The Doorstep Child

by Annie Murray

  ‘I have,’ Evie agreed, making a joke of it. ‘I’ve been living on bread and water!’ She wasn’t telling Carol where she had got her juicy sum of money from.

  ‘Look, I’ll go out and let you get changed,’ Carol said. ‘I’ll go and check Uncle Ron’s not going to be late with the car.’

  Glad to be alone for a few moments, Evie looked at all her new clothes. She had blown all Ken’s money on an expensive silk dress, some lovely underclothes to go with it and a little black patent handbag. She had not chosen a white confection to wear. In all conscience she would have felt a hypocrite putting on white. Instead, she chose a silky dress the colour of milky coffee and edged with black. It was by far the most expensive thing she had ever had and she knew it looked good on her. She put on the new lacy knickers and camisole and fastened her stockings, then slid the dress over her, careful to avoid getting make-up on it. It seemed to flow over her like cool water, flattering her every curve. She had a marvellous feeling of luxury, knowing she was wearing something that made her look truly beautiful.

  She stood in front of the mirror, trim, curvaceous, turning this way and that, and feeling all the silky garments move against her skin. When she smiled, she saw a pretty, happy woman smiling back at her.

  ‘Thanks, Ken,’ she whispered, her gratitude sarcastic with bitter, sad, regretful feelings. ‘This one’s on you.’

  Everyone exclaimed as she came downstairs.

  ‘Look at you! You’re glowing!’ Carol said. ‘Must be love!’

  ‘Oh bab, you look a picture,’ Mrs Rough said tearfully. She was standing ready, in a dark green coat and hat, and looked a comforting sight. ‘Doesn’t she, Lewis?’

  Mr Rough smiled bashfully and made noises that indicated agreement.

  ‘Thanks, Mrs Rough, Mr Rough,’ Evie said. ‘Thanks for having me to stay – for everything.’

  They squeezed into Ron’s Austin and drove across Birmingham. It was a bright October Saturday, crisp leaves on the ground after a dry few days. When they got to the church, Evie saw Jack waiting outside, standing very straight, and looking self-conscious in a grey suit, Tony already at his side. For a moment it seemed to Evie that Jack looked hard and forbidding, but as they drew close, Tony said something to him and Jack’s face cracked into his infectious smile which made her spirits soar.

  There he is, she thought, brimming with excitement. He came. He wants to marry me. She only realized then that she had been worried he would have got cold feet, was going to let her down . . . But no, there he was, waiting. Her man and the life ahead of her.

  They stood side by side in the echoing church and made promises to keep until death did them part.

  That night, since they had no plans to go away anywhere, it was their first night in the new lodgings in Smethwick. The rooms looked out over a side street and every stick of furniture was shabby, but it was home, for now. Jack had taken her hand as soon as they were up in their private room, leading her into the bedroom gallant as a prince, and it felt as if the two of them were acting out a story.

  ‘Now you’re mine,’ he said, urgently pressing his lips to hers. ‘Mine at last.’

  The feel of him running his hands over her in the silky dress came back to her now. She squeezed his hand at the memory of his face as he looked into hers that evening, full of longing, is if to say, We belong together. She had been so in love with him, possessed by him almost, and she was just as in love with him now.

  She had been nervous, wondering if Jack would realize that this was not her first time. But he had been far too caught up in himself to notice. It was only afterwards as they lay snuggled close that the ghosts of her life came back to haunt her. She started to feel frightened.

  ‘Jack?’ She raised her head from the pillow and looked down at him. ‘You won’t ever leave me, will you?’

  ‘What?’ He was drowsy and content. ‘What’re you on about? We just got married, dain’t we?’

  ‘I know, but . . .’ She felt very emotional suddenly. ‘We’ve hardly got anyone. You’re my family now, Jack. If you was to leave, I don’t know what I’d do.’

  ‘C’m’ere, you daft wench,’ Jack said, pulling her into his arms. ‘Where’s all this come from all of a sudden? You’re my wife, and we’re good together, aren’t we? I love you, Eve Harrison. You’re gorgeous, you are – and you looked like a princess today. We don’t need anyone else, do we? Sod ’em all if they don’t want you. You have to learn to look out for yourself in this world. We’re going places, you and me.’

