Perhaps Tomorrow Read online

  Perhaps Tomorrow

  Also by Jean Fullerton

  No Cure for Love

  A Glimpse at Happiness

  Perhaps Tomorrow

  Hold on to Hope

  Perhaps

  Tomorrow

  JEAN FULLERTON

  First published in Great Britain in 2012 by Orion Books,

  an imprint of Hachette UK Ltd.

  This edition published in 2018 by Corvus,

  an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.

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  Copyright © Jean Fullerton 2011

  The moral right of Jean Fullerton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is

  available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978 178 649 6331

  Corvus

  An imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd

  Ormond House

  26–27 Boswell Street

  London

  WC1N 3JZ

  www.corvus-books.co.uk

  To the Romantic Novelists’ Association on their 50th year and in particular to their excellent New Writers’ Scheme, which set me off on this wonderful journey.

  Chapter One

  Mattie Maguire, owner of Maguire & Son’s coal yard, woke to the light tap of the knocker-upper’s cane on the window and Brian, her three-year-old son, chattering to his wooden soldiers in his cot at the foot of her bed. As her mind cleared of sleep, Mattie ran through the day’s chores: see the deliveries out, order the fodder for the horses and visit Morris & Co, her wholesalers at the Limehouse Basin. Regardless of the coils of trepidation winding in her stomach, Mattie had no other choice but to negotiate the price of coal with steely-eyed Mr Morris. She would have to take her courage in both hands and go.

  Brian stood up. ‘Mammy!’ he called, bouncing up and down on his straw mattress.

  Mattie pushed all thoughts of coal and Mr Morris aside and raised herself onto her elbows. ‘Good morning, young man. And seeing as how you’re up with the lark I suppose I had better get myself going, too,’ she said, smiling at her son as he stretched his arms out for her.

  She swung her legs from under the covers, then lifted Brian up and sat him on the china pot taken from under the bed. Leaving him to his business, Mattie padded across the floorboards and collected water from outside the door.

  Kate, her younger sister, always left the pitcher there before she went to work at Hoffman’s bakery. Although they damped down the fire in the kitchen range at night, the water in the side boiler stayed hot enough for a warm wash in the morning. She poured half the water into the china basin on the stand to wash Brian before she dressed him.

  ‘Fasten your buttons, sweetheart,’ she told him, as she started her own wash.

  Brian’s bottom lips jutted out. ‘Can’t.’

  Mattie went to help him as she always did, but then stopped short. Most three year-olds had at least one, if not two younger brothers or sisters competing for their mother’s care, but Brian was her only child. She had to be careful not to turn him into a Mammy’s Boy.

  ‘Now, Brian, the delivery men will be here soon and I have business to see to before the market opens, so why don’t you try for Mammy?’

  Brian stood with his arms at his sides, staring up at her for a few moments, then grabbed the sides of his smock and started mangling the buttons thorough their corresponding holes.

  ‘There’s a good boy,’ Mattie said, as she stripped off her nightdress and plunged her hands into the warm water. ‘We have a delivery from the depot today, too,’ she said, as she sponged her arms.

  ‘Big cart?’ Brian asked, looking very like his father as he concentrated on his task.

  ‘Yes, the big cart,’ she replied, drying herself off. ‘And I’ll need to keep a close eye on them. Last week they tried to charge me for best kitchen when they only delivered the standard grade. Have you finished?’

  Brian dropped his hands by his sides again, this time to show off his efforts to dress himself.

  Mattie smiled and beckoned him to her. ‘There’s a clever boy,’ she said, kissing him on the cheek. ‘But there’s one in the wrong hole.’ She adjusted his buttons and said, ‘Now off you go. Your gran will have your breakfast ready for you downstairs. And don’t run!’ she called after him as he clattered down the stairs.

  She watched him for a moment then wrapped her corset around her bodice and fastened the steel hooks and eyes. She then stepped into her petticoat, tied the front laces and shrugged on her dark blue day dress. Looking into the speckled mirror on the wall, Mattie made sure everything was in place, then, taking the brush from the dressing table, she slipped off the rag knot holding her long night plait and brushed her ebony locks into order. With an assured twist, she whirled them into a bun at the nape of her neck and secured it with pins that she kept in the pink-and-blue china bowl on the dressing table.

