Never Look Back by Lesley Pearse Page A

could go to Finders Court just so all the neighbours would stare at her. But she didn’t dare disobey her father.
    She took her time, looking in shop windows as she went, more to admire her appearance in the reflection of the glass than from interest in the goods on display. It was almost five as she approached St Joseph’s Church, or Holy Joe’s as everyone she knew called it. Her father was there already, sitting on a bench outside. The church was bordering on the notorious SevenDials district, an area of the very worst tenements and rookeries, far more dangerous and squalid than Rosemary Lane, but she supposed he’d chosen to meet her here in the leafy sanctuary of the churchyard because the roads which led to it were wide and comparatively safe. She broke into a run to greet him and he got up to hold out his arms as he did when she was small.
    ‘Well, don’t you look a picture!’ he said once he’d disengaged himself from her fierce embrace. ‘I can see they are feeding you well, you look so bonny.’
    He smelled strongly of the river, that curious oily scent which she’d scarcely noticed when she was at home.
    ‘Had a bit of an accident this mornin’,’ he said as he saw her looking down in surprise at his damp trousers and squelching boots. ‘Damn fool Lascar sailor, been on the opium pipe I shouldn’t wonder. He asked me to catch up with ’is ship what left ’alf an hour since in Wapping. I nearly killed meself to get ’im to it. Then just as I was pulling alongside, and ’is mates is throwing down one of them rope ladders from the side, he jumps up like a madman and topples the boat over.’
    Matilda laughed. A day on the river was never without incident and such stories were once the best part of her day. ‘But you’re dry up ’ere,’ she said, touching his shirt and waistcoat – he wasn’t wearing his usual pilot’s coat.
    ‘I went ’ome and changed that part,’ he laughed. ‘A fine fool I looked too, soaked to the skin. Who’d want to get in a waterman’s boat wif ’im looking like that?’
    ‘What ’appened to the Lascar, did you leave ’im to drown?’ she giggled.
    ‘He scrambled up the side of the ship like a monkey,’ Lucas said. ’Good job I got his fare before we set off!’
    ‘’Ow’s business bin?’ she said, then, remembering Lily’s lessons, she repeated it correctly. ‘How has business been, Father?’
    Lucas spluttered with laughter and offered her his arm in an exaggerated gesture of gallantry. ‘Just dandy, my fine young lady. Now, shall we find a suitable seat for quality folk?’
    They found another bench in a secluded part of the graveyard. It seemed the police must have just done their rounds because there was no sign of the usual beggars and tramps curled up asleep in the bushes.
    Matilda told him all her news in one long and excited monologue, her speech fluctuating between her old manner and the one her new mistress was training her to use. It took Lucas back to when Nell used to report on what the Captain ate for his dinner, who he entertained and how much wine they drank. For she too used to see-saw between her country girl’s speech and the way she heard English spoken in the Captain’s house. It was a jolt hearing Matilda speak of such things as sheets on her bed. Until now Lucas had forgotten that luxury Nell had introduced him to – she had grieved more about the loss of her bed linen than anything else after the fire.
    ‘Madam says I am to have a bath every week on Saturdays,’ she ended up, her eyes as big as mill-stones. ‘Every week, Father! I won’t have any skin left in a few months.’
    Lucas laughed. Nell had been one for baths when they lived in Aldgate. One of his sweetest memories was coming in from the river one night and finding her half-asleep in it, all pink and rosy and sweet-smelling. He’d wanted to make love to her immediately, but she insisted he had to get into the water first. She’d washed him from head to foot