Authors: Mary Gibson
‘Reckon he wants to join in!’ Pat said, rubbing his hands together against the cold. ‘It’s a bit uncle willy for sitting outdoors! Why don’t you let me take him to Mum’s, don’t you trust me?’
‘Of course I trust you,’ she lied, ‘but... Jimmy needs a bit of fresh air.’
He shrugged and sat down beside her on the bench.
‘So,’ he leaned forward, letting Jimmy grip his finger, ‘tell me about my son. He looks bright as a button, handsome chap like his dad!’ He grinned and tussled against Jimmy’s hold and Milly’s throat went dry; she coughed and stuttered.
‘Yes, he’s a lovely-looking boy, everyone says so, but to be honest I can’t see you in him at all, Pat. The thing is, sooner or later, me and Bertie are getting married and you’ve had nothing to do with Jimmy... and I want him to grow up as Bertie’s son.’
He withdrew his hand from the pram and turned to her.
‘What are you talking about, nothing of me in him? Are you trying to tell me he’s not mine?’ His voice was rising and he was leaning in closer, so that she could see the fine lines that prison had etched around his eyes. Up close, the change in him was more obvious. He was leaner, his skin tauter on his face, his eyes harder. Perhaps his superficial cheeriness was still there, but there was a new harshness to his features that she hadn’t registered before. ‘Or was my old mum right, and you’re just a fucking slut who’s been stringing me along!’ His raised voice drew the attention of some of the youngsters at the slide.
‘Shhh, Pat, you’ll frighten Jimmy!’ she said, all the while thinking how easy it would be to tell him what he wanted to hear. If she once said ‘He’s not yours,’ Pat would walk away; she knew that.
‘Who’s the father if not me? Is it that Hughes?’
‘No!’ she said, steel in her voice. ‘Believe me or not, you can please yourself, and now you can stop your hollering around my son and sod off!’
Suddenly he caught hold of her arm and twisted. She wondered when it had first occurred to her that one day Pat could easily turn into a man like her father. Perhaps all those times when she’d seen how drink changed him, perhaps the night she’d seen a gun gleaming in the moonlight, or perhaps it was the possessiveness which had nothing to do with love and everything to do with control. But today she saw the similarity clearly, and for the first time understood the real reason she’d resisted marrying Pat so fiercely. She would never allow Jimmy to grow up with an ‘old man’ like hers.
‘You’re just like the old man!’ she hissed, as softly as she could, so that Jimmy wouldn’t be alarmed. ‘Get your hands off me, or I’ll knock your bleedin’ block off!’
He leaped up, readying himself for her to carry out her threat.
‘Why did you let me believe you’d marry me?’ His bloodshot eyes, bruised rings beneath them, were full of anger.
She knew she’d never actually agreed to marry Pat, but had she let him think she might? Perhaps, but at the time she’d already spent weeks too frightened to admit what was happening, and, once it became obvious she was pregnant, too terror-struck by the consequences to think clearly about what she should do. Her choices had been stark: marry Pat or give up her baby, or keep her baby and live with the stigma forever. In the end the latter had felt like the only thing to do, and she didn’t regret it.
‘I’m sorry, Pat, if I gave you the wrong idea, but the truth is, I was never going to marry you.’
He slammed his fist on to the pram handle, startling Jimmy with the jolt. ‘That’s what I thought. You never loved me.’
He turned abruptly and walked off towards the churchyard gates, head down, hands jammed into his pockets. Her eyes followed him till he disappeared under the railway arch and then she looked at her own hands. They were shaking. Jimmy began to whimper, his lower lip trembling, forehead furrowed.
‘Shhh, he’s gone now,’ she soothed him, gently rocking the pram till he fell asleep and her own shaking subsided.
The bitter cold hadn’t done anything to diminish the popularity of the slide and as yet more children arrived to join the queue, Milly couldn’t help but notice how ill-suited their clothes were for the winter. She and her sisters had always worn hand-me-downs. It was nothing unusual, but even if second-hand, her mother had always somehow managed to get them a winter coat each. But times were getting harder, and many of these children would have docker fathers on casual wages, or no wages at all. She’d heard only last week about more lay-offs at Neckinger Mills, the tannery where the old man worked, and at Crosse & Blackwell’s and Lipton’s. In fact all the local factories seemed to be scaling down. The missions and churches were opening free soup kitchens, and in households where food and rent was the priority, there was precious little money left for kids’ clothes. She sighed. It seemed that for all the valiant efforts of people like Florence Green and Dr Salter to improve their lives, in Bermondsey there was a perpetual tide of poverty washing through the borough, stronger than a whirling current in the Thames.
