Custard Tarts and Broken Hearts (11 page)

‘What do you mean?’ Suddenly alert, a wave of fear pulsed through her body. Whatever she might think of her life with Ernest, he gave her a certain protection in society, and without him she would be vulnerable. She moved to the sideboard and selected cheese and fruit, pouring them each another glass of wine.

‘Well, my dear, a wonderful opportunity has arisen… I’ve been invited to work with the Australian Labour Party!’

‘In
Australia
?’

‘Even my organizational skills couldn’t achieve the job from here, my dear,’ he said dryly. ‘Yes, in Australia.’

A million questions presented themselves.

‘Don’t look so worried, me little cockney sparrer, you’re coming with me!’

She flushed, caught between the sideboard and the table with the plates of food in her hand. Turning back to get the glasses, she spilled wine on the walnut veneer, and dabbed at it with a napkin. Frantic for time to think, she could feel Ernest’s impatience.

‘Leave it, you’re not
really
my housekeeper, for God’s sake. Just sit down and tell me what you think!’

An hour before she had wanted nothing more than another chance to choose the course of her own life, and now, presented with it on a plate, she felt unable to act. She cast about in her mind for something both reasonable and delaying to say.

‘What I think is that you might have asked me first before deciding to drag me halfway round the world!’ she said quickly.

He reached out his hand, the back of which was covered in thick dark hair, and placed it over her own. ‘But where else would you go, my dear?’

She felt herself struggling for a way to demand her freedom, hopelessly ensnared by her own fear and Ernest’s paralysing logic. And then she gave in, suddenly feeling the relief of the idea of flight, of leaving the two worlds warring inside her far behind. Australia would be new to both of them; perhaps there he would forget her origins and the scales of their relationship could even out into a kind of balance? A brave adventure, that’s what their friends in the movement would call it. She tried to hold on to the exhilarating rush of imagining her new life in Australia, but at the back of her mind was her own voice, calling herself a coward. She smothered it and focused on what might await her so many thousands of miles away from Bermondsey and Mecklenburgh Square.

‘Australia?’ she mused. ‘Then I really would be “over the other side”, wouldn’t I?’

10

Shifting Sands

The custard tarts went back to Pearce Duff’s in jubilant mood after the strike was settled, and to show that their newfound strength was no passing thing, they orchestrated a mass return. It was every bit as carnival-like as the day they had walked out, and though they didn’t wear Sunday best, since they had a day’s work to do, they were happy to at least be returning triumphant. The extra shillings in their pocket each week meant life was changing for all of them. But Nellie felt their mood had far less bravado in it. Every woman now knew the cost of striking. For herself it had been the loss of her home, for a while, and nearly the loss of her brother; for others, the faces of their hungry children had been almost too much to bear. Nellie suspected that a few weeks more of privation might have seen even the strongest of them cave in for the want of a loaf of bread or a week’s rent. Still, Nellie joined the buoyant women as they trooped through the factory gates four abreast, with her own happiness boosted by the thought that she was now Ted Bosher’s girl. As she smiled at Lily and the other women, she felt an unexpected surge of love, and somewhere inside she knew it was connected to her own sense of being singled out by Ted. Now she knew for certain that he liked her too, it felt safe to let all those feelings of warmth and attraction bubble to the surface, and like an unstoppable spring they seemed to be spreading out to include whoever crossed her path.

Lily grabbed her round the waist. ‘Look at you! You’re like the cat that got the cream! Smile any more and you’ll split yer face!’

Nellie giggled. She didn’t mind the teasing; she knew she would get more when the other custard tarts heard her news. Anyway, it was news she was proud of. Who wouldn’t be proud to have Ted as their chap? The hero of the hour, he was now known by every factory girl in Bermondsey and there were quite a few in Duff’s would be envious of her handsome firebrand.

‘What d’yer mean, got the cream – what cream?’

Maggie Tyrell had overheard; there wasn’t a secret she couldn’t worm out of anyone and she could be relied on not to keep it once she’d found out.

‘Well, you might as well know,’ Nellie admitted, trying desperately to make her smile a little smaller. ‘At least you’ll save me the trouble of telling all the others. Ted asked me to walk out with him and I said yes.’

