Custard Tarts and Broken Hearts (35 page)

By January of 1915, Pearce Duff’s male workforce had been so depleted by the war that Ethel Brown was able to give Nellie all the overtime she could cope with. Today she’d worked the day shift, and now, after popping home for half an hour to have a bite to eat, she was back for another three hours’ overtime on the night shift. She pulled off her coat and lifted the mob cap and smock from the peg; she was sick of the sight of them. Sometimes she wondered what it would be like to have a clean job, one where you could do your work in nice clothes that still looked decent at the end of the day. As she passed the boiler room, she looked with sympathy at the girl stokers. Stoking! Nellie was glad she hadn’t been commandeered to do it. Since most men in the boiler room had enlisted, the stronger girls in the factory had taken on the job. Peeking through the open doors, plumes of steam rolled towards her and the furnaces hissed like fire-breathing dragons. One girl was tottering along under a sack of coal, which she tipped on to a great pile in front of a furnace. Looking up at Nellie, eyes white in her blackened face, she asked, ‘Fancy a go?’. And grinned.

‘No fear!’

The place looked like hell. As soon as the piles of coal were replenished, there were other women waiting to start shovelling coal into the fiery maws. The coal dust was even worse than custard powder and Nellie hurried upstairs, counting her blessings.

She walked on to the factory floor and blinked. It was aglow. Light, from gas lamps suspended from high ceilings bounced off cold, darkened windows, forming a golden cocoon around the packers. Nellie settled into the slightly slower, more subdued rhythm of the night shift.

She spent much of it worrying about Freddie and Charlie. Now he was thirteen, Freddie had big ideas. He was itching to leave the board school and start working full time, and he wasn’t the only bird in Nellie’s cuckoo’s nest anxious to try their wings. Fourteen-year-old Charlie had just left school. He’d brought home a surprisingly good report, with a recommendation he try the college exam; apparently the boy was clever. Nellie had never considered him brighter than the rest of the children. Always so silent and stolid, he just seemed to move steadily through the world, towards some private destination.

When she asked him about his report, he said firmly, ‘Even if there was money for college, I wouldn’t go. I’m better off out earning, Nellie.’

She was relieved, grateful she wouldn’t have to be the one to squash his dreams with practicalities, and he’d gone straight to Wicks as a carter’s boy. Sam had already taught him everything he knew about horses and, after losing half his drivers to the war, Old Wicks was only too grateful that Charlie could take Sam’s place. Wicks also promised Freddie a full-time job at the end of this school year. But, not the sort of boy to let the grass grow under his feet, Freddie had other ideas.

The overtime was certainly helping them out, but the drawback was that the family was now behind with this week’s home-work delivery. After her three-hour night shift, the last thing she wanted was a late session of matchbox pasting, but she came home to find Alice still working. With a sigh, she sat down dutifully and started pasting on labels. Freddie couldn’t have picked a better time to put his proposal. Before going to bed he casually announced, ‘I want to expand me roses business, Nell. Thing is, what with all the parks being turned into allotments, there’s people crying out for manure and they can’t get hold of it!’ Not realizing that she hadn’t an iota of resistance in her, he pushed his case. ‘An’ I reckon I can make enough extra money so we can give up these matchboxes!’

This got her full attention. He didn’t have to explain the economics of it. Every square inch of public space in London was being dug up for vegetable growing; people feared being starved out by the German convoys before the war was over. He stood by the kitchen mantelshelf, waiting for her answer, and as she saw him glance in the mirror above it, she noticed how tall he was getting. He was a good-looking boy, with fair hair and bright blue eyes. His growing limbs looked a little gangly now, but she knew that as he filled out he would have the imposing physique of his father. Just now, though, she was painfully aware of his wrists poking out from the too-short arms of his jacket and the trousers flapping an inch above his boots. At least she had a few months before he started work, but then he really would need new clothes.

‘I can’t see anything wrong in that,’ she said. ‘It’s good
honest
work, ain’t it?’ she added, as sternly as she could manage. Freddie’s blue eyes widened in surprise and he simply laughed at her.

‘I don’t ’alf-inch the horse shit, if that’s what you mean!’ he said indignantly.

‘Well, it’s about the only thing you don’t!’

Freddie chose to ignore this and carried on. ‘So, I can do it?’

