An Unsuitable Mother

by Sheelagh Kelly

  Had she not accidentally heard it on the wireless, none of this would have been apparent to Nell, who continued to flounder through her day-to-day ministrations, regarding her patients as the only ones to matter, occasionally rewarded by a comic moment from one of the old men or ladies, in between fending off insanity with the aid of tobacco. The past year of loss had seen her relying heavily on cigarettes, even so reliant as to puff them in the street, which was still officially forbidden. Far better, thought Nell, for the smoke to be blown away in the fresh air than to impregnate her uniform and upset the patients. No one had complained so far. At least, not the patients. She no longer took the trouble to conceal the habit from her parents – for what more could they do to her – and did not mind insulting them with her fumes. In fact, she relished using any small way to punish them for what they had done to her. Now, though, with all smoking materials hard to acquire, she had resorted to desperate means.

  ‘A pipe?’ condemned her mother, upon this being brought out after tea that winter’s eve, as the lights were turned off and all moved to huddle round the hearth. ‘Oh, Eleanor, how uncouth!’ Her whole demeanour was astounded.

  ‘I could only manage to lay my hands on half an ounce of shag, so it was either this or roll my own, and I’m hopeless at those.’ Illuminated by firelight, Nell retained an unruffled surface as she held a taper to the pipe’s bowl and coaxed the tobacco to ignite with a little series of puffs.

  ‘There’s no law says you have to smoke at all!’ A picture of aversion, Thelma snatched up a shawl to compensate for the poor fire – coal being in as short ration as every other commodity – and wrapped it around herself as she snuggled back into her chair. ‘I’ve been very understanding in allowing you the odd cigarette, what with these testing times, but some of us manage to cope without turning into human chimneys. I’m glad they are in short supply if it stops you frittering fourteen shillings a week – and I draw the line at that smelly thing. Why, you look like an old tinker!’

  Nell merely eyed her through the gloom. Then, having kindled her tobacco, she too sat back and made herself comfortable by tugging a blanket over her knees, puffing away on her pipe, defying further objection.

  But objection there came. ‘I hope you realise you’re making more work for me,’ reproved Wilfred, calmer than his wife as he concentrated on mending a pair of shoes, though equally disgusted at the way his daughter was choosing to behave in defiance of his own generosity. ‘That patch of ceiling above your chair’s begun to turn yellow.’

  ‘After one pipeful?’ scoffed Nell.

  ‘And all the rest of the fags you’ve been puffing off without as much as a by your leave – and less of your lip! It isn’t you who has to set to and paint it – that’s con sidering I can even lay my hands on any flipping paint these days! As if I haven’t enough to do with going out to work and the Home Guard. Put the blasted thing out.’ And he turned his petulant grey features back to his task, and his ear to the wireless, obviously expecting her to comply.

  Nell maintained cool insolence. ‘I’ll go outside and have it then.’ Removing herself from the firelight, she took up her coat and trolled through the kitchen, overhearing her father’s damning comment as she left:

  ‘I don’t know why we bother, she’s a ruddy disgrace!’

  Leaning against the outer jamb of the back door, puffing on her pipe, Nell asked herself why she continued with this charade – why any of them continued with it. What was the point in being there? Was it simply to annoy her parents? For that was all she seemed to do. It was immaterial that they had expressed no further recrimination once she had obeyed them and given her baby away, she still felt them looking at her with complete incomprehension as to how their well-brought-up daughter could do such a thing. Nothing would be the same between the three of them, so why was she still here? Out of conveni ence, she supposed, and for financial reasons. Perhaps some girls of nineteen could summon the wherewithal to set up on their own, but Nell had always been looked after, and had little idea how to spread the two pounds per week she earned. Still, there must be some way to reduce the hours in such stifling company …

  With the casualty evacuation trains standing virtually redundant, she and certain members of the crew had found themselves putting in more and more hours at the Infirmary now, which was good, for this routine, however mundane, kept one busy. And Nell liked to be kept busy.

  Sister Barber had apparently come to appreciate this too, and today had approached her and Beata about going on the rota for night shift. Taken aback, it had been Nell’s first impulse to say that the responsibility was far too much, to be alone in the small hours with perhaps sixty patients under her care, but Sister seemed to have faith in her abilities.

