Authors: Mary Gibson
Though he must have heard her, he didn’t turn round, just continued to draw on his pipe.
‘I’ve been home for a while,’ he said in a low voice, finally turning to face her.
Now she could see that the sulphurous flare hadn’t lied. He looked miserable.
‘Are you all right? What are you standing out here in the dark for?’
He inhaled, lifting the rose nearest to him. ‘Smell that, Milly, it’s lovely.’
Rose scent vied with acrid pipe smoke and, normally, she would have made a joke about the smelly habit, but she instinctively knew he was in no mood for teasing.
‘Yes, lovely,’ she said, then shivered in the cool night air. ‘Don’t you want to come in? I’ll make us a cup of tea.’ She hugged her cardigan closer around her and he nodded, following her back along the path.
When the tea was made and they were sitting either side of the unlit kitchen fireplace, she ventured another question. ‘How was Dulwich?’
He shifted in his seat and pulled at the neck of his shirt, from which he’d already removed the collar. Before answering, he took another deliberate swallow of the hot tea. Sometimes his slowness infuriated her, but now she held her tongue and waited.
‘Not a pleasant evening. Uncle doesn’t approve of me, says I’m a disgrace to the Hughes name.’ His voice was dull and his face immobile.
Milly snorted with laughter. ‘Do me a favour! You? You couldn’t get a straighter feller! Uncle doesn’t know his arse from his elbow, if you ask me.’
This brought a hint of a smile back to Bertie’s lips. ‘Well, as far as Uncle’s concerned, anyone involved in the Labour Party has made a pact with the devil!’
But then something in his guarded look made her suspect this had nothing to do with Bertie’s political activities, and everything to do with her. She preferred to have it out in the open.
‘It’s not you he disapproves of, is it? It’s me.’
‘Did I say that? Strike me dumb if you don’t always want to be putting words in my mouth.’
‘You didn’t have to say it, Bertie. It’s obvious. Your respectable uncle was never going to be pleased, once he heard I’m living here. Dockhead caddywack slut? Is that what he thinks I am?’ And as he made to protest, she shook her head and got up. ‘Don’t worry, Bertie, I’ll find somewhere else to live tomorrow. I don’t want to cause trouble for you.’
He struggled to speak. When he was excited or animated, his words sometimes tripped over each other, and it was a while before he managed to say, ‘You’re doing no such thing! I’m a twenty-five-year-old man and I won’t be told how to live my life. It’s nothing to do with my uncle if I choose to campaign for Dr Salter –
nor
if I choose to have a live-in housekeeper!’
‘But, Bertie, he’s your livelihood, you can’t afford to upset him. He’s probably vindictive enough to sack you.’
‘Well, he can stick his job up his arse!’
For the normally placid Bertie, this amounted to as violent a show of temper as she’d ever witnessed. Unlike her foul-mouthed father, he never swore, and rage was alien to him. She had grown so used to being in his even-tempered company, she sometimes wondered how he and the old man could even be of the same species. But she knew, however brave his words were, his heart was not that of a fighter.
‘Don’t be a fool, Bertie. You need that job as much as I need mine.’
‘Well, there’s other work I can do! Besides, it wouldn’t come to that, we’re family. He just made his disapproval plain, loves to preach a sermon, you must remember that.’
And she did. Hughes had always made sure to rub her mother’s nose in the length of their tally slate, ever ready to point out the thriftiness of the proddywacks compared with the profligate habits of the drunkard caddywacks of Dockhead. It was absurd, as on any given night in Bermondsey, the religion of the drunks being kicked out at closing time was evenly balanced.
‘I’ve probably got myself upset over nothing. I daresay it’ll all blow over, Milly. You’re not to worry, and there’s to be no more talk of moving out. Hear me?’
Milly acquiesced because, for all her bold words, she knew very well there was nowhere else for her to go.
