The Deserter's Daughter

by Susanna Bavin

  Her hands unclenched and rubbed up and down her thighs in time with the dull thump of her heart – then she stopped. She mustn’t rumple her wedding dress.

  But if Billy had jilted her—

  Her mouth went dry, her pulse wild as panic poured through her veins. Her insides felt loose and trembly. She met Evadne’s gaze. Evadne looked like the queen of winter, cheekbones high and sharp, her lips a tight line of fury. How could she be angry with Pa? Pa had thought the world of her, and never mind that she wasn’t his own flesh and blood. Being dad to a Baxter had meant something to him. How dare she turn on him?

  But looking into the depths of Evadne’s clever hazel eyes, Carrie saw – she saw fear, and her breath caught. She was frightened too. Now that the terrible truth about Pa had been revealed, they would never be able to hold up their heads again.

  Shame pulsated in the air around her, so strong she could inhale it. Beneath the usual warm scents of herbs and pastry, it smelt of … vinegar. No, that was stupid. And yet there it was. Yes, of course – Mam had cleaned the windows that afternoon, one of her regular Thursday jobs, and the crisp aroma of diluted vinegar lingered in the air.

  What was she doing, thinking about windows and vinegar at a time like this? A time like this? As if there had ever been such a time. The wedding was off – or so Evadne said – and Pa, dear Pa, such a devoted family man, Pa was … he was—

  He was a deserter. He hadn’t copped it going over the top like hundreds of thousands of others, including four of their own men and boys from Wilton Lane. He had been shot by his own side. Blindfolded, he had stood in front of a firing squad and paid the penalty for his desertion. Pa – a deserter. Dear, lovely Pa. Was he still dear, lovely Pa now that they knew this shocking, shameful thing about him?

  The door squeaked open and Carrie’s heart twitched at the sight of Mam, looking fragile and – and old. How had that happened? In the space of – what? An hour? – the fine lines about her eyes and mouth had become deeply gouged. Sinking into a chair at the table, she doubled over as if in the grip of a violent bellyache and gave way to another bout of weeping. Carrie reached out a comforting hand, but Mam’s shoulder heaved so violently it bounced straight off.

  ‘Try not to cry. I’ll put the kettle on.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Evadne cut in, her voice thick with unspent tears. ‘A pot of tea will solve all our problems.’

  Mam reared up, smearing the heels of her hands over her face. ‘I’m sorry. I never meant anybody to know. I’ve hoped and prayed every day for it to stay hidden. I wanted to protect you.’

  ‘If you’d wanted to protect me,’ Evadne flared, ‘you should have told me the truth so I could have found a new job a hundred miles away.’

  ‘Evadne!’ Mam cried.

  ‘There’s precious little hope of that now. Teaching posts are being given to men who served their country.’

  Silence rattled round the kitchen. Muscles jumped beneath Carrie’s skin. Men who served. Not like Pa, who had betrayed king and country, his family, everything he stood for. She felt battered from all sides. She had loved Pa. Was she still allowed to love him? Did she still want to? And what about Billy? She clutched her elbows, shivering like a sick dog.

  ‘How did you manage to keep it secret all this time?’ Evadne sounded weary, disbelieving.

  ‘I didn’t know, not to start with.’

  ‘Wait.’

  Evadne got up and crossed the kitchen to close the window, as though listeners might have sneaked into their backyard. Mellow sunshine spilt through the sparkling panes, painting golden rectangles on the beech dresser and turning the red floor tiles to garnet.

  Evadne resumed her seat. ‘Go on.’

  Mam’s lip trembled. ‘We got a telegram the same as everybody else. You saw it.’

  ‘Saw it?’ Evadne exclaimed. ‘We stuck it in the family Bible opposite the letter about my father. All this time I thought they were the same, two men dying for their country. I felt sorry for you, a soldier’s widow twice over.’

  Carrie willed her to shut up. ‘Tell us what happened.’

  Mam sucked in a breath. ‘Like I say, I never knew to start with. It were only when the pension stopped, about six months later. I thought it was a mistake and I was vexed. I thought: What a way to treat a soldier’s widow. I never imagined …’ Her voice trailed away, her eyes black with despair. ‘Then a letter came, saying I weren’t entitled to no pension. It wasn’t like getting a letter, not really. It were just a report of what had happened – hardly even that, just the bare bones. I didn’t even know it was desertion until Father Kelly said.’

