Bourbon Creams and Tattered Dreams Read online

  ‘Anyone home? Ma?’

  Matty recognized the voice and was about to rush out to greet him, when Eliza caught her hand.

  ‘In here, Will.’ Eliza put her finger to her lips and Matty went to hide behind the door.

  He stuck his head round the door and Matty leaped out, throwing her arms round him, spinning them both across the room till they tumbled in a heap on to one of the armchairs.

  ‘Matty!’ He recovered first and then, grabbing her round the waist, he tossed her up into the air with a whoop.

  ‘Be careful, Will!’ Eliza warned, but he’d already caught Matty.

  ‘Blimey, you’ve turned into Tarzan!’ Matty laughed.

  ‘He doesn’t know his own strength.’ Eliza apologized for her son, but Matty was already getting her own back by pretending to strangle him with the white cotton scarf he had tied around his neck. His hands on her waist and his effortless tossing her about told her that he was no longer a schoolboy. He wasn’t going to be a tall man, but he’d inherited all the contained, hard-muscled strength of his father. Now she stood back, breathless.

  ‘Let’s have a look at you then.’

  She loosened the white scarf from his neck and he removed his flat cap. He stood in front of her, smoothing down his dark curls, and it was obvious to Matty which of his two worlds he’d chosen to inhabit.

  Matty’s nephew, Will James, had been an awkward fifteen-year-old when Matty left for America. She remembered how embarrassed he’d been by the tears of his Bermondsey family when they’d all waved her off from Waterloo. Will had always felt more like a younger brother to Matty, in spite of the difference in their upbringing. His had been as privileged as hers had been deprived. Will’s education at Dulwich College had been funded by his father, Ernest James, a wealthy politician Eliza had lived and worked with for many years. He’d attended as a day boy and Matty often felt he’d grown up feeling neither a Bermondsey boy nor a public-school boy. At fifteen she’d seen him begin to flounder in both worlds.

  After looking him up and down she declared, ‘You look like a bloody stevedore. I thought you was going to Cambridge!’

  ‘And I thought you were in America!’

  Matty noticed that his exaggerated Bermondsey vowels were fighting with his correct public-school accent. She felt suddenly sorry for him; her years in America had taught her how painful it was to never feel at home.

  ‘He is, and she was.’ Eliza answered both their questions. ‘Here, give me those ridiculous items. You don’t have to dress like a docker to be of use to the working classes,’ she said tartly and took her son’s cap and scarf. But Matty saw her look of indulgence as she left the room.

  ‘I’ll make us some dinner while you two catch up,’ her sister added, leaving them alone together.

  ‘Guess where I’ve been? At the docks, helping organize a mass rally to Hyde Park,’ he said proudly. ‘They ain’t going to listen to someone dressed like a banker, are they?’

  Matty could remember a time when Will had been ashamed of his Bermondsey background, refusing to have friends home. Now he took the trouble to deliberately drop his aitches and affected a cockney accent he’d never had – she thought it must be hard work.

  ‘Working men can’t afford to listen to anyone but their bosses – who generally dress like bankers,’ she retorted.

  ‘Rubbish! You’re a theatre type, you don’t know you’re born.’

  Matty had to smile – here it came. She was almost grateful for the familiarity of this banter with Will, whose contrary nature would turn any conversation into an argument.

  ‘Do I need to remind you that at twelve I was making matchboxes at home so we could pay the rent!’

  ‘Sweated labour, it’s a disgrace, still going on!’ He shook his head earnestly.

  Looking towards the door, he said loudly so that Eliza could hear, ‘I’m not going to Cambridge.’

  ‘Don’t be a soppy ’apporth, of course you are. And then you’re going to be a great politician and improve the lot of the working man,’ Matty told him.

  ‘I don’t need a Cambridge education to do that. Look at Ben Tillet!’

  ‘I would if I knew who he was,’ she replied, and Will raised his eyes in disgust at her ignorance.

  ‘I haven’t got time for university, Matty. I can’t sit in a bloody ivory tower while thousands of people are getting their dole cut.’

