Authors: Mary Gibson
‘Ha!’ the old man slurred, brandishing the poker. ‘Not so brave now, are you, you little slut? And what makes you think you and your bastard are welcome in my house?’
She didn’t answer, but halted, calculating just how drunk he was and how slow his reactions might be. Images of what might happen if his grip loosened on the hot poker paralysed her. But before she could decide what to do, she glimpsed a swift movement at her feet. Like a darting mouse, Amy was out of her hiding place and across the kitchen, before the old man had time to react. Grabbing Jimmy in one arm, she scampered back and threw him into Milly’s arms. Milly clasped him tight, picked up her bag and flew down the passage out into the street. Heedless of Mrs Knight’s greeting or the curious stares of other neighbours who had gathered to gossip on their doorsteps, she ran as fast as her burdens would allow, all the way back to the house in Cherry Garden Street.
July 1924
The landlady showed her into the sparse room that was to be their home, with the offer of a cup of tea. Milly only wished there was some food to go with it. She hadn’t stopped to eat all day and now she swayed with hunger and fatigue. She laid Jimmy on the bed and sat on the rickety chair, waiting for the woman to come back. Milly looked around the room, devoid of any warm, homely touches, and had to fend off the tears. She closed her eyes for a moment, but was soon jolted awake by a hand on her shoulder.
‘Oh, sorry, I must have dropped right off,’ she said and gulped the tea, sweetened with condensed milk, which the landlady handed her. Milly picked Jimmy up and began to feed him, while the woman looked on.
‘Ain’t he got no father?’ the woman asked, already knowing the answer, for she carried on. ‘Still, husbands ain’t much cop ’alf the time.’ She jerked her head back towards the kitchen. ‘My useless lump’s sleeping it off in there.’ She sighed, then hearing her own baby crying, she said, ‘I’ve got to see to mine.’
Milly could have wished for a more private lodging. There was no lock on the door but she shoved the chair up against it, and too exhausted to even undress, lay down on the bed, wrapping herself and Jimmy in her overcoat. But now sleep eluded her. Overwhelmed by her own solitary state, her thoughts flew to her mother and sisters, only half an hour distant, but feeling half a world away. The plum-blushed evening sky still gave light enough to pick out the sad testaments of her banishment: her pathetically small bag of belongings; this bare cell; and her baby, her only consolation.
Eventually she surrendered to a sleep, disturbed by Jimmy’s stirrings and odd dreams full of angels falling from heaven, holding fiery flaming swords, and each with the livid face of her father. The noise which finally roused her completely was not loud, but an insistent squeaking and scratching, which in her groggy state, Milly at first put down to mice under the floorboards. When she realized it was the door handle being turned and the chair rattling under pressure from outside, she shot up, listening intently. Leaving Jimmy on the bed, she stole to the door. She could hear snuffling breaths outside and felt the rickety old chair begin to give way as the door opened a crack. A waft of beery breath and a low, hoarse voice reached her.
‘I know you’re there! Your sort won’t mind a bit of fun, eh?’ He rattled the door and shoved. The chair broke and he stumbled in, sending Milly flying back on to the bed.
Before she could get up, he’d pinned her down with his drunken, beery weight. Milly’s first thought was for Jimmy. She flung out her arm to protect him and at the same time jerked up her knee sharply, causing the landlord to yelp and roll over in pain. Suddenly the bed collapsed, sending the pile of bricks thundering across the lino, and toppling him on to the floor. Milly had only seconds to decide what to do as he was trying to push himself up. She lunged for the china basin on the washstand, smashing it over his head, but the impact wasn’t as great as she’d hoped. Already cracked, it simply shattered into fragments.
Where was his wife? Surely she must have heard the commotion, but either she’d gone to bed as drunk as her husband, or she preferred to stay out of his nocturnal adventures. In any event, there was no help coming. While he was still recovering from the crack on the head, Milly took her chance. She shoved on her shoes, bundled Jimmy in her coat, grabbed her bag and fled the house, leaving the front door wide open behind her.
She ran, not stopping until she reached Cherry Garden Pier. When she looked back, the street was deserted. Thank God, he hadn’t followed her, so pausing to catch her breath, she wrapped Jimmy more tightly before setting off, she hardly knew where. Following the dank river smell carried on the cool breeze, she stumbled into a jog, forcing herself to keep moving, scared that if she once stood still, she’d have to admit she had no idea where she was going, or what she was going to do.
