After the Funeral

by Gillian Poucher

  My head is aching. I need to rest, to prepare myself for the journey to Norfolk tomorrow.

  I have never felt so alone.

  6 October 1943

  I cannot think how I will endure the months here until the baby is born. The farmhouse is dark and oppressive with its small windows, low beamed ceilings and sparse furniture. It lies in the shadow of a ruined abbey. I walked there this afternoon when there was a break in the rain which has fallen steadily since I left home yesterday morning. Winifred lent me a voluminous navy mackintosh not only because of the rain but also, she said, to hide ‘my condition.’ It is hardly perceptible even to me, but I saw no point in arguing.

  I did not see Father or Ada before I left home. Needless to say, I had no wish to see my sister, but I longed to take my leave of Father. Mother told me over an early breakfast that he was resting before his morning meeting and that I should not disturb him. She was unmoved by my protests that I must say goodbye to him, saying that my news had come as a great shock to him and he needed to rest. There was something odd in her expression, and picturing how he had sagged at my revelation, how he has aged in these last months, I asked anxiously if he were quite well.

  Her hand was trembling as she lifted the earthenware teapot but her voice was crisp as she pointed out that some fathers would not offer their daughters a home in the circumstances. It was only later that I realised she had evaded my question about Father’s health.

  I could not, I cannot believe that Father condemns me, because he is always so understanding and forgiving. He wanted us to keep Florrie on but gave way in face of Mother’s insistence that to do so would suggest he condoned ‘immorality’ and ‘set a poor example to the parish.’ I am more sorry than he will ever know that I have caused him so much trouble, and it took all my strength to remain composed and not rush into his room before I left.

  Mother stepped back into the hall when I moved forward to kiss her cheek when the taxi arrived. She closed the door without so much as a wave.

  In the taxi, overwhelmed with misery and anxiety, I deflected the driver’s attempts at conversation. My heart sank when he told me he had another passenger for Lincoln station. It sank even further when we pulled in along the High Street to pick up William Prescott in his army uniform, evidently returning to service after a few days’ leave. I know he is a friend of Leonard’s but I have never warmed to him. With his ginger hair and moustache and pointed face he has always put me in mind of a fox. I was in no mood for small talk, but thought that I should make an effort, so he would not suspect anything amiss. So I greeted him politely, asking if he had enjoyed his leave. He said he had, but with a sly smile added that he had missed Leonard.

  I smiled non-committally, looking out of the window as a tractor rumbled by. I had scarcely thought about Leonard all summer. I recalled the jibe I had made to Ada, and her threat. No matter how much I reason she won’t harm me by disclosing my secret because of the shame to our parents, I am still uneasy.

  I didn’t like his appraising look, and pulled my coat more tightly around me as he commented how well I looked, and how I seemed to have grown up since the last time he saw me at the church bazaar. My heart beat faster as the memory flooded back: Ray’s hand enclosing mine on the table of the children’s clothing stall, Mother approaching from one side, William Prescott from the other. I bent my head, making a pretence of checking my handbag. I was glad I hadn’t braided my hair which fell forwards to hide my burning cheeks.

  He asked where I was going as the driver turned the windscreen wiper on. I told him that I was going to help my mother’s sick cousin near Walsingham, the story Mother had concocted.

  My heart thumped hard against my ribcage when he remarked on the coincidence that his grandmother also lives in Walsingham. He wrote down her address for me, urging me to call on her during my visit. I closed my eyes, overtaken by dizziness as the cathedral came into view on our left. He leaned over me, placing a small freckled hand on my knee, asking if I were all right. I moved away, lying that I don’t travel well in the back of cars. The baby fluttered and I fought back the impulse to place my hand on my stomach.

  Mercifully we drew into the station then. As soon as I was out of the taxi and William had disappeared into the crowd I dropped the paper with his grandmother’s address on to the ground.