  Dressed and ready, she went to the window and pulled back the curtains. Only the first traces of dawn were streaking the sky yet beyond the fence an army of men wearing flat caps and roughly hewn clothes were already trudging towards the river. Casual labourers had to be at the docks before the gates opened if they were to have any chance of catching the foreman’s eye for a work ticket.

  Mattie’s thoughts turned to her appointment at Morris’s. No matter which way she added up the bills and subtracted them from her earnings, it was clear that Maguire’s Coal Yard was only just scraping by. If she wanted to ensure that her son would never have to wait in line for a mean-hearted foreman to pick him out, she had to persuade Mr Morris to give her the discount that other yards in the area enjoyed. If he wouldn’t, she wondered how much longer she’d be able to stay in business.

  Mattie pushed away the gnawing worry about the unpaid bills ruffling up the invoice spike in the office. Perhaps Mr Stebbins would see a way for her to turn her fortunes around.

  Come on my girl, she thought, as she turned from the window. Maguire’s won’t run itself.

  Queenie Maguire, Brian’s granny, had already buckled her grandson into his chair and set a boiled egg before him by the time Mattie came into the kitchen.

  Queenie barely reached Mattie’s shoulder. Her face had a childlike quality that contrasted with her knotted, red knuckles, and in the early morning light her fine, almost white, hair showed a hint of the gold it used to be.

  ‘I thought I would make a start on the smalls,’ Queenie said, lifting her hands from the soapy water and letting the rivulets of suds meander down her wiry forearms. ‘Get them out of the way before Brian gets up.’

  From the moment Queenie had looked on her dead son, Brian, her mind had shot off on a wild journey. She’d been stupefied until the day of his funeral, after which she paced the house day and night searching for him. When she couldn’t find him in her own home, Queenie would wander the streets until she was returned by either the City police, who’d find her in Cheapside, or by the Metropolitan who’d discover her under Bow Bridge. Queenie’s wandering ceased when young Brian was born. She was right enough in the house, cooking and cleaning, and could be left safely to tend to the wee one, but in her mind her dead son was always in another room, on his way home, or still out working in the yard.

  ‘Your sister
came by, you know, the young one with blonde hair, but she went off,’ Queenie told her. Mattie gave a weary smile as she cracked an egg into the frying pan for her own breakfast. She’d given up telling Queenie that Kate had lived with them for three years and went out early to her job. The confusion was just another symptom of her mother-in-law’s jumbled brain. She tipped the frying pan up and the egg slid to one side. She plopped a slice of bread into the sizzling fat, and when it was brown on both sides she lifted it out with a fork and slid her egg on top.

  The back door opened and Mattie’s brother Patrick strolled in. ‘Morning sis,’ he said, grinning at her. ‘Morning, Mrs M.’

  Queenie smiled across at him by way of acknowledgement.

  ‘Patrick?’ Mattie replied, wondering why he was standing in her back door and not at the rudder of his barge, The Smiling Girl. ‘Is Josie alright?’ Although her sister-in-law’s last pregnancy had been uneventful you couldn’t be too careful.

  ‘She was when I left her half-an-hour ago.’

  Queenie dropped a wet towel into the tin pail beside her. ‘Have you seen Brian, Patrick? He should be in the yard.’

  Pain tightened around Patrick’s eyes. ‘No, Mrs M, I must have missed him.’

  ‘Well, no matter.’ Queenie gave him her boys-will-be-boys look. ‘You’ll catch him at the bar in the Town later, no doubt.’ She turned back to the washboard.

  ‘Can I get you a bite of breakfast?’ Mattie asked.

  Patrick rubbed his hands together. ‘That would be grand.’ He pulled out a chair and sat down at the table. ‘And how’s my favourite nephew?’ he asked, ruffling Brian’s hair.

