In the Bleak Midwinter

by Carol Rivers

  ‘Come in, Birdie. Don’t stand on the doorstep.’

  ‘Did you find a policeman waiting?’ she asked, her eyes flitting around the large room she hadn’t seen since Harry had moved here early in the year.

  ‘I did that,’ he nodded. ‘The fellow is searching the scullery and will be gone soon.’

  Birdie heard the bangs and thumps. ‘They have the cheek of the devil!’ she protested, indignant on Harry’s behalf. ‘Not content with disturbing us, now they are bothering you. As if Frank would hide here!’

  ‘Calm yourself, Birdie,’ he reassured her. ‘Sit down and warm yourself by the fire. I’ve managed to light it despite the interruptions.’

  She sat on a small leather chair made comfortable by two plump chintz cushions, a few stitches missing to their seams, but otherwise pretty-looking. The dark oak mantel was polished and uncluttered, while below it, in the hearth, stood a black iron companion set and little bundles of kindling beside a full scuttle of coal.

  ‘Do you make up the fire every night?’ she asked, noting the dry duckboards that were once very damp and were now partially covered by a thin carpet, a square that still retained its deep greens and browns.

  ‘In the winter and up until spring,’ he nodded. ‘And sometimes of a cool summer’s evening.’

  ‘You’ve got it very nice,’ Birdie decided in honest surprise as she stared around the big room, admiring the square dining table covered in a heavy green tasselled cloth. Beneath it appeared four round, strong curving legs that matched the shape of the sideboard opposite. The shelves were filled untidily with books and personal things that looked as though Harry took an interest in reading and writing.

  ‘So they called on you today?’ Harry asked, sitting on the arm of the chair opposite. He spread out his long legs, leaning one elbow on his knee as he took hold of the poker and encouraged the fire.

  ‘I’ve only just finished setting our place right,’ Birdie burst out, her thoughts redirected back to the reason she’d come. ‘They were here at the crack of dawn, turning out every drawer and cupboard needlessly. You’d think we were hiding the devil himself.’

  ‘I suppose it was to be expected if your brother is still free?’

  ‘The conclusion I came to meself,’ she whispered eagerly. ‘Frank has outwitted them so far. Not that any one of the coppers had the decency to give me any news!’

  ‘Which can only mean they have none to give,’ Harry returned in a conspiratorial tone.

  ‘Do you really think Frank might be safe?’ she whispered.

  ‘What else would warrant such a search?’

  ‘And Frank has been free for over two weeks,’ she agreed. ‘So you may be right.’

  A loud clatter from the scullery caused Harry to rise to his feet. ‘Now, rest easy there, whilst I take stock of the damage, though they won’t find nothing to interest them – not unless they’re after me treasure, and they’ll have to dig to Australia for that.’

  A smile touched Birdie’s lips as he went, his tall frame and broad shoulders swinging past the table with an easy flow. She liked the way he conducted himself; he put her at ease, finding a light touch to the situation, yet she knew that he must feel invaded.

  Soon she heard Harry’s deep voice from the scullery as he addressed the constable and after a few minutes the bastion of the law emerged empty-handed. Birdie gave him a fierce stare and toss of her head. But she felt a little sorry for having done so when he bade her good evening politely and quickly left.

  She breathed a long sigh of relief. At last they had peace again. And her spirits had lifted after what Harry had said. The police certainly wouldn’t have taken so much trouble if Frank was anywhere near being caught.

  Glancing down the passage, she wondered if Harry kept the other two rooms as pleasantly as this. She recollected the tiny scullery at the rear with only one small window, too high to open, but the light it let in from the yard above was vital. The remaining room, though large and high-ceilinged, had been filled to bursting with kids when her mother had been alive. Bernadette had rented the airey to an Irish family that seemed to multiply by the month. The sight of the oil lantern burning on the sideboard brought back to Birdie memories of her mother, as together they had braved a visit to the noisy rabble from County Cork. There had seemed to be children and babies everywhere.

  When Bernadette had died, Wilfred, ailing and grief-stricken, had closed up the airey and the family had returned to Ireland. It wasn’t until earlier this year, when it had seemed to Birdie that, with a little attention, the airey could again be a means of income, that they had let it to Harry.

