Gull Island

by Grace Thompson

  ‘You aren’t going to take the baby away from me,’ Barbara said defiantly when the back door had slammed behind him and she heard his footsteps hurrying down the garden path to the ty bach. ‘I – I talked to Auntie Molly Carey and she warned me this might be your idea. I’m going to have this baby and when he comes home from London my boyfriend will look after me.’

  ‘If that’s what you think you’re more stupid than I thought. Won’t want to know you when you tell him, you mark my words. Soiled goods you are and who in their right mind would want soiled goods? And what made you talk to Mrs Carey of all people? Fine one she is with her nine kids! And if she knows, then so will half the town by now, for sure!’

  There was an uneasy silence as they waited for Barbara’s father to return from the garden and go out. ‘I’ll be back at ten and make sure she’s in bed,’ Mr Jones said, reaching for his cap. ‘If I see her again tonight I’ll swipe her good and proper for what she’s done to us. Listen to what Mam tells you, you stupid, ungrateful girl. Bringing shame on us all you’ll be if you don’t listen. Think of your sister if you can’t think of your poor mam!’ He pushed his way past the clutter of chairs, pouting like a spoilt child, and out into the street, slamming the door behind him.

  With Freda still unnoticed and listening avidly, Barbara and her mother continued to argue. They were still at it an hour later when Mr Jones came back from The Anchor and, using the chance to escape further bullying, Barbara snatched the end of a loaf and a piece of cheese and ran to her bed. Eating under the covers, she brushed away the crumbs and curled up, trying to steady her whirling thoughts and be able to sleep. Freda would be up soon; she could hear the hum of conversation below and guessed her mam would soon tell her to get to bed. She screwed her eyes tightly shut. She didn’t want to fend off any more questions and certainly not from Freda.

  She woke early the following morning and the house was silent as she combed her long hair and washed at the back kitchen sink. Mam was working early that day, cleaning at the munitions factory near the docks. Dad would be on his way to the soap factory, which was on the outskirts of the town, poor eyesight responsible for the army refusing to accept him into its murderous jaws.

  He had a long walk before his eight o’clock start and usually left the house before seven. She was grateful for a reprieve from the nagging and her lips tightened as she determined not to give in. Bernard’s face came into her mind and beside it that of Luke. They would help her. Between them they would enable her to defy Mam and Dad and the rest of the world.

  In a scolding voice remarkably like her mother’s, she called up the stairs for Freda to shift herself as fast as she liked and get up and ready for school. Without stopping for more than a sip of water and a crust of toast with a scraping of margarine and homemade damson jam, she left the house. The toast, she noticed with half her mind, was burnt again.

  Her mood was different from the previous day. An excitement burned in her until her friends at the shop asked what was her secret. Had Bernard come back? Had he asked her to marry him? Barbara continued to smile mysteriously and promised to tell them soon.

  By midday she was far from happy. The initial buzz of early-morning optimism had faded, the remaining smile and the air of excitement was a sham. She wondered how much longer she could argue with Mam and keep Mrs Block at bay, and how soon Bernard would be back to share the burden and reassure her all would be well. She stood staring into space, bringing him to mind. The neatness of his suit and the jaunty way he wore his trilby hat – not a flat cap like her father wore. And his eyes! Those dark eyes, behind tortoiseshell-framed glasses, that glowed when he looked at her and told her he would love her for ever. She needed him so badly now, needed reassurance of his love, needed his support.

  Her job that day was to unwind lengths of cloth from the heavy bales and measure how many yards were left, marking the amount in her neat handwriting on the labels. She was strong and quite capable of manoeuvring the bales but today she hated the work, afraid that the tiny baby that she imagined to be like one of the stiff-legged celluloid dolls Freda had once had at Christmas time, with feathers for a skirt, would be distressed by the heaving and lifting.

  She wanted to leave the work and sit somewhere quiet, like the beach near Gull Island, and dream of how it would be when she and Bernard had a little daughter to love. Rosita. She savoured the name and wondered anew about Luke, the man with the boat, who had named her.