  ‘They didn’t …’ Carrie had to clear her throat. ‘They didn’t tell you why Pa was … shot?’ The word crept out on a whisper. Uttering it was a betrayal.

  ‘No. Just that it’d happened. He’d been court-martialled and shot. Only they called it executed.’

  ‘It must have said more than that,’ said Evadne. ‘Where’s the letter now?’ She looked round, as if it might be sticking out from behind the clock.

  Something glinted deep in Mam’s eyes.

  ‘I burnt it. I knelt in the hearth and tore it into shreds, then I dropped the pieces one by one into the heart of the fire. I was so close I could smell my apron scorching. I stirred it up to a right old blaze and I kept on stirring until it felt like the skin was peeling off my face.’

  ‘Oh, Mam …’ Carrie whispered.

  ‘I realised none of his mates would know. Pa was injured a while before he died – do you remember?’

  ‘He shot himself in the thigh while he was cleaning his gun.’ Nostalgia swamped Carrie. Mam had said, ‘Daft bugger,’ and she and Letty had squealed with delighted laughter.

  ‘Trying to give himself a Blighty wound, more like,’ said Evadne.

  Carrie surged to her feet so suddenly she nearly toppled. ‘Stop it! It’s bad enough without you going on like that.’

  ‘Girls, girls!’ Mam was on her feet too, flapping her hands.

  Evadne shut her eyes, then opened them again. ‘What does Pa’s wound have to do with it?’

  Mam sat down with a bump. Tears spilt over and trailed down her face. Carrie’s heart ached for her. She sat down, pulling her chair closer to Mam’s, its feet scraping the floor tiles.

  Mam’s voice shook. ‘He were carted off to hospital, but it was bombed and they were evacuated. At the same time, his regiment went elsewhere. I don’t know the details. I had a letter from him, but he couldn’t say much because of the censor. When he returned to the front, he ended up with a different set of men; and they were the ones he was with when he … when he died.’

  ‘So you knew none of our local men would come home knowing the truth,’ said Evadne.

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Until now.’

  Mam shuddered so hard her teeth clicked. ‘Four years, four whole years. It’s an actual weight, you know, so heavy, right inside here.’ She pressed splayed fingers against her chest. ‘I’ve been so ashamed and frightened.’

  A spurt of tears and spittle showered Carrie in a fine mist, settling softly on her cheeks, then Mam was sobbing lustily. It lasted mere moments, halting as abruptly as it had started.

  Carrie reached out to draw her close. She smelt of soap and starch. Carrie kissed her hair. ‘You poor love.’ No wonder her grief had intensified a few months after Pa’s death.

  ‘It teks some people that way, Carrie love,’ Letty’s mam had explained. ‘It can tek a while for it to sink in. Your mam has just realised, I mean really realised, that your dad’s not coming home, God love him.’

  But it hadn’t been that at all. It had been the truth that had knocked her flat.

  ‘That’s why you went to work in the munitions at Trafford Park,’ said Evadne. ‘They paid good wages, so you could pretend some of the money was pension. That’s the truth, isn’t it?’

  Mam jerked upright and Carrie glared at her sister. Did she have to stick the knife in?

  ‘Be reasonabl
e, Evadne. Even if there had been a pension, Mam would still have needed to work. Widows do. I were just turned fourteen, so I wasn’t bringing much home; and you’d moved out long before then.’ She turned to Mam. ‘You were lucky to get the position with Mrs Randall when the munitions closed.’

  ‘Aye. Mrs Randall used to have two live-in staff and a daily before the war, but girls have got above themselves these days and she can’t get anyone to live in. Mind you, she is a bit of a tartar. And her brother, he slips me the odd half-crown now and then for services rendered.’

  Evadne shrieked. Carrie might have shrieked, too, only the breath had been sucked clean out of her body.

  ‘Not that kind of service,’ Mam snapped. ‘You should wash your mouths out with soap, the pair of you.’

  ‘We never said a word,’ Carrie protested.

