Cathie delivered little Heather to the nursery before setting out on her usual trek around shops, businesses and factories. The fees were small, but with no job, and her savings rapidly running out, she could only afford mornings to allow herself time to enquire about the possibility of work. She called at various motor companies, factories, hotels, cafés and bakers, various shops including Kendal Milne, even one or two breweries, being perfectly willing to spend her days washing bottles, only to be turned away by them all.
Come lunch-time she hurried back to the Co-op, hanging about outside in the hope that Steve would come out as usual for a breath of fresh air and to eat the sandwiches he generally brought with him. When he still hadn’t appeared after half an hour of waiting, she slipped into the shop in the hope of finding him. Spotting Mr Leeson, the manager, she hurried over. ‘Is Steve out doing deliveries? I was hoping to just ask him a quick question.’
‘Sorry, Cathie, but Steve no longer works here,’ the manager coolly informed her.
She stared at him in astonishment. ‘Really, why is that?’
Mr Leeson cleared his throat. ‘I’m afraid we came up against a problem and I had to let him go.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that. What went wrong? It wasn’t because of that stupid fight, was it? That definitely wasn’t Steve’s fault.’
‘No, it had nothing to do with that incident at all. But I’m afraid there’s a limit to what I can say on the subject. He made a mistake and let me down badly. I believe he’s gone to work in Birmingham, or maybe Northampton. I can’t quite remember. You’d need to ask his parents. Sorry I can’t be of more help.’
After thanking him, Cathie walked out in a state of dazed disbelief. Goodness, what sort of bad mistake could it have been to cause Mr Leeson to sack him, and after keeping his job open for years during the war? Why hadn’t Steve told her about this? The answer to this rang in her head like a tolling bell of doom. Because he believed that she was about to be married, and they’d fallen out, this time more firmly than ever before.
It was now that she realised how important his friendship had been to her. She needed him and would miss him so much.
Cathie considered contacting his parents, but there seemed little point if he was in Birmingham, Northampton, or wherever. If he was so far away it wasn’t as if they could sit down and chat over a cup of tea, or while they organised some charity event, as they’d so liked to do. He was gone from her life, perhaps fore ver. Tears filled her eyes at the thought. She’d lost him and must somehow work out how to face this bleak situation on her own.
Finding a job suddenly became more important than ever. By the end of the day, Cathie had taken on a cleaning job to work early mornings at the umbrella factory. It was only part-time and the wages were poor, not what she’d hoped for at all, but better than nothing.
She was also rather worried about a rumour that the nursery might be closing soon, due to lack of financial support from the government and women losing their jobs, now that the servicemen were flocking home in droves. Things seemed to be going from bad to worse, certainly so far as she was concerned.
More importantly, in view of what she’d learned from Davina, what would she say to Alex when he finally returned after his own search for a job? Being betrayed by the man she loved really didn’t bear thinking about. She’d lost everyone who mattered in her life, and now she was about to lose Alex too.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
‘Who is this woman who claims to be pregnant by you?’ Victor roared.
Alex stared at his father, stunned. How the hell did he know about Davina? Had her landlady spoken to him? He felt that all-too-familiar surge of resentment whenever Victor addressed him with such contempt. His mother was sitting in her armchair beside the fire, ashen-faced.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said, struggling to keep his tone of voice calm and reasonable.
Alex felt slightly guilty about lying to Cathie, if not his so-called betrayal. Most of his comrades had done exactly the same thing. How could men be expected to remain faithful to their womenfolk at home while finding themselves stuck out in a desert in the middle of nowhere with a war raging all around them, even if they weren’t the ones to be actually holding a gun? They surely had the right to seek relief somewhere, so why not in the arms of a willing woman? Nor could they be certain that their sweetheart or wife back home would remain faithful to them. Weren’t women more likely to be tarts than Madonnas? Certainly in his experience.
Not for a moment did Alex blame himself for what happened on his return to England either. He’d still been a lonely serviceman with needs, which Davina had offered to fill. She was the one who had taken the risk, not him. Where the hell she was sleeping right now he had no idea, nor did he care. As her landlady quite rightly said, she’d got herself into this pickle and must live with the consequences.
It hadn’t been easy to decide which woman he really wanted, not helped by the fact that his parents, in particular his mother, refused to accept Cathie’s story that little Heather was her niece and not a bastard child. But then he wasn’t entirely convinced by her claim of innocence either. Just when he’d finally made up his mind to marry Cathie, for the money she could provide as well as the fact she would make a much better wife, even if she might prove to be less exciting in bed, circumstances had changed. He’d found himself facing the equivalent of a shotgun wedding.
Now, having returned home a week or two later to collect some fresh clothes, he half feared his father might wield his own gun against him.
‘Don’t lie to me, son. You know damn well. We’ve received this from some woman called Davina Gilbert,’ he yelled, snatching up a letter from the coffee table to flap it in his face. ‘The woman is begging us to help her as you are apparently ignoring her letters. There’s a stack of them on the hall table, which I had definitely ignored as you were away, supposedly seeking work. But then she addressed this one to me. So, what have you to say for yourself, boy?’
