Birdcage Walk (8 page)

“Well, it’s settled then. Next week will do just as well. After all, that attic has been in a dreadful state for years, another week won’t make too much difference. I know I shall sleep better simply knowing the task is in hand. I feel quite drowsy at the mere thought of it.”

George looked down at his feet, not wishing to comment on a matter that involved Mrs. Drew’s nocturnal habits and her bedroom. Clemency, who had got up to riffle through the trunk, smiled to herself.

“Mama, perhaps when George has seen to the attic he can have a look at papa’s library,” she said slowly. “You remember I told George about papa’s botanical books when he brought my cage. George copies the plates he sets at the print so perhaps he could do the same with the books here.”

Mrs. Drew looked thoughtful, her eyes on the last sandwich. “Well, I can’t see why not, although you’ll have to make sure your hands are spotlessly clean. Some of the rarer editions are rather valuable. I’m all for the education of the po– . . . of everyone. Our dear friend Mr. Booth has become a great philanthropist and an example to us all, though I make what small contribution I can myself. I do feel sure that he would approve of this scheme, though perhaps I ought to write to Captain Drew and ask his express permission. I think I must do that, my dear, don’t you agree?”

George had coloured at her first words, looking down with a frown at his hands, which didn’t look grubby to him.

Mrs. Drew continued, not noticing his discomfort as she helped herself with her plump fingers to the remaining sandwich. “Yes, you’ll get terribly filthy in the attic, George, so perhaps it would also be wise to bring a change of clothes.”

George’s face cleared and he smiled broadly for the first time at Mrs. Drew, who was now chewing too determinedly to smile back. “Well, I had best be off now,” he said after she had swallowed, wondering if he should wait until the maid cleared the tea things but quite unable to sit still in the hushed room any longer. “Thank you for the tea. I will hardly need any dinner now, and my sister Cissy will be cross.”

They all tittered politely. “Goodbye then,” he said. “I will be here prompt at two o’clock next week. I shan’t need seeing out now. Goodbye.”

As George descended the front steps, the prospect of being able to return made him stumble where he hadn’t on the stairs inside. Looking quickly back at the house, he saw that the relative lack of light inside had transformed the windows into dark voids. He hoped that no one had seen him trip, though he could imagine Milly’s scornful face in his mind’s eye clearly enough. Scarlet-faced, he hurried away, suddenly eager to reach the main road and breathe easily again. Now he was alone he realised how clenched his entire body had been, as if every nerve had been straining to behave in the correct way; to not betray him.

* * *

9 Aberdeen Park,

London

15th November 1901

My dear husband,

We are all so excited here after your last letter brought such happy news about your shore leave at Christmas. Dear Clemmie was so overcome when the letter came that she couldn’t finish her breakfast and went darting around the house as she did when she was a child, like a wild bird batting around in a cage. Even Milly was pleased; at least I am sure I saw her smile when I read out your letter. She was stoking the fire even though it was quite hot enough in this mild weather and it’s my belief that she wanted to hear when you would be coming home, just as Clemmie and I did.

Now, my dear, I wanted to ask you about a small matter, though you might think it too trifling for me to have bothered you with. Forgive me if this is the case, but I sometimes imagine you like to hear how we women get on in our cosy domestic world, and that it is a comfort when you are far from home in rough seas.

We have become recently acquainted with a young man called George Woolfe. Do you recall the fine birdcage I told you Mr. Booth so kindly bought for Clemmie’s birthday? She was so pleased with it that I admit I felt slightly hurt, knowing she preferred it to the things I had picked out for her. But that is my own vanity and I’m drifting away from the subject as I always do, like a boat loosened from its moorings, as you once so cleverly put it.

George is the son of the birdcage maker and it was he who delivered Clemmie’s cage here in time for her birthday party. Clemmie and he were introduced by Mr. Booth, I believe, and by a strange coincidence we met him on the Holloway Road when we were out for a walk to the draper’s yesterday. I asked him to carry down from the attic one of your uncle’s trunks (you know that I am quite determined to clear that dreadful attic before your return, and before another Christmas passes) and he did so quite easily. It was far more than Milly or I might have managed and he would not accept any payment for it, though if it becomes a regular arrangement this winter then I shall of course insist upon it.

He looks to be 18 or 19 years of age, though he may be older, I suppose. He’s a gentle-seeming boy, rather shy and awkward but well-meaning and, though his clothes are rather old and threadbare, he is not at all a rough sort. Quite the opposite; there is something rather fine about him, if that does not sound like one of my fancies that you and our daughter would laugh at.

