by Mary Gibson
‘It’s all right, my darling. I’ve got you now and I won’t let you go. We’ll just stay here, me and you. We’re safe now.’
It didn’t matter that he hadn’t heard her, nor answered her. She hadn’t expected him to.
She became aware of sounds above her, the shouts of men, the rush of fire, the gush of water pouring from hoses into the conflagration. There was no way anyone could see them from the house; she would have to attract their attention. She screamed as loud as she could, but all that emerged was a hoarse whisper. The heat and smoke had scorched her throat and burned her lungs. She saw the irony. ‘What do you think of that, Tom?’ she whispered into his back. ‘The one time I need my bloody voice and it’s gone!’
She knew she was talking to herself. His body was so cold. She curled dryad-like around him, but half naked and shivering with shock, she had little heat left to give to him. She tightened her hands round his body, realizing for the first time that the skin was gone from them.
‘Don’t worry, love. Once the tide’s gone right out, they’ll see us then.’
She had a sudden overwhelming desire to sleep. She closed her eyes and felt an imaginary warmth surge through her. Her head fell forward and she jolted awake, stopping herself just in time from slipping off the beam. ‘No, no, you’ve got to stay awake!’ she told herself. And then so that she wouldn’t sleep, she started to sing, in a rasping, gravelly whisper. ‘I’ll see you in my dreams, hold you in my dreams. Someone took you right out of my arms, still I feel the thrill of your charms. Lips that once were mine, tender eyes that shine. They will light my way tonight, I’ll see you in my dreams...’
It was their song, but it wasn’t the right song, and its lullaby quality had exactly the opposite effect to the one she wanted. So when Will finally managed to clamber down the moss-slick pilings to where he’d seen Tom, he found Matty asleep there, curled around Tom’s inert body.
‘Yes! She’s here!’ he shouted up to the men above, and Matty woke with a start, her eyes clouded, struggling to focus.
‘Oh hello, Will. I’m so glad you’re here, love,’ she said sluggishly. ‘I dreamed I was the bird that catches fire, but I can’t remember its name. You’re the clever one, you’ll know what it’s called.’
And Will’s voice caught in a sob. ‘It’s called a phoenix, Matty.’
***
There were nights and days that followed, full of pain and absent of colour. White faces, staring down at her, speaking in hushed voices; white bandages on her hands, which lay on white sheets. But whitest of all, was the mist of memory, which swirled as she lay half conscious. It was as if she were constantly searching for someone she’d lost in the fog. She might look as if she were lying still beneath the starched sheets, but she wasn’t, she was flying through a pearl-thick fog or was it smoke? No, no that wasn’t right, the smoke had been charcoal-black and when the pain shot up her arms and legs, then she would emerge from out of the mist, wings on fire, eyes blinded by a flame-red light and she would reach for his name, the one she’d lost, but always she would sink back into sleep before she could name him.
Then one day the whispers grew more distinct.
‘Why won’t she wake up?’ It was a man’s voice.
‘She doesn’t want to and can you blame her, after what she’s been through?’ the woman answered. ‘She’ll come back to us when she’s ready.’ She felt the woman’s hand cool on her forehead. ‘She’s burning up.’
‘That’s what she said, when I found her. She said she was burning up. Oh, Nellie, she’s got to come back. I can’t bear it if she doesn’t. I need to say how sorry I am, every day, for what I did. She’ll never know if she...’
Now Matty knew who the man was. Not the one she’d lost, but Will, the brother who’d come back to her. She wished she hadn’t heard him, for now she’d have to speak, let him know she’d long ago forgiven him. Now she’d have to make sounds and she knew the fire had robbed her of her voice, robbed her of the man she loved. So there was no reason to come back. But Will was in pain; she could hear it in his voice. She drew in a deep breath. A grating cough bounced off white ceilings and walls. Then she spoke. Her voice rasped like a crow’s. ‘Trust you not to let me sleep. You always were a torment.’ She opened her eyes to see Will standing at her bedside, with Nellie next to him.
‘I tried to tell him, but he’s never had no patience.’ The familiar, kind face leaned forward to kiss her and the feel of the kiss brought tears to her eyes. She reached a hand up, but it was wrapped tight as a mummy’s and pain shot through her as she tried to lift it.
