‘Celebrate?’ The young Martha felt a terrible pull inside. Instinct. An immediate physical warning.
‘Josef has the most marvellous news. Now – where is it? That single malt I set aside.’
The icy blue eyes were wide now, trying still to reach out to Martha whose wave of foreboding was getting worse and worse as her father explained the news. The change of events, so completely unexpected and for Martha so devastating.
Supper was unbearable – Martha’s distress stretched to the point of nausea as she picked at the chicken salad Margaret had left prepared for them. She tried cutting the chicken into tiny pieces but still found the texture too dense. Chewing and chewing but unable to swallow.
She did not go to him that night, needing time to think what on earth to say, and was still awake, her curtains drawn so that she could see the stars, when he crept into her room.
He sat on the edge of her bed, silent, as in her head she traced the shape of a constellation – just as her mother had taught her.
‘So,’ she was whispering, still staring at the stars. ‘It’s Russia for Josef Karpati after all.’
19
Ironically, it was Sarah’s fault really. The stripping. She meant well – so keen to stop Martha’s apparent self-harming in Millrose Mount, trying all sorts of things to break the cycle. Hold a cube of ice in your hand, Martha. It will give you a release when things overwhelm you here. The same high – something to dilute the stress without hurting yourself. I’ll leave a flask of ice for you.
To pacify Sarah, Martha had squeezed the ice in her hand as directed then tried crunching it in her mouth but neither helped. For what Sarah had not understood was the real motivation. Though Martha did suffer genuine despair in Millrose Mount, she never truly wanted to hurt herself. Stealing cutlery to fake self-harm wasn’t a cry for help either. It was a calculated means to an end. A cue to a stint in isolation.
For Sarah did not work the night shifts, to see how bad things really got in Millrose. Martha was still afraid on the wards in the dark. And though she worried about Sarah’s warnings that her behaviour would only make her records and her situation worse, she continued to believe the isolation wing was the safest place. It had been run by the same little team of staff for years – not especially caring, but at least indifferent, which was the better of the bad hands. No threat. They peered through the viewing hatches of the single units regularly. They provided meals. They played chess and cards and gossiped. For the most part they simply left the patients alone, which suited Martha just fine.
And so, when Sarah was off-shift , Martha came up with a new scheme to earn herself a few days on ‘special watch’ in isolation. It came to her suddenly on an especially humid summer’s day. Nakedness. Something she could choose when it all became too much.
The shock and anger of the older nurse on ward duty made it all the more delicious and she was soon precisely where she wanted to be. Back in isolation, but without the sore arms.
The only problem was the knock-on effect to the knitting. Some of the crueller staff threatened that if she continued to strip off and make a nuisance of herself, they would never let her knit again.
This, Martha realised, would be unbearable. For sitting with Sarah in the dayroom, click-clicking away, had become a little window of sunlight in the whole dark experience. She went into this strange zone when she was knitting. Maybe it was the rhythm. Maybe it was the sense of creating something. But it became a really special and peaceful place, which helped Martha to cope.
‘It quite worries me how much I love this,’ she told Sarah one day. ‘I’m very frightened they will stop it.’
‘I won’t let that happen, Martha.’
‘I was wandering around yesterday, trying to keep away from Mylo. The guy who thinks I have cigarettes?’
‘I’ve reported that he bothers you, Martha. I don’t know what else I can do when I’m off-shift.’
‘It’s OK. He doesn’t like walking much so I always shake him off now. I went to the main reception area with all the portraits. And there was this big picture of Samuel Cribbs, the man who designed this place. Weird picture. His eyes follow you whichever way you turn. Bit like some of the staff.’
Sarah smiled, offering Martha a new ball of wool from her bag.
‘Anyway, one of the women on my ward said he was murdered. That he haunts the place.’
‘Oh for goodness’ sake, Martha. I don’t think this is a very good topic of conversation. Murder and ghosts. I thought we had agreed to try to stay positive. Talk about the future. About getting you out of here.’
This had become the key strand of their conversations. Sarah’s determination to help Martha. To persuade her to behave. Toe the line while Sarah demanded a review of her case. But the problem was the hierarchy. Nursing staff at Millrose technically had very little role or influence in patient treatment. They were there to deliver drugs, to do the doctors’ bidding, to supervise and to break up fights. Sarah’s pleas for Martha’s case to be reviewed had so far fallen on deaf ears. She wasn’t even allowed to see her case notes.
But now Sarah was suddenly looking around her and leaning in closer to whisper. ‘OK. So I have something to tell you, Martha, but it’s an absolute secret and I need to be sure that you won’t tell anyone else. Not even when you’re cross. Or stressed.’
Martha stopped knitting and turned to look at Sarah more closely.
‘I’ve been in touch with someone I think can help you, but it has to stay between us. OK?’
‘OK.’ Martha could now feel her heartbeat increasing, acknowledging the surge of the one thing she still feared as much as she desired. The hope, the dream, the very possibility of… getting out.
‘There’s a doctor coming here secretly to talk to you and some of the other patients. I think he can help. But you are going to have to talk properly to him, Martha. About what happened when they brought you here.’