  On the slow train journey through the rain swept fens towards Kings Lynn I thought for the first time about the difficulties of the deception planned by Mother. How is it going to be possible to pass the baby off as Winifred’s? As to my own feelings about giving up my baby, Ray’s child, the pain is more than I can bear. I try to tell myself that my grief for Ray, which I am quite sure will remain with me throughout my life, would be worsened by the constant reminder that his child would bring. I shut out the voice that says a child would offer some comfort, something of him still left in this world.

  I was slow-witted from the shock of discovering my pregnancy, the speed of my despatch from home and the unfortunate meeting with William Prescott. I was no nearer a solution regarding the details of the plan when Thomas collected me at Kings Lynn and drove me to the farm. He was silent throughout the journey, which seemed interminable. I felt as if we travelled for miles along the narrow lanes banked high with hedges through the unrelenting drizzle.

  Winifred, though, has thought everything through, as I discovered when she came to my room this morning, waking me from a deep but unrefreshing sleep. She and Thomas barely spoke during supper last night, and I was too exhausted and apprehensive to attempt conversation. I wondered if they regretted their offer to help me and raise the child as their own. I know now from Winifred that she certainly does not.

  She picked up the rosary beads from the bedside table and began to talk about ‘God working in mysterious ways.’ She confided how she has prayed fervently for a child throughout her marriage and never given up. Her wide blue eyes gleamed in her broad weather-beaten face. I made a move to get out of bed, but she pushed me back, urging me to rest and saying she would bring me tea.

  But she made no move to fetch the tea. I sank back against the pillows as she went on about how Mother’s phone call was the answer to her prayers. I froze as she moved the blankets back, uncovering me, looking greedily at my stomach beneath my white nightdress, asking ‘Has it quickened yet?’

  ‘Quickened?’

  ‘Have you felt the baby move?’

  On cue the child fluttered in my womb. I nodded. ‘Can I touch?’ Without waiting for my answer, Winifred placed her hand on my stomach. I willed the baby to stay still, but it moved again, and Winifred felt it. Her face broke into another moony smile. ‘Praise God!’ she said, clasping her hands together and closing her eyes. ‘And praise Mary, Mother of God!’

  Her reference to Mary reminded me again of the sun illuminating the Madonna in St Edith’s church that morning with Ray, the sunbeam in the garden when I realised I was pregnant two long days ago. I had felt blessed then.

  Now here I was, sent away from home in disgrace, to have my baby with strangers, to leave him or her with them. I turned my head away on the pillow, trying to hide my bitter tears from Winifred. She misunderstood the source of my sorrow, and placed her large work roughened hand on my shoulder, reassuring me that ‘the Lord forgives the penitent.’

  But I am not penitent. This child was conceived in love, and I do not believe that love was sin, whatever everyone around me says. And yet – to lose my child after bringing it to birth? Could there be any greater punishment?

  Worse followed as she told me she would deliver the baby without any help from a doctor, confident because she and Thomas have delivered ‘scores of calves.’ She pointed out we wouldn’t want a doctor in case ‘my sin’ were made known around the village. She believes it will be easy enough to pass the baby off as hers. She said she and Thomas live quietly, without many visitors, and laughed about how she wouldn’t be the first woman to think she’d reached ‘the change of life’ only to be proved wro
ng by the arrival of a child.

  Then she said, threading the rosary beads through her plump fingers, that she will be sorry to miss church. ‘Still, He is always with us, isn’t He, and Mary, the blessed Mother?’ Her wide eyes shone and she seemed to look beyond me as she went on, ‘And to think I too will soon be a mother!’

  Beneath the blankets I clenched my fists. I closed my eyes and she leaned forward, patting my shoulder, apologising for tiring me and urging me to rest again.

  And at last she was gone, leaving me alone with my bitter thoughts. After breakfast I returned here, explaining I was still tired after yesterday’s journey. Apart from the brief walk around the ruined abbey, deserted on a damp October afternoon, its gloomy atmosphere matching my mood, I have kept to my room most of the day.

  I am exhausted, drained, and more miserable than I have ever known. Even writing in here no longer helps. I do not know how I will go on.

  –  CHAPTER 22  –

  ‘Julia. I’m so glad you came.’ Linda extended a bony hand above a colourful patchwork quilt.