‘I heard,’ she croaked, focusing as much reassurance into the harsh sound as she could. ‘There’s nothing I haven’t forgiven you for, Will. You ought to know me by now. I’ve always loved you, you little bugger.’
Will’s laughter mingled with his tears as he kissed her forehead. And at the touch of his lips she remembered the name of the other man, the one she’d been searching for in the mist.
‘Tom? Where’s Tom?’
Nellie paused just an instant too long before answering.
‘No.’ Matty breathed her denial and closed her eyes again. The unknowing mist was better than the red-hot pain of certainty.
*
But there came a morning when the sun penetrated behind her eyes, a golden disc that followed her whichever way she turned her head to avoid it. Will and Nellie were gone, replaced by a brisk presence that Matty felt an immediate resentment towards. She was the one responsible for the burning disc that wouldn’t leave her alone. Curtains that had screened her from the world were swished open, blinds lifted.
‘It’s time you were back in the land of the living, Miss Gilbie!’ the nurse said brightly, as Matty peered from beneath half-closed lids. ‘It’s visiting hour. Shall we let in the light?’
Matty groaned a hoarse reply. ‘Go away. I like the dark. Let me sleep.’ There was only one visitor she wanted and he wasn’t coming.
The nurse turned her head quickly to look at Matty. ‘Ah, then you don’t want to see your nephews? We don’t normally allow children on to the burns ward, but in your case the doctor said we could make an exception...’ She waited for a response and when none came she began to gently brush Matty’s hair. When she’d finished she straightened the bedclothes. ‘I’ll send them away, shall I? Such a shame, they’ve been looking forward to seeing you so much.’
She turned to walk out of the ward.
‘No! Don’t do that, Nurse. Let them come in.’ She lifted her bandaged hands. ‘Do I look all right? I feel like King Tut’s mummy. I don’t want to frighten them.’
The nurse approached the bed. ‘You won’t frighten them. They know you’ve been injured. But if you’re worried, let’s tuck them away.’ The nurse lifted the sheet and carefully covered Matty’s hands.
They came in with the other visitors. She spotted Sam first, then the three boys, all carefully dressed in Sunday best. They approached her bed shyly. Sam held Albie’s hand and Billy stood close to his father, in awe of the imposing matron who had swept through, checking the number of visitors per patient. She stopped at Matty’s bed.
‘Wonderful to see our Cockney Canary is awake! Not that we have favourites,’ she lowered her voice, ‘but Doctor is a great fan...’
‘Say hello to your aunt, Billy.’ But Billy, a newly self-conscious eleven-year-old, simply smiled nervously. Suddenly Matty wondered for the first time about her face. Had the fire taken that too?
‘Nellie’s give ’em all the gypsy’s warning about behaving,’ Sam explained. ‘They’re frightened of talking too loud in case they get slung out. Give them a couple of minutes.’ He smiled and sat down with his arm round Albie. ‘Matty, love, it’s so good to see you awake. You’ve had us worried.’ He kissed Albie’s curly head of hair, hiding the tears that pooled in his eyes. ‘Didn’t she, Alb, have us worried?’ And the little boy nodded.
‘Mum promised us you’d get better. She said you was tough as old boots.
’ Billy had found his voice.
Matty smiled at her nephew. ‘She knows me too well, love.’
‘What’s the matter with your voice, Aunt Matty?’ Sammy, the quietest of the boys, asked a rare question.
‘Do I sound terrible? My voice got burned, same as the rest of me, I think, Sammy.’ she said in the husky whisper which she felt belonged to a stranger.
‘Will it get better?’ he asked
‘Of course it will,’ Sam answered for her.
Billy approached the bed and touched the sheet. ‘What about your hands? Mum said they got burned too and there was a shoot-out!’
‘Shhh, Billy, what did we tell you!’ Sam said.
‘You kids! Can’t have any secrets, can I?’ Matty drew the mummy hands from beneath the sheet, so the boys could feed their curiosity about Aunt Matty’s mysterious injuries. She could imagine the whispered conversations they’d had about her at bedtime.