  ‘Me fine, Uncle Pat,’ Brian replied, through a mouthful of bread soldiers.

  ‘That’s my boy,’ Patrick tousled the child’s hair again. ‘Eat all your egg and you’ll grow up to be as tall as your father, won’t he, Mammy?’ he said looking at Mattie.

  Mattie nodded and cracked another egg in the pan. She poured them both a mug of tea then sat next to Brian with her own breakfast.

  ‘I thought I’d drop by today as, well, you know true enough what this week is, Matt.’

  Of course! What with worrying about seeing old man Morris in an hour, and having to get her books in order before Mr Stebbins came by, she’d forgotten that it was her wedding anniversary on Friday. Well, it would have been had her husband still been alive.

  ‘That’s good of you, Patrick,’ she said, trying not to feel guilty that it hadn’t been the foremost thing on her mind.

  Patrick put down his knife and fork. ‘I wish I could.’

  ‘What?’ Mattie asked, spooning sugar into her brother’s mug.

  ‘Catch Brian at the bar later,’ he replied in a flat tone.

  Patrick and Brian had been friends since they were bare-footed youngsters sitting on the kerb. They still would be if it weren’t for Harry Tugman and his fellow thugs who rampaged through the town of Ramsgate just six weeks after Mattie and Brian were married. Brian had bled to death in Patrick’s arms and even now, three years later, whenever Patrick said his friend’s name, pain and guilt still echoed in his voice.

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. It seems like only yesterday me and Brian were strutting around in Moses Brothers buying our suits for the wedding. I still can’t believe he’s been gone almost three years.’ He picked up his cutlery again. ‘Forgive me, Mattie. I’m sorry. I know it’s worse for you.’

  It had been worse, but somewhere in the passing of time the pain had almost slipped away.

  ‘Well, it’s not as if I haven’t had things to keep me occupied,’ she said, sipping her tea. ‘What with running Maguire’s and raising Brian.’ She glanced at her son licking the butter off his fingers. ‘That’s enough to keep me from fretting.’

  Patrick squeezed her hand. ‘You’re so brave, Mattie, facing life alone.’

  It was true. She was alone but, for the moment, content to be so. She was only twenty-eight, hardly an old woman, and she hoped Patrick didn’t have the notion that she wouldn’t marry again if the right man came by. But then she hadn’t met anyone to take Brian’s place so it wasn’t worth arguing the point.

  She swallowed the last of her tea. ‘It’s been grand of you to drop by but I have to go,’ she said, squeezing her brother’s hand. ‘I have to see Mr Morris and then get back in time to log in the deliveries. After which I need to go over the accounts again before Mr Stebbins visits at the end of the week!’

  Queenie turned from the sink. ‘I don’t know what my Brian will say when he hears you’ve let the Fatman look over the books.’ She pulled a sour face. ‘His eyes have a mean, tight-fisted look about them.’

  ‘Oh, Queenie.’ Mattie laughed. ‘How can you say such a thing after he paid for the Sunday school’s summer tea?’

  Queenie tutted and, lifting one of Mattie’s shifts from the tub, wrung it between her hands. ‘I wouldn’t trust Mr Fatman as far as I could throw him. And at his poundage that wouldn’t be too far.’

  Mattie stood up. ‘You finish your breakfast, Pat, and tell Josie I’ll pop around as usual on Tuesday,’ she said, fetching her bonnet from the peg behind the door. ‘And give your three a kiss from me.’

  ‘Alright, Matt. I’ll keep this fellow company for a bit.’ He grinned at Brian, who grinned back.

  ‘I’ll be back in a while, Queenie, and we’ll go to Watney Street to get a bit of something for tea,’ Mattie said, setting her bonnet on squarely and tying the ribbon to one side.

  ‘Perhaps we can find ourselves a nice bit of fish,’ Queenie replied, throwing another piece of washing in the rinsing bucket. ‘You know how Brian likes a bit of poached haddock.’

  Pain flitted across Patrick’s face again at the mention of his best friend and Mattie wondered if it wasn’t time for her brother to let the grief of Brian’s death slip away, too.