‘All right, but don’t you hop the wag, you’re not finished school
yet
!’

Freddie gave her a kiss goodnight, which was unusual for him, and said he would have to discuss it with his ‘boys’.

‘Do you think he’s got something dodgy cooking up?’ asked Alice, looking up curiously from her work.

‘Do you know what, Al, I’m getting to the stage I’d rather not ask, but this sounds better than some of the other stuff he’s been getting up to!’

Freddie was proving to be an adept businessman in all sorts of areas. Nellie had noticed a series of enigmatic boxes being stored in the yard. They never stayed for long, but they usually resulted in a few extra shillings in the housekeeping tin, which Freddie would drop in ostentatiously after each transaction. She told herself that if some of her brother’s gains were through the black market, they were on a small scale and she just hoped that, once he got a regular job, the shady dealings would fall by the wayside.

‘Wouldn’t it be good if we didn’t have to do the matchboxes any more?’ Alice said wistfully.

Nellie groaned as she reached for the pot of glue. ‘What I wouldn’t give for a house that didn’t stink of glue. And I do worry about the kids breathing it in all the time. Perhaps with Freddie’s extra money and Charlie’s wage, it might just be enough…’ Looking over at Alice’s hopeful face, she decided. ‘Bugger it, once we’ve finished this week’s, that’ll be our lot, Al. I don’t care how much overtime I have to do. We’re packing in the matchboxes!’

Alice’s normally quiet, worried face creased into a smile and she shouted, ‘Hoorah! No more white slavery! Get the banner out, Nell!’

To show she meant business, Nellie gathered up a stack of labels, threw them up in the air and slumped back against the chair, laughing, as they fluttered down around them like multicoloured butterflies.

‘France!’ Eliza should have known he would be in the first rush of volunteers.
Sam
, she thought bitterly,
so full of your sense of what’s right, no wonder you jumped to be Kitchener’s cannon fodder!
The woman could give her no information on Charlie or Matty’s whereabouts and, unsure what to do, Eliza walked briskly back along Rotherhithe Street, her face gradually growing numb in the icy air. She had brought an overnight bag; perhaps she should just look for a hotel and think about her search tomorrow? But the thought of Matty with strangers wrenched her heart. She had borne their separation when she knew Matty was safe with her own family, but now Sam was gone, perhaps never to return. She was her daughter’s only family now. Who would be looking after her? Perhaps, if she could only find her, this was her chance to make up for past mistakes? She saw a tram heading for Southwark Park Road and ran to catch it. She would go to the Fort Road Labour Institute; there was a chance someone there might know something.

The tram was full; she huddled into a seat on the top deck, pulling up the leather apron designed to keep out the worst of the weather, but still she shivered in the freezing mist rolling off the Thames. As the tram turned past Rotherhithe Tunnel and away from the river, she hoped the damp mist might clear, but getting off at Southwark Park Road she found herself enveloped in a thick yellow fog, all the everyday traffic sounds of horses’ hooves, iron-rimmed cartwheels and puttering motor engines muffled by its density. Registering only the thud of her own heart and the rasp of her own stinging breath, she started to feel herself overtaken by panic. Images of her daughter lost and alone in this fog assailed her. She quickened her pace, heedlessly colliding with startled pedestrians, each time wondering:
Do you know Matty? Have you seen my daughter?
Ignoring their puzzled looks, hurrying on through the late-afternoon streets, she found herself stumbling forward, breaking into a trot. She was dimly aware that the young girl she was frantic to find wasn’t the real Matty, a child she barely knew; but there was another Matty, an imagined child, dear to her, one she’d kept in her heart through all the years of separation, and this was the child she sought. But when she’d visited she’d seen a comforting tough streak in the real Matty that was totally absent from her imaginary daughter, whom she’d always imagined as a fragile rose amongst thorns. Trying to convince herself another day wouldn’t make much difference was useless – all composure had left her as she dashed on, desperate to find Matty. She darted down a side street, looking for a quicker way to the institute, but so many confused, conflicting thoughts raced through her head she was soon lost in a swaddled maze of back streets.

Forcing herself to stand stock still, she faced her terror: she
would
find Matty. She just had to think! Peering through the mist in search of a landmark, she spotted the dark spire of St Anne’s. This must be Thorburn Square! She knew where she was. Feeling her way forward, she followed the iron railings round the churchyard, till she came to Fort Road and the double-gabled institute. Suddenly the kindly face of Frank Morgan was staring at her from the front door of the Labour Institute.

