A Family Affair

by Nancy Carson

  ‘Always presuming he doesn’t volunteer as well.’

  ‘Is he likely to?’

  ‘Who knows? At least he’s got his son to keep him at home. He wouldn’t want to leave the child fatherless. That much I know. But they might introduce conscription.’

  He nodded his understanding. Since his accident he had been more understanding. He was easier to live with, he tolerated her affair well. He was maturing at last.

  ‘But, Ned,’ she said with genuine concern. ‘I don’t want you to volunteer on my account. That would be stupid. You could go and get yourself killed and I’d feel as guilty as hell.’

  He smiled up at her. ‘That would be a change.’ He stood up, stretched his braces and then his arms. ‘No, I’ve made my mind up, Clover. It’s what I want to do. For as long as I can remember I’ve dreamed of being able to fly. Well, I’m going to do it. Test flying Farmans and Avro 504s around Wolverhampton is all well and good, but not really that exciting. I want to go and do some real flying, flying with a definite purpose, with some excitement attached to it. I want to pit my wits and my skill against other flyers and know I’m the best.’

  ‘And would you be able to fly straight away?’

  ‘You’re supposed to have an aviator’s certificate to fly army aeroplanes. Nobody ever thought to let me qualify for one but I daresay they’ll give me one once I get there. Flying’s not that difficult. It’s no more difficult than driving a motor car, whatever plane you’re in. Folk just think it is.’

  ‘If that’s what you really want to do, Ned…’

  ‘It is.’

  She smiled sympathetically. He might as well do it. He had no life at home. She did not make him happy, nor could she. He might just as well exercise his God-given talent and be content in doing that, rather than staying home frustrated. Who knows, he might even meet a nice young French lady who would fall in love with him and make his miserable life bearable again. That would be the ideal outcome.

  So, as he promised he would, Ned went to the recruiting office next day, Friday 18th September. On Sunday morning Clover said goodbye to him. He touched her hand respectfully, bent down to kiss Posy on the head, stroked Liquorice a last time, and he was gone.

  Clover watched him go, not closing the door till he was round the corner by the Junction Inn. Posy, now five years old, had her arms flung around Clover’s legs, her face buried in her skirts so that she should not see him go. She did not understand the significance of the man she knew as her daddy going away to fight in the war. She was not even certain what war was. But she picked up the mixed emotions of her mother and sensed that whatever was happening her life was about to change; this man was not going to figure in it for some time at least.

  Clover felt glad and sad and guilty all at the same time to see him go. She was glad because his absence would free her to spend more time with Tom, as Ned had anticipated she would. But because she could never be what he wanted her to be, the circumstances by which Ned had asked her to marry him, indeed insisted she marry him and offer himself for sacrifice in the process, made her sad. It was the possibility that he might never come back that made her feel guilty. But what if he did come back and she was prevented further from spending her life with Tom, which was, after all, the life she craved? What on earth did the future have in store for her?

  Ned was a fool and always had been. He was one of those people blessed with a gift, a flair – maybe even genius – held back only by a lack of money but never ideas. Yet he lacked that most precious of gifts: common sense. Ask him to tell you why he needed a wing area of so-and-so square feet and he would tell you, but ask him to fetch some coal up from the cellar and he would bring enough only for one fire and never fill the scuttle…Why?…

  Tom, on the other hand…was also a fool. Ordinarily, he was blessed with the common sense that Ned lacked. However, he was fool enough never to have worked out that the son he adored was by somebody else, that the woman he married had used him to effect her own salvation. The difference between the two men in that respect was that Ned knew he was taking on another man’s child.

  So which of the two was the bigger fool?

  The question needed no answer. It was irrelevant. Both were fools enough. Her fools. But she loved one more dearly than life itself and resented the other for having married her in the first place. The important question now was how to see more of Tom, without appearing to her neighbours and his that she was kicking her feet up and generally becoming unworthy of their respect while her husband was risking his life, fighting ultimately for her freedom.

  Clover shut the front door, uncurled Posy from around her legs and took her hand. Back in the scullery she sat at the table and Posy sat on her lap.

  ‘When will me daddy come back, Mommy?’ Posy asked.

