by Nancy Carson
‘Draw me an ’orse again, Gran, please,’ Henzey said.
‘Oh, I wish I could draw like your daddy.’
Somehow the horse Eve sketched so unsophisticatedly always had a smile on its face. The few simple lines fascinated the child. Henzey saw a magic in being able to represent objects this way. Thus, she spent hours quietly occupying herself, drawing and crayoning animals. She drew odd characters she claimed were her grandmother, her mother, her father, and Marge Hardwick. Sometimes she crudely tried to copy pictures she saw in newspapers and, when she finished them, she proudly showed them off, usually to her grandmother, who praised her and encouraged her.
That afternoon they sat for an hour, during which Eve produced several yards of paper chain, and little Henzey several strange looking horses on the scraps left over. Lizzie hung the crude decorations across the room along with some silver balls that were given an airing every Christmas. When she finished she heard Alice, now six months old, crying upstairs. As she climbed the narrow staircase she considered what she would say in her next letter to Ben. She had something special to tell him: she was pregnant again.
Four children in as many years was too many. It crossed her mind that the war might be a blessing in disguise as far as her body was concerned. Much as she loved her husband, the longer war continued the longer she might keep her belly vacant. She picked Alice from her crib and cuddled her, cooing soft words of love and comfort to the child.
And she thought about Ben, languishing, wet through, chilled to the heart, and probably louse-bound in some squalid, muddy trench. She wished with all her heart that he was with her instead. She missed him dreadfully; especially at night. God, how she missed him at night. To even think about war detaining him just for the sake of her own stupid vanity was not only selfish, it was also tempting Providence.
*
In May 1915 Lizzie gave birth to another daughter. She decided to call the child Maxine, simply because she liked the name. It was another easy birth, conducted entirely by Eve and May. As with all her children, there was an immediate bond, a grateful acceptance of the child, and an instant love. Lizzie’s only regret was that Ben was not there to share her joy.
The easy time Lizzie had giving birth galled May Bishop. May was bitter that her own daughter, christened Emmeline after the suffragette, Emmeline Pankhurst, was so obviously mentally retarded. The knowledge that her baby would never be like other children was almost impossible to accept. Poor Joe had been reduced to tears, and he wondered what wicked deed he’d perpetrated to be thus punished. He was devoted to his child, however, and swore to do all he could that she might enjoy as near normal a life as possible.
May’s frustration led her to act spitefully towards little Henzey. While Joe or Lizzie were with her she would show only affection and kindness. Yet once, when their backs were turned, she vindictively shoved Henzey over some coping stones and into a small flower bed that Ben had made in the shared back yard. The backs of her legs were grazed and bleeding and she cried copious tears. But the real hurt she felt was that her Aunty May had deliberately tried to hurt her, and she didn’t know why. She’d done nothing wrong. She hadn’t been naughty at all. Aunty May came past her and just seemed to push her backwards. Then, to add to her confusion, she said how sorry she was for being so clumsy, and carried her to the brewhouse where she bathed the wounds and tried to calm her down with a boiled sweet and lots of kisses. There were some things about grown-ups that Henzey could not quite fathom out.
*
Coincidentally, in October that year, Eve Bishop fell over the same coping stones and into the same flower bed. She broke her wrist, dislocated her shoulder and twisted her ankle. Lizzie immediately sent for Donald Clark. He set her wrist in plaster and tried to manipulate her shoulder, but the pain was excruciating. Eve took to her bed, and Lizzie sent word to Ted and Grenville, and to Lucy. In turn, and in time, they all called to see how she was.
Ted brought with him two pounds of bacon, a pound of butter, half a pound of Typhoo tea and a bottle of Camp coffee from his corner shop in West Bromwich, all of which were in short supply and expensive because of the war. Grenville, however, lived in Whitmore Reans in Wolverhampton and, since it was half a day out to get to Dudley and back, he rarely saw his mother, or any one else in the family, but to show willing he brought her a bottle of Stothert’s head and stomach pills. Lucy made the journey from Manchester and stayed a couple of nights. However, she was not a lover of children and, even though Lizzie’s behaved well, they irritated her.