  ‘So, the place is to your liking?’ Harry asked as he placed a real white china cup and saucer in front of her, the freshly made tea a rich, steaming brown.

  ‘For all the years it was closed, you’ve done a grand job.’

  ‘I’m relieved it’s to your approval.’ He took a seat and drank from a mug he had brought for himself. She could see the twinkle in his dark eyes as he gazed over the rim.

  ‘Did the officer make a mess?’ she asked, feeling a little shy under his gaze.

  ‘None to concern me, and he was civil enough,’ Harry shrugged, adding drily, ‘though I can’t say we’ve become lifelong friends.’

  Birdie found her mood changing, for she’d bottled herself up all day with anger that her home could be seized and inspected on the authorities’ whim. But Harry seemed unruffled and she too saw the better side of things now: Frank still kept his freedom.

  ‘I’m sorry it is because of our problems this has happened,’ she apologized.

  ‘There’s nothing harmed here,’ he told her. ‘And you know my feelings on your brother, though staying on the loose will be no easy task for him.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s found friends,’ she agreed hopefully, beginning to think that Frank might have found a safe harbour with that person he mentioned. But not wanting to be drawn, she went on quickly, ‘You make a fine brew, Harry.’

  ‘Aye,’ he smiled, with a charming curve to his dark eyebrow. ‘I’ve made many such brews in my life.’

  At this, curiosity filled her. ‘Was it the orphanage that taught you?’

  ‘Sadly, there were no such luxuries as tea-making,’ he returned smilingly. ‘I owe my domestic skills to the services. The merchant navy and the army became my family.’ He turned the mug slowly between his long fingers. ‘I’ve travelled the world and enjoyed all human nature, and would have continued to do so, had not war broken out.’

  Birdie saw a faraway look come into his eye. She knew that he must have endured many unhappy experiences whilst serving his country, as most veterans of that terrible war had suffered. But Harry was not one to complain, nor brag about his time in uniform.

  Suddenly a pair of feet came pounding down the stairs outside. Harry jumped up and was at the door ahead of her. When he opened it, Pat stood there, his face ashen.

  ‘It’s Dad,’ he babbled. ‘He’s going wild. It’s one of them fits, I’m sure it is.’

  Birdie almost dropped her cup as she sprang from the table and all three of them ran upstairs.

  Dr Tapper entered the parlour where Birdie, Pat and Harry were anxiously waiting.

  Birdie stood up. ‘How is our dad?’

  The elderly doctor, dressed in a black frock coat, placed his Gladstone bag on the table and slid the pince-nez spectacles from his nose. ‘I’ve administered a restorative but it’s likely the seizures will return. I can’t be specific about when, but with having two already, well, a recurrence is likely.’ Dr Tapper handed her a small packet. ‘Mix this restorative powder with a few drops of castor oil and the yoke of one egg when the fit strikes. But I warn you that sometimes very little helps.’

  ‘But what causes these fits?’ asked Pat, his face very pale.

  ‘I can give you no straight answer, lad,’ Dr Tapper shrugged. ‘Perhaps a deep-seated agitation, that is triggered off by an event such as you told me of today. Your father may be c
oncerned over your brother, although you say he rarely speaks of him. On the other hand, his own health may be troubling him. Perhaps the seizure is nature’s way of letting off internal steam?’

  ‘So you mean they could be good for him?’ Pat asked doubtfully.

  ‘Who knows? But if you were to regard them in this way, combined with the infusion I’ve given you, then you have the better aspect of it altogether. Please call me again if you need me.’

  Birdie followed him out into the passage and opened her purse.

  ‘Can you afford my fee?’ the doctor asked kindly.

  ‘I’m not after charity, Dr Tapper.’

  ‘I knew your mother well enough to know that,’ he answered gently. ‘And though I’ve not seen your father in some while, I fear that you may need to call on me again for his chest. There may come a time when the Collis Browne will not be sufficient.’

  Birdie paid him the shilling consultation fee, but his words struck fear in her heart. Her dad was ailing and, for all his reluctance to seek help, she knew Dr Tapper was right, as the Collis Browne did now take longer to work.

  She thanked him and watched him climb aboard his trap, placing his top hat over his grey head. He shook the reins attached to the harness and the small, black pony trotted off.

