Jam and Roses

by Mary Gibson

  Crawling to the edge of the bed, she swung her legs over the side, but just then a wave heaved and tossed the boat up into the air, launching her across the room to the washstand. Grabbing the china basin, she cuddled it, groaning into its rose-patterned bowl. She never heard the soft knocking on the door.

  ‘You all right in there?’ Bertie called. ‘You’ll be late for work...’

  She froze. ‘I’m ready!’ she lied. ‘I’ll come and do your breakfast now.’ But at the mere thought of food, her nausea returned.

  ‘Soppy date,’ he muttered, as though he could see her predicament through the closed bedroom door. ‘I’ve brought you a cup of coffee. I’ll leave it outside.’

  She heard his footsteps retreating down the stairs and shortly afterwards the front door closing softly, as he left for work. Very carefully, she tried her legs, and with one hand grabbing the dado rail, edged her way to the door. Bending down gingerly, she retrieved the still hot coffee, and sipped it slowly, until the room began to feel less like the merry-go-round at Blackheath funfair.

  ‘Oh, you silly mare, Milly Colman!’

  But there was no time for self-recrimination and even the strong coffee was not enough to make her limbs work at their normal speed. Milly was so late clocking on, she knew she would be docked half a day’s pay, which was bad enough, but as she dashed across the factory yard, she heard her name being called.

  ‘Oi, Milly Colman! Hold up!’ It was Tom Pelton, the head foreman. She stopped in her tracks and whirled round to see him approaching from Southwell’s riverside wharf. ‘Just my luck!’ she thought. ‘I’m in for a rollicking now.’

  Tom had been more than lenient with her of late, but there was a limit and she feared she’d just reached it. He didn’t look happy.

  ‘What time d’ye call this? I went up to the picking room first thing and you’re not there!’

  ‘I’m sorry, Tom! I wasn’t feeling well, but I’ve come in anyway.’ She played the sympathy card.

  ‘Don’t give me that old bull, Milly. I didn’t just sail up the Thames in a boat. I heard all about you – up on the table in the Folly last night, singing your lungs out, and I heard they had to carry you home!’

  Milly dropped her eyes. There was a time she might have told him to stick his job and simply run off to Horsmonden for the rest of the season, but not now. Responsibilities constrained her, twining about her like a twisting bine. Still nauseous, she drew in a sickening breath.

  ‘I thought you’d changed your ways since you come back with your baby, and I’ve been more than fair, Milly.’

  She looked up. ‘You’re right, Tom, I’m grateful for what you’ve done for me. It’s just that... truth is, my Jimmy’s down hopping with Mum and it’s been so long since I’ve been out with the old crowd... I just got carried away...’ she finished lamely. ‘I promise it won’t happen again.’

  She held her breath, praying he wouldn’t sack her on the spot, but her remorse seemed to soften him a little.

  ‘I know you’re only young to have all that responsibility on your shoulders, Milly, and God knows, you don’t get any help from that old man of yours.’ He paused, as if weighing whether to tell her something. ‘Come in the office a minute.’ He led her to his cubbyhole on the ground floor of the factory building.

  ‘Sit down, Milly, and let me give you some advice: you’re normally a good worker, but now’s not the time to be slacking off. There’ll likely be changes round here in the next few years. New machinery’s taking over from the hand filling, and we’ll have to start laying women off sooner or later.’

  He let that sink in. Milly had done her stint in the filling room, where a hundred-odd women stood for hours in pits round low tables, doing the back-breaking filling work. Their job was to scoop the still bubbling jam out of copper-bottomed trolleys into stone jars, using heavy silver-plated ladles. The pits were designed to ease the strain on their backs, but it was still gruelling work. She immediately saw the impact of a filling machine: a hundred women would be out of work at a stroke. All they’d need would be a couple of machine hands, and of course these would be men. Since the war, most of the mechanical jobs had reverted to men, in spite of the fact that the women had practically run the place during four years of war.

