The Secrets of Castle Du Rêve

by Hannah Emery

  ‘You get used to it. Being here isn’t so bad. It’s not a bad place to live, I mean. It’s just the mess we’re all in that’s the problem. But,’ Bev shrugged, ‘we’d be in a mess no matter where we were, wouldn’t we?’

  No! Victoria wanted to shout. No, because if Harry knew about this he’d do something! He wouldn’t let this happen! He wouldn’t let me be here!

  ‘So what happened?’ Bev asked, standing up and wandering over to the table, where she took a cigarette from an ashtray and sucked on it half-heartedly. She looked down at her own enormous belly and then over at Victoria’s. ‘I can tell you my story in a couple of words. I thought I was in love.’

  ‘Me too,’ said another woman, who had left her half-knitted blanket on the table and now flopped onto the sofa next to Victoria. ‘I’m Katherine. I didn’t know that mine was married. Turns out none of us here knew much, in the end.’ Katherine made a strange sound then, which was somewhere between a hiccup and a cynical laugh.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ Victoria said, touching her bump and feeling her baby squirm. It was a girl: she knew it. A girl, just like her, with tufts of almost-black hair and a little button nose. Henrietta.

  ‘So, what’s your story?’ Bev asked, her eyes wide.

  Victoria looked down. ‘Well. Harry…the father, he is married. But he did tell me. It’s different with Harry and I. We’re really very happy together.’

  Katherine’s gaze moved over Victoria’s head to Bev and the two women shared a knowing glance.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking. But really, Harry’s different,’ Victoria said.

  Katherine lay a hand on Victoria’s shoulder. ‘He’s not that different, lovey. Otherwise you wouldn’t be sitting here with us, would you?’

  Victoria sighed and surveyed the room: smoke, ugly furniture, a dark-green stained carpet. It became clear that on one side of the table were the women who lacked the plump, pensive faces of the heavily pregnant. They knitted more slowly, as if trying to delay time. Their smocks were still smoothed over vaguely rounded bellies, but their countenance, their tension, their red-rimmed eyes, set them apart from the others.

  Victoria turned to Bev and Kathleen. ‘Where are their babies?’ she asked in a low voice.

  Bev gestured to the back of the house. ‘In the nursery. They have set feeding times when the mums go and give them their bottles and change them. Other than that, they don’t spend much time in there.’

  The mums. For a ridiculous moment, Victoria was confused by Bev’s words, and wondered why Mrs Lace would be involved in feeding the new baby. After a second, she realised with a jolt that she, Victoria, would be a mum. Her mistake made her face burn, and she thanked the universe that she hadn’t stopped Bev and asked her what on earth she’d meant. Bev didn’t seem to notice Victoria’s puce face and continued talking at full throttle, about bottles and sterilising and feeding times and nappy pins. She was missing the point, it seemed. Bottles and sterilising were all very well, but what about that word she’d just used so fleetingly, so easily? What about all the things that lurked underneath it like corpses under a field?

  Mum.

  ‘I think,’ Victoria said, ‘I need to go and have a little lie down.’

  ‘A lie down?’ Katherine said, her face contorting slightly and making her seem less attractive than Victoria had initially decided. ‘You’ll be lucky.’ She leant into Victoria. Her breath smelt of smoke and meat. ‘They’re not too bad here. Apparently there’s worse places. But it’s not a hotel, love. You can’t just do as you please.’

  Victoria stared into space, breathing through her mouth to avoid Katherine’s unpleasant breath. ‘I slept all the time at home.’

  Bev yawned. ‘I did, actually. At least we’re allowed to sit around in here a bit, though. But we have to do our jobs first.’

  ‘Jobs?’

  ‘Yeah. I’ve got the carpets to clean. Katherine’s got the windows. Christine over there’s on bottle duty. She makes up the formula. Matron will tell you soon enough what you have to do. You get the same job every day for a week so it gets a bit boring, but you know what’s what. Do you have a job at home?’

  ‘My father has an antique shop. I work in there. But it’s easy, I suppose. It’s never very busy. That’s how I met Harry. He came in when it was raining one day and we got along so well. I always think that if it wasn’t for the rain that day…’ Victoria’s smile faded along with her words as she saw the girls’ faces droop with anticipatory regret.