  ‘Last I heard, it’s your socialist prime minister that wants to cut it—’

  ‘And that’s my point – he’s no socialist and it’s all going to hell in a handcart!’ Will’s face had hardened. He stood up, and Matty thought he might even start banging the table, when Eliza walked in with a tablecloth. She shoved it into Will’s hands.

  ‘Lay the table, Will. You’re eighteen and you’re too young to be a politician. You’re going up to Cambridge and that’s that.’ Eliza went back to the kitchen and Matty broke into the chorus of ‘He’s Only a Working Man!’ She began strolling up and down the parlour, ringing out in her broadest cockney.

  I wake ’im every morning when the clock strikes eight

  I’m always punctual, never, never late

  With a nice cup of tea and a little round of toast

  The Sportin’ Life and the Winning Post

  I make ’im nice and cosy, then I toddle off to work

  I do the best I can

  For I’m only doing what a woman should do

  Cos he’s only a working man!

  It made Will laugh and she was glad to have diffused his simmering anger. Sometimes she teased him that he’d been born on a soapbox. He’d been a whirlwind of a child, barrelling everywhere at speed, and it seemed that same energy was following him into adulthood.

  Over dinner he directed a barrage of questions at Matty. What did she think of the Wall Street Crash and how many unemployed did America have? Did they have the dole? And sometimes his boyish fascinations interrupted his social concerns. Had she ever met Tallulah Bankhead? Did she know any gangsters? Had she been to a speakeasy?

  Matty felt the weight of a million more questions bearing down on her and, closing her eyes, let her head fall back against the chair.

  ‘Oh, Will, of course Matty doesn’t know any gangsters and look, now you’ve worn her out.’

  ‘No, I’m fine.’ Matty jerked her head up. ‘It’s the journey...’ she lied, tired only of keeping up the act. ‘I’ll be right as rain in the morning.’ Matty gave Eliza a small smile, weak enough to indicate that an early end to dinner would be welcome.

  ‘You poor thing, you must be exhausted.’ Eliza got up from the table. ‘Come with me, the spare bed’s made up.’

  ‘’Night, Will.’ Matty yawned, kissing the top of his dark curly head. ‘I did meet her, Tallulah, at one of Frank’s parties, told me she liked my accent, pissed as a puddin’ she was.’

  Eliza was already halfway up the stairs and Matty followed wearily behind. The bedclothes were turned back and a jug of water was on the stand by the time Matty reached the room.

  ‘Thanks, Eliza.’ She kissed her sister gratefully. There was no one quite like Eliza in a crisis, even if she didn’t yet know quite what that crisis was.

  2

  No Place Like Home

  June–July 1930

  Matty was nervous. She dreaded her brother Sam’s disappointment more than anything. She suspected he would see through the charade of her success where Eliza had not. She’d never worried about disappointing her sister.

  ‘Are you coming with me to Sam’s?’ Matty asked her the following day, hoping she would say yes. Eliza’s presence might at least deflect some of Sam’s questions.

  ‘I wouldn’t miss the look on his face when he sees you!’ Eliza replied.

  ‘He shouldn’t be surprised – I sent a telegram saying I’d be there this afternoon.’

  ‘Not surprised. I meant he’ll be so pleased. He’s missed you, Matty.’

  But Matty didn’t have to be told that. He’d never
wanted her to go to America, but her brother’s letters had been regular and affectionate. Now she was regretting that her replies had been so infrequent. She told herself there’d been good reasons: first she’d been taken up with work, and later she simply couldn’t bear to fill her letters with lies about her life with Frank. But Sam had deserved better from her.

  They walked to Sam’s and on the way Matty was assaulted by her past, the myriad smells of Bermondsey conjuring up her life with Sam and Nellie in Vauban Street and her stint as a factory girl. How could she have forgotten the overpowering scent of strawberries wafting from Lipton’s jam factory or the sickly vanilla of Pearce Duff’s custard? Matty glanced up at a row of tall windows.

  ‘God, look at that custard powder still on the sills, Eliza! I swear it’s four inches deeper than when I was last here... I don’t know how Nellie stands it.’

  ‘Oh, Nellie’s not on the factory floor any more, didn’t you know? She’s cleaning the offices now – part-time. It’s easier with the boys.’

