by Juliet West
He ain’t a feather man, Hannah had said.
How can he be a coward? He is taking the most difficult path, a path other men wouldn’t dare to tread.
33
Nettie is out of breath when I open the door, clutching her side as if she has a stitch.
‘Those steps are a killer,’ she says. ‘Here, brought you these.’ She holds out a bunch of daffodils, seven or eight of them, all different lengths and ragged at the stems. ‘Well, you going to ask me in or what?’
She follows me into the living room and looks around without saying anything. I know it’s not much, but I’ve done my best to brighten the place. The lace curtains are tied back, and the antimacassars are smooth and clean on the little purple sofa. I’ve hung up Daniel’s African cloth, though the oranges and reds don’t match too well with the pink hyacinths on the wallpaper. We tried to wipe the black stains off the ceiling above the gas lamps, but wiping only smeared them and now the marks look even worse.
The children are playing at arm-wrestling, lying tummy down on the rug in front of the fire. The fire isn’t drawing well: it hisses and sighs because the coals are damp.
‘Children, say hello to Nettie. My friend from the cafe.’
‘Have you brought any buns?’ asks Teddy.
‘Sorry,’ says Nettie, holding out her empty hands. ‘Rations are so tight. We never get leftovers no more.’
‘Don’t be so cheeky, Teddy. Now go off and play in the bedroom, both of you. Go on, the blackboard’s under the bed.’
Daniel has bought them a packet of chalk and a small blackboard. Noughts and crosses will keep them quiet for a while, so long as Alice is winning.
I put Nettie’s daffs in a coronation jug on the mantelpiece and the room is more cheerful already. We drink tea from tin cups. The box of china broke in the van: my fault for packing everything in such a rush.
‘You all right, then?’ asks Nettie. She looks uncomfortable, shifting around on the edge of the sofa with her hands wedged under her thighs.
‘Fine. It’s strange, of course, being somewhere new.’ Strange isn’t the word. I feel giddy all the time, four floors up and a different world at my feet. ‘The children think we’re on holiday. Should’ve seen them last weekend, charging up and down the steps like the building was a fairground ride. Novelty’s wearing off now, of course.’
‘What about Daniel? They taken to him?’
‘He’s been ever so kind. More patient than me, he is. They seem to like him.’ I don’t tell Nettie that Alice has cried every night. She’s happy enough during the day, cocky as ever, but at bedtime it’s all ‘Nana’ and ‘Auntie Jen’ and ‘When can we go back home?’ Teddy misses his little cousin. I caught him talking to himself this morning, curled up with his thumb in his mouth as if he was a baby. ‘Dee-dee,’ he was saying. ‘Dee-dee.’
‘Alice starts school next week, two streets away, and Teddy can join after Easter.’
‘So you’ll have them off your hands when the baby’s born.’
‘Yes.’ I put my hand to my belly. The baby has hiccups again, tiny jerks that set my teeth on edge. ‘Did you find anyone, Nettie?’
She picks up her bag, bites her bottom lip. ‘I asked around. This woman’s supposed to be reliable. Mrs Moss. Delivered half the women in Whitechapel, my cousin says. Reasonable rates if she can see you’re hard up. Not that I’m saying you’re hard up, Hannah . . . Anyway, here.’ She hands me a slip of paper with a name and address written in smudged ink. Agnes Moss, midwife. I fold the paper and put it behind the coronation jug.
Nettie has a second cup of tea, but I can’t face another with the baby pressing on my insides. And anyway, I’m trying not to drink much, because I’m too exhausted to go lumbering down the stairs to the ground-floor privies. I hate using the slop bucket during the day, makes me feel like an invalid, but there’s no choice now.
She drains the cup and runs a finger round the rim. ‘There was a bit of talk yesterday,’ she says. ‘At the cafe.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘Mr Cridge came out with it, called right across to Mrs Stephens.’
‘Came out with what?’
‘I can’t remember the exact words. Something about you being knocked up. She nearly dropped her knife.’
‘And what did you say?’
