Custard Tarts and Broken Hearts (53 page)
Read Custard Tarts and Broken Hearts Online
Authors: Mary Gibson
There was a long silence. The banked-up coals on the fire were still glowing, but the flames had died to a weak flicker. Sam knelt and, with the tongs, lifted a few pieces of coal on to the fire, which sputtered and crackled into life. When he looked up, Nellie was silently weeping into her handkerchief.
‘Oh, Sam,’ she said, ‘it wasn’t a bad thing you did. I think that horse saved more than your life.’
Still kneeling, Sam reached over to lay his head on her lap. He wept too, great sobs of grief, his tears making dark patches on her skirt. She stroked his hair.
‘I thought I’d lost you forever, but you
did
come back to me, Sam, just like you promised.’
‘I love, you, Nell, and I’m still your Sam.’ He paused. ‘Will you marry me?’
Nellie kissed the tears from his face and answered, ‘Yes, of course I will.’
Now the wedding was back on, they needed to start saving and Sam desperately needed to find a job. Old Wicks had died during the war, but the nephew who’d inherited the disused yard wanted to make a go of the business again. The next day, Sam went to see him at the newly reopened yard. Young Wicks was only too happy to take Sam on. He’d already begun replacing the horses taken during the war, he said, and now he needed drivers. He showed Sam into the familiar old stables to see the new stock of horses.
‘There wasn’t a lot of choice, they took nearly every sound horse in the country, but you can take your pick of this lot.’
Sam walked slowly along the stable block, carefully inspecting each horse, till he stopped at the corner stall. Striding past Young Wicks, he headed straight for the horse and put his arms round his neck. The beautiful grey with the charcoal mane didn’t seem to mind at all, but nuzzled Sam’s pocket, as though he knew he would find a treat there.
‘He’s taken to you right away!’ said Young Wicks. ‘Almost like he knew you. I reckon you two’ll do fine together.’
Sam patted the grey’s smooth neck and said, ‘Yes, we’ll do fine.’
So it was settled that he would start back at Wicks’s the very next day and when Nellie went out to see Sam off, she waited on the doorstep, wanting to see him safely back in his old familiar place, up on the driver’s seat, reins in hand. As the cart rattled out of Wicks’s yard, she had her first glimpse of his new horse, the handsome dappled grey he’d told her was the image of Dandy Grey Russet. She waved and called out: ‘He’s beautiful!’
Sam smiled and his eyes met hers with that loving warmth she had so missed since his return. Her Sam was finally home.
Nellie and Sam were married at St James’s Church, on a bright, crisp day in February 1919. Lily was her bridesmaid and Jock Sam’s best man. After they’d exchanged vows, the newly married couple stood beneath the portico of the church while the photographer gamely tried to establish order among the rowdy, chattering guests. Eventually, they were all ranged in tiers on the steps below the portico. Sam drew her closer and his dark eyes looked into hers with undisguised adoration and happiness, while her bright blue eyes brimmed with love and joy, that this day had finally arrived. The photographer was in position and called for attention. Nellie waited patiently as the jostling subsided and, in the moment’s silence, as they posed obediently, she drank in the sight of all her cuckoo’s-nest family gathered around her. Alice, with her new young chap, stood beside Lily; Bobby and Freddie, both now taller than her, stood next. Next to Jock was Charlie, looking smart in his new uniform, and Matty, elegant, in her finest stage dress. Beside her stood Eliza James, a woman who’d once been Madam Mecklenburgh but was now Nellie’s sister, holding fast to the wriggling hand of little William, in his sailor suit. Further down the steps were the Boshers and young Johnny, and from the bottom step she could hear the booming voice of Ethel Brown, trying to keep Maggie and the other custard tarts in order.
It was a day when all that Nellie had ever dreamed of came true and, looking back now over the years, she remembered all the people whose lives had intertwined with hers since that fateful strike of 1911. Some had made choices which were not always wise, and others had made mistakes that were often regretted, but she had made a promise. A promise to Lizzie, which, in the keeping, had proved not a burden after all but instead the source of all the happiness her heart could ever hold.
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Grateful thanks are due to my agent Anne Williams at Kate Hordern Literary Agency for her faith in this story and for her many insightful suggestions, also to Rosie de Courcy, my editor at Head of Zeus for taking on the Custard Tarts with such enthusiasm and delight. My thanks to all the excellent team at Head of Zeus for guiding it so professionally to publication.
Thanks to my tutors and writing friends at Bexley Adult Education College for their unstinting encouragement; to Stephen Potter at the Southwark Local Studies Library; to Violet Henderson, who shared her vivid memories of working at Pearce Duff’s as a teenager in the thirties and to the marvellous website www.bermondseyboy.net.
Many thanks to all my family and friends for their staunch support, and my special thanks to Daniel Bartholomew for long term, enthusiastic interest in my writing, lastly to Josie Bartholomew, without whom this book could not have been written.
Nellie Clark walked out of Pearce Duff’s factory, arm in arm with Lily Bosher. A crowd of women and girls shuffled around them, many linking arms, some laughing, others looking about them. Nellie herself was searching the small crowd of young men who hung about the factory gates, for one special face. One of the bolder boys took his hands from his pockets and whistled, ‘Aye, aye, boys, here come the custard tarts!’
They call them custard tarts – the girls who work at Pearce Duff’s custard powder factory in Bermondsey – ‘London’s larder’ – before the First World War. Conditions are hard, pay terrible and the hours long and unforgiving, but nothing can quench the spirit of humour and friendship – or the rising tide of anger that will finally bring the girls out on strike for a better deal.
For one of them, striking spells disaster. Nellie Clark’s wages keep her young brothers and sister from starvation, while her father sinks into drunken violence after the death of their mother.
While Nellie struggles to keep her family together, two men compete for her love, and over them looms the shadow of the coming war, which will pull London’s East End together as never before – even while it tears the world apart.
M
ARY
G
IBSON
was born and brought up in Bermondsey, where both her grandmother and great aunt worked at Pearce Duff’s factory. This is her first novel.
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The story starts here.
First published in eBook in 2013 by Head of Zeus Ltd
First published in paperback in 2014 by Head of Zeus Ltd
Copyright © Mary Gibson, 2014
The moral right of Mary Gibson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN (E) 9781781855751
ISBN (TPBO) 9781781855782
Head of Zeus Ltd
Clerkenwell House
45-47 Clerkenwell Green
London EC1R 0HT
Contents
