Custard Tarts and Broken Hearts (14 page)

During the latest dock strike this summer, she’d stopped asking him where he disappeared to for days on end, but her talk with Lily convinced her that she had to confront him. Even so, she waited more than a fortnight, looking for the right moment to face him, frightened of the truths she might uncover. When he asked her to go with him to a meeting at the Labour Institute she agreed with an enthusiasm that seemed to please him. She hoped that if she entered a bit more into his world, he would be less guarded with her. The meeting turned out to be a victory celebration of the latest fourteen-week dock strike, which had ended two weeks earlier with an agreement for a shorter working week. After the meeting, people clustered in groups, chatting and drinking tea. Ted drew her into the centre of one group discussing the latest politicians’ warnings of war with Germany.

‘War!’ he cut in. ‘They shouldn’t be worrying about the Germans. Don’t they know we’re already at war, with
them
, the rich bastards that take the food from our mouths. Time for them to sit up and take notice! They’ll know all about war then.’

She was glad when it was time to leave, and as he walked her home after the meeting he was in high spirits at their victory. Putting his arm round her, he said casually, ‘I’ll be away most of next week.’

Now was her moment and she steeled herself to take it. ‘What’s going on, Ted? Why do you have to be away so often? You’ve not got yerself a fancy woman, have you?’ She tried to sound light-hearted.

Immediately his good humour vanished and he rounded on her. ‘There’s more things in life than courting, you know! I’ve told you time and again, it’s union work!’

‘You say it’s union work, but the strike’s over now!’

He dropped his arm from her waist, jamming his hands into his pockets. ‘I don’t know why I bother with you,’ he sneered. ‘Didn’t you understand anything I was saying tonight? The strike may be over but the struggle’s not!’ He stalked away from her, brushing off her hand on his arm as she tried to hold him back. Ignoring his jibe, she persevered.

‘Well, just don’t do anything stupid, Ted Bosher,’ she said as firmly as she could. ‘You’ve got family to think of and you’ve got me, and…’ her voice broke. ‘If you get put away, it’ll break my heart.’

He stopped her tears flowing with kisses and pretended not to know what she meant. When they passed a small alleyway just before Vauban Street, he drew her into the unlit byway. Putting his arms round her, he tilted her chin up towards him,

‘I’m not getting put away,’ he reassured her. ‘Anyway, they’d have to catch me first, and there’s only one person ever caught me…’ The sneer was gone from his beautiful mouth and for now all her questions seemed to have vanished.

It was at such tender moments that Nellie hoped he might talk about settling down with her. When his voice turned soft, she saw a gentleness that belied all his violent rantings. Sometimes he would talk about a better world for ‘our children’ and then Nellie dreamed there might be a future for her and Ted. But increasingly she was losing patience and whenever his musings turned into a rant, she came back at him.

‘Oh, put a sock in it, Ted, any kids you have would be bored to death, poor little buggers, before they starved to death. You can’t
live
on a soapbox, you know!’

Then that soft glimpse of him would harden, the fire would ignite in his eyes, and she’d know she’d lost him.

This was a year when summer simply refused to arrive; the damp spring had heralded long months of cool, wet days which now froze into winter. The excitement of the previous summer had all but faded from her memory, and though now most of the girls were union members there had been no more strikes for the custard tarts. That one glorious victory had won them a hard-earned pay rise and a cloakroom, but they had soon settled back into the inevitable routine of long days of back-breaking work. The only bright spot on their horizon was the Christmas ‘do’ at the Green Ginger, which Ethel Brown was organizing. She took up her station every Saturday lunchtime at the payroll office, black book and pencil in hand. It was the one time of the week the girls would be certain of having their money for the Christmas club. One Saturday morning, as Nellie and Lily were walking away from the office with their brown envelopes, Ethel stopped them.

‘Come on, you two, pay up – no sub, no pub! Nellie, I haven’t got you down for last week!’

Nellie raised her eyes. ‘You don’t miss a trick, do you? I was a bit short last week.’ She ripped open her pay packet. ‘Here, two weeks!’ She pushed the coins into Ethel’s plump outstretched palm.

‘It’s that brother of yours,’ Ethel addressed Lily. ‘He’s skinting her, treats him like her little prince, don’t she?’

