A Daughter's Choice

by Cathy Sharp

‘No, I’m not mad at you, Billy. What do you want – a boy or a girl?’

  ‘A boy,’ he said and then a shadow passed across his face. ‘I don’t really care – as long as you’re all right, Kathy. I know Tom said we should wait two years …’

  ‘Tom O’Rourke isn’t my husband, you are. I want more children, Billy. By the time the baby comes it won’t be far off the two years. I’m sure I shan’t have any trouble this time. A lot of women have it hard with their first child.’

  ‘You take care of yerself. Yer can stop that cleanin’ fer that Ernie Cole fer a start. You’ve got enough ter do with the ’ouse and Mickey. Now the baby’s comin’ you’ve got ter take more care.’

  ‘I’ll cook something for him here and take it along, but I won’t do any cleaning. I can’t just desert him, Billy. He can’t manage to cook for himself.’

  ‘I’d let the bugger starve. If I think yer doin’ too much I shall put me foot down. If yer afraid ter tell ’im, I’ll do it fer yer!’

  ‘Please don’t. I promise I won’t do too much.’

  The last thing I wanted was for Billy to have a row with Ernie Cole! We had been contented enough in our own way these past months, but I knew that it could change at any time. If Billy discovered that I had lied again – it didn’t bear thinking about!

  I had stopped to buy flowers at a stall on the market, and was holding a bunch of sweet-smelling pinks to my nose when I noticed a woman staring at me. She was sort of hovering near the stall, waiting until I moved away, and then she came up to me.

  ‘You’re Mrs Billy Ryan, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes?’ I stared at her in surprise, not recognizing her. ‘I’m sorry, do I know you?’

  ‘No, we’ve never met, but I heard you was the one what ’elped to raise money fer me and the kids when me ’usband were killed in that raid down the warehouse.’

  ‘Mrs Branning,’ I said and smiled at her. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you. How are you getting on?’

  ‘We’re doing all right,’ she said. ‘Managin’ anyways. I wanted to tell you … to say thank you to your ’usband fer what he done fer us. We were turned out of our ’ouse when we couldn’t pay the rent, but he found us another place to stay, and he put in a good word fer me in the right place. I’ve got a decent little job now.’

  ‘Billy did that for you?’ I was surprised because at the time he hadn’t wanted to know.

  ‘He was real good to me, Mrs Ryan. He’s a good man your ’usband, and don’t yer let no one tell yer no different.’

  ‘Thank you, I won’t.’

  She nodded and smiled, then walked off. I stared after her, wondering why she had seemed to think that someone might tell me Billy was not a good man. I knew only too well that he could be generous, but he was also a man of moods.

  For a while, I was sick every morning, but then the sickness stopped and I began to feel really well. There was none of the dragging tiredness I had felt with my first baby, and I didn’t neglect my appearance as I had during the later months of that pregnancy.

  Billy was working hard. He gave me more money every week than I needed, and I saved a little just in case things went wrong and we needed it one day. Not that it seemed likely at the moment. Billy had money to burn.

  He had bought himself a smart suit, which he put on when he went out three nights a week. I was curious about where he went, and if I hadn’t been sure he was as jealous of me as ever, I might have thought he had another woman.

  I teased him one night when he came downstairs with his hair slicked down flat and smelling of fancy oil.

  ‘Are you off to see a woman, Billy?’

  ‘Yer know I wouldn’t do that, Kathy. I’ve not laid a finger on another woman since we wed – not even when I was mad at yer.’

  ‘Where are you going, then? It’s a funny sort of work if you need a smart suit. Are you working in a bank?’

  Billy chuckled, seeming highly amused. ‘Some people reckon Mr Maitland’s got more money stashed away than most banks, but ’e don’t lend none of it out as fer as I know.’ His gaze narrowed as he regarded me thoughtfully. ‘Can yer keep a secret?’

  ‘If you ask me to.’

  ‘I work at a kind of club three nights a week. I’m a sort of … well, I protect the boss, see. There are people he don’t want ter see, what try ter come in and I keep ’em out.’

  ‘Does that mean you have to use violence?’