Despite the best endeavours of Donald Clark, Eve Bishop’s condition deteriorated. She lost her appetite and couldn’t face food, so her dietary regime went awry. Her general condition went awry with it. Pneumonia set in, which Donald feared might happen, and Lizzie watched anxiously as her mother’s health rapidly declined. Lizzie did all she could, tending her mother with care and devotion; but with four little children to look after as well, and Maxine still being breast-fed, she felt totally exhausted.
Lizzie felt that her world was caving in on her. How come the contentment and happiness she took so much for granted a year or so ago had now vanished? Her safe little world had been turned upside down. What had she done to deserve it? She was so lonely, her husband half a continent away, a target for those damned German guns. She’d had another child that she could have better done without and, now, her mother, her mentor, her best friend, was gravely ill. She had only May and Joe to turn to for help and, whilst they did all they could, and willingly, their own child needed constant attention too. Lizzie was tired; too tired to be angry, and her exhaustion was matched only by her profound depression.
On the tenth day of the pneumonia, Donald Clark made his evening visit. Today was critical, he said, and would tell whether she was going to recover. So he went upstairs alone to examine Eve, while Lizzie stayed downstairs and got her children ready for bed. Alice was standing on the table and Lizzie was undressing her when Donald opened the stairs door and re-emerged. She turned and looked at him apprehensively.
Donald smiled, a sad smile, acknowledging her evident concern. ‘I see no improvement, Lizzie,’ he admitted.
Lizzie took Alice in her arms, lifting her from the table. ‘I know, Donald. If anything, I’d say she’s worse. So what are her chances?’
‘Remote.’ He put his bag down on the chair Eve always sat on, and sighed. ‘But let’s see what tomorrow brings. Let’s see how she is then. It’s just possible I’ve misread the early signs by a day. She’s comfortable now, so let her sleep. I’ll call in the morning straight after my surgery.’
‘Thank you, Donald, for all you’ve done. You’ve been so kind. I only wish to God that I could afford to pay you straight away for everything. But we will, I promise. When Ben’s back home and back at work. I’ll pay you everything I owe.’
‘Lizzie, don’t even think about it.’ Donald placed a hand on her arm reassuringly. ‘Your mother’s own generosity and kindness to me over the years more than pays for my meagre services. She never asked me to pay if she fed me when I used to come and play with Ted.’ He smiled wistfully. ‘She used to mend my trousers, you know, and sew buttons on my shirts. They often got ripped off horsing around. She never suggested I should pay for that, Lizzie.’ A nostalgic smile lit up his face. ‘Once, I fell in the night soilers’ lagoon – I stunk to high heaven, I can tell you – but she never asked me to pay when she bathed me and washed my awful smelly clothes … nor when she lent me some of Ted’s to go home in. No, Lizzie. Please don’t ever think about payment. I’ve had payment enough. I desire no more.’
Lizzie’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Donald, you’re so kind.’
He picked up his bag. ‘Think no more of it. I’ll see you in the morning. If you need me in the meantime you know where I am.’
*
Three weeks before Christmas, Eve Bishop passed away, aged sixty-seven. Lizzie felt her loss acutely. She felt the desperate need to be comforted by Ben, for him to hol
d her tight in her grief, so she could cry and cry and cry. But Ben was still away, at war in France. It would be her first Christmas ever without her mother and, to make matters worse, her second without her husband. She did not look forward to it; rather, she dreaded it.
It was difficult to accept that Eve was dead. During those last days of her illness Lizzie had had no time to write to Ben, so he didn’t even know Eve was so ill. Other people got to know, of course, and they all offered their condolences. But how many really cared? How many people had the time to worry about Lizzie Kite and her problems when they had so many problems of their own? More and more young women she saw in the streets were wearing black, their husbands killed in this damned war. At least she was not a widow – well not yet, at any rate. Fewer and fewer families were free of grief in these accursed days. Why should they concern themselves with her?