Billy gasped. ‘Will you still be able to play the piano?’
She looked down at the bandages. ‘Maybe, but it won’t sound very good.’
He nodded in agreement. ‘Then I’ll play for you.’
‘Thanks, love, that’ll be nice...’ she closed her eyes briefly, imagining a future without hands to play or voice to sing. With a pang of regret she remembered the days she’d been unable to sing after finding out about Eliza.
‘All right, boys, can I trust you to wait outside and not make a noise? The nurse said you could only stay five minutes.’ Sam shooed them gently away from the bed.
They nodded and kissed Matty goodbye. She watched them walk on tiptoe out of the ward.
‘You can tell Nellie the gypsy’s warning worked!’ She smiled and shifted uncomfortably in the bed, unable to use her hands to prop herself up.
‘Can you help me sit up?’
Sam lifted her carefully and fluffed the hard hospital pillows. Matty sank back against them. ‘How long have I been in here, Sam?’
He hesitated, seeming reluctant to tell her. ‘It’s been almost two weeks, Matty.’
‘Oh! That long.’ But the truth was she had lost all concept of time while she’d been lying in this hospital bed. It felt as if she had been striving to find Tom for a lifetime in that fog of forgetfulness before she’d come back to herself.
‘I need to ask you something...’ Her heart thumped in her ears and blood rushed to her temples. ‘No one’s talking about Tom. I need to know what’s happened to him.’
His face fell, and she felt almost sorry for him – sorry that he’d be the one to have to answer her question.
‘Tom?’ He shook his head and she felt her hands clenching painfully in their bandages.
‘He’s gone, hasn’t he?’
‘Gone? He’s gone away, but he’s not dead, Matty!’
‘Oh, thank God.’ Matty drew in a long breath. ‘I’ve been lying here all this time, thinking he was dead.’ She grasped Sam’s hands with her bandaged ones and kissed them with gratitude. ‘Oh, thank you, thank you. He’s not dead!’
‘Don’t thank me, Matty duck. It was you saved his life, not me. But he’s got a long way to go, love.’
‘What happened, did Frank shoot him? It’s all a fog. I felt him fall and he disappeared and I couldn’t find him...’ Her heart was beating faster and she was aware that the breath in her lungs was running out, her chest heaving. She had to get out of the bed.
‘Where is he? I’m going to find him...’
Sam was at her side, holding her firmly by both arms. He spoke clearly and slowly as if she were a child. ‘No, Matty, you can’t see him now. It was a bad gunshot wound and he nearly died, he lost so much blood, but they did marvels and now we’ve just got to be patient. Do you understand, Matty?’
She lay back, defeated. She was too tired for this fight. ‘But he’s nearby?’
‘He’s gone away... to the country. The doctors said he needed peace and quiet. But you’ll see him when you’re up and about again. You just have to...’
‘Be patient?’ she finished for him.
‘Yes, love, and concentrate on getting yourself better.’ He stroked her hair. ‘My little canary, why didn’t you come to me? If I’d known what sort of trouble you were in...’
She had tired herself out and now even her croaky voice seemed to desert her. She whispered, ‘I couldn’t come to you, not without putting the boys in danger. Frank would’ve hurt them... hurt anyone I loved.’
‘Well, he can’t hurt anyone ever again.’
She closed her eyes. ‘Dead?’
Sam leaned in close to whisper in her ear. ‘Yes, thanks to Wally the bleedin’ Wonder Wheel, though the police have put it all down to the Sabinis.’
She opened her eyes again. ‘Of course it was the Sabinis. Bermondsey’s got no mafia, has it?’
Sam gave a wry smile. ‘’Course not – but the barber sends his best wishes and he gave me these for you... from his wife.’ Sam felt inside a bag that he’d placed beside his chair and brought out a cake tin. He lifted the lid so she could see the contents. ‘They look a bit like doughnuts,’ he said.
Matty smiled as she looked in the tin. The Bombolini looked even better than the last batch. It reminded her of the ‘Bermondsey mafia’, and after Sam left, she allowed herself to think about Frank. She had been so intent on discovering what had happened to Tom that she’d almost forgotten Frank, which seemed strange as all this pain and mayhem had been set in motion by him. She tried to recall the events of that night, remembering how she’d dodged out of the way on Wally’s order. She’d known Frank had been hit and remembered feeling surprise that Wally’s expertise should turn out to be sharp shooting. But she couldn’t know how good a shot he’d been. How strange it should be her old music hall friend that had saved her.
