The Consequences of War

by Betty Burton

  ‘I’m going to do my job. I love it. It’s a good position and when it comes to an end, then I shall probably apply for the Civil Service exam. There are some good opportunities for women attached to the Navy at Portsmouth.’

  ‘Oh Georgia! Don’t kid yourself. You wasn’t cut out to be no Civil Servant. You should get a hold of that young Crockford fellow and the two of you should get wed and start raising a fambly.’

  Georgia often wondered why it was that she could smile amiably at Hyacinth when she expressed such opinions, yet had it been her mother who had behaved similarly, then Georgia would have bridled and said it was none of her business and stop interfering.

  The decision that Georgia had to make involved a laboriously written letter from Uncle John.

  We don’t get no younger and the place is getting a bit much for me and her. We put the whole of our lives into making something of the place and it would break Hyacinth’s heart if it was all for nothing. We don’t rightly know what to do because as you know the place wasn’t never ours but was Thomas’s your father’s and so by rights is yourn. I know Hyacinth has been on to you to come here, but as I told her a thousand times, that’s not practical even if you was married to somebody and in any case you set your heart on being somebody, not a farmer. Anyhow, Hyacinth has kept on to me to write and ask you and I see the rightness of her argument because it wouldn’t be right for her and me to keep going and spiling the place because our rumaticks don’t get no better with the years. What this place needs is a good strong pair of hands, and it’s what we haven’t got. And I can’t seen young men wanting to come back here once they get their demob. Anyhow, one way or the other we wants to hand over your rightful inheritance to you. There won’t be no trouble us getting out, because there’s been a couple of alms-houses empty here for more than a year because there be few true Cantle folk left to qualify to get one. Hoping we shall hear some good news from you. Hyacinth sends her love but that’s all of her messages I am going to write else I should want another sheet of paper, you know what she’s like.

  Your affectionate Uncle John Honeycombe

  Georgia, in answering John Honeycombe’s letter, promised that she would soon visit him and Hyacinth. She was tempted to go to them now, she felt unwell from unreliable periods and aching rib muscles which depressed her because she could not get relief from the nagging. She longed to go over to the farm at Cantle to be fussed over for a few days by Hyacinth. Although she was pleased to be leaving Hugh’s house, the little one in Newton Lane had looked cramped and felt cold. The memory of the rosy warmth of the spacious kitchen in the farmhouse at Cantle was tempting: living there where life, ruled by seasons and weather, went on much as it had a century ago, and where one would not be affected so much by the dragging on of the war.

  She was not interested in food and made herself very hasty and indifferent meals, or brought home bits and pieces of left-overs from work. Harry, Eve and Nick intruded on her thoughts constantly. It did not seem possible that Harry had become one of hundreds of bodies in a war-grave: it often seemed to her that it was as though he had been buried alive.

  She had not seen Eve for weeks and was hurt by her avoidance, so that when she recognized Eve’s voice on the telephone a few weeks before Christmas, Georgia held back her usual enthusiasm.

  ‘Hello, stranger… I thought you had emigrated.’

  ‘Georgia, I am sorry, but you know how it is, the weeks go by.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Eve, you’re only a mile away, not in Timbuctoo.’

  ‘We’ve had a lot of new patients.’

  ‘I’ve really missed you. It’s been so awful lately.’

  ‘Hasn’t it just! Absolutely bloody.’ She stopped.

  ‘Eve? Are you all right?’

  ‘Of course, right as ninepence.’ Another moment’s pause, then her voice came over tight and high. ‘Only thing wrong is this morning bloody sickness… it’s a difficult fact to hide in a place like this.’

  ‘Oh, Eve.’ Now it was Georgia who was silent, then she said, ‘Eve, just come. Don’t say anything else… we can’t talk over the ’phone, just come as soon as you can.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know… you don’t want to hear my troubles.’

  Eve arrived the next evening amidst Georgia’s packing-cases and general mess of house-clearing, looking a lot like the old, plump Eve. Except that now it was more a thickening and swelling that gave her this appearance than youth and a soft line.

  ‘I’m sorry about this mess, I’m packing up.’

  ‘So I see. Going far?’

  Georgia hunched her shoulders.

