by Mary Gibson
‘I don’t think this one’s ready to breathe unaided, just yet,’ she said, hastily replacing the mask.
‘What’s the matter?’ Coming nearer, Matty saw instantly that the stillness hadn’t left her sister. ‘She’s not breathing!’ Matty’s voice rose in alarm and the nurse ran to the door of the ward, calling for a doctor.
The next minutes passed in a red blur of searing focus, with the image of her unmoving sister burning itself into Matty’s vision. When the doctor arrived, he was almost rough, pushing Matty aside so that he could get to Eliza. Hands flat on her chest, he began to pump the frail ribcage, and with each plunge of his hands Matty cried, ‘Breathe, Liza, breathe!’
Finally the doctor stood up, defeat in his eyes. ‘I’m so sorry, my dear, the disease had weakened her lungs too badly...’
Matty, with a voice trained to project to the back of an auditorium, screamed at him ‘No!’ so that the walls seemed to reverberate and the loose old windows rattle in their sashes at her denial. Refusing to believe that the sister she’d come to love had been snatched away, so suddenly, she protested again – ‘No!’ – wanting to be the breath that could fill her sister’s lungs, wanting to be the pulse that could set her heart in motion once more and finally. ‘No,’ as defeated and hoarse, she realized she could not.
At one point someone must have brought her tea, for she was seated, with a cup in her hands and curtains drawn round her. The nurse crouched by her side. Taking the cup from Matty, she asked, ‘Is there anything I can do, telephone anyone for you?’
Matty shook her head. ‘How can she be dead? I don’t understand, what did the doctor mean about the disease weakening her? She’s had nothing wrong with her but a cough and a back ache... It was a cold, that’s all.’ She looked at the nurse in numb disbelief.
‘The back pain would explain a lot. It really must have been quite bad.’
‘She didn’t complain... she was always concerned more about other people than herself.’
‘Well, the doctor says she’s been suffering from pleurisy for some time and sadly it turned to pneumonia... Would you like to sit with her before you leave?’
Matty nodded mutely; for some reason her voice had deserted her.
‘I’ll leave you alone for a bit. I’m just outside.’
She heard the swish of the curtain and finally let her eyes rest on Eliza’s face. Now that the illness had finally, so capriciously and cruelly, decided to abandon her, all her sister’s fire and energy had stilled. Calm and restful as she’d never been in life, her eyes were closed, a half smile on her face as though there were things she knew that Matty did not. Matty took up the long, thin hand, skin translucent as the finest bone china, and let her lips rest there for a moment. As she reached to wipe a strand of faded auburn hair from her sister’s untroubled brow she saw, more than ever, the resemblance to their own mother. She remembered her twelve-year-old self, seated, very much as now, watching as Lizzie Gilbie slipped out of the world. And she thought back to yesterday and Eliza’s final goodbye. There had been too many goodbyes, too many losses. She let go of Eliza’s hand, which felt lighter in death, as if the weight of everything substantial had already flown.
***
‘Have you found the will yet?’ Sam had come to Reverdy Road to discuss Eliza’s funeral.
‘Will? No, I don’t know where he is. He’s meant to be with a friend,’ Matty said distractedly.
‘No, love, not Will. I meant the will, Eliza’s last will and testament! She told me ages ago she’d made me executor, so I know she’s got one.’
‘Oh no. I haven’t even thought...’ Matty looked around vaguely as though the document might magically appear on the table.
Since Eliza’s death an uncharacteristic daze had punctuated the perpetual state of heightened alertness she’d felt since Frank’s henchman had shown up at Esme’s.
‘But, Sam, I really am getting worried about Will. I persuaded that porter at Trinity to give me the Fetherstones’ telephone number and according to the butler the boys haven’t been there at all. So God knows what he’s been up to.’
‘And Eliza never said he was going away?’
Matty shook her head. ‘But then again, they weren’t getting along very well.’
‘Why not?’
‘He resented Eliza helping me – accused me of being a sponger and said she was a hypocrite!’
‘He’s going to regret speaking to his mother like that. But he’s always been so bloody headstrong, he wouldn’t admit it.’
