by John Wilcox
CHAPTER SEVEN
Wagstaffe, his hair shining as brightly as his shoes, approached Polly as she reported for work. She was not feeling well and the last thing she wanted was to have to fend off the foreman’s advances that morning.
‘Hello, sweetheart,’ he said, attempting to put his arm about her.
‘Piss off.’ Polly did as good an impression of a flounce as she could muster that day and thrust him aside to put her card into the clocking machine.
‘Now, just you listen, Miss Polly Johnson.’ Wagstaffe looked around to ensure that no one was within hearing distance and dropped his voice slightly. ‘I’m not the sort of bloke you think I am, but I can make things very difficult for you if you continue to be rude to me, you know. I am your foreman, after all.’
Polly sighed. ‘Then just get on with your job and let me get on with mine. There’s a war on, you know.’
She attempted to push past him but he put his arm out and leant against the wall to deny her. ‘Oh come on, Polly.’ He smoothed his clipped black moustache. ‘I’m not so bad when you get to know me. Why don’t you and me have a little chat together over a gin and it tonight, eh? Just an hour and no monkey business. We all deserve a break in this bloomin’ war, I reckon. What do you say?’
‘I say, Mr Wagstaffe, that you’ve got a wife and two kids and I’ve got a boyfriend risking his life in mud in Flanders. So please stop bothering me or …’
Her voice tailed away and he sneered. ‘Or what, Miss Nose-in-the-Air? I’m highly thought of here and you can’t say anything that will threaten my job, I’ll tell you. But, I warn you, miss, that you are very expendable in your job, oh yes, very expendable.’
Tears suddenly came to Polly’s eyes. She thrust him aside roughly. ‘Oh, get out of my way.’
Climbing the ladder to her cabin she felt dizzy and had to stand still halfway up, clutching the handrail firmly until she regained her composure. She was still there thirty seconds later, waiting until her head cleared, when she heard a call from down below.
‘Pol, don’t move. I’m comin’ up after you. Stay still.’ A moment later she felt the firm hand of Connie Walters, her friend from the assembly line, pressing the middle of her back forward onto the ladder. ‘Wait a minute or two,’ said Connie. ‘Then come back down the ladder. I’m just underneath you and I’ll support you.’
‘No, Con, I’m all right, really I am. Just a bit dizzy.’
‘Do as you’re told. Breathe deeply and then, when you’re ready, follow me down slowly.’
She relented and began slowly to descend, feeling very self-conscious and aware that a hundred eyes were watching from down below – probably including those of Wagstaffe. On regaining the concrete floor, she realised that perspiration was beginning to form on her forehead. ‘I think I need to have a pee, Con,’ she said.
‘Yes, luv. Come on. Lean on me.’
Together they made their way to the ladies’ toilets, a harsh environment, kept starkly functional to deter the factory girls from lingering to have a cigarette within its unpainted concrete walls. She sat on the lavatory seat and put her head in her hands and accepted the cup of water handed to her by Connie, a large woman in her late twenties, with the pallor and yellow teeth of the ‘canaries’.
Connie regarded her in silence for a few moments, then squatted down before her and asked gently, ‘’Ow long since you had your last period, love?’
Suddenly, Polly’s shoulders heaved and the tears ran down her cheeks. She grabbed a piece of toilet paper and tried to stem them but they continued. She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I just don’t know.’
‘Think, dearie. You will know. Take your time.’
Polly blew her nose and thrust the hair away from her eyes. ‘Well, I am late, I know.’
‘Do you feel a bit sick?’
‘Yes. Last few mornings.’
‘Yes, then. There you are. You must be careful goin’ up an’ down that bloody ladder. You ’ad a bit of love, then, did yer?’
Mutely, Polly nodded.
‘An’ yer not married, are yer?’
‘No.’
‘Does ’e know about it?’
She shook her head, the tears still cascading down her cheeks.
‘Are you goin’ to tell ’im?’
‘Oh, I … I … don’t know.’
‘Yes, well, luv, you’d better ’ave a think about it. I think you should tell yer mother, though …’
‘Oh no!’