  ‘I don’t know, Petal. He might not come back for a long time. It depends how long the war lasts…It depends on a lot of things.’

  ‘Is he going to fly his aeroplane?’

  Clover nodded.

  ‘Then he’ll be able to fly home and see us, I ’spect.’

  ‘No, he’ll be too far away, love. Across the sea in another country called France. Aeroplanes can’t fly that far.’

  ‘Will he bring me a present when he does come?’

  ‘Oh, I expect so…’

  ‘Do all daddies have to fly their aeroplanes in the war?’

  ‘Not all daddies have an aeroplane, sweetheart. But a lot of daddies will have to leave their wives and children and fight the Germans. Now, what would you like for your breakfast? Would you like some French toast with some jam on?’

  Posy nodded, slid down off Clover’s lap and sat on the seat opposite her mother. Only her cherubic face was visible above the table.

  Clover cut a slice of bread from the loaf that was upturned on the bread board, buttered one side and began toasting the dry side in front of the fire using a toasting fork. ‘This afternoon we’ll meet Uncle Tom and Daniel and go to the Castle grounds for a walk,’ she said, leaning forward to hold the slice of bread in front of the fire. ‘Would you like that?’

  Posy nodded again and smiled her approval. ‘Shall I have an ice cream?’

  ‘If we see an ice cream cart.’

  The child looked pensive for a few seconds. ‘Will Uncle Tom have to go and fight the Germans as well?’

  ‘I hope not. Don’t you?’

  ‘But he’s a daddy,’ she reasoned. ‘He’s Daniel’s daddy.’

  ‘I know he is, but I hope he doesn’t have to go as well. He has Daniel to look after.’

  ‘I know…’ She paused, thinking little girls’ thoughts as she watched the slice of bread toasting. ‘Why did Daniel’s mommy die?’

  ‘Because she was very poorly – after Daniel was born.’

  ‘Did you know his mommy?’

  ‘Yes, she was my stepsister.’

  ‘What’s a stepsister?’

  Clover did her best to explain in simple terms.

  ‘Was she nice, his mommy?’

  ‘She was very nice. She was very pretty with curly, yellow hair – just like Daniel.’ Clover withdrew the toast from in front of the fire, melted butter dripping from it. She put it on a plate and spread some blackberry jam over it. ‘Here you are, sweetheart.’

  Posy took it and put the toast to her mouth. ‘When I grow up I’m going to marry Daniel, Mommy,’ she declared, then took a bite.

  ‘Mmm,’ Clover mused. ‘I hope it’s that simple for you…’

  They met, that afternoon. While Clover and Tom ambled up the steep, winding paths through the trees of Dudley’s old, derelict castle, the children ran on boisterously in their best Sunday clothes, playing hide-and-seek, tick and other games that involved chasing each other about. She took Tom’s arm, like any wife would take her husband’s and relished the newly sanctioned freedom to pursue this course. She looked into his eyes lovingly.

  ‘So how do you feel now he’s gone?’ Tom asked.

  She told him how sh
e felt when she watched Ned walk down the street with an old cardboard suitcase he’d borrowed from his father, explaining honestly her mixed emotions.

  ‘At least you’ll be able to come and go as you please,’ he remarked. ‘Within reason.’

  ‘Already your neighbours must think I’m a fallen woman seeing me appear and disappear at odd hours,’ she said.

  ‘Mrs Jeavons next door believes you’re a widow.’

  She looked up at him and smiled. ‘You told her that?’

  ‘No. She just assumes. She’s a widow herself. I think she envies you your brazenness.’

  ‘Sees me as brazen, does she? If only she knew the truth, she’d think I was a whore.’

  Through the trees they could see Dudley Station in the valley below. A locomotive, shunting wagons, huffed and clanked, sending volleys of steam and smoke into the late summer air. Beyond the station lay the tram depot and, beyond that, the headgear of the Coneygree Colliery loomed dismally over its grotesque slag heaps, the marl-hole of the adjacent brick works and the cupolas of the foundry where she used to work making cores.

  ‘It wouldn’t do for me to be seen calling on you at Hill Street,’ Tom said.

  ‘’Course not,’ she replied.