  Tom continued her train of thought. ‘I can only keep the best workers on, so some of the filling girls will be going into the picking room or the boiling room, and I’ll be weeding out the time wasters. Up till now I’ve been impressed with you. You can do any job in the factory, you do it quick and you do it well. I’ve even thought you might make a forelady in time... but, Milly, I can’t have you being late. I’ve got to be able to rely on you.’

  Her heart had leaped into her mouth. If she’d put her job in danger with one stupid drunken night, she’d never forgive herself, and a forelady’s job one day might mean she could help her mother out, get her away from the old man even.

  ‘I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again, Tom. I won’t let you down.’

  ‘All right, off you go now, and no more coming the old acid, you’re on probation!’

  When she finally got to the picking room, she felt near to tears. She slotted herself next to Kitty in the line of women, washing and sorting damsons. In answer to Kitty’s enquiring look, she simply shook her head. If she spoke, the tears might fall. She felt as if she were being stretched taut as a leather hide on a frame, and one day soon she might tear clean apart. It was too much for her to hold together: Elsie; her mother; Pat; her child; Bertie, and now this. The one thing that was keeping it all from falling apart was her job, and now even that was under threat.

  She sniffed and tried to pull herself together, and when Kitty hissed under her breath, ‘Coming to the Folly again tonight?’ she growled back, ‘No!’

  When she got home that afternoon, she made sure Bertie’s tea was ready. She put the plate in front of him the minute he came in and then made herself scarce. She knew she couldn’t avoid him forever, but she was too embarrassed and too confused by her own feelings to be around him now. He was too much of a gentleman to bring up her drunken return home, and if she didn’t mention it, perhaps she could, in time, learn to be easy around him again.

  As it was, the following days were busy ones for Bertie. He’d volunteered to help with Dr Salter’s election campaign and often he would go straight from the shop to the Labour Institute, or he would pop home for a quick tea and then walk to the end of the street for a campaign meeting in the Salters’ own home. Milly had learned, to her surprise, that Dr Salter lived in Storks Road, just a few houses from Bertie’s. As an MP she had assumed he would live somewhere grander, but Bertie told her the man believed in living where his patients and constituents lived. No country house for him, Bertie had said. Even though he and his wife loved trees and flowers, they had devoted themselves to the brick wasteland of Bermondsey, with its single park, the only green haven in thirteen hundred acres.

  Milly would have been glad of Bertie’s absence, if she hadn’t known that Florence Green was also a volunteer. Some evenings she had the insane impulse to follow Bertie, hoping to see him with Florence, as though she desired even more bitter confirmation of her suspicions. She knew she was being foolish, and when she felt like that, she pulled up all the rugs in the house, took them out into the twilit back garden and banged them till her arm seized up.

  It wasn’t until Sunday morning that she had any time alone with him. Before she left for Mass and he for the Wesleyan Mission, they both usually breakfasted together on bacon and eggs from his shop. This was a meal she couldn’t avoid without making him question her. She was determined to act naturally and besides, it was a ritual she’d come to look forward to. It was still a novelty to have such an abundance of food coming into a house. Milly’s mother had always eked out her housekeeping hand to mouth. Hers had been a diet of bread and jam or dripping, mutton stew and potatoes; with the old man getting the lion’s share of the food. Eggs were a luxury and oranges were
for Christmas, though sometimes a kindly docker would toss some pulpy fruit to the children hanging around the wharves, or they would sneak on to the barges and steal a net full of coconuts. Since coming to Bertie’s, Milly had never felt so well fed. It was fortunate she went everywhere at a run, or else, she feared, she’d soon be challenging Ma Donovan’s girth.

  ‘Uncle wants me to take the stall to Horsmonden next weekend,’ Bertie informed her, cutting into a slice of bacon. ‘I know you’ve been miserable without the boy. How do you fancy a run out there with me?’

  Milly paused, with a forkful of egg halfway to her mouth.

  ‘Really, Bertie!’

  ‘Yes, really, and if you don’t put that in your mouth now you’ll be turning up at Mass with half an egg yolk down your dress!’