‘Well, Pol, you’re goin’ to need a bit of ’elp and yer mother’s the best person to give that. And you ought to make sure, with a doctor, although if you’re sure certain, then you don’t need to.’ Connie creaked upwards. ‘God, these knees of mine are givin’ me gyp. I think it’s the screws. Me mother ’ad them so I suppose it runs in the family.’ She ran a kindly hand through Polly’s hair and pulled it back from her forehead. ‘I shall ’ave to get back to the line or I’ll lose me money. Why don’t you go ’ome now, luv, and lie down for a bit and think it over? I’ll tell old Waggy that you’ve got a touch of the flu and if ’e argues I’ll twist ’is balls.’ She gave a lewd grin. ‘Mind you, ’e likes that.’
Polly summoned up a smile. ‘Thanks, Connie. No. I’ll be all right now, thanks ever so much. I’ll just clean up a bit and get up in my cabin. I know I’ll be all right now.’
‘As you wish.’ Connie turned at the door. ‘Will you keep it, d’yer think?’
‘Oh, I just … I don’t know.’
‘No. Silly of me to ask. Too early. Mind you …’
Her voice tailed away. Polly looked up quickly. ‘Yes?’
‘If yer do want to lose it, I know someone. ’Ad to use ’er meself seven years ago before I met Albert.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘It’s not nice but it works. And … no one needs to know. I’ll be around if you want me. Good luck, luv.’
Polly washed her face thoroughly, pushed up her hair and pulled her scarf tightly around it. Then she took a deep breath and walked across the floor to the ladder and mounted it quickly. Once in her familiar cabin, her glass fortress, she nodded down below to where one of the men was waiting, pushed forward a lever to glide the crane along on its track and thrust all thought of a child out of her mind – for just three minutes.
Then, as she manipulated the crane and its long arm through the morning, she kept returning to Connie’s questions. It had pressed in on her yesterday that something was wrong. She was never late and her period arrived usually like some form of alarm clock. This was the second one she had missed. Now she knew. She was pregnant. There was no hiding it from herself now. She was certain and she didn’t need a physician to confirm it. She was carrying a child. She put a trembling hand to her mouth and bit her fingers. But who was the father?
She had given way to Bertie that night in London as she knew she would. It would have seemed grotesquely unfair not to have done so, given the deep warmth that she felt for him and the fact that she and Jim had made love a disgracefully short time before. Her eyes moistened again at the thought. They both so deserved to be given real, warm love, after what they had been through and what they were returning to. In a way, it was the least she could do. Bertie being Bertie, of course, had made no provision for contraception and she had allowed herself to be swept along with his passion, so very different from Jim’s shy diffidence. Oh, and of course, she had loved it! God, did this make her a whore? She shook her head firmly. No, of course not. She loved them both. In fact, the loss of her virginity had done nothing at all to solve her problem. Her two boys had made love in entirely different but equally satisfying ways and her love for them both equally had deepened. Was there anyone else in this blasted war, she wondered, who could possibly be in a situation so damnably intractable as this? Now predictably – as she had worried since Bertie’s departure – she was going to have a child. But whose?
One thing was certain, of course: it would mean marrying the father. Well, yes. That would make her decision for her. That w
ould stop this shilly-shallying. Oh God! That would make up her mind all right. But who was the father? She frowned. Weren’t you always supposed to know anyway, instinctively? She touched her stomach. No. Nothing moved and the foetus failed to respond as she pictured first the brown eyes and broad shoulders of Jim Hickman, then thrust them aside and summoned up Bertie Murphy’s wicked smile and ridiculously blue eyes. Nothing. But then, most women didn’t go to bed with two different men within a month. Unless, that is, she was a whore …! Then the tears flew again and she had to stop the crane to blow her nose.
But did they have to know? Did anyone have to know? Connie had opened an escape hatch – one through which she had climbed herself seven years ago. The thought made it more acceptable. Abortion was dangerous, she knew that, but it would remove the devilish necessity of having to make up her mind between her two lovers. She could postpone that decision and let fate take its course.
