Jam and Roses (27 page)

‘You bastard! How could you do that to your own daughter?’ She fixed her eyes on him, almost willing him to come against her.

But instead, he rocked back on his heels, giving her a smug grin of satisfaction. ‘She’s where she belongs. I’m not having another nutter of a daughter trying to kill me, like you did. It’s what I should’a done with you, and I will do, if you give me any more trouble! Then see what happens to your bastard, when you’re locked up!’

She checked herself. Jimmy. She’d called him her secret weapon, but, with a stab of fear, she realized he was also her greatest weakness. The old man could hurt her through Jimmy, any time he wanted.

He nodded knowingly. ‘Ahhh, not so quick with your fists now, are you?’

She had a vivid recollection of the first time she’d ever seen electric light, the wonder of the invisible current that flowed and resulted in such instant incandescence. Now she seemed the conduit for two opposing currents: shooting through her veins like lightning was the impulse to fight him, the red-hot desire to feel again the triumph of that day she’d called him out of the Swan, but there was also a slower, contradictory current, originating in her heart, pulsing only a warning about her child. She turned her back on the old man, and walked away.

Early next morning, when Milly and her mother arrived for Elsie’s arraignment, Florence Green was waiting with the young solicitor outside Tower Bridge magistrate’s court. The lawyer introduced himself as Francis Beaumont, a lanky young man who, with his round face and smooth complexion, seemed far too young to be a qualified lawyer. But who was she to look a gift horse in the mouth? Even if he was inexperienced, he knew more about the law than she ever would. He led them up the white stone steps of the court building into the wood-panelled interior. The waiting area was dimly lit and lined with doors leading to the courtrooms. Beside each courtroom door was a wooden bench and the young lawyer indicated they should sit at one.

‘Elsie’s due to appear in court number three,’ he nodded towards the door nearest them, ‘at ten thirty.’ He gave Mrs Colman a reassuring look. ‘Not long now.’

Milly squeezed her mother’s bony hand, the paper-thin skin contoured with protruding veins. She absently rubbed the swollen red knuckles; they were the hands of a much older woman.

‘We’ll have her home today, won’t we, sir?’ Her mother looked appealingly at the young man in his well-cut black suit and tie, and Milly saw him blush.

He looked at Miss Green, as if for reassurance. ‘I will certainly do my best, Mrs Colman.’ He swallowed hard. ‘But it may not be today... exactly.’

‘Don’t worry, Elsie is in good hands. Francis is an excellent lawyer.’ Florence Green came to his aid. ‘He has a very promising career ahead of him!’

Milly only wished his promising career was half behind him, or had, at the very least, actually begun. They waited in an awkward silence, while other people came to sit on the benches. Two cocky-looking boys, in cheap, fashionable suits, strolled in together, closely followed by a bloated woman with a red nose and a large bag, clinking with what sounded suspiciously like beer bottles. Milly could hardly believe she’d brought booze to court, but as the woman passed them, her mother muttered, ‘Smells worse’n the Anchor Brewery.’

On the stroke of ten thirty they were called into the courtroom. A cry broke from her mother’s lips when Elsie was brought in. Milly held on to her arm, unsure what Mrs Colman might do. Her sister looked pitiful. Her eyes, red-rimmed with crying, stared out of her sharp-featured face and fixed on Milly’s.

‘Get me out!’ she mouthed silently.

Milly nodded, hoping the contact made her feel less alone. Then the charges were read: robbery, concealing a weapon, threatening to kill her father, inflicting grievous bodily harm on a police officer. Only now did Milly understand how serious matters were, and she began to fear the worst.

The detective gave evidence of Elsie’s ‘unstable mental state’. And, as he described her behaviour – the sudden violent rage, followed by a trancelike, almost catatonic state, the unprompted laughter, the songs and pieces of verse that she addressed only to herself, the lack of any remorse – Milly realized he was indeed describing her sister. However much Milly had called her ‘a nutter’ in the past, she never really believed it. She wanted to shout out to the drawling, dismissive judge that it all meant nothing – it was just Elsie being Elsie!