Rage rose within him. How dare the stupid girl do such a thing? Revealing her condition to his parents was the last thing he needed, as it would only make the problem worse. But having said that, what business was it of theirs, anyway? ‘I would remind you, Father, that I’m no longer a boy but a man of almost twenty-six, so can do what the hell I like.’
‘Can you indeed? Then I assume you are now going to marry this little tart, instead of the other one.’
‘Indeed not,’ Alex calmly stated. ‘I’ve no intention of marrying the girl simply because of a wartime affair, of which half the forces are guilty of. She made her choices and must now be the one to pay the price, not me.’
‘Any son of mine should do the honourable thing!’ Victor roared.
‘I’m afraid life is no longer that simple.’
‘Have you even found yourself a job yet? Have you even looked?’
‘No, Father, I’m not yet quite up to the stress of such responsibility.’ Fortunately, he’d made another pot of money, although not in a way he wished to reveal to his parents. Nevertheless, it would allow him to please himself as to what he did in future. ‘In the circumstances I think it best if I leave home, then you will no longer be troubled by my allegedly shocking behaviour.’
‘Yes, damn you! Get the hell out of here.’
At which point his mother burst into floods of tears. Alex kissed her goodbye and walked proudly out.
All this time he’d believed that he’d got away with his lies. He thought he’d managed to convince everyone that he’d been faithful to his fiancée, and that he was genuinely seeking work, but seemingly not. The prospect of being tied down to marriage and caring for a child, even one of his own, let alone becoming embroiled in a long tiring working day, did indeed feel quite beyond him. He’d had enough of following rules and working to a strict regime.
Returning to the miserable dive that Eddie had found for him, Alex read the letters to see what it was Davina wanted from him, and his fur
y escalated. The blasted woman intended to create even further problems for him by declaring to the entire world that he was the father of her illegitimate child. Not only had she ruined his reputation, he was also in danger of losing Cathie too, and of his father cutting him out of his will and disinheriting him. And money, when the country itself was on the point of bankruptcy and the government not helping ex-servicemen quite as much as it should, was in his opinion essential if he was to survive and build a future for himself. And he’d certainly no intention of succumbing to his father’s bullying ever again. Blast the woman; he’d make her regret she’d ever met him. He just had to decide exactly how to achieve that. First of all, he needed to find out where she was living.
Davina was housed in a cockroach-infested dormitory with a dozen or so other young women, in what they amusingly called ‘a prison for naughty girls’. It certainly felt like that at times. She spent her days scrubbing floors, cleaning toilets, sweeping the huge spiral staircase, or working long hours in the steam laundry without pay, and hating every minute of it. When first she’d arrived she’d been locked up in solitary confinement in what had once been a nun’s cell in this part of the convent. For the better part of a week she’d had no contact with a living soul, save for the stern-faced nun who delivered her food.
‘Let me out of here. Why am I locked up?’ she would cry.
‘It is to allow you time to pray and repent of your sins.’
Instead, Davina paced back and forth in anguish, her mind going over and over everything that had happened to her in life. First her beloved mother had died of tuberculosis, and then her father had abused her since he no longer had a wife to satisfy his needs. This had led her to run away and find young men who were at least prepared to pay for the privilege of sleeping with her. By good fortune she’d met Alex and dreamed of escaping a degrading existence to become his wife. It had seemed like a glorious and very real solution to all the traumas she’d endured. Now he’d vanished from her life and she was locked up here like a prisoner in jail.
‘I need writing paper and a pen to contact my fiancé and tell him where I am,’ she insisted. ‘I am not a prisoner and surely have some rights.’
‘You have committed a crime against God and society,’ the nun starkly informed her.
Paper and pen were, however, duly brought and Davina sat and wrote countless letters, day after day. Unfortunately, she received no replies to any of them, not even Alex’s own father when in despair she’d finally confessed her situation to him. Even when she was later allowed out of solitary and moved into the dormitory with the other girls, she continued to write a letter each and every day until all her money was gone and she could no longer afford to buy stamps from the nun who acted as postmistress.
A doctor had come to examine her during those first few days, and confirmed she was four months pregnant, but she hadn’t seen him since. What would happen when she actually gave birth? Davina felt traumatised with terror at the thought. If you needed assistance when in labour you were supposed to pay for it, otherwise you were expected to work for three more years to pay off the debt. A horrific thought to be locked up here for that long, very much like serving a prison sentence.
And what would happen to her child? If she kept it, assuming she had a job and a home to go to, she’d be ostracised by society. But the thought of handing it over to the nuns for adoption filled her with anguish. This was her baby, hers and Alex’s. How could she give it away?
Every night as she lay in the hard, uncomfortable bed, Davina would pull the blanket over her head and weep silently into her pillow, hoping she might wake up and discover that this was all a bad dream and Alex had not deserted her.
Fortunately, she’d made a new friend, a girl called Barbara Cartwright who had also fallen foul of society by getting herself pregnant by a Yank. As he was a married man there would be no wedding ring for her, whereas Davina still lived in hope. Surely one day Alex would turn up and rescue her. Oh, but where was he, and why didn’t he come for her? She could but hope and pray that he finally would.
