by Mary Gibson
‘Well, I still wouldn’t fancy being stuck in here for an hour!’
Tom looked a little sheepish and began fiddling with the lantern slides, which were also shown during the lectures.
‘Tom! Don’t tell me I’ve got to be projectionist as well!’
Ignoring her question, he demonstrated how the viewing screen slid along runners set into the floor of the van and out on to a lowered back board. ‘This was my idea too. Means we can have a longer throw from the projector, gives a really sharp picture,’ he said enthusiastically.
She crossed her arms, waiting for her answer.
‘Well... you might have to work the projector... now and then. I did tell you the job was varied!’
That evening she was as tired as if she’d done a ten-hour shift at Peek’s. It wasn’t the day’s work, which had been far more congenial than filling Bourbon creams or onion jars. It was, she thought, the unlooked-for nearness of Tom that had drained her. For so long he’d been thousands of miles away in body and a lifetime away in spirit, and she’d let him recede from the centre of her life. Now she felt as if she’d been swimming against a tide all day and she wasn’t certain where that tide wanted to lead her, but at least she could take comfort in the knowledge that Matty Gilbie had a screen career to look forward to after all.
***
Her part in the consumption film only lasted a week. It was short, running to no more than half an hour, for as Mr Bush explained film was too expensive for anything longer. Besides, the attention span of the audience, many of whom would be children, had to be taken into account. But once she was no longer needed on set, Tom had plenty of other tasks lined up for her. She spent a couple of days in the office arranging the schedule of summer outdoor screening. The cinemotor would tour the borough in the summer evenings, showing the public health films in back streets and courtyards. Tom told her they could expect crowds of five hundred or more, so her job was to make sure the police were informed of each event. She had to arrange showings in factories and schools and decide which films would be appropriate for which venue – she didn’t think the tanners at Bevington’s would take too kindly to a film about Maternity and Child Welfare.
It wasn’t until early summer that the cinemotor began touring Bermondsey’s streets. Though the children were still at school, Tom assured her that they would all be allowed to stay up for the evening screenings.
‘You wait, Matty, you’ll have a bigger crowd than the Old Kent Road Astoria!’ he promised her.
It was a balmy evening in June when they set off for the first outdoor screening of the year. Tom drove the van and would be working the projector, while Dr Connan, the medical officer, would give a lantern-slide lecture before they showed the film. Matty wasn’t entirely sure what her role would be, only that Tom said it would be ‘varied’, which she’d learned was a term they used quite a lot in the film department, especially when no one had a clue what would be happening.
Matty was a little in awe of D.M. The health films were the medical officer’s brainchild and she sensed he was reserving judgement about his newly acquired Hollywood starlet. He was always smartly dressed and invariably wore a bowler hat and a three-piece suit, with a tiepin and a watch chain on his waistcoat. He was a brisk man, ever conscious of time as money. Tom had assured her he had a sense of humour, but she’d yet to see the evidence.
Matty seated herself in the cab, squeezed between Tom and D.M.
‘Now, my dear Miss Gilbie, has Tom told you that you will be required for crowd control this evening and you are also to act as my plant?’
‘Oh yes, Dr Connan.’ She nodded, though in fact Tom had told her no such thing and she shot him a questioning look, which he avoided by pretending to look for a street sign.
‘When we come to the Question and Answer section following the film the crowd are apt to become a little lively, and if I should have mentioned in my lecture that the stomach holds two pints of liquid we can certainly expect some wag to declare that his stomach is able to hold far more – especially on a Saturday night!’
Matty let out an involuntary laugh, which D.M. met with placid seriousness so that she couldn’t tell if he’d been joking or not.
‘So it will be up to you, Miss Gilbie, to steer all questions back to the serious business of a man’s – or indeed a woman’s – cleanliness. Our subject tonight is the prevalence of germs in the average Bermondsey household!’
Matty said she was sure she could do that and out of the corner of her eye noticed a small smile playing on Tom’s face.
