Authors: Mary Gibson
Elsie and Amy were snow maidens. Along with a dozen other girls, all dressed in long white smocks and pointed bonnets, carrying garlands of ivy and berries, they were performing an intricate country dance, the aim of which was to weave garlands into a great wreath. Amy had gone under instead of over, several times, so the end result was a little lopsided, but everyone clapped and Mrs Colman commented how cleverly her daughters had managed.
Milly had gone to the Settlement with her mother to watch Elsie and Amy perform in a Christmas pageant organized by the Guild of Play. Her sister Elsie loved the Guild, which endeavoured to teach poor city children the folk songs and dances of an idealized rural idyll, but she was especially fond of the fanciful garments they dressed up in. Milly had spent weeks at the sewing circle, finishing the smocking on Elsie’s dress, which she had to admit was the best in the room. Her sister was an exacting client. Everything had to be just right for the performance and, this year, Milly was glad of the distraction from her own worries and the tinderbox tensions of home. If she couldn’t protect her sisters, at least she could sew for them.
The Christmas pageant was very popular with the audience and was always followed by tea and Christmas cake. Old Ma Donovan had no children left at home. Her thirteen had all flown the nest, all except Pat. Nevertheless she’d come along, as had many of the neighbours, for the free entertainment and food. Stuffing a slab of cake into her pocket, while tucking into another, Mrs Donovan turned to Milly’s mother.
‘Did you hear, my Pat’s been put on remand till after Christmas. They’re saying he might get two years!’
Milly choked on her own cake. ‘Two years!’
‘They said the judge might be lenient, but I can’t see it meself, ’cause it’s not his first offence, which truth be told, it weren’t, not by a long chalk.’ Mrs Donovan shook her head sadly. ‘But he’s been a good boy to me. I expect you’ll miss him, won’t yer?’ She eyed Milly. ‘Will you go and visit him if he goes inside?’
Before Milly had a chance to answer, her mother interrupted, ‘My daughter’s not going anywhere near no prison, Aggie, so don’t you get the boy’s hopes up.’
Old Ma Donovan took offence at this and turned her back. Getting up to leave, she brushed the crumbs off her coat. ‘She’s no better’n my son, and as for you, Ellen Colman, you never turned your nose up at the stuff, did you?’
Mrs Colman looked rather shamefaced at this, as they’d had several good dinners from the stolen tins. And her mother had particularly enjoyed the oxtail soups.
‘You walked into that one, Mum.’ Milly grinned.
‘You’re still not visiting him,’ her mother said firmly, crossing her arms, as if she still had a say in what Milly did.
‘All right, if you say so,’ Milly agreed, for although she felt sorry for Pat, she was secretly relieved that he might be removed from her life. A few tins off the back of his lorry were one thing, but a gun spoke of the sort of violence she wanted nothing to do with. She had enough of that in her own home.
The Settlement wasn’t the only institution to put on Christmas celebrations. In Bermondsey there was a pub on every corner and a mission on every other, and Christmas was the busiest time for both. Not to be outdone by the Methodists at the Settlement, the Catholic church held a children’s party and nativity play in the church hall. Amy had been chosen to play the angel Gabriel: being tall for her age, the nuns thought she was the most imposing of the bunch of undersized volunteers. The day after the Settlement pageant, Milly had slipped home for tea, knowing her father would have already left for a night shift at the tannery. Walking down Arnold’s Place, she saw her mother looking anxiously out of their front door.
‘Amy’s not come home from school,’ her mother said, when she reached the house, ‘and Elsie doesn’t remember seeing her come out. Can you go round there and see what’s happened to her?’
‘What’s the matter with Elsie? Why didn’t she wait for Amy?’ Milly was annoyed, she’d hoped to have a peaceful hour at home, getting ready, before going with Kitty and some of the other jam girls to the Southwell’s Christmas dance.
‘I’m sorry, love, but...’
‘Oh, all right.’ Milly turned on her heel and hurried back towards the convent school, adjacent to Dockhead Church. When she arrived, the main gates were closed, so she rang the bell of the side door and waited. After several minutes, one of the Sisters of Mercy answered. Milly recognized her as the nun who’d once taught her sewing, Sister Mary Paul. She well remembered her wicked aim with the cane. The old witch always managed to catch you right on the knuckles.
‘I’m looking for Amy Colman, Sister, she never come home from school this afternoon.’