‘I just wish he’d come home. I feel so bad for him, Sam, we’re all he’s got now. His father’s family certainly don’t want anything to do with him, and that’s been half his trouble. He’s never felt good enough for them...’
‘And always felt too good for us...’ Sam said.
‘No, that’s not true.’ She leaped to Will’s defence, remembering the forward, confident child he’d been, charging into their lives and capturing her heart.
Sam put an arm round her shoulder. ‘I’m a bit hard on him, I know, Matty. But it just gets under my skin, the way he thinks his upbringing’s been a burden, and you’ve had none of his advantages, but look what you’ve done with your life!’
She laid her head on his shoulder. Ever her champion, she felt a cold fear that one day he might think she had done less well with her life than he now imagined.
‘Will’s got a lot of growing up to do, Sam. Think of me when I ignored you all and went to be a munitionette at the Arsenal. You all begged me not to and did I listen? You do some bloody stupid things when you’re young...’ She sighed.
‘And sometimes when you’re not so young too... I’ve not always been the sensible one. But come on, this is not getting that will found.’
They searched Eliza’s bureau, but apart from some notes for a speech to the Labour Institute and a few bills, there was little there. Then Matty had a thought. ‘She did say once that she had a very good solicitor, someone the TUC uses. Perhaps she left the will with him?’
Sam agreed to try the Labour Institute in Fort Road to see what he could find out about the solicitor and after he left Matty went up to Eliza’s bedroom. It hadn’t been touched since the night she was taken ill. Matty began folding and putting away clothes. It filled her with sadness to see how few belongings her sister had. She’d lived her principles, and what little she’d earned had mostly gone to worthy causes. Sam might worry about the will, but Matty guessed there would be little enough for Eliza to leave, apart of course from the house, which Will would have. Though it occurred to Matty he might not keep it as he was forever telling them that all property was theft. She smiled to herself at how Eliza would raise her eyes at her son’s extreme views. As she patted the clothes into the bottom drawer of the tallboy, Matty spotted an old Peek Frean’s biscuit tin that looked pre-war. She took the tin out and prised off the lid. Inside she found a prayer book, of the sort they were all given as leaving presents from school, a number of folded, yellowing documents and a few photographs. She recognized the dark curly-headed toddler in one photograph as Will, and another of Eliza, looking awkward and gawky in her hideous scullery maid’s uniform. God, you must have loathed it, Matty thought, imagining her bright and powerful sister scrubbing other people’s floors. Matty sat on the bed, sorting through the rest of the photos.
She smiled fondly at Sam in his army uniform. She picked up another of a young girl, her long wavy hair tied back with a bow, wearing a pinafore frock from another era – reaching halfway down her legs. Was that Eliza as a child? The lines of washing in the courtyard looked faintly alien, not like a Bermondsey street. On the back was written in old-fashioned copperplate: Our little ray of sunshine, Eliza aged five. Matty knew it was her father’s hand, for her mother’s skills never lay in that direction.
It must have been taken when they lived in Hull. How sad, that his little ray of sunshine should have so disappointed him. At the bottom of the pile was a picture of another little girl,
about the same age, and it made Matty gasp. It was undoubtedly her younger self. In spite of her sister’s declaration in the hospital, Matty had never imagined Eliza taking an interest in her childhood, let alone having a photograph of her. She turned it over, and recognized the much poorer handwriting of her mother. She’d written in pencil: Another little ray of sunshine, our Matty.
Matty held the two photographs side by side, herself and Eliza. Why had she never seen the resemblance before? It was almost the same face.
‘Oh, Liza, I wish I’d known you back then,’ Matty whispered, feeling keenly for the first time how robbed she’d been of her sister for so many years. She put the photos back in the tin. At least she’d had dear Nellie, a sister and a mother all rolled into one, and even now, when she was feeling particularly low, Nellie was the person she invariably turned to. Not wanting to be in the house alone, she decided that she would go to Vauban Street and went to make herself look presentable. She had no intention of walking out of the house looking grief-ravaged. She powdered her face, applied her lipstick and changed her dress. But as she passed Eliza’s bedroom she went to the Peek Frean’s tin in the tallboy and took out the matching pair of photographs. She must show Nellie and Sam the resemblance between the two little rays of sunshine.