These side streets, hard by the river, had a muted peace during the night that was never present in daylight hours, when wharves would bristle with swinging cranes, delivery vans and swarms of dockers. Turning along Bermondsey Wall, deserted warehouses closed in silently around her as she made her way instinctively to a breach in their massive bulks. At Fountain Stairs she found the river – wide, calm and moon-striped. Stopping for a few heaving breaths, her hand gripped the dank river wall, then something impelled her down the steps, towards the river’s inky waters lapping at their base. Detritus bobbed rapidly past her and the water flowed swiftly, as did her memory, back to the day when she’d sat on these very steps, deciding to give up her child. She had come full circle. Life, forcing her to make the same choice again. What on earth had persuaded her she could ever manage alone with a baby? It was impossible. Jimmy, now awake in her arms, looked up at her with those peaceful, accepting eyes, devoid of condemnation. She rested her face, wet with tears, against his smooth cheek. The river tugged her irresistibly downward, one step at a time. Never before had she understood why someone would come to the water’s edge to end all their pain, but tonight, she understood.
Letting the tide of her own past choices take her, lacking strength to resist the fierce current of events she’d set in motion, she found herself succumbing to the river – she would let it take her and her child, there was nothing else she could do.
Up swirled the black eddies, rippling with moonlight, the dripping steps swayed beneath her. She flung herself forward, eager for the icy, swirling water to swallow her. But instead of its numbing embrace, strong hands suddenly yanked her backwards. Stars whirled into her vision, an indigo sky replacing the inky water, and she felt encircling arms grasp her and Jimmy.
As if from a great distance, she heard a man saying, ‘You’re all right, Milly, I’ve got you.’
She felt a hand beneath her elbow as she was helped to her feet.
‘Here, let me take the baby.’ And when she hesitated, he went on, ‘This damp air can’t be good for him, can it?’
The man’s face was still obscured in the shadows, but the voice was familiar. There was something in it that made her trust him. She placed Jimmy into his cradling arm, and let him help her up the river stairs. At the top, by the light of a nearby gas lamp, she looked into the face of the man who had saved her and Jimmy. Half in shadow, at first she didn’t know him.
‘It’s Bertie Hughes, Milly.’
She stared at him, willing her numbed mind to work. It felt as if part of her really had been swept away by the tide and she was hauling it back, second by second. Then she recognized him.
‘Bertie? The grocer?’
‘Yes. I just came down to look at the river,’ he said in explanation.
‘Me too.’ The lie hung in the air between them. Trembling uncontrollably, she waited for him to leave her, knowing that then she would have to face her impossible choices again.
‘I think you might have lost your footing... if I hadn’t come along,’ he said gently.
She nodded, dumbly ashamed that despair could have so overcome her instinct to protect her child.
‘I think I must have fainted.’ Again she lied. ‘Not had a bite to eat all day, and...’ a sob caught in her throat, ‘and I lost me lodgings... and...’ She heaved in a shuddering breath which ended in tears.
‘Here.’ He gave her a handkerchief and began leading her away from the river, along Farncombe Street. As they passed the Bermondsey Settlement, her grip on his arm grew tighter.
‘You’re not taking me there, are you?’
‘Well, I just thought... you know Miss Green, don’t you? Perhaps she can help.’
She pulled away. ‘No, Bertie, I can’t go there. They’ll want to take my baby. The home said I was unfit... that’s why I’ve run away from there this morning.’
He seemed to require no further explanation and hurried them on past the Settlement. Looking up at the Gothic arched windows, spilling light across Farncombe Street, Milly knew that sooner or later she must face Florence Green’s disappointment, but not tonight.
‘Now, listen,’ Bertie said, shifting Jimmy on his arm and looking at Milly, ‘let me take you for a bite to eat. You’ll be able to think straight once you’ve got some food inside you.’
They had reached the end of Farncombe Street and were about to cross Jamaica Road, where the late-night dining rooms were open all hours for night workers.
‘You’re very kind, Bertie, but I can’t take charity...’
He raised an eyebrow, in that quietly amused way she remembered now, and she was forced to smile at the memory of the grocer’s slate which her mother had made such good use of over the years.
‘Thank you, Bertie,’ she said, ‘so long as you let me pay you back.’