  The following Saturday afternoon she was looking out for him from behind the lace curtains in the front parlour. She’d been back and forth from the kitchen a dozen times since getting home from the factory. Excitement vied with apprehension. There was nothing she wanted more than to see Jimmy, but the journey to Kent with Bertie, which would otherwise have been a joyful prospect, was tainted by lingering shame and awkwardness at her own half-acknowledged feelings. When Bertie pulled up outside the house in his uncle’s van, she snatched up her box, dropped it in her haste and had to hastily repack it, before dashing out to meet him.

  ‘Ready for a spin?’ He smiled proudly, then jumped out of the driver’s seat, smart in tweed suit, driving gloves and cap.

  Uncle’s new delivery van was painted brown and cream, with Hughes the Grocer inscribed on the side. There were brown leather seats in the driver’s cab and the front headlamps were of polished brass. When Bertie opened the back doors for her to look inside, she gasped. The van was packed to bursting with tins of food, large stone jars of jam and pickle, sacks of flour, sugar and a chest full of loose tea. There were drums of oil, pots, pans and any other hardware goods a hopping family might need. There wasn’t an inch to spare.

  ‘Looks like you’ve packed up the whole shop!’

  ‘Well, Uncle’s looking for a good profit this weekend. Takings are down, with everyone hop-picking. Arnold’s Place is deserted!’

  He helped her up into the cab, with her dented box of belongings, and she settled self-consciously into the seat next to him. Soon they were puttering along Jamaica Road on their way out to Kent. Compared to last year’s trip in Pat’s lorry, this was luxury, but she’d certainly felt more relaxed in the company of all the men, sitting up on the back board, singing the old hopping songs. This year, she was only a visitor, and felt a sense of loss that she wasn’t at the heart of things. She felt nervously self-conscious, alone with Bertie in the close confines of the van, and painfully aware of how she’d let herself down. He hadn’t said a word about that drunken night, but he must be thinking she’d reverted to type; perhaps he was even regretting getting into trouble with his uncle over her. But, as well as that, her unexpected reaction to the sight of him with Florence Green had startled her. It had been an illuminating moment, like walking out of a deeply shadowed wood into bright sunshine. One minute she was in the cool shade of an easy-growing friendship with Bertie, and the next, she was in the fierce glare of... what? Love? Milly hardly dared admit it to herself and she would struggle with all her being to return to that shady wood. Impulsively, she decided to tackle the awkwardness head on.

  ‘Bertie, I’ve been meaning to say sorry, for coming home in such a two and eight the other night.’

  She felt herself flush to the roots of her hair, grateful for the breeze streaming in through the open window. She shot a look at him, but his face was serious as he concentrated on the road ahead, where a horse-drawn cart was lumbering in front of them up Shooter’s Hill. He shifted gear and she noticed, for the first time, the fine capable strength of his hands. He was a skilful driver. Once at the top of the hill, with the cart behind them, he turned to her, his flyaway eyebrows raised in amusement.

  ‘It’s nothing I’ve not seen before!’ he chuckled. ‘I watched you and Kitty Bunclerk rolling up blind drunk to the sewing circle. In fact I spent more time working out which of you would fall down first than I did listening to the lecture I was sitting in!’

  She was mortified that he should have witnessed that particular episode, but she shouldn’t be surprised he’d seen the funny side of it. Bertie never said what she expected him to. He was always a surprise.

  ‘Don’t look so embarrassed. I know why you had a drink too many the other night.’

  I hope not! she thought silently. Bertie was nodding. ‘Because you’re missing Jimmy and there’s all this going on with Elsie. Have you heard any more?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing, except that we can visit in a few weeks. They say it’s best to let her settle in first. Francis Beaumont and Florence Green couldn’t help us... but I don’t blame them,’ she added hastily.

  ‘Florence said he did his best.’

  ‘Oh, did she tell you that the other night?’ She turned her face towards him and saw she’d taken him off-guard.

  ‘When?’

  ‘I saw you talking to her, when I was in sewing circle.’