‘Kept quiet, didn’t I? Said I had no idea what he was on about. But then Mr Cridge said that by all accounts it was Mr Blake you’d run off with. I didn’t know where to look. I went bright red – anyone could see.’
She expects sympathy from me, an apology for putting her in an awkward position. I tell her I’m sorry and she smiles grudgingly. There’s an uncomfortable silence between us now. Why couldn’t she have kept the cafe gossip to herself? It screws up my insides to think of them talking about me, to think there’s a scandal to discuss and I’m at the centre of it.
Teddy comes in from the bedroom and tries to climb on my knee. ‘I’m so ’ungry,’ he says. ‘When’s tea?’
‘Not long. I’ve got frumenty on.’
‘A-gain.’ He sighs and slithers down onto the floorboards. ‘Is there jam?’
‘You know we can’t get jam, love. Now go and play in the bedroom, like I said. We’re talking.’
‘Want to stay here. Alice is mean.’
Alice’s singing drifts through the open door. ‘Little Teddy Tom Thumb landed on his bum-bum . . .’
When Nettie leaves, I lean against the kitchen sink, staring at the dirty groove in the lino where the bottom of the door scrapes. From the bedroom comes the scratching of chalk, and Alice’s commentary as she explains to Teddy why he’s lost again.
I sit on the living-room sofa for a while, trying to gather strength to serve up the tea. The church clocks strike five and it’s only then that I smell the frumenty, sharp and bitter: the smell of a pan burning dry. I’ve left the gas on too high.
I poke at the mush with a wooden spoon. The wheat grains have swollen into hard lumps, and the milky broth has gone stretchy like glue. Disgusting. Tears roll off my cheeks and splash into the pan. Damn, damn, damn. There are a few coppers in my purse set by for the meter. We’ll have to go out for chips.
Daniel is lying on his back, arms linked behind his head, and I am in bed next to him, my chin resting on his shoulder. How peculiar it is: a Friday night together and instead of rushing away, I can lie beside him as long as I like.
‘Sorry about tea,’ I whisper.
His hand reaches out and closes over mine. ‘Don’t worry. You’ll get used to the stove. We’ll go shopping together tomorrow night. Get something special in for Sunday . . . Which reminds me.’ He leans over to his jacket, reaches into the pocket and draws out a brown paper bag. ‘Bought a little present for you.’
The bag is feather-light. I open it up and there are five teardrop-shaped seeds nestling in the bottom.
‘Sunflower seeds,’ he says.
‘Wherever will we grow them?’
‘Out on the landing. I’ll plant them up on Sunday. We’ll have one each – you, me, the children and the baby. We’ll have a race – see whose grows highest.’
It sends a jolt through me, this mention of the baby. A real person, then, with its own little plant growing in a pot. ‘Daft beggar.’ I kiss his shoulder. ‘The kids will love it.’
I lift my head from the pillow and listen out for the children. They sleep in the living room, top to toe on a palliasse that pulls out from under the sofa.
‘Do you think they’re asleep?’ asks Daniel.
‘I reckon.’
He gets up from the bed and shuts the door with a soft click. From the architrave above the door he takes a key and turns it in the lock.
As he slides back into bed, he kisses my forehead and runs his hand along the side of my body: my waist, my hips, the tops of my thighs, even my belly, round and white as the moon. He wants me every night, kisses every part of me. I close my eyes and wonder how such pleasure is possible. The giddiness, the fear, it a
ll dissolves when Daniel touches my skin.
34
The library windows blaze with sunlight. Daniel was alone for the first hour, but now a greasy-haired gent is seated opposite him at the large wooden table. The old boy is close enough for Daniel to hear his moist lips smacking as he reads, as if every page contains a morsel that must be savoured. At first Daniel found the noise distracting; now it seems almost companionable.
The baby is due in one month, at the end of May. Mrs Moss visited last Sunday, to check on Hannah’s progress, and to collect her downpayment. Mrs Moss was flint-faced, with a harsh cough that came out as a single bark at the end of every sentence. She seemed more interested in pocketing her money than in Hannah’s health. Still, Hannah didn’t complain about Mrs Moss, so he didn’t either.
