Custard Tarts and Broken Hearts (40 page)

‘Keep the Home Fires burning,

While your hearts are a yearning,

Though your lads are far away

They dream of home.’

Afterwards, Nellie had to pass her handkerchief to Alice, and she noticed Bobby take it from her, surreptitiously dabbing at his own eyes. Nellie prayed the war would be long over before her soft-hearted brother need be called up – she knew he wouldn’t last a week. After the show was over, Matty took them backstage, introducing them to Bernie the manager, a flamboyant man with a flashing smile, who told Nellie that Matty was a ‘real trouper’. And with that she could not disagree.

But as the year dragged on and they neared their second Christmas at war, a cloud seemed to descend over Matty. Her smile was less ready and she seemed listless. Nellie worried that she had taken on too much. One afternoon, as the three girls were walking home from the factory, she broached the subject. ‘You don’t seem yourself, Matty. Is it a bit much for you, working all day and then singing at nights?’

Matty, who’d been walking listlessly between Alice and Nellie, suddenly came alive. Her face flushed. ‘No! It’s no hardship for me, singing ain’t!’ Matty said.

Nellie knew it wouldn’t be the singing she was fed up with, so she pressed her. ‘Why don’t you move to jellies?’ Nellie asked, thinking she’d hit upon the solution.

Matty had sometimes complained that breathing in custard powder made her so hoarse it affected her singing. But packing jelly crystals was ‘clean work’, powder free. Still Matty shook her head.

‘Well, ain’t you happy at Duff’s no more?’

‘It’s not that I’m
unhappy
there,’ Matty said finally. ‘It’s just… oh, I’m so worried about our Sam!’

Nellie knew the girl pored over newspaper war reports and often talked to Charlie about their brother’s whereabouts, trying to guess what battle he might be involved in.

‘I’m worried too, love, but he wouldn’t want us to be gloomy, not when he tries so hard to keep our spirits up.’

Matty’s head drooped and she said softly, ‘You know as well as I do that’s all for show.’

‘If Sam’s putting on a show, it’s only the same as you’re doing at the Star!’ Nellie replied heatedly. ‘It’s just a way of keeping people’s spirits up, and that’s not a bad thing. I’m not so stupid I believe he’s got no more to complain about than the vermin, but he don’t dwell on it, so neither should we!’

Matty took her hand. ‘Sorry, Nell, you’re right, but I feel so useless making custard powder and singing. I want to do my bit too and get Sam home.’

Nellie put her arm round Matty’s shoulders and drew her in. ‘He’ll come home, love, he promised! His last letter said he was being relieved, so at least we know he’s not on the front line now. Anyway, he’s due some leave soon, that’s a blessing, ain’t it?’ She knew she was speaking with just the forced cheerfulness Matty seemed to disdain.

‘But he’s in the artillery,’ Matty persisted, ‘and I read they’re running out of shells. Soon he’ll have nothing to shoot back at the Jerries with! Here, look at this.’

She produced from her coat pocket a folded-up newspaper article, which Nellie read aloud for Alice as they skirted the queue outside the Salvation Army hostel. The nature of the queue had changed since the war began. It now contained very few young men; three square meals and army pay seemed better than a life on the streets, even with the dangers. The newspaper reported that Mrs Pankhurst had changed tack. Now campaigning for ‘A Woman’s Right to Serve’, she was appealing for more women munitions workers. The bold slogan at the top of the article read:
Shells made by a wife will save a husband’s life!

Nellie looked with alarm at Alice and then back to Matty. ‘Matty, don’t tell me you’re thinking of doing that? You’re too young!’

‘I’m fourteen now! Anyway, what if I make a shell and it saves Sam’s life, don’t you think that would be worth it?’

‘Yes… No… What I mean is…’ Nellie shook her head vehemently and appealed to her sister. ‘Sam wouldn’t want it, would he, Al?’

Alice shook her head just as vehemently and said, ‘No, it’s too dangerous, Matty. Anyway, you’d have to go all the way to Woolwich, you’d never get back in time for the Star.’

Matty had already thought of that. ‘I can get a tram all the way, forty minutes. Besides, it’ll make life a lot easier for us all – I can earn thirty shillings a week! Plenty for me housekeeping
and
a new costume!’

