by Nancy Revell
Lily looked at Maisie. She knew for certain she was not destined for a life of domestic bliss. It was the reason she had been so keen to bring Maisie on board.
‘Well, Maisie, my advice to you, for what it’s worth,’ Lily said, ‘is that you need to find out either way, and quickly. For your own peace of mind, if nothing else.’
Chapter Eleven
Helen had, as usual, stayed back after the end of the shift and worked late.
Stepping out of her stuffy office and feeling the cool summer breeze on her face, she decided to walk home. Reaching the top of North Sands and turning right into Dame Dorothy Street, she continued along Harbour View, before turning left along the Upper Promenade. Halfway along, Helen stopped. Resting both hands on the stone balustrades, she gazed out to sea. Breathing in the fresh sea air, she forced herself to focus on the thin line where the twinkling North Sea merged with the light milky blue of the early-evening sky.
She purposely ignored the signs that the country was at war – the rolls of barbed wire and the scattering of half-buried landmines on the beaches below – just as she tried to ignore her own physical changes: her breasts had been sore and swollen for some time now, and her stomach looked flat, but was a little rounded and firm to the touch.
It was no good, though. Neither the reality of the surrounding landscape nor the changes in her body could be disregarded.
As Helen dragged her eyes away from the distant horizon and continued her walk home, her mind started to play a flickering newsreel of an alternative reality. One that could have been hers, if it hadn’t been for Theo and her mother.
She saw herself looking amazing in a designer dress that showed off her hourglass figure, her thick black hair pulled back into victory rolls, as she stood with the other shipyard bigwigs, overseeing the launch of SS Brutus. She was being congratulated by Mr Thompson himself for helping the yard hit an all-time tonnage record. He might even be telling her that she would be looking at a promotion. The first woman to ever hold such a position in any of the shipyards along the north-east coast, probably in the entire country. By her side was her father, looking so proud. Telling those who were shaking his hand that this gorgeous, successful woman standing next to him was his daughter.
But the make-believe newsreel suddenly snapped and started clicking round, the screen went white, the lights were switched back on and Helen saw a very different scene. Another future. One where she was lying in some maternity ward, huge as a whale, sweating, in agony, giving birth. There was no one else there, other than the doctor and the midwife. She was alone. And as she gave birth to her fatherless child, SS Brutus was being launched, its bulging metal hull slicing into the River Wear. Others taking credit for her hard work. Others celebrating the success of the yard and its new production record.
Glimpsing a preview of the weeks, months and years that followed, Helen forced herself to stop watching.
This was not a film she wanted to see.
‘Like mother like daughter!’
Helen opened the front door to hear her grandfather’s voice booming out from the front room.
‘Well, at least I made sure when I got in the family way that the father wasn’t married!’
Her mother’s voice was loud and acrimonious.
Helen quietly put her gas mask and handbag down on the hat and umbrella stand in the front porch.
‘I just don’t understand.’
It was her grandfather again.
‘I got rid of the blighter as soon as I found out his marital status – sent the lying toerag back down to Oxford.’
‘Well, clearly not soon enough!’
Helen could hear the mother opening up the drinks cabinet.
‘A case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted!’
Helen put a hand on the oak stand and steadied herself. She had been feeling a little light-headed anyway, but coming back to this had knocked her for six.
So, her grandfather was now aware of her condition.
‘Damn him!’ Mr Havelock banged the floor with his walking stick in anger. ‘Damn, damn, damn! I had such hopes for that girl!’
‘Only because she’s your only grandchild!’ There was the sound of a drink being poured. ‘Let’s be honest, Father, you’d probably be disowning her if you had a grandson to fawn over. That is, if you’d been able to produce your own son and heir.’
Helen heard her mother slam her glass down.
‘A legitimate one anyway!’
Helen expected her grandfather to become apoplectic with outrage that such an accusation even be thought, never mind spoken aloud, but there was nothing. Instead she heard her grandfather’s voice growl, ‘And you, my dear, would probably have chucked her out onto the streets without a second’s thought were you not petrified of the scandal that would undoubtedly ensue.’