Every time a new charge was read out, she saw her sister slump closer to the floor, until eventually she had to be held up by the officer standing next to her. The whole proceedings seemed to take place outside of time, for afterwards, Milly couldn’t remember who had said what, or when. Overawed by the formality of the room, where all was laid out to demonstrate the guilt of one and the power of another, Milly struggled to keep track of the arguments over Elsie’s fate. Eventually she heard her mother’s name mentioned and Francis Beaumont extolling her motherly virtues, a good Catholic woman, he said, who kept her children fed and clothed, made sure Elsie attended the school and church regularly. While he spoke of her, Milly’s mother sat up a little straighter and lifted her chin, eager to show that she was here in support of her daughter and that everything Francis Beaumont had said was true.

The judge looked their way, unsmiling, and asked if there were any other character witnesses. Miss Green rose, and spoke of Elsie in glowing terms, though Milly wondered how much sway she would have with the hard-faced judge. Still, she praised Elsie’s abilities in song and dance and drawing, and said that she was an unusually imaginative child, with a few character quirks, quite normal in the sensitive personality and not at all evidence of mental instability. Milly, for so long her sister’s sternest critic, now ached to be able to say something in Elsie’s defence, but she knew, that as a woman with an illegitimate child herself, she could do no good as a character witness for anyone.

Then the judge asked, ‘Is the father here?’

‘No, your honour,’ Francis Beaumont replied. ‘But there are allegations against him of brutality, which I respectfully suggest as mitigating circumstance for the... ahmm, attack. The police have indicated they would take this into consideration...’

The young man’s confident tone had dwindled, as it became evident the judge’s stern expression was not melting. His mouth was a tight, thin line that had not once curled into anything resembling a smile.

‘Nonsense,’ he replied testily. ‘These are very serious charges and they cannot be dropped at this point, and furthermore, if neither the father...’ here he looked over his glasses at Mrs Colman, ‘nor the mother can control this violent child, then she must be put into the hands of those who can. I believe I’ve heard enough. The juvenile is to be committed to Stonefield Asylum.’

The gavel struck, wood on wood, and Milly’s heart flinched from the blow. Elsie was half carried out, looking over her shoulder, bewildered and disbelieving. She fixed her eyes on Milly once more and mouthed again, silently, as though robbed of speech.

‘Get me out!’

Outside the courtroom they gathered in a little huddle of despair, Francis Beaumont shamefaced and apologetic, her mother inconsolable, Miss Green disbelieving. But as Milly felt herself being sucked into their defeat, she decided she must replace it with determination. Whatever it needed, however long it took, she would answer her sister’s mute cry for help. She would get her out of Stonefield Asylum, or ‘the nuthouse’ as it was commonly called. Its very name was used to strike terror into the heart of any wayward child. It was the place where young delinquents and unfortunates were sent to improve their ways, in the company of the slow of mind, the truly mad and the only ever mildly bad.

Bertie had been looking out for them. Milly saw him first, in his long white apron, standing at the shop door looking eagerly in their direction. They slowed down as they approached the shop and she saw his expectant, hopeful face turn to disbelief as he read her expression.

‘What happened?’

Milly’s mother’s tears returned and it was left to Milly to explain.

‘The lawyer was a nice young chap,’ she said, trying to put a positive slant on things. It had, after all, been Bertie’s suggestion she go to the Settlement for help. ‘He did his best, but well, to tell the truth, Bertie, he wasn’t much older than me.’

Bertie’s face fell. ‘So where’s Elsie?’

‘Stonefield Asylum,’ Milly said softly.

‘What? But that’s ridiculous. She’s not an imbecile!’ His face flushed red and with unusual vehemence he slammed his hand against the door jamb. Then seeing Mrs Colman’s renewed sobbing, he softened his voice. ‘Come into the shop, Mrs Colman. Let me get you a drop of brandy before you go any further.’

Together they helped her mother to the chair that always sat by the counter, for those customers with weak legs, or with time on their hands for chatting. Soon her mother was sipping brandy and Milly was able to give Bertie the details.

‘It was the knife did it, Bertie. She attacked a copper. To be fair to Mr Beaumont, not many lawyers would have got her off. The old man’s testimony just put the dairy on it, and the judge said, if her parents couldn’t control her, then someone else would have to try.’