Nellie begged Matty to wait, at least until the following year. If she could delay her until Sam’s leave she believed he could talk her out of it. Nellie insisted on writing to both Sam and Eliza and it wasn’t long before their objections came flooding back. But it was like holding back a racehorse after the off; Matty ignored any attempt to rein her in. She gave her notice in at Pearce Duff’s and the very next week started work at the Woolwich Arsenal munitions factory.

Eliza even made the trip down from Hull and this time Nellie was grateful for her interference. Over the course of the year Eliza had made several visits to London to see Matty. At first she would just collect the girl, take her out for the day and drop her at Vauban Street in the evening, but on her third visit Nellie had asked Matty to invite Eliza in after their day out. When Eliza arrived one bright December Sunday morning shortly after Matty’s announcement, Nellie was ready to invite her in again. She wasn’t prepared to see her standing at the door, hand in hand with a sturdy, dark-haired three-year-old. Nellie could see this new charm offensive was likely to succeed – Matty fell in love with every baby or toddler she met.

‘I thought it was time for Matty to meet her… nephew. Nellie, this is William.’

The child pushed past Nellie, trotting up the dark passage and into the front kitchen. Eliza, apologizing to Nellie, half ran after him but he increased his pace, barrelling headlong into the kitchen. Nellie and Eliza arrived just in time to see him launch himself at Matty’s legs, demanding to be picked up.

‘I made the mistake of telling him he’d be meeting his aunt, he’s very excited,’ Eliza said, shamefaced.

‘He’s not a bit shy, is he?’ said Nellie.

‘He’s… forceful, shall we say.’ Eliza smiled indulgently as she saw how Matty was immediately entranced.

‘Oh, he’s so like Sam! Don’t you think so, Nellie?’ asked Matty as she sat the boy on her lap, playing Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross.

Nellie didn’t think William looked like Sam, but she didn’t say so. There was a photo of Ernest James hanging in the Labour Institute – this was obviously his son. William had a will to match Matty’s, though, and soon dragged her out of the kitchen, through the scullery and into the back yard, as though he owned the house. Nellie left Eliza in the front kitchen and went to make tea in the scullery; through the window she watched Matty showing William the penny-farthing. Eliza followed her in. Coming to stand beside Nellie, she looked intently at her two children.

‘Nellie, do you know how dangerous that work is at Woolwich?’ she asked solemnly.

Nellie turned, feeling suddenly cornered by Eliza. Still in her wide-brimmed hat and travelling coat, her presence filled the tiny room. Quickly arranging the tea things on a tray, she hustled Eliza back into the front kitchen, where they could talk out of earshot.

‘Of course I realize how dangerous it is,’ she said, setting the tray down on the table and taking Eliza’s hat and coat, ‘and don’t think I haven’t talked to her, till I’m blue in the face. She just won’t listen, says she’s doing it for Sam.’

‘But they could be blown up at any moment, and those women still get paid half the men’s wages! It’s appalling,’ Eliza said fiercely, bringing the flat of her hand down on to the kitchen table so that Nellie feared for her best china.

‘Nothing changes there, then,’ Nellie sighed, handing her a cup of steaming tea, ‘though she’s getting better wages than she could ever get at Duff’s.’

‘But is it worth it?’ Eliza demanded, ready for a fight.

Nellie tried not to feel defensive. She knew Eliza wasn’t trying to blame her, but still she felt responsible for Matty’s choices. Sometimes this woman could make her feel like that admiring sixteen-year-old custard tart all over again, instead of a woman bringing up her child, and Nellie resented it. She carefully put down her teacup, all the while fuming inwardly. ‘Of course nothing’s worth Matty being blown to smithereens!’

‘Nor being poisoned, either. Do you know the nickname for these women munitions workers, Nellie?’

Nellie shot her a puzzled look and gave her the name she’d read in the newspapers – ‘munitionettes’. It was what Matty called herself.

‘Yes, but there’s another name,’ Eliza went on. ‘They call them the canaries…’

Nellie’s heart skipped a beat. ‘Matty’s nickname?’

Eliza nodded. ‘Yes, ironic, isn’t it? But it’s not because the girls spend their days singing. No, the sulphur gets into their system, their skin turns yellow… and then their livers fail.’

The two women gave each other identical worried looks as the sound of Matty’s voice, singing to William, drifted in from the back yard.

29

‘Nothing to Mar Our Joy’

Maggie Tyrell was running down the middle of the factory floor, screaming and waving a piece of paper in her hand. Nellie jumped away from the bench, spilling an entire packet of custard powder down her clean smock. She caught Maggie round the waist so that both women were propelled into a loaded trolley, spilling broken custard packets everywhere. Clouds of sticky yellow dust erupted like a spewing volcano and the entire row of women burst into laughter.

