think he’ll ever come back?’

  ‘’Course he’ll come back some time. This is his home, after all.’

  But Nellie wasn’t convinced and perversely, now that she knew he was alive and well but seemingly out of reach, she started to feel the old tug upon her emotions. It was like a prison door swinging shut and she sat up with a start as the door of the coffee shop banged open in a gust of icy wind. Both girls looked up as the large, blue-uniformed figure filled the doorway and quickly shut it behind him. The young constable scanned the room and then walked over to their table. ‘Either of you two young ladies Nellie Clark?’

  Terror slammed into her heart like an icy fist and she gripped the mug so tightly that it shook as she placed it back on the table. ‘That’s me,’ she stammered.

  The policeman looked pleased with his own detective work. ‘Thought it was one of you two, you can’t disguise that Duff’s coating!’ He pointed to the light dusting of yellow powder that clung to their shoes and the fringes of hair that hadn’t been covered by their work caps.

  ‘What’s it about?’

  Nellie heard Lily’s voice, strangely thick. If her own face were as white, they must look like a pair of ghosts, she thought.

  ‘We need to ask Miss Clark some questions about a very serious crime, an incendiary blast near Tower Bridge last week.’ He paused to see her response, but, now she’d pulled herself together after the initial shock, she managed to keep her face a blank. She’d had years of masking her feelings under her father’s deep scrutiny.

  ‘We believe we have the perpetrator, miss, and he seems to think you can give him an alibi.’

  Nellie saw Lily about to open her mouth and quickly kicked her under the table. The less they said the better. Whatever plan Ted and his friends had made to get him away had obviously gone horribly wrong. But how had the police tracked him down in Hull?

  ‘Well, I’m sure we can clear this up quickly, but I’d like you to come down to the station, miss.’

  Nellie’s legs were like water, so she was grateful that the policeman saw fit to put a hand under her elbow. Above all she was desperate to keep Lily out of it. So long as the bobby didn’t know who she was, Lily might escape questioning. It would be better for Ted if she could at least get home and warn her parents to expect a policeman’s knock themselves.

  ‘Lil, will you tell the foreman what’s happened and if I’m not back by clocking-off time, tell me dad too?’

  Lily nodded and hurried off through the snow flurries, back in the direction of Pearce Duff’s. Nellie prayed she would have the sense to go straight home and warn her parents first.

  Oh, Ted Bosher, she thought, I knew you’d ruin me; if only you had been halfway to Russia.

  She felt sick as she walked up the stone steps of the newly built Tower Bridge Police Station. She had never been in such a place, and was filled with shame and fear that she’d be spotted going in by someone who knew her. She probably feared her father finding out more than the grilling she anticipated from the police. Although Nellie’s family were considered respectable among their own class, they shared the deep Bermondsey distrust of the ‘Old Bill’. So much of their life was lived just outside the confines of the law, and even those who thought themselves respectable were too poor to turn down the odd crate of foodstuffs that ‘fell off the back of a cart’ down at the docks. But underground transactions between friends were one thing; bringing the family into the line of fire was another. Nellie was only too aware that her head was poking well above the parapet and she was about to become a visible target. After the kindly desk sergeant with the droopy moustache had taken her details, she was shown to a back office to await her interrogator. The detective, who introduced himself as Stone when he came in, was a clean-shaven, chubby-faced, middle-aged man in a suit, who looked more like a grocer than an officer of the law. Nellie felt heartened; he didn’t look too mean. But as soon as he began his questions, she understood that he was sharper than he looked.

  ‘Now, Miss Clark, don’t look so frightened. You’re not in any trouble,’ he said kindly. ‘Just answer my questions as best you can and you’ll be home by teatime. Talking of which...’ He made a drinking ges
ture to the bobby standing at the back of the room, who nipped out and was soon back with two cups of strong tea, the sweetness of which helped to steady Nellie’s nerves. Her mouth felt as dry as dust and she gulped her tea down, as Detective Stone continued.

  ‘Now, the constable told you this is in connection with a bomb blast on the eighth? Well, your friend was witnessed on the night of the incident, in the vicinity of what we believe was the bomb workshop.’ Here Inspector Stone paused for what seemed to Nellie an awkwardly long time, scrutinizing her intently, then he smiled abruptly and went on. ‘But he insists he was with you at the time of the explosion. Can you confirm where you were on the night of eighth December, Miss Clark?’ He smiled again, this time more encouragingly.

  She’d had the presence of mind, during her walk to the police station, to work out her story. She’d heard the best lies were those based in truth, so she launched in with a show of confidence she hoped would be more convincing than it felt to her.

  ‘The eighth, was that a Sunday?’

  The policeman nodded but said nothing.

  ‘Well, I think I do remember that night, because I went for a walk with my chap in the park, before we went to the Star.’

  The detective nodded and looked at his notebook. ‘And afterwards?’

  ‘Well, we walked home and then…’

  ‘Go on, Miss Clark, don’t be shy,’ he encouraged her.