but I ain’t,’ she wheezed. ‘Ain’t you in pain every minute of the day, is it? Ain’t you stuck indoors most o’ the time ’cos it’s an ordeal just getting down the stairs to nip to the shop. I’m suffering something chronic, and though it ain’t all your fault I blame you fer a good part of what happened.’
‘I can’t be having this argument over and over again wid yer, Tilly.’ Reg’s defeated plea for a truce had thickened his Irish brogue.
‘If you’d been where yer should’ve been that night, I wouldn’t be in the state I’m in, would I? Deny it, can you?’
‘I can’t! I know it ... you know it!’ Reg’s voice again thundered at the ceiling. ‘But what can I do about it now?’ His hands balled into fists close to his contorted features. ‘Give over about it, woman. I can’t stand having it thrown in me fooking face a hundred times a day.’
‘You can’t stand it ’cos it makes you feel guilty.’ Tilly was using the wall as support, whilst teetering on her toes in an attempt to keep her weight forward and away from the ache in her back.
Two years ago she’d come out of hospital after a stay of five and a half months following a dreadful fall that had almost killed her. It had finished off the man who’d deliberately sent them both hurtling out of a first-floor window in Campbell Road to certain death, impaled on railings below. Jimmy Wild had expired almost instantly, but then he’d already been mortally wounded when he’d turned up, intending to take Matilda to hell with him. Despite several broken bones and an iron spike piercing her waist, Tilly had miraculously lived to tell the tale ... over and over again, according to Reg. And Reg had had a bellyful of hearing it.
Despite her extraordinary luck in having survived, eating away at Tilly like a cancer was the knowledge that if Reg, the man she’d hoped to marry shortly after that stormy summer evening, had done what he’d set out to do and fetched them home a couple of brown ales, she’d have completely escaped Jimmy Wild’s lethal malice. Jimmy had always been a coward when it came to a fair fight with a man; he would have crawled away to die alone had Reg been the one to open the door to him that night. But instead of joining her in a drink at home the selfish git had forgotten about her brown ales and gone to the Duke with a pal for a few whiskies.
‘You got to admit now, you let Jimmy in that night, Tilly. No point kidding yourself over it.’ Reg had edged closer to the door and casually manoeuvred a hand in readiness to yank it open. He felt sorry for Tilly, but not a lot more, and he knew pity wasn’t enough to keep him with her. At forty-nine she was a decade older than he was. Once the age gap had been unnoticeable – in fact at times he’d had trouble keeping up with her – but now she looked her age. The stiffness in her bones following the accident sometimes had her hobbling like a pensioner instead of sashaying about as she had a few years previously. She’d taken a few tumbles since she’d been out of hospital, which had set back her recovery, but she was too proud and stubborn to heed anybody’s warning to take things easy or accept help with her chores.
The good times had gone; the only passion the engaged couple now shared was during fights and arguments. She wasn’t even a drinking partner for him any more. She’d been a patient for a long time in a Spartan hospital, and enforced abstinence had curbed Tilly’s addiction to heavy drinking. To dull her aches and pains she’d down a few tots at home so she didn’t have to smarten up and drag herself out. But Reg considered himself still a young man. He needed a bit of a social life and a breath of fresh air outside of the stinking room on the first floor of the tenement house in Campbell Road that they called home. Reg knew he needed to get away from her, not only so he could calm down, but to decide whether he ever wanted to come back. If it took a bit of honest cruelty to cut himself free he was prepared to use it.
‘You brought a lot of this on yourself, Tilly. You’d known for years that Jimmy Wild was no good. You told me yourself he was an evil fooker. Yet you invited him in.’ Reg pointed accusingly at her. ‘You’re a stupid woman and you’ve got nobody to blame for the state you’re in but yourself. It’s time to face up to it.’
It was the first time Tilly had heard that from him and shock dropped her jaw. Usually Reg pinned the blame for her attempted murder squarely on Jimmy and recounted what he’d like to do to the bastard to pay him back, if only he could.
She whacked away his blunt finger quivering close to her nose. ‘I reckon you’re at fault and you’d better fucking face up to it!’ she suddenly roared, her blue eyes almost popping from her head in fury. ‘And if yer don’t like hearing the truth of it you know where the bleedin’ door is.’
‘Well, if you’ll move aside I’ll be out and leave you in peace.’
Matilda felt her guts tighten; he meant it this time. He wanted to go, not just to cool down, but for good. She flung back her auburn head, exposing silver wings close to her temples where her fiery locks were fading. For a moment she was close to capitulation and apology but her pride tilted up her chin an inch higher and she shifted aside. ‘Go on then, get out and good riddance.’ She limped back towards the wooden table, picked up her cold cup of tea and gulped at it. She didn’t even turn her head when she heard the door bang shut.
‘He’ll be back, Mum, when he’s had time to calm down.’
‘He won’t be back.’ Tilly’s dull eyes settled on the groceries her daughter Alice had tipped onto the table but she didn’t elaborate on how she knew she’d been abandoned.
She’d heard Reg creep in a few nights ago and gather together his meagre bits and pieces. She’d pretended to be asleep although an inner voice had been urging her to rear up haughtily onto an elbow and bawl at him to sling his hook. She’d lain there undecided before wearily concluding she’d no more stomach than he had for another slanging match. So she’d listened to his soft footfalls, and doors and drawers opening and closing, until the key had again grated in the lock and he’d taken himself off for good. As the tears had trickled to dampen her pillow she’d impatiently dashed them away, and with them the suspicions that, if she didn’t know deep down that he’d had a point when he’d put the blame on her, she’d have struggled up and flayed him with her tongue.
If only she’d locked the door and turned a deaf ear to Jimmy’s weasel pleading that night, two and a half years ago, she’d still be the Tilly of old: confident and bold, with the will and energy to turn her hand to anything to earn a few bob. Prior to that calamity she’d had a personal taste of Jimmy Wild’s brutality, yet she’d opened up to him and once more suffered the devastating consequences.
‘Did you remember to get the bread from Travis’s bakery? You know I only like his loaves.’ Matilda banished miserable memories to prod at a crusty Coburg, testing its freshness.
‘Yeah,’ Alice sighed. ‘Got it from Travis.’ She sat down at the table adjacent to her mother and plonked an elbow down, supporting her chin in a cupped palm. ‘D’you want to go for a walk today to get a bit of exercise? I haven’t got to be back till four o’clock. Josh is doing a late shift at Houndsditch warehouse and is indoors with the kids.’
About to snap she couldn’t be bothered Tilly gazed quietly at the cup between her palms. She knew she should get out instead of mouldering away inside, feeling sorry for herself, day after day. She gave her daughter a quirk of a smile and a jerky nod, accepting the invitation for an outing. Tilly knew she was fortunate to have daughters who put themselves out for her. But displaying her gratitude didn’t come easily, as Reg would have readily testified.
Having made a laborious descent of the rickety stairs, Alice assisting her mother every step of the way, the two women emerged on to Campbell Road into autumn sunlight. As though several neighbours had foreseen Matilda’s rare appearance they immediately converged on her. Beattie Evans abandoned her conversation with a friend and came straight over. Margaret Lovat diverted from her march to Smithie’s shop and headed her way too. Then Connie Whitton caught sight of Matilda, ceased trying to sweet-talk her rent collector into being lenient till next week, and trotted towards the group.
‘Look a mile better’n when I last saw you,’ Beattie