Jam and Roses (36 page)

‘I noticed bruises on her legs,’ she ventured and then wished she hadn’t. Her mother’s eyes filled with tears and her hand covered her mouth.

‘I’m at my wits’ end, trying to keep her out of his way. It comes to something when you can’t even protect your own children.’

Milly knew, more than ever since giving birth to Jimmy, what agonies of remorse her mother must have gone through during all the years of their childhood.

‘Don’t worry, Mum. I’ve told her to come to me, if it happens again.’

Her mother gave her a long look, and then a brief nod. Milly took it as unspoken permission to kick her father from one end of Bermondsey Wall to the next, if he laid a hand on Amy again.

At dinner time she went with Kitty to the café in Tooley Street. It was impossible to talk to her in the factory without someone overhearing them. Once they’d found a table and been served with sandwiches and cups of tea, she leaned forward and whispered, ‘I’ve got a bone to pick with your chap!’

‘What’s he done? Wasn’t something wrong with them tins of fruit he give your mum, was there?’

Milly shook her head. ‘Bob’s sprung Elsie!’

Kitty’s eyes widened and she choked on her bacon sandwich. She leaned forward.

‘She’s out?’

Milly nodded. ‘She’s in Bertie’s house!’

‘Oh, Milly, are you sure it was Bob?’

‘He left the bloody gate open for her, Kit! I never told Freddie to do that. I just wanted him to find out from Bob how she was!’

‘I don’t think Freddie told him to do it. I’m sure he was just joking that time he mentioned it,’ she said uncertainly. ‘I wouldn’t put it past Bob, though. He’s such a soft ’apporth, he’s likely felt sorry for her and done it on the spur of the moment. But I’ll find out.’

‘Well, either way, it’s a bit late now, love, unless he knows some way of smuggling her back in before they notice she’s gone!’

By the time she picked up Jimmy, it was too late to smuggle Elsie anywhere. Her mother told her she’d given a performance worthy of the films. When the policeman knocked, she’d been indignant, and Milly knew that her mother could do indignant very well. Stonefield, she’d said, was meant to be protecting her child and now she could be anywhere, with no money, no food. What were they going to do about it, she’d demanded, and the young policeman had spent a half-hour drinking dark brown tea and offering apologies, never once suggesting that Mrs Colman could know anything of her daughter’s whereabouts.

For the rest of that week, Elsie stayed sequestered in Storks Road, seemingly happy to occupy herself helping with laundry and housework. It was almost as though she’d grown so used to being without her freedom that the idea of leaving the house never occurred to her. She seemed simply happy to be home, and happy as well to be in Milly’s company. They sat in the evenings sewing contentedly together, and once her mother brought Amy to see Elsie. Not to be left out, Amy insisted on taking up a piece of sewing herself.

Mrs Colman looked on wonderingly. ‘
Jesus
, Mary and Joseph, I never thought I’d see me matching set of jugs with not a cross word between ’em!’

It had been over a week since Elsie came to them, and Milly thought it odd when Bertie came home the following Saturday and suggested they go for a walk in Southwark Park. The weather had turned icy and grey skies threatened snow. It wasn’t a day for a walk in the park. What’s more, Elsie couldn’t risk going out and it seemed mean to leave her alone at home. When Bertie suggested they leave Jimmy with her, Milly grew uneasy. This simply wasn’t like him. Perhaps he was having second thoughts about sheltering Elsie? If he did, then Milly hadn’t a clue what she would do with her sister.

On the way to the park, Milly slipped her arm through Bertie’s, leaning in to steal some of his warmth, glad at least of some time alone with him. Since Elsie’s arrival they’d hardly had a minute to themselves and even though she saw him every day, she’d missed him. There were plenty of hardy little gangs of children hurtling about when they arrived, but only a few brave couples, who, like themselves, had nowhere else more private to go. Bertie usually walked at an amble, and her long legs always outpaced his, but today he strode, almost at a run, as soon as they entered the park.

‘What’s the rush?’ she asked, tugging his arm. ‘Now we’re out, we might as well enjoy the walk!’

But he didn’t slow down, or even acknowledge her. His face looked set, almost as though he were walking into battle, rather than an afternoon stroll with his sweetheart.

‘Bertie, what’s the matter?’ She drew in a breath. ‘Look, if you’ve had enough of Elsie staying, I’d understand. I’ll find somewhere else for her.’