He is rereading Jude the Obscure. It has fresh meaning for him now, the love affair between Jude and Sue, the judgement of their peers, the creeping tide of destitution.
It hadn’t taken long for the men at Beaumont’s to start talking. Many of them are regulars at the cafe: they would have devoured the rumours. ‘Soldier’s wife,’ he’d heard Shears mutter one morning, and a group of men ahead of him in the crowd turned and stared. The same day a fragment of conversation had drifted over from the welding shop as he rolled a cigarette on a break. ‘I’d’ve had a punt meself if I’d known she were easy.’ His fists clenched, but he couldn’t risk challenging them. They could have been talking about anyone, he reasoned. To start a fight would be madness.
In July his exemption runs out, and with every month the war drags on, the tribunals are getting more stringent. Christ knows how many were killed this spring: the army needs to replenish supplies. For Beaumont’s to put his case, he must be a faultless employee. Yet the gossip has reached the foreman now, he’s certain of that, because his shifts are shorter and fewer – too many half-days and never any overtime at the weekend. He is living in the twentieth century, the modern era, but the old codes have barely changed. There’s nothing avant-garde about the lads at the docks, he thinks. Victorians through and through.
The worst of it is that he has lied to Hannah. She thinks he is at the yard now, but here he is, reading Thomas Hardy in Whitechapel Library with this scruffy old goat to keep him company. His mind races and he cannot concentrate on the chapter. Money. He’ll have to get some or the rent will go unpaid. On Friday he will pawn Esther’s jewellery – the ring and the bracelet he was saving for little Maddie. There are still a few books he could take to the dealer. He may as well sell them now, he thinks, with summer on the way. If they’re still in the flat when winter comes, they might end up on the fire.
He turns another page and starts to read, but dread envelops him, the fear rising up as strong as it had done when he was a boy. He shuts the book and tries to erase the image of Little Father Time hanging limp in the closet. What on earth possessed him to pick this book from the library shelf? Why does he persist in reading at all? Books should bring escape, a sense of possibility. This book frightens him. It is too familiar now, like staring into a looking glass.
The old man opposite has fallen asleep, his chin resting on his chest so that his tangled grey beard sticks out at a forty-five-degree angle. His breathing is heavy, but he is not snoring. Daniel gets up from the table and walks over to the poetry section. He scans the titles and chooses a volume he does not know: Poems by Francis Thompson. When he returns to his chair, the man is still sleeping.
Daniel’s back twinges from too much sitting. He circles his shoulders and stretches out his legs before opening the book at the first poem. A small piece of paper falls out, a sketch of a pretty girl, no more than twenty or so, with light falling across one side of her face. The name ‘Lizzie’ is written underneath the picture. On the back are some lines of scribbled verse. Many of the phrases are struck through, and at the bottom of the paper, ‘Hopeless!’ is scrawled in thick pencil lead. He considers this word for a long time. In his mind, he sketches Hannah’s face and it is filled with light. He imagines her sitting on a beach in Dorset, the dark cliffs framing her pale features. She is eating ice cream with a tiny wooden spoon. Behind her, their child is building a tower of shingle. Seven pebbles, ten. The tower rises and the child is pleased. But with the final pebble the sky darkens and the sun is eclipsed. The cliffs begin to collapse and slide. Mud flows like smelted iron, choking Hannah and the child, swallowing them up. He runs to save them, but the mud traps him too. He looks out to the sea, to the tide flowing towards them. White gulls drop from the sky and disappear under the waves.
A woman with heeled shoes clacks into the reading room. Daniel starts awake. There is something in his fist. He opens out his hand and remembers the scrap of paper – the sketch of Lizzie, now screwed into a tight damp ball.
The man opposite has woken too. He turns a page and smacks his lips.
Daniel lights a cigarette and pulls back the curtain at the bedroom window. Though it is still dark, he can see the square silhouette of the German church, the crucifix rising from the bell tower. He would like to open the window, but Mrs Moss says she will not work in a draught.
He cannot stand the silence any longer.
‘Is this normal?’ he asks, his voice spiked with tension.