The more she thought of it the more the prospect became attractive. With this war seeming to continue for ever, was it right anyway to bring a child into a world dominated by shellfire, gas and lengthening casualty lists? And what – God forbid – if anything should happen to both Jim and Bertie? She would be left in a world with the awful responsibility of bringing up a fatherless child. Then she felt ashamed of herself. How selfish! Is that all she could think about if her two dear boys were to die? She felt as if she was going mad. She must control herself. She swallowed and put the crane into gear once again. She would just let things take their course for a few days more. After all – perhaps she wasn’t pregnant? The world was full of false alarms. Her Auntie Edie had had so many longed for and ultimately false pregnancies that when she finally produced a child her father had refused to believe it! She began to feel better.
As the next few days passed, it became increasingly clear that she was, in fact, carrying a child. There was hardly a bump at all at this stage – nothing to stir suspicion at home – but it was there, she knew. The morning sickness was more difficult to conceal. She found a formula that served well enough for the moment: eating very little breakfast to hold back the nausea, vomiting in the public lavatory at the bottom of Witton Road on the way to work and buying an apple at the grocers to eat later in her cabin. This was all very short-term, however, and she knew that she would have to make a decision.
She sought out Connie.
‘Is this woman still … er … practising, Con? It was a long time ago.’
‘Are you sure, luv, that you want to lose it? For all we both know, you may not be able to have another one when yer want it most.’
‘Yes, I’m sure. I’ve thought it through. I don’t want to have a baby at this stage in my life and I don’t want to tie the father down, either.’ She stifled a sob. ‘It seems wicked, I know, but it’s best all round to get rid of it. Does she still do it?’
‘Oh aye. She’s still at it. I don’t know what it costs these days but I can find out for you. She’s only just off Victoria Road. Shall I ask her?’
Polly took a deep breath. ‘Yes please.’ She looked at her shoes. ‘I’m afraid I’ve only got about two quid saved. Will it be more than that?’
‘Shouldn’t think so. P’raps thirty bob. I’ll see. Would you like me to come with you?’
Polly gripped her arm. ‘I appreciate the offer, Con, but no thanks. I’ll see this through on my own.’ She drew in her breath. ‘Does … does it knock you about much?’
‘A bit. But you get over it. She can do it at weekends or in the evening after work. That’s probably best, so that you can go home straight to bed. I’ll let you know.’
Six days later, Polly found herself knocking on the door of a terraced house in a street leading off Victoria Road. She felt alone, physically and metaphorically, and bit her lip at the sight of three five- or six-year-olds, two grubby boys and a little girl, playing tops on the pavement nearby. It could have been her with Bertie and Jim, not so very long ago.
The door was opened by a pleasant-faced, middle-aged woman wearing a clean apron.
‘Hello, dear,’ she said. ‘All alone?’
Polly nodded, unable to speak.
‘Ah well, better that way sometimes. Come on in and sit yourself down. You can call me Mrs Smith.’ The room opened directly off the door to the street and was simply furnished, although there was no hint of family about it; no toys, no books, no clothing hanging from the hooks on the door. ‘Slip off your coat and sit down for a minute. Have you brought the … you know … the doings?’
Polly handed over an envelope containing the one pound fifteen shillings that had denuded her savings and perched on the corner of a brocaded settee.
‘Shan’t be a minute, dear. Just make yourself at home.’
Mrs Smith bustled away, presumably to put away the money. For a brief moment, Polly experienced a flash of terror. People died at the hands of abortionists, she knew, and it would be terrible to die in this place, a stranger’s house. No one apart from Connie knew she was here and, given that this was Friday evening and her next shift started on Monday morning, her parents would soon be in a state if she did not appear this evening. They would not know where to look. It was unfair to put them through this … Her mind flashed on. Unfair! What about the father, then? She would die and Jim – or Bertie – would be bereft, there was no doubt about that, and neither would know that his child had been … what? Murdered?
Her miserable reverie was halted by the entry of Mrs Smith, humming a happy tune from The Maid of the Mountains:
‘At seventeen, he falls in love quite madly,
With eyes of tender blue …’
Polly winced at the memory of Bertie, clutching her hand tightly and leaning his head on her shoulder as they sat in the stalls of Daly’s Theatre while he, embarrassingly, sang along, echoing the words in his reedy tenor.
