by Mary Gibson
‘I’m sorry, Matty, I feel so bad. It should have been me got the sack.’
But Matty put her hand over Winnie’s, ‘If I had a dad and mum at home, you’d have done the same for me... but I haven’t.’
*
One evening, after a particularly unpleasant day bottling pickled walnuts in a vile black liquor, she was trying to scrub black stains from her fingers without scraping the skin off as well when a knock came on the front door. A fist closed around her heart, and she tried to calculate if it was possible for Frank to already be in the country, but it wasn’t, and immediately terror of Frank was replaced by a new fear, which had become as ingrained as the pickled walnut stains on her hand, and it was of the Relieving Officer. She’d been expecting him. He’d warned that he’d be paying another visit to make sure she’d sold the piano, though she’d hoped that being in work might forestall that necessity. She wiped her hands and steeled herself for the ordeal of having him sniffing round her home. She hadn’t been able to bear getting rid of the old instrument, which both she and later Billy had learned to play on. Poor Billy, what must he think of her desertion? She shook her head to wipe away the image of his disappointed face and went to answer the knock.
In spite of herself her hand flew to her mouth. He’d obviously knocked, then taken a step back on to the red-tiled front path, perhaps so as not to startle her. But that couldn’t have been avoided. He looked so different from the day she’d last seen him. Now he wore a dark, well-cut suit, with a grey trilby shadowing his lean, square-jawed face.
‘Tom!’
‘Hello, Matty,’ he said, removing his hat. His light brown hair was now cut much shorter, brushed back from a neat side-parting to reveal his high forehead. ‘Can I come in?’
Momentarily frozen to the spot, Matty stared into those distinctive, half-moon-shaped hazel eyes, which had once reflected back love, and which now revealed nothing. He waited a few seconds and when she didn’t respond said, ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come.’ And he turned to walk away.
‘No, don’t go! Of course you can come in, I’m just so surprised to see you!’
She felt herself flush and was glad to turn her back on him, as she led him to the parlour. She offered him tea, aware all the time that a surge of the old familiar excitement had instantly coursed through her at the sight of him. It was impossible to ignore or deny, but she realized at once it was merely an instinctive reaction. His face, like an old song, had called up the memory of a feeling – not necessarily the feeling itself.
Nevertheless, as she made tea in the kitchen she did glance in the mirror, making sure her waves were still in place. Since the cost of a hairdresser had soared beyond her reach, she’d started wearing her hair shorter, with softer waves that she’d achieved herself using just fingers and wave clips. Her dark eyes were red-rimmed and revealed too much of the anxiety she’d been feeling. She patted her cheeks to give them some colour and then smoothed the front of her dove-grey dress, wishing it wasn’t quite so worn. She looked at her hands; the black stains said everything about how her star had fallen. She sighed and took the tray into the parlour.
‘You’re looking well, Tom. How’ve you been?’ she asked, and for a moment she wondered if he was going to make this awkward.
He smiled politely. ‘Fine, Matty, I’ve been fine. Got a new job, things are going well.’
Her heart sank. Politeness was almost more painful than outright hostility; it meant he felt nothing. His smile had never been anything other than infectious for her; it was what she had fallen in love with. A smile that began in his eyes, crinkled their corners and only then moved to his mouth. But of course he wasn’t still ‘her Tom’ and it had been selfish of her to think that he might be.
‘You look very smart,’ she said, noticing the hat that he had taken off and was now twisting round in his hands. ‘I love the titfer!’ she said, taking it and planting it briefly on her own head, with a Burlington Bertie swagger. Again came the polite smile and she handed him back the hat awkwardly. She’d always been able to make him laugh, but that wasn’t the only thing that had changed. He’d always been a flat-cap man. The new style suited him and if she hadn’t known better, she would have taken him for an office worker. ‘Are you going out for the evening?’
He shook his head. ‘I’ve come straight from work. I’m in the Bermondsey Health Department these days – in the offices.’
She tried to veil her surprise.