  ‘Will that powder cure Dad?’ Pat was still ill at ease when she returned to the parlour.

  ‘It’ll help, along with the good doctor’s idea that these episodes help to ease rather than agitate,’ she reassured him, though after what the doctor had said, she was all at twos and threes herself. ‘Now come along, sit with Harry for a while whilst I lay the table. I must get meself over to Don’s and let him know what happened today. Harry, would you stay and keep Pat company for an hour?’

  Harry glanced out of the window, a deep frown on his brow. ‘Darkness is falling. Could your visit wait until first light? I’ll be happy to stay with your father then and I’m certain the drains I’m digging won’t fall in for the sake of an hour,’ he assured her, his dark eyes surveying the gloomy street.

  At this Pat looked expectant. ‘Can I stay home too?’

  ‘Indeed you can’t,’ Birdie replied, casting him a rueful glance. ‘You’ve only just got yourself a decent job, Patrick Connor, I’ll not have you risking it.’ Turning to Harry she asked in a softer tone, ‘If you’re sure that’s all right, Harry?’

  He gave her a nod for reply and Birdie went to the kitchen, grateful she hadn’t had to venture out in the dark. She would now be able to finish her sewing and consider what to wear in advance of her meeting with Aggie and Lydia when she went to visit Don.

  Chapter 8

  Birdie sat on the bus to Poplar, dressed in her smart blue woollen coat and matching felt cloche hat. She had fingered a few waves to peep out delicately from under its brim and pinched her cheeks half a dozen times to urge a little colour. Temptation had come in the form of Lady Hailing’s lipstick, but she’d resisted it, knowing that falsity wouldn’t meet with Don’s approval. She’d added a pair of elderly, but good-quality gloves to her ensemble, of a fine brown leather, all thanks to the generosity of the aristocratic ladies, and she felt that Don could be proud of her, offsetting somewhat the news of the police visit. Despite the crowded conditions she sat in, with the rattle of coughs and sneezes all around, and the smell of the disinfectant sprayed inside the buses and trams to combat any lingering flu germs, Birdie was not disheartened. She was going to see Don, and she hoped that after the unpleasant facts were out, they could find a few moments alone together. At the thought of his arms around her, she gave a little shiver and a smile formed on her lips.

  As the bus travelled through Millwall and Cubitt Town, the sun peeped out from what had been a cloudy sky. Horse-drawn carts from the docks, their Tilley lights extinguished, clattered noisily past, tooted by an occasional motorized vehicle. As they neared Poplar, an army of dustmen hoisted battered bins on their shoulders and tipped them noisily into open-topped dustcarts. Here, long queues formed to the city and the three-wheeled open carts of the road cleaners caused temporary but annoying obstructions. The strong disinfectant of the water carts spraying the streets wafted into the bus. Every drain was an ancient menace, in dire need of unblocking. Pedestrians swerved or jumped to dodge the filth and were jostled by the street traders and barrow boys who had begun their day in the dead of night.

  Birdie alighted at the High Street, relieved not to be part of the throng who fought for a seat aboard every bus and tram available. How lucky she was to begin her day in the calm of her dressmaking room, with the view of the river over the tops of the smoke-blackened roofs and yards. Here in Poplar, the mighty workforce surged out to Wanstead and Dagenham, Paddington and Marylebone, Brixton and Blackheath, even as far as Hackney and Stoke Newington in the north.

  Making her way past the Hospital for Accidents by the East India Dock gate, she crossed the busy junction, stepping nimbly out of the path of a chocolate-coloured Atlas bus. The surge of pedestrians was suddenly halted by a brightly painted traction engine trundling from its yard. Birdie discreetly held her nose as it belched a cloud of smoke from its boiling furnace. The thick fog caused her to cough, but it soon rumbled off to leave the way free to the store.

  A familiar smell of horse dung and over-ripe vegetables, laced with paraffin and coal sulphur rose up, an odour she associated with the Thornes’ shop. Each shop boasted a smoke-stained blind rattling in the morning breeze, and guiltily Birdie found herself comparing the pleasant calm of March Street, with its tangy, seafaring aromas, to the conflicting chaos of the shopkeeping heart of Poplar.

