Authors: Mary Gibson
Perhaps she had caught her friend unprepared, but Milly felt her hesitate.
‘He’s nice enough, I suppose, but...’
‘But what?’ Milly pressed.
‘Well, he’s never going to be much good, is he?’
Milly was surprised that she didn’t feel more hurt at her friend’s assessment.
‘What, because he’s on the fiddle?’
Kitty shook her head. ‘Who’s not? It’s not so much
that
as, well, you must have heard about the girl from Rotherhithe?’
Milly shook her head. ‘No, tell me.’
But just then the tram came to a halt and they clattered down the stairs. As they passed through the ornate iron gates, Milly prompted her friend.
‘Go on then, what about the girl from Rotherhithe?’
‘He got her up the duff and then sodded off.’
Milly could certainly believe it. Pat’s hands were continually wandering to her dress buttons after a night at the pub. But so far she’d always been able to slap him down and keep him in order. Her physical strength was useful for more than hefting baskets of fruit or seven-pound stone jam jars.
‘Well, he won’t do that to me!’ she said grimly.
‘Just be careful, Milly,’ her friend said. ‘I’ve noticed these days you get pissed as a puddin’ when you’re out with him. Sometimes you can’t even walk, let alone push him off!’
‘Oh, I can look after myself!’ Milly laughed, then grabbing Kitty’s hand, she began running towards the boating lake.
Milly spent the next hour rowing them round the lake, making sure she splashed Kitty liberally for her assertion that she was turning into a drunk.
‘Come in, number nine! You’ll tip that boat up!’ The boat keeper had seen her antics and was frantically waving them in, calling their number on his megaphone. Milly gave one last thwack with the oar and as the spray flew high over the boat, glinting in the late afternoon sun, she saw a rainbow form. Taking it as a good omen, she put Kitty’s suggestions about Pat firmly to the back of her mind, and rowed hard for the bank.
‘You’re banned!’ the boat keeper said as they tumbled, giggling and soaking wet, out of the boat. He was a grey-haired, well-groomed military-looking man, with one arm of his park keeper’s uniform pinned up, a not unusual sight since the war. Now, in spite of his ire, he offered them his single hand, helping each of them out of the wobbling boat.
‘We’re only having a bit of fun!’ Milly protested, looking down at her wet feet. ‘Nobody got drownded!’ Milly smiled as winningly at the boat keeper as she knew how, which seemed to do the trick.
‘I’ll give you drownded! Clear off, you cheeky minx.’ He smiled and the two girls sauntered off down the gravel path, back to the park gates.
‘Oh, Kitty, don’t you just love to see a bit of sky!’
In Dockhead, where Milly lived, every vista was sliced and slashed by rooftops, chimneys and brick terraces; even the river was largely obscured by slabs of warehouses, and Milly instinctively sought out any open spaces. Now she led her friend off the path, on to the grass, where ancient chestnut trees were all that obscured the sailing clouds. She tipped her head back and began to whirl round, spreading her arms wide, so that the treetops spun in and out of view and she could drink in the cobalt, cloud-painted sky. From here, at the top of Observatory Hill, she could see the Thames snaking away below her, she could pick out the chimneys, belching smoke from Bermondsey factories, and could name each of the crowded docks upstream. She felt alive, full of an irrepressible energy, and began hurtling down the steep hill at breakneck speed.
‘Careful!’ Kitty called after her.
‘Keep up, Kit! I can’t stop now!’ she called as she careened towards the lower path. At the bottom she pulled herself up short, skidding to a halt on the gravel, while Kitty tottered down gingerly behind her.
‘We haven’t all got your legs!’ she complained as she reached the path.
‘Come on, old gel, let me help you home!’ Milly scooped Kitty up, swinging her round, ignoring her squeals of protest. If only she could stay out here forever, Milly thought as she whirled, and never have to go back home. For though the Great War had ended all of five years ago, peace had yet to find its way to the Colmans’ little terraced house in Arnold’s Place.
When she arrived home Milly’s high spirits were immediately squashed. Her mother was laying the table ready for the old man’s dinner. She was a slight, faded woman in her late forties, but looked older by a decade. Her broad pale face, betraying her Irish descent, creased into papery crinkles as she smiled at Milly. But from the cupboard under the stairs, which led to the tiny coal cellar, came a low snivelling
‘Why’s Elsie in the coal hole?’ Milly asked. Her youngest sister, Amy, was never consigned there, so she knew it must be her middle sister, Elsie, undergoing one of her father’s punishments.