Maggie let out a squeal of delight – marriage and six children hadn’t dampened her thirst for romance – and she hugged Nellie.

‘I’m so pleased for you, love, you deserve a bit of life, and don’t forget if you need any advice about
anything
…’ and she finished the sentence in a dumb show that horrified Nellie. ‘You just ask me, gel, I’ve got lots of experience of that, haven’t I, Ethel?’

Ethel’s raucous laughter joined Maggie’s and Nellie blushed to the roots of her hair. And this, she knew, was only the beginning!

Albert, the foreman, was waiting for them at the double doors of the packing room as they trooped to their workbenches. He gave each of them a long hard stare as they passed, making Nellie feel like a naughty schoolchild.

‘He’ll make our lives a bloody misery now, you wait,’ she whispered to Lily.

‘Nothing new in that,’ Lily replied.

The factory floor looked darker to Nellie, dingier and more closed in than she remembered it. Normally, when they changed shifts, everything was already in motion and there was barely a pause in the ceaseless activity of the factory. But now the web of machine belts was still and the whole floor had an abandoned feel to it. Without the army of packers to keep the work flowing out, all of the factory’s production had ceased during the strike. The minute an agreement was reached, the boiler men had been called in to stoke up the furnaces in the basement, the filling machines were made ready, and the hoppers filled with custard powder. As they slipped into their accustomed places, Nellie was struck by the unusual silence; it was like waiting for the orchestra to strike up from the pit. As soon as the hundreds of women were settled by their machines, Albert stood on a packing crate and launched into his speech, no doubt one that was being repeated in various forms by foremen in blancmange, jelly, and the print works.

‘All right, settle down!’ he hushed their chatter. ‘Now you’ve had your little revolution and you’ve got your eleven bob a week, you’ll be pleased to hear that the management has kindly agreed to take no action!’ He appeared to be waiting for a grateful response from the custard tarts; instead he was met by blank faces and stony stares.

‘Bloody too right an’ all!’ bellowed Ethel Brown. Fondly known by the custard tarts as Mouth Almighty, Ethel was always willing to be their spokeswoman. She looked round at Nellie, grinning.

Albert tugged at his shirt collar, holding up his hand for silence, but there were more rebellious comments from around the floor. They might be back at work, but Nellie could feel there had been a shift in power. She’d felt it immediately she’d got back in front of that delivery chute. She was still just a pair of hands, another human cog in the machine, but at least now she and all the other women knew the result of removing those cogs: nothing worked without them.

‘What’s more,’ Albert went on, trying to ignore the catcalls, ‘the owners have responded to demands for better working conditions and you’ve been given a room in the basement to hang your coats and eat your sandwiches!’

‘That’s bloody big of ’em,’ Ethel shouted fearlessly. ‘Still no canteen, though! Hartley’s have got one, so why can’t we?’

She was backed up by shouts of agreement.

‘All right, that’s enough, Ethel, you’re not on your soapbox now!’ Albert shot back.

‘No, but you are!’ The comment had come from Annie, a normally timid girl who worked opposite Nellie.

Albert quickly jumped off the crate. ‘All right, they’re not paying you to stand here gassing. Let’s get back to work!’

With that, he signalled to a group of boys who’d been waiting patiently by the lifts. They flung open the gates, pulled out the trolleys and began trundling them along the packing room, leaving one at each packing team. Albert picked up a speaking tube, giving the instruction for the great hoppers on the floor above to be opened. Nellie heard a clanging and then a whooshing as the tide of yellow powder chuted down. Machine belts started whirring, custard powder flowing, and Nellie grabbed her first bag of the day.

It was a long hard morning. Unused to their repetitive tasks, Nellie’s muscles began protesting after a couple of hours and she was glad when the noon hooter sounded, allowing them to inspect their new cloakroom in the basement. It was a low-ceilinged room next to the boilers and the hot pipes ran through it, making it only a little cooler than the furnace itself. Rows of wooden railings with coat hooks screwed to them ran the length of the room, and round the edge benches had been attached to the distempered walls.

‘Shall we go outside, Nell?’ a shiny-faced Lily asked. ‘I don’t fancy roasting in this oven, do you?’