Mrs Moss turns to him with a weary look. Her sleeves are rolled up, and her arms are red with blood. Mrs Moss doesn’t want him in the room – that much is plain.
‘It’s not unusual,’ she says. ‘The womb ain’t closing fast enough.’
Hannah is lying back on the pillow. Her face is ashen, and around her eyes there is a hint of green. The baby is trying to suckle, but Hannah is barely strong enough to cradle her.
‘Shall I hold the baby?’ He takes a last drag of his cigarette and grinds the stub into the lid of an old paste jar.
‘No, let her feed. It’s feeding what keeps things moving.’ She finishes the sentence with a cough, not bothering to cover her mouth.
‘But . . . there shouldn’t be this much blood. She looks like . . . she’s fading.’
The labour had been fast, noisy, and woke the children in the living room. Daniel had tried to shush them back to sleep, but Alice was having none of it, so he took them outside onto the landing to see how the sunflowers were getting on. A gusty wind raged, and the children laughed as it lifted a pair of cotton drawers from a balcony washing line, over the rooftops and high above the streets. They watched the drawers as far as Mile End, until they floated down, ghostly, somewhere near the hospital. When Daniel and the children came back into the flat, there was the sound of a baby crying. Alice and Teddy were allowed the briefest glimpse of their new sister. Now they are tucked up again. Asleep, thank God.
This silence is so much worse than the screams of labour.
Two weeks early. Mrs Moss says not to worry, two weeks is nothing, but he feels as if they’ve been caught out. They weren’t prepared.
Hannah attempts to sit forward, but her head sinks back to the pillow. The baby, waxy and bloodied, slithers to one side and lands in the gap between Hannah’s arm and the side of her body. Daniel rushes to the bed.
‘How long do we let this go on? Surely there’s something you can give her?’
He picks up the baby and realizes that it is still attached to the cord. It pulses pale yellow and blue, not pink as he would have expected. When Sam and Maddie were born, he was banished to the pub to drink beer with his brother-in-law. He never saw a thing.
Mrs Moss stands at the foot of the bed and lifts the sheet. She leans in and peers between Hannah’s legs. ‘Push, girl. Push.’ She reaches her arms forward and lifts something. ‘That’s more like it. Final piece.’
Daniel turns and fixes his gaze on Hannah’s face. Her eyes are shut. He would stroke her hair if only he wasn’t holding the baby. Behind him, there is the sound of wet meat flopping into a tin pail. Tentatively he turns his head. Mrs Moss takes a large pair of scissors from her holdall and cuts the cord. He winces at the sound of metal slicing throug
h the flesh. The remaining length of cord that hangs from the baby’s navel changes before his eyes. It is paler now, the colour of a clouded moon. His mind casts back to the evening in Lady Tolland’s garden, the smell of jasmine and the taste of ripe raspberries. Jesus. From that, to this.
The bleeding slows as the sun rises. Mrs Moss hurries off. At six Hannah drinks a little tea, but she is too weak to get out of bed. The baby sleeps next to her on the pillow. When she wakes, fussing, Daniel lifts her onto the breast and helps to support the tiny body as she feeds. The baby is restless. She has the same dark lashes as Maddie, the same fuzz of brown newborn hair.
‘The children?’ asks Hannah.
‘Still asleep.’
‘They’ll have to miss school.’
‘I can take them.’
‘And lose a day’s work? No, you have to go. I’ll see you tonight.’
‘What if you take bad?’
She breathes two shallow breaths. He can see what an effort it is for her to speak. ‘There’s Mrs Tendler across the landing. She’ll help out if I need her.’
In the kitchen, he splashes cold water onto his face. There is a small mirror resting on a shelf above the sink. As he shaves, he notices a circle of white hair in his black stubble, as if someone has pressed a piece of chalk to his chin. Perhaps the white patch is a family trait, a quirk inherited from his father. Aunt Winch had never been able to answer any questions about his father. Either she didn’t know or she wouldn’t say. It was the same with his mother, once she’d disappeared. ‘Some feller from the West Country,’ was the closest he ever got to an answer. ‘Best you can do is forget all about her.’
