The Petticoat Men (43 page)

I
WAS
GLAD
they’d come, that strange afternoon. I was glad I’d seen Freddie, I was even glad I’d heard again that lovely old Irish song that Ernest sang. I knew I would never forget kind Freddie that night when I lost the baby. But I didn’t have any dreams about him any more. And I saw, that afternoon when she was so angry and so painful, how very hard in the end it had all been on Ma, including my part. The strongest woman I know, and keeping things close to her heart. I wanted to tell her I saw – and that I loved her. So I made her a new hat even though she didn’t need one, and I think it was one of the most beautiful hats I ever made and Ma looked at me so special when she saw it. And I knew she understood.

Our house was nice again. Elijah and Mackie and Billy came and went, and sometimes in the evenings the lovely smell of a pipe like our Pa smoked would be drifting about the house. Dodo baked cakes, and Mr Flamp even got a bit fatter! and Dodo still sang, and told us old music hall jokes and read her novels and newspapers. Elijah and Billy and Mackie often worked late. Two of the salesmen still came occasionally, none of the others, but we were all right, and I was sewing more hats than I’d ever done, that lady in Mortimer-street had now passed me on to three
of her friends and they kept me really busy and didn’t seem to know – or if they did know didn’t mind – about Men in Petticoats at all.

And best of all Billy was happier. Elijah had got him to come and help at the night classes for the working men and Billy just loved that and one night when they came home I looked at his face and it was almost like the old Billy had come down to the basement kitchen, with the newspapers under his arm.

Then one day Elijah confided in Ma and me that he thought Billy had a sweetheart.

‘
What?
’ We both spoke at the same time. Knowing how discreet Elijah was we both thought Billy must have got
married
for Elijah to mention it!

‘There’s a very nice young woman who teaches at the night school sometimes, called Emily. Mark my words!’ We heard him whistling ‘Rose of Tralee’
as he went upstairs to Dodo.

But there was something sad about Elijah himself, he missed the Parliament buildings so much, no matter how he tried to whistle cheerfully.

Of course, as soon as I got Billy alone in the kitchen I asked him if he had a girl.

‘Who said that?’

‘Elijah.’

‘Well that’s very unlike Elijah!’ But Billy grinned all the same. ‘Elijah’s the most diplomatic man I’ve ever met.’

‘Yes, but how was he to know having a girl is a diplomatic matter! Only you would make it a state secret! I’d shout from the blooming rooftops if I had a boy!’ This wasn’t exactly true but it made Billy laugh. ‘Well – well at least tell me her name then.’

‘Emily,’ said Billy calmly. ‘She’s a teacher. A real one, not part time and unpaid like me and Elijah.’

‘Wont you bring her home,’ said Ma – who was not only supposed to be deaf but suddenly blooming appeared out of blooming nowhere!

I’ve told before about Billy. No one can tell him to do anything till he’s ready. But I still said it anyway, echoing Ma: ‘Bring her home, Billy, so we can look her over and see if she’s good enough for the famous 13 Wakefield-street!’ and that made Billy laugh again, and he looked like our pa, and then he went out again, to deal with death.

Mackie went home to Mudeford sometimes, but he always came back. He worked long hours on the Thames – some nights I dont think he even came home and me and Billy used to discuss whether he really was out ferrying, or smuggling, or just gone fishing. Sometimes he brought fish home. In the end he captained one of the Gravesend ferries himself. He told how he felt half sorry half envious of the people in the big ships crossing the seas to other continents, waving goodbye, not knowing when they would see the people they waved to again, or if they ever would, ever again. And whenever he brought us port for our Sundays he always said that it was straight off a smuggler’s boat, and for all we knew it might have been but we liked having him there so much, it seemed odd that if we hadn’t gone to Mudeford about Lord Arthur Clinton we wouldn’t have him living with us.

But it was so clear that in London Mackie missed the sea, not sea like Gravesend and docks and bustle but ‘the real sea’ he called it, ‘the coast and the far horizon’ and sometimes as he said it, you could feel it: loss and longing. Once Billy said to him:

The sea is calm tonight

The tide is full, the moon lies fair

Upon the straits; – on the French coast the light

Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand

Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.

Mackie looked at Billy as if he was a ghost.

‘How do you know that?’

Billy grinned. ‘I learned it.’

‘No, I mean how do you know about the lights?’

‘What lights?’

‘The lights on the French coast when you get nearer. Like that, coming and going.’

‘It’s a poem, Mackie. It’s written by a poet. Mr Matthew Arnold came to see Mr Gladstone one day so I got his poetry from the lending library. I think he could see the lights from Dover beach on a calm night.’

‘Is that right?’ said Mackie slowly. ‘A poem.’ And after a moment he said it again. ‘A poem.’

One night I noticed that Mackie called Ma ‘Isabella’ – that was a bit queer but she didn’t say anything. Then I noticed that he often sat and talked late to her, and asked her about her life at the theatre and listened, I mean not polite questions but he just sat back in a chair and listened to her properly and Ma, who didn’t talk about the old days much, spoke of Pa, and our room at the top of Drury Lane, and Dodo so clever and popular and Billy calculating the speed of falling plums. I wondered if I was making things up in my head but I finally asked Billy and he nodded and said, yes he’d noticed too. Finally we understood that wild old Mackie was sweet on Ma, well we knew she’d soon put him in his place, plenty of lodgers had been sweet on Ma before of course, like I said, lonely old men from the North and a kind woman like Ma, still beautiful, looking after them, but she’d certainly laughed at anything like that and kindly sent them packing.