Nellie agreed and as they hung up their smocks and caps, Lily gave her a mischievous smile and asked, ‘So where’s that brother of mine taking you? Make sure it’s somewhere nice!’

In fact, Nellie had no idea where they would go. They had left it that he would call for her one night after work, and meanwhile she had the job of smoothing the way with her father. It was a task she knew she had to tackle that evening. Her father might have mellowed, but not enough to accept an unannounced visit from Ted Bosher without protest.

She waited until after tea, when her father was comfortably seated in his favourite chair with a pipe and a drop of his favourite brandy, which he took from a little flask he kept tucked behind a shelf. Of course he had been pleased with the extra money she was bringing in, but he had avoided any praise of the strike or its organizers.

‘Nice you can have a tipple now ’n again and not have to worry, eh, Dad?’ she began.

‘If a man can’t have a bit of comfort after a hard day’s work it’s a poor show.’

Nellie nodded. She would have to steer in another direction. ‘It’ll be lovely not to have to worry about new boots for the boys an’ all.’

He nodded, drawing on his pipe. ‘If you want me to say I agree with what was done, I won’t, but I’m not going to chuck the money back at ’em either. If they’ve given you more, so be it.’ He paused. ‘And I was thinking, Nellie, you deserve a bit more pocket money out of it as well.’

‘Oh, thanks, Dad!’ Nellie was genuinely surprised, but relieved as well. She would need a new dress if she was walking out, especially with Ted, he took such care with his clothes. If she went out in the same old skirt she’d look like a rag doll on his arm.

‘It
would
come in handy… I was thinking I’ll be needing a new dress now…’

Her father looked at her enquiringly and she was conscious of twisting at her skirt. She laughed nervously, wishing his fierce blue eyes were a little less piercing.

‘I mean, look at this skirt, it’s more darn than anything!’ she gulped, then decided
in for a penny...
‘But the thing is, Dad, I’ll need something a bit nicer when I’m walking out with my young man.’

Her father inhaled a little too deeply and choked on his own pipe smoke. ‘What young man?’ he coughed out finally.

Here it comes
, she thought, and launched in. ‘I know you won’t like it, but Ted Bosher wants to come and call for me and I really want to go, Dad!’

She hadn’t asked her father for anything in a long time; any generosity of heart that he might have had seemed to have vanished with her mother’s last breath. But his simple offer of a few pennies more pocket money gave her a little hope. Perhaps he really had changed? She waited. He took another nip of brandy and this time, when he looked at her, his eyes were different. She knew it wasn’t possible, but their colour had changed. The blue had softened, darkened, it seemed to her, and in their smokiness she saw something that surprised her; she saw sadness. He simply shook his head. ‘Well, Nellie, gel, you know what I think. He’s trouble and I hate to think of you hooked up with the likes of him. But I’ll say no more on the subject. If he’s really what you want I won’t forbid it, just don’t bring him in this house.’

Nellie’s heart quailed before this softening of her father. For some reason, it made her even more scared than his threats and bullying. His resigned tone disturbed her more than all his shouting ever had. For half a second she wondered if he might be right, but then her heart lurched with excitement. Her father had said yes!

Next day she had much discussion with Lily about what she should wear, for Ted was calling that evening and there had been no time to buy the new dress.

‘What about your Sunday best?’ Lily suggested. ‘You could always wear that.’

‘I could… but it’s only best ’cause everything else is so much worse!’

In the end Lily had the idea that Nellie should wear a beautiful kingfisher-blue shawl of her mother’s over her dress. It was a little old-fashioned, but Nellie loved it and Lily told her it brought out the blue of her eyes.

‘Our Ted will be drowning in those eyes soon enough, mark my words!’ she joked.

Nellie privately thought that the only drowning going on would be hers, in those sea-green eyes she hadn’t been able to get out of her mind for days.

When the time finally came and she heard Ted’s knock, she was ready at the door. She was a little embarrassed not to ask him in, but as she slipped out she whispered, ‘He said it’s all right.’

Ted looked pleased, but then hesitated. ‘Shouldn’t I come in and let him tell me to behave myself?’