Meet Me Under the Clock

by Annie Murray

  Ted Whitehouse walked into all this a short time later. Pauline had come down, her lips seeming glued together, and was going through the motions of making everyone’s tea, slamming saucepans down as if she was trying to kill ants in the process. She hardly seemed to know what she was doing, and no one dared say a word to her. Sylvia hung around the kitchen, staying close to Audrey, as she couldn’t think what else to do.

  Their dad walked in the back door, his coat speckled with snowflakes, holding a bicycle pump. He took in the overwrought household, his wife’s angry thumping about and Audrey’s tear-stained face. Sylvia gazed beseechingly at him.

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’ he asked with caution, clinging to the bicycle pump. He nodded at Audrey. ‘What’s she doing here?’

  Audrey looked up at him desperately, said, ‘Oh, Dad, I’m so sorry!’ and burst into tears all over again. Mom cut into a potato as if it were someone’s neck. She laid the knife down suddenly, put her hands over her face and, in a distraught voice, cried, ‘Oh, I don’t know what’s happening to this family!’

  Sylvia realized that Dad was looking to her, as the only other almost dry-eyed person in the room, for an explanation

  ‘Audrey’s in a bit of bother, Dad,’ Sylvia said, just in case this was not obvious.

  ‘Right,’ he said. He laid the bicycle pump on the table. ‘Let’s get to the bottom of all this. Come in the front, with me and your mother.’

  ‘I want Sylv there as well,’ Audrey insisted. Sylvia was touched by the way Audrey had latched onto her. She couldn’t seem to face their parents on her own.

  It seemed the right thing to go to the front room; it added a solemn note. Dad hadn’t even taken off his coat. The snow was melting into dark spots. Their mother stood with her arms folded, as if holding herself together. Sylvia could feel waves of strong, fearsome emotion coming from her, and that was the worst thing of all. It made her quake inside. What on earth had happened to Mom? She was rough and ready in some ways, but she was usually kind. They all stood in the front room until Ted said, ‘Well, sit down, for goodness’ sake.’

  As they moved to their chairs, Sylvia glanced at her sister and saw for the first time the slight bulge of her belly and a thrill of horrified wonder went through her.

  ‘Well, what’s going on?’ Dad demanded.

  ‘Are you going to tell him, Audrey – or shall I?’ Mom said, her voice coming out in hammer-blows. ‘Half the street’ll know soon, so you’d better let your father in on it.’

  Audrey looked down into her lap. Sylvia’s heart was pounding. From the side-table the photograph of herself and Audrey as dark-eyed little girls looked across at them, both grinning. She felt a sudden acute pang of grief.

  Audrey stood up suddenly, pulled out the edges of her cardigan and stood sideways on to her father. ‘There you are, Dad.’

  Ted looked at her as if she’d gone mad. ‘What’re you doing?’ Though her belly was a bit enlarged, it was not big enough for it to be immediately obvious what she meant.

  ‘The wench is in whelp, Ted.’ Pauline’s voice lashed the room.

  ‘Can’t you see?’ Audrey’s voice was harsh as well. ‘I thought it was going to be obvious to the whole street, like Mom says. I’m having a baby, Dad. I’m just about four months gone. I’m not married, and I’ve been kicked out by the Air Force. I’m soiled goods – see?’ She tried to stick her front out even more.

  ‘Sit down and stop that,’ Mom said furiously. ‘Anyone’d think you were proud of the fact, you little hussy.’

  ‘Oh, hussy, is it?’ Audrey fizzed into fury. ‘Call me a hussy, when you’ve not asked me what happened . . .’

  ‘What happened?’ Mom was losing her temper. If her daughters had known it, she was now sounding exactly as she’d vowed she never wanted to – just like her own mother. Sylvia cringed, listening to her. ‘What d’yer mean, what happened? Unless you’re different from any other woman since Adam and Eve, it’s pretty obvious what’s happened! You dirty girl: you’re a disgrace, that’s what you are – you with all yer lip. Now see where it’s got us all; another mouth to feed and a bastard child on the way.’

  Sylvia began to cry then. It was horrible hearing Mom talking like that, so rough and cruel.

  ‘Pauline, knock it off!’ Dad commanded. Sylvia realized to her astonishment that her father was close to tears. This was almost more upsetting than anything. ‘For God’s sake, woman, how’s that going to help?’