He shook his head. ‘It’s not that. It’s... Oh, Milly, I’m sorry but...’ He stopped in the middle of the path, seemingly unable to finish his sentence. She’d never seen him so agitated.

‘But what? Bertie, spit it out. You’re making me worried now.’

‘Milly, I can’t marry you!’ It came out in a rush, his tone harsher than she’d ever heard it. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t marry you.’

With one deft slice, he had cut the heart from her, as though she were nothing more than a damson, to be stoned and tossed into a basket. She seemed to be looking at herself, cut open, flesh gaping, jagged and torn, an empty cavity where her heart should have been. Desperately wanting the words unsaid, or to have at least misunderstood them, she forced herself to speak.

‘I don’t understand. What do you mean, you can’t marry me?’ she said, her voice high and thin, straining against the constriction of her throat.

He tried to get her to walk on, but stunned to the core, she found herself unable to move. Now she understood why he’d chosen to do it here. He’d probably hoped that in a public place she’d rein in her tears and not make a scene, but he didn’t know her as well as he thought. Decorum had never been one of her strong points and no matter how much he urged her on, she wouldn’t give in but stood stock-still in the path, blocking the way of a young couple, who looked on curiously then hurried round them.

He laid his hand on her elbow. ‘Let’s go to the flower garden – we can talk better there.’

She shrugged it off. ‘Don’t tell me I’m showing you up! You should have thought of that, Bertie Hughes, before you asked a common factory girl to marry you!’

His lips were white in his pale face, she could see him swallowing dryly and, as he spun her towards him, his bright blue eyes turned stormy grey.

‘I’m
not
ashamed of you! And if you’d just let me explain my reason, you’ll understand it’s for the best!’

‘For the best!’ Exactly what she’d told Pat, an empty phrase from an empty heart.

She wished she could feel more anger; it would surely hurt less. But instead she felt utterly betrayed. She knew there was only one way out of her pain. She had to let him speak, let him explain himself, and then persuade him otherwise. She began walking ahead of him, fighting down panic and tears of incomprehension. She had been so sure of him, sure of his goodness, sure that they could overcome all the obstacles of class and temperament, but now all her certainty proved as insubstantial as the flurries of snow whipping around the bare trees, melting on her face like so many cold tears. At the flower garden, she headed for a secluded arbour. Hugging her long wrap-around coat tightly to her, she put up the collar against a sharp breeze cutting across the beds. Bertie sat beside her, leaning forward, hands clasped so tightly that she could see his knuckles whiten.

‘Remember, just before Elsie turned up, I said I had something to tell you?’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I’ve been so caught up with Elsie, I forgot all about it.’ She found she was holding herself rigid against the cold and against the words that Bertie was speaking, so that she trembled with the effort to keep still. ‘So you’ve been wanting to call it off ever since then?’

He shook his head. ‘No! I don’t
want
to call it off, but I
have
to!’ he said in an agonized voice.

‘But why? What’s changed? Don’t you love me any more?’ she whispered, with a sob.

His hand found hers. Still looking straight ahead, his fingertips lightly brushed her own. ‘I’ll never stop loving you, Milly, but something’s happened that means I can’t offer you the life I thought I could, not any more...’

‘What’s happened?’

‘My uncle’s disowned me.’

She almost wanted to laugh, so relieved that he still loved her, that it wasn’t something she’d done.

‘Why’s he disowned you?’ He lowered his eyes, and she knew why. ‘Because of me?’

He nodded miserably. ‘He came to the shop, told me if I married you it would disgrace the family, said I had to choose. I could either have a common jam girl, or I could have his shops when he died, but I couldn’t have both...’

‘So you chose the shops,’ she said, all her relief vanishing in the face of his stark choice. He’d promised to stay with her forever, but if he could break faith with her for money, then perhaps he wasn’t the man she thought he was.

‘Strike me dumb!’ he said, angry with her now. ‘Do you think I’d take a penny from that man again? Marry or not, I’m finished with him, with them all. Uncles, aunts, cousins, all of them too up their own arses to remember where the family’s come from, a hovel in the sticks!’ His face grew red, and his eyes blazed beneath winged eyebrows, drawn into a sharp frown. ‘The brass of him, talking like that about my future wife. I told him he couldn’t pay me enough to stay in his shop. So the upshot is, love, I’ll be out of work from next week.’

‘But, Bertie, you silly man, we can still get married! I don’t care about the life you offered me, I care about you! Besides, if you
don’t
marry me, you’ll be giving your uncle just what he wants anyway!’

