Unforgettable

by Jean Saunders

  ‘You mean you want me to pay some back-street witch to help you get rid of a baby?’ Gracie said sharply. ‘That’s as good as murder, Dolly.’

  ‘No, it ain’t. It’s my body and I can do what I like with it. And I don’t want this foreign thing inside it no more. That’s all it is. A bloody growth that’s invading me and making me puke every morning and night.’

  She stood up jerkily. ‘But if you ain’t prepared to help me, I’m going, before the people downstairs wonder what we’re doing up here all this time.’

  ‘They won’t do that. I’ve just paid them the first month’s rent. This is my place now,’ Gracie said, far more calmly than she felt.

  Dolly’s eyes were wild as she took in what Gracie had just said. She was feeling sick and shaky again, knowing she could hardly expect her friend to fork out money for an abortion now. Gracie had been her last hope, but Gracie had plans and a life of her own.

  Then Gracie was gripping her cold hands. ‘If this is what you really want, Dolly, then of course I’ll help you. It’s against all my principles, but I’ll help you if you’re really, positively, absolutely sure.’

  She had no idea about the cost. She wasn’t in the habit of helping friends have abortions. But what good was money in a post office savings account when it could be giving much-needed help to a friend? Nor could she overlook the fact that but for the grace of God and Mrs Jennings’s intervention on the night Percy Hill tried to rape her, she might have ended up in the same position as Dolly. And there was no way she could have borne a child of his. It was that final ugly thought which decided her.

  She was rewarded by being hugged nearly to death.

  ‘I’ll never forget this, Gracie. And I’ll pay you back every penny. Old Warby wants to get another girl to share with me, and I’ll agree to it when all this is over. I won’t have to pay so much if I’m sharing, and I’ll put the difference aside for you every week, as well as some of my wages from Lawson’s.’

  ‘We can think about all that later. Let’s get out of here now and decide what we have to do next.’

  Gracie locked the outer door with the keys the Fosters had given her, together with the brand-new rent book, resisting the urge to show it to Dolly with a flourish of proprietorial pride. Now wasn’t the time, with Dolly clinging to her arm so pathetically. And obviously the most urgent thing to do was to find this woman who used to be a midwife and now killed unborn babies for a price.

  ‘You could promise me something else, Dolly, but I doubt that you will,’ she said, when they were on the tram taking them south of the river to the address Dolly had been given.

  ‘Anything!’

  ‘You’d better wait until you hear what it is first.’

  Dolly was quicker than she thought.

  ‘I suppose you want me to stop seeing Jim. Don’t worry, Gracie. He knocks me about sometimes, and he enjoys making me holler. He likes to feel he’s controlling me, and if he does that now, what would he be like if we was to get married? He’s always bragging that he ain’t the marrying kind, and he can get any girl he wants without it, so there’s not much chance of that happening, and in any case I wouldn’t marry him now if he begged me!’ she finished.

  ‘Well, that’s the best news I’ve heard all day,’ Gracie said, wondering how long this resolve was going to last, and realizing that Dolly was talking fast to keep her mind off where they were going, and why. She must be scared to death inside.

  ‘No it ain’t. The best bit of news you’ve heard is finding your own place to live, and I’m sorry if I’ve spoiled all your pleasure in it.’

  ‘You haven’t. I’ve got the rest of my life to enjoy my new home. What’s important now is getting you well again,’ Gracie said delicately.

  The next best bit of news, ironic and unsavoury as it was to Gracie, was that the woman who used to be a midwife could do the little bit of business there and then. Though she was cautious at first, asking so many questions, wanting to know who had given Dolly her name and so on. It was understandable, considering the grisly business she was in.

  But they didn’t have to make an appointment, thank goodness, because by the time the inquisition ended, Dolly was looking petrified, and Gracie doubted that she’d have come back. The woman looked like anybody’s comfortable white-haired grandmother, which should reassure them, but certainly didn’t, knowing what was about to happen.

  ‘It won’t take long,’ she told Dolly cheerily. ‘Your friend can wait down here while you and me go upstairs. You’ve got the payment, have you? I always ask for it in advance. Some girls have been known to take fright and run before they cough up.’