  ‘Not somebody else who was going to go away without saying?’

  ‘Of course not. I’ve only just made up my mind… anyway, that’s not the burning issue here.’ They stood facing one another for a moment: Eve’s weeks of avoidance, and Georgia’s apparent secrecy stood between them; but Georgia stepped over those obstacles and they stood, arms tightly around one another.

  ‘Thank God for friends, Georgia.’

  ‘A friend you could have come to before now and said that you were…’

  ‘Up the spout, in the club?’

  ‘…pregnant. You don’t have to put a face on here. Let’s have a drink. Come on, it’s marginally better in the front room and the cigs are in there.’ They went through into the other room, touching one another with relief at being in each other’s presence again.

  Eve shook her head. ‘Can’t smoke these days… makes me sick as a dog. Anyway, the nicotine probably gets into the baby’s blood or something. But Tottie and I could do with a Scotch.’ She placed both hands over her belly.

  ‘You’re sure then? It is a baby, and not just a miss or two because of the worry about your mother or vitamin starvation? My Curse has been all over the place lately; the Welfare ladies reckon it’s lack of vitamin B – I’m eating Marmite… well, when I can get it.’

  ‘Perhaps you’ve got my trouble – for sure Marmite won’t cure that.’

  ‘Not on your life. I’m making plans, and they don’t include cots and prams.’

  ‘Well… my plans have to. I’m well over four months. One of the docs at Oaklands had a feel.’

  ‘You aren’t going to get…’

  ‘Married to the father? No father. He was just a quick trick for both of us – and in any case… he bought it!’

  ‘Oh Eve. Did he know about the baby?’

  ‘No – it’s as I said, one of those quickies that seem such a good idea at the time. It was my day off… Oh God… so sordid… you know how it goes.’

  ‘That wasn’t what I was going to ask you. I meant, you’re not going to have an abortion? You always said that you knew the right doctors in Harley Street.’

  ‘Have it fixed? Not on your life. I don’t much care now who the father is, little Tottie is in there and starting to move. Here, give me your hand… put it there. I’ve nursed abortions that have gone wrong. Not for me! In any case, why not have little Tottie? I’ve only got Connie in her wheelchair and my randy old man who’s cleared off. Why are you looking so straight-faced, Georgia darling? Don’t tell me you’re shocked.’

  ‘Of course I’m not shocked, I was only wondering what you are going to do. You can’t go back to your mother’s flat again, not with a baby and the V2s.’

  ‘Lord, no. Connie couldn’t do with babies about the place – she’s writing some sort of book about her exploits; I doubt if she’ll get permission to publish until the war’s over. She’s got a super little ground-floor flat now, right in the heart of London with an amenity garden and trees, quite sweet. She’s not all that badly off, plenty of people around her. Taken to wearing long skirts and she sits there or gets wheeled about by her admirers, quite the queen bee. Being a grandmother won’t be her style. Certainly not having Tottie about the place.’

  ‘If you had said…’ Georgia waved at the packing cases, ‘I might have held on to the house a bit longer.’

  ‘Georgia my lo
ve, that’s really sweet of you, but I have got myself some very suitable accommodation right in the heart of Markham.’ She laughed, a little stridently. ‘Give the old Markham gossips something to sup with their beer. Freddy Hardy’s girl’s up the spout and gone to live with the postman. That’s right – I’m going to live with Monty. He’s so nice, he’s like a child waiting for Christmas. Did you know he’s got this Jewess there? She’s quite decent, too – doesn’t look it, but she’ll be smashing with Tottie – I’m sure of it.’

  ‘You’re going to live with Monty and Hildegard?’

  ‘It’s a perfect arrangement. Monty’s like an old hen at the prospect of a baby, he’s doing up a cot and painting ducks on it, and Hildegard was a nanny before she escaped from wherever she’s come from.’

  Georgia went very quiet.