  ‘You’ll rarely hear me say this,’ quipped Sister, ‘but you and Killie have turned out to be two of the most diligent nurses out of the original crew. That’s correct: I did say nurses. I never thought to see the day when I’d suitably address you as such. You both know very well that I was totally against being lumbered with untrained staff, and certainly there are those who have fulfilled my every expectation.’ Both knew that she was referring to Joyson, who had regressed from a position of keenness to one of can’t-be-bothered. ‘Obviously, your lack of qualifications is a great handicap. But I believe that it’s only a lack of finances that prevents you from higher achievement. If devotion to duty were to be considered, then you would win hands down. You’ve both been on the wards for the best part of a year now, and I feel you’re equipped for night duty. At any rate, I’d like you to think about it.’

  And Nell did think about it seriously now, as she puffed on her pipe, thinking too of the Christmas that was imminent, and dreading having to partake in another festive meal with her parents. Out of sheer desperation she decided there and then that she would add her name to the night-shift rota. For, by choosing to work on a night, she could legitimately sleep all Christmas Day and hardly have to see her parents at all.

  Christmas. Gazing up at the twinkling stars on this frosty night, she huddled into her coat and sucked on the stem of her pipe, conjuring pictures of flying reindeer and jingling bells. An effect of the blackout, the stars had never seemed so bright, each constellation perfectly defined. Did her natural mother gaze at this stellar scene and wonder over her, just as she wondered over her own baby William? At eight months old he would not yet know the excitement of dressing the fir tree, the evocative mixture of that and the scent of roast chicken, of being called from his bed to find that Santa had left a pile of toys and books. Hopefully, though, he would grow to do so. Biting hard on the pipe stem to ward off tears, his mother prayed again that he was with a good family – no, not just a good family, but a kind family.

  Such thoughts lured her mind then to the children at the Infirmary, the ones whose mothers had died and whose fathers were in Europe, or in Malaya or Burma, at the mercy of the Japs; some with mothers like Cissie; others with parents who had abused them; some with no parent at all: and she was attacked by pangs of compassion for those wretched little mites with their scabby, purple-dotted faces. She had already taken up Matron’s example and begun to make little gifts for them, and for the elderly inmates – a bed jacket here, a teddy bear there – perhaps by volunteering for night shift she could even increase her output. Unable to enjoy restful sleep since Billy had died, after catching sufficient shut-eye during the day she could go to work much earlier than was necessary. and use the time to make more dolls’ clothes before her shift. Anything, thought Nell, rather than be in the claustrophobic household behind that closed door.

  Holding on to this new sense of purpose, she continued to suck on her pipe for a while, no matter how bitter the weather, reluctant to go in, imbibing a sense of irony along with the sweet scent of tobacco smoke that coiled across Father’s vegetable patch and away into the night. How bloody paradoxical, that she had let herself be bullied into giving up her baby so as to regain entry to their wretched little home. And
how she detested the place now.

  Another year was snuffed out, though not, alas, the war, its evil combatants now gaining purchase of Singapore and much of the Far East, and the threat extended to India and Ceylon, and even Australia.

  At home, the casualty evacuation trains that had stood idle for months were finally disbanded, and the crew dispersed to various arenas, some like the Ashton twins going on to higher achievement, whilst Nell, Beata, Joyson and Sister Barber became fully employed at the Infirmary. Whilst her colleagues worked there by choice, Joyson would have much preferred to attend one of the military hospitals, and in the hope that her experience would hold sway she had made an application, but to her chagrin had been rejected. This being so, she managed to reap the next best thing. A ward had been set up devoted to shell-shocked soldiers and airmen, who weren’t physically injured but simply needed to convalesce. Regarding this as her new vocation, Joy had almost elbowed aside the others in her rush to volunteer.

  ‘Vocation my Aunty Fanny,’ muttered Beata, drawing an infrequent chuckle from Nell, both of whom were mainly relegated to the old people’s wards. ‘It’s because the chaps don’t need much looking after, except a kind word or two.’