  ‘Nasty bloody rain,’ Katherine said, pulling a face again. ‘If it had stayed fine, you wouldn’t be here now, would you?’

  ‘No. But what I was going to say was that I would never have met Harry.’

  ‘You honestly don’t regret meeting him in the first place?’ Bev asked. Her voice was gentle and had a kind Scottish lilt that made Victoria want to burst into tears.

  ‘No. I really don’t. And I know it might sound silly, but I don’t regret the baby. I’m scared, obviously. But I want her. I’m going to try and keep my baby.’

  Katherine looked incredulous. Bev looked down.

  ‘It’s impossible,’ Katherine said eventually, shaking her head. Her hair was copper and thick, and bounced rather wildly as she moved. ‘You’re going to end up going mad with disappointment if you think like that.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Bev sighed quietly. ‘What’s the harm in dreaming?’

  ‘Dreaming’s fine,’ Katherine said, with a wave of a freckled hand. ‘But the longer you dream for, the harder it is to wake up.’

  As it turned out, Bev did sleep in the same room that Victoria had been assigned. The other girls in there were, for the first night at least, a blur of Christines and Jennys and Ruths, a mass of sighs and huge white nightgowns.

  As she lay in the hard bed, her blanket sitting over her like a sheet of ice, Victoria stared up at the black ceiling.

  ‘Are you okay?’ whispered Bev from the bed next to her.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘The first night here is definitely the worst. It’ll get better.’

  Victoria heard Bev’s bed creak as she turned over to face Victoria’s. ‘I can’t imagine ever getting to sleep.’

  ‘I know. I felt like that too. But you get so worn out every day,’ Bev yawned, ‘that you just can’t help it as the weeks roll on.’

  Victoria was silent, unable to feel reassured. She lay down and listened to Bev’s breathing, which soon became deep and rasping. Her eyes adjusted to the pitch black and she saw an outline of her new friend, mouth gaping, belly bulging up from the blankets like a mountain. Bev was in her late twenties, more than ten years older than Victoria. The married father of Bev’s baby was young and silly, as Bev had put it. He’d charmed his way into something he probably never really wanted. Bev had told him about the baby and he’d burst into frightened tears, rather like a baby himself. Would Harry have cried? Or would he have been angry, like Katherine’s married man, who swore that Katherine had done it on purpose, and refused to have anything more to do with her? Victoria squeezed her eyes shut and pictured Harry. His face swam before her and Victoria let herself be carried along by the tide of him, towards a sleep where she fell into his arms and told him about Henrietta, their future.

  When she woke the next morning, the house’s potent smells of eggs, disinfectant and sour formula were thick in the air, clinging to the thin blanket that was tangled around Victoria. She stretched her aching back and then sat up to survey the sleeping girls, the rising and falling bellies, the old, scarred furniture. It was as though it was all haunted by sadness. The sense that other girls in the same unbearable circumstances had come and gone, all worse off for staying here, was as present as the metal-framed beds, the flaking sash windows. Unhappiness was trapped in the room. Victoria pulled her blanket up to her chin and let out a shivering sigh, not really knowing if her body was trembling with cold or fright.

  In the bed beside her, Bev stuck out a leg and groaned. ‘Feels
cold,’ she mumbled, her voice heavy with sleep. She hauled herself over to face Victoria’s bed. ‘Sleep okay?’ she whispered.

  Victoria sat up, the cold air biting at her neck. ‘Not too bad, thanks.’

  ‘It’ll be breakfast soon. Let’s get to the bathroom before the queue gets too long. I don’t fancy standing about in my nightie for ages.’ Bev rolled out of bed onto her feet and stretched her back, her belly jutting out into the room. ‘Baby doesn’t half get in the way when I’m trying to get comfy in that bed. I have to say, I’ll be glad to get it out.’

  ‘I know, but then-’ Victoria began, but Bev’s grimace stopped her mid-sentence. ‘Sorry,’ Victoria whispered as they crept out into the silent landing. ‘I can’t help thinking about where my baby might end up after all this.’

  ‘And I can’t bear to think of it at all,’ Bev admitted as she led Victoria to the bathroom. She looked down at Victoria’s feet as they reached it. ‘Now, keep your slippers on while you have a wash. If you let your feet touch the floor they’ll be so cold you’ll scream. I’ll hold a towel around you while you get a wash, if you want, and then you do the same for me. People will start barging in soon.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Victoria said gratefully as she turned on the stiff tap and slid her bar of soap into the sink. ‘There’s no mirror in here,’ she noticed as she looked around. ‘Where do you do your hair?’