  ‘I’m really, really sorry, Georgia. I haven’t meant to keep you out of things. I kept telling myself I should come and see you.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you? That foreign woman who hasn’t been in the town five minutes knows all about it, but not me. I thought we were supposed to be friends.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Georgia!’ She downed her neat whisky and held out her glass. ‘Why do you think I didn’t come to my best friend… my only real bloody friend. I was ashamed! I was a-shamed! I couldn’t bring myself to tell you I’d got myself a bun in the oven. You would be the same with me, you know you would: you are as much of a smart arse as I was about not getting caught. I couldn’t bear it at first, so I just ignored all the signs and put them down to the stress-factor that they keep telling us about at Oaklands. When I think of all the men I’ve slept with… and I let myself get in the club on a one-night stand. A casual roll in the hay. I wasn’t even all that keen… and he was never at all my type. I don’t even know how it happened – I never go out on a date unless I’m wearing my diaphragm, but I wasn’t on a date, so I hadn’t got it… but he said he was OK… maybe it’s not just a story, maybe they do put a hole in every tenth one to keep the birth-rate up. Hell, Georgia, I don’t know how it happened. It happened!’

  ‘Hey, wind down, Eve, this is me – Georgia. Am I so intimating that my only real friend can’t tell me she’s pregnant… made a mistake?’

  ‘Darling, no, of course you are not. It’s me, it’s me. Now I’m here I can’t understand why it was that I didn’t come to you at once. Oh, but I did feel such a fool just when I was boasting about the wonderful prospects of my specialist nursing career.’

  ‘Here, have another drink and don’t be so damned dramatic.’

  ‘I wish I had come earlier, but now that I have, do let’s try and get back on to our old footing. Tell me about these plans you are making. What’s all this moving business then?’

  ‘I’ve got a chance of a little place in Newton Lane – one up, one down and a sort of kitchen-scullery. The decree nisi will soon be granted – it’s only a matter of time and I shall no longer be Mrs Kennedy.’

  ‘Sounds cosy.’

  ‘It will do until I make my fortune. I’ll make us some Welsh rarebit. Here, read this whilst I’m in the kitchen. It’s from my Uncle John. Tell me what you think.’

  After a few minutes, Eve followed Georgia into the kitchen and perched on the table. ‘This,’ she flicked the letter, ‘this is what you really want, isn’t it? We’ve all got a fantasy of our particular place in the sun – this one’s yours, it sticks out a mile, Georgia. I don’t know why you are even thinking about Newton Lane.’

  ‘I’m taking the cottage precisely because the farm is a dream. If I’m anything at all, I am practical.’

  ‘You and Nick? Tilling the good earth. It could be idyllic, couldn’t it?’

  Georgia smiled wanly and shrugged her shoulders. ‘Farming is many things, but it’s not an idyll if you’re the one doing it.’

  ‘Nick’s the right type. He always seems to thrive on exposure to the elements.’

  ‘He’s got big responsibilities now. He has taken Pete away from Nancy. The child’s living with Nick’s father until Nick gets released, but Mr Crockford is not a well man to have charge of a seven-year-old. I know what Nick would like, he’d like me to give up my work and go and live at Roke Acre. No strings except love, he said. Romantic, isn’t it? But I couldn’t! Back out at Emberley again… with Nancy’s child and old Robert – I should shrivel and wither away. For God’s sake… I’d be a housewife again!’

  ‘So why not go to your Uncle John’s? Be a farmgirl.’

  ‘I’m an administrator. Not just anybody can take over a farm. I hardly know how to milk a cow.’

  ‘Well, you asked, and I’ve told you what I think. You should go for the dream, Georgia.’

  Georgia dished up the supper. ‘Oh, let’s eat and not try to sort out my problems as well as yours.’

  ‘Hey, come on. My problem is sorted and yours are not problems, they’re choices.’

  It was quite late when Georgia watched Eve pulling on her knitted cap. ‘Come and see me again soon.’

  ‘I won’t stay away again – promise. I finish at Oaklands in a month, we’ll see a lot of one another, and I’ll need someone to pace the waiting room when I go into labour.’ She kissed Georgia affectionately. ‘Thanks, Georgia. I’m not really as flip as I sound you know. I don’t want anybody knowing about how I got Tottie. I’ll let her grow up before I tell her. Having a bastard baby isn’t the thing a girl chooses; but I should never have married… It was Harry Partridge.’

  For a moment it didn’t sink in. ‘What was?’