The nun’s pinched face was unsmiling and her gimlet eyes stared like dark little coals. ‘Ah yes, girl Colman has been kept back for misbehaving. She’s a disgrace to your poor mother.’
‘What’s she done now, Sister?’ Milly wasn’t surprised. Amy was stubborn and always game for some mischief.
‘She was barred from the pageant for berating the Virgin Mary in the most foul-mouthed manner. Poor Theresa Bunclerk was reduced to tears.’
Milly deduced that Kitty’s younger sister Theresa was playing the Virgin Mary.
‘Well, I know Amy’s got a mouth on her, Sister, but I’m surprised it was enough to upset Theresa.’ Knowing how the Bunclerk household often rang to the good-natured oaths of Mr and Mrs Bunclerk, Milly doubted that was the cause of Theresa’s distress.
‘Amy can be a most trying child,’ the stony-faced nun continued. ‘Let us just say that the foul language called into question the virgin state of our Lady and by implication the virgin state of Theresa, pure young soul that she is...’
Milly had to stifle a laugh, but she’d had enough and wanted to get home for her tea.
‘Well, I’ll take Amy home now and Mum’ll be sure to give her a talking to.’
‘I’m afraid you cannot take her home. Amy has been kept behind for an hour!’
Milly stared into the nun’s ember eyes and remembered all the times she’d tried to whip her hand out of the way as the cane or ruler swiped down. She remembered the beautiful smocking she’d been forced to unpick on the nightgown she’d made for her favourite, Sister Clare. Sister Mary Paul was now a head shorter than Milly, but as a child, all the nun’s puffed-up, ruffled energy had been intimidating and Milly, like most of her pupils, had been terrified of her. Milly took a step into the passageway.
‘Her tea’s on the table and she’s coming home with me,’ Milly said, in a tone which brooked no argument.
She gave the nun no time to reply. Dwarfed by Milly’s height and insubstantial by comparison, the Sister hopped aside. She followed Milly down polished corridors leading to the classrooms. The smell of lavender beeswax, combined with chalk dust and incense, brought back sharp memories of her own rebellions here. In fact she’d been a much more obedient pupil than Amy, and now Milly’s childhood defiance seemed pathetic, just a few extra beautiful stitches added to a plain garment. But she took some satisfaction in knowing that, today, she was the one doing the intimidating.
Milly strode on, till she came to the room where Amy had been left in disgrace. Her sister sat at a desk in the front row and had obviously been set to writing lines. Her face was puffy from crying and she held her pencil at an odd angle. Going over to the desk, Milly glanced down at the lines:
I am a wicked foul-mouthed girl
, written over and over again. She must have been at it all afternoon. Amy looked up, and dropping the pencil, held up both palms. They were criss-crossed with raised angry welts.
‘That vicious mare whacked me with the cane, Mill!’ she wailed, fresh tears beginning to fall.
Blood rushed to Milly’s face as an upsurge of indignant protectiveness took her unawares. ‘It’s all right, Amy,’ she said quietly, ‘you’re coming home with me.’ She helped her up. ‘Go and wait outside a minute.’ Amy hesitated at first, but then walked out obediently. Milly, her face still burning, turned to Sister Mary Paul, who was standing by the door in disapproving silence.
‘You listen here.’ She pointed her finger, well aware she’d dropped the normal respectful tone reserved for the priests and nuns. ‘If Amy’s naughty, you send a note home to our mother, but don’t you
ever
lay a hand on my sister again!’
Sister Mary Paul opened her mouth to speak, but was forced to stand aside as Milly swept past her and out of the classroom.
Amy had witnessed the encounter through the glass-panelled door and she was now gazing at Milly in undisguised admiration. ‘Blimey, Mill, I never thought you’d stick up for me like that!’
Milly, wondering at how her sister could not know, found herself taking Amy’s hands. She turned them over and kissed the raw stripes. ‘Of course I stuck up for you,’ she said fiercely, ‘you’re my sister.’
By the time they arrived home Milly was running late. At least the old man was out of the way tonight, so she didn’t have to get ready at Kitty’s. The Southwell’s Christmas dance was the highlight of Milly’s Christmas. She’d altered her last year’s best dress to keep up with the changing hemlines. It was peacock-blue satin, and Milly had shortened it and lowered the waist, adding a contrasting wide sash. The new, straight shape suited her tall, slightly boyish figure, which she flattened even further with a tightly laced under-bodice. She wore her hair in a short, wavy bob, with a sequinned headband. The whole outfit had cost her very little, but she could see that she had dazzled Elsie. The unpredictable rage that sometimes punctuated her sister’s dreaminess was usually short-lived. However acrimonious the argument, it was as if the bitterness could not long survive in Elsie’s fantasy world. Milly often heard Elsie talking to herself, as to some imaginary member of the family. She was convinced that in poor Elsie’s head there lived the perfect, happy family and any reality that conflicted with it was immediately banished from her imagination.
