Authors: Mary Gibson
‘Come on.’ She pulled her mother up. ‘Let’s creep upstairs, before he hears us.’
They followed each other up, avoiding the treads that creaked, and Milly slipped quietly into her room, feeling like a burglar in the night. Amy lay with her head to the foot of the bed, and Elsie stirred as Milly rolled her over. She slipped into the warm spot her sister had vacated and reached down for Amy.
‘Come up this end,’ she whispered to the sleeping child.
Still half asleep, Amy obeyed. ‘Are you cold?’ she asked thickly.
‘Yes,’ Milly lied, putting her arms round Amy, so that they were spooned in the bed.
She lay awake for a long time, remembering that week in the hop gardens. Only two months had passed, but it felt like a lifetime ago. Two months? A sudden anxiety gripped her, with the dawning realization that those golden, early autumn days might have marked far more than the end of summer.
At the factory next day Milly took more than her allowed quota of toilet breaks – after the fifth time, the foreman told her he’d dock her half an hour if she went again.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ Kitty said under her breath, when she returned. ‘You never have weak bladder trouble when you’re drinking in the Folly!’
Milly smiled weakly, but her stomach was churning. Her frequent checking only made her more anxious. She told herself to be patient, it could well be a false alarm.
At the end of the day she walked out of the gates, still lost in her own anxiety, and was waylaid by the last person she wanted to see. He was lounging against his lorry outside Southwell’s, obviously waiting for her.
‘Hello, stranger,’ he called to her, ‘I ain’t seen you in days. Fancy coming for a drink?’
She shook her head. ‘Sorry, can’t, I’m going to the sewing circle at the Settlement.’
The girls’ club at the Bermondsey Settlement had been a lifesaver for Milly. The rambling, soot-stained Victorian building was home to a group of young Methodist missionaries, called to live among the poor of Bermondsey. They were often doctors or solicitors, who visited the overcrowded terraces and tenements surrounding the Settlement, offering their services free of charge. They ran children’s clubs and country holidays, put on lectures, and encouraged working girls and boys to better themselves.
Clubs were held on most nights of the week. Milly would go straight from Southwell’s to the local coffee shop, have something to eat, then go on to the Settlement, where she could change out of her work clothes and spend the evening in the warm with her friends.
She was even beginning to prefer the sewing circle to a night in the Folly. And now, barely looking up, she attempted to hurry past Pat. Milly’s interest in him had waned soon after their chase through the hop fields, and as she’d feared, once back in Bermondsey, she bitterly regretted those fumbles among the green hops of Kent. Out from under the spell of the hop gardens, she could no longer fool herself he was any sort of ‘hop prince’, any more than she was a princess. He’d quickly reverted to being Pat from Dockhead, familiar, predictable and somehow confining. She was sure she ought to feel something a little stronger for someone she was courting and had tried her best to rebuff him.
‘Sewing circle! Makes you sound like some old gel.’ Pat’s scornful expression irritated her. She stopped and faced him.
‘What’s wrong with sewing? I’m good at it, and anyway, I can’t afford to buy new dresses.’
‘You only have to say and I’ll get you a new dress any time,’ Pat boasted, and it was true, he seemed always to have money in his pocket these days. Though Milly knew the majority of his business was conducted by moonlight and out of the back of the lorry, she hoped he was still trying to make a legitimate living during the daylight hours.
Milly shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t let you buy a dress for me.’
‘Well, can I interest you in something else?’ Pat said enigmatically, drawing her in. He whispered, ‘I’m getting a load of tinned stuff tonight. Wondered if your mum could do with some?’
‘Knocked off?’ Milly whispered back.
‘’Course, knocked off, straight out of Crosse & Blackwell’s!’
Milly hesitated. The old man seemed less and less willing to hand over the housekeeping each week, and she knew her mother would welcome the food.
‘But if you’re not interested...’ Pat shrugged.
‘No, I am interested, only I promised to meet Kitty at the Settlement after tea.’
‘Well, I ain’t getting it till after dark!’ He winked at her. ‘Tell you what, I’ll pick you up from the Settlement, after your club.’
‘Oh, all right then.’
‘So what about that drink first?’
The warmth and life of the pub suddenly seemed preferable to a lonely tea in Reeny’s coffee shop, and Milly agreed. ‘So long as it’s not the Swan.’