  ‘I brought a small mirror with me, so I just use that. There aren’t any mirrors anywhere here, apart from the one near the guest entrance, and you can imagine what Matron would do if she caught us beautifying ourselves there.’

  Victoria sighed. ‘I suppose there’s nothing to do your hair for here, is there?’

  ‘No. I used to wear a full face of makeup every day. Now, nothing. Matron hates makeup. She told a girl the other week that it was vanity and mirrors that got her into this mess in the first place. The girl said it was more than that, only under her breath, but I’m sure Matron wanted to slap her cheek.’

  ‘I packed a mirror,’ Victoria said. ‘A beautiful one with sapphires on the back. I found it with some other things in my father’s antique shop and I took quite a shine to it. It’s one of my favourite belongings. So I brought it to remind me of home. But when I unpacked last night, it had disappeared from my case. Do you think Matron has it?’

  Bev nodded, her blond head just visible over the thin towel that she held out for Victoria. ‘Wouldn’t surprise me. You can borrow mine, if you want. I keep it under my bed with some lipstick for if I’m feeling a bit fed up or if we’re all going into the village.’

  ‘You go out? That must be nice,’ said Victoria, a little relief washing over her as she pulled on her smock dress and blue cardigan and then held the towel around Bev.

  ‘It’s okay. It’s good to leave here for a bit. But to be honest, when the villagers see us, a gang of pregnant girls around the corner from Gaspings, they know exactly what our situations are and they can be a bit rude. I bought a magazine the other day and you should have seen the look the girl in the shop gave me.’

  ‘I suppose I should have known. Does it bother you?’

  There was a splash as Bev doused herself in water, and no reply from behind the towel.

  ‘Bev? Does it bother you?’

  Bev snatched the towel down, revealing her distorted body. Her face was pale with fright. ‘Go and get Matron,’ she wailed. Victoria followed Bev’s gaze down to the floor and saw, with horror, that the water at their feet was tinged pink with blood. She thrust the towel into Bev’s hands, and, her head spinning, backed to the door.

  ‘I’m not due yet,’ Bev moaned as Victoria turned the doorknob. ‘I’ve got another three weeks to go! Do you think this is it? Do you think that was my waters going?’

  Victoria leaned on the door, her hand gripping the cool handle. She didn’t know. She didn’t know if this was it, or what the blood meant, or what was going to happen. She only knew that she couldn’t do this, she couldn’t do it without Harry and she couldn’t do it knowing that the baby wasn’t hers to keep. Fright froze her as she leaned against the door.

  ‘I think I’m starting with contractions,’ Bev cried, her face turning from white to a violent red. ‘Please, just go and get Matron.’

  Victoria stood, frozen to the spot. She watched Bev slide down onto the slimy floor, her naked body wet and shiny, tinged purple with cold.

  ‘Go!’ Bev screamed, her face twisting in fright. ‘Please! Go and get her! I’m frightened, Victoria! Please!’

  Victoria’s body, roused back to life by the pleas, began to move again. But Matron must have heard the shouting, because as Victoria stumbled onto the landing, she was standing there with another nurse.

  ‘Let me in,’ Matron said calmly, and pushed her way past Victoria.

  Further on down the landing, a group of girls stood in their nighties, whispering and pointing to the bathroom.

  ‘Who’s in there?’ one of the girls, large with buck teeth, asked importantly.

  ‘It’s Bev. We were just having a wash and something happened. We think it was her waters going, but we didn’t really know. Is there meant to be blood?’ Victoria asked, unable to stop herself.

  The girls were silent. Some shrugged. They didn’t know. For all their apparent acceptance, their quiet sleeping, their calm demeanors, they didn’t know. And they all, in their crumpled nighties, their faces pinched by lumpy pillows, their flattened hair, their pale expressions, looked just as frightened as Victoria.

  The nurse stepped forward and took Victoria’s hand. ‘Come on. You can’t do anything for her now. You get dressed and then you can go down for breakfast.’

  Victoria nodded numbly, grasping the nurse’s hand tighter than she knew she should, but unable to loosen her grasp.