  ‘Nah …’ Billy preened and gave me a cocky grin. ‘When they see me and Basher they behave respectful. I’ve only ’ad ter use force a few times. Maitland’s a good boss, Kathy. Some nights I drive ’im places instead of workin’ at the club.’

  ‘What kind of places?’

  ‘Never you mind that. I’ve told yer more than I should now.’

  ‘Is that where the money comes from? It’s not from your job at the factory, is it?’

  ‘You don’t buy houses on wages from the factory, Kathy. A man ‘as to ’ave a bit o’ ambition if ’e wants ter get on. I’m looking ter be rich one day. Richer than Tom O’Rourke will ever be despite his doctorin’.’

  I heard a slight note of jealousy in Billy’s voice. Was he jealous of Tom? I hadn’t realized it before. I’d thought Billy respected and liked his friend, but now as I looked at him I knew that he was harbouring resentment deep down. Tom had been born in the lanes the same as Billy, but he’d gone to better schools and then to college – he’d made something of his life.

  Billy needed to be better than his friend. I understood now why he had wanted me to look pretty the night we went for a drink with Tom. He’d wanted Tom to envy him his wife. – he’d wanted to show me off as if I were a trophy. Since the night Tom had saved my life, and then told Billy he was a lucky man, Billy had made sure I had everything I needed to look my best.

  Was that why he’d bought us a house, why he was talking of buying a similar car to the one Tom had been driving at that time? Because he had to compete with his friend – to be bigger than Tom?

  A chill ran through me as I understood my husband’s motivation as never before. What would Billy do if he ever discovered that Tom O’Rourke was Mickey’s father?

  In the November of 1919 Nancy Astor had been elected as the first woman MP. I’d received a letter from Ally at that time; she told me that she was just about to give birth to her second child. Her first had been a boy, and she had brought him to visit once just after Mickey was born, but I hadn’t seen her since, until she turned up on her own one morning out of the blue.

  She told me she’d had to get out of the pub or she would have gone mad.

  ‘Mike is a lazy so and so sometimes,’ she complained. ‘I have to keep on at him all the time or he would leave everything to me. I’ve got the child to look after as well as the cooking and cleaning, but he expects me to serve behind the bar as well. This morning I just walked out and left him to it. He can see how he likes it for once.’

  ‘Maggie says all men are lazy if you let them be, but Billy is always at work these days.’

  ‘I always thought you would marry Billy,’ she told me with a satisfied look. ‘It’s far better than trying to go above your station.’

  I hadn’t argued with her. Besides, I had warned her not to mention Tom in front of Billy, and she’d been very careful when he was around.

  ‘We’re friends, Kathy,’ she told me. ‘We might not have been friends now if you had married the other one.’

  Ally said we were friends, and we were – but I knew Tom was right when he said she was jealous of me. She had found running a pub much harder than she’d thought it would be, and she told me she wished now that she hadn’t got married for a while.

  ‘I wish I’d waited,’ she said pulling a face. ‘Do you ever think about the time we were nursing, Kathy? It was fun, wasn’t it?’

  I agreed that it was fun, but hard work.

  ‘Not as hard as looking after a pub and a kid,’ she said. ‘You’re lucky, Kathy. Billy gives you everything yo
u want.’

  ‘Yes, he does,’ I said. ‘I know I’m lucky.’

  I was lucky but if I could have gone back to the time when we were nursing together I would.

  It was in December 1920 that Billy took me to hear the Dixieland Jazz Band from America at the London Palladium, and then the following January we heard that alcohol had been banned in America.

  ‘We shall have all the Yankees comin’ over now if they can’t get a drink,’ Billy quipped. ‘Don’t bleedin’ blame ’em neither!’

  Our daughter was born at the beginning of February 1921. This time I gave birth easily and Billy fetched the doctor to me himself. He waited downstairs and came into the room soon after Sarah made her entrance.

  ‘I’m sorry, Billy,’ I said as he bent over the child that laid in my arms. ‘I know you wanted a boy. I’ll try to do better next time.’

  ‘She’s beautiful,’ he said and bent to kiss me on the mouth. ‘I don’t care that she’s a girl, love. You’re both well and that’s all that matters.’

  Billy had bought me a little seed pearl necklace, which he gave me as a thank-you gift for giving him his daughter.