‘Ohhh, I’m sick of it. She cheeked the old man. She never learns.’
Milly dropped her purchases and opened the cupboard, to be confronted by Elsie, an angular thirteen-year-old, her face streaked with coal and tears.
‘Why d’ye cheek him, you dozy mare?’ Milly asked.
Elsie’s skinny frame shook with tremors of small sobs. ‘I didn’t cheek him. I just said I’d dreamed he was dead... which I did!’
Milly raised her eyes, muttering, ‘We’ve all had that dream,’ as she pulled her sister out of the cupboard.
‘What if he comes down?’ Elsie whispered fearfully.
‘He’s snoring in the bed, it’s shaking the bloody ceiling. He won’t know any different,’ Milly said, wiping her hands of coal dust.
‘Jesus, you look like a minstrel. Go and wash your face and hands.’ Their mother sent Elsie to the scullery.
‘Why did you let her stay in there?’ Milly asked accusingly.
‘Truth be told, love, I had such a job getting him upstairs to bed and then I was so busy – I forgot all about her! God forgive me.’
Seeing her mother’s stricken face, Milly immediately regretted her question. After all, she thought guiltily, while she’d been larking around in the park, her mother had been contending with all the miseries Milly had been avoiding. ‘Oh well, Polly Witch
will
tell us her dreams, won’t she?’ Again came a stab of guilt; it was easier to blame Elsie than the one person who deserved it.
Just then she heard thudding upstairs, followed by a burst of phlegmy coughing from her father. ‘I won’t need any tea, Mum, had pie and mash with the girls.’ And hastily picking up her purchases, she dashed upstairs to her bedroom, before the old man came down and ruined her good mood entirely.
Everybody called it the Folly, though its real name had been lost in time, hidden beneath the thick grime that obscured the painted sign above its door. Situated at one end of Hickman’s Folly, it looked from the outside like a conventional spit-and-sawdust pub, but the attraction for Milly and her friends was its unconventionality. No one could see in through the windows, veiled as they were with a film of soot, the door was ill-fitting and the exterior betrayed its years beneath peeling layers of paint. Only the bills, plastering the walls like mismatched wallpaper, hinted at its new identity. The latest advertised a night of jazz music from the resident pianist, and therein lay the attraction. By far the best thing about the Folly was Maisie, the pianist. Unlike Harry in the Swan, whose repertoire was restricted to the old tunes Milly’s mother liked to sing, Maisie was up to date with all the latest jazz music from America. So long as she always had a full pint glass on top of the piano, she would play all night, and so the younger residents of Dockhead gravitated towards the pub.
It had been a fairly sedate night and Milly and Kitty were trying to liven things up, singing along happily to ‘Ain’t We Got Fun’.
‘There’s nothing surer, the rich get rich and the poor get poorer!
In the meantime, in between time, ain’t we got fun?’
They’d just reached the end of the chorus when Pat walked in, with a tall, fair young man Milly hadn’t seen before. Pat made his way over to their table and unable to be heard above the din, mimed a drinking gesture. Peggy and Milly’s arms shot out as one, holding up their empty glasses to be refilled.
‘Good job I’ve already earned me bunce tonight!’ said Pat, shaking his head. But as he went to the bar Kitty’s face fell.
‘Well, that’s the end of
our
fun for tonight.’
‘What’s the matter with you?’ Milly asked. ‘He’s all right. At least he offers to buy a round. Shove up.’
Milly made her friend scoot along the bench so there’d be room for Pat and his friend.
‘It’s just that he takes over,’ Kitty whispered, ‘and you go all soppy round him, you don’t act like yourself at all and it’s not even as if he’s your type.’
‘How do you know what my type is?’ Milly snapped. The truth was, she didn’t know herself what ‘her type’ was, so how could anyone else? Surely she wasn’t the only one who went out with a feller just because he asked, rather than because she felt much interest? Anyway, how would she know if she never tried?
‘Just don’t let him keep buying you drinks all night, he’s got a wad of notes there the size of me nan’s feather mattress!’
Milly had noticed. Pat wasn’t averse to flashing his money about, when he had it.
‘Oh, Kitty Bunclerk, you’re worse than me mother. Shut up now, here he comes.’
Pat came back with the drinks and introduced his friend, Freddie Clark. Pat had mentioned him before as a ‘business partner’, though Milly had never met him. The men settled down happily in the midst of the girls.
