by Juliet West
He dries his face and ties his neck scarf in a loose knot as he creeps back into the bedroom. Hannah is dozing again. He bends to kiss her forehead, picks up his boots and carries them from the room.
Outside the front door, he bends to tie his laces. The sunflowers are in small stone pots against the balcony railings. Only three of the five seeds have germinated, and one of the seedlings is dying. Over-watering, most likely. He has told Alice that too much water is as bad as too little.
At the top of the staircase, he almost turns back. Can he really leave Hannah this morning, so feeble in the bed and the baby not eight hours old? He pauses with his hand on the cold banister and thinks of the new bed linen he must buy, the school clothes, milk and food. Red meat, Mrs Moss said, to build up her iron. Tomorrow is Friday and Mr Specterman will want his rent money. No, he has to take the work while it’s there. Two ships have come into the yard and he’s unlikely to be turned away.
35
I try to hide it from Daniel, the fact that I am terrified and lonely and desperate for him to stay. I listen to his footsteps fading down the staircase and tell myself it’s only for a few hours and then he’ll be back from work. My head is spinning and hammering. The light coming through the window makes me feel sick. Darkness is all I want. Black.
I’m bleeding again and the towel wedged underneath me is soaked through. The mattress must be ruined, and my head only hurts more when I wonder how we’ll replace it.
The baby is sleeping. For the first time I have a proper look at her. She’s a good colour at least. Her squashed-up skin is wrinkly and red as last year’s apples. I put out a hand to stroke her wavy brown hair. My hand is white and veined, so white it’s almost see-through. She has sucked all the strength from me. Such power in so tiny a package.
I shut my eyes, lean back on the pillow and like a miracle the headache drains away. My body is heavy suddenly, as if I am sinking, disappearing. There is no pain at all, just a feeling of peace. It occurs to me that I may be dying. Not one ounce of strength is left in me: if someone asked me to open an eyelid, I couldn’t do it. I am falling through warm air, and soft butterflies land on my skin. My thoughts are slow, floating down, slotting into place, and everything makes sense. I’ve had the baby. I’ve given her my milk. She has known her mother, if only for a few hours. Alice and Teddy will be all right when I die. They’ll be back with their auntie and their nana and their cousin. It’s what they want, what they’ve been asking for. George will get leave and it will be better for everyone when I am gone. I am sorry for Daniel, but he will survive it. He’ll always know how much I loved him.
The doorknob rattles and someone comes into the room. I feel the butterflies lift from my skin, fly off towards the sun.
‘There’s somebody knocking,’ says Alice. ‘Shall I answer it, Mummy?’
‘What?’ The headache is back.
‘Someone at the door.’
‘Ask who is it.’
I hear Alice call out, then Nettie’s reply.
The baby’s fist pushes against my shoulder. I am still alive, then. She is still alive.
Nettie tries to pull the towel from under me, attempts to change the sheets. ‘Leave me,’ I whisper. ‘Can you take the children out? Give them some breakfast.’
‘It’s two in the afternoon,’ she says.
‘What day is it?’
‘Thursday.’
I think she does take them out because the flat is silent until the baby cries and somehow I manage to latch her on.
Mrs Moss comes, coughing. She gives me medicine and says it will cost another ten bob. Nettie hands over some coins and says the father will call by with the rest of the money.
The bleeding stops. Not the headache.
When Daniel arrives home, he talks in whispers with Nettie over by the window. If only dusk would come. I long for the dark.
By Sunday I am stronger. At teatime Daniel helps me from bed. I sit at the table for a few minutes and try to eat the soup he has put in front of me. Oat and potato soup, made by Nettie’s mother. It’s difficult to swallow because I am sobbing with every mouthful, thinking of my own mother and how I have betrayed her. Daniel comforts me, kisses my tears and tells me it’s only natural to feel upset.
‘Your mum’ll get used to the idea,’ he says. ‘They won’t cut you off forever.’
I try not to think of George, but he’s impossible to ignore. Alice has just been asking: ‘When Daddy comes home from the war, will we go back to Auntie Jen’s? When Uncle Daniel gives you a kiss, is he my daddy too?’