  ‘Tottie, Pudding Club, bun in oven, the quick trick, idiot. It was dear fun-time Harry with his “Honestly, I’ll be careful,” his “Trust me, I wouldn’t let it happen for both our sakes.”’

  ‘I can’t believe it, I thought you hardly knew him.’

  ‘I didn’t really, but he was good fun – you knew he would never get too heavy. You know what he’s like, you went out with him, didn’t you?’

  Georgia forced herself to be flip. ‘Only for a ride on the old Vincent and the odd quick trick, like you say.’

  * * *

  By Christmas, Georgia had moved some of the furniture into the Newton Lane cottage and arranged the sale of the rest. It was a cosy enough place downstairs, but the bedrooms when no fires were lit in them were icy. On Christmas Eve, Georgia put on a little stand-up supper for her friends.

  Georgia’s relationship with Nick tottered on. Since their days together back in the spring, they had been together on only a few occasions, and not at all since Harry and the Metropole. Now he had gone home on seven days Christmas leave, and said he would put Pete to bed and then come.

  He had stayed overnight in the Station Road house once or twice, but since he had taken Pete away from Nancy, he had never done so. ‘I’m sorry, Georgia, but he’s my kid, I have to be there whenever I can. He’s still getting used to the change. My responsibility. It’s one of the things a man doesn’t think about when he’s rolling in the hay.’ She knew that tonight being Christmas Eve, he would be sure to want to get back to see to Pete’s presents. She really did not mind: since the shock of Harry’s death so soon after their scatty and delightful weekend in Brighton, her appetite for sex had diminished.

  Ursula and Niall O’Neill, who lived only yards away from Georgia, came with Dolly who, for the first time in her married life, was staying away from home at Christmas and spending two days with the O’Neills. In one of Paula’s dresses, she looked strangely unmotherly and less than her fifty-five years.

  Eve came, looking plump and pretty, and talked with cheerful animation about her expectations of Tottie but, Georgia noticed, not to Dolly Partridge. Was it right not to tell Dolly that Harry was the father? They had talked about it briefly, but Eve’s opinion was that the whole thing was too complex.

  ‘Can you imagine, Georgia! Dolly Partridge discovering that her precious Harry left the Partridge family a legacy? She would smother me. I don’t want Tottie to be a Partridge, or a Hardy either. I shall register
her as “Father Unknown” and tell her who her father is when she understands how easy it is to cop it. Young girls before they get the urge can be devastatingly judgemental. Dear Monty says she can have his name. Tottie Iremonger? Sounds quite pleasant.’

  Nick was helping Georgia in the tiny back room. ‘You’re quiet.’

  ‘It’s a patch I’m going through.’

  ‘Do you want to talk about it? I could stop on for an hour.’

  ‘Talking won’t do much good… it’s just everything! My life has got itself in tatters, fragmented – this house, the divorce, my job. And Uncle John wants to get out of the Cantle farm. I’ve got to pull it together again.’

  ‘Would you come to Emberley for lunch? Tomorrow if you like. You could talk about it. It helps. Pete wants a party and Mrs Dancer has made a cake. I know it’s not this swish buffet kind of thing that you like, but Pete and my Dad will love it if you came.’

  He stood there, big and slightly abashed, as he used to when he was a youth and came into the Honeycombes’ kitchen to ask if she was coming out. Suddenly she would have loved to have taken his large, knuckly hands and led him up to the icy bedroom and burrowed with him under the eiderdown till morning and awoken with a clear mind in a carefree world.

  ‘I’d love to come.’

  ‘Thanks, Georgia.’ He bent to her level and they kissed with the same longing and passion as they had back in the Spring, before Georgia’s emotions had become confused.

  ‘Oh dear, I forgot my bike tyre’s gone. The car’s back on the road, but I haven’t any petrol allocation.’

  Lighthearted at the prospect of her spending the day at Emberley, he laughingly swept her up in his arms. ‘I’ll carry you.’

  At that moment, Eve came in. ‘Don’t tell me that at long last the hero’s going to carry off the fair lady. I thought you never would.’

  ‘Chance would be a fine thing. Do you know anybody who does black market petrol?’