Ironmonger's Daughter

 
 
 

 
Ironmonger's Daughter

 

 
HARRY BOWLING

 
 
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Copyright © 1989 Harry Bowling

 

 
The right of Harry Bowling to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

 

 
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

 

 
First published as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2011.

 

 
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

 

 
Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

 

eISBN : 978 0 7553 8147 0

 

 
This Ebook produced by jouve Digitalisation des Informations

 

 
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Table of Contents

 

 

 

 

 

Harry Bowling was born in Bermondsey, London, and left school at fourteen to supplement the family income as an office boy in a riverside provisions’ merchant. He was called up for National Service in the 1950s. Before becoming a writer, he was variously employed as a lorry driver, milkman, meat cutter, carpenter and decorator, and community worker. He lived with his wife and family, dividing his time between Lancashire and Deptford. We at Headline are sorry to say that THE WHISPERING YEARS was Harry Bowling’s last novel, as he very sadly died in February 1999. We worked with him for over ten years, ever since the publication of his first novel, CONNER STREET’S WAR, and we miss him enormously, as do his many, many fans around the world.

 

The Harry Bowling Prize was set up in memory of Harry to encourage new, unpublished fiction and is sponsored by Headline. Click on
www.harrybowlingprize.net
for more information.

To Val Chapman, with fond memories.

With thanks to my agent Jennifer Kavanagh, and to my editor Jane Morpeth.

The year of 1920 had spawned a good summer but, when the winter took grip and nightly fogs drifted in from the river, tired workers left the factories, offices and wharves to hurry home as quickly as possible. Belching smoke from the factory furnaces and from the lop-sided chimneys of the shabby houses and tenement blocks merged with the wet fog and made it sulphurous. The fog rolled into the Bermondsey backstreets, a yellow soot-blanket that snuffed out the night light from the hissing gaslamps and made the cobblestones wet and slippery. Inside the ramshackle houses coke fires were banked up and draughty doors and windows were plugged with old coats and yesterday’s newspapers. There was no inclination to chat on the front doorsteps, nor to stop off for a pint of ale as the November fogs thickened.

On a Friday in mid November the weather turned bitter cold. The cold red sun was shut out as the Thames fog swirled through the cobbled riverside lanes and out into Bermondsey. It thickened during the early afternoon and the dismal sound of fog-horns carried from London’s river as tugs struggled to place their trailing barges into safe anchorage before night fell. Traffic slowed and trains crawled out to suburbia through the yellow, poisonous blanket, and homeward-bound workers held scarves and handkerchiefs to their mouths as they moved wearily home. The fog blotted out the view for old Fran Collins but she gazed out from a fourth-floor window in Jubilee Dwellings anyway. She had done all she could for the moment and everything was at hand. Kate Morgan was resting comfortably and Fran knew that it would be some time yet. The room was warm and clean and the dampened coke was piled high in the grate. The warmth radiated around the shabby room and Fran Collins tucked her hands into her crisp white apron. ‘What yer’opin’ for, luv?’ she asked.

Kate shifted her position in the kitchen chair. ‘I don’t care. So long as it’s all right.’

Fran looked closely at the woman. All the tales she had heard about Kate Morgan’s love life, the men she had supposedly been with and the identity of the lover who had made her pregnant were of little interest to her at the moment. She had been summoned to deliver the child and she could sense that the woman facing her in the chair was not disposed to discussing the whys and wherefores of her condition. Fran straightened the front of her apron and walked through into the tiny bedroom that led off from the front room. Everything looked ready. A small fire burned in the grate and the bedclothes had been turned back. A rubber underlay had been placed beneath the freshly laundered white bed sheet, and on the chair beside the bed was the maternity bundle. Fran checked once again through the napkins which had been cut from thick towelling and found the clean nightdress and a pack of muslin. She took the tin of vaseline and the thin scissors from the washstand and placed them on top of the bundle beside the bed before going out of the room.

The kettle had boiled for the second time and when Fran Collins returned from the scullery she glanced at the fidgeting Kate. There was something about the woman that puzzled the street’s midwife. Almost without exception, all the confinements she had attended over the years were happy events. Happiness always seemed to shine out from her clients’ eyes, which were bright and clear, even when the pregnancy was unwanted or when the latest birth would bring more hardship to the family. There was a short time when, just before the pain took over, that special light in the woman’s eyes expressed the satisfaction at reaching her time. Kate Morgan’s gaze did not reflect any satisfaction, Fran thought. The woman’s large blue eyes were dull and lustreless: a deep hurt reflected in her empty stare.