  She stayed out that evening, walking the streets, looking into windows and seeing family groups within and imagining being ‘Mam’ to a family of her own. Wandering without any real purpose, she walked right through the town and came to the Pleasure Beach. There she mingled with the late-summer crowds bent on having fun, sharing vicariously in their happiness. Buying fish and chips to ease her now voracious hunger, she sat on a bench overlooking the sand and ate with enjoyment.

  It was quite dark when she slipped into the house and she hurried straight up to bed before her father came in. She ignored her mother’s demands to ‘Come down this minute, my girl – you and I have arrangements to make’ and lay unmoving until the house was quiet. Then she climbed over Freda’s sleeping form and went down and made herself some sandwiches of the cold boiled fish her mother had cooked for her earlier in the evening, covering it with salt, pepper and vinegar from the pickled onion jar.

  The next day was Sunday and the day on which she helped her mother with the beds. Thank goodness Dad would be out in the garden. She went downstairs to find her mother already sorting the washing into piles ready for the copper that would be lit early the following morning. To the pile near the copper she added the bottom sheet taken from her bed, having put the top sheet to bottom in the regular manner, but her mother told her to stop fussing and listen.

  ‘Mrs Block will be over later and I want you here so she can decide when you can get the little problem sorted. Don’t think you can get out of it, mind, and don’t you leave this house for even a minute, my girl. You might not have another chance for her to help. In fact, it might already be too late, heaven forbid. She takes a bit of persuading.’

  ‘She takes a bit of persuading? What about me? I won’t be persuaded! You can’t make me. I’m going to wait and talk to Bernard. He won’t let you get rid of his daughter, whatever you say. I know he’ll want me and our baby and if he doesn’t then I’ll bring her up on my own.’

  ‘She? It isn’t a girl, it’s nothing at all – only a small shapeless “thing” and you’d best have it taken away so you can forget it ever happened.’

  The first storm of tears broke from Barbara then and between sobs she shouted, ‘She is a girl and her name is Rosita and she’s mine!’ Running from the house she headed for the fields near the railway line where she could sit and not be seen, and think about Bernard. When she went home a few hours later her mother was furious.

  ‘Mrs Block has been and gone. Waited for hours she did and her busy enough for two. Where have you been to, wicked girl?’

  ‘Out!’ Barbara replied rudely, dodging her mother’s hand and sighing with relief at the reprieve.

  A few days later she came home from work and the dreaded Mrs Block was sitting beside the fire. Before Barbara could react, Mrs Block shook her head.

  ‘She looks too far gone to me, Mrs Jones, far too much, but I’ll have a look at her and we’ll see if anything can be done.’

  ‘You’ll do nothing!’ Barbara said and giving a low scream of fear she escaped and ran towards the home of Bernard Stock. She had to see if there was news of his return, she had to have someone supporting her or Mam would wear her down until she agreed to accept the ministrations of Mrs Block like so many others had done.

  She knew there would no longer be a job at the shop; as soon as her condition was clearly seen she would be asked to leave. Unless someone helped she would have to ‘get rid’ of Rosita, either before or after her birth. Fear made her tremble so her legs seemed unable to support her as, for the firs
t time, she realized that Luke’s hint that Bernard might not marry her was a possibility. She increased her pace and was soon at Bernard’s back door.

  She was surprised to see that all the curtains were drawn. Surely they weren’t all ill? The door opened to her knock and a woman she didn’t know stood there. She was dressed completely in black, with a veil of that sombre colour hiding her face.

  ‘Could I have a word with Mrs Stock, if you please?’ Barbara asked politely, wondering who this strange apparition was.

  ‘If you’ve come to offer condolences will you please come back later? The funeral is starting in a few minutes.’

  ‘Funeral? But who died? Surely not another of her sons? This war’s already taken two of them. There’s only Freddie and Bernard – and he’s safe in London, thank goodness. Is it Freddie? Oh, how awful.’ The beginnings of motherhood gave added horror to the thought of losing a child.