Clemmie (you know she is quite capable of winkling secrets out of anyone) has discovered that the boy has a love of drawing. He works at a print that produces botanical books of the kind of which you are fond, and likes to copy the illustrations at home after his shifts. Clemmie has told him about your library, naughty girl, and she wishes that you would let the boy copy some of the plates from the books there. Naturally I would supervise and make sure his hands are spotlessly clean, and of course I would make sure the rare books in the locked cabinet are left untouched.

The young man is returning to the house this coming Saturday to continue with the fetching and carrying of some of the other heavy items. I will tell him we are to wait for your answer before he is to open even a single volume but, in case he is needed the following week, a response is eagerly awaited by your ever-loving wife,

Emily

George mounted the badly lit tenement stairs to his family’s rooms after another distracted walk south, his belly full of the good bread and tongue. As he did, he deliberately tried to change his expression to a frown, afraid of the embarrassment that would ensue when Cissy saw the optimism in his face. As it was, she barely looked at him when he walked in, her own countenance strangely difficult to read. In his surprise—Cissy was generally a creature of simple moods—he forgot himself.

“You alright, Cissy?” he asked. “Something happened?” He checked his father’s corner as he spoke but saw that nothing was altered there, his father as inanimate as usual.

“Everything’s fine, George,” she said. “Was work alright?” She spoke with a false brightness that was more familiarly Cissy.

He grunted in reply and took some time returning his old cap to its hook, his back conveniently turned. He wasn’t a good liar.

“Charlotte was after you,” Cissy continued, her tone more strained. “She come round late morning but I told her you was at work. She weren’t here more than a few minutes. I said I’d tell you she called.”

She wouldn’t meet his eye as she made herself busy, sweeping breadcrumbs off the table. George saw that she was biting her lower lip. He watched her fiddle and fuss for a while, until irritation got the better of him.

“Just leave it now, will you?” he said sharply. “It’s clean enough.”

Cissy jumped and stopped moving altogether. With visible effort, she looked up him for the first time. “So, you off out tonight? Seeing Charlotte?”

“No, not tonight. Thought I’d stay in again. Perhaps I’ll see her in the week.”

Cissy smiled weakly and reached out to touch her brother’s sleeve but he was looking over at his father, annoyance still in the set of his jaw. Something in the awkwardness of the exchange with Cissy, who was not herself, coupled with his father’s customary refusal to engage with anyone, took him back to that shameful episode with his mother.

It had taken him almost three weeks to admit to his father what he had witnessed; convinced that he must tell the truth and that his father couldn’t possibly suspect. His father was behaving just as he always did, leaving George in an agony of anticipation. He had looked desperately for an opportunity to speak to him alone, even crying off sick from the print one Saturday morning because he thought he could follow his dad to the marshes and tell him what he had seen there, where no one could barge in on them and interrupt.

In any event, he couldn’t do it, not in the place where he spent so many happy times as a boy; he wouldn’t let his mother’s betrayal sully those memories. Instead, the two men passed a quiet, companionable morning there, and George felt quite disorientated, as though his growing up, leaving school and getting a trade, had never been.

The opportunity to relieve himself of his burden, one that had grown ever heavier, came unexpectedly one evening. George returned from work to find his father alone. It turned out that his mother had been persuaded to buy Cissy a pair of new boots. A neighbour had a pair for sale that were as good as new, but pinched her own broad feet. The two men sat in the rare peace of the room, dark but for one feeble candle flame, while George wondered how to begin, his rehearsed speech all but forgotten.

When he eventually spoke out, he was surprised at the steadiness of his voice, even while his hands shook around the mug of tea his father had had made for him. Down in the street, a woman’s voice rose up in a raucous laugh.

“Dad, I’ve been meaning to speak to you,” he began. “I tried this Saturday just past, up the marshes, but it wasn’t right that I do it there.”

His father raised his head and looked George in the eye. “What is it, lad?” he asked quietly, keeping his eyes on his son’s.

George rushed towards the heart of the matter. “I came home early one day a few weeks back; I’ve hardly known what to do with myself since for wondering how to tell you. Ma was at home with her pains, I knew, so I didn’t want to knock and get her out of bed. You know the catch is stiff on the door and so I shoved at it to get in. I saw her there, in bed, but . . . well, she wasn’t ill after all. She was with another fellow, dad.”