‘Sorry to keep you, dear. Would you like to come through here to the back?’
The room was curtained tightly and a coal fire burned brightly although the day was not too cold. A single bed jutted out from the far wall with what looked like a rubber sheet covering it, tucked in at the sides under the thin mattress. The handles of a large tin bowl, or perhaps it was a footbath, protruded from underneath the bed. Apart from the rather smoky fire, the room smelt of something chemical, probably disinfectant. Polly felt her stomach contract.
‘Not too cold for you, dear?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Good. It’s not been too cold for the time of the year, has it?’ Without waiting for an answer, the woman poured a colourless liquid into a glass and handed to Polly. ‘This is just a drop of gin, dear, just to relax you a bit. Like a drop of gin, do you?’
Polly shook her head but took the glass anyway. What had to be had to be.
‘Yes, that’s the idea. Just knock it back, there’s a good girl.’ Mrs Smith watched while Polly drank the gin – it was neat, of course. ‘Yes, that’s the way.’ A pause, then: ‘First time is it?’
Grimacing at the taste of the gin, Polly nodded.
‘Yes. Well, you’re only young, lovey, so I’m sure it’s for the best. How long has it been since you had your last … you know?’
‘I’ve missed two periods. I’ve never been late before. And I’m being regularly sick in the mornings, although there’s not much of a bulge yet.’ Polly looked closely at Mrs Smith’s hands. They seemed clean enough.
‘Yes. Best not to leave it any longer.’ The woman pointed at a door. ‘Now, if you go through there you’ll find the lav. Even if you’ve been recently, do what you can ’cos it all helps, see. When you’ve finished, come back in and just slip your clothes off and I’ll get a nice clean towel for you to lie on, ’cos this rubber might feel a bit cold to your bum. Put your clothes on that chair there. I’ll be back in a minute.’
The toilet was outside, in a little yard. There was no toilet roll, only pages torn from the Birmingham Mail, through the corners of which a piece of wire had been pushed and then hung o
n a nail driven into the wall. Polly tore off a piece and wiped the lavatory seat but, even so, decided to sit on her hands. No pee came and, deciding not to use the newspaper, she adjusted her clothing and moved back into the room. There, she stripped off her clothes and, carefully folding them out of habit, laid them on the chair. Then she stood with her back to the fire, her hands modestly folded across her breasts, shivering.
Mrs Smith re-entered, carrying a cotton pad and a small bottle. She gestured to the bed. ‘Just lie on that, dear, and take a sniff of this. It’ll put you out and when you wake up it’ll all be over.’
Polly climbed onto the bed and, despite the towel, the mattress felt cold and hard. She stared wide-eyed and trembling as Mrs Smith upended the bottle onto the pad and then approached her. The woman then paused, holding the pad well away from her.
‘Don’t be worried, love. I’ve done plenty of these, particularly since the war started. You won’t feel a thing. Just a bit sick, like, afterwards. Now, put your head on the pillow and take a good sniff of this.’
Firmly – almost roughly, as though tired of Polly’s despair – she put her left hand under Polly’s head and, with her right, pressed the pad onto her nose and mouth. Polly wanted to cough but within seconds found herself slipping away into oblivion.
She regained consciousness what seemed like only seconds later and immediately felt the need to vomit. Looking desperately to both sides of the bed she saw a zinc bucket on the left and was sick into it. She lay for a moment, hanging over the side, before vomiting again, perspiration dripping down her nose into the bucket. Exhausted, she lay back, her eyes closed, and felt Mrs Smith pull a blanket over her and begin wiping her face with a damp cloth.
‘All over now, dearie,’ she heard. ‘Not as easy as I would have liked but I’ve had worse. Still, it’s all done now. I’ve got rid of everything.’
The nausea had receded somewhat, but Polly felt a hard, unrelenting pain in her stomach. She forced her eyes open. ‘Was it a boy or a girl?’