Martha turned away to gaze out of the window. For a moment she watched a bird gliding from one tree to another. She watched the clouds drifting. She watched the bird swoop again. Then she closed her eyes.
‘I know this makes you stressed, Martha. I know you don’t like me to ask. That it’s hard. But I need you to talk to him about what really happened. Can you do this for me? Please, Martha.’
20
Josef and Martha’s final night together was unbearably bittersweet.
‘I don’t want us to argue, Josef.’
‘So – let me speak to your father, Martha. If we just explain— ’
‘No, Josef. You don’t know him like I know him. He will go all out to ruin you, if he finds out about us.’
‘I don’t understand this. And I am not afraid of him.’ Josef was at first determined to persuade Martha to follow his plan. To say no to the invitation to the Moscow State Orchestra and instead to stay in England – officially or unofficially.
‘Why would he want to ruin me? When I explain how I feel. That I love you. That I want to look after you. Why would he want to ruin me?’
‘Because I am so young and he will feel betrayed… by both of us. Also – he will be very, very jealous.’
‘Jealous? I am not understanding.’
Martha could not find the words to explain either, but she knew it to be true. That her father would not accept her being closer to Josef and his extraordinary talent than he was.
‘I can stay here and take care of you.’
‘How, Josef? When my father throws you out?’
‘I will work. Teach music. Work in a café. Anything.’
‘And you are sure that will even be possible? That the authorities will allow it? That Moscow will just shrug this off? I have no money of my own, Josef. None at all.’ Martha had just finished school with vague plans to be a teacher but nothing had yet been organised. She had not secured a place at college. Was still undecided.
‘So we run away. We get jobs. To be together. Say yes, Martha. Just say yes to this. We
can do this.’
‘No, Josef. It won’t work. You will have to give up the music and you will end up hating me.’
‘You are mad. I could never be hating you.’
She had turned then to face him, pulling the sheet around her shoulder, fighting the maelstrom of emotions bubbling up within her. Fear. Love. Longing. Despair.
Martha was already a little late with her period, but there was no way she would tell Josef this now. She wasn’t particularly worried, assuming it was all the stress. It had happened before when she was worried about exams. It would come to nothing.
Martha closed her eyes and remembered him playing – that first time in the rehearsal hall and later in the conservatory. That extraordinary look on Josef’s face as he reached for the cello, carefully positioning the neck on his left shoulder. His eyes changing. On that other planet that her mother had spoken of.
‘This is what you have been working towards your whole life, Josef. This invitation to join the Moscow State Orchestra – as their soloist. You simply cannot turn this down. I won’t let you.’
Josef said nothing for a moment. Looked away.
Martha stood up, the sheet still wrapped around her, and opened the curtains wider. Her bedroom was not overlooked and had a wonderful view of treetops from the distant park beneath the clear night sky. Ever since she was little, Martha liked to sleep with the curtains open so that she could trace the shapes of the constellations as her mother had taught her.
‘You can’t say no, Josef. It’s not even an invitation really, is it? It’s what you’ve always dreamed of. Say no to this and you will be wondering for the rest of your life what you might have become. And one day, you will look at me and you will wonder if you did the right thing. Giving it up for me.’
‘No. Never.’
‘I won’t let you do it, Josef. I would rather follow you. Come to Russia to be with you. Once you’ve made a name for yourself. Once you have some influence and can make that happen for us.’ Even as she said it, the idea frightened Martha but she tried not to show this in her voice. To be with Josef, she would do anything. Maybe she could teach English in Russia?
‘Your father would never allow it, Martha. And Russia. It’s not what you imagine. It’s a very different kind of life.’
‘But I would be happy just to be with you. I don’t mind where.’
Josef was silent for a while, his face tense, and so she linked each of their hands, stroking the back of his with her fingers – ever so gently.
‘Admit it. It’s a better plan than you working in a café here – with my father trying to get you deported.’
‘I’m scared, Martha.’ Josef closed his eyes, his brow tense. ‘I’m scared it won’t happen. You won’t come. You will meet someone else. That if I leave, something will…’
‘Never, Josef. I don’t want anyone else.’
‘Then let’s not wait. Let’s run away. Be together now.’
Martha loosened her right hand to put her finger over his lips then, until he again opened his eyes. ‘No more arguing, Josef. Please, let’s stop this. You need to say yes to Moscow. Which means you will leave tomorrow. This is our last night for a while. Don’t let’s argue any more. Please.’
‘And you will really do this for me? Follow me? Come to Russia when I can organise it? You promise me?’ He had cupped her face in his hands, his eyes burning into her. Frightened eyes. ‘Say that you promise.’
‘Yes. I promise you.’ Martha meant it.
And that is when she told him – that since her mother’s death she had felt as if the air around her was somehow all wrong. As if she couldn’t quite breathe it in properly. The air never quite reaching her lungs.
‘I didn’t breathe properly until I met you, Josef.’ She was staring into his face. ‘It was as if I was waiting – but I didn’t know what for.’