  The black-shrouded apparition nodded her veiled head solemnly. ‘The poor woman has lost another son. This time her son Bernard. Up in London he was and now he’s dead.’

  With a gentle cry, Barbara slipped to the ground in a faint.

  She opened her eyes to find a group of strangers surrounding her. One of them, a man in a rather ancient, mildew-rimmed dresscoat and black hat, was patting her face and staring at her through small, thick spectacles. Warm, fat hands were chafing icy-cold thin ones. This was a lady who looked at her with eyes filled with sympathy. ‘She’s coming round,’ she said and other hands came to help her to rise.

  ‘I thought someone said Bernard was dead.’

  ‘Dead. Yes, miss.’

  ‘But he wasn’t a soldier. How could he be—’

  Confused, she allowed herself to be led indoors but almost as soon as she had been seated and given a drink of water, the crowded room emptied, as horse and carriage arrived at the front of the house bearing Bernard’s body. The men dispersed and, standing with the women, she watched in disbelief as the cortege disappeared around the corner, carrying her hopes with it.

  Food had been set out on the table and on legs that were still shaking, she walked slowly towards it, past the big Welsh dresser that had been denuded of plates and cups and saucers. Helping herself as there was no one to ask, she picked up some squares of bread pudding and some sandwiches, some cheese and, rather guiltily, some pickled onions and filled her pockets. Her muscles regaining strength, she walked from the house and, her mind a blank, headed for the lonely beach near Gull Island, where she and Bernard had walked and laughed and planned and loved, two miles away.

  There was no sign of Luke as, almost an hour and a half later, she stepped into the cool living room of his cottage. She found the kettle and made herself some tea, which she couldn’t drink, and apart from the onions, which she ate greedily, she gave the food to the wheeling gulls. Appearing almost lifeless, she stared across at the island. The urge to walk across the causeway and jump off the cliffs on the far side occurred to her but only in a melodramatic way, seeing herself as the scorned and ruined heroine in one of Mam’s magazines.

  The sun was surprisingly warm; it was just past midday and everywhere was silent. The air quivered with the heat. There was no birdsong, no movement apart from the ever-hopeful gulls and the sea steadily undulating on its relentless, unstoppable journey, its faintly heard murmur soothing and soporific. Uncomfortable as the rocky seat was, she slept.

  A mist began to cover the surface of the water as the afternoon wore on, making the sun a hazy ball and the island a place of mystery. She stood up stiffly and walked to where Luke had moored his boat. She took a notebook out of her handbag. She wrote a message for him and, stretching into the boat, put it under the seat and anchored it with a stone. She sat a while longer then set off home to more lectures from her mother.

  The sea fret now covered Gull Island and the cold was creeping between her clothes and her skin. She moved as fast as she could between the high hedges of the lonely lane, unhappiness clouding her vision more than the blanketing mist. She had been disappointed not to find Luke there when she needed to talk to him so badly. She felt he had let her down. Her message had been brief, a reprimand: ‘Where were you? Bernard is dead. Rosita is safe. Why weren’t you here?’

  She went first to the Careys’ and found the room crowded with all eleven members of the family at home, plus the extra children minded while their mothers worked. The noise they made, all clamouring for a meal, was deafening. Pushing two of her sons off the end of the sofa, to sit on sections of tree trunks that served as stools, Mrs Carey made room for her and handed her a cup of tea.

  ‘Get this down you and when I’ve fed this lot we’ll have a chat.’

  She busied herself with a huge saucepan containing soup, ladling it out into an assortment of bowls and basins and handle-less jugs, guiding it around the confusion of raised arms and hopeful faces into eager hands. A chunk of bread was given to each child, Idris first, and Barbara thankfully accepted a share.

  Mr Carey had just arrived home. He was still wearing the leather apron with a huge front pocket and carried the canvas bag his wife had made for him to carry the newspapers he sold. He made between ten and fifteen shillings a week, selling them in the street and delivering them through letterboxes. Beside him, having helped for part of the round, was Richard, his willing assistant, already able to give correct change for a tanner or a bob – a sixpence or a shilling.