‘Don’t look so shocked, Matty. You didn’t expect my life to stay the same, did you?’ There was an edge to his voice. ‘I’ve moved on, the same as you.’
He even spoke differently, with no dropped aitches in evidence. She’d once known him so well, and yet she found herself looking at him with new eyes. The Tom she knew had never held down a job for very long; he’d flitted butterfly-like from one to another. She’d first met him when he was working as a mechanic for Freddie Clark in his haulage business – along with the other less legitimate activities Freddie had been involved in before he married. Tom had done a stint in the docks and when she’d left for America he was working at the borough cleansing station in a totally unglamorous but necessary job. As Bermondsey’s old housing stock was riddled with bedbugs, cockroaches and lice, families regularly sent their mattresses and bedding to the cleansing station to have the vermin eradicated in huge steam boilers. At the time it seemed as far from Matty’s increasingly glamorous world as could be imagined. But that wasn’t the reason she’d decided not to marry him.
‘Well, it’s a bit of a leap from boiling out bedbugs to a clerk in the health department!’ she laughed. ‘But I’d love to hear how that happened!’
He looked at her for a long moment, his head cocked slightly to one side. ‘Would you, Matty?’
And then she remembered how with Tom, a question was always a real question. He’d never had much time for small talk.
‘Yes, I would,’ she answered honestly.
‘That’s strange. I thought you’d lost interest in me and my life a long time ago.’
There was the sting she’d been waiting for, but he covered it well. ‘But actually I’ve come to talk about you.’
‘Me?’ She realized she was flustered. How had that happened? Tom had never been able to fluster her. But she could only think of one reason he’d want to talk about her and she steeled herself to turn down his plea to take him back.
‘Winnie told me she pinched a biscuit and you got the sack for taking the blame.’
Matty hid her surprise with a shrug, ‘Oh, I hated it there anyway. Besides, it was wearing me out!’
‘So it’s true. I could barely credit it. They sacked you for a biscuit?’
‘I did swear at the old cow of a forelady as well.’
Tom gave a sharp laugh. ‘She came unstuck then. People always think you’re softer than you really are.’
She realized with a jolt how well he knew her. ‘Oh yeah, hard as nails me.’
But this time he didn’t laugh. He gave her a cool stare until she blushed, remembering. It was a phrase he’d used about her the night she’d walked away from him. Tom may have moved on, but she didn’t think he’d forgiven her, in which case why had he come?
‘Well, our Win was grateful. She needs the money, not for herself but for the old folks. I help as much as I can, but as soon as the RO sniffs out extra money coming in they cut their dole.’
‘Oh, I know all about the RO. They’re making me sell Eliza’s old joanna.’ Her eyes rested on the piano for an instant. ‘I wish I didn’t have to.’
‘But, Matty, what were you doing working at Peek’s anyway? I can’t believe you really need the money,’ he said, with a puzzled expression. She remembered how his high forehead creased that way whenever he was searching out answers. She’d always found it particularly difficult to pull the wool over Tom’s eyes and though he wasn’t immune to her charms, he could usually spot if she was using them to hide something.
She wish
ed she could feed him the lie that she was researching her next film, but he would never have been fooled and besides, her fingers had already betrayed her. She caught him looking at her hands.
‘You in a pickle factory!’ He shook his head. ‘Matty, what happened?’
She let out a long breath. ‘It’s simple really, Tom – I’m broke. All my money went into the next film and it’s not going to happen now, what with the Crash and everything.’
‘Simple? I can’t believe that. Nothing was ever simple with you, Matty.’ He paused, as if waiting for the true story.
She shrugged again, not willing to enlighten him.
‘I’m sorry you lost everything.’ She could tell he meant it, but Tom was not one to take anything at face value and he persisted. ‘But surely you could make better money from the stage than pickles?’
She blushed, and wished Winnie hadn’t told him about her getting the sack, then he wouldn’t have had to see her like this. But pickles were a fact of her life now and it was no good pretending she was something that she wasn’t. Tom would always sniff out that sort of deceit.