  ‘It’s here.’ Gracie intervened, hating the woman and her outstretched hand. She counted out the amount she was asking, and although it was extortionate, it was a small enough price to pay for the life of a child. But she mustn’t think of it like that. Dolly had called it a growth invading her body, which had to be got rid of, and to her it was as lethal as the cancer that had invaded Queenie Brown’s lungs.

  Dolly gave her a last despairing glance before following the woman, and for the next half-hour Gracie sat on the edge of a chair, tense and upset as she heard the various sounds from upstairs. The woman muttering, Dolly screaming, Dolly sobbing … then at last she came tottering back to the parlour, her face as white as parchment, her eyes huge with pain.

  ‘Take her home and give her an aspirin or two,’ the woman said callously to Gracie, as if Dolly no longer existed. ‘It’ll start quite soon, and it’ll be no more than a heavy monthly. If it’s very painful get her to bed with a hot-water bottle. Be sure that it all comes away—and then forget you’ve ever been here,’ she added.

  Gracie couldn’t bear to answer. She was the most despicable woman she had ever encountered. She put her arm around Dolly, and the final humiliation was to hear her whisper ‘Thank you’ to the female butcher.

  Several taxis were driving up and down the street and Gracie waved one down. She couldn’t expect Dolly to walk to the tram stop, even if she was capable. Once inside the cab she gave the driver the address of the boarding-house and held Dolly’s hand tightly.

  ‘Was it awful?’ Gracie asked quietly.

  ‘Awful, and horrible, and I don’t want to talk about it,’ Dolly croaked, leaning back and closing her eyes as if to shut out the whole traumatic experience.

  * * *

  Thankfully, the boarding-house was empty when they returned. All Dolly wanted was to curl up in bed with a hot-water bottle. Nothing was happening yet, no stomach cramps or bleeding, but they might as well be prepared for when it did. Mrs Warburton would be told that Dolly had developed a nasty stomach bug.

  ‘She’s quite poorly,’ Gracie told her when she came back from the market. ‘She needs to stay in bed, but I’m quite willing to see to her to save you any bother, Mrs Warburton. I can stay a couple of days.’

  It was surprisingly easy to lie when there was a real need for it. She could look completely artless when she tried, and anything was better than having old Warby suspecting what was really wrong with Dolly. In any case, lodgers weren’t expected to be ill or to need waiting on.

  ‘She ain’t been looking too good lately, and I hope that girl appreciates what a good friend you are,’ the woman said with a small sniff.

  ‘I’m sure she does,’ Gracie said. ‘Do you have any aspirins, please? I’ll pay for them, and for my room and board while I’m here. And it might be a good idea if I take up a pail, Mrs Warburton, in case Dolly wants to be sick.’

  And to clean up what was to come …

  It was even easier to say the right things to win the landlady over, tactfully assuring her that the routine of her boarding-house would run with its usual clockwork efficiency and that she wouldn’t be required to handle anything messy.

  ‘I think I should take up the acting profession,’ she told Dolly cheerfully.

  ‘How about doctoring?’ Dolly said, wincing as the first pains began to bite. She sat up
awkwardly, clutching the hot water bottle, and swallowed two aspirin tablets with shaking hands. Almost immediately she doubled over and let out a howl of pain.

  ‘Do you want me to send for a doctor?’ Gracie asked worriedly a while later, when the pains grew worse and Dolly got progressively whiter.

  ‘You can’t!’ she gasped, clutching Gracie’s hands. ‘Just stay with me and shove a towel in my mouth if I start shouting out. We don’t want old Warby to know what’s going on.’

  ‘Well, we’re at the top of the house, so you just let rip if you have to.’

  They had packed the bed with old cloths that could be disposed of, so as not to soil the sheets and arouse suspicion, but by now Dolly was in a bath of sweat.

  ‘You see what that bastard’s done to me?’ she moaned, and Gracie knew she wasn’t talking about the abortionist. ‘You needn’t worry about me seeing him again, Gracie, because I’ll see hell freeze before I let him touch me again.’