There was an angry, silent stand-off for a few moments.
Helen could hear a match being lit, and assumed her grandfather was lighting his cigar, creating clouds of swirling smoke.
Finally, he sighed loudly and impatiently.
‘Enough backstabbing. We need to find a solution to this problem. Is there any way we can send her away for a while?’ he suggested. ‘What is it girls in Helen’s circumstances do – go away on some kind of prolonged holiday?’
‘It’s called taking the European tour.’ Miriam’s voice dripped with condescension. ‘It might have escaped your notice, Father dear, but we are actually at war. We can’t just pack her off to France or Italy – not unless she wants to jump ship and join Hitler and his band of merry madmen.’
Helen forced herself to take a deep breath. Her head was spinning.
‘Well, is there nowhere else we can send her?’
Helen could hear the exasperation in her grandfather’s voice.
‘It’s not that easy,’ Miriam snapped. ‘We can’t just get shot of her like you did dear Mama.’
Helen was puzzled. She couldn’t remember her grandmother being sent off anywhere, nor think why there would be a reason to ‘get shot’ of her.
‘What about your sister Margaret and that husband of hers, Angus? Couldn’t they have her until the time comes? They could even arrange the adoption?’
‘Ha!’ Miriam let out a loud, mirthless laugh. ‘I’m sure my sister and brother-in-law would just love that. They’ve spent their whole lives trying to have children, year after year of miscarriages and heartbreak – I’m sure they’re really going to want to have their pregnant niece living with them, only to then hand her baby over to some stranger.’
‘Perhaps,’ Mr Havelock’s voice rose with hope, ‘that’s the solution!’
Helen could hear that her grandfather was walking across the room by the gentle thud of his stick on the carpeted floor.
‘Margaret and Angus can pass the baby off as their own!’
‘Are you mad?!’ Now it was Miriam who was sounding at her wits’ end. ‘The pair of them are old enough to be grandparents! Besides, it wouldn’t take a genius to work out that the baby was Helen’s. The gossip would spread faster than wildfire.’
There was a moment’s quiet.
‘But even if Helen did agree to absent herself,’ Miriam said, ‘and go and live in the back of beyond until she gave birth, I’m not convinced she would be able to then give the baby away. I know my daughter. She may seem thick-skinned, but inside she’s just like her father – too sentimental for her own good.’
Helen suddenly felt herself well up. What she wouldn’t give to have her father here now.
‘I do, however, have an idea that Helen might go for,’ Miriam said.
Helen swallowed her tears.
‘Anything that might prevent dragging the Havelock name through the mire.’
Helen heard her grandfather ask for a drink of whisky.
There was silence and for a moment Helen thought that they knew she was there, earwigging.
‘Well, go on,’ Mr Havelock suddenly demanded. ‘What’s
this “idea”?’
Another pause.
Finally, Miriam spoke.
‘She gets rid of it.’
Helen stood for a moment. There was a weird buzzing sound in her ears and her vision was suddenly filled with tiny, sparkling flecks.
She steadied herself for a moment, before tiptoeing over to the front door, quickly opening it and then slamming it shut.
‘I’m home!’ she shouted out.
Walking into the hallway, she turned her head in surprise, as though she’d had no idea that her mother and grandfather were in the living room.
‘Gosh, you both gave me a surprise there! Hello Grandfather … Mother.’
Both faces smiled back at Helen, trying hard not to show their shock at her sudden arrival, nor their slight guilt from having been talking about her behind her back.
‘I’m absolutely shattered,’ Helen said. ‘Not stopped all day, so I’m just going to get myself straight to bed.’
Helen made her way up to the top floor – to the sanctuary of her bedroom.
Shutting the door firmly behind her, she leant heavily against it. The words of her mother still hammering in her head.
‘She gets rid of it.’