They didn’t have to go far to the first venue and soon Tom turned into Dunlop Place, a cul-de-sac that ran alongside the Salvation Army colony in Spa Road. It was parallel to Vauban Street and held a similar row of ancient houses, most of which were scheduled for demolition under the council’s slum clearance programme. Tom had explained they preferred a cul-de-sac or courtyard as a venue, so that D.M. didn’t have to compete with the noise of passing traffic during his lecture. As the cinemotor trundled over cobbles, Matty was astonished to see that a crowd of several hundred had already squeezed themselves into the narrow street. When they caught sight of the cinemotor a cheer went up that sent a shiver of excitement down Matty’s spine, such as she hadn’t felt since her first days at the Star. She turned to Tom and smiled.
‘Hold on to your hat!’ Tom warned, leaping out of the cab and helping Matty down. He slid open the side door and emerged with an electric cable, which he unrolled. He eyed the crowd as if they were Red Indians circling a wagon.
‘Here’s where we get our electricity,’ he explained, producing a small key and unlocking the side panel of a lamp post. He plugged the cinemotor’s cable into the lamp post.
‘Come on, Matty, can’t keep our public waiting! They start to get mouthy if we take too long setting up. Here, hand these out, keep ’em quiet while I start the lantern slides.’
He shoved a bundle of leaflets into her hands and went to slide out the screen from the back of the van. The huge crowd, anticipating the start of the show, surged round him, organizing itself into a wedge shape and fanning out from the screen. Matty shoved her way into the crowd’s solid core. Eager children jostled for a place at the front, hoisting smaller tots on to their shoulders. Women stood further back, while men hovered at the fringes of the wedge, hands in pockets, not looking at the screen, almost as if they were there by accident. But when Matty offered them leaflets, they were all eager to take them.
D.M. jumped on to a stool and asked for quiet, giving Matty the eye to shush the crowd as well. He pushed an electric bell, which alerted Tom inside the van to begin the lantern show. The first slide appeared and Matty was surprised as a hush fell over the crowd. They listened intently to the life cycle of the fly and its potential to spread disease. A slide showing flies’ eggs – much enlarged – drew a comment from a scruffy, ripe-smelling boy standing next to Matty. ‘They’re not flies’ eggs, they’re Richmond sausages!’
Matty tapped the boy on the head and he gave her a yellow-toothed grin. He obviously hadn’t seen the film about dental care yet. After ten minutes on dysentery, bedbugs and hair lice, the smaller children were becoming fractious, but Matty saw that D.M. was a pro. He ended his lecture with a carrot, the promise of the film, which would follow any questions. A large man, with a bulbous, red drinker’s nose, piped up. ‘I ain’t been sick a day in me life! I puts it down to a pint o’ Guinness for breakfast!’ And the man patted his stomach.
D.M. looked down at him with a mild, unflustered expression. ‘Sir, our concern would not be with your gut—’ D.M. was interrupted by roars of laughter as the man had a belly the size of a beer barrel – ‘but your liver, which is of course an entirely different part of the anatomy...’
‘I know where me liver is!’ the man declared and took off his cap to rub his head, at which point Matty saw a definite twinkle in D.M.’s eye.
He raised his voice and announced: ‘We have a gentleman here who believes
his liver is in his cranium, and in his case it very possibly is!’
Matty saw her chance. She burst into laughter and, joined by those who’d paid more attention to the lantern slides, soon shamed the heckler into silence. After a few more sensible questions Tom fired up the film projector. When the screen lit up and the film started rolling, a little gasp went round the crowd. Matty recognized the old magic of light and dark. The fading dusk had turned the street of crumbling houses into a shadowy, hushed auditorium and now the light of the silver screen, though only four feet wide, had made it into a cinema.
Tom had told her they must pack up quickly once the film was over, as they liked to fit in two showings a night and they were due in Thorburn Square in ten minutes. As she handed more leaflets to the departing audience she felt an insistent tugging on her skirt. She looked round to see an eager face staring up at her. She took a moment to recognize him until a familiar voice asked, ‘Can I come round and play your piano?’