  ‘’Lo Barbara,’ Richard called with a salute of a dirty hand.

  The bogie cart which Mr Carey pulled on his journey was in the passage near the front door, where everyone had to climb over it to get in or out. Two cats had taken it over for the evening. A dog hid under the table but didn’t rise to greet Richard, afraid of being sent away from where he might find a few dropped morsels.

  Mr Carey was a kindly man. His weary eyes twinkled in the tanned, over-thin face as he greeted Barbara. ‘Got a visitor have we, Molly? There’s lovely. A young lady in the house might make this lot behave,’ he joked, touching the head of each child in turn. ‘Now, what have I got in my pocket today?’

  Spoons paused momentarily as they all watched their father slowly dip into his leather apron. He brought out a loaf of bread and a dead pigeon. Handing them to his wife he dipped again and this time brought out some small apples. There was one for each of them, sour, unripe, but hungrily accepted. The rest of the contents of his pocket were three eggs, and some potatoes, still encrusted with the earth from where he and Richard had stolen them from someone’s garden.

  Once the pocket was empty the spoon returned to the attack and the last of the soup was enthusiastically and noisily finished. The stolen, precious food was put aside by Molly Carey for the following day.

  Clearing away and washing the dishes was utter chaos as everyone tried to leave the table at once. The dishes were placed under the table individually, with the saucepan, for the dog to lick, then piled near the bowl of soapy water to be washed.

  ‘Clear off out, the lot of you,’ Mrs Carey shouted above the din. ‘Barbara and I will see to the pots.’ The twins, Ada and Dilys, who were approaching their fourteenth birthday, were quick to move and set off to visit friends. They were making plans and made no secret of their intention of leaving as soon as they had finished school.

  When the dishes were washed and order restored, and Henry Carey had gone to spend an hour on the garden, Barbara told Mrs Carey about Bernard’s death.

  ‘There’s sorry I am, fach. I knew, see, but as you didn’t tell me who was the father and I didn’t like to ask, there was no way I could prepare you for the shock.’

  ‘Mam must have known though.’

  ‘Yes, she knew.’

  ‘What happened?’ Barbara asked dully.

  ‘From what I’ve pieced together from his poor mam’s version and what the police told my Henry, Bernard was on a train near London and he didn’t have a ticket. Tried to hide, he did. When the ticket inspector started to come down the train he planned to g
o into a lav with a friend who would show his ticket through a partly opened door so they’d think there was only one person in there, but they were too late and the lav was in use. So, the silly boy tried to jump off the train and, well, sufficient to say he was killed.’

  ‘Why didn’t someone tell me?’

  ‘Next of kin are informed, love. Girlfriends don’t count, not till you’re married are you next of kin. His mam couldn’t have known how fond Bernard was of you or she’d have sent a message for sure.’

  ‘She knew.’ Barbara’s voice was bitter.

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Keep the baby. Perhaps when Mrs Stock knows it’s Bernard’s daughter she’ll help me. I don’t think Mam and Dad will.’ She tried to hold back the tears but soon gave way to them and was cuddled in Mrs Carey’s skinny arms.

  Mrs Carey went with her the following evening to talk to Bernard’s mother but they were shrilly and angrily told to leave.

  ‘Keep out of my affairs, Molly Carey, and take that trollop with you! My Bernard wouldn’t have done anything like that! Sunday-school teacher he was, remember. Don’t try and put that bit of trouble on me or I’ll have the police on you!’

  ‘Pity you feel like that, Mrs Stock,’ Molly Carey said quietly. ‘With only one of your lovely sons left I’d have thought you’d welcome a grandchild. I know I would in your place.’

  Both Barbara and Mrs Carey thought that as time passed, Mrs Jones would forgive her daughter, accept the situation and allow Barbara to have the child at home, but a few days later Mr Jones won almost a pound on the horses. He’d had a run of good luck which gave him the confidence to take a chance and to his amazement, when he picked out a double both horses had romped home first. He gave five shillings to his wife and with the rest he and his friends got drunk.