Josef tilted his head. He kissed her fingers. Then her forehead. And then they made love entirely differently. Very slowly. Not with the urgency which normally overtook them both but with this almost unbearable tenderness because neither of them wanted it to end.
Afterwards they were silent for a time, Martha trying to hide how difficult it was not to cry, and he wrapped his arms around her so that they could both see the window. By way of distraction, she pointed out the constellations – how to find the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper and the North Star, just as her mother had taught her. She was shocked that he did not know how to do this, making him promise something also – that, while apart, they would each look up to the night sky and do this. To trace the constellations to find the North Star.
A connection. Yes. Their small and secret thing – until they could be together again.
21
The speed with which Martha’s life unravelled after Josef’s departure left her in a permanent state of dazed disbelief.
Some nights she would look up at the stars in shock – just a month ago… Just two months ago… Just three…
Everything moved too fast. No space to breathe. To think. And no time to find a way to get a message to Josef.
Once the appalling truth hit home, that her period was not running late because of stress, Martha had nowhere to turn. In desperation she confided eventually in Margaret, begging for secrecy and advice, but to no avail. Margaret immediately told her father.
Martha was both horrified and terrified, clinging to the hope he would eventually get over the anger sufficiently to support her. He did not.
The extremity of his rage shook her. In a series of shouting matches, Martha at first point blank refused to say who the father was, guessing that Charles would try to ruin Josef’s career. But the visiting ensemble were inevitably first suspects and so to distract her father from this Martha eventually came up with a story – saying she had been secretly meeting a local young man who had promised to marry her but had since disappeared.
She was very quickly sent in disgrace to stay with a great-aunt in the country, where she imagined she would have the child. Find some way to get word to Josef?
But – no.
Just before the baby was due, a car was sent to collect her. Martha imagined she would be going home. That her father had, thank heavens, experienced some change of heart. She had been under virtual house arrest, not allowed to send any letters while away, and began now to hope there might, at last, be some way of fixing this. Correspondence from Josef at home? A chance finally to get word to him?
But the car did not take her home. Instead they drove two hours along the coast to a place she had never heard of. Aylesborough-on-sea. Her destination was a large, three-storey Edwardian terrace on the outskirts of town with a distant sea view.
Inside, staff very quickly explained Martha’s new circumstance. It had all been arranged by her father. The property in a smart and quiet residential area had been converted into a home for single mothers run by a charity. Martha was very lucky to get a place. We are here to help you.
It didn’t feel like it.
If disapproval had a smell, this house reeked of it. The staff were religious. Practical. Curt. Disapproving. It was run with military precision, and from the off Martha was warned that sticking to the house rules and daily schedules was non-negotiable.
Martha was to share a dormitory with three other girls – Peggy, Eunice and Alice – although Alice was clearly a made-up name because often when Martha called to her, she didn’t respond. Forgot, apparently, to pretend.
Martha’s one hope in all of this was that, being in the same terrible boat, the girls would at least be able to help each other. Buoy each other’s spirits. Come up with some grand plan together. But she learned very fast that they were not in the same boat at all.
Giving up Josef’s child had simply never occurred to Martha. From the earliest flutterings in her belly to the clear kicks and turns as she watched the bump in amazement in the bath at her great-aunt’s home, she had fallen in love with this child.
More than anything, she wished
she could rewind. Listen to Josef. Follow his plan to run away. But she still absolutely assumed she would find a way to work this out. And so, as time passed and the bump grew and grew, she would whisper to the baby about the life that lay ahead for them. Once she found some way to get word to Josef. Arrange for them to go to Russia. She knew that this would all be a shock for Josef; far from ideal. But she knew too, with absolute certainty, that he would love this child as much as she did.
What appalled Martha – a dark and oppressive cloud forever overhead – was that all babies born at the home were presumed available for adoption. And Alice, along with some of the other girls, couldn’t wait to hand theirs over. They even told Martha that they didn’t want to stay the six weeks that was allowed after the birth, but the staff in charge of the place said they had to be patient. The families and paperwork took time. Six weeks was the way they all liked it.
Later Martha heard whisperings that this protocol was really to make sure that the babies were healthy. That there were no disabilities. Problems didn’t always show up at first, apparently, and the new parents didn’t want a disabled baby.
She also heard the staff muttering about ‘removals’ and at first wondered what on earth they meant. Three removals today. Busy. Beds? Chairs? Tables? What?
But no. All too soon she learnt it was the appalling term for a handover day. The adoption itself. New parents coming to collect.
She watched the girls packing up the babies’ things and wondered how on earth they could bear it. How some of them seemed so accepting – even relieved – while others cried and cried and cried as they silently folded things. Vests and nappies. Bonnets and booties.
From the start Martha was clear. She told everyone – the other girls and all of the staff – that this wasn’t going to happen in her case. She was going to keep her baby. Her plan all hinged on somehow persuading her father to change his mind. Allow her and the baby home. Then she would find some way to secretly get in touch with Josef. Russia, however different and difficult, was better than the alternative life here. They would get married and they would somehow work it out.
Last Kiss Goodnight Page 10