He got up, pacing agitatedly in front of her. Suddenly he was kneeling on the sleety path in front of the bench where she sat. He took both her hands in his. ‘Milly, never doubt that I do love you, but you’ve got Jimmy to think of and you mustn’t be saddled with someone who can’t even support you, let alone give you a decent life.’

‘Well, I’ve still got a job, and you won’t be out of work for long. There’s other things you can do.’

It seemed so obvious to her that it wasn’t the insurmountable problem he thought it was. Perhaps because she’d grown up in poverty, it didn’t hold the same terror that it did for him. She pulled him up off his knees and made him sit next to her, snuggling beneath his arm. She felt more hopeful, now that she realized it was a practical problem and not one of the heart.

Bertie sighed. ‘You don’t understand, Milly. I was my uncle’s partner. I’ve been getting a share in the profits from all the shops. Being a grocer is all I know. But the way things are going, with shops closing down for lack of trade, I’d be lucky to get a job as a delivery boy!’

‘What’s wrong with that? It’s better than nothing.’

He gave a short laugh. ‘That’s my bold, brave girl. I know you think you can take on the world, love, but it’ll likely mean I can’t keep on Storks Road, and I couldn’t give you and the boy a decent life. In fact I’d just be a drain on you.’ Then, looking into her eyes, he went on. ‘I planned to take you both on holiday to Ramsgate after the wedding...’ he said wistfully.

‘Holiday? Who needs a holiday, when we can go hopping?’ She smiled up at him, but he gave her no answering smile.

‘Well, if I thought you didn’t have a choice, I might ask you to risk it with me,’ he said, and she felt his body go still as he went on. ‘But I hear Pat Donovan’s getting out at Christmas and I don’t want to stand in the way of your chances there. He can always earn a bob or two.’ He gave an uncharacteristically bitter little laugh and she disentangled herself from him.

‘If you wanted to insult me, you’ve succeeded. What do you think I am? Some sort of whore who’ll go for the highest bidder? You know very well I’ve finished with Pat, and you know why.’

She stood up. ‘I’d better get back to Elsie,’ she said flatly, but as she turned to leave, he called to her.

‘Milly! Don’t go like that!’ But she didn’t look back. She tucked her chin into the shawl collar of her coat and stuffed her hands into her pockets. Tiny balls of stinging sleet crusted the grass all around with a pale sheet and soon her coat was covered too. She broke into a run, feeling betrayed by her own ridiculous hopefulness, hot tears running freely, now that he couldn’t see. She launched herself forward into the swirling ice and wind, sprinting now. Bertie Hughes might have been infatuated with her, but he could never have respected her. He was suggesting exactly what her mother had, that she was more interested in his money than in him. Perhaps Uncle had been right after all, and their two worlds should never try to mix. It simply wasn’t worth the heartache.

December 1924

Bertie still went to the grocery on the following Monday. He’d told Milly he wouldn’t leave the Dockhead customers without a local shop. Many of them bought tea and other staples in very small quantities, and those who were bad managers often came to him on Monday morning with an empty purse and an equally empty food cupboard after the weekend blowout. They would be counting on the slate, till they could get to the pawnshop. But his uncle had been ruthlessly efficient and by the end of the day a new shopkeeper was installed in Hughes’ Dockhead grocery, an older, married cousin of Bertie’s, a true-blue Tory, with three children and a respectable wife. Bertie had wished him luck, come home and started looking for another job the next day.

His plan was to find a shop manager job, or, he’d told Milly, even a sales assistant position – he couldn’t afford to be choosy. After trying every shop in Tower Bridge Road, he went on to the Blue, and when he had no luck there started along the Old Kent Road. But as he’d predicted, wherever he went, shops were closing at an alarming rate. He’d even tried Peggy Dillon’s butcher, who’d confided that the free flow of meat to the Dillon family might well be drying up, if takings didn’t pick up soon.

Each jobless day dawned, with Bertie still stubbornly refusing to change his mind about the wedding, and after a few days of pleading Milly retreated into a punishing silence. She pointedly ignored Bertie’s vigorous flicking through the job pages in the
South London Press
as she dashed about the kitchen, hastily gathering Jimmy’s things and making sure that Elsie had all she needed for another day in hiding. She and Bertie hadn’t spoken to each other for a week and Milly certainly wasn’t going to be the one who broke the ice. Bertie sighed and looked over at her with a hangdog expression that at any other time she would have found funny.