Chapter Twelve
Three days later
Friday 10 July
‘Bel!’ Maisie shouted out.
She had been on her way to the Holme Café to meet her sister and was surprised to see her coming out of the Labour Exchange in the town centre.
‘Maisie,’ Bel said, hurrying over.
The pair gave each other a quick hug.
‘What on earth were you doing there? You’re not thinking of joining up, are you?’ Maisie laughed. ‘Or getting some kind of wretched war work in some God-awful munitions factory?’
Bel laughed; a little too loudly, Maisie thought.
‘I spotted an old friend going in there and went to say hello,’ Bel said.
Maisie looked at her sister and knew she was lying.
‘Where’s Lucille?’ Bel asked.
‘I took her back to Tatham Street. But don’t worry,’ Maisie said, seeing the instant look of concern that had appeared on her sister’s face, ‘there’s nothing wrong. Far from it. I bought her a comic and a bag of marbles and she was more than happy to swap sitting with us two in a café getting bored for playing marbles in the backyard with Joe.’
‘Why doesn’t that surprise me?’ Bel said. ‘She is such a daddy’s girl.’
Maisie noted that Bel was now not only allowing her daughter to call Joe ‘Daddy’, but also seemed happy to call him that herself.
‘Seeing as we don’t have little LuLu in tow, I thought we’d be decadent,’ Maisie said, taking her sister’s arm and turning her in the opposite direction. ‘Forget tea and cake – I want to treat us to a drink in the Grand.’ She didn’t give Bel a chance to agree to the change of plan, but instead pulled her gently in the direction of Bridge Street.
‘Are you sure?’ Bel said. ‘I’m not exactly dressed for somewhere like the Grand.’
Maisie looked at her sister, who had her best summer dress on and a perfectly made-up face, while her blonde hair looked like it had just been washed and set.
‘Actually, I’d disagree. I do believe that you’ve made quite an effort today.’ Maisie gave her sister a quizzical look.
‘Well, I thought I’d smarten myself up for a change,’ Bel said.
Another lie, Maisie thought.
‘Any reason for your sudden urge to be “decadent”?’ Bel asked, changing the subject.
‘Does one have to have a reason?’ Maisie laughed. This time it was Maisie who was lying.
‘I’ll have a gin and tonic, please,’ Maisie told the waitress once they were settled in their plush cushioned armchairs in the reception lounge of the Grand.
Bel thought that the young girl taking their order had done a good job at masking her surprise at seeing someone of mixed race in the town’s most exclusive hotel.
‘Yes, I’ll have the same, please,’ Bel said, looking at the waitress. Sometimes Bel felt the urge to shock people and refer to Maisie as her sister, just to see the look on their curious faces.
‘So,’ Maisie said, as the waitress hurried off, ‘are we to be hearing the pitter-patter of little feet any time soon?’
‘No. I’m afraid not,’ Bel said simply. Her sister was the only one who ever asked her outright if she had managed to fall.
‘It’ll happen, you’ll see,’ Maisie said, squeezing her sister’s hand. ‘Anyway, how’s that mother of ours? Is she behaving herself?’
‘Amazingly so,’ Bel said. ‘Actually, I’ve not seen that much of her really. She spends just about all her time at the Tatham. She’s more or less running the place with Bill.’
They both thanked the waitress as she put their drinks down on the table.
‘Do you think Ma’s sussed out that Bill wants them to have more than a working relationship yet?’ Maisie asked.
‘Still no idea,’ Bel said.
‘You’d think someone who’s had her fair share of men,’ Maisie lowered her voice, ‘would know when a bloke has the hots for her.’
‘I know,’ Bel agreed. ‘But I think Ronald – you know, the one who Ma’s always scabbing fags and whisky from?’
‘The one lives out the back?’
Bel nodded. ‘Well, he seems pretty determined to win Ma over, and to be honest I think he’s more her type.’
Maisie pulled a face. ‘Honestly, I don’t understand that woman. Bill’s much nicer. He might have a bit of a paunch on him and is lacking in the hair department, but he seems like a really decent bloke.’