When one morning she found a letter waiting for her she could hardly believe her good fortune. Alex apologised for being absent so long, but had needed to go in search of a job, just exactly as Cathie had told her. So he hadn’t abandoned her, after all! Even more wonderful, he asked if they could meet. Oh, thank goodness for that! But towards the end of the letter came the news that he was not prepared to visit her at the Home, as he dare not take the risk of offending his parents any further.
He finished by saying, ‘Their reputation in the local community, and at the church, is very important to them. You will have to come to me, darling, perhaps at our usual meeting place by the canal on Friday evening? I do hope you can make it. I look forward to seeing you.’
That evening, when her chores were done, Davina sat down to write a quick response. She explained how she’d been locked up for days, and even now was not permitted to go beyond the grounds, guarded as they were by high walls and a locked iron gate. ‘But I’m sure there must be some way out,’ she wrote. ‘I can hardly wait to be in your arms again.’ Agreeing the date and time, which Davina vowed to keep, she gave the letter a kiss, sealed the envelope, and handed it over to be posted.
‘Many girls do attempt to escape,’ Barbara, her new friend, told her. ‘So long as they have the courage to risk hurting themselves on the spikes that top the walls. Even those who do manage to get over the wall are more often than not caught and brought back.’
‘Why is that?’ Davina asked in alarm.
‘Probably because they have nowhere else to go or anyone to help them.’
‘Or because they went about escaping the wrong way. I certainly intend to investigate possibilities, as I’m desperate to get out of this dreadful hole. But I have no wish to be caught on a spike.’
‘Me neither, love. We’ll investigate the possibilities together,’ Barbara agreed.
What did she have to lose? No matter what the risks involved, she’d already lost her freedom.
Over the next few days, Davina kept a careful watch on the routine in and around the Home. Standing at the sink in the laundry each morning she would steal quick glances through the window, soon noticing that the milkman came and went at the same time every morning. He left his horse and cart at the gate while he carried a crate through the side door. Did someone lock it after him? she wondered. Rinsing the sheets as she watched, Davina saw a nun walking over to do exactly that, opening and locking the door as he came and went. She clicked her tongue in annoyance. How irritating, just when she thought she’d found a solution to her dilemma.
‘She could be distracted,’ her friend Barbara whispered, coming over to help put the sheets through the mangle. ‘If we managed to do that, then we could easily slip out while no one was looking.’
Davina blinked. ‘In broad daylight? I don’t think so. Far too risky.’
‘With a little careful planning we might work something out. We’d need to make sure the nun didn’t lock the door again, or else we somehow got hold of the key. Why not? It’s worth a try, don’t you think?’
Excitement welled in her. ‘I agree. Let’s give it a go.’
Whenever they had a moment alone the pair of them spent the rest of that week talking the plan through, as well as recruiting help from the other girls. So eager was she to escape that Davina felt she’d never known a week drag by so slowly, save for the one she’d spent in solitary. No more weeping in her pillow now though, only blissful dreams of marriage with Alex. How fortunate she was.
‘Where will you go if we do get out of here?’ she asked her friend.
Barbara shrugged. ‘Hopefully to my sister’s as she didn’t approve of Dad chucking me out. But I’d sleep on the streets rather than here. They gave my baby away so I’m just serving time paying my debts.’
‘Give me her address then I can invite you to my wedding.’
‘Lucky you,’ Barbara said, as she scribbled it
down on a piece of cardboard torn from a packet of washing powder, and handed it over. ‘We should bear in mind that we won’t be able to take anything with us. No bag, no clothes, no ration book, nothing, so stuff this in your pocket or brassiere, along with anything else of importance.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Cathie said, doing exactly as she was advised. ‘I’m happy to walk away from everything and start afresh.’
‘Me too!’
When Friday eventually dawned, the moment the young nun placed the key in the lock to open the side door to let the milkman out, having finished his deliveries, Davina scampered across the yard and shouted to her. ‘Sister, there’s a fight starting up in the laundry, and the other Sisters there need help to stop it.’
The sound of screams and yells resonating from behind closed doors proved this to be the case, and, picking up her skirts, the nun immediately ran to assist her colleagues, forgetting all about the key still sitting in the lock. Davina quickly grabbed it, stuffed it down her bra then ran to catch up with the nun. The next half-hour she and Barbara kept well away from the riot, not wishing to find themselves blamed in any way for it. Fortunately, all the nuns were far too busy calming down the fight in the laundry to remember the key.
It proved to be an anxious day as they kept glancing over at the door, worried someone might remember and go in search of the key, which was still nestled by Davina’s breast. But finally dusk fell, supper was over and, as routine dictated, the girls were sent quite early to bed. Once everyone was settled, Davina and Barbara crept out of bed, still fully dressed, and tiptoed downstairs and across the yard. To their huge relief they unlocked the door with ease and slipped quickly through it. Once out on the pavement they hugged each other in delight and said their goodbyes.
Home Is Where the Heart Is Page 14