  ‘I hope you mean it,’ Gracie said, wondering how much longer this could go on before anything productive happened. It had been several hours now, and it was like having to go through the pangs of labour without giving birth at the end of it. Sterile and terrible.

  And then Dolly let out a louder howl than before, and staggered off the bed to squat over the pail. The soiled cloths flew everywhere, but they both ignored them as Gracie held her hands tightly and let her sob her heart out as the abortionist’s work came to its bloody conclusion.

  It was some while before Dolly felt able to climb back into bed, completely exhausted. Gracie covered the pail and left it where it was, while she sponged her down with water from the jug on the marble washstand.

  ‘Maybe I should have been a nurse after all,’ she said with a thin smile.

  ‘You’d make a bloody good one,’ Dolly answered, her voice thready. ‘But God Almighty, Gracie, if that’s a sample of what women have to go through to have a baby, I’m never having one.’

  ‘You’d feel differently if you were married to someone you love and it was a baby you both wanted, Dolly.’

  ‘Oh yeah? Remind me about it in ten years’ time.’

  Her face was still distorted with the aftermath of pain as she turned it into the pillow. But once the ordeal was over, Gracie knew she would bounce back again. She only prayed she would remember this day and who had caused it.

  ‘Try to get some sleep, while I dispose of this,’ she said now, turning to the covered pail.

  It wasn’t a job she relished, but it had to be done and the sooner the better before anyone wanted to use the bathroom. She wasn’t squeamish, but the thought that what she carried along the passage would one day have turned into a living, breathing baby, was enough to make her weep. What had been done today was wicked and against nature, and she would never forget the terrified look on Dolly’s face as the woman took her upstairs to butcher her.

  In the bathroom, she emptied the pail quickly without looking, pulled the chain on it, feeling as though she committed murder by drowning. Almost sobbing, she washed out the pail and took it back to the bedroom. Dolly was sleeping fitfully now, looking younger and more vulnerable, and as though she had never lain with a man in her life—and spoiled herself for anyone else.

  Gracie shuddered. That was what they said. Spoiling yourself. But it hadn’t been Dolly doing the spoiling, it had been that bastard Jim.

  But seeing how much pain Dolly had endured had shaken her too. Having babies always seemed so natural. Not that Dolly’s ordeal was in any way natural, but presumably the pain was the same. Having babies was something you didn’t have to think about, providing it was in the right order of things. You met someone, you fell in love, you married them, you had babies. Millions of women did it, so it couldn’t be that bad …

  She shuddered again, and sometime later, when Dolly was sleeping more steadily, she went down to the dining-room where she could smell the evening meal. Gracie realized that she was ravenously hungry; it wouldn’t do for both of them to miss a meal.

  Later, she found that a couple of hours’ sleep had clearly worked wonders for Dolly. Despite the continuing discomfort in her belly, she sat up and wolfed down the dish of rabbit stew Gracie took upstairs for her.

  ‘Well, that didn’t touch the sides, did it?’ Gracie said.

  ‘I ain’t felt like eating for days now, what with the worry and feeling sick all the time. I’m telling you, I ain’t never going through that again for no bloody man,’ she repeated feelingly.

  ‘Tell me that again when you find your one and only.’

  ‘Like you’ve found yours? Which one is it this month? Davey or Charlie?’

  ‘The same as it ever was,’ Gracie retorted. ‘And I’m going back downstairs now, before Mrs W comes up to see for herself that you’re all right.’

  ‘She won’t. She don’t approve of her lodgers getting sick,’ Dolly said. ‘Don’t wake me up when you come to bed. And Gracie,’ she paused, her face flushing, ‘if I ain’t thanked you enough for all you’ve done for me today, you know I’d do anything for you, don’t you?’

  ‘All I ask is that you don’t get involved with rotters,’ Gracie replied. ‘And that’s all I’m going to say about it, so get some sleep.’

  All the same, she was touched by Dolly’s words. On the surface, she was so tough and worldly wise, but underneath she was as vulnerable and scared as a kitten when she got caught up in something she couldn’t control.

  But the worst was over now, and Gracie could no longer resist telling the landlady and the other lodgers of her good fortune in renting some rooms where she was going to start her own business.