‘I thought you’d be out all night?’ Milly said to Pat.
‘I did too, but my mate Freddie here turned up sooner than I expected. He got some lovely stuff from Atkinson’s factory, didn’t you, Fred?’
Freddie lifted his glass. ‘We should give the girls some samples, mate, before they all go!’
Atkinson’s was a Bermondsey perfume and cosmetics factory, situated next to Young’s glue factory, an incongruous but convenient location as gelatine from the bone yard ended up in many face creams. Milly had worked there for a while, when she first left school. It had been one of her favourite jobs. Proud of her shapely, long-fingered hands, at Atkinson’s she could dip into the moisturizer all day and come home with the soft hands of a lady, instead of a factory girl. Now, looking down at her rough, chapped knuckles and swollen fingers, she wished she still worked there.
‘Here y’are, girls.’ Freddie dug into his pocket and brought out three small bottles of perfume. ‘California Poppy, you’ll be smelling like a field of flowers!’ He smiled and Milly noticed that Kitty didn’t decline. In spite of her criticisms of Pat, she allowed the boys to buy several rounds and by the end of the evening they were all the best of friends, singing along with Maisie.
‘
Look for the silver lining, when e’er a cloud appears in the blue, remember somewhere the sun is shining, and so the right thing to do, is make it shine for you...
’
When last orders were called and they all tumbled out of the pub into the cool summer night, the sound of their loud goodnights echoed in the street and Pat caught Milly’s hand, asking to walk her home. As the friends went their separate ways, Milly wasn’t so tipsy that she didn’t notice Kitty walking unsteadily up Hickman’s Folly, in the company of Freddie Clark.
Pat put his arm round her, which was welcome, if for no other reason than that the night had turned chilly.
‘Shall we walk down to the river?’ he asked, and partly because she didn’t want to bump into her father coming out of the Swan at the opposite end of Hickman’s Folly, she let herself be guided down Jacob Street, to the little jetty at the back of Southwell’s jam factory. It was a secluded spot, bounded by Southwell’s warehouses and with only the dark river to witness their kisses. But as Pat became more passionate and his hand strayed to her dress front, she remembered the girl from Rotherhithe, and using more force than she intended, shoved his chest with the flat of her hand, sending him toppling backwards.
‘Hold up, Milly, you’ll have me in the river!’ His alarmed face was comical and Milly laughed.
‘Oh, don’t look so grumpy!’ she said, dragging him back into her arms. ‘But I’m not as easy as the girls from Rotherhithe!’
‘You shouldn’t believe everything you hear,’ Pat said, tight-lipped.
She kissed him lightly on the cheek and spun round. ‘No one’s said nothing to me, must be your guilty conscience. Come on, walk me home.’
At the corner of Arnold’s Place she let him kiss her goodnight but after he left her, standing beneath the gas lamp outside Mrs Knight’s, she heard footsteps behind. Turning to see why he’d come back, she felt a ringing blow to the side of her head that sent her spinning against the wall. Her cheek grazed sooty brick, and for a moment the gaslight seemed to pale. Her fingers scrabbled for the window sill as she tried to steady herself.
‘You little slut!’ It was the old man. Grabbing her by the shoulder, he frogmarched her towards their front door.
‘What? I’ve done nothing!’ Milly pleaded, but his hand was a vice and she couldn’t wriggle away.
‘You dare show me up, letting him paw you in the street like a prossie! Get in there!’ He flung her into the house but she was ready for him now, and the minute he released his grip she leaped free, bounding up the stairs. She was in the bedroom with the chair firmly jammed under the handle before he could catch her. Holding her breath, her head pounding and blood trickling from the graze on her cheek, she waited. But she heard no following footsteps.
Too pissed to get up the stairs
, she thought,
probably conked out in the kitchen
. Turning towards the bed she shared with her sisters, she heard Elsie’s sleepy, sweet singing voice coming from the bed: ‘
Every morning, every evening, ain’t we got fun...
’
Milly groaned and, slipping off her frock, made her way gratefully to the bed. She got in beside Elsie, who allowed her to snuggle up in the warm spot she’d made.
‘Did he get you?’ Elsie asked drowsily.
‘Nah, too slow.’
‘Good.’ Elsie yawned.
‘Good,’ Amy echoed from the other end of the bed, gripping Milly’s cold foot with her small warm hand.