‘Don’t blame me for my brother, Ethel, it’s not my fault if he’s poncing off Nellie.’

‘Don’t talk about him like that!’ Nellie rounded on her friend a little more vehemently than she might have done if her own feelings of loyalty to Ted weren’t being tested so much.

‘All right, don’t be so touchy.’ Lily grabbed Nellie’s arm. ‘Come on, I’ll walk back up to Vauban Street with you.’ Lily linked arms with her as they walked, pulling her in close for warmth against the chill wind that blew up Spa Road.

‘You don’t seem very happy these days, Nell. Is it our Ted?’ she asked quietly.

Nellie sighed. It seemed that since the chill dark nights had set in, her walks with Ted had grown less easy. She supposed she must be grateful that he still asked her to go with him to his meetings. At least she knew where he was, but she had grown bored with them and now confided to Lily.

‘His idea of a night out these days is a talk at the Labour Institute! I know the strike did us a favour, and I wouldn’t chuck the eleven shillings back. But I’m only seventeen, I’m still young! I get little enough time to myself as it is. When I do get a night off, it’s not my idea of a good time to spend it listening to Ted going on about the evils of poverty and the class struggle. I’m bloody living the evils of poverty, nobody needs to give me a lecture on it!’

It struck her as odd, when she thought about it, that she felt the necessity to remind her friend that she was young. Perhaps it was because, these days, she felt as though she was becoming old before her time. The truth was that her father had become far more reliant on her since Bobby’s illness, and another year on her age had confirmed her as mother of their family. It was taken for granted that, after a day’s work at Pearce Duff’s, she would come home to clean and cook and bring up the children. It was only because of Alice’s staunch support that she could even contemplate the luxury of a night off to spend with Ted.

‘Well, you’re not going to change him now, Nellie,’ was Lily’s response, ‘not if he won’t listen to Mum and Dad. Even our Ginger’s had a go at him, told him he’s getting in too deep.’

But still, once Nellie was alone with Ted, her misgivings always melted away. He was so handsome and it made her dizzy sometimes, when he came strolling along with that loose-limbed stride, smiling at her, singling her out from all the other ‘custard tarts’ at the factory gates. Walking along the street with him, she felt she could be on the arm of a prince and it couldn’t have felt better.

But now, on this freezing afternoon in December, she was cursing her pauper prince. Ted was late. If she was his girl, then why didn’t he want to spend time with her? It was a question she could no longer suppress. She needed answers: why was he always away? Liverpool, Manchester, Hull. Everywhere but Bermondsey. Nellie’s early dream of how wonderful it would be walking out with Ted now seemed worlds away from the reality. Ted was late and it wouldn’t be the first time he’d let her down. Today she’d made arrangements for Alice to watch the boys and see to her father’s tea, so she could have this day free. Ted had promised her they’d go for a walk in the snow-trimmed park and then for tea in the café, before they went on to the music hall. This was to have been her Christmas treat and she’d been quietly excited all week. Nellie had so wanted to walk arm in arm with Ted under the park’s snow-laden trees and round the frozen pond, which looked magical, like a picture postcard, but after hanging around the park gates for an hour, she had lost hope and come to the Star, hoping to meet him here.

It was so bloody cold! She stuffed her hands deeper into her fur muff and breathed into the scarf she had wrapped round her collar, trying to generate some warmth. She had worn her new dark blue coat with the silver-grey fur cuffs and had on the matching hat with fur trim. She had been paying into the clothes club all year for the outfit, and this was its first outing. Ted always took such care with his appearance. He had to have the best clothes and his suit never saw the inside of the pawnshop. She’d set her heart on this coat, so that she didn’t show him up. Her father was still suspicious of Ted, so he never came to the house, which was why she was now pacing up and down outside the Star Music Hall in Abbey Street, waiting for him to turn up. She stopped and stamped her small booted feet on the snow-caked pavement, but she could no longer feel her toes. Snow lay thick over the road, and the cobbles looked like tiny pillows outlined in black stitching. Looking up at the leaden sky, she judged more snow was on the way. She found herself wishing that Lily were home, so she could unload her feelings of disappointment; her best friend was always ready to hear complaints about her brother. But Lily and her parents were away, visiting family up north.