  ‘Good for you, gel,’ came Mrs Warburton’s response. ‘I always knew you’d make something of yourself.’

  ‘I haven’t done it yet,’ Gracie said with a laugh. ‘But I’ve got some good references from the ladies I did some work for in Southampton.’

  Her face clouded momentarily, for thinking of that last commission for children’s frocks came the memory of how feverishly she had worked to finish them, with her darling mother lying cold in her coffin in the next room.

  By the time she went to bed, she was beginning to realize how very tired she felt. Her own excitement was entangled with the trauma of today’s events, and both had begun to take their toll. After checking that Dolly was sleeping soundly, she undressed and fell into bed, and didn’t wake up until morning.

  ‘Dolly, are you awake?’ she hissed, gazing towards the other bed, where Dolly’s hunched-up shape was buried beneath the bedclothes.

  ‘No, I ain’t!’ came her usual muffled snarl.

  Gracie grinned. Back to normal then. ‘Yes you are, so how do you feel?’

  ‘How do I know when I’m not awake yet! I still hurt if that’s what you mean, and I ain’t going downstairs to be gawked at.’

  ‘Dolly, nobody can tell anything. You’ve just had a bug as far as they’re concerned, and you can’t stay up here for ever.’

  Dolly unravelled herself from the bedclothes then and turned a blotchy face towards Gracie.

  ‘They could tell I’m upset, couldn’t they? And I don’t want nobody’s pity, nor their questions.’

  ‘I thought you’d be glad it’s all over and done with.’

  ‘Of course I’m glad, but it would have grown into—well, you know. If I’d been respectably married I wouldn’t have had to kill it, would I? I ain’t all bad, Gracie.’

  Tears streamed down her face. She had obviously had time to reflect on what she had done, and Gracie leapt out of bed and put her arms around her friend, wishing she’d never been so thoughtless.

  ‘Dolly, of course you’re not all bad, and I’m sure this is a normal reaction,’ she said. ‘But you’re right about one thing. It wouldn’t have been big enough to have resembled anything at all, and the best thing you can do is to put it behind you—and just be glad that you didn’t tie yourself to that awful man.’

  She wondered if she had gone too far. Dolly h
ad been mad about Jim, but now she nodded slowly.

  ‘I know,’ whispered Dolly. ‘I think I’ll stay in bed this morning, though, and I’ll get up this afternoon.’

  ‘All right. Breakfast in bed for you then. And if you feel like going out later on, how about if we take another look at my new flat, and laying one small ghost.’

  It was an obscure way of reminding Dolly that she had told Gracie about the baby in the rooms above the shoe shop, but in Gracie’s opinion the only way to get over something was to face it head on.

  ‘And then we can forget the other thing ever happened.’

  ‘What other thing?’ Gracie said innocently, but with a definite catch in her throat. Wicked it might have been, but in her opinion Dolly had also been very brave to go through with it at all.

  13

  Gracie now had the keys to the flat and once they arrived there, she was just as thrilled with it as she had been yesterday. Dolly hadn’t been able to summon up much interest then, but she was always resilient. It was hard to believe she was the same frightened girl who had made such a terrible confession, and even harder to imagine she had gone through such an ordeal at the hands of the abortionist.

  ‘You’ll have to advertise your new business, of course,’ Dolly said. ‘Didn’t you say you did that in Southampton?’

  ‘Well, I put a card in a newsagent’s window.’

  Dolly snorted. ‘Not good enough, now that you’re a woman of property, so to speak. You’ve got to start thinking big, to make yourself known to customers.’

  ‘I don’t have any customers yet. I’ll be starting from scratch.’

  ‘And when you’re an international success,’ Dolly went on airily, ‘I shall be your valued assistant, and we’ll both have our names up in lights.’

  ‘Cripes, Dolly, I thought I was the one who was star-struck! All I’m doing is setting myself up as an adequate seamstress with a special interest in making children’s clothes, not some Paris couturiere or whatever they’re called.’

  Dolly was exasperated. ‘You know your trouble, don’t you, gel?’