  ‘They won’t get those from Joy!’ scoffed Nell, and decreed that, ‘We must be doolally to put up with this,’ as the pair of them marked the end of another night shift by transporting steaming water for one of the incontinent elderly who must be bathed.

  Despite there being a bathroom at the Infirmary, there was no hot-water supply, this having to be hauled in pails down the corridor from the kitchen, and the patients manually lifted in – some of them kicking and screaming. And yes, it was exacting, having to care for sixty patients on a ward, to feed them and wash them and change their bed linen twice a week, and to be constantly familiar with their excreta. And yes, it was true, this embodied none of the heroic romanticism over which a girl might rhapsodise – yet it was somehow rewarding, thought Nell, to know that you were making someone’s final years as comfortable as you possibly could. Which, for her, was the only thing that made life bearable.

  ‘God forbid that I end up here myself,’ came her wry but pertinent comment to Beata as they tipped their pails of hot water into the bath, ‘but if I do, I hope I get someone like you as my nurse and not oh-be-Joyful!’

  Nell arrived home several hours later, to the abrupt question:

  ‘What time will you be getting up?’

  ‘Do you mind if I go to bed first?’ chaffed the overtaxed nurse.

  ‘Don’t be cheeky!’ Mother treated her as if she were still a little girl, snatching the coat off her shoulders and hanging it up. ‘This coat reeks of tobacco smoke, I hope you haven’t been puffing that horrible pipe in the street – no, I only asked because I’m planning a special tea-come-breakfast for your birthday. I know it’s not until tomorrow, but you work such silly hours …’

  Nell gave a sharp laugh. ‘Only my mother could talk of planning a special meal with such shortages inflicted on us! Haven’t you seen the placards? No beer, no cigarettes, no whatever-it-is-you-were-going-to-ask-for!’ The bitter quip concealed a host of emotions. Having dreaded tomorrow, she had been working her hardest to forget, for it also marked the anniversary of her son’s birth. How she would get through it, God only knew.

  ‘I am aware of that, but I thought it might be nice for us to eat together,’ continued Thelma with manufactured patience, tweaking a strand of lint off Nell’s cardigan as she spoke.’ Your father and I never get to see you these days, you’re always at work. I’ve been saving a jar of loganberries all year so’s you’d have a little treat.’ Her expression now intimated that she was trying to make an effort here, to show her daughter that bygones could be bygones, if only Nell would allow it.

  But the worn-out nurse was unmoved as she made for bed. ‘You needn’t go to any trouble on my account.’

  Thelma tailed her to the foot of the stairs, calling in a half-bright manner, ‘Am I not supposed to celebrate my daughter’s birthday any more just because she’s twenty?’

  Nell paused, and looked back to examine her mother. Perhaps made extra irritable by tiredness, or maybe just from stored-up bile, her self-restraint was cast aside as she stated the cruel truth. ‘I’ll never get to celebrate my child’s birthday, will I?’

  Then, unsympathetic with Thelma’s concussed expression, she turned and uttered over her shoulder, ‘Oh, just do as you like, I’m off to bed.’

  She was to emerge hours later to a stiff warning from her mother.

  ‘I hope you’re in a better mood to appreciate this!’

  No, I’m bloody not, thought Nell, snatching a none-too-interested look at the prettified table, and going to the sink for a glass of water. She had meant to be up and away before Father came home, but here it was almost five thirty.

  ‘You really shouldn’t be having these, after the awful thing you said to me this morning.’

  Despite this opinion, Thelma placed two gifts on the linen cloth, along with a card.

  Nell mumbled appeasement, though it lacked conviction as she immediately took another sip from her glass, and remained in nonchalant pose by the sink.

  ‘Well, never mind, you can open them now if you like,’ invited her mother. ‘No need to wait for Father to get home – oh, here he is!’ Instantly distracted by one more eminent, she began to fuss about, pulling back her husband’s chair ready for him to sit in, and beaming as he entered.

  ‘Ah, that’s right, we’re celebrating early …’ Wilfred immediately noted the best china on the table and wished his daughter, ‘Many happy returns for tomorrow.’ Then he pulled off his bike clips, rolled up his sleeves and washed his hands at the kitchen sink, his wife standing by with the towel. ‘Twenty, eh?’