But why did they have to depend on charity? Why did she always have to depend on a man’s wages? Even as a child she’d suffered the old man’s abuse because without him they would be in the workhouse. She was fed up with it, but though she might rail against it, surviving on her Southwell earnings alone would be nigh on impossible. It was simply not a living wage and without Bertie’s subsidized rent she didn’t know how she would live.
She had just come to the conclusion that if she couldn’t earn a living wage at one job, then she must get a second to supplement it, when a pitiful crying broke into her calculations. The sound was coming from the bottom of the slide, where a tiny red-haired girl had landed awkwardly and was now sitting on the tarmac, screaming pitifully. An older boy, who looked like a brother, was trying to comfort her. Milly ran to help, picking up the child and rubbing grazed knees before setting her on to her feet, which were bare. The child was blue with cold.
‘Hasn’t she got a coat or jumper?’ she asked her ginger-haired brother, who’d taken his sister’s hand.
‘Nah, she don’t feel the cold.’ He sniffed up a trickle of snot from his nose and wiped it with his shirt cuff. He at least wore boots. ‘Fanks, missis!’ he said and pulled at his sister. ‘Come on, let’s have another go!’
Milly watched as they gleefully hurtled towards the wooden staircase, envying them their childlike ability to shrug off pain in an instant, to jump up and head unwaveringly for another go on the joy slide. She wished she could be like that. Bertie had given her a glimpse of joy she’d never before known, and she was determined that neither Pat nor Bertie himself would rob her of it. She’d just bloody well pick herself up and try for another go!
At that moment, looking at her own boy, dressed snugly in the coat she’d made him, she was struck by the contrast to the thin clothes of the children she’d been watching. The beginnings of a plan began to take shape. Jimmy’s coat had cost her a fraction of the price of a second-hand one. Surely, if the price was the same, any mother would prefer a clean, new coat or dress for their child over a second-hand from the Old Clo’ market? She knew she could make a child’s coat or warm dress, sell them just above second-hand prices and still make a profit.
Once it had taken hold, the idea seemed to have a life of its own. She hurried back to Storks Road, impatient to begin. All the way there, she was imagining ways of cutting a child’s coat pattern so she could get two from the least amount of cloth. She might go even further, if she could get the money for material, and make adults’ clothes as well.
If Bertie’s only objection to them marrying was lack of funds, then she had in her own nimble fingers the remedy; she would make enough money for the two of them!
As soon as she got home, she ran upstairs and fished out an old tin tea caddy. Her hands shaking with excitement, she tipped out the coins on to the bed. She didn’t have a trousseau, but she’d been carefully saving the odd spare sixpence into what she thought of as her ‘wedding tin’, so that she could bring something to the household. It was little enough, but it was a matter of pride that she could contribute something. But with no wedding on the horizon, she didn’t feel guilty about dipping into the battered old tea tin. She pocketed the money and, without even getting Jimmy out of his pram, set off for East Lane market. Walking all the way to the Old Kent Road to save on tram fares, she arrived at the bustling street market, where everything could be had, from cauliflowers to cups and saucers, just as it was closing.
Bernie’s was her favourite material stall and she set about charming him.
‘Bernie?’ she called to the stallholder, after he’d finished with a customer. ‘Got any remnants, good for a coat?’
Bernie hurried over, a quick-moving man with darting eyes, ever watchful for a creeping hand lifting his goods from the stall.
‘Milly! Where you bin? Beautiful as ever, though.’ He gave her a wide grin and quickly turned to a middle-aged woman who was screwing up a piece of cotton to see how it creased. ‘Are you buying that?’ he said sternly and the woman hastily dropped the cloth. ‘I got a nice bit of navy stuff here, Mill, what d’ye reckon?’
She picked it up. It was good cloth but probably too expensive. ‘Can you knock any off that?’ she said, waiting for Bernie to raise his eyes to heaven.