‘Oi, oi, oi!’ Ethel Brown’s voice boomed from the far end of the floor. ‘Behave yerselves! What’s going on?’ She waddled over, her forelady’s green overall stretched across her ample stomach. The war shortages had somehow made little impression on Ethel’s considerable bulk.

‘It’s Maggie,’ Nellie spluttered, her mouth full of sickeningly sweet powder. ‘She’s got
the telegram
.’ Ethel’s face fell as Nellie held Maggie tight in her arms ready for the inevitable explosion of grief. The laughter died away as all eyes turned sympathetically towards Maggie, who now alarmingly started laughing hysterically. She extricated herself from Nellie’s arms. It was well known that women took the news in all sorts of ways, but Nellie had never seen hilarity.

‘No, you silly cow!’ Maggie finally turned to Nellie. ‘It’s not
the
telegram
! My old man’s got a Blighty. He’s coming home!’

Now the women’s concern turned to cheers and congratulations.

‘Oh, Maggie, I thought you’d gone mad with grief!’ Nellie explained, brushing down her smock.

‘But what’s his Blighty, Mag, is it a bad ’un?’ asked Ethel.

The group of women nearest craned to hear as they went back to the rhythmical filling and packing of the custard powder.

‘Well, bad enough, he’s got a lump of shrapnel in him size of an egg. Got to come home and get it operated on.’

‘How is he taking it?’ asked Nellie

‘Taking it? Well, he’s overjoyed. Listen to this. She read from the letter. “
My Dear Mag, you’ll be pleased to hear that I have got my Blighty! I’m the luckiest of fellers, I shall be coming home with a piece of German metal in me groin, but rest assured, the Family Business is still intact!
”’

The women in earshot roared with laughter and Ethel said sympathetically, ‘Well, small mercies, love, eh?’

‘Small mercies?’ Maggie pondered. ‘To be honest, love, with six kids, it would’ve been a mercy if that shrapnel had gone a bit lower!’

Nellie was pleased Tom Tyrell had got his Blighty. For Maggie the war had been particularly hard, with so many small children to cope with. Nellie started imagining what sort of Blighty wound she would find acceptable for Sam, how much of him would she want damaged or missing in order to bring him home. It wasn’t a game she enjoyed playing. That evening she decided to visit Lily after work. When she missed Sam badly, she would often go to Lily’s, just so they could talk about ‘the boys’, as they still called Jock and Sam. Christmas of 1915 had come and gone and still there was no sign of the long-promised leave. She’d received a letter from Sam just before Christmas, saying that they’d been posted to another front line and were on the move. She’d made a parcel of knitted socks and thick wool underwear and some hard-to-come-by slabs of chocolate. The children had written individual messages and Nellie had cried as she’d waited in line at the post office, trying to infuse the little parcel with every ounce of love that she felt for Sam. As the year had turned, the lists of casualties reached appallingly high numbers. Perhaps, after all, a missing hand or a useless leg would indeed be worth it, if they came home alive.

When Nellie arrived at Lily’s that night, her friend handed her the grizzling Johnny, instead of putting him to bed as she usually did at that time.

‘Here, take him!’ she said, thrusting the child at her. ‘He’s not stopped all day! I don’t know what’s the matter with him. He’s driving me mad.’

Nellie looked down into Johnny’s red-cheeked, screwed-up face, his little trembling chin wet with drool. Nellie had far more experience with babies than Lily, who was the youngest in her family.

‘Ohh, poor little bleeder, he’s just getting another tooth! You make the tea. I’ll get him off to sleep.’

Nellie gave Johnny a knuckle to chew on and began marching up and down the kitchen with him, rocking him all the while. As soon as she saw his eyes beginning to droop, she laid him carefully in his crib and began rocking it with her foot.

‘Oh, Nellie, you’re so good with him,’ Lily sighed admiringly. ‘You’ll be the same with your own kiddies, when they come.’

‘
When
they come? Don’t you think I’ve got enough to do, with my lot at home?’

‘But they’re not kids any more, are they?’

It was true. Bobby was the only one still at school, and not for much longer. Sometimes she missed the boys’ raucous presence. Most evenings they were out with their friends, or working with Freddie’s ‘business’, and Matty, too, was absent all day at Woolwich and two evenings at the Star.