  Matty felt guilty that she didn’t know this small but important detail about Nellie’s work. Once their lives had been as intertwined as mother and daughter. She should have known. But achieving her own heart’s desire had resulted in casualties. Going to America had meant walking away from her friends, her family, and abandoning Tom, the man who’d wanted to marry her. Not for the first time, she rued the day she’d ever persuaded herself to leave. Yet she knew she could have done nothing else.

  ‘Ah, home sweet home! Can’t beat that old boneyard smell, can you!’ Matty took an exaggerated breath of the smells from Young’s glue factory. Its two tall brick chimneys loomed up at the end of Vauban Street. They belched smoke that billowed between the rows of crumbling terraced houses. She was only partly joking, for in spite of the smells and dirt from the surrounding factories it had been a sweet home that Nellie Clark had made for her and her brother Charlie after their mother died.

  Eliza pointed up to a huge hoarding on the side wall of a grocer’s shop on the corner. A man on a ladder was in the process of removing the old poster in readiness to put up a new one. Although half of it had already been scraped away, Matty recognized it immediately.

  ‘Oh dear God, I don’t believe it!’ Matty tipped back her head. There was her own face, looking back at her, sad and haunted, haloed in the glow from a gas lamp, against a backdrop of a foggy London scene. In the other corner a villainous-looking man with a long chin and slicked-back hair looked at her lasciviously. Hear the Cockney Canary Sing! was emblazoned over the top of the film title London Affair.

  ‘Well, I’m glad you got to see it,’ Eliza said. ‘It’s been up there for months. The boys have been so proud. When they showed the film here the queue went all the way round the Star and back up almost to Dockhead!’

  Matty clapped her hands in involuntary delight. ‘Oh, I wish I could have seen that, Eliza! It would have meant more to me than any New York showing.’

  And suddenly she was surrounded by a crowd of excited children.

  ‘That’s my aunt! She’s famous, she’s American!’ She heard her nine-year-old nephew, Billy, before she saw him, running towards her, followed by his two younger brothers. She was glad she’d defied the smutty air of Bermondsey and worn her pale pink, shawl-collared coat, with matching kid gloves and shoes. The outfit might be more fitting to the sun-washed streets of Los Angeles, but she drew herself up, ready to be Matty on the stage, just for Billy.

  A woman poked her head out of the nearest window to see what all the commotion was about and soon neighbours were standing at their doors.

  ‘Giss a song, Matty!’ a young fellow trundling a handcart full of vegetables from the greengrocer on the corner called out to her. She laughed and caught up a cabbage, holding it in front of her, like a bouquet, then did a twirl to show off her costume and sang a snatch of ‘Why am I always the bridesmaid, never the blushing bride?’ which elicited a cheer from the little crowd. Billy dragged her to the nearest open front door and into the beloved old house.

  ‘I’ve a good mind to tan your hide, Matty Gilbie, how was I meant to put on a spread with one day’s notice!’ Nellie pulled her into a strong embrace. Her boys, Billy, Sammy and Albie, were ranged for inspection, neat in grey shorts and white shirts. Poor Nellie must have had a morning of it trying to keep them clean and off the street. They broke ranks and gathered round as Matty dug into her bag, drawing out her gifts, model cars that brought cries of joyful recognition. ‘A Cadillac, a Bugatti, a Chrysler!’

  ‘Come on now, boys, give Auntie Matty a bit of room.’

  Albie, the youngest, threatened to be swallowed up in the depths of her bag, looking for more, and Nellie pulled him out.

  ‘Sorry, Matty, they’re just over-excited. We all are.’ Nellie showed her to the kitchen table, which in spite of the short notice, she’d managed to load with sandwiches and cake and trifle – no doubt courtesy of Pearce Duff’s jelly and custard departments.

  ‘Where’s Sam?’ Matty asked, puzzled that her brother hadn’t rushed to greet her with the rest of the family.

  ‘Oh, I think he’s just having a smoke in the backyard, I’ll go and get him.’

  She saw a look pass between Nellie and Eliza and immediately felt excluded from an inner circle that she’d once taken for granted.