  I feel like a hundred, the things I’ve been through, thought Nell.

  ‘Open your things then!’ prompted Thelma, as her husband dried his hands.

  Not caring enough to feign interest, Nell upturned her glass on the draining board, then approached the top parcel and tore its brown paper, inside which was a plain moss-green skirt. It was hardly a surprise. Upon purchasing the utility cloth Mother had rather tellingly sought her opinion on it, and had been stitching it for weeks. But she thanked her parents anyway, adding, ‘It’s a nice colour.’ The smaller, flatter package revealed a pair of stockings. These managed to elicit a little gasp of appreciation from Nell.

  ‘I should think so.’ Her mother wagged a finger, though smilingly. ‘Two and eleven they cost me – and not even fully fashioned!’ She waved aside any supposition that she had forked out too much on her daughter. ‘Oh, don’t worry, you were meant to receive them last birthday bu—’

  But she had shoved them away in the cupboard after being presented with an illegitimate grandchild. Debunked by her own faux pas, Thelma finished quickly, ‘Anyway, sit down and open your card whilst I fetch the liver casserole!’

  In the shadow of this blunder, the meal was consumed mainly in silence, with intermittent compliments from Mr Spottiswood upon the quality of his wife’s gravy and the fresh vegetables from his own plot.

  Too immersed in thoughts about the child that was lost to her, Nell said nothing at all until laying down her spoon at the end of the meal. ‘Smashing loganberries. Thank you.’

  ‘You’re welcome, dear, it was worth the wait, wasn’t it? Well, I’d better pour you a cup of tea before you run off and leave us.’ Thelma picked up the teapot. ‘What a shame you have to work.’

  No it isn’t thought Nell, eager to escape this stilted conversation. I’d work every night of the week if they’d allow it.

  ‘When do you next have a night off? Perhaps you should go out and enjoy yourself then …’

  ‘With all these blasted Yanks creeping about?’ exclaimed Wilfred, a cup of tea halfway to his lips. ‘Swaggering round town in their slick uniforms, flashing their money about to catch daft little tarts – have you forgotten the last time we trusted her?’

&
nbsp; ‘I’m sure she’s learned her lesson,’ cut in Thelma quickly, ‘haven’t you, Eleanor?’

  Nell glared at them, a crescendo of fury pervading her throat and threatening to asphyxiate – as if any man could replace Bill!

  ‘She’s going nowhere,’ finished her father, carelessly scooping another berry into his mouth.

  ‘Yes, I am.’ Swallowing the urge to launch an attack – for where might it stop – with great deliberation and dignity, Nell rose. ‘I’m going to pack.’ Leaving the birthday card behind, she picked up the skirt and stockings, and took them with her.

  ‘And go where?’ asked her mother, both parents taken aback and just a little disdainful.

  ‘That needn’t trouble you.’ Nell was unsure herself; she just knew that if she did not leave there and then she would end up killing one of them, or yielding to the canker that threatened her soul.

  Whilst a calm Mr Spottiswood remained at the table, his tongue skilfully ejecting loganberry seeds from under his dentures and making that clickety-clacking that so incensed both his womenfolk, his wife followed her daughter upstairs, to observe as she packed a case. Nell stowed into it everything she might need for a lengthy self-exile, using her hatbox as an overflow. Lifting out the school boater, she put it aside, trying not to look at Bill’s photograph, his watch and his letters, for even to set eyes on these priceless things opened such wounds, and immediately she crammed on top of them as much as the hatbox would take.

  ‘Aren’t you even going to leave us an address?’ demanded her mother.

  ‘When I’ve got one, perhaps.’ Nell had almost finished packing.

  ‘Well, if you’ve nowhere definite to go, why rush off so impulsively?’

  ‘You really have to ask?’ Nell turned to frown, then shook her head.

  ‘For pity’s sake!’ Obviously at the end of her tether, Thelma spoke through clenched teeth, so as to keep her voice low. ‘You’re not even twenty-one, why do you stubbornly persist in looking backwards?’