*
On the day before the funeral, Matty was in her bedroom, trying on her new black dress and coat. Black was a colour she rarely wore. The stage had taught her not to be frightened of strong colours and she now felt strangely conspicuous in this unrelieved black, as if she was outlined in bold, instead of obscured, which was what she wanted to be tomorrow.
She heard a noise behind her and whirled round.
‘Did someone die?’ Will grinned and then stopped short at the door, his smile fading. ‘Oh fuck, somebody did. I’m sorry, Matty,’ he said.
He looked dishevelled, as though he’d been sleeping rough. There was mud on the turn-ups of his trousers and his shoes were scuffed and caked with dirt. His dark curls were plastered greasily to his head.
‘Will, where have you been? I’ve been trying to get in touch for days!’ She ran to him and held him in a tight embrace, not wanting to let him go because it would mean having to tell him.
Finally he extricated himself. ‘Me and Feathers have been tramping. We’re writing a piece about doss houses for The Daily Worker. What’s happened, Matty?’ His face was alarmed now, perhaps reflecting her own.
‘Will, love, I’ve got bad news. It’s your mother... she caught pneumonia. It all happened so quickly... I’m sorry.’
‘Ma?’
‘She’s gone, Will.’
His young man’s face turned into a boy’s, crumpled and creased as he slumped to his knees. Matty dropped down beside him and he laid his head on her lap and wept unashamedly.
When he lifted his wet face to hers she wiped it with her handkerchief, trying to answer all his questions that now tumbled out.
‘I was away in Hull and she caught a chill at the rally and it turned to pneumonia... she was only in Guy’s a couple of nights. They told us she’d had pleurisy a while, but we never knew... There was nothing they could do...’
‘Why didn’t she wait for me?’ Will asked, almost angrily. ‘I was so bloody horrible to her last time I saw her! Why didn’t she wait, Matty?’ His face screwed up in an agony of regret.
Matty put her hand on his greasy curls and drew his head on to her shoulder.
‘She didn’t need to wait to know you loved her, Will. She was your mother. She knew you didn’t mean what you said.’ And the boy was overcome with a new burst of grief so violent that Matty had to hold him tightly for a long time, until the front of her new black coat was stained with the darker black of his tears.
*
Matty had thought that she was the celebrity in the family. But as she turned to look back from the front pew at the hundreds of people pouring into St James’s Church, she began to realize how wrong she’d been. She’d taken little interest in Eliza’s political work, and only now did she understand how popular it had made her sister. Labour party dignitaries sat in the front pews with herself, Sam, Nellie and Will. Their MP Dr Salter was at the front too and would be giving the eulogy. But as she took another discreet look around she saw the back pews filling up with groups of factory women, no doubt coming to show their gratitude for all those pay rises Eliza had gained for them over the years. A few of their remaining Hull family had made the trek down and even their father’s cousins, George Gilbie and Betty Bosher, were there. But the crowd became a blur to Matty, her focus of attention now finely tuned to Will. In public he had been a model of strength and restraint, but she had shared the house with him last night and his sobs had been audible through the bedroom wall. She sat next to him and when Dr Salter praised Eliza’s selfless work she felt him stiffen, for Will’s opinion of Eliza’s politics had often been dismissive. Matty sometimes thought he hated her politics because they’d taken her away from him too often as a child. She squeezed his hand. She knew he was in turmoil and although she could never replace his mother, she had held the boy as a baby and sung him to sleep at night, and she would give him what comfort she could now.