  ‘Oh Jack, I do love you,’ she said, lying in his arms, warm and reassured. ‘You’re everything to me, you are.’

  Within weeks of their wedding, Jack had started making plans for Canada. What was the point in waiting? he argued. They were married. They might as well get on with it. And she was completely caught up in his vision, in the idea of this great adventure. Her family seemed further away than ever now she was married. She had a different name. She was Evie Harrison, not Sutton anymore. She was with Jack, and she would go with him anywhere. After all, she had nothing much to leave behind here in England. Except Julie . . .

  Much as she adored Jack, she had to face the fact that she had secrets she was keeping from him. She thought of Julie still, constantly, praying that she was all right, calculating, week by week, how old she was, imagining how she might look and sound. But each time, with a stabbing pain, she collided with the truth that if she was to appear to Julie, now or at any other time in her life, her daughter would not have any idea who she was.

  ‘Welcome to Canada!’

  She was surprised and touched by how welcoming the customs officials were at Toronto, the first place they set foot on Canadian soil. But although the people were warm and kindly, the weather was cool, the sky iron grey and heavy with rain. Evie had thought Canada would be all sunshine and beckoning spaces. Instead, all she had seen of it from the airport windows was flat, grey and sodden and she felt low and homesick looking out at it as they waited for their flight to Edmonton.

  While they were waiting around, though, they met another English couple, a big, strong-looking man and his pleasant, freckle-faced wife, who said they were on their way to a place called Devon, near the Leduc oilfields. They chatted for a while about where they had come from and what they were planning to do and it was reassuring and made the place feel less foreign.

  ‘Maybe we’ll run into each other!’ the woman said as they parted, getting on the plane.

  By the time they reached Edmonton, more than four hours later, it was pouring with rain.

  ‘Well, folks,’ the pilot announced in a genial tone as they circled the airfield, preparing to land. ‘On a good day this place doesn’t look too bad. But as it turns out, this is not a good day.’

  All Evie could see, stepping out, was an area of endless, rain-lashed flatness and the few drab buildings of the airport. It was desolate beyond words. Was this the golden land they had been promised? But she said nothing to Jack. She was in any case too tired and bewildered. They put up in a small, sterile hotel in the city, which she was too exhausted to take in.

  First thing next morning, she had to rush along to the bathroom, her body wringing thin bile from her. She stood, panting over the whitest washbasin she had ever seen, her head throbbing, mouth full of sour sickness.

  ‘You all right?’ Jack said as she came back into the bedroom. ‘You’re white as a sheet.’

  She was surprised he had noticed and she longed to tell him. But not yet. Let them get there. Let her be sure she really was expecting, that nothing was going to go wrong. She felt superstitious, as if speaking about it would make it not true.

  ‘I’m just a bit tired,’ she said. She sat back down on the bed and forced a smile, though she felt like crying. She wanted familiar things round her. If only they were back home, even if that meant their dingy rooms in Smethwick. But it was too late now.

  ‘Soon be there. Just got to get a train.’ He squeezed her hand, but she c
ould see that his mind was racing ahead in excitement. She felt a moment of panic at having to travel even further, as if she was on a long cord which was still attached to home. If she pulled on it any more, it would snap, leaving her cut off from everything. In that moment she wanted to beg that they just turn round and go back again.

  Thirty-Three

  They asked directions to the railway station. People were kind and they were soon on their way to Rosette, where, Jack assured her, they would be met by a man called Don Sorenson, from Jack’s new employer, the Rosette Tube Company. He was to show them to the new home which he had kindly organized for them.

  The journey took them across a flat prairie landscape blurred by rain. Evie gave up trying to make out anything more of this endless new country, so big that it made her feel dizzy. She dozed leaning against Jack’s shoulder. He was glued to the window, gazing out hungrily. When she woke, the weather had changed and there was bright sunlight as they reached their destination. It seemed like a good omen.