That evening, all earlier animosity forgotten, she sat on the bed, gawping at Milly as she checked herself in the wardrobe mirror.
‘Oh, Milly, you look just like a film star!’ she cooed.
Milly laughed. ‘Good job the films are silent then, or they’d boo me off the screen when I opened me mouth! Come and help with this, Elsie.’
Her sister began buttoning the back of the dress. ‘Milly, I’m sorry about the other week, you know...’
‘You mean when you wanted to slice me like a loaf of bread?’ Milly joked, slipping on her black T-bar shoes.
‘I don’t know what gets into me.’ Elsie appeared to be genuinely contrite. ‘It’s just with the old man being so handy, you’ve got to be on your guard all the time, haven’t you?’
Milly understood exactly what Elsie meant. They had all been, for as long as she could remember, living in a state of siege with her father as the enemy. She felt she wouldn’t know how to behave in a peaceful family. No wonder Elsie fantasized about a home where they didn’t have to jump every time the front door opened, or start up in bed when stairs creaked, fearful of a drunken invasion by their father. True, he had kept well clear of her since she’d shamed him, but she couldn’t be unaware of the building tension in the little house in Arnold’s Place. Sooner or later the old man was going to explode, and Milly would rather it didn’t happen on Christmas Day.
But when Christmas Eve arrived, she was facing a Christmas with very little peace or goodwill about it. The knowledge that the Colmans hadn’t spent a peaceful Christmas together since before the war hadn’t dissuaded her mother from making a brave seasonal attempt. The old man usually spent most of Christmas Day in the Swan, and the fact that he normally staggered in drunk, long after the family had finished eating, was the reasoning she used to persuade Milly to sit round the dinner table with her family that year.
‘It’s better if I’m not here to aggravate him, Mum,’ Milly protested. ‘He’s bad enough on Christmas Day as it is! Besides, Kitty’s mum says I can go round their house.’
‘Don’t be a soppy ’apporth, Mill, what room have they got? No, I’m not having you at strangers’ houses on Christmas Day! You’ll be in your own home, at least for dinner. You can go out with your friends later, eh?’
Milly feared it was a mistake. She’d been so careful, tiptoeing about like a ghost, dodging his every move. But Christmas, for her mother, was a fantasy of home, every bit as strong as Elsie’s, and Milly could not disappoint her.
On Christmas morning, she was surprised to be overtaken by an unexpected feeling of joy. Her sisters, still young enough to be excited about their orange and sixpence, must have infected her. Only when the old man had left for the pub did they leave their room, giggling and jostling on their way down the stairs. As they helped their mother prepare turkey and boil Christmas pudding, they all sang together, ‘
Oh, we all want figgy pudding, oh, we all want figgy pudding!
’ The rare look of happiness on her mother’s face made Milly glad she’d given in, and for a single, charmed day, it seemed that Elsie’s dream really had come true.
But like Cinderella at the ball, Milly stayed too late. Just as she was putting on her shoes and coat, they heard the old man’s roar. He could barely walk, but the sight of Milly counteracted the brandies he’d consumed. With surprising swiftness, he lunged, picked up the covered plate waiting for him on the table, and hurled it against the kitchen wall. They all leaped up, watching the turkey dinner first stick to, then slowly slide down the distempered wall. The old man collapsed in a heap on the floor, as Milly rushed to help her mother clean up the mess.
‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ she said, choking back tears and picking up pieces of china. ‘Don’t let it spoil your day.’
January 1924
The meat pudding was simmering in the pot, billowing clouds of steam into the kitchen. Milly lifted the saucepan lid to check that it hadn’t run dry. She was watching the pot for her mother, who’d taken an egg-custard tart to the Bunclerks. Percy was recovering from scarlet fever and while Mrs Bunclerk nursed him, the rest of her brood were shifting for themselves. Milly hoped she would be quick. She wanted to be out before the old man got home. She was topping up the pan from the kettle when she felt a presence behind her. Startled, she looked round to see Elsie standing at the kitchen door, staring at the pudding pot.