The soup is getting cold now and I am sweating with the effort of holding the spoon. It’s a warm evening and up here on the fourth floor there’s no air at all. The children are squabbling in the living room and the screeching is more than I can bear.
‘Let the kids play down in the yard,’ I tell Daniel. ‘Tell them to keep away from the pig bins.’ I’ve seen rats slinking around there, bold as you like in the middle of the day.
It’s a relief to have them out of the house. Daniel sits with me once I’m back in bed. The baby is hungry, and when she tries to latch on, I wince at the sharp pain. She fusses and cries, fusses and cries. I can’t seem to settle her, and my milk won’t let down. Daniel carries her around the room, jiggling her on his shoulder so that her little head wobbles. ‘Little Lizzie,’ he sing-songs. ‘Little Lizzie Locket.’
He’s been calling her Lizzie all day. That’s what we’ll name her, then. It suits her well enough.
I can’t sleep for fretting. All this time I’ve been living from day to day, day to day with Daniel, doing my best not to think ahead. But the future is here now. It’s here and I don’t know what to do.
George will be missing my letters, sitting in his tent or his trench or wherever he is. He’ll be wondering if we’re all right, waiting for news of the children. I haven’t dared write since we moved. It’s been over two months now. Perhaps there is a letter from him, propped up against the button box in Sabbarton Street.
That night there’s another raid over London. Daniel and I stand at the window, watching the searchlight beams fingering the sky. Bursts of shellfire from the anti-aircraft guns rattle the windowpanes and we can feel tremors in the floorboards beneath our feet. To the north, a fire blazes. ‘Bethnal Green,’ Daniel says, and all I can think is, Thank God it’s not Canning Town.
Somehow the racket seems to have calmed Lizzie and she sleeps soundly on the bed. Not a peep from Alice or Teddy either. Daniel’s arm is tight around my shoulders. I won’t shelter in the Tube station – I’d rather we were all up here than trapped underground – and Daniel doesn’t argue. Cheating bombs is a dangerous pastime. Everything is down to chance. If you run outside, you’re as likely to be killed by red-hot shrapnel from our own falling shells.
On Tuesday I manage to take the children to school. I strap the baby to my chest with a shawl and somehow I get down the stairs, one step at a time. Alice runs on ahead. She knows the way now; it won’t be long before they can walk themselves to school.
Teddy clings to my skirt when we reach the school gate. ‘Got tummy ache,’ he says. ‘Do I have to go?’
‘You don’t want to be stuck indoors with the baby, do you, Teddy? Get into school now. Good boy.’
He sniffs and trails in after Alice.
Two mothers are standing at the gates, chatting in low voices. They both stare at me as I pass, no pause in their conversation, just the eyes following.
The post office is on the corner of Whitechapel High Street and Osborn Street. Thankfully the queue is not too long, because if I don’t sit down soon, my legs will give way.
I hand over my ring paper and watch Mr Feldman count out the money. He’s taken to chatting, though over the weeks I’ve done my best not to be friendly.
‘Ah, Mrs Loxwood. You’ve had the baby, yes? Beautiful!’
I nod and smile, my hands gripping the edge of the counter.
‘More babies, more shillings, Mrs Lo
xwood. I give you the form? Send it to your husband to fill in.’
He slides the form across the counter with the money and the stamped ring paper. ARMY SEPARATION ALLOWANCE, FORM W632. WIFE WITH DEPENDANTS. My hands are shaking as I collect the coins and drop them into my purse. The form stares up at me. I paw at it, but I can’t seem to lift it. It may as well be stuck to the counter.
‘Mrs Loxwood, you are ill? I can call for my brother. He’s a doctor, nearby. Here . . .’ He rushes from the counter and pulls a stool from behind a stack of boxes. Just in time. My legs buckle and I fall awkwardly onto it. Lizzie slumps forward, almost tipping from the sling.
‘I’m very tired, that’s all. Thank you.’
A girl appears with a glass of water, and then a man with a stethoscope is crouching in front of me, his fingers feeling for the pulse at my wrist.
‘The baby is how old?’
‘Four days. No, five.’
‘Any problems?’
I wonder whether to tell him about the bleeding. He might suggest more medicine. More money.
‘No, it’s my third. I’m tired, that’s all. I can go home now, back to bed.’