It had been almost a year since he was put away, but Milly, to her secret shame, had hardly given a thought to Pat Donovan in his prison cell. But her reaction to Elsie’s incarceration had made her reconsider her indifference to Pat. In spite of all their antagonism, Milly had immediately wanted to move heaven and earth to free Elsie, and sometimes the imagined feeling of asylum walls closing round her would suffocate her, as though
she
were the one locked up in Stonefield. She doubted she could ever feel free, while Elsie was not, and realized, almost to her surprise, how much she loved her sister after all. But not Pat, which was no surprise. It seemed strange that, at one time, marrying him had even seemed an option. His sojourn at Her Majesty’s pleasure had in fact set her free, and now she would rather face the disapproval of a thousand Hughes, or struggle with all the mountainous problems she faced in keeping Jimmy, than lock herself into a loveless marriage. Her talk with her mother had made that much clear to her. Milly was the child of such a marriage, and it was not what she wanted for her own son. If Bertie had never come along, that night on Fountain Stairs, if he’d not been so kind, had never given her the lifeline of a place to live, perhaps she might have ignored her misgivings about Pat and persuaded him to marry her when he got out. She would never know, but she felt as though she owed her freedom to Bertie, and just hoped he wouldn’t be made to suffer for it.
So on this Saturday afternoon, the sight of old Ma Donovan on her doorstep hit her with the force of one of the old man’s wallops. The woman, short and pugnacious, was done up in her best coat and hat. Milly waited for her to speak.
‘Is your fancy man home?’ she said, tucking in her many chins, so that they creased like a concertina above her coat collar.
Milly’s instinct was to slam the door in her face, but traces of guilt about her own treatment of Pat stopped her.
‘I’m Bertie’s housekeeper, not that it’s any of your business. Now if you’ve got something to say and can be civil about it, you can come in. If not, you can sling yer hook!’
Milly was quite proud of her restraint. She put it down to Bertie’s example – she’d noticed that his slowness sometimes had a strategy behind it. It gave him time to think. And Milly was glad she’d not immediately told Ma Donovan to piss off as she would normally have done. For now the woman held out a letter.
‘I don’t need to come in. I haven’t come to black my nose in your dirty business. I’ve just come from visiting my Pat in
prison
. That’s where he is, in case you’re interested.’
The woman paused to see if her sarcasm had any effect, but Milly breathed slowly, waiting for Mrs Donovan to talk herself into a corner.
When Milly didn’t reply, Pat’s mother said, ‘I’ve told him that boy’s not his, which you know full well he’s not.’ Sharp eyes, buried in her fleshy face, searched for a reaction, but Milly stood, expressionless, still holding the front door open.
‘Anyway, it’s a mystery to me, but he wants you to have this.’ Mrs Donovan thrust a letter into her hand, turned and waddled off. Milly didn’t move from the spot, but took the letter. She turned it over. Stamped on the back was
HM Prison, Brixton
and Pat’s prison number. She walked through to the backyard and, seating herself on the old kitchen chair, opened the letter.
Dear Milly
, he’d written,
I’ve heard from Mum that you didn’t get rid of the kid when I told you to. I think you could have let me know, instead of keeping it behind my back. She says he don’t look nothing like me, but I reckon he’s mine and so I’m willing to give him a name and marry you when I get out. I know we haven’t had the best of starts, but I always did think a lot of you, Milly. Perhaps you could see your way to visiting me, as you’re going to be my future wife.
Love, Pat
Milly crumpled up the letter.
Future wife!
Prison had certainly changed his tune. What was she going to do now?
Perhaps Kitty would have some words of wisdom to offer. If the smooth progression of her friend’s romance with Freddie Clark was anything to go by, she seemed to know how to handle men. Since Jimmy’s departure, Kitty had been badgering Milly to make the most of her freedom, and had suggested they resume their old Saturday afternoon outing to the pie-and-mash shop and the Old Clo’ market. But Milly had declined. She needed to catch up with Bertie’s laundry and besides, being a mother had tamed the wild side of her that used to bowl along Tower Bridge Road singing at the top of her voice. But she needed to see Kitty, so after she’d hung out Bertie’s shirts in the backyard, she set off for Hickman’s Folly. When Kitty ushered her in, the tiny house seemed almost spacious. She was the only one home.
‘Mum’s taken the lot of ’em down hopping, thank gawd! And Dad’s gone down for the weekend with the husbands.’
Kitty explained that, as Pat was not there to do it, Freddie had offered to drive them all down in his lorry.
‘Didn’t you want to go with your dad and Freddie for a visit?’ Milly asked.
‘No fear! I hate the country, sleeping on straw with all them bugs.’ Kitty gave a visible shudder. ‘I’d rather be here. Look at me, I don’t know what to do with all this space. I’m wandering from one room to the next, looking for someone to trip over!’