‘I know you’ve been on the bill at the Star since you came home.’
‘Oh, did you see me?’ she asked quickly.
‘No, no... I didn’t.’
She dropped her eyes, feeling unaccountably disappointed. ‘Oh. Well, to be honest, Tom, I’ve had enough of the stage.’
And now he burst out laughing, his old laugh, the one she could elicit with a funny face or a witty remark. ‘You? Fed up with singing?’ he said in disbelief. ‘Now I know you’re telling pork pies. But you don’t have to tell me your business, Matty,’ he said, suddenly serious.
A part of her wanted to tell him the truth. There was a time when they’d shared everything, and perhaps that had been the problem. In the end, Tom had simply taken up too much space in her life and she’d had no room for anything else, least of all a career in America. She could see that he’d changed, but so had she, and life had taught Matty that an open heart was the most vulnerable. She folded imaginary wings around her pain, shielding all the hurt from his penetrating gaze.
‘That part of my life’s over, Tom,’ was all she said and he nodded, seeming to accept it and surprising her, for the Tom she remembered would have probed until he’d got the truth.
‘So you really do need that job at the pickle factory?’
‘Oh, I need the job. I’ve tried Hartley’s, Crosse & Blackwell’s, Lipton’s, not Pearce Duff’s because of Nel— I mean, too many memories.’
He paused for a moment as if considering something. ‘I know you’re surprised I’m here, and to be honest it’s only because Winnie asked me to come.’
‘Why would she do that?’ Matty felt a flash of anger; she would kill Winnie for putting her in this position. ‘She told me herself you’d moved on—’
But he waved her aside. ‘No, it’s nothing like that. She told me you were on your uppers, not that I believed her, and she asked me to help you.’
Now she was even angrier. ‘No, Tom, I don’t want your money – thanks very much, but I’m managing.’
‘In a pickle factory?’
‘Have you come to gloat?’ Matty snapped. ‘I left you for a glittering career in a pickle factory? Is that what you really want to say?’ She stood up, her face flushed, just wanting him to go.
‘I knew this was a mistake.’ He got up, jamming his hat on, but at the parlour door he paused. She saw his jaw clenching; it was something he used to do when he was being annoyingly patient with her and it had always made her blood boil.
‘I don’t care where you work, Matty. But you’ve done my family a good turn and Winnie asked me to help you. So, no, I didn’t come to gloat. I came to offer you a job.’
***
‘What’s the matter with you, you silly cow? Fancy turning him down!’ Winnie was furious with her. They were sitting in Matty’s kitchen drinking tea and Winnie’s expression was stoney. ‘It wasn’t his idea, you know, he didn’t want to come. It was me. I kept on and on at him to do something for you, after the way you helped me, Matty. He said you’d take it the wrong way...’
Matty raked her pickle-stained fingers through her hair. ‘I’m sorry, Win. I was a bit touchy with him and as soon as he went, I felt bad.’
‘He was just trying to do you a favour.’
‘I know that now,’ she said miserably.
‘I don’t know what you said to him, but he had the right hump when he came round to us. He chucked this in the bin.’
Winnie fished a sheet of crumpled paper from her bag and pushed it across the kitchen table. ‘I reckon it would’ve been right up your street.’
Matty flattened it out on the kitchen table. It was a list of duties for a part-time assistant in the borough health department. At first it seemed like a routine office job, which Matty couldn’t say was at all up her street, but it certainly would be more pleasant than the pickle factory. Then something caught her attention. She read to the end and looked up at Winnie with a smile spreading slowly across her face.
Winnie’s expression softened. ‘Want me to have another go?’
Matty grinned. ‘So long as he promises there won’t be a Bourbon cream or pickled walnut in sight.’