  ‘You’re spoiling me again, Billy.’

  ‘I’ve always said yer were worth it.’ He gave me an odd glance. ‘Did Bridget tell yer that Tom’s back from America? He’s comin’ on a visit next month.’

  ‘That will be nice. We haven’t seen him since Mickey was born.’

  We hadn’t seen him, but not a day had passed that I hadn’t thought about him, hadn’t wondered where he was and what he’d been doing. Despite things being so much better for Billy and me, I could never quite forget the man I still loved. I supposed I never would.

  ‘He’s been travellin’,’ Billy said. ‘We’ll ’ave ’im ter dinner, Kathy. You’ll be feelin’ better by then. Yer can get a new dress and spend a bit on things fer the ’ouse, if yer like.’

  ‘I’ll make everything look nice, Billy. If I’m lucky, I’ll have my figure almost back by then.’

  ‘I’ve got another surprise fer yer,’ he said and looked pleased with himself. ‘As soon as yer up and about again I’ll take yer for a spin in me car.’

  ‘You’ve bought a car? Oh, Billy!’ I could see he was excited but there was a cold feeling at the back of my neck. How could he afford a car? Surely he didn’t earn enough from just throwing people out of a nightclub? It wasn’t as if he’d been mean with his money lately. ‘Can … can you afford it?’

  ‘Don’t start naggin’, Kathy. I’ll make the decisions about what I can and can’t afford.’

  There was a flush of annoyance on his face. Billy did not like to be questioned about money or where it came from, and I knew better than to push the point. My husband’s temper could flare up without warning and I didn’t want to quarrel with him.

  The news that Tom was coming on a visit made my heart race. It seemed so long since I’d seen him, though he’d sent the occasional postcard addressed to Mr and Mrs Billy Ryan. He wrote longer letters to Bridget and she told me what he was doing and where he was whenever I saw her.

  Bridget was aware of something between her brother and me. She had never said so in as many words, but there was an odd note in her voice when she gave me news of him that told me she knew. She didn’t understand why things had worked out the way they had, and I couldn’t tell her the truth. But I think she sensed that my life wasn’t as good or as happy as I pretended.

  It wasn’t that I was desperately unhappy. Billy was good to me in many ways, and as long as I didn’t question him or go against his wishes he was good humoured and loving. Sometimes I hated myself for having married him. I hated what I had become.

  My life with Billy was comfortable, but I sometimes felt I was living in a gilded cage. I was Billy’s wife, a possession he guarded jealously, something to be shown off rather like his new car, but I wasn’t a person in my own right. We didn’t share things. Billy gave and I was expected to take whatever he handed out and smile.

  At other times, when I saw friends that I’d known at school struggling to make ends meet, I knew I was lucky. They had no more freedom than I, and some of them had violent husbands who beat them on a Saturday night or whenever they’d had a few drinks.

  Billy wasn’t often violent. He had been rough with me a few times, but he hadn’t beaten me the way some men beat their wives, and for that I was thankful. Yes, Ally was right when she told me I was lucky. I ought to put Tom right out of my mind and stop wishing for the moon.

  ‘What do yer call this bleedin’ pap?’ Ernie Cole glared at me as I set a rice pudding down on the kitchen table. ‘Don’t give me rubbish like that. I want a good meat pudding.’

  ‘You were sick yesterday and you didn’t eat the stew I brought you. I thought you might like something light for your stomach.’

  ‘Well, don’t bleedin’ think,’ he muttered and knocked the dish on to the floor. ‘Get me some bread and cheese.’

  ‘You can get it yourself,’ I said. ‘I don’t have to put up with this and I’m not going to.’

  He glared at me as I walked out, but I’d had enough of his grumbling for one day. Billy got annoyed with me for coming here at all, and there were times when I almost made up my mind that I wouldn’t come again. Yet the threat of what Ernie might do if I ignored what he thought of as my duty hung over me and so I continued to visit now and then, despite my husband’s and Ernie’s continual complaints.

  I saw Tom as I was returning from the market that afternoon. Mickey was in his pushchair. He could walk quite well now, but it was too far to the market and back, so I usually took the chair that Billy had bought for me. It was, of course, brand new.