Milly chuckled, but as there were only four rooms in the house, she thought the novelty might soon wear off. Still, it was certainly nice to be able to sit in the Bunclerks’ kitchen, stretching out her long legs, without kicking someone.
‘Anyway, what brings you here?’ Kitty asked. ‘I thought you was doing his laundry today.’
Milly was never sure about Kitty’s opinion of Bertie. She suspected that in her mind he was an outsider, a middle-class interloper in their closed tribe, to be politely tolerated rather than warmly welcomed. But Milly could no longer feel that way.
‘Oh, he doesn’t make a lot of laundry. You don’t get dirty working in a shop, not like the filth the old man brings home on him from the tannery.’ She fished out the letter from her handbag. ‘This is what I wanted to ask you about.’
Milly waited while Kitty took in the contents of Pat’s letter. When she’d finished, a small whistle escaped from her lips.
‘Leopard’s changed his spots! What are you going to do now?’
Milly let out a long groan. ‘I don’t know. That’s what I’ve come to ask you!’
‘Well, you’ll have to make your mind up quick, love, won’t you? Now he’s getting out early.’
‘What do you mean, early? You’ve got that wrong, Kit. He’s got another year to do.’
‘He’s told Freddie they’ve taken time off for good behaviour.’
Milly’s mouth went dry, and a fluttering in her chest signalled a rising panic as she insisted, ‘But he’s said nothing about it to me!’
Kitty shrugged. ‘Perhaps he wanted to surprise you.’
‘It’s a bloody surprise, all right, but did Freddie say when he’s getting out?’
‘Let’s put it this way, he might be hoping for a Christmas wedding!’
They spent the rest of the afternoon going through Milly’s options, but of course, she should have known, this was a decision no one could help her with. Perhaps she should be grateful it had been forced upon her. Afterwards her way would be clear and uncluttered, and all she’d have to worry about would be Jimmy... and Elsie, of course.
That evening she told Bertie she needed to write a letter, and asked if she could have some of his blue writing paper and borrow his fountain pen. She went to her room early and sat looking out of the sash window over the pretty garden, searching for words that were truthful, yet not unkind. Perhaps she should just tell him she’d fallen for someone else. It was true, in a way. It was just that the ‘someone else’ was her own child, and now the world revolved around him and his happiness. Pat Donovan would contribute nothing to that, she felt sure, and so Pat Donovan would have to go. She sighed in exasperation, crumpling the third attempt and throwing it into the grate. All Bertie’s paper would be gone at this rate. She began again.
Dear Pat,
I heard from Kitty you are getting out at Christmas and I’m really happy for you. Please don’t think you have to make any promises to me. It’s decent of you, but truly, Pat, I am doing very well now, with a job and a place to live, so you’ve no need to worry about me. The boy is healthy and contented and I’ve decided to bring him up on my own. So I want you to feel free to get on with your life once you come out and not to feel any obligation to me. I think it’s for the best, Pat, and if we see each other when you get out, I hope we’ll still be friends.
Milly
It was, she supposed, a cowardly letter, but would it help to add that she feared a man who kept guns in his toolbox might not be the best person to bring up her beloved child? No, it was the best she could do.
Bertie looked a little surprised next morning by his much reduced stack of writing paper. But it wasn’t his way to ask questions. He simply said, ‘I’ve got a stamp, if you need one.’
The next week dragged by, each day punctuated by the twin anxieties of Elsie and Pat, both far away, and yet still insinuating themselves into her daily life, so that she found herself living more in the brooding halls of Stonefield or the claustrophobic cells of Brixton than in the picking room at Southwell’s. She had heard nothing more about Elsie and the letter to Pat stayed stuffed in her bag all week. Once sent, there was no going back.
Each morning she registered the clocking-in machine, but after that, she hardly knew if she were sorting blackcurrants or filling jam jars. Yet her most persistent daydream was of her child, nestled in a hop pillow, tucked in a bushel basket, swinging from a bine, her little hop baby. After a couple of days, Kitty grew exasperated.
‘For gawd’s sake, Milly, you need to stop worrying about everyone else and start living again. There’s no sense in mooning around all week. Why don’t you come to the sewing circle at the Settlement tonight, take your mind off things?’