In the street below Jubilee Dwellings the fog covered the ugliness of the place. It blanketed off the dilapidated tenement block and the row of tumbledown houses opposite, and it shut out the drab metal factory which stood astride the end of the turning. The swirling fog shrouded the rusting iron gates of the factory and laid its cold fingers on the cobblestones and on the grey slates of the roofs. It wrapped itself suffocatingly around the one streetlamp and squeezed out the cold light. In the full light of day, after the fog had cleared, the grey ugliness of Ironmonger Street would reappear, one of the most unsightly turnings in Bermondsey. It stood some way behind the Tower Bridge Road and it boasted two corner shops at the entrance: one, a rag shop that was hardly ever opened; and the other, an oil shop. Next to the oil shop was a pair of large wooden gates that led into a yard which was used to store the Tower Bridge Road market barrows and stalls. From the yard the four-storeyed tenement block carried on and ended short of the factory wall. A narrow alley led around to the back of the dwellings and it was there that the tenants placed their refuse in a large bottomless bin. As the rubbish built up the bin disappeared beneath the stinking pile and every Friday it was recovered by the Council dustmen, who carried the rubbish out from the alley in large wicker baskets.

On that fog-bound night in mid November, Kate Morgan gave birth to a baby girl. It was nearing eight o’clock when her waters broke and the reliable Fran Collins calmly took control. Fran was a sixty-six-year-old grandmother whose husband Tom was a docker at the Surrey. Their four children had all flown the nest, were married, and had broods of their own. Many of the local kids had been delivered by Fran, who was often called upon when there was no money to pay for the doctor. She usually got paid, eventually, but she never refused the summons to a birth, whatever the time of night or the state of the weather. Her grey hair was tied up in a bun on the top of her head and her large dark eyes shone out from a moon-face. She was a buxom lady, and her calm manner helped her charges through even the most difficult of labours. Fran Collins had had no formal training; the whole business seemed to come naturally to her, and she had gained invaluable experience over the years.

The birth of Connie Morgan was a straightforward affair and it was over very quickly. When both mother and daughter had been made comfortable Fran took her leave. As she edged her way out into the pea-souper she could not help but puzzle over the moment she had placed the tiny bundle into Kate’s arms. The ‘look’ was missing, she felt sure. It was a certain look that made her glow inside every time she placed a newborn baby into its mother’s arms and watched her gaze upon her child for the very first time. Tonight there had been no gaze of wonder and love, only a look of resignation. Maybe she was wrong, maybe it was her own tiredness and fatigue that made her miss the glance. She hoped so. But, as Fran Collins inched along to her front door, she was convinced that all was not well with Kate Morgan.

As the wind carried large snowflakes against the windows of the tenement block early on Christmas morning Kate’s sister Helen also gave birth to a daughter. The confinement was a long and difficult one and Doctor Morrison was in attendance. He looked serious as he snapped his black bag shut; he had seen the signs all too often before. He glanced at the white-faced woman who lay back against the pillow, her arm cradling the child, and he smiled sadly. ‘I’ll pop in again tomorrow,’ he said. ‘You try and get some sleep now.’

Matthew Bartlett hovered by the bedroom door and, as the doctor turned from the bed, he stood back and glanced anxiously into the man’s serious face. Doctor Morrison put a finger to his lips and motioned with his eyes to the front door. Matthew followed him across the living room and waited while the doctor buttoned up his overcoat. ‘What is it, doctor?’ he asked finally.

‘I’m not sure yet. I need to see the child tomorrow. In the meantime make sure your wife gets some sleep. She’s exhausted.’

Matthew felt his heart miss a beat. His mouth went dry and he struggled to form the words. ‘Is anyfing wrong wiv the baby, doctor?’

Dr Morrison looked hard at the man. ‘I suspect there might be a deformity of the spine,’ he said gravely.

Down in the street below the sound of happy children carried up to the quiet flat in Jubilee Dwellings. The snow was falling heavily now, and already the cobblestones were hidden beneath a white carpet. Kate came down from her flat on the floor above to see her sister’s baby and to offer to cook the Christmas meal. Matthew politely refused. Helen and the baby were sleeping and he wanted to be alone. The doctor’s words had stunned him. How could such a thing happen, he wondered, and on Christmas Day? Wasn’t it meant to be the holiest of days? How could God let a baby be born deformed on Christmas Day? Maybe the doctor was wrong. They weren’t always right. He bit on his bottom lip. How could this thing happen to us?