  By the time they were having their porridge, Bev had been taken off to hospital in an ambulance, and the girls had somehow wiped away their scared expressions, replacing them with calm shrugs and knowing glances.

  ‘Do you think she’ll have the baby by now?’ Victoria asked.

  Katherine shook her head. ‘I’ve heard it takes a while.’

  ‘I don’t think she was ready,’ Victoria said, staring down at her breakfast. She’d put jam in her porridge and regretted it now, for the pale-pink colour, once she stirred it through, was disconcertingly similar to that of the water that had surrounded Bev in the bathroom.

  One of the girls snorted. ‘Who is ready? I’m certainly not.’

  ‘I held a baby the other week,’ Victoria said, pushing her pink porridge away. ‘It was the first one I’d ever held.’

  It was a few weeks before she’d come to Gaspings House. Mrs Blythe from the bakery across the road, who had a baby and a blue Silver Cross pram, had come into Lace Antiques to look for a present for somebody. Victoria had been staring out of the window and had seen the woman pushing the pram across the road into the shop, a little boy wearing an ugly brown coat at her side. She’d heard the bell jingle and then she’d heard the baby gurgling merrily, the woman singing to him and laughing with delight at his little sounds, the little boy asking his mother questions about what everything in the shop was for, and cost, and meant. Unable to stop herself, Victoria had crept down the stairs to the shop. Her father was in there, talking to the woman about an ugly grandfather clock, and his face, cheerful with the promise of a sale, turned dark when he saw Victoria loitering at the doorway behind the counter. ‘Get upstairs,’ he’d hissed. But Victoria had ignored him. She’d felt a pull towards the baby who was propped up in his pram, smiling like a little dribbling cherub.

  ‘Please can I hold him?’ Victoria had asked the woman.

  The woman had beamed and plucked the baby from his chariot. He was squidgy and warm in Victoria’s arms and had smelt of soap and warm milk.

  ‘He’s heavy, isn’t he?’ the little boy said, suddenly turning his attention to Victoria. ‘I hold him by myself sometimes, though. I’ll show you, if you like?’

  T
he boy held his arms out, and Victoria passed the warm, wriggling bundle to him.

  ‘Put him in the pram again, Graham,’ Mrs Blythe said, as she leafed through some old magazines.

  They left without buying anything, and as they’d manoeuvered the pram out of the shop, Victoria’s father called to them to remember about the clock, that they made excellent presents, and that he’d keep it behind the counter for her if she wanted.

  ‘My father went mad that I’d gone downstairs into the shop and made the state that I was in, as he said, obvious. But I couldn’t help it,’ Victoria told the girls around the breakfast table. ‘I’ve never held a baby, and I thought I’d feel better about it all if I got to hold one. Mrs Blythe didn’t even notice I was pregnant when she was in the shop anyway. She was too concerned with her own baby.’

  She didn’t tell the girls that she’d sneaked out of the back of the shop later on that day and gone into the bakery. The sweet, warm smell of fresh dough had made Victoria’s stomach growl as she handed over some coins for a small loaf of white bread. Of course, she hadn’t gone in just for bread. She wanted to see the baby again, to somehow settle the flutter of terror that had vibrated in her body since late summer. The pram was behind the wide counter, but the baby wasn’t in it any more.

  ‘I liked holding your baby,’ Victoria told Mrs Blythe as she pushed the soft loaf into a brown paper bag. ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘Oh, he’s upstairs having his nap. I’ve just put him down.’

  The little boy had appeared again then and watched Victoria from the corner of the room.

  ‘Hello,’ he said. His eyes were a bright green, which reminded Victoria of pixies and elves and fairy-tale endings. ‘Are you having a baby too?’ He nodded towards Victoria’s belly, which had been concealed beneath her coat when she’d left Lace Antiques, but was now poking out. She felt herself redden and gathered her coat around herself again.

  ‘Graham! Have you tidied up your trains? You know how cross your father will be if he treads on one of them again.’ She nodded at Victoria, as if to dismiss her. But Victoria couldn’t bring herself to turn around and leave. She wanted to answer the boy, to give him a reply that would make him forget about her belly and her wish to hold his baby brother. But the boy had gone already, his question forgotten, his quick steps fading up the narrow staircase that Victoria could see in the room behind the counter.