George looked at the floor and swallowed hard. “He pushed past me and ran off or I’d have fought him and made sure he would never . . . “ He stopped, aware that his father’s expression hadn’t changed, though his eyes had moved to gaze into the middle distance.

George rattled on, not wishing there to be any misunderstanding. “Father, do you understand what I’m getting at? He weren’t just a . . . friend, come to visit her. I saw them. She had her skirts off.”

His father picked up a small chisel, the finest gauge he owned, and rolled it gently back and forth over the sticky texture of the table’s oilcloth. George bit the inside of his cheek to keep from talking on into the silence.

“Your mother is a very passionate woman,” his father finally said. “I was lucky to catch her when I did. I could hardly believe my own luck. She was too pretty, and too . . . too full of spirit to notice someone like me.” He chuckled quietly. “When we started stepping out, people would say we were like chalk and cheese, but somehow we suited each other. I didn’t mind her talking, and she didn’t mind my being quiet. I didn’t suppose then that I would hold her attention for long, she was like one of them birds up the marshes, all bright and full of life. But she married me and she’s stayed with me, and you and Cissy, for all these years.”

George’s hands clenched at his sides. “But what about this man?” he half shouted. “Why aren’t you angry, dad? She’s made a fool of you.”

Mr. Woolfe shook his head and smiled sadly at George. “But I always was a fool for her. I’m sorry that you had to see what you did, but I have always expected it somehow or other. Now, son, let’s not talk of it again. I won’t have you bad-mouth her, so it’s best if we leave it be.”

George was left at the table fuming, while his father resumed his pottering around the small space in which the four of them were confined in such close proximity. He had hardly dared think how his father might react to the news; still, he had never expected such abject acceptance. Though George hadn’t moved from his seat, and perhaps only a few minutes had passed since he broke his silence, he felt as though things had irrevocably shifted and changed. His father was the same but different, as if viewed through someone else’s spectacles. The gentleness George had always loved, and prized when other boys’ fathers had beaten them, had warped into passivity; the quietness that once seemed like self-assurance now seemed to reveal itself as weakness.

After Charlotte had left the Woolfes’ apartment without a word, she had gone straight home.

“Back again already, are we?” cried Annie, until she caught sight of Charlotte’s face.

“What’s wrong, Lottie? You don’t look right. What’s happened?”

Charlotte let out a strangled cry and flew up the stairs, Annie lumbering after her, the child in her arms beginning to fret at the commotion. Jiggling him on her hip until he dozed off again, Annie looked down at her sister. She had flung herself down on her bed, face turned away, her narrow back shaking with silent sobs. Annie put Eddie down in his cot and then sat down on the edge of Charlotte’s bed.

“Come on, lovey, you can tell your old sister what’s wrong. It’s not because I told you off this morning, is it? I gave Ted what for as well, you know. I’m just a bad tempered old so-and-so when I haven’t had a good night’s sleep, that’s all.”

Charlotte shook her head without turning around.

“Good,” said Annie. “Because the rent can wait another week, I know you’re good for it really. So what is it, then? Can’t you get any work? Or is it George? I haven’t seen much of him lately. Have you had a falling out?”

Charlotte remained silent, her weeping reduced to shudders as she relaxed under Annie’s hand, which was now stroking her tangled hair. After a time, Charlotte’s breathing grew deep and regular and Annie knew she had fallen asleep. Pulling a blanket over her sister’s sleeping form, Annie went back downstairs to her chores, wondering what on earth that boy could have done. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen Charlotte cry; she hadn’t shed a single tear at their mother’s funeral.

* * *

When Charlotte woke it was late in the afternoon, the light of the day already leached away. For a moment, she was confused until she remembered the small red leather book and the drawings within that she wished she’d never laid eyes on. Turning on her side and hugging her knees to her chest, she felt the unfamiliar sensation of tears rising up in her throat again. She couldn’t believe that she’d cried in front of Annie. Downstairs, she could now hear the low rumble of Ted’s voice. She wouldn’t go downstairs now, in case Annie tried to prise an answer out of her again, and Ted sat and gawped at her swollen eyes. Not for the first time she wished it was just her and Annie, and the baby of course. She couldn’t stand the way Ted looked at her at times; sometimes leering, when he’d had a few, but more often with a sneering sort of contempt.