And then one night I had left the others talking downstairs and gone to my room, I hadn’t quite finished a hat due tomorrow, just some ribbons to be sewed.

‘Hello, Hortense,’ I said and I took the hat off her head and picked up the ribbons and then instead of taking everything down to the warm kitchen I sat right under the lamp as Ma always said and sewed the ribbons there, it was easier – and I fell asleep over the hat. When I woke up I finished the last bit of ribbon and I went to get a cup of water and warm myself by the stove before I got into bed and just from the top of the stairs as I looked down I saw the strangest, strangest thing in the hallway below.

Mackie had his arms round Ma, his face was in her hair. And her face was hidden in his shoulder. They didn’t move. They didn’t speak. They didn’t see me. I thought,
they’ll move in a minute
, but they didn’t, just stood there. Enclosed. And suddenly the extraordinary thought – but of course it wasn’t extraordinary at all, I just hadn’t considered – jumped into my mind:
Ma must’ve missed being held too.

It was such a strange realisation:
my Ma.
But Pa had died so long ago, and I never saw that Mr Rowbottom much, and I never ever saw him hold Ma in this strange, still, quiet, long embrace.

It’s quite hard for a cripple to move silently, and in our house there’s so many boards that creak, but I tried, and when I went back into my room I didn’t quite close the door in case Mackie heard the click, and I lay in my bed, amazed.

42

S
PRING
FRONT
-
STEP
-
SCRUBBING
, like summer step-scrubbing, they’re all right. I do them mornings, and I suppose people come mostly to Wakefield-street in the mornings and because I’m kneeled down I often see their boots first, like when Mackie came.

Mackie. I couldn’t forget what I saw that night, they were so, well – well so still and loving together, or relieved, or – I dont know. Something I cant forget. But me and Billy dont quite know what it is that’s going on, for they talk normal and somehow you dont ask Ma things like that.

I was thinking about this that spring day when more boots arrived. Nobody spoke, just the boots there. So I stopped thinking and scrubbing.

‘Yes?’ I said. Looked up, saw a young man in a suit.

‘Could I speak to Mrs Stacey, the landlady?’

‘What about?’

There was a pause. Then the boots and the legs and the whole person crouched down to my level. ‘Sorry, miss. I dont want to shout my business to the street.’ He had a nice, open face and he was being kind and I wasn’t being very kind.

‘Are you looking for a room?’ I said, more friendly.

‘No I’m looking for Martha Stacey.’

‘I’m Martha Stacey, who are you?’ We were still kneeling down on the steps, he wasn’t to know I found it hard to get up. (I fell down these steps once, long ago. When they brought Jamey from Kings Cross and I was trying to run to get to him.)

‘I’m Tom Dent.’ He spoke quietly. ‘I work for Lewis and Lewis, solicitors.’

I whispered. ‘Is it about Freddie and Ernest?’

‘Yes.’

‘We better go in.’ He helped me up at once, but how would he know it was hard for me?
he must be very well-mannered
I thought. He had a shiny polished face and nice eyes. We took in the bucket and the scrubbing brush and put them in the hall and I closed the front door and dried my hands on my apron.

‘Mrs Stacey. You are a witness for the prosecution at the upcoming trial—’

‘
What?
’

‘Well – you are a prosecution witness.’

‘I’m blooming not! I’m not prosecuting them! Those rude policemen are and if you’re working with them you can just go back again and leave me to my work because I’ve got nothing to say to you thank you!
Dodo!
’ I called into her room.

‘No – Mrs Stacey, wait, please. I should have explained. We are working for the defence of Mr Boulton and Mr Park – of all the accused, and
especially
Mr Boulton and Mr Park for if they are not guilty, then nobody can be found guilty.’

‘Well dont call me a witness for the prosecution.’

‘Yes, dear? Oh – good morning, young man.’ Dodo came walking in her laborious way out of their room. She’s pretty, still, you know, Dodo is. She was holding
Bleak House
in her curled-up hand and even though she was all bent and crumpled she looked pretty, and smiled at Mr Tom Dent. ‘What is it, Mattie dear?’

Mr Tom Dent must’ve thought he’d come to the Home for the Incurables, me limping in from the steps, Dodo all crooked, I saw he was looking a bit bemused – specially as he probably thought he was coming to a criminal headquarters or a bordello.

‘Could we come and sit in your room, Dodo? This man Mr Dent says the trial is upcoming, and he’s come about Freddie and Ernest. This is Mrs Dodo Fortune who used to be a music-hall singer and dancer.’

‘Come in and have a cake,’ said Dodo.

So Mr Tom Dent explained it all to us – that the real trial was starting quite soon, and that because Freddie and Ernest had lived here, and their women’s clothes had been found here, I was a prosecution witness, not because of anything that I’d said but because of the evidence that was found, but this Mr Lewis and Lewis he worked for had read my evidence from the Magistrates’ Court– ‘and Mr Park also advised us that maybe you could be helpfully cross-examined by the defence and help Freddie and Ernest. If you are willing.’ He ate Dodo’s cake with great enjoyment while he was explaining all this.

I said: ‘It feels – peculiar – it all coming up again after so long, it’s almost a blooming year since last time! D’you go round all the witnesses?’

‘I’m just a solicitor’s clerk but I have to find out somehow who might be – sympathetic to Mr Boulton and Mr Park – and who is not.’