  They hauled out their cases onto the platform of a whitewashed station building, bearing the sign ‘ROSETTE’. A handful of other people got off with them and the silver train, which Evie thought looked like a tin can, moved away towards the west. For a second she wanted to call out to it, Stop! Don’t leave me here! She reached for Jack’s hand. She had put on a pair of comfortable slacks for travelling in, but now they had arrived she felt rather scruffy.

  The other passengers moved out of the station by walking straight across the tracks. Evie and Jack glanced at each other, both feeling foolish. It would never have occurred to them that they could just walk across like that. Once they had gone it was very quiet. The tracks stretched away on either side.

  ‘Blimey,’ Jack breathed, looking round. He sounded excited, but also – just as she felt – stunned by the strangeness of it, by all the changes that had come upon them so fast. They stood side by side, next to their luggage like lost children. Evie felt the acid burn in her stomach and no coherent thought formed in her head. All she really longed to do was to lie down.

  They looked around them. Behind them, along the margin of flat unsown land, electric wires slung between wooden poles extended away along the tracks, thrumming in the breeze. The sun was bright, the sky pocked by a few fast-moving white clouds. Evie felt it through her clothes and it seemed to be blowing away everything she had ever known or held dear.

  Across the tracks were a few low, station buildings, and beyond they could just see other buildings which must have been the edge of the town. Though it had a name and they had things waiting for them – the Rosette Tube Company, a man, somewhere, called Don Sorenson and their belongings coming by sea – Evie felt she had arrived in a place that was nowhere. Never before had she been anywhere so open to the sky, so spread out, with such a feeling of being half made. All her life she had spent in a built-up place, the old parts of a city. Now she felt as if she had come to the bleak ends of the earth.

  She wondered if Jack was feeling the same because he turned to her, as if uncertain, and took her hand. Evie squeezed it, happy that they were in this together, both feeling uncertain.

  ‘Well, hey there! Hello!’

  A figure appeared walking with a casual stride along the opposite platform, a stocky, bearded man in an open-necked white shirt, grinning, a hand raised. His hair and beard, the colour of rusty leaves, glowed in the light. He clambered, bear-like, across the tracks towards them.

  ‘Hey, folks! Welcome to Alberta!’ Close up, she saw the man had grey eyes and a strong jawbone and looked as if he was built from tree trunks. Beside him, Evie thought, Jack appeared as if tacked together out of kindling. He shook each of their hands and his felt very thick and strong.

  ‘Here, let me give you a hand with those bags,’ he said. ‘That’s OK, come right on over the track. There won’t be another train coming this way for a good while yet.’

  ‘Ta . . . er, thanks. Thank you,’ Jack said and she heard the eagerness in his tone as they set off across the track. They both seemed like little children compared with this bear of a man.

  ‘Come on,’ Don said. ‘I’ll give you a ride to your new place. I hope you’re going to like it!’

  ‘Oh, we will. I’m sure we will,’ Jack said. ‘Thanks for, er, you know, sorting it out for us.’ Never had Evie heard him so full of a childlike desire to please.

  ‘Not at all. We’re glad you’re here,’ Don said, in a formulaic way, yet it did not feel false. There was a warmth to the man.

  His car, parked at the front of the little station, was a flat-shaped vehicle in bronze, with a wide radiator that looked like bared teeth, as if the thing might be about to eat you. ‘Meteor’ she read along the front of the bonnet.

  ‘I’ll put your bags in the trunk,’ Don said. He smiled at Evie. ‘Here, Mrs Harrison.’ He opened the front-passenger door, confusingly on the right-hand side, and held it open in a courtly way. ‘You sit up beside me.’

  He settled them and their things inside. Evie was relieved to sit down again as she was feeling terribly queasy and was finding it hard to concentrate on anything. As they drove, she only took in a vague impression of this strange, low-level, boxy town with its straight roads, because she was worried she was going to be sick. She drew in deep breaths and Don Sorenson talked to Jack alarmingly over his shoulder. His Canadian accent felt like a fresh wind blowing.