  Julia paused on the threshold of the spacious bedroom, disoriented to realise she was in the room engulfed in flames in her nightmare. She approached the double bed and took the slender hand. Linda’s head had been shaved for surgery. Without her usual vibrant make up, her eyes were sunken pools in her white face, her lips pale. Her pallor was deepened by her blue and green checked pyjamas. Julia suspected she might have passed her on the street without recognising her.

  Julia swallowed, still reeling from the revelations in her mother’s diary. She had so many questions. But where should she start? The priest, who had shown her in and brought her up to Linda’s room without a word, had moved across to the window. He had his back to them, his shoulders rigid in his black jacket.

  She began with the obvious. ‘How are you feeling?’

  Linda managed a wan smile. ‘Not so sick today,’ she said. ‘I slept well. It helped, knowing you were near.’ She licked her dry lips. ‘Would you pour me some water?’

  ‘Of course.’ Julia poured water from the glass jug on the bedside table into a blue plastic beaker. She passed it to Linda, whose hand was shaking as she raised the cup and took a few sips.

  ‘That’s better.’ The sick woman handed the beaker back to Julia. ‘And how are you, Julia? You’ve read the diary?’ Her brown eyes searched the younger woman’s face.

  Julia nodded, suddenly unable to speak. She had read the diary through the night, falling into a fitful doze towards dawn. She recalled jumbled dreams of churches, fires and planes. She had woken after barely two hours, too wired to go back to sleep. After a quick shower she’d skipped breakfast and driven straight over.

  Linda reached out her hand again, and Julia took it. ‘I know it must have been a terrible shock to you. I was waiting for the right time to tell you. I promised Mother I would delay telling you until you were in a better place. She knew how upset you would be when she died, and she’d been so worried about you after Greg left. I took the diary from her cottage a few days after she died. Her neighbour saw me. Did she mention it?’

  Julia nodded, a lump in her throat as she realised how Emily had tried to protect her, even when she knew she was dying. And Linda too. But the thought of them discussing her together made her uncomfortable. She had struggled not to withdraw her hand when Linda referred to ‘Mother.’

  The sick woman continued, ‘Then I found out about the tumour, just after my exhibition. That was why I was having those terrible headaches – you remember how I was at Giuseppe’s? And not knowing how long I’ve got, if I will get better…’ She closed her eyes briefly.

  Julia dashed away a tear from the corner of her eye. Linda’s grip on her wrist tightened.

  ‘Don’t cry on my account, Julia. I found Mother, and Father…’

  Julia frowned, puzzled about the mention of ‘Father’ and cringing at the second reference to ‘Mother.’ But she didn’t interrupt.

  ‘… and you and James. If only I could see…’ Linda broke off. Then she too was crying. Julia leaned forward and held her to her, this half-sister she hadn’t known existed until a few hours previously.

  ‘You can see her,’ she whispered. ‘She’s coming. Your daughter is coming today, Linda. My friend is driving her.’

  Linda gasped as the priest turned from the window and came towards the bed. Julia saw that he too was brushing away tears.

  ‘She agreed to come? Father told me you’ve found her. It’s a miracle, isn’t it?’ The sick woman’s eyes were luminous in her white face.

  Julia brushed away a few more tears. ‘She’s longing to meet you.’

  Linda held her other hand out to the priest. ‘Did you hear, Father?’

  The old man stooped and clasped Linda to him. Julia’s heart beat faster. Of course. Not ‘Father’ the priest. Why hadn’t she realised? The Canadian accent, the blue eyes which had captivated Emily so long ago still startling, undimmed by old age.

  ‘You’re Ray?’ She stared at him. His shoulders were shaking and he made no effort to stop the tears which streamed down his lined face. He nodded, in his turn incapable of speech.

  ‘Why didn’t you go back for her? She thought you were dead!’ Julia was trying not to shout at the old man, but her voice had risen, and both he and Linda flinched.