  ‘Well, is he going to marry you?’ Mom started off again.

  There was a silence. Even the clock seemed to tick louder in agitation.

  ‘No,’ Audrey said. ‘He can’t.’

  ‘Why, love?’ Dad asked, holding out a warning arm in Mom’s direction to stem her outraged flow.

  Audrey looked round at them, sullen and bitter. ‘Because he’s already married to someone else.’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ Mom erupted. ‘You mean you didn’t even trouble yerself to find out beforehand?’

  Ted shook his head, wringing his hands. He unbuttoned his coat suddenly and threw it off, onto a spare chair.

  ‘So that’s it,’ he said, somehow seeming reassured. ‘You were taken in by some Joe sweet-talking you . . .’

  ‘Well, how does that make it any better?’ Mom was launching into a speech when Audrey almost shouted over her.

  ‘No. It wasn’t like you think!’ Sylvia saw her sister’s stubborn, perverse pride reassert itself. Audrey was perched angrily on the edge of her chair. ‘I knew he was married. I just liked him, that’s all.’ She stared defiantly back into their confused and appalled faces.

  ‘Jack?’ Sylvia tapped on his bedroom door. Her brother was, as usual, at the little table in his room, wrapped in a rug and doing his homework, his hair rumpled from running his hands through it. He looked up at her with troubled eyes. ‘Tea’s ready.’

  ‘What’s going on, Sylv?’ He closed his book. ‘I heard Mom shouting. What’s up with Audrey – what’s she done?’

  Sylvia sat down on the bed. She breathed in deep. ‘Audrey’s . . .’ She found herself blushing in front of her almost, but not quite (at fourteen), man of a brother. ‘She’s going to have a baby, Jack.’

  Jack’s face moved in various directions, from being close to laughter, to incredulity, and finally to something like horror. He pushed his chair out and leaned over, staring at the floor. Eventually he said, ‘Is she getting married then?’

  ‘No.’

  He looked up, frowning. ‘Why not? That’s what women have to do, isn’t it, if they get into trouble?’

  Sylvia felt anger flicker into life within her. She felt passionately protective of Audrey. Her reaction surprised her. She might have expected to be glad to see Audrey taken down a peg. But this was too serious for that. She knew her sister – she may have been difficult and hard to live with sometimes, but she was no fool. It wasn’t only Audrey who was to blame. And just when she needed Mom to be kind, she had turned into someone they hardly recognized. It was all frightening and horrible.

  ‘The man who is the father is already married,’ she said bitterly. ‘So obviously he’s not in trouble.’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘Yes, I do. You automatically think it’s all Audrey’s fault.’

  ‘No . . .’ he said wavering. ‘But it is, in a way, isn’t it? You can’t just go having a baby without being married. I mean, what are we going to tell everyone? I can’t tell my friends, or have them round here, if she’s – well, like that.’

  Sylvia got up, so enraged that she wanted to hit Jack, even though she saw that he was right in a way. It was a disgrace. Everyone would be gossiping and pointing the finger at Audrey as a loose, fallen women. She could just imagine some of Jack’s snooty grammar-school friends making jokes about Audrey in their donkeylike, just-broken voices. It would all be seen as Audrey’s fault. It was grossly unfair.

  ‘Well, Jack.’ She stood over him, gripping her hands together. She wa
s trembling with emotion. ‘You can decide where you stand, can’t you? Are you going to put your friends – and what they might say – first, or are you going to look out for your sister?’

  Jack flushed red. ‘Women aren’t supposed to behave like that,’ he said mutinously.

  Sylvia clenched her hands even more tightly to stop herself giving him a good slapping as her temper boiled over.

  ‘What the hell would you know about it?’ she yelled. ‘Now, come and have your sodding tea and treat Audrey properly – right?’

  Forty-One

  ‘Sylv, come up with me?’ Audrey whispered in the hall after they had eaten a silent, excruciating meal, with no one able to look each other in the face. Sylvia felt sick and had to force her food down.

  ‘I’ll be up,’ Sylvia said. She gripped Audrey’s fingers for a moment. ‘I’d better help Mom with the washing-up, or she’ll create.’

  But when she went into the kitchen she was greeted by the words, ‘Just get out of my sight – all of you,’ uttered from her mother’s hunched figure by the sink. Pauline didn’t even turn round to see whom she was speaking to.