  ‘Tell you the truth, Jack, the company’s really eager to have you,’ he said in his sunny way. ‘Rosette Tube is doing well – oil is booming in Alberta, of course – but we need all the expertise we can find. You’re going to be a great asset. Oh, and you’ll need a car.’ He laughed, facing forwards again, to Evie’s relief. ‘Here, the car is king. We can soon get you fixed up.’

  About twenty minutes later, after passing through the middle of the little town where they saw churches, shops, a glimpse of the lake lined with trees, they moved into more suburban roads and stopped outside a white clapboard house. So far as Evie could see it was one storey high, with steps leading up to the door. Along the street were other similar-looking houses, some with cars parked outside.

  ‘Well, here we are!’ Don announced. ‘Your place for now. We always try to fix people up when they first arrive, but of course, if you don’t get along with it, you can look for somewhere else. But it’s a pretty nice place. And Edith’s done a fine job getting in a few things for you.’ They gathered that Edith was Mrs Sorenson.

  ‘Looks nice,’ Jack said enthusiastically. He was going to be enthusiastic about everything in Canada. All Evie could feel was the strangeness. And relief that she had not been sick in their host’s very clean car.

  This is what you wanted, she told herself fiercely. A new life.

  ‘I’m sure we’re going to love it,’ she said as the nausea made her innards lurch. She swallowed hard and gave Don Sorenson a dazzling smile, wondering how quickly she could get into the house, to a lavatory.

  ‘I sure hope so,’ he said, somehow bashful, as if the country was a lover he was introducing them to.

  She just made it, bile rising in her as she leaned over a spotless white lavatory, hoping to God they couldn’t hear. But the two men were busy talking. She gulped down some water, wiped her face and felt much better. There was a mirror and she looked at her pale face, her hair flat and in need of a wash after all the travelling. But she looked much as usual, which was reassuring because everything felt so different. God, she thought desperately, I hope I am going to like it. So far it all felt so strange and empty.

  ‘You’re going to have to,’ she whispered to her reflection. ‘You’re here now. Mrs Harrison with her husband and . . .’ For a moment her hand flickered protectively over her belly and she managed a smile.

  They were both amazed at the house. It was compact: one storey with a kitchen, a bathroom, a living room and two bedrooms. Don pointed out features to them before he left. When Jack mentioned the height of the house off the ground, he laughed.


  ‘Oh, you haven’t seen a Canadian winter yet. We have snow right up to the windows and over. You better make sure you stock up on plenty of warm clothing.’

  When he had gone, leaving them a bag of groceries, the two of them explored the place, excited as children. They were amazed by everything and Evie’s spirits lifted. What a lovely house – she had never seen anything like it before! The living room was already furnished with rugs on the wooden floor, armchairs, patterned pink and grey, a wooden table and chairs and a big wooden sideboard. The kitchen was brighter and cleaner than any they had ever seen. Evie looked inside the cupboards, thinking of all the ways she would arrange the shelves in the larder unit which stood in one corner, astonished at the white brilliance inside the refrigerator.

  ‘They must really want you, Jack,’ she said. She saw him differently suddenly. He was someone clever, in demand. ‘They’ve made it so nice for us. And look – I can’t believe this bathroom!’ She went to view it properly. A whole bathroom to themselves, all new and clean. It had patterned linoleum on the floor in dark blue and turquoise patterns. They had their own lavatory, bath and washbasin and a little white wooden stool, a rail on the wall for towels. It felt like a palace. Jack came to stand beside her and she could see the pride and pleasure in his eyes.

  ‘Oh Jack, it’s lovely,’ she said.

  ‘That’s Canada for you.’ He flung an arm round her shoulders, looking into their new bathroom. ‘Better in every way.’

  ‘And look, there’s a little patch of garden outside!’ she said, excitement filling her. It was a bare rectangle, but there was grass and a little fence and they could make it nice. She didn’t know a thing about gardens but she would learn. She was about to say, ‘It’ll be lovely for the baby.’ But she bit back the words. Should she tell him? Soon – she would tell him soon. At the moment his mind was fixed on settling here, on Canada. She wanted the moment to be right.