‘Perhaps that’s the problem,’ Bel mused. ‘Ma’s always gone for the Ronalds of this world.’
‘Shame,’ Maisie said, taking a sip of her drink and spotting two rich, middle-aged women, both done up to the nines, swagger into the hotel as if they owned the place.
‘So,’ Maisie took another sip of her drink, ‘we’ve not really had a chance to talk about your “walk” with Ma. I think this is the first time we’ve actually managed to have a chat, just the two of us.’
‘I know,’ Bel agreed, a little distractedly. She had also just noticed the two women, who were now being greeted by a couple of Admiralty officers.
‘I wanted to apologise,’ Maisie said, as her sister continued to eyeball the women.
‘What for?’ Bel asked.
‘For saying I had checked out everyone living along Glen Path.’ Maisie dropped her voice.
Bel brought her attention back to Maisie. ‘Don’t worry. Ma said she’d asked you not to … that she wanted to tell me herself … you know … rather than me guessing or finding out from anyone else.’
Relieved that her sister wasn’t harbouring any resentment, Maisie knew the time was right to find out what she really needed to know.
‘So,’ Maisie said, looking at her sister, ‘I’m guessing Ma finally told you?’
‘Told me what?’ Bel’s attention had wandered back over to the two rich women who were now sitting at the bar with the high-ranking naval officers in their white uniforms.
Maisie leant towards her sister, trying to bring her attention back to their conversation.
‘About who your father is,’ Maisie whispered into Bel’s ear.
‘Yes, yes, she did,’ Bel said, distractedly.
‘So?’ Maisie’s heart was pounding. Finally, the moment of truth was here. Was her Glen Path client Bel’s father, or not?
‘What do you mean, “So”?’ Bel asked, perplexed.
‘So, who is he?’ Maisie asked, exasperated.
Bel looked at her sister.
‘It’s a bit complicated.’
‘What do you mean, “it’s a bit complicated”? Did Ma actually tell you who he is?’
Bel nodded.
‘And?’
‘And,’ Bel’s attention had been pulled back to the two women, ‘I’m not sure if Ma would want me to go broad-casting
it.’
Maisie expelled air.
‘I’m hardly going to announce it on the bloomin’ BBC Home News, am I?’ Maisie tried hard to keep calm. How difficult could this be? She just needed a name. She was resolute: she was not leaving until she had her answer. She signalled over to the waitress that they wanted the same again.
‘Bel, you seem distracted. What’s caught your interest? I hope it’s not some man in uniform?’ she joked.
‘No, it’s that woman over there. Don’t stare.’
Maisie pretended to be looking for the waitress, whilst clocking the two women.
‘Do you know them?’ She nodded over in their direction.
‘One of them,’ Bel said, conspiratorially. ‘The loud, blonde one.’
‘So, who is she?’ Maisie asked.
Bel looked at her sister.
‘You’re not going to believe me.’
Bel paused.
‘Go on. Don’t keep me in suspense,’ Maisie cajoled.
‘Well,’ Bel said. ‘That’s my sister.’
‘God, you could have knocked me down with a feather,’ Maisie said to Vivian.
It was late and all the clients had gone. The two friends were on their own in the kitchen, drinking tea.
‘So, Bel’s father is Mr Havelock?’ Vivian couldn’t keep the astonishment out of her voice. ‘But, he’s like royalty in these parts.’
‘I know, Viv. I do read the papers as well.’ Maisie shifted about uncomfortably in her chair. ‘All the more reason why you can never, ever utter a word about this to anyone.’
‘Maisie, if you can’t trust me, who can you trust?’
‘I mean, you couldn’t have made it up.’ Maisie took a sip of her tea. ‘There’s me plotting and planning to get Bel on her own so that I could finally find out who her father is and hopefully put myself out of my misery – and then in struts Bel’s sister.’
‘Half-sister,’ Vivian said. ‘Same father, different mother.’