  ‘You didn’t need to. For your information, I keep his stump clean and medicated. It still has him in bad ways after all this time.’

  Carrie slumped back in her chair. She couldn’t believe it. Pa was dead, a deserter, and here they were talking about Mrs Randall’s brother’s manky stump. Her heart contracted on a pang of yearning. Oh, Billy—

  ‘I’m going out.’ She was on her feet. She didn’t remember standing up, but here she was, on her feet. The skirt of her wedding dress swished.

  ‘You can’t,’ said Evadne.

  ‘You mustn’t,’ said Mam.

  Carrie blinked. ‘I have to see Billy.’

  ‘What for?’ Evadne demanded. ‘I told you. He’s called it off.’

  Answers flooded Carrie’s mind. You’re wrong, you’re mistaken, you’re lying. You were too shocked about Pa to listen properly. Billy would never leave me.

  ‘He should have waited to see me. I were only upstairs, for pity’s sake.’

  ‘Tek your dress off, love,’ said Mam. ‘We’ll have a cup of tea, eh?’

  Take her dress off. Yes. She mustn’t spoil it. But … but if Evadne was right about the wedding being called off – which she couldn’t be, but supposing she was – then Carrie might never put her dress on again. Distress swelled inside her, bubbling up towards the rim of her self-control. Her dress, stitched with love and hope in every seam.

  ‘I’m going to see Billy.’

  Mam came to her feet and grabbed her arm, yanking her round. Almost tipped off balance, Carrie snatched at the table, her hands slapping down. Her palms stung. Heat darted up her forearms.

  ‘You can’t,’ Mam insisted. ‘Word will have got round by now. We have to stop indoors.’

  ‘We can’t stay in for ever.’

  ‘You’re not going and that’s flat.’

  ‘That’s what’s happened to the china serving dish, isn’t it?’ said Evadne. ‘You took it to the pawn.’

  Carrie stared. What was she on about now?

  ‘I told you.’ Mam looked shifty. ‘I broke it. I dropped it.’

  ‘If you’d broken it, you’d have stuck it back together,’ Evadne retorted. ‘No, you pawned it.’

  ‘I needed the money.’

  ‘What else have you pawned? Only it wasn’t pawning, was it? People who pawn things redeem them and you never had any intention of doing that, did you?’

  ‘I always meant to get them back, but it were never possible.’

  ‘Them? What else have you got rid of?’

  ‘Just one or two bits, nowt special. The ashtray, the brass candlesticks. Nothing we needed.’

  The brass candlesticks? Carrie remembered them disappearing, remembered Mam claiming, ‘I’ve put them in Miss Reilly’s room. We’re lucky to have a nice lady lodger. We have to give her the best we can so she stays.’

  Evadne jumped up. ‘My God! If you’ve dared …’

  She swarmed from the kitchen and Carrie flinched as the parlour door banged open. The room was probably flinching too. Evadne came flying back into the kitchen, heat highlighting her fine cheekbones.

  ‘That barometer wasn’t yours to dispose of. It belonged to my father and that means it was mine.’

  She confronted Mam across the table. Carrie saw Mam shrink. Was she subsiding back onto the chair? No, she was shrivelling beneath Evadne’s wrath. Carrie made an instinctive move to put herself between them, but the table was in the way. Instead she gave Evadne a push, then had to stand her ground when Evadne’s glare ensnared her.

  ‘So Mam pawned the barometer – so what?’ Carrie flared. ‘She needed the money. What does it matter now?’

  Evadne cracked her hard across the face. The breath rasped in Carrie’s throat. Her hand flew to her cheek in disbelief. It felt as if she had been burnt. A whiff of the light flowery toilet water Evadne favoured hung in the air between them. Carrie stared at her sister and Evadne stared back, then she flung herself into the armchair, fingers pressed across her mouth.

  She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry – I’m sorry.’

  Carrie spun round, yearning for the comfort of her mother’s arms, but Mam shoved herself clear of the table, overturning the chair in her haste, and vanished before it stopped clattering.