‘But why the asylum?’ Although he worked at Dockhead, as a member of the shopkeeping classes, Bertie hadn’t the same first-hand experience of the law and its ways that Milly had. She, however, had seen playmates come and go from a whole host of institutions and in the end it didn’t much matter what they were called, they were all forbidding old Victorian buildings, echoing repositories for those too young or feeble to be placed into prisons. She remembered poor Johnny Harper in the class above her. He’d scaled the walls of the meat factory in Spa Road and stolen sausages, dipped into the barrels of oranges at Lipton’s and lifted pats of butter from Fogden’s Dairy. It was no coincidence all his contraband was food, for in a family of fourteen he was continually hungry. He’d always said he wasn’t scared of Stonefield, but as others before him had discovered, there, the mixture of bad and mad was so toxic that if you went inside as one, you would certainly come out as the other. She feared that her sister, who had always skipped so precariously along the margin of both, would certainly be tipped over the edge in such a place.

And she couldn’t bear the thought Elsie might suffer the same fate as poor Johnny, who now roamed the streets of Bermondsey, collecting newspapers in an old pram. He’d been given the new cruel name of ‘pissy pants’ and the last time she’d seen him he was emaciated and still hungry, living in a lean-to in Wild’s Rents.

‘Why Stonefield?’ She shuddered. ‘Because there’s nowhere else to put her.’

Soon the word seeped out that they were back and the neighbours, eager to know the verdict on Elsie, began to join them in the shop. The tiny square of black-and-white tiles in front of the counter was soon crowded. Mrs Knight claimed to be so overcome with shock that she needed a tipple of what Mrs Colman was drinking, and Rosie Rockle, who’d been minding Jimmy all morning, offered to keep him for the afternoon.

‘That’s kind, Rosie,’ Milly said in thanks. ‘I need to get back to work and I don’t know if Mum’s up to looking after him.’

‘No trouble, love. I’ll take your mother home with me.’

Milly left her mother in the care of the neighbours, including old Ma Donovan, who gave her a curt nod. Dashing out of the shop, she glanced back just in time to see her scrutinizing Jimmy, while he contentedly observed the drama from the billowing bosom of Rosie Rockle.

After clocking back on, Milly sought out Tom Pelton. He’d bent the rules for her, allowing her extra time off and tacitly agreeing to cover for her if any questions were asked. The least she could do was let him know the outcome.

‘Oh, Milly, love, I’m sorry to hear that. She doesn’t deserve it. I don’t know what I’d do, if anything like that had happened to our Theresa.’

Tom Pelton’s only child had been a schoolfriend of Milly’s. Spoiled, bespectacled and always a little more refined than her classmates, she hadn’t been popular at school but Milly had always fought her corner when the bullies wanted to gang up, which she suspected was the reason for Tom’s favouritism towards her.

‘How’s your poor mother taking it?’ he asked.

Milly shook her head. ‘She’s in a state, Tom. If we don’t get our Elsie home, I think it’ll kill her.’

Tom put a comforting arm on her shoulder. ‘If you need any more time, let me know,’ he said, tapping the side of his nose with a finger. Some foremen were firmly company men, but Tom had been born in Dockhead and he always put ‘his own’ first.

She made her way quickly to the picking room, where she’d been working for the past few weeks, stoning plums. Plum jam was Southwell’s most popular brand and the fruit had been piling up on the wharfside for weeks. She and Kitty were once again working alongside each other, and as she weaved her way through conveyer belts and wicker baskets to her station, she saw Kitty look up expectantly.

‘Well, did you bring her home?’ Kitty asked, making a space for Milly next to her.

Milly picked up the razor-sharp stoning knife and stabbed it into a dusty purple fruit. She shook her head, biting her lip. ‘No luck.’

‘Oh, love, I’m so sorry. Where’d they send her?’

‘Stonefield.’

‘Oh no!’ Kitty’s shock was noticed by the other women, and soon Milly heard the Chinese whispers of Elsie’s name, coupled with ‘nuthouse’, passing down the line.

Milly picked up a plum, sliced the fruit in half, twisted and deftly de-stoned it. She flicked the stone to a basket on one side and the fruit into a pan on the other side. She’d stoned a dozen more, before she could speak again.

‘I’ll get her out, Kit, if I die trying.’

And wreaking all her anger on the undeserving fruit, she sliced, slitted, chopped and twisted her way through pounds of plums. Each one, she named: the old man, she stabbed with the blade; the judge she sliced in half; the copper she twisted apart; the detective she gouged; the Sisters of Mercy, one by one, she tossed aside, discarding the stones and pulp of them, though Sister Clare she spared for her kind heart; on and on she went all afternoon; the matron at Edenvale; Mr Dowell; the couple who had dared to deem Jimmy second best; but most often the name she gave to the fruit she cut was Milly Colman, the older sister who had never really been worthy of the name.