Bourbon Creams and Tattered Dreams

by Mary Gibson

  Matty stood up. ‘I hope so. Come on, Sam.’ She was shivering, partly from cold and partly from shock. ‘But I tell you what, it’s going to be bloody awkward at tea tonight!’ she said.

  But Will never returned to Reverdy Road that evening. When Matty went up to his room, she found a note on the bed.

  Enjoy your house was all it said.

  Matty raised her eyes to heaven. ‘Thanks, Eliza,’ she muttered, crumpling the note.

  She sat heavily on the bed and smoothed the ridged candlewick cover. How could her sister have thought this wouldn’t cause trouble? But Eliza always had a way of ignoring the finer points of people’s feelings, either for a principle or to get her own way. She heaved a deep sigh. Who did that remind her of?

  ***

  Matty held on to Billy’s hand as they inched forward along the double-fronted elegance of the brand-new Trocadero cine-theatre. The queue snaked behind them back round the corner of the cinema and Matty was unable to see the head of it due to the dense pea-souper that shrouded them. Billy was constantly craning his head round the people in front of them.

  ‘Do you think we’ll get to the front before it starts?’ he asked.

  ‘Stop worrying! They’ll make sure we’re all inside first,’ Matty said.

  She pulled the fox-fur stole up around her neck. She could understand why Billy was excited; they were to be among the first to enter the vast dream palace. True, Matty would have preferred to be seeing the opening of the cinema from the stage. She’d hoped to be offered a spot in the variety show that would accompany the two new talkies. But Esme hadn’t been able to get her a booking – instead she’d sent two complimentary tickets for the opening. Matty might be disappointed, but she certainly wasn’t going to waste the tickets and had brought Billy along. Always singing, he seemed to have inherited the Gilbie love of music, and she’d even managed to teach him a few tunes on the upright piano Eliza had bought for Will. It turned out that of the two cousins it was Billy who’d inherited the family’s musical talent, and Will had cheerfully admitted defeat after only a few attempts.

  Over three thousand of them were waiting. The excitement rippled along the queue, all the more intense for being conveyed through a thick cloak of invisibility formed by the fog. Chatter and muffled laughter and the crunching of thousands of feet on peanut shells was the soundtrack to an irresistible shuffling force which moved them forward whether they wanted to or not. When at last they reached the front entrance, and the crowd rolled into the cinema, so did the fog. Swirling in a dense grey mist, it gave the ornate gilded foyer an even more fairy-tale feel. Once in the auditorium Billy’s mouth opened wide as he tilted back his head to gaze upwards. Billowing fog rose to a circular turquoise ceiling recessed and lit from within, golden eagles guarded it as though it were some heavenly home of the gods, and the clouds of sulphurous-smelling mist added to the illusion. Lozenges of light hung from the ceiling, but the visibility was so low that when Billy let go of Matty’s hand she lost him.

  ‘Billy? Billy?’ she called, feeling around her, trying to catch his blazer. Her hand landed on his cap and she pulled him close. It felt unsettling to be marooned in the fog inside this brand-new palace of light.

  ‘Good job we’re up the front!’ Billy said cheerfully, grabbing her hand and pulling her along unceremoniously through the crowd.

  And he was right, rank upon rank of seats stretched in front of her, but the fog that had entered with them was so dense it obscured the stage. As they settled themselves into their third-row seat, she looked behind her and doubted that any of those up in the immense curving balcony would be able to see a thing on the screen, let alone the tiny figures on the stage when they appeared for the variety show. It struck her as ironic that she’d been mourning her place in the show on this opening night. To walk on to that vast stage and sing to over three thousand people, to garner the reviews which inevitably the opening night of such an impressive picture palace would attract, had given her a vestige of hope. But it looked like it would be no loss. Few would have seen her, and her clear voice would have been muted, filtered through this blanket of thick fog.

  A startling boom from the great Wurlitzer organ rumbled through her chest, and she found herself actually feeling sorry for the opening live acts, who trooped on to the stage, carrying on gamely through their turns. Fortunately, the huge crowd didn’t blame them. Matty knew too well the ferocity of an unhappy audience, but this crowd was still so buoyed up by the excitement of the evening they barely seemed to notice that they couldn’t see a thing.