  Mattie headed off towards the Highway, the main thoroughfare that ran parallel to the river. From before dawn until well into the night a constant stream of drays carried goods from the docks to the city, their iron-rimmed wheels churning the horse droppings and rotting vegetation into pungent slurry as they went.

  Both sides of the road were lined with shops selling all kinds of wares from spades, rope and hard tack in Petersen & Sons, ship’s chandlers, to African masks, strutting ostriches and roaring lions in Jamrach’s Animal Emporium.

  Mattie joined the throng of women with children clutching their skirts and baskets on their hips, making their way to the early markets. She squeezed past deep coils of rope and barrels of pitch outside shipwrights and only just avoided becoming tangled in clothes hanging from the awnings of the second-hand clothes merchant.

  As she turned into Medland Street, she could see Morris’s large front gate. Although her bonnet hadn’t budged an inch during her fifteen minute walk, Mattie patted it in place, squared her shoulders and continued into the yard. The tarry smell of a thousand tonnes of coal tingled in her nose as she crunched her way over the grit on the path between the mountains of black heaped either side.

  As she drew near to the yard office at the far end of the enclosure, she caught sight of Ginger Conner, Sam Wooten and Taffy Roberts, three of Morris’s drivers, who were well known in the local pubs, mainly for being thrown out of them. They were dressed in baggy-kneed, coal-stained trousers and heavy canvas sleeveless jerkins, with half-opened jute sacks on their heads to protect their necks and shoulders from the razor-sharp coal they hauled all day. They had yet to start work but their faces were already black as minstrels.

  She had hoped that by now the delivery men would be out on their rounds. As she approached, they turned and ran their eyes slowly over her. Resisting the urge to fiddle with her bonnet again, Mattie fixed her eyes on the office door and walked across the yard.

  Ginger stood away from the wall he’d been lounging against and took the pipe from his mouth. ‘You’re a bit of an early bird ain’t you, sweet’art?’ he said, with a leer creeping across his face.

/>   ‘And a very pretty one, too,’ Taffy added, stepping closer so that he loomed over her and fixed his eyes on her breasts.

  ‘I’ve come to see Mr Morris,’ she told them, hoping none of them could hear the quiver in her voice or the pounding of her heart.

  Sam Wooten placed a coal-blackened hand on his chest and glanced at his fellow drivers. ‘Oh, Bejebus, and there I was thinking that the darling girly had come down because she’d been dreaming of me, lads,’ he said, in an exaggerated Irish accent. Taffy and Ginger snorted. Sam lent forward, his breath floating across Mattie’s cheek in the cold morning air. ‘I’ll tell you this, Mrs M, I’ve had one or two dreams about you meself.’ He adjusted the front of his trousers.

  Despite the queasy feeling in her stomach Mattie held Sam’s gaze. ‘Will you step aside, please?’

  He blew a stream of smoke out of the corner of his mouth. ‘You can squeeze by,’ he winked. ‘Give me something else to dream about.’

  The door behind them opened and Mr Morris stepped out. The owner of the yard was a squat man with a cigar clenched in his teeth, a shiny bald head and a beard as thick as a hedge. He was dressed in a smart brown suit but, unfortunately, like his drivers and the rest of the yard it too was covered in a fine coating of dark dust.

  He gave the men a sharp look and their leering expressions vanished. They stood up straight.

  ‘There’s today’s rounds,’ he said, thrusting several sheets of paper into their hands. ‘Get a bloody shift on. I don’t pay you to stand around yapping.’

  The three men touched their foreheads and left.

  Mr Morris snatched the cigar from his mouth. ‘I hope they weren’t annoying you, Mrs Maguire.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Mattie replied, knowing that any complaint would only result in her getting a late or wrong delivery.

  ‘Come in,’ Mr Morris stood back to let her pass. ‘Take a seat.’

  His office was a larger version of her own, with a desk at one end, shelves full of accounts books, empty sacks against the wall and, in the far corner, a set of weights and a large brass weighing-scale that was probably as tall she was.