Now she was losing patience. The crowd outside the music hall slowly diminished, and as groups and couples met up and went inside, she grew increasingly forlorn. It seemed certain she was being stood up. She had grown used to Ted’s sudden cancellations. They usually came with no warning and no explanations, but this was the last straw. She waited until the last of the crowd outside had shuffled eagerly into the Star’s lamplit warmth, then she gave up on him and started walking home.

He’s just not worth it, she thought bitterly, and if he’s lost interest, he only has to say. I’m not going to shed any tears over Ted Bosher!

But even as she thought it, a lump formed in her throat and she proved the emptiness of her promise by angrily brushing away a tear. Night was falling and the gas lamps lit up the snow with their hissing, flickering flames. For some reason, she remembered the anarchist pamphlet Ted’s mother had found and her blood turned colder than the icy flakes that began to fall on to her cheeks.

It was as she neared the end of Spa Road that he jumped out on her, grabbing her from behind and putting his hand over her mouth to stifle her cry of surprise.

‘Shh, shhh, Nellie, it’s me,’ he hissed as he dragged her back into the alley where he’d been hidden. She knew he’d done something terrible when she saw his torn jacket.
And he’s always so particular about his clothes
, she found herself thinking stupidly. But now they were ripped, the arm of his jacket was shredded, and his leg was showing through a rent in his trousers.

‘Ted, what have you done? Look at the state of you, yer as black as Newgate’s knocker!’ He looked almost like a sweep, with his face and hands blackened. ‘Where’ve you been? I was waiting and I got so cold. Ted, tell me, for God’s sake!’

Her voice was rising in an attempt to make sense of what she was seeing, but in her heart she knew exactly what had happened.

‘Shhh, Nellie, it’s all gone wrong. It was a bomb, an incendiary. I was only carrying it, it wasn’t meant to go off yet!’ His eyes were wild, whites stark against his blackened face. ‘Nellie, the police’ll be after me. You’ve got to help me!’

His hands were shaking, but as she attempted to grasp them, he winced. They were both burned raw. Then she noticed his lovely gold hair all singed and blackened, an ugly burn shining red across his soot-caked temple.

‘Hide me, Nell, somewhere, anywhere, just till me mates can get to me.’

‘Where? Where can I hide you? Wait, Ted, I’ve got to think. Oh, look at your hands!’ They were trembling with pain and shock as he held them out to her. She took off her scarf and scooped up some snow, binding the icy cloth around his hands. It was all she could think to do. He looked almost as though he were handcuffed as she led him to the end of the alley. All the fire seemed to have gone out of him and he was as pliable and obedient as a child.

‘Come on, I know somewhere I can take you.’

‘The bomb was for a protest over at Westminster,’ he explained, sounding exhausted as they scuttled along in the snow-lit shadows. ‘I was just taking it to load on to a boat up by Tower Bridge and it exploded.’ They darted from gas lamp to gas lamp, afraid of being seen, until they reached the corner of Vauban Street.

‘We’ve been planning it for months, making the bombs in a lock-up under one of the railway arches,’ he gasped as he paused for breath, his back to the wall of the corner house.

‘Well, thank God you never got there, you could’ve killed someone!’ She rounded on him angrily. ‘Don’t you care about anyone else? And didn’t you even
think
of what this would do to your mum, or Lily, or me?’

He grabbed her then and pulled her close. She tried to push him off, but he spun her round, shielding himself behind her. Then she heard the footsteps, muffled in the snow, but slow and deliberate, on the other side of the street.

‘Copper!’ he whispered into her ear, and she stayed very still until the footsteps retreated. Glancing over her shoulder, she checked the policeman had gone.

She looked him full in the face, despairingly. ‘Oh, Ted, what’s this got to do with our life? You can’t think anything of me, not to drag me into this.’

‘It’s only for tonight, Nellie. Once they know what’s happened, the others will help me lie low. Please, Nell.’

With a feeling of dreadful certainty that she would pay for her folly, she relented and led him quietly down Vauban Street to her old hiding place, Wicks’s carter’s yard. She helped him squeeze through the locked gates, just as she’d done the night her father threw her out. She crept with him past the stable blocks and, leading him into the cart shed, she helped him lie down by the hay bales, covering him over with straw. She felt his whole body shaking as she tucked the straw round him as though he were a sick child, but when she went to leave, he clung to her.