  He disentangled himself from Linda, held up his hand and took some deep breaths. When he had composed himself, he explained, his voice hoarse: ‘I did go back. My plane went down over Dresden. I bailed out just in time, before the fire…’ He raised his hands to his lined forehead and shuddered. ‘I was taken prisoner. As soon as I was released, I made my way back to Scampton.’

  He paused and began to pace between the bed and the window. He didn’t look at either woman, staring down at the wooden floor beneath his feet, as if the rest of his story were written there.

  ‘I saw Ada in front of the church. She was placing flowers on your grandfather’s grave. He had died just a few months after I was there. I offered my condolences. And of course I asked where Emily was.’ He broke off again, a muscle twitching in his cheek. ‘And Ada told me she was married to Leonard, to your father. She made it clear I should leave and not return. Like a fool, that is what I did.’

  Julia didn’t understand. ‘Like a fool?’

  The priest sighed, a long drawn out sigh which conveyed sixty years of regret and sorrow. ‘Ada lied,’ he said quietly. ‘Emily hadn’t married Leonard then. They were only engaged. They didn’t marry until six months after my visit.’

  He fell silent. Linda coughed. Julia automatically passed her the beaker of water. The sick woman’s gulps sounded unnaturally loud in the hushed room.

  ‘So that’s what Ada’s final words meant,’ said Julia eventually. ‘When she said, “I never told her he was alive.” She never told Mother you’d come back.’ She thought back to what she had read in the diary. ‘But she was so jealous of Leonard’s interest in Mother. If she had told her you were alive, if you and Mother had married, that would have left Leonard free. Wasn’t there a chance he might have married Ada?’

  Ray shook his head. ‘I doubt that very much. I suspect that Ada wouldn’t have married him anyway, knowing she was his second choice after Emily. You can tell from the diary that he already admired Emily, preferred her to Ada, even if Emily didn’t want to admit it that summer.’

  ‘Yes. And Ada threatened Mother too, didn’t she?’ Julia remembered Emily’s diary entry about Ada bringing the suitcase to her room for her journey to Norfolk. ‘She said Mother would regret taunting her about Leonard when it was obvious Mother was getting back at Ada for her self-righteousness and total lack of empathy for her falling pregnant.’

  ‘ “Lack of empathy” is a very modern phrase,’ said Ray quietly. ‘Maybe there was an element of revenge in Ada’s deception. But in fairness to your aunt,’ his mouth tightened, and Julia suspected he was struggling to be charitable towards Ada, ‘remember that times were very
different then. You know from the diary how badly Ada and your maternal grandmother reacted to Emily’s pregnancy. My reappearance would inevitably lead to the secret of Linda’s birth being discovered. It would be a scandal to people in the village, people whose good opinion mattered so much to your aunt and grandmother. I believe that in those few moments when your aunt saw me approach she calculated it was better for Emily’s wedding to Leonard to go ahead. She probably saw it as saving the family’s reputation.’

  He stopped pacing, and held his head in his trembling hands. ‘I was much to blame of course. I should never – but the fear that I might not return – and the connection we had, and she was so beautiful…’ He sank to his knees beside the bed, burying his head in the patchwork quilt, overcome by shuddering sobs. Linda stroked his white hair as if she were soothing a small child, tears rolling silently down her pale face.

  It was a moment before Julia spoke, struggling with a mixture of emotions: pity for this man who had been so tragically deprived of a woman’s love, mingled with discomfort that that woman had been her mother, who had gone on to marry another man, her own father. But the truth needed to be spoken.

  ‘My mother loved you,’ she said slowly. ‘Just as you loved her.’

  Silence followed, broken only by the sound of the old man weeping.

  After he had recovered, he moved round the foot of the bed to Julia, cupping her chin with his hand so that she was forced to look into his eyes. He bit his lip. His voice shook as he said, ‘From what your mother told Linda, you may rest assured that she did love your father. Differently to me, but she did love him.’

  ‘She did, Julia,’ Linda affirmed from the bed. ‘She told me he proposed to her in a letter he sent from his ship when he was serving in the Pacific. It was the year after I was born. She said what a good man Leonard was, how proud she was to be his wife.’