‘You live far?’
‘Adler Street. Two minutes.’
‘Take your time. If you need me, send a neighbour.’
When Nettie visits on Thursday, she’s grinning like a menagerie monkey. I was hoping she’d take the baby out for a while, but all she wants to do is chat. She has plenty to talk about. Her husband has turned up, begging forgiveness.
‘I did my best to give him the cold shoulder, but honestly, Hannah, when he brought me this, I didn’t have the heart to turn him away.’
She sticks out her hand and shows off a ring with a tiny green gem set in a gold claw.
‘Semi-precious stone, it is. Fancy!’ She flutters her fingers as if to make the gem sparkle, but there’s nothing sparkly about it. It’s quite a dull sort of stone, colour of bread mould. ‘He’s seen the error of his ways, he says, taken the pledge. Now he’s got some money together and we’re going to look for our own place. Where’s the baby?’
‘She’s over there. In the cot.’
Nettie laughs. A quick, high-pitched laugh that grates as much as her voice. ‘Oh, that? The soap box with cushions in.’ She walks over and strokes the baby’s head. ‘Bless her.’
‘We’ve had to make do. My sister’s got the proper cradle.’
‘Course.’ She chews her lip as she looks around the room. ‘Sorry, Hannah, I know how hard it must be for you. I’ve said to Spencer that when we’re looking for rooms, I’m not going any higher than the second floor, and there has to be a shelter in running distance.’ She takes off her hat and fans herself with the brim. ‘Phew, it’s ever so hot up here. I don’t know how you stand it.’
I stand it because I have to, but I keep the sharp words in my head and gulp a mouthful of tea. I don’t think Nettie means to be thoughtless. I must try to be happy for her.
She natters on about the cafe, tells me all about the new girl and how she’s having trouble adding up the figures. ‘I know Mrs Stephens misses you, but she won’t have your name mentioned. And if I so much as smile at a customer, she bustles up, telling me to drain the potatoes or some such. Gets on your nerves.’ She gives a little gasp and reaches into her bag. ‘I nearly forgot. A woman came into the cafe and asked me if I’d forward this. She rushed off, wouldn’t stop to chat.’
Nettie hands me a crumpled envelope. It’s addressed to Mrs George Loxwood.
Daniel tells me to burn the letter. He grabs a box of matches from the mantelpiece and strikes a flame.
‘I’ll do it myself. Put it in the grate.’
We watch the paper catch light. The words turn scorch-brown, then yellow, then orange – slut, shame, traitor, Ada – and finally they are flakes of quiet grey ash.
‘She’s a bitch,’ Daniel says. ‘I always knew it. Dora thought she was a hoot, but I never liked her.’
Ada knows; the factory girls know. Of course they do. Only natural that the gossip should spread. I’ve let down the war effort – that’s what they think. Might as well be shot as a traitor. We girls have to stick together. But if you don’t do your duty, don’t conform, you can forget it. You’re on your own.
I kneel on the hearth tiles and the ash shifts in the draught. ‘What if Ada tells her husband? He’s in the same battalion as George.’
‘He has to find out somehow.’
‘And then what? I don’t know what he’ll do. I really don’t. He might come after us. I mean, he ain’t one for fighting, but . . . he’ll stop the allowance. That’s the first thing.’ I pause to think for a moment. My mouth feels cracked and dry, and I can taste the burned letter, the words turned to ash. ‘I can take in some work. Shirt-finishing, I could do that, used to help Mum . . .’
‘I’m working, aren’t I?’
‘But it ain’t enough – you know it ain’t enough, the price of everything. If only I had someone to look after the kids, I could get a job in a factory . . . The money’s good in munitions.’
Daniel takes my face in his hands. I try to find comfort in his eyes.
‘We’ll face the troubles as they come along. We can get through it, Hannah – I know we can. George won’t come after us, not while this war carries on.’
I swallow down my tears. Think straight, Hannah, think straight. There’s a drawer full of clothes in the bedroom. Dora’s clothes. Nice blouses, a good hat. It mangles me with guilt just to look at them, let alone wear them. Dora would forgive me for pawning her things, I’m certain of it. She loved me, didn’t she, her oldest friend?