  What would it be like to live here? she allowed herself to wonder. To wake every morning to the demands of the store. There would be no time for nostalgia, as she was so used to, drawing her bedroom curtains to the sight of the estuary in the distance; to breathe in the wind that shivered around the house in recognition of London’s seafaring might. No, life was quite different at the store. Birdie had listened with admiration as Don had rattled off the busy, never-ending routine of a shopkeeper’s day. From the crack of dawn to sunset there was never a moment to pause. Was she capable of entering such a world? She had never sliced a shoulder of bacon or halved a mouldy cheese with a wire. Neither had she weighed or served a bagful of dusty, sometimes rotting potatoes, and worn a coarse sack apron, such as Aggie so gallantly endured, for protection. It was no wonder that Don regarded his mother with such respect!

  Just then Birdie saw Don’s upright figure ahead of her. He was helping a woman to fill her shopping basket. In his smart brown overall, with his parting dead centre in his fine head of hair, he looked as handsome as he did in his Sunday-best suit and tie. Her spirits lifted to such a degree that she wondered why, a few moments ago, she had ever doubted that she could learn to live and work at the store.

  When he saw her, he left his customer and strode eagerly to meet her. She wanted to throw her arms around him and tell him how much she loved him. But of course, that wouldn’t do in the street.

  ‘Birdie, what a pleasant surprise!’

  ‘Don, have you a moment or two to speak?’

  He looked uncertain, then smiled, pulling back his shoulders. ‘We are rather busy, but I’m sure Mother would like to see you.’

  Without more ado, he guided her into the store. ‘Mother, look who has paid us a visit!’ he called to the busy figure behind the counter.

  Aggie Thorne welcomed Birdie with a curious frown. ‘What brings you this way, Brigid?’ she asked in her clipped, sharp tone, though Birdie knew it was only Aggie’s way. After the loss of her son and husband, grief had carved deep lines around her small, suspicious eyes. Birdie was unable to dismiss the thought that Aggie had no artistry at all, with her thin, light-brown hair scraped back into a plaited bun. The style did her no justice; rather it added a decade to her fifty-three years. Her red, chapped hands were placed on a well-thumbed notebook, resting near a freshly made tray of dripping. Aggie took a cloth from under the counter
and wiped the grease from her hands.

  Birdie guessed by Aggie’s question that the Thornes knew nothing of yesterday’s events. She knew she must find the courage to start on it.

  ‘Don, did you know Brigid was coming?’ Aggie asked with a sharp glance at her son.

  ‘Not at all, Mother,’ Don answered hesitantly. Then added suddenly and with a burst of eagerness, ‘But a good thing, don’t you think, after what we were discussing this week?’

  Birdie forgot her mission completely as a thin and rarely seen smile formed on Aggie’s lips. ‘Maybe you’re right, son – yes, perhaps this is as good a time as any. But I’ll warn you, Lydia is upstairs, readying herself to come down for the accounts. So use the office whilst it’s free and I’ll keep me eye on the shop.’

  Birdie wondered what Lydia had to do with anything. And why was Aggie looking at her in that strange way?

  ‘I can’t stop long,’ Birdie protested, wondering why she felt so uncomfortable under Aggie’s scrutiny. ‘I’ve me dad at home to—’ She stopped as the shop bell tinkled and several women bustled in, placing their baskets directly in front of Aggie, on the counter.

  Don put his hand to the small of Birdie’s back and she found herself stepping down the passage, past crates and boxes and big swollen sacks of vegetables, giving out strong whiffs of mould and decay. Above these loomed shelf upon shelf crammed with every conceivable item. Carob beans and liquorice root, tapioca pudding, reels of cotton, laces, dates, pease puddings, locust beans, bars of chocolate, Vaseline and nougats of all shapes. Squat bottles of castor oil propped the boxes of senna pods and the rolls of flocking. There seemed no order to the mixture, but every inch was used.

  Further along, the air changed again: a cocktail of mothballs and sickly sweet treacle. Birdie’s stomach lurched and she walked on quickly to the office, the heart of the Thornes’ empire and Lydia’s kingdom. As she pushed open the door, Birdie was met with the spectacle of the huge carved mahogany roll-top desk, standing like a great altar, stacked with papers and books, and seeming to support the shelves above it, laden with dog-eared ledgers. The air turned musty then, like an old museum in which the dust and paper had a taste of its own.