  Now it was his turn to blush. ‘Oh, did you? Can’t remember.’ He turned his face back to the road. ‘She got up Shooter’s Hill all right, didn’t she? Wonder how she’ll manage Wrotham?’ For a mad moment Milly thought he was still talking about Miss Green, and then realized he’d turned the conversation inexpertly to Uncle’s new van.

  ‘We normally have to get out and push,’ she said.

  As it was, the van took Wrotham Hill in its stride, and in fact the journey took half the time it had in Pat’s old lorry. They had made such good time that, when the oast houses and hop farms came into view, Bertie suggested they stop to stretch their legs.

  He turned off down a smaller country road, a green cathedral, arched with overhanging trees. Afternoon sun dappled the road ahead, which climbed steeply. Bertie changed gear and the van slowed as birds dipped across their path, stitching together the hedgerows on either side, seeming to beckon them on. Eventually Bertie pulled over.

  ‘I wanted to show you this place. I used to come here as a boy with Mum and Dad.’

  They jumped down, and Milly stretched gratefully.

  Bertie said ‘Follow me,’ and led her down a narrow path to a clearing, where a little wooden bench had been hewn from a fallen tree.

  Suddenly the view broke out before them and Milly let out a long sigh of delight. ‘Oh, Bertie, it’s like heaven!’

  They were high up on a ridge, overlooking a patchwork of hop fields, corded with fresh green bines, and apple orchards folded between hedgerows. She could even make out the individual farms.

  ‘Look, Bertie, I think that’s our farm!’

  And his eyes followed where her finger pointed, beyond the village.

  ‘See if we can pick out Mum and Amy in the fields!’

  But that was beyond either of their vision. Still, she was glad he’d given her this bird’s-eye view of her beloved hop gardens. She might not be down there picking, but there were compensations to being a visitor. She had the time to take in the beauty of it all. Her mother would have no chance to look up from the papery hops; her eyes would be on the ever-filling bin. But Bertie had given Milly the opportunity to step back and gaze. He left her there, on the edge of the rise, with her hand shielding her eyes from the hazy sunshine. She was still lost in the scene before her when he came back, with a knapsack.

  ‘How about a picnic lunch before we push on?’

  ‘A picnic! Have you brought one?’ She pulled herself away from the view and joined him on the bench, where he was opening up greaseproof paper parcels. She could see bread and cheese, half a pork pie and a stone bottle of ginger beer.

  He handed her a hunk of bread. ‘You’re always surprising me, Bertie! I didn’t know you’d planned this.’

  Milly was so delighted with the secret, beautiful place that she forgot her awkw
ardness for a moment, her embarrassment faded and she began to be easy with him again. After they’d eaten, she slipped from the bench, contentedly stretching out her long legs on the grass.

  ‘How old were you, when your mum and dad brought you here?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, Dad was a great walker, he used to drag me and Mum out to Kent as often as he could. He discovered this place on one of his rambles. I must have seen it first in that scorcher of a summer, back in 1911, I think. You probably don’t remember it, but I was about twelve, and I thought every summer would be like that.’

  ‘I do remember that summer! I could only have been about five, but I remember following the ice-cream cart, singing “Hokey Pokey penny a lick”, and the ice cream all melting, and me and Wilf got underneath the cart, opened our mouths and just let the lemon ice pour in!’

  They both laughed at the image.

  ‘Just think, Bertie, you might have been up here, looking down on me, when I was hop-picking as a kid.’

  ‘I might have been, but I lost Mum and Dad not long after, so that was the end of my country rambles.’

  ‘Is that when you went to live with Uncle?’

  Bertie pulled a face. ‘I did, till the war, then I volunteered as soon as I could, lied about my age.’

  ‘Like our Wilf, he was only sixteen.’

  Bertie, like most of the men she’d known who’d been through the war, never spoke about it. She only knew he’d served and survived; the rest was easy to imagine.

  ‘I was seventeen.’ He turned clear blue eyes to her, the same colour as the wide sky above the fields. ‘And this place,’ he swept his arm to include the sky, the fields and farms, ‘the thought of this place got me through it.’