‘Not seen her for months and now she wants to rob me!’ he addressed a passing shopper, who was not in the least interested. Milly smiled; she knew Bernie always added a margin for haggling. Eventually he knocked off a shilling and the buttons were thrown in.
All next week she spent every spare minute pattern-cutting and sewing, working secretly in her room, for if her enterprise failed, she certainly didn’t want Bertie to know it. By the following Saturday she’d made two children’s coats that were warm, fashionable and best of all, brand new.
She took Jimmy with her to the Old Clo’ market in Tower Bridge Road, joining the hawkers’ pitches, up behind the stalls. They sold from upturned tea crates or out of suitcases, and she manoeuvred the pram till she found a space. Behind her was a wooden fence on which she hung the two little coats, pinning price tags on to them. The crush of people surged around her with barely an inch of pavement visible. She waited eagerly, curious to see what reaction her garments would get. There were plenty of women with children, scouring the stalls, and Milly scrutinized each one expectantly, confident that her creations would soon attract some interest.
But after an hour her initial optimism began to wane. Her legs were aching, and her pride hurt. What if no one bought the coats? She’d have wasted her money and be no closer to marrying Bertie. She waited a further half-hour, and even the hawker next to her began to commiserate
‘No luck, gel?’ he asked, and when she blushed, shaking her head, he seemed to pity her. ‘Sometimes trade just don’t come yer way. You’re best to call it a day!’ he said, closing his suitcase. ‘I’m packing it in meself.’
But still she wouldn’t allow the possibility of failure. Why hadn’t her coats attracted any interest? Jimmy had received more attention, with several passers-by smiling at him as they looked into his the pram. ‘He’s bonny!’ one woman had exclaimed, setting Milly glowing with pride.
But now, as she studied the bargain hunters still clogging the street, she noticed that, without exception, their eyes were all lowered to stall level. They grazed the wares like sheep in a field and moved on. She looked up at the two coats hanging on the fence above her. They were positioned too high! She whipped them down, searching for another place to display them, and when Jimmy let out a laugh, she smiled to herself. ‘Thanks, you little angel,’ she gave him a noisy kiss, ‘you can be the salesman!’ And she hung the coats over the pram handle, which was just the right height. Within minutes a thin woman, with a shopping bag over her arm and a little girl in tow, made a beeline for the pram. The woman did a double take as she checked the price ticket.
‘Is this new?’ she said, holding up the smaller coat.
Milly nodded. ‘I made it myself. I make all my Jimmy’s clothes.’ She could immediately see the woman soften at the sight of him.
‘Oh, they’re lovely when they’re that age.’ The woman looked down at her own child, who had on a well-darned jersey and skirt. She held up the coat against the little girl and Milly could immediately see it was a bit on the long side.
‘She’ll get a lot of wear out of it,’ she said helpfully and the woman nodded.
‘Do you like it, Iris?’ she asked the little girl, who nodded vigorously.
‘I’ll take it.’
The woman started to dig into her purse and Milly wanted to run the length of Tower Bridge Road. She was so proud that her plan had actually worked. The woman then called across a stall to her friend, holding up her newly purchased coat. ‘Sophe, look at this coat, there’s a bigger one might do your Annie.’
Within minutes Sophe had bought the other coat, so that by teatime Milly had earned more than her entire week’s wage. With no time left to cook Bertie’s tea, she decided to splash out on pie and mash, and was making her way back home with the wrapped pies and a tub of green liquor nestled at the foot of Jimmy’s pram, when she spotted Bertie’s familiar figure strolling ahead of her. He whirled round at her call and waited for her to catch up.
‘Where’ve you been?’ she asked, coming up to him, slightly breathless. Putting up her cheek to be kissed, she was pleased when he obliged, in spite of his awkwardness about showing affection in public.
‘Oh, I’ve been to Spa Road, someone told me they needed an assistant at Fogden’s, he said, naming Bermondsey’s largest grocery. But before she could ask how he’d got on, he shook his head. ‘No luck,’ he said disconsolately.
‘What’ve you been up to?’ he asked, prodding the parcels in the pram. ‘Mmm, smells like you’ve been to Manzes!’
She nodded. ‘Thought I’d give us a treat. We’re celebrating.’
‘I could do with something to celebrate. What’s it all about?’
In the past few weeks Bertie’s unsuccessful search for a job had begun to dull his normally bright spirits, and although he never complained, she could see his confidence ebbing.