She wasn’t sure that working for Tom was such a good idea, but with her future perilous and her past ripped away, where did she have to go but the present? And a job with Tom was what was on offer, here and now. So, the following week she reported for work at the public health department. She found Tom’s office tucked away at the back of the labyrinthine town hall building in Spa Road. He wasn’t there, which gave her a chance to look round the place he’d migrated to from the borough cleansing station. It was little more than a cubby-hole, with a tall window looking out on to a brick wall. The room was crammed with filing cabinets, a plan chest, an easel and a pinboard, along with two desks with barely an inch between them. On the walls were health posters, featuring large molars and smiling babies. Two she recognized; they were the same posters as on the electric sign situated above the Underground public conveniences at the end of Grange Road. The electric signs were a marvel of modernity: illuminated by electric light at night, they flipped automatically to reveal different health messages. The one she was studying was in a series called ‘The Tale of a Tooth’. It showed a bawling baby with the caption: Once toothless, now four teeth have I, They’re never cleaned, I don’t know why. The next poster, in stark contrast, featured a healthy chubby infant with a kiss curl on its forehead and a Mr Punch toy in its lap. The accompanying caption read: I came with none, but now have four, but Ma cleans mine, that’s how I score! The caption writer obviously had no qualms about making a mother feel inadequate so long as it resulted in healthy teeth for Bermondsey infants.
Matty had often seen kids hanging about the electric signs at dusk, waiting for the pictures to light up. They knew the captions off by heart and would sing them in lusty voices to whatever tune was popular at the time. But even without the captions, the pictures told the tale clearly enough.
She was smiling at the posters when Tom came in.
‘They’re good, aren’t they? Our chief medical officer wrote the captions – he loves a bit of poetry!’
She turned on her heel. ‘I was just remembering a group of kids I saw the other day – they were singing these captions to the tune of “Oh! My Sweet Hortense!” They did very well, actually.’
Tom smiled, then suddenly all business, he said, ‘Let’s get cracking. I’ll show you the job for this morning. It’ll be different from one day to the next – I’ll warn you before we start!’
He led her to the plan chest in the corner and opened up a drawer of artwork.
‘We’re creating some more multi-posters for the electric signs and this artwork needs to go to the printers.’ He pulled out the drawings and Matty could see the artwork dealt with TB, showing a child receiving sun-ray treatment from large lamps at the council’s solarium in Gran
ge Road.
Tom pulled out a filing cabinet and gave her a folder. ‘Here’s the printers’ details, just give them a ring, then send off the artwork. It’s all in there. I’ve got to go, Matty, the three musketeers want a meeting over at the skeleton room!’
And when she gave him an exaggerated look of puzzlement, he grabbed his hat from the stand and said, ‘I’ll explain later!’
‘Hmm, busy!’ she mused as he left her alone in the office. He’d obviously got over his earlier pique at her ingratitude, at least enough to offer her the job. But she hadn’t been able to guess what his tone would be once they started working together. He’d pitched it at cordial but businesslike, which she didn’t mind at all.
She spread the artwork over the top of the plan chest and went to look for packing materials. As she rooted around in the store cupboard for cardboard and string she sniffed the air and smiled – only dust and paper and a hint of floor polish, with not a whiff of vanilla or vinegar anywhere.
When Tom returned at lunchtime, she’d already parcelled up the artwork, found the post room and sent off the material. She’d organized a stack of other artwork that seemed to have no home and presented him with a sheet of telephone messages that she’d answered. He looked impressed.
‘You’ve made yourself at home,’ he said, his eyes on his own desk, which looked considerably tidier than when he’d left.
‘So, who the bloody hell are the three musketeers?’ she asked as he threw himself into the chair behind his desk and fished out a packet of sandwiches.
‘D.M., Birdy and Plum, the three musketeers we call them. Want one?’
‘Did you make them?’ She peered at the slices of limp bread, which had an inch thickness of cheese sandwiched between them.
He nodded and she declined.
‘They’re my bosses – and yours now. D.M. – he’s Chief Medical Officer Dr D. M. Connan, Birdy – Mr Bush chief admin officer and Plum, that’s Mr Lumley, a radiographer. I’m their assistant.’
‘So what will I be doing?’