  It was an odd experience, to sit in the audience for a change. The screen, set in such golden-curlicued brilliance, now felt to her more like a barrier than a portal to her dreams. It was almost a relief when the fog rolled in front of it and veiled the moving images. But then she felt Billy, squirming at her side, half out of his seat as he strained to glimpse the opening shots of The Storm, a western that he’d been so looking forward to, and she was glad when the intrusive mist began to dissipate. In Billy’s eyes she was still a star, and as each new character appeared he hissed in her ear, ‘Do you know him? Have you met her?’ Finally, when the beautiful Mexican leading lady made her entrance, she could actually say yes. Lupe Velez was her stage name and Matty had spent a couple of afternoons hanging about the lot, talking to the young woman during breaks from making London Affair.

  In fact Lupe had tried to warn her off Frank. ‘That man’s bad for women,’ she’d said in a whisper, as if he might have spies on the lot. ‘I should know. I went out with him a while back, and he was mean, Matty. Roughed me up when I said no to carrying a little cocaine for him... nearly broke my jaw! Dump him!’ But in those early days Frank was still all charm and Matty was in love. Besides, Lupe wasn’t the most reliable of people. She’d struck Matty as strangely flighty. On one occasion she had pulled out a pair of roller skates and given Matty an impromptu show, scooting up and down the lot, narrowly missing cameras and crew transporting bits of set. She’d insisted Matty try, which had only resulted in her tumbling and grazing her chin, much to the annoyance of her director, who’d told them both off as if they were schoolgirls, before sending Matty off to make-up to be made presentable. It was easy to spin out of control in such a world – the extremes of who you were seemed to poke out and catch you, sharp and unexpected. Like Matty, Lupe had been poor as a child. And though her star had still been shining, Matty had wondered for how long. Now, a world away from those days with Lupe, she looked up into the face of the dark-eyed beauty on the screen and finally accepted that her own short-lived screen career was over for good.

  That night, fitful between wakefulness and sleep, as moonlight flickered through the swaying branches of one of Mrs Salter’s newly planted trees, she was transported back to the days of promise, the screen in front of her flickering with her own image and reflecting back to her all the stillborn dreams which she had once so cherished.

  6

  Broken Biscuits

  December 1930–January 1931

  Frank’s warning shot of sending his henchman had been designed to keep her on edge and it had worked. She still jumped at every ring of the telephone or knock on the door. So when the phone rang she snatched up the receiver.

  ‘Hello, darling!’ It was the husky voice of Esme Golding, an infrequent caller in the last few weeks.

  ‘Esme! Have you got me some work?’ Matty crossed her fingers.

  ‘Sorry, Matty, the reason I’m ringing is that something rather unpleasant has happened. I don’t want to alarm you but I’ve had another demand from that bastard across the pond – it came wrapped round a brick that smashed through my window this morning. Glass all over the bloody place.’

  ‘Oh, Esme, I’m sorry, were you hurt? Did you see who did it?’ Matty gripped the telephone so tightly that it shook in her hand. She’d felt suddenly cornered as if Frank were already stalking the streets of Bermondsey.

  ‘I’m fine. When I got to the window whoever did
it had gone... perhaps it was the same thug Frank sent before? Why he can’t use the postal service like everyone else I don’t know!’

  ‘Because the postie wouldn’t scare the living daylights out of us. But what does he want this time?’

  ‘Well, I think you’re going to need every penny of that inheritance when it comes through, sweetheart.’

  Matty heard the sound of Esme inhaling on one of her Turkish cigarettes and she could picture her narrowing eyes. ‘Look, try not to worry, darling. I’ll stall him, but he’s a mean badger, isn’t he? Bloody man just won’t let go!’

  Matty put the phone down. Esme’s reassurances hadn’t helped. She needed to make some money to get Frank off her back and she couldn’t rely on Eliza’s bequest. She came to a decision. If her voice was no longer her fortune, then elbow grease must have its day.

  *

  Matty felt as if she had been catapulted back to the very place she’d started out, but instead of making custard powder at Pearce Duff’s it would be custard creams. She threw back her shoulders, held her head high, and walked through the gates into Peek Frean’s biscuit factory in Drummond Road as though she were making her entrance at the South London Palace.