Over the next few days May, Joe and Lizzie sorted out what meagre chattels their mother had bequeathed them. They found money she’d put aside for her burial, which Joe took charge of, along with all the arrangements. He engaged Charlie Sixfoot, the undertaker from Peel Street, and Eve was buried on a bitterly cold, grey day with the hoarfrost sticking to the bare trees like fleece. They huddled round the oblong hole in the rock hard ground while she was lowered in to rejoin Isaac, their father.
The Reverend Mr John Mainwaring tossed cold, black earth onto the top of the coffin, and Lizzie shivered, unable to look. At least they are together again, Lizzie thought. It was a poignant reminder of how much she missed Ben.
When it was all over, Lizzie lingered like one of the rimy trees as the gravediggers began to fill the hole. She shuddered with emotion and with cold in the bitter gloom and wept, her face racked with anguish. St. John’s church loomed grey in the icy mist; and the other mourners, Tom Dando among them, stood, sombre, black, watching her, awaiting her on the path at the top. As she wiped the tears away with a dainty, lace handkerchief Eve had made, Joe came back for her and put his arm round her waist to lead her away.
‘Perhaps it would’ve been better if you hadn’t come, our Lizzie,’ he said softly.
‘I had to come, Joe,’ she sobbed. ‘I wanted to come. I wanted to see her off safely.’
Lizzie had reached her nadir. Things could surely get no worse. With Joe’s arm around her, the tears flowed more profusely. Her mind wandered feebly here and there, feeling wretched and forsaken, left alone to cope with life’s immense disappointments. Joe’s murmured words of comfort were of little help. Her heart was stone cold with suffering, and she was tortured with pangs of emptiness, longing, and loneliness; and a lack of love.
Beccy Crump, Eve’s friend and confidante of more than forty years, had agreed to look after Lizzie’s children during the funeral and when the mourners came back to the house afterwards. Meanwhile, May had prepared sandwiches and brewed tea.
Sarah Dando helped too, while Tom paid his last respects to the woman he’d loved and lost. If he could have had the choice, he would have married Eve. She should have been his wife; and if she had been, who knows, she might even still be alive. Certainly he would have looked after her with devotion through her illnesses.
During this time of sadness Tom Dando could not condone Sylvia’s avoidance of Lizzie and Eve over the years – especially Eve, especially now, at Eve’s funeral. It was as if the events all those years ago concerning Lizzie and Jesse Clancey had prejudiced her irrevocably against them. Even since her marriage to James Atkinson nothing had changed; the same futile hostility remained.
*
As Christmas approached so Lizzie’s grief grew more intense, heightened by Ben’s continued absence. It seemed that she would never again know happiness. Happiness, she was sure, would avoid her for the rest of her life. She had her children, each a part of Ben, and she was thankful for that. She loved them with all her heart, but they were no substitute for her husband. The love she felt for him was different. It was earthy, lusty and sensuous, yet profound and utterly respectful. They were soul-mates, after all.
Lizzie and her children spent Christmas day with May and Joe and Emmie. It would have been a depressing time, indeed she expected it to be, but the children turned it into an amusing and pleasant day. They, at least, were not burdened with grief, and it brought some respite; a waft of warmth in the bleakness. By nine o’ clock, however, eighteen-month-old Alice had fallen asleep on the floor where she had been playing, Maxine was sleeping in Emmie’s crib (having been fed an hour earlier), and both Herbert and Henzey were miserable with fatigue. It was time she put them to bed. So while Joe carried Alice back next door, Lizzie took Maxine in her arms, and the other two stumbled down one entry and up the other, grizzling irritably. None of them saw a soldier lingering in the shadows of The Sailor’s Return, watching.
Joe left soon after he’d poked the fire into life and stacked some lumps of coal on for her. At once Lizzie put the children to bed, looking forward to an hour or so of peace and quiet. She returned downstairs quietly and opened the letter she’d received from Ben on Christmas Eve. She sat down and read it again. Just as she was about to read it once more a knock at the back door surprised her. She returned Ben’s letter to the envelope and the mantel shelf. When she answered the door a tall, lean, young man wearing a military uniform stood before her, and her heart danced with joy. God bless him, he could not have timed it better. He was home, at last; home to the wife who so hopelessly craved him. He carried a large leather bag and, in the shadow cast by the back door, she could just make out his smile as he looked at her expectantly.