  Sylvia didn’t know what was more upsetting: the way Mom was acting, or Audrey vowing she was going to give away the baby. She crept upstairs. Show-tunes were jazzing out of the wireless in the back room. Dad must be trying to drown it all out.

  She tapped on Audrey’s door and found her lying on the bed. She wasn’t crying, just lying there staring towards the window.

  ‘This room reminds me of Kitty,’ Sylvia said, closing the door and going to sit on the edge of the bed.

  Audrey grimaced. ‘I was right about her, wasn’t I?’

  ‘You were. More than right.’

  ‘I don’t know why. It wasn’t something I could have described, exactly. Just something about her – as if she had bad bits in her, like a potato. You couldn’t seem to see it.’

  ‘But, Audrey,’ Sylvia said, tearful again suddenly, ‘if you could see that, why couldn’t you see it with this man? The . . .’ She nodded towards Audrey’s stomach. ‘The father – what was his name?’

  ‘Oh, him,’ Audrey said lightly. She put on an arch, dismissive tone. ‘It doesn’t matter about him, or what his name is. I shan’t be seeing him again.’

  ‘Did he lie to you?’

  Audrey considered. ‘Not exactly. Someone else told me he was married. He just never said.’

  ‘That’s lying.’ Sylvia took her shoes off and curled up on the bed. Audrey drew her legs up for a moment to let her sit back against the wall. Sylvia felt so sorry for Audrey, but she was also somehow happy that her sister wanted her company, in a way that she never had before. She liked the feeling of being close and confiding.

  ‘I s’pose it is,’ Audrey agreed. She obviously didn’t want to talk about him much.

  ‘Were you in love with him?’ Sylvia asked sympathetically.

  ‘I liked him a bit, that’s all,’ Audrey said. She spoke lightly, almost mockingly. ‘Look, I don’t really want to talk about him. It’s over.’

  Sylvia stared at her. ‘I don’t understand you,’ she said carefully. ‘If you weren’t in love with him – really in love – why did you go with him? Like that, I mean?’

  Audrey sighed and shifted onto her left side. Sylvia looked at her sister’s long, pale face and the curve of her dark brows, and thought how lovely she was – and now how vulnerable. She felt another surge of tender protectiveness towards her. ‘Well, I suppose I just wanted to get it over with. Find out what it was all about. You know: have an adventure.’

  ‘But a baby! Audrey, you’re having a baby!’ Her exasperation shifted to wonder. She didn’t want to talk about what Audrey was planning to do afterwards. ‘God, I can’t imagine it. How does it feel?’

  ‘It’s been awful.’ Audrey’s face crumpled again.

  ‘Oh, sis . . .’ Sylvia reached out and they held hands across the counterpane.

  ‘I couldn’t tell anyone,’ Audrey said through her tears. ‘At first I thought I’d just caught some lurgy. I kept feeling sick – and I was sick a few times. The work on the site is so hard; some days I got up and thought: I can’t, I just can’t go out there and do it, feeling like this. But I couldn’t keep reporting sick. I felt as if I was living in a nightmare and one day I’d wake up. I was so ashamed, and I knew someone would guess sooner or later, but at the same time I couldn’t let myself believe what had happened. Even if he hadn’t been married, I was posted miles away from him by then. He doesn’t even know. What would be the point? He’s got a child already. So I just kept telling myself to keep going. I fainted a couple of times. The sick bit stopped after a few weeks, so that was better. It was so strange, though, because I kept frantically thinking of ways I could get rid of it. Some of the girls talked about remedies, you know – I wasn’t the first WAAF to catch for a baby, by a long way. One girl had left Cardington just before I did, so there was talk . . . And I kept thinking of jumping off things, and what I could do to get rid of it. But then every time anything came near me, I was placing my arm across my belly and thinking: Don’t hurt me. Don’t hurt the baby! And at the same time as all that, I couldn’t really believe there was a baby at all.’

  Sylvia listened, full of sympathy. ‘I don’t know how you managed.’

  ‘I’ve never felt more exhausted in my life. And the worst of it was not being able to tell anyone.’

  ‘But what happened? Did you tell them in the end?’

  ‘Someone guessed. One of the other girls. She didn’t report me, she just said, “Audrey, sooner or later you’re going to have to tell someone.” She was quite kind really.’