  I’ve played worse places than this! She bolstered herself, scanning the yard.

  It wasn’t so much a single factory as a conglomeration of huge, many-storeyed buildings and long sheds, sprawled across such a vast area that it had earned the name of ‘biscuit town’. Hard by the railway viaduct that bisected Bermondsey, its tall, white clock tower wouldn’t have looked out of place on top of a church. Matty had glanced at its white face as she’d approached the factory on this, her first day of hard manual labour in many years. The fluttering feeling in her stomach was only a kind of stage fright, she told herself, and that was something she knew how to deal with.

  She walked with her confident, long-legged stride across the courtyard, looking straight ahead, though aware of a gathering audience on the periphery. She’d waved her auburn hair, had on only a touch of make-up, and dressed down in one of her simplest pleated dresses with a long edge-to-edge jacket, but still she’d almost immediately attracted wolf whistles from some men standing on a loading bay high in the nearest building. So much for keeping a low profile. She looked up with a smile and a wave, but carried on walking as a few girls, who’d obviously been waiting at the gates, fell in with her. Word had obviously got round that the famous Cockney Canary would be joining them.

  ‘What you doing working here, Matty? Why ain’t you made another talkie yet?’ one of the braver ones asked.

  ‘Fancied a rest cure!’ Matty said, and the girls laughed.

  ‘We loved that London Affair, didn’t we, girls?’ A young woman with round glasses, looked up at her almost adoringly. ‘Are you making a film about a factory girl, Matty?’

  ‘Why else would she be at Peek’s? Certainly ain’t for the money, is it, love?’ another one answered for her.

  ‘How did you guess?’ Matty shot back.

  But she was beginning to feel awkward. How long would it be before these women realized that she was as hard up as they were and as grateful for a job on the production line as any one of them?

  She was rescued by a round-faced woman, about her own age, who smiled at Matty as if she should know her. But then many people did that, assuming a familiarity because they’d seen her on the stage or the screen.

  ‘Let the poor girl through!’ the woman said. ‘She’s on the clock, same as us!’ And she elbowed her way between Matty and the others.

  ‘Come with me, Matty. It’s your first day, ain’t it? I’ll show you where to go.’

  How did they all know she was coming? She’d hoped to slip in this morning like any other worker, but there was obviously an efficient Peek’s grapevine at work. The young woman grasped her elbow, steering her out of the crowd, but Matty heard a bold-faced woman say in a deliberately loud whisper, ‘She’s come down in the world, ain’t she? Research for a factory film my arse.’

  ‘Ignore Edna, you’ll get a few jealous ones like her.’ The young woman gave her a shy smile and a sidelong look. ‘But don’t you recognize me, Matty?’

  Matty smiled back. She thought she recognized the voice and was desperately trying to put a name to the face, when the girl said, ‘It’s Winnie! Winnie Roberts.’

  ‘Oh, of course, Winnie! How’ve you been?’

  Matty was mortified. How could she not have recognized Tom’s sister? If she’d made a different choice four years earlier the woman could have been her sister-in-law by now.

  ‘Well, I’ve put on a bit of weight, eating too many of them bleedin’ biscuits!’ Winnie said, seemingly unoffended that Matty didn’t immediately remember her. Her round face dimpled and her chin doubled as she laughed, so that Matty forgave herself for not recognizing the young woman. The last time she’d seen her Winnie had been as slim and lithe as Kitty Godfree.

  ‘Tom says I should never have given up the cycling!’ Winnie said apologetically. ‘But standing on your feet ten hours a day, you don’t feel like doing much afterwards, do you? And I’m a terrible gannet for the biscuits...’

  Matty hoped she never developed a taste for pat-a-cakes and garibaldis.

  ‘Of course I recognized you! You haven’t changed a bit.’

  She gave Winnie a hug, feeling a surge of warmth for at least one friendly face in this bewildering maze of a place, where everyone seemed to have a fixed purpose but herself.

  ‘You’re a bloody good actress, Matty, I’ll give you that. I’m like half the side of a ’ouse, look at me. I can see why you wouldn’t know me.’ Winnie opened her wrap-around coat, to reveal her generous form, widening her eyes in mock horror.