‘Merry Christmas, Lizzie,’ he said. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me in?’
He removed his peaked hat, leaned forward and kissed her, putting his free hand to her waist. Just in time, she stopped herself flinging her arms around him.
‘Stanley! Oh! Come in, Stanley. This is such a surprise. It’s lovely to see you.’
He took off his gloves and placed them on the table. ‘I bet I’m the last person in the world you expected to see.’
She fluffed up a cushion for him, inviting him to sit down. ‘What brings you here? I didn’t even know you were due on leave.’
‘Well, I was sorry to hear about your mother, Lizzie, and I thought, what with Ben still away, maybe you wouldn’t mind some company for half an hour or so. I’ve brought some things for your kiddies – for Christmas. Sorry it’s a bit late … The bag’s for you, by the way. What’s inside is for the children – just a few clothes, sweets, and things.’
‘Oh, Stanley, you shouldn’t have. It’s ever so kind of you. Thanks ever so much … And this is a beautiful bag. I’ve never seen one like it before.’
‘It’s not quite new, Lizzie. I picked it up in Italy before the war. For some reason, the moment I saw it I thought of you. I’ve carried it with me everywhere since, with the intention of giving it to you some time.’
‘You shouldn’t have.’ She felt herself blushing and, to conceal it, she bent down to look inside the bag. Why was it that Stanley always had this effect on her, as if she were a shy schoolgirl? ‘Well, whatever it is you’ve brought the kids, you’ve wrapped them up nicely. I’ll let them undo the parcels themselves in the morning. They’ll love that.’ She stood up. ‘I’ll boil the kettle for some tea, Stanley. Sorry I’ve got nothing stronger to offer.’
‘Tea’ll be fine, Lizzie … You’re looking a treat, you know, considering the loss of Aunt Eve. You’ve barely changed since the last time I saw you. You’re still as beautiful as ever. But you always were a bobbydazzler.’
She lifted the kettle onto the biggest gale. ‘It’s nice of you to say so, but I don’t feel it. I’ve lost weight. Worry, I expect. And because food’s scarce.’
‘You look as beautiful as ever. No different to when you were sixteen. Believe me.’
Her colour came up again and she sat down beside him. ‘Oh, tell me more, Stanley. I could do with cheering up, God knows – what with one thing and another. Where’ve you been hiding anyway
? I haven’t seen you for what? Six or seven years?’
‘Has it been that long? The last posting I had was Togoland, when we shunted the Hun out at the start of the war. I’ve been back home a few days, that’s all. The day after tomorrow I have to report back to my regiment. Then God knows where they’ll send us. I’m a captain now, you know.’
‘A captain? Well, congratulations. I always knew you’d do well in the army. I always knew you’d get on.’
‘And how’s Ben doing? D’you hear from him regular?’
‘Oh, I get a letter most days, thank God. Some days two, even. Other days none at all.’
‘Where is he, Lizzie? Do you know?’
She leaned forward to poke the fire. ‘In Northern France somewhere. In the thick of it, though he doesn’t say much. He’s a gunner. Fourteenth Battalion Machine Gun Corps. I don’t suppose you’ve come across him?’
‘I’ve not been to Northern France, thankfully. To be honest, I don’t envy him. Chances are I’ll end up there soon enough. My regiment was due to go to Gallipoli, but that expedition’s been scrubbed in the last day or two, I hear. Trouble is, this damned war’s being fought on too many fronts. We’ve lost half a million men already. Half a million!’
‘I haven’t seen your folks since Mother’s funeral. Are they all right?’
‘Oh, the old girl seems fit enough. Father’s not too well, though. He took your mother’s death badly.’
There was a silence for a few moments. Lizzie stood up again, reached for the tea caddy and spooned tea leaves into the teapot.
‘I thought you were Ben standing at the door, you know. You gave me quite a turn.’ She replaced the caddy and faced him, leaning against the brass fireguard.
‘You miss him, don’t you, Lizzie?’