The dining rooms were brightly lit and clean, filled with wooden tables and a few booths round the walls. It was half empty, waiting for the rush of the next shift changeover. They sat in a booth towards the back, and Milly was able to lay Jimmy in the corner of the bench, wrapped in her coat. While Bertie ordered their food, Milly sank back, feeling the safest she had all day. She still felt oddly between worlds, and as Jimmy stirred, she patted him gently, trying to dismiss from her mind how she had so nearly taken him with her from this world to the next.
She hoped Bertie wouldn’t refer to it again. He seemed to sense her reticence and while they sipped tea and waited for their food, he made conversation about his night at the Settlement. ‘I was there for a lecture. It was Dr Salter.’
Milly nodded. ‘The doctor on the bike’, as he was known, was their MP and well liked all over Bermondsey. He’d helped found the Bermondsey Labour Party and was considered more saint than politician. Not only was he famous for not charging fees to poor families, but he’d also won many hard-fought battles for better health care and housing in the borough.
‘And then after the lecture, well, matter of fact, I was talking to Miss Green. Milly, she’s a kind woman. Why won’t you let her help you?’
‘No, no, no!’ She let her knife and fork fall, feeling as ready for flight as a cornered, wounded animal.
‘I’m a friend of Florence and I know she’s not the sort of woman who would condemn,’ he said, and Milly saw a flash of something in his eyes – admiration for the woman, or perhaps something more, she couldn’t tell.
‘She’s helped me already, and I’ve chucked it in her face. I can’t stay.’
She bent to pick up Jimmy and leave.
‘All right, Milly, I’ll say no more,’ he said, gesturing for her to stay. ‘Please, don’t go, carry on with your supper.’
She sank back. She had to eat. She was sick with hunger and fatigue, and she knew she would need all her strength for the next day’s work at Hay’s Wharf. With a jolt, she realized she was planning for tomorrow, and a sudden wave of gratitude washed over her that she and Jimmy still had a future. Bertie filled the awkwardness with more talk about Dr Salter’s lecture.
‘He wants to build a solarium in Bermondsey, can you imagine?’
Milly could not, and she admitted to not knowing what a solarium was.
‘It’s like a sun clinic,’ Bertie went on, in undisguised admiration. ‘Bermondsey children needn’t suffer from rickets ever again,’ he said. ‘They would just go to the solarium for an artificial dose of sunshine!’
She thought of the many bandy-legged toddlers in Dockhead and had to agree it would be a marvellous thing to see them straight-limbed, though she privately thought it would be far better if they could just have the chance to grow up in the country, where the real sun could do its job for free.
‘I tell you what, Milly, he’s someone worth voting for.’
‘Well, I can’t vote for no one. I’m nowhere near thirty, I’ve got no home of my own and I’m not married, am I?’
‘Oh, of course.’ She saw a faint blush rise from his neck, and regretted the devilry that had made her burst his enthusiasm. She wasn’t sure if he was kicking himself for drawing attention to her homelessness or her unmarried state, or for the ultimate insult that at eighteen she looked ten years older, but he covered it well.
‘Anyway, I think women should have the same rights to vote as men. But when you
can
vote, Dr Salter’s your man. He’s even going to make Bermondsey beautiful. Says he’ll make the council plant trees in every street!’
‘Oh, now that would be something to see!’ Milly’s eyes shone with genuine enthusiasm, and Bertie, tucking into his sausage and mash, seemed relieved to have made her smile.
When they’d both finished eating and were drinking second cups of tea, Bertie asked, ‘So how did you come to lose your lodgings?’
‘The landlord thought I was fair game, tried to break into my room.’
Bertie looked away, she supposed in embarrassment, and called for the bill. When he looked back at her, his expression was unreadable. He said simply, ‘Do you want to stay with me tonight?’
Milly dropped the cup down on the saucer, causing the proprietor to fear for his china from the look he shot them. Was there no man she could take at face value?
‘I knew it!’ she said, despair swallowed up in indignation. ‘You blokes are all the same. Just ’cause I was caught out,’ she nodded towards Jimmy, ‘don’t mean I’m a whore that’ll go with any old Tom, Dick or Harry, and I’ll have you know, sausage and mash don’t buy me!’ She stood up, trying to shuffle past him out of the booth, when he infuriated her even more by shaking his head with a small chuckle.