  ‘No, I’ll go,’ she said, and slipped past Nellie into the backyard.

  Her brother was standing with his back to her, a cigarette held between finger and thumb. She doubted that he hadn’t heard the commotion of her arrival.

  ‘Sam?’

  He took a long drag on the cigarette and for a moment she thought he wasn’t going to turn round. Then he faced her. His weather-bronzed face looked older and there was more grey in his dark hair, but it was his dark eyes that she searched for the signs of forgiveness.

  ‘Hello, stranger,’ he said, flicking the cigarette to the ground.

  How could Eliza have pretended he would be pleased to see her? He didn’t seem pleased at all. Then she ran to him and flung her arms around his neck. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t write much!’ she blurted out, refusing to let go as he tried to unpeel her arms.

  ‘Well, it’s like Mum used to say, I suppose, “out of sight, out of mind”.’

  Now she was sure she’d hurt him. ‘Never out of mind, Sam.’

  He shrugged. ‘Nellie’s had to rush round getting a tea together.’

  She couldn’t bear this coolness from her once adoring brother. If he knew, she told herself, why there had been no notice, why there had been so few letters, he wouldn’t be so hard. But they were the last excuses she would use to defend herself.

  ‘I’ve not had an easy time of it lately. I just needed to get home.’

  At the sight of her tears, Sam’s eyes softened and she felt strong arms enfold her.

  ‘Well, I’m happy our little canary’s come back to us,’ he whispered into her hair. And when he used the phrase, it had nothing to do with the six-foot poster at the end of the street. It was just her old family nickname, earned when she’d sung from morning till night just because it was as natural to her as breathing.

  *

  After tea the boys were allowed out into the streets with their cars and as Nellie cleared the tea things, Matty offered to help wash up.

  ‘No, you won’t, you’re the guest of honour. Eliza will help me.’ Both Matty and Eliza knew when not to argue with Nellie and her sister followed meekly into the scullery, leaving Matty alone with Sam, who silently rolled another cigarette.

  She stood at the kitchen window, looking along the row of houses where roofs dipped at drunken angles and fences were rotting. She was still feeling a little awkward, even though she knew she’d been forgiven. Sam followed her gaze.

  ‘The council are talking about pulling the whole lot down and building flats here.’ He plucked strands of tobacco from the roll-up. ‘Not a moment too soon, it’s driving poor Nellie up the wall. The place is crumbling with damp and the rat
s are coming in from the boneyard. We’re up half the night making sure they don’t go on the boys’ beds.’

  ‘Oh, Sam, I didn’t know it had got that bad. But where will you go?’

  ‘We’re down for a council flat, in The Grange – you know, by the leather factories. Just hope they finish building them soon.’

  Matty felt a familiar guilt. She had planned to come back a rich woman, able to buy Sam and his family a semi in a nice suburb rather than a council flat opposite some of the smelliest factories in Bermondsey.

  ‘I wish I could do more,’ she said lamely and saw Sam bristle.

  ‘My family’s not your responsibility, Matty. Besides, the new job at the Bricklayer’s Arms pays better money than I’ve had all me life.’

  Sam drove a horse and cart, working out of the huge railway depot up by Old Kent Road; it had been a step up from working for Wicks, the local carter, and the extra wages would at least mean he could afford the rent on the new council flat.

  ‘You’ve done enough for me, Sam, over the years.’ She went and sat on the arm of his chair, draping her arm round his shoulders as he smoked silently for a while.

  ‘I’ve only ever been glad for your success, duck. I’m sorry about before. You mustn’t feel you owe us anything.’

  It was going to be now or never; she just had to be brave.

  ‘Sam, I’ve got something to tell you.’

  ‘What’s that?’ He put out his cigarette between his finger and thumb, saving some for later, and looked at her expectantly.

  ‘I’m thinking of making it a longer stay, perhaps try to get a run in the West End, what do you think?’

  Eliza and Nellie came back just in time to overhear her question.

  ‘Ah, I knew there was something!’ Eliza declared, smiling triumphantly first at Sam then at Nellie. ‘She’s been homesick. I feared as much. But, Matty – a London show? What would happen to your screen career – aren’t these things all a matter of timing?’