  ‘You have your reputation there to protect.’

  She laughed. ‘Such as it is. If only I could come and live with you at Salop Street…If only convention would allow it—’

  ‘But it doesn’t,’ he stated firmly.

  She looked at him, surprised and a little disappointed at this sudden propriety that she thought he might have defied. Maybe she did not know him as well as she thought she did.

  He caught her glance, recognised her disillusionment. ‘I’m only concerned for your honour, Clover. But there’s another consideration…’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘If we lived together, people would see you and assume we were wed. If you suddenly left me when Ned came home, what would they think then? What would I think?’

  ‘Since when have you been so concerned about what other people might think, Tom? What we do is nothing to do with anybody but ourselves. Anyway, let me make one thing clear – if I do decide to fly in the face of convention, and Posy and I come and live with you – if you allow it, that is,’ she added with a hint of sarcasm, ‘I would not leave you even when Ned does come home. I couldn’t go back to him.’

  ‘You mean, you’d rob him of his daughter?’

  She was tempted to scream out that Posy was not Ned’s daughter, that she was his. But she stopped herself. Instead, she said: ‘For you, I would do that.’

  ‘I don’t desire that of you,’ he proclaimed, and she thought how strangely pious he sounded.

  She sighed with frustration. ‘But, Tom, he doesn’t regard Clover in the same way you regard Daniel. He’s never been a father to her in the same way you’ve been to Daniel.’

  ‘All the same.’

  Chapter 30

  The next morning Clover arose early. It was washing day and, as usual, she would take her basket of dirty washing round to Florrie Brisco’s and spend the morning in the brewhouse, up to her elbows in soap suds and steam while Posy was at school. She stretched herself and pondered again the conversation with Tom that had put a damper on her spirits. His words, his reasons for her not to go and live with him, hurt and disappointed her for they were incongruent with how she believed he felt about her. Something was holding him back, some doubt, some misgiving, and she had no idea what it was. Could he be afraid of commitment? She thought not. He had not been afraid to commit himself to Ramona; he had not been afraid to commit himself to Daniel. She could only presume it was because he would not be able to tolerate the heartache of losing her when Ned came home. Indeed, that made sense and Clover would have been content to believe that. But another thought, a fear, was lurking: what if he was considering volunteering for service? What if he was considering leaving Daniel with her for the duration of the war?

  She roused Posy and together, they washed and dressed and breakfasted. This is like being a widow, she told herself, without Ned around. She brushed Posy’s lush dark hair, they donned their hats and coats and Clover picked up the basket of laundry. On the way to school she deposited it at Florrie Brisco’s and told her she’d be back in ten minutes when she’d delivered Posy.

  During the morning, the two women discussed Ned’s volunteering for service and the war. Florrie had many strange ideas and remedies on how to deal with the Kaiser, some of which made Clover laugh, some she knew were plain ignorant and stupid. When the washing had been pegged out, Clover collected Posy from school and they returned to Granny and Granddad Brisco’s to eat bubble-and-squeak, the fried-up leftovers from yesterday’s dinner. After she’d taken Posy back to school for the afternoon session, Clover made her way to the post office in St John’s Road. On her way she met Zillah Bache and the two women greeted each other warmly.

  ‘Ned’s volunteered for the Royal Flying Corps,’ Clover told Zillah. ‘I’m on my way to the post office to see about my allowance now he’s not picking up any wages.’

  ‘Shall you be able to manage all right?’ Zillah asked.

  ‘I’ve got no choice. Posy gets through clothes and shoes like nobody’s business but that can’t be helped. I shall have to cut down on other things. I shan’t be able to put any more money towards paying off that stupid loan till he gets back and goes back to work. If only I knew who the money was owed to I could apologise and try to reassure them I’m saving up to pay it off when I can afford to.’

  ‘It’s never bin paid off?’ Zillah queried.

  ‘Never. If Ned wasn’t such a nincompoop he’d have paid it off long before he married me. Now I’m stuck with it. It’s all I can do to manage as things are, without that hanging over me.’

  ‘He’s a clot, that Ned.’

  ‘Clot? Listen, you’re preaching to the choir here, Zillah. I know it better than anybody.’