Though she tried to ignore them, those brazen looks of his always took her back to the weeks when she had first lodged with Annie, just after their mother had died. She’d wanted to stay on in her mother’s two rooms alone, not for the sentimental reasons Annie had thought, but because she’d thought it would be grand to have the place to herself, to come and go as she pleased, and have no one shouting or lashing out at her. Annie was set against it though, and when Charlotte couldn’t get any shifts at Lipton’s the matter was resolved by her not being able to keep up the rent. There was nowhere to go but Annie’s—and with Annie came Ted.

Ted had never been one to say much; after his and Annie’s wedding he’d insisted they go to the pub, only to let everyone else fool about while he watched from the corner, pint after pint disappearing down his thick neck as the overcast afternoon had deepened into a dark, moonless night. Annie knew everyone, and everyone loved Annie, but Ted was something of an intrigue, with his way of holding back and watching, keeping himself apart.

Charlotte had always felt a prickle of unease when she was alone with him, something she had felt ashamed of—perhaps he was only awkward with people—and so had tried to make up for it by joining him at the pub occasionally, when Annie wouldn’t or, later, when the baby came, couldn’t go. Annie even encouraged it, believing Ted would be better off with her younger sister for company than some of his more unsavoury acquaintances. It wasn’t too bad: Ted happy to sit on his stool, surveying the scene, while Charlotte chattered on to whoever was in that night.

One afternoon might have changed everything if she had dared speak up about it afterwards. Annie had gone out, to visit an old lady a few roads away who had just lost her husband, and both Charlotte and Ted had idle afternoons ahead – he having been on a night shift and she having been curtly dismissed from her latest job at the cigar factory after arriving late. The house was unnaturally quiet, Annie having taken the baby with her to cheer up the neighbour.

Ted was sitting slumped in his customary armchair, apparently dozing, while Charlotte crept around in search of her umbrella. She had decided she would far rather head out into a light spring shower than endure an awkward hour or two with Ted when there wasn’t any drink to grease the wheels of conversation. She had just spied the missing article, rolled under Ted’s armchair, and had got down on her hands and knees to retrieve it, when she heard him stir.

“What’s my little sister up to, then?” he asked as she stayed rooted to the spot, and something in the way he spoke the harmless words made her shudder. She sat back quickly on her heels and met his eye. He was smiling, but it seemed more like a grimace to Charlotte.

No longer able to hold his gaze, she got up and batted the dust off her skirt, a hot blush spreading across her cheeks.

“You going out in the wet?” he asked, still looking at her intently. “Why don’t you keep me company while your dear sister’s out do-gooding round the place?”

Reaching out a meaty arm, his shirtsleeve rolled up to reveal a shock of thick, dark hair, he pulled her towards him so that she almost toppled into his lap.

“Come on, Lottie, you’re always out drinking with me, sitting up at the bar in your best jacket and them little shiny boots. We’re on our own now, without no one to bother us. I’ve seen you being all coy, teasing the men in the pub. And don’t think I haven’t noticed the looks you give your brother-in-law too, when Annie’s busy fussing with that baby.”

Pushing back against the arm of his chair with one hand, Charlotte regained her balance and dug her fingernails of the other hand into the fleshy arm that gripped her. He pulled away cursing as her nails broke his skin, his face darkening. Before he could get up she wrenched open the front door and ran out into the rain, the umbrella forgotten. “Stupid bitch,” she’d heard him call after her, as she half tripped over the front step in her haste to get away.

She’d thought about going straight round to the neighbour’s and telling Annie what had happened, but she found her feet taking her south instead, towards the surging Thames. She wasn’t sure she could explain it without sounding like she was causing trouble, and even began to wonder if her own discomfort around him had looked to Ted like coyness. When she came in late that evening, hungry and cold in her damp clothes, she’d lied and said she had forgotten her umbrella. Ted, who didn’t seem to have moved from his armchair, chose not to look up at her, and Charlotte let herself be scolded by Annie into dry clothes and bed.

Ted had never mentioned it, though she sensed he always knew where she was in the room, and heard what she said. Their trips to the pub only now occurred when he asked her to join him in front of Annie, when she was afraid to refuse and rouse her sister’s suspicions. Now, upstairs in bed, her small nephew breathing deeply in his cot close by, Charlotte realised that thinking about Ted, uncomfortable as the memory made her, had at least taken her mind off George. A few moments later, lulled by little Eddie’s occasional soft snores, she sank gratefully back into a deep sleep, glad to slip out of the world for a little longer.