  Once at the offices Winnie stopped.

  ‘Go up to the first floor, they’ll sort you out. Wait till you see the hats we have to wear – it ain’t a pretty sight!’ She put a reassuring hand on Matty’s shoulder. ‘Don’t worry about what people say in this place, you can’t escape the tittle-tattle, but most of ’em will love havin’ you here. Little bit of glamour around – can’t do no harm!’

  ‘Thanks, Winnie...’ Matty hesitated before leaving her. ‘How’s Tom?’

  ‘Oh, he’s fine, love. Got over you eventually!’

  Matty searched her face. It was the ‘eventually’ that bothered her. Had it taken months or years, and did Winnie blame her for breaking her brother’s heart? But she seemed genuinely pleased to see Matty, and she had gone out of her way to be helpful.

  ‘I’ll tell him you’re back when I see him... got to go, Matty. Chin up, it ain’t that bad here. Want to meet me in the canteen dinner time?’

  Matty nodded gratefully, and mounted the stairs, her thoughts returning to Tom. She’d been thrown by the mention of his name. She hadn’t expected that their paths would ever cross again. He’d wanted to marry her once, but she’d closed that door when she chose to get on the boat to America, telling herself it was the price she’d have to pay for fulfilling her dreams. Still, the memory of him had recurred over the years, like the refrain of some old song that evokes a time and a place long gone. In fact there was a song that she’d always thought of as theirs and ‘I’ll See You in My Dreams’ started to play now in her head as she walked up the echoing staircase. She’d always avoided including that song in her sets. It had been the one that meant most to them, and she remembered now how Tom would sing it to her softly, in his not very good voice, with his eyes locked on to hers as they danced. No, it had never seemed right for her to sing it on the stage, almost as if she were shining a twin spotlight on to his heartbreak and her guilt at shattering those dreams of his. Now she almost wished she hadn’t bumped into Winnie.

  She reached the top of the stairs and turned her mind to the day ahead, wondering if the hat would really be as hideous as Winnie had promised. Matty’s parents always said she was pretty and men had praised her beauty, but her parents were biased and Matty no longer had any faith in what men said. The
re was, however, an old dresser at the Gaiety who’d once told her she could look good wearing a sack and she believed him. But when the foreman held up the mob cap and shapeless white overall that all the women wore, Matty thought she’d finally met her match. They were as far from the chic couture of her Hollywood days as she could imagine. Wearing the hideous garments, she was escorted back downstairs by the foreman, and she drew no wolf whistles as they crossed the courtyard where sweet vanilla breezes swirled in warm eddies from the bakehouse. He led her into a long, many-storeyed brick building, where they passed endless rows of women standing at benches, hands moving in a blur so that the biscuits they packed became almost invisible. Following him at a half trot, she came to the production line where she was to work. She spotted Winnie, who paused for just long enough to give her an encouraging nod, without breaking her rhythm, and it seemed to Matty that in their ceaseless activity all the women were like mechanical marionettes, following the will of some invisible puppet master. But the foreman had stopped and was attempting to get the attention of someone who had her back turned to him.

  ‘This is your supervisor, Matty,’ he said as the woman turned round. ‘Edna here will show you the ropes. Nothing she doesn’t know about Bourbon creams, eh, Edna?’

  Matty’s heart sank. It was the bold-faced, middle-aged woman who had been unconvinced by Matty’s brave show at the factory gates earlier on. Matty smiled at her, but when the foreman had gone Edna raised her eyes to heaven. ‘Trust me to get the film star. Come on, cock linnet, or whatever yer name is, follow me.’

  Edna indicated a space at the line between two other women.

  ‘I’m only showing you once,’ she said, picking up the bottom half of a cooked Bourbon biscuit from a moving conveyer belt. She held it steady beneath a delivery nozzle, which squirted a blob of chocolate butter-cream on to the biscuit base. Edna plucked another half of biscuit from the belt and deftly placed it on to the chocolate cream, squashing it down to form a sandwich. She passed it to the woman standing next to her, who was sorting and packing the biscuits. It looked simple enough and Edna stood back, leaving her to get on with it.