‘’Course not, we’ll go to the Folly, same as always.’
‘All right, anywhere the old man doesn’t go’s fine with me.’
It would be quicker to walk through the narrow courts and alleys than to drive in the lorry, so Pat left it parked outside Southwell’s and they set off briskly through a freezing fog that was settling low over the rooftops. Milly jammed her hands into her coat pockets. They were chapped and bleeding from peeling a barge load of early Seville oranges, and the bitter cold of the unheated fruit-picking room hadn’t helped. She hated marmalade season, for on bad days it ruined her fingers and robbed her of one of the few things in life that lifted her heart, her sewing. Still, tonight she was determined to finish the new dress she was making for her mother, sore fingers or not. Cutting down Farthing Alley, they skirted a few empty prams left outside front doors, then crossed a close huddled court of dilapidated houses, leading into Hickman’s Folly.
‘Shall we knock for Kitty?’ Milly asked as they passed her door.
Pat looked a little crestfallen. No doubt he was hoping for an hour alone with Milly, but he nodded. The Bunclerks had apparently finished their tea and Percy opened the door with his face still covered in a good portion of it.
He screamed into the dark interior, ‘Kitty, it’s yer mate!’ and dashed back down the passage.
Kitty came to the door and seeing Pat, her face hardened, ‘Ain’t you going to the club tonight?’ she asked Milly.
‘Yes, but we’re going for a drink first, can you come?’ Milly’s expression was a mute appeal. Kitty knew that she was tiring of Pat and gave her an accusing look, which Milly knew she deserved. It was no good complaining about him to Kitty, if she encouraged him the very next time she saw him. Kitty threw on her coat, glad to get out of the cramped hubbub of her home, and they soon came to the Folly.
A weak golden glow from the gas lamp on the wall opposite cut through the fog and lit up the door. They hustled inside and were immediately hit by a pall of cigarette smoke, thick as the fog outside. But the gaslight and chatter and warmth of the packed bodies was welcoming, none the less. Some of Pat’s friends spotted them and beckoned him over to a table in the corner, where seats were found for Milly and Kitty. Freddie Clark was there already, and Milly noticed a slight blush colour Kitty’s face. Clara and Ivy, a couple of jam girls Milly knew, were sitting at the same table and the girls immediately fell into the latest factory gossip, eager to find out what each knew about the current round of lay-offs. Preserve making was always dependent upon the season and in winter, when the summer fruits disappeared, so did many of the women’s jobs.
‘The Seville oranges are early, they’re rolling in off the docks,’ Pat added helpfully. ‘At least you’ll have plenty of peeling and pulping to keep you busy on the marmalade. Matter of fact, I’ve got a couple of barrels round the yard if anyone’s interested?’
Milly groaned. ‘Talk about coals to Newcastle, don’t you think we can ’alf-inch as many as we like? But I’m sick of the smell of oranges this time of year, look at the state of my hands! To think I used to look forward to getting an orange in me stocking every Christmas!’
Milly held out her raw hands for inspection as the other girls agreed with her. Working in the finishing room, their hands were at least saved from all but the irritating effects of the glue used to label the jam jars.
Pat suddenly took one of her hands.
‘You should give that up,’ he said suddenly. ‘You’re too good for that work.’
A round of ‘ooohs!’ from the other girls followed and Milly snatched her hand away.
‘Chance’d be a fine thing,’ she said, picking up the pint of bitter Pat had bought her. ‘What else would I do? Make biscuits instead of jam?’
Pat was silenced. But Milly remembered how she’d once dreamed of being something else, a seamstress. The nuns at school had taught her needlework and had always praised her skills – except when she let her desire for beauty outweigh their instructions to make plain, serviceable garments. As schoolgirls they were set the task of making the nuns’ nightgowns and once Milly, tiring of plain tucks, had set about inserting some fancy smocking on Sister Clare’s nightdress. This particular nun was a gentle, sweet-tempered teaching sister, and Milly had simply wanted to do something nice for her. But her generous impulse was ill-judged, as it was Sister Mary Paul who was collecting in their work that day.
‘Girl Colman,’ had come the shrill voice of Sister Mary Paul, when the sewing class was over. ‘You will unpick this frivolous frill immediately!’