  ‘Kathy …’ Tom’s eyes went over me and I was glad that I was wearing a dress that suited me and was one of the new shorter-length dresses that were beginning to become so fashionable. It wasn’t as daring as some young women wore, but flirted above my ankles and had a flattering tunic style. ‘How well you look … lovely. I think motherhood suits you. Bridget told me you have a little girl now.’

  ‘Sarah is with Maggie. I can’t manage them both when I go to the market. Mickey doesn’t like being in the pram with his sister and he makes a fuss if I try to take him like that. So I usually bring him on his own at the moment. Sarah sleeps most of the time in the afternoon and is no trouble for Maggie to look after.’

  Tom looked at the boy and I caught a wistful expression in his eyes. ‘He’s getting a big lad now. I think he will be tall when he grows up, Kathy.’

  ‘Yes, I think so too. Sarah is much smaller. She’s like a little doll, but very pretty.’

  ‘Her mother was always pretty.’ Tom’s gaze reflected a hungry yearning. ‘Have you got time to stop for a drink somewhere? We could put the pushchair in the back of my car. I’ve got a Daimler Phaeton now, which has a lot more room than my old roadster.’

  ‘I don’t think I should.’ I saw the disappointment in his eyes and relented. ‘But as it’s a nice day we could walk as far as the river and back. I sometimes take Mickey to see the boats going by to the docks. He loves them, especially when they blow their hooters.’

  ‘That would be pleasant.’ Tom fell into step beside me. We walked in silence for a few minutes, then: ‘Are you happy, Kathy?’

  ‘I … I’m content most of the time.’ His question had surprised me into the truth. ‘Billy is good to us. He bought a house and he’s got a car now – but happiness is something that doesn’t come easily, I’ve found.’

  ‘I knew Billy had bought a car. Bridget told me it’s similar to the one I had during the war. I drive something more sensible now.’

  ‘Perhaps Billy will change his for an Austin saloon. It would be better for the children when we want to take them out, but he was set on that roadster.’

  ‘Because I had one?’ Tom raised his eyebrows. ‘Bridget always said he was jealous of me when I went away to school. I’ve tried to be the same with him as I was when we were lads, but it doesn’t
quite work. I’m not sure why.’

  ‘Billy is very proud. He likes to be the best – to have the best.’

  ‘Why did you marry him? You’re not in love with him.’

  His last words were a statement, not a question.

  ‘I can’t answer that question, Tom. It wouldn’t be fair to you – or Billy.’

  ‘Not answering isn’t fair to me, Kathy. Surely I have a right to know why you chose him! What did I do wrong?’

  ‘We had quarrelled. You didn’t try to contact me …’ I faltered as I saw his look. ‘I should have apologized, Tom. You were angry because I didn’t want to stop with you that night, but I was upset over Gran. Afterwards I wished I had said yes. I missed you so much, but I was proud and foolish – and then …’ My breath trailed away as I realized how fruitless this was. I couldn’t tell him the truth so why go on?

  ‘And then?’ Tom took hold of my arm, turning me to face him. ‘That doesn’t explain why you married Billy. Unless, you were having my child.’ His face was grey and twisted with grief. ‘I’ve agonized over this for months, Kathy. Mickey wasn’t born too soon the way Maggie Ryan pretended. He was far too big. He couldn’t have been Billy’s. He was still in France in September.’

  ‘Of course he isn’t,’ I said my heart contracting with fear, ‘But Billy doesn’t know Mickey is yours and you mustn’t let him guess, Tom. He would go mad with jealousy. I didn’t realize how much he envied you until recently, but now I know that he feels it deep down. He thinks that you’ve done so much better than he has and he wants to be as good or better than you. If he knew the truth he might harm Mickey or me.’

  ‘I shall never tell him.’ Glancing at Tom I saw the sparkle of tears in his eyes and understood how much this hurt him, knowing that he had a son he could never claim or acknowledge as his own. ‘But thank you for telling me. So it was my fault. I didn’t make up our quarrel and you thought I’d abandoned you – that’s why you married Billy.’

  ‘Something like that.’ I couldn’t look at Tom as I went on. ‘I was ashamed, and frightened of having an illegitimate child, and Billy had always wanted me. He said he was going to marry me and I–’