The official reception was a rather proper affair at the Fort Road Labour Institute, with tables laden with sandwiches and cakes, and cups of tea served by an army of willing volunteers. Matty was standing by the tea urn, and had attracted a few admirers who wanted to engage her in conversation about her next talkie. But she was anxious to evade them and looked round for someone to provide an escape. She saw a short, buxom woman heading her way. It was Katie Gilbie, cousin George’s wife and landlady of The Land of Green Ginger. As a young girl she’d been known as Bermondsey’s own Marie Lloyd, though Matty thought her singing career had mainly been confined to Bermondsey pubs. The woman had grown rounder as she’d grown older, retaining the piled-up hairstyle of thirty years ago, so that she now resembled a cottage loaf. Matty sighed. Katie Gilbie had a determined look in her eye, but anything was better than the crowd of doe-eyed young men who’d surrounded her.
‘Matty, darlin’! You poor thing, come and give us a kiss,’ Katie cried out, though her bulk and short arms prevented a full embrace. Matty told herself to be patient. It was a family funeral, old sores were to be forgotten, but Matty had inherited her mother’s long memory. Cousin George, a stiff-mannered man who prided himself on being a respectable publican, had always looked down on her father and during the war he’d even accused Sam of letting down the family name for not joining up in the first week. Matty could not forgive George that. Yet Katie wasn’t a mean person; she’d just had the misfortune to marry George Gilbie. It was well known he wouldn’t have had such a successful business if he hadn’t married Katie, with her outgoing ways and knack for bringing in the customers. Since Matty’s success in the halls, Katie had developed an unwanted interest in her.
‘Now, me darlin’, you and the family are coming back to the Green Ginger after this. I know it’s a wake but gawd, you’d be gaspin’ for a decent drink here, wouldn’t you, love? All signed the pledge by the looks of ’em!’
Matty tried to protest, knowing that it was the last thing Sam would want to do.
‘Sam and Nellie’s coming back, and you make sure you bring her boy.’ Katie nodded towards Will, who was locked in earnest discussion with one of the Labour councillors.
Katie patted her arm. ‘Me and you’ll do a duet, eh?’
Matty smiled weakly and Katie leaned in confidentially.
‘I heard you’re having trouble getting the bookings. Well, people ain’t got the money, have they, darlin’? I know what it’s like meself, when I was trying to make a living in the halls... Don’t take it wrong, but if you need a bit of extra cash, there’s always a spot for you at the Green Ginger.’ Katie smiled encouragingly, the thick coating of face powder cracking in all the wrong places. Matty’s heart sank momentarily, but then who was she to be fussy? She had Frank breathing down her neck, and no doubt W
ill would be selling the house soon so she’d have to find rent for a new place.
‘Thanks, Katie,’ Matty said. ‘I might just take you up on that if I don’t get some work soon!’
Just then Matty spotted a well-built, fair-haired young man coming her way.
‘Freddie!’ she called. ‘I haven’t had a chance to talk to you.’ Grateful to escape the subject, she veered off from Katie into his path.
Nellie’s brother, Freddie Clark, was part of Matty’s second family, acquired when Nellie had taken her and Charlie in during the war years. Married now and with his own family, Freddie owned a thriving haulage firm. Although in his younger days his business dealings hadn’t always been legal, Nellie had assured Matty his new wife, Kitty, had straightened him out.
He was carrying a plate of sandwiches, but with his large, free hand caught her round the waist, kissing her on the cheek.
‘Hello, Matt! Sorry about your Eliza, bit of a shocker, eh?’
‘It was sudden, Freddie. But how’s your family? I hear you’ve got a new baby?’
‘She’s beautiful, Matt. And Kitty’s here.’ He lifted the plate of sandwiches, as if to convince Matty that they were all for his wife, which she doubted, remembering Kitty’s small frame. ‘Left the baby with her mother. How’s life treating you? Not doing no more talkies?’
It was a question she was coming to dread. ‘I didn’t really like America, Freddie.’
‘Nah, not all it’s cracked up to be. Eh? You’re better off at home. You got any new shows on? I promised Kitty I’d take her to see you.’
Matty smiled, not wanting to explain her dwindling bookings to Freddie.
‘Well, I’ll make sure you get some comps next show I do!’
In the end Katie hadn’t found it too difficult to persuade the family back to the Green Ginger for free drinks, but Matty had trouble with Will when she broached the subject.