This was all the thanks Milly got, along with a sharp rap of the ruler over her knuckles. She had wanted to ask, what was the harm? Was it so wrong to have something that looked lovely, as long as it did the job? But not wanting another rap or worse, she’d held her tongue and undid all her work. But the idea of becoming a seamstress, making beautiful dresses in expensive velvets and silks, had lodged in her child’s imagination, and when the time came to leave school Sister Clare had found her an apprenticeship with a West End seamstress. For a few days Milly knew the joy of a dream come true, until it was squashed firmly by the old man.
‘There’s no money for bus fares over the West End, and anyway, she’ll make better money in the jam factory. They’re crying out for girls, God knows, they don’t want the men any more since the war,’ he’d told her mother. So she had gone to Southwell’s and her dream had, if not died, at least gone into a long hibernation. Kitty suddenly interrupted her daydreaming.
‘What you smiling to yourself for?’ she’d asked, and suddenly Milly remembered where she was meant to be. She got up abruptly, pushing the chair back, so that it fell to the floor.
‘Come on, Kit, for chrissake, get yourself moving or we’ll miss the sewing circle!’ she said in real panic, scrabbling to pick up the chair.
Pat had been very generous with the drinks, round had followed round, and by now both Milly and Kitty were far too tipsy to walk straight. Pat and Freddie were about to walk out with them.
‘No, we’re going on our own!’ Milly protested, trying to push Pat’s hand away as he steadied her. She missed him and toppled forward on to Kitty, who bumped back on to the table, rocking the glasses precariously.
‘Mind the drinks!’ Freddie lunged for the slopping beer glasses.
‘All right, but I don’t think you’ll be getting much sewing done tonight!’ Pat eyed them both uncertainly. ‘I’ll come and pick you up later, Mill, come and get the stuff, all right?’
But Milly and Kitty were already stumbling out of the door. Milly started to trot, her friend lagging behind her, as they weaved their way along Hickman’s Folly. There was only one gas lamp in the street, so they stumbled several times in the soupy gloom of the foggy night. A figure came out at them suddenly, but it was only Quackers, a white-faced wraith of a man who never walked but only skipped and jumped across each paving stone, as though avoiding the unexploded bombs of no-man’s-land. The poor man had been ruined by shell shock and was mercilessly taunted by the local children as he crouched at loud noises, earning his nickname by shouting ‘Duck! Duck!’ Milly usually stopped to talk to him; he reminded her of Charlie, and couldn’t have been much older. But tonight they hurried on and had passed him long before he’d had time to warn them to duck.
When they finally arrived, breathless and giggling, at the Settlement, the doors were closed and the lights burning in every room. The lectures and clubs were obviously well under way. From inside came the strains of piano and violin, and a quavering soprano singing an old English folk song, a jaunty, country air, which seemed totally at odds with the soot-wreathed maze of crumbling courts surrounding the Settlement.
Milly caught Kitty round the waist and began to whirl her in a drunken country dance, which one of the missionaries at the Guild of Play had taught them when they were children. They ended by tumbling back down the curving flight of stone steps leading up to the Settlement door and were both on their backsides, laughing so loudly that Milly didn’t hear the door open. Backlit by the warm light from the hall, Miss Florence Green stood, waiting for their laughter to subside. Sweet of face and nature, Miss Green was Milly’s favourite at the Settlement. She ran the sewing circle and had encouraged Milly’s talent for needlework. She loved Miss Green because she was always totally impartial. She’d come to help the poor of Bermondsey, and neither cared nor enquired what religion they were. Catholics and Protestants alike were all welcome to whatever charity was on offer, in the way of free country holidays, clothes, food or medical care.
Milly spotted her at the door and waved in drunken gaiety. ‘Hello, Flo, me old cocker!’
As she pulled Kitty up, the two girls stumbled up the steps and Miss Green swung open the door to admit them. The young missionary stood facing the two girls, and Milly thought she read disappointment in her face.
‘Milly, I believe you’re inebriated,’ she said sadly.
If it had been anyone else, Milly would have given her a cheeky answer, but instead she breathed deeply and tried to focus her eyes on the plain, pleasant features of Miss Green.
‘Ever so shorry, Mishh Green,’ she mumbled, as she passed into the hall, ‘have we missed the sewing?’
She turned to Kitty for help. But her friend had unaccountably slumped to the floor and was now clinging to Milly’s ankles like a drowning woman. ‘Ohhh, I do feel bad, Mill. Can I just stay here and go to sleep?’