  Chapter Four

  That afternoon the air had been as heavy as a sack of potatoes and even though it had now eased into the tranquil warmth of evening, the gate’s wooden planks and the bricks in the back wall were still packed with the day’s heat, and it bounced out at Carrie as she lifted the latch and slipped through to hasten along the entries. She often walked down the entries – there was nothing new in that – but it felt new, because she was consciously avoiding the streets. Was this how life would be lived in future, skulking through entries, never lifting her eyes beyond the tops of the yard walls in case someone was looking out of an upstairs window? Her vision narrowed, focused solely on the cinder path crackling underfoot and the walls to either side. Typical Manchester, Pa used to say of the distinctive red brick. Was it wrong to remember him as an ordinary person, living an ordinary life and saying ordinary things? Was it disrespectful to all those other soldiers?

  It couldn’t have taken long to reach Billy’s road, but it felt like for ever. Emerging from the entry, she stumbled to a halt, feeling exposed and vulnerable as if a crowd should have been watching for her. She longed for Billy to hold her while she wept for Pa, aye, and for Mam, too, clutching her dark secret to her through four desperate years.

  A woman was standing on her doorstep, chatting to a younger woman with a small child on her hip. They noticed her the same moment she saw them. Should she smile, nod, say hello? The women gave her a nod and her face heated as their conversation resumed, the way their heads tilted closer together telling her what their topic was. She could barely raise her eyes to fix them on Billy’s front door. It wasn’t more than a few yards, but it might as well have been miles. First she had to brave a couple of girls skipping in the road, one end of their tatty rope tied to a gas lamp.

  Raspberry, gooseberry, apple, jam tart

  Tell me the name of your sweetheart

  With an A, B …

  Then the girl turning the rope accelerated while her companion skipped pepper, both of them yelling the alphabet at top speed. On G, skipper and rope became hopelessly entangled.

  ‘G!’ the turner cried gleefully. ‘You’re gonna marry Gregory Wells!’

  ‘Am not!’

  ‘Are so!’

  A ghost of a smile fluttered across Carrie’s lips. She had skipped that rhyme herself many a time. You couldn’t stop on B, not without looking like you’d done it on purpose, but, by heck, it had been impossible, trying to keep going all the way to W.

  ‘Look, it’s Carrie. Tek an end for us, Carrie.’

  ‘Go on,’ wheedled the other. ‘The rope keeps slipping down’t lamp post.’

  ‘Sorry, not today.’

  ‘Eh, Carrie Jenkins, is it true?’

  ‘Is what true?’ What a pathetic thing to say.

  ‘About your dad. Margaret Harrison’s mam said Mrs Shipton said your dad never went over’t top. He were shot running away. He was a c
oward.’

  Anger, white-hot, scorched through Carrie. She stepped forward, a sharp movement that sent both girls scuttling backwards. ‘My dad weren’t a coward and don’t you dare say he was.’ She caught the scared looks on the pinched little faces and her heart froze in shame. ‘Just … don’t say it, that’s all.’

  She carried on walking. It was like being in a dream, the sort where you walked and walked but never arrived, even though your destination was right there in front of you. Then, with a shiver of surprise, she reached the Shiptons’ front gate. She rested her fingers on top of it. In Billy’s road, each house had a ‘front’, a small area boxed in by a low brick wall with a gate. It was nobbut a couple of steps from gate to door, but even so, a front gate was a front gate. It swung open without a squeak. Carrie lifted the knocker and executed a smart rat-tat that sounded braver than she felt.

  The door opened and Billy’s mother planted herself in the doorway. Carrie offered a tentative smile; she had always done her best to please Mrs Shipton.

  ‘Oh, it’s you.’

  ‘Good evening, Mrs Shipton. Can I speak to Billy, please?’

  ‘There’s nowt to be said. He’s done his duty by coming round to tell you.’

  ‘I didn’t see him. He told Evadne.’

  ‘Same difference.’

  Carrie lifted her chin. ‘I want to see him.’

  ‘Well, he doesn’t want to see you. Now clear off back where you came from.’

  Her stomach bubbled. ‘Not without seeing Billy. I have to. We’re getting wed Saturday.’

  ‘Not any more, you’re not. Didn’t that sister of yours pass on the message?’

  ‘You can’t leave something like that as a message.’

  Mrs Shipton’s jaw hardened. ‘Don’t take that tone with me, young lady.’