‘Of course you can, Billy.’ His expression was one of such sweet and innocent expectancy she couldn’t refuse.
He was taller, thinner, outstripping his strength since she’d seen him last summer. She bent to kiss his cheek, but he grabbed her hand, dragging her towards the margins of the crowd. ‘Mum and Sammy’s here, Come and see ’em!’
Panic seized her. During the time she hadn’t seen Sam and Nellie, she’d been able to surround her heart with a dull cladding, like the black cloth Tom hung in the van to keep out chinks of light. But facing Nellie again threatened to pierce that shroud and Matty wasn’t ready to have all those painful places exposed again.
‘Billy, I can’t, I’m sorry...’
But now Nellie was in front of her, and Sammy, who’d acquired a pair of round spectacles, was demanding to be kissed. Nellie held tight to Albie’s hand, and he looked shyly at Matty as if she were a stranger. Nellie had obviously known she was here, had no doubt seen her giving out leaflets, but Matty knew she would never have approached her if it hadn’t been for Billy. Nellie was not the sort of woman to go where she was not wanted.
‘Billy, leave Aunt Matty alone,’ she said, putting her hand on his shoulder.
‘Hello, Nellie.’
Nellie gave her a small smile. ‘The kids have missed you.’
‘Why didn’t you come and visit us?’ Billy asked.
‘She was busy working,’ Nellie answered for her.
So that’s how they were explaining her absence. Ironic really, considering her weeks of unemployment. Just then Tom hooted the horn of the cinemotor and stuck his head out of the window.
‘I’ll have to go, we’ve got another showing.’
As Matty turned away Nellie laid a hand on her arm. ‘It’s not only the boys. Me and Sam’s missed you too, Matty...’
Matty held her gaze, but Nellie was beckoning her across a chasm that Matty couldn’t traverse. Try as she might, she could not find the bridge that would span it. She’d allowed an unbearable gulf to open up and it had only grown wider with time. She hesitated, struggling to ignore her own hurt. Part of her longed to throw her arms round Nellie, who perhaps seeing Matty falter, said quickly, ‘You’re welcome to come round and see the boys any time, stay for tea...’
‘Oh, thanks.’ But Tom tooted the horn again and the moment was gone. ‘Sorry, got to go.’ Matty kissed the boys and dashed to the van. Tom gave her a questioning look as she got into the cab, but she shook her head, feeling all her earlier exhilaration drain away.
12
The Value of Light
July–August 1931
It seemed strange to see herself on the screen again, but the circumstances couldn’t have been more different from those heady Hollywood days. They were watching the TB film for the first time and though her co-star Reggie was undeniably amateurish, she gave herself credit for a good performance under the circumstances. She wrung her hands with worry and hid her face in despair at the deadly diagnosis and then, when Reggie’s character was sent off to Switzerland at the borough’s expense for the sun cure, she let her face light up with hope, raising her eyes to God in silent prayer. In fact she thought her acting was far more convincing than anything she’d done in London Affair.
She’d taken delivery of the film canister that morning, startling herself with an unexpected excitement. They’d met the three musketeers in the large theatre hall in Spa Road Library, where Tom had erected the screen on the stage and Plum took charge of the projector. As the screen flickered to life a memory surfaced of herself sitting next to Frank in that stifling, Hollywood screening room, his body heat uncomfortable, inescapable. Only now did she understand how confined she’d felt, how she’d barely been able to breathe. The memory made her appreciate this dusty, high-ceilinged Victorian auditorium with its wide stage and generous seating, Tom sitting at a cool distance and the three musketeers intent only on whether the message of the film had got through. As the last caption rolled on to the screen there was a moment’s silence, before D.M. sprang up and shook her hand.
‘Thank you, my dear Miss Gilbie, you were very natural! Very moving.’ He took out a large white handkerchief and blew his nose. Then, turning to Tom, he said, ‘Make a note never to use Reggie again. The boy’s as wooden as the skeleton-room walls!’
Tom went to turn on the lights and bent to whisper in her ear. ‘You’re a star.’