She looked out of the window at what remained of the afternoon light. Beyond St Olave’s Hospital was Southwark Park and from her window she could see rows of old chestnuts, lining a path. Russet leaves glowed as the sun began to set. And, like the end of a long day, she felt the sun go down on that part of her life that had been ruled by fear. She stared out of the window until the red sky turned to mauve and then indigo. She would let fear sink into the night, along with every memory of Frank and the harm he’d done to her and the child that should have been hers.
***
Sam had told her to be patient, but that had never been one of Matty’s virtues. She lived for visiting hours. A steady stream of friends, old and new, had made their way to see her. Bernie from the Star came and had heard from Wally the crucial role of Don’t block me, dear in saving Matty.
‘Secretive old devil, that Wally! Rubbish unicyclist but shit hot with a gun! I warned you, didn’t I, that you never wanted to find out what he was bloody good at,’ he said in a rather loud voice, the one he used to introduce acts from his podium.
‘Shhh, Bernie! We don’t want Wally having to walk up the stairs to Jack Ketch, do we?’ Matty said. ‘Winnie would never forgive me.’ Which made Bernie laugh.
Esme came, bearing gifts of cotton gloves and cocoa butter for Matty’s burned hands, which, when the bandages were removed, had made the woman cry at the sight of angry burns spoiling their long fingers. When Esme leaned over to kiss Matty she’d whispered, ‘Don’t block me, dear!’
‘How did you find out?’
Matty’s shock must have been evident.
‘Don’t worry, it stays with me, darling. But I can’t pretend I wasn’t ecstatic when I found out the bastard was dead.’ Esme never did pull her punches.
But the most unexpected visitor arrived on one long, dull afternoon when Matty was beginning to think she must discharge herself. Now that her wounds were healing and her voice was almost back to normal, she was desperate to see Tom. She’d heard nothing from him and though she’d been told that, like her, he was still healing, the silence was beginning to weigh on her more heavily than her own injuries. She began to suspect Sam and the others were hiding something from her.
/>
The woman’s concave figure was unmistakable, though oddly out of place, and it took a moment before Matty could believe she was really there. She glided elegantly between the rows of beds, in stark contrast to the purposeful half-run of the nurses, who scattered before her approach.
‘Lady Fetherstone!’
‘Forgive me, my dear. I should have let you know I was coming.’
Matty covered her confusion and attempted to sit up, but Ma Feathers put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Lie still, my dear. I don’t want to disturb you.’
She sat down and rested her expensive-looking handbag on her lap. ‘As I was in town I thought I’d see how you’re getting on and, of course, I thought you’d like news of your young man?’
‘Tom? Yes, of course I would! All they’ve told me is that he’s at a convalescent home.’ Matty was confused as to how Lady Feathers could know anything about Tom’s condition. ‘But if you know anything more...’
Matty was surprised to hear the woman laugh. ‘I should hope so – he’s staying in my house!’
‘Tom’s at Fonstone? I thought he was at Fairby Grange,’ she said, naming the borough’s nursing home.
‘When I heard the poor young man would need a protracted convalescence I invited him to come to us. Neville’s been staying with me since the dreadful fire and two invalids are less trouble than one.’ She gave a conspiratorial smile. ‘At least I’ve found that to be the case when Neville is one of those invalids! He needs constant conversation, my dear, and Tom is taking him off my hands. My doctor comes in regularly, of course, so Tom has the best of care. He’s finally begun to show some signs of improvement...’
Matty heard an unspoken ‘but’. ‘Tell me everything.’
‘Physically, he’s made a fairly good recovery, the wound’s healing nicely and he’s started to walk around the gardens... but my doctor says his progress could be better. The thing is, Matty – he’s very low. Not acting at all like a man who’s been spared death. Perhaps Neville shouldn’t have told me this as it was a confidence, but it seems Tom blames himself for your injuries.’