‘It’s Eliza James, isn’t it? Come in, come in, you’re frozen!’ He drew her into his office, his surprise evident. ‘We haven’t seen you since… what, the year of the strike? I thought you were in Australia, with Mr James!’

He drew up a chair for her in front of the office fireplace, where he had a bright blaze burning. She was shivering.

‘Let me get you a cup of tea to warm you up!’ he said, and immediately despatched his young assistant to bring some.

‘Thank you, Mr Morgan, you’re very kind, but I really can’t stop.’ Eliza tapped her foot on the grate, leaning forward to warm her hands at the flames. ‘You see, I’m looking for a child, well, two in fact, and I’m very concerned for their welfare…’

She stopped herself short, growing aware of the irrationality of her panic. Telling herself to breathe, she accepted the tea and made herself sip it slowly. Sam loved Matty, she told herself, he would have left her safe. She took another deep breath and as the warmth of the room thawed her numbed hands, she explained her quest.

‘Oh, the Gilbie children! Yes, I know the family, poor Mrs Gilbie was on our Co-op round, and of course you are… I mean, you have a connection, don’t you?’

Frank Morgan was a local man, old enough to know the rumours about Eliza’s parentage, but though she was grateful for his tact, she no longer had anything to hide.

‘Yes, Mr Morgan, Lizzie Gilbie was my mother, but I’ve only just found out about her death.’

‘Oh, I’m very sorry to hear that, Mrs James. Is that what brought you back from Australia?’

‘I’ve been back for some time.’ She didn’t have to tell him everything. ‘But not in London. Do you know where Sam sent the children, by any chance?’

Frank went to his desk and brought back a set of index cards, which he flicked through as he spoke.

‘Ahh, here she is!’ He looked up, having found the address. ‘Nellie Clark, she does a Co-op round for us, you may remember her from the strike days, one of the custard tarts?’

Eliza cast her mind back to a time that seemed part of another world, a golden summer’s day of hope and triumph, when Nellie Clark, bold as brass, had faced down a guardsman’s bayonet and then surfaced from the crushing crowd worrying only about the state of her new wool jacket.

‘Yes, I remember Nellie Clark very well,’ she said.

Nellie knew the children would be overjoyed to see the end of the matchbox-making, for once the novelty had worn off each evening had seen them produce less and less; of late she and Alice had done most of the work. Matty and Bobby still lent a hand, but Freddie and Charlie were now exempted. Still, she wanted them all together when she told them the good news, so she’d waited till teatime the next day.

Bobby’s relief was characteristically low-key. ‘At least we’ll be able to get into our bedroom now, them boxes take up all the space!’ he grunted.

But Matty was ecstatic, for handling the glue brought her out in a rash. She held up her red hands. ‘And I’ll have the hands of a ladeee!’ she sang out.

‘But listen, kids, we’ve got to give it one more push, so you’ll all have to muck in tonight to get them finished. I promise once I’ve taken this last lot to the depot, that’s it!’

Even Freddie and Charlie agreed to help and they all squeezed round the table, as of old.

‘Brings back memories, eh?’ Bobby asked, to snorts of universal incomprehension.

He could be sentimental about anything, Nellie observed fondly.

‘Yes, and
all
bad!’ said Freddie. ‘Stop wandering down memory lane and get workin’!’

‘Let’s have a sing-song, to keep us going!’ Matty set up a tune and their voices were soon making such a din that at first they didn’t hear the knock.

‘Shhhh, shhh a minute.’ Alice called for quiet. ‘Was that a knock?’

They all fell suddenly silent. Nellie’s heart lurched and her stomach tightened. Since Sam had left for France, every unexpected knock made her feel sick. The telegrams could come at any time and the news was never good. All the high-spirited cheer vanished from the room as she got up, white-faced, to answer the door.

A young boy that Nellie didn’t recognize stood at the door, gasping for breath so much that at first he couldn’t deliver his message. She felt relief flood through her, as soon as she saw he wasn’t wearing the uniform of a telegram delivery boy. She relaxed her grip on the door handle; thank God Sam was safe – for now.