36
Most evenings he comes home to find Hannah crying. No wonder, the way Lizzie screams every night. There’s something wrong with her, Hannah says. She’ll only feed for a minute or two; then she breaks off, fussing and yelling. When Lizzie finally sleeps, they both stare at her, lying in the cot, their ears ringing in the fragile silence. He wants to love his daughter; sometimes a feeling of tenderness breaks across his chest and he places his hand, lightly, on her soft hair. But if she twitches as though she might wake, he draws back and turns away. There is more fear than love.
The yard is busy yet the foreman has cut his hours. Last week he was hired only for three half-days. On Friday he left Adler Street and walked the short distance to Aldgate East Station, took the underground train to Westminster. He stood on Westminster Bridge for an hour, watching the river traffic in the shadow of Big Ben. Then he wandered up to Trafalgar Square and sat in the June sunshine with the drunken out-o’-works and the maimed soldiers. It took all his strength not to go into the beer shop himself.
He hasn’t sent money to his sister in over a month. She has probably been writing to him at Mrs Browne’s. Not that Ellen and Alf need the money. It strikes him that they may even be pleased if he stopped contributing. They wouldn’t feel obliged to invite him to Kent. They could have the children to themselves, bring them up in comfort, in a way that he never could.
The foreman appears on the workshop floor. He saunters towards Daniel. The other men carry on working, but they are watching, exchanging glances.
‘Blake, see me at the end of your shift,’ the foreman says.
At two o’clock he finishes the welding job and walks over to the foreman’s cabin next to the engine room. Daniel has to stoop to get through the door, and even when he is inside, he is unable to stand upright.
‘About your exemption,’ says the foreman. He is sitting behind a narrow desk, fingering a sheaf of papers. ‘The next tribunal is 22nd July. That’s –’ he looks at the calendar nailed to the wall ‘– three weeks’ time. Just so’s you know: Beaumont’s is going to release you.’
‘What?’
‘Thought it was time you joined the ranks, Blake. We can do without you here because, anyone can see, your mind hasn’t been on the job. Not this job, anyway.’ He almost smirks, then thinks better of it, clears his throat and stands to pat Daniel on the s
houlder. ‘Still, we got the Yanks on our side now, eh? Bloody boatloads of ’em. Reckon we might win this war yet.’
Daniel steps back, shrugs off the foreman’s hand. The trenches. Christ, this is it. He needs to make a case for himself, some kind of appeal. ‘If you could just give me another six months,’ he says. ‘Things are . . . difficult at home.’
‘So I hear. I’m afraid that’s your lookout, ain’t it? Beaumont’s has to do what’s right for the firm. And the country.’ He puffs his chest, warming to the theme. ‘You could look at it this way, Blake: it’s a kind of balancing act. You took a step in a new direction. Difficult territory. Tipped yourself over the edge, in a manner of speaking.’
Daniel bows his head. Smug little fucker. He’d like to swing for him. Instead he looks up and attempts a smile. ‘And till the tribunal? Can you give me some extra hours?’
‘I’ll see what we can do, Blake. In the circumstances.’
He wanders along East India Dock Road, past the statue and Mrs Browne’s lodging house. He cannot go home to Hannah, not yet. She’d be beside herself if she found out he’s only worked a half-shift.
He turns into the recreation ground and follows the pathway, weaving between the prams and the children, the scolding grandmothers in trailing skirts. A young boy slips behind the railings that edge the flowerbeds. The boy picks a posy of marigolds and pelargoniums, then runs off towards the bandstand to hand the flowers to his mother. Daniel remembers doing the same when he was young, scooting home to Aunt Winch with a posy and getting a clip round the ear for taking what wasn’t his.
In the shade of a maple tree, there is an empty bench. He sits down and shuts his eyes. The wind feels cold, now that he is out of the sun. The scent of roses reminds him of Greenwich. Has Lady Tolland found another gardener, he wonders, or has the garden grown to seed?
Children’s footsteps shuffle along the path in front of him. He looks up to see a crocodile of silent workhouse girls holding hands in pairs. They wear bleached white aprons over calico dresses; several have shaved heads. One of the girls turns to look at him with her large brown eyes.