Matty didn’t feel like a star, but she did feel an unexpected sense of freedom, knowing that the film itself was for once far more important than its leading lady.
When Tom suggested a celebratory lunch Matty was surprised. They’d only had lunch together once and she thought perhaps it had been more contact than he was comfortable with, for the offer hadn’t been repeated. She was determined this time to keep the conversation work-based. There would be no personal details and certainly no tears.
When they hopped on a bus to the Old Kent Road she guessed where they were going. Beyond the Surrey Canal Bridge the Astoria stretched before them in all its white-stoned elegance. It was a beautiful cinema, and proud uniformed doormen welcomed them, before an usherette led them up the elegant staircase to a tea room in the Grand Circle foyer. Spacious and light, the foyer was bright with many angular mirror panels and geometric glass chandeliers. Round tables and wicker chairs toned down the grandeur but it was as elegant as anything in the West End. The café seemed popular – as well as cinema goers, there were suited businessmen and couples like themselves.
After they’d ordered lunch, Tom asked her if she’d ever played the Astoria.
‘No, I missed out on it.’ She felt a tinge of regret that she’d never been able to take up Esme’s booking. ‘They’ve got ten dressing rooms! It’s luxury compared to the old Lah di da in Abbey Street!’
‘Do you miss it?’
Matty shrugged. ‘How can I miss it? I’ve got myself a new screen career! Didn’t you tell me I’m a star?’ She gave a laugh that sounded hollow even to her own ears.
‘You certainly won over old D.M. He’s never been keen on using professionals but it looks like he’s your newest fan.’
Leaning back as the waitress placed a bowl of soup in front of him, he flicked the napkin. ‘He wants us to show the film next week, we’ll be in Vauban Street...’
He hadn’t mentioned her meeting with Nellie and the boys at that first screening, but he’d obviously noticed it.
‘You seemed a bit frosty with Nellie the other night.’
Is that what it had looked like, a frost? And to her it had felt like the beginnings of a thaw.
‘Things change. People disappoint you and sometimes you just can’t get past it...’
‘You can say that again.’ His mouth was set in a tight line and she realized that he was no longer talking about Nellie. She knew she should let it pass.
‘If you mean me leaving you, then that’s completely different. Nellie went along with a great big bloody lie, all those years. At least I told you the truth. I had to go, for my career.’
/>
‘Career’ seemed such a cold word, when she said it out loud. But at the time, she’d chosen the thing that warmed her heart the most, her gift, her voice.
‘Yes, you couldn’t live without the stage. But I know you, Matty, and you can’t live without your family either. That’s why everything went wrong when you went to America.’
‘Everything’s always so black and white for you, Tom.’ She flushed, angry that he thought he could sum up her failures and even more angry that she’d ignored her resolution to stay detached.
‘Well then, don’t tell me about the men who treated you badly and the choices you regret!’ His raised voice drew stares from the couple at a nearby table, and he said more softly, ‘I’m just worried about you, that’s all.’ And he fixed her with his clear gaze until she was forced to look away.
‘There’s no need.’
‘No? Well, I think there is. Perhaps it’s none of my business, but how the bloody hell did you get tied up with someone like Rossi?’
It was a good question and one she’d asked herself many times. She shook her head and let out a long sigh. How could she explain to Tom the seductive, sheathed power of someone like Frank, especially when it had seemed to be tamed by one look from her?
‘His name was familiar. So I asked Sugar – my old mate from the Elephant Boys – to do a bit of digging around. Seems Rossi’s got connections with the Clerkenwell mob. He’s mafia.’
She stared at him, saying nothing.
‘You’ve gone white as a sheet. It must be a shock.’
He thought she’d been surprised that Frank was a mobster, but in reality it was the Clerkenwell connection that had caused the blood to drain from her face. The henchman he’d sent to terrorize her had been an American, passing through, or so she thought. But now, like a shadow moving in the darkness, the merest suggestion Frank could be nearer than she thought had the power to freeze her blood. Tom poured her a glass of water. She took a gulp, wishing it was gin.