  ‘You’d have bin best off without him, if you ask me. What about the time he crashed that contraption of his into Maisie Winwood’s railings?’

  Zillah started to laugh at the memory and Clover laughed too. In fact, the whole of Kates Hill had never really stopped laughing. It was mentioned most nights in some pub or other and everybody would guffaw and make disparaging comments. It would take a long time for Kates Hill folk to forget that episode.

  ‘It’s a wonder nobody was killed, Clover.’

  ‘Damn fool! I still can’t get over it…Talking about fools – how’s my mother?’

  ‘Mellowing nicely,’ Zillah replied with a certain amount of satisfaction.

  ‘Mellowing? Stone-faced old Mary Ann?’

  ‘Nice as pie her is to me nowadays, Clover, my wench. Talks to me, her does – not at me, like her used to.’

  ‘Struth!’

  ‘I think her misses you, you know. Her generally asks me if I’ve seen yer. I generally tell her as I haven’t, though, ’cause her’d only pump me for information. I only tell her what I want her to know, Clover.’

  ‘Oh, you can tell her you’ve seen me today if you like. Tell her I’ve never felt better and that her granddaughter’s beautiful. Tell her I would’ve taken Posy to see her if only she’d never thrown me out in the first place – I’ll never forgive her for that…No. On second thoughts, don’t tell her that at all, Zillah. She’ll think I’ve been telling tales. She’d hate that. But tell her I hope she’s keeping well – and Jake of course.’

  Zillah smiled, her black eyes alight with satisfaction over her fat jowls. ‘I’ll tell her. Her’ll be really happy to hear it. It’ll mek her day. Yo’m mellowing nicely yourself, Clover.’

  ‘God, and I’m only twenty-six!’

  Ned was immediately drafted into 14 Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps. Because he had years of experience flying Farmans and, more latterly, Avros, he was given a mandatory test and immediately received an aviation certificate. Based for a few weeks in Hampshire learning military flying techniqu
es, he quickly discovered that airmen were perceived as heroes and were invited to lavish parties at big country houses where they met the county set. Suddenly, he was surrounded by beautiful, sophisticated women, many of whom seemed interested and impressed with him. He affirmed that he was married to a beautiful girl who was waiting anxiously for his return, but it only seemed to make the women even more interested. He told them he had a beautiful, blue-eyed daughter and that didn’t deter them either. He received invitations to tea, to dinner and to more parties, all of which he accepted. When he was eventually posted to France in November, he was sorry to have to leave.

  Ned’s squadron flew Farnborough BE2c two-seater reconnaissance biplanes. The BE2c had staggered wings, giving a good view up and down, a wingspan of thirty-seven feet and a maximum speed of seventy-five miles per hour. Ned loved it. On sorties into enemy territory, he and his observer, Jack Smedley, a lad eleven years his junior, defended themselves with a rifle or a hand-gun which Jack wielded in the forward seat. Sometimes they were asked to lob hand grenades onto enemy gun positions over the side of the aeroplane, and this they did with a spirit of keen aggression that grabbed all flyers. It took a great deal of courage to fly in the face of anti-aircraft fire and deal with enemy aircraft as they intercepted them.

  On 15th December 1914, in appalling weather, Ned and Jack and two other aircraft were involved in a scrap with a German aeroplane that was intent on running them out of their back yard. The three British aeroplanes succeeded in forcing the German to land in Allied territory, whereupon its crew abandoned their aeroplane and escaped. But it was a victory and Ned’s first significant one. With the others, he had proved himself and celebrated it handsomely with the rest of the squadron.

  He adjusted to his new life quickly. Discipline was slack in the scout squadrons. Nobody really bothered what you did in your free time and, once in the air, they didn’t know what you were up to anyway, since there was no two-way wireless communication to give orders. You were given a task and you got on with it. When you’d completed it, if you wanted to push your luck and go marauding, looking for a stray Hun to shoot down, then so be it. Ned never considered the inherent dangers, he merely enjoyed the camaraderie and back-slapping of his fellow flyers and was always happy to pull on his coat, his helmet and his goggles ready for another sortie behind enemy lines to see what they were up to. Anything to rove the skies in his BE2c.