  ‘So you did?’

  ‘I did.’ There was a bitter pause. ‘And that was the end of the WAAF for me.’ She started crying then, in a sad, bereft way, which wrung Sylvia’s heart. ‘I can’t get over how stupid I’ve been,’ she said as the tears ran down her cheeks. ‘I loved the WAAF – it’s the best thing I’ve ever done – and now it’s all over; at least, if I’m stuck with this thing. I know it’s a baby really. But I don’t want it – I don’t! I just want to go back and get on with my life.’

  ‘Would they have you back – after, I mean?’ Sylvia said.

  Audrey avoided her eyes. ‘If I get rid of it. Probably.’

  This seemed too terrible to think about. ‘But what if . . . I mean, if someone looked after it?’

  Audrey gave a harsh laugh. ‘What, like Mom, you mean?’

  For a moment this had entered Sylvia’s head. She felt like offering to do it herself, but it looked impossible and overwhelming. ‘Oh, Audrey.’

  ‘What a mug, eh?’ She shifted again, as if uncomfortable, and they loosed hands. ‘We’re quite a pair, you and me. I’m just going to have to take what comes for now – all the tittle-tattle. I can hardly pretend I’m a war widow round here, can I? I’ll just have to brave it out. And then when it’s over . . .’ Sylvia saw her trying to harden her feelings, but instead her eyes filled with tears. ‘Well, I’ll be rid of it, won’t I?’

  Sylvia stared at her, thinking how brave Audrey was, but at the same time she was horrified by her. How could she think of giving her baby away? Would Mom make her do it? It seemed so cruel and unnatural.

  ‘What about you?’ Audrey said, wiping her eyes. ‘Are you feeling any better – about Ian?’

  It was Sylvia’s turn to sigh. ‘Yes, well . . . If I think about it all, I can still get worked up. It’s not even Ian I’m bothered about now, not really. I miss him in a way, but what really upsets me is being deceived. I think Kitty hurt me even more than he did.’

  ‘Silly bitch!’

  Sylvia could not deny this.

  ‘But something else has happened.’ She looked down shyly.

  Audrey lifted her head, looking momentarily mischievous. ‘Are those red cheeks I see? Come on, Sylv: who is he? Do I know him?’

  ‘You do.’ She looked up, a smile breaking over her face. ‘It’s . . . well, it’s Laurie.’<
br />
  Audrey looked blank. ‘Laurie? What, Laurie Gould? No! ’ She lay back, letting out the first laugh Sylvia had heard from her since she had arrived home. ‘You can’t mean Laurie, Sylv – I mean he’s sweet, always was, but he’s only about twelve!’

  Sylvia laughed as well, understanding why Audrey found it funny: little Laurie from next door.

  ‘I know, but you haven’t seen him in ages, Aud. He’s grown up. He’s much bigger than me now, and he’s been in the RAF – in Canada and everything. And he’s just so nice, so kind and easy to talk to. You’d hardly know him in some ways, he’s changed that much. After Ian, Laurie just seems so much better a person. You’d like him – really you would.’

  Audrey lay back, her face serious now, as she saw that Sylvia meant it. ‘Little Laurie. Well . . . You’re not having me on?’

  ‘No. Cross my heart.’

  They looked at each other and Sylvia blushed again.

  ‘You really are in love, aren’t you?’

  Sylvia did not miss the wistful tone in Audrey’s voice. She smiled. ‘I do believe I am.’

  ‘Well,’ Audrey said. ‘At least something good’s happened.’

  ‘Aud.’ Sylvia laid her hand on her sister’s thigh. ‘I’m . . . I was going to say I’m sorry, but it seems an awful thing to say about a baby. But Mom’ll come round, I’m sure she will.’ Even as she said it, she was not sure it was true. After a silence she added, ‘I can’t stand seeing her like that.’

  ‘I suppose, when it’s one of your own,’ Audrey said.

  ‘Yes, but – it just doesn’t seem like her.’ She sighed. ‘Look, we’ll stand by you. I will, you can be sure of that. And help any way I can. We’ll all be all right, if we stick together. Sticks and stones. Who cares what people say, eh?’

  ‘Thanks, sis,’ Audrey said. She sat up, tearful again, and held out her arms. Sylvia shifted closer and the two of them put their arms round each other and sat rocking gently, in a warm, comforting embrace.