by Susan Gandar
‘He said he loved me. He really did…’
‘That’s what they all say, just so they can get their sticky fingers inside your knickers…’
‘Tom’s not like that.’
‘They’re all like that, every single one of them.’
‘Even your Ollie?’
Ellie smiled.
‘Even my Ollie.’
On any other night she would have found the letter easy to write. She would just imagine Tom lying there beside her, their heads side by side on the pillow, and she would tell him everything that she had done that day. But after fifty-six letters, eight weeks of writing one letter a day, she was more than aware that she had been writing the same things over and over again.
Telling the man you loved, who was risking his life out in France, who woke up each morning never knowing whether he’d be dead or alive one hour later, that you had got up at five o’clock, swept the floors, shaken the rugs out, scrubbed the front steps, polished the doorknobs, cooked breakfast, made the beds, gone shopping and sorted out the laundry might have been good enough for people like her father and her mother, a farm labourer and his wife, but it wouldn’t do for Tom. Not at all. She would have to try harder.
So she’d started to comment on the things she’d read in the papers to make her letters more interesting. And sometimes she made up stories. They were always funny and they always had happy endings. But this letter was different. The story she was about to write was true. And it didn’t, as yet, have an ending. And, when it did, she wasn’t convinced that it would be a happy one.
‘Your father and mother have got me digging up the back garden, the grass and all the lovely flowers, the roses, and everything, so that we can grow vegetables, carrots and onions and potatoes and swede. They will make a lovely soup…’
Ellie yawned.
‘Queues at the shops are getting longer – good job there’s just the three of us to feed…’
Ellie snorted.
‘More like four.’
‘Ssh, they’ll hear you.’
‘No they won’t. They’re two floors down and the Major snores like a pig. Get a move on, will you.’
‘Where was I?’
Ellie rolled her eyes.
‘There’s talk of the government giving people cards, rationing food, I don’t know if it’s a good idea. But people need something to eat. There’s been rioting, crowds breaking into shops, attacking the shopkeepers but there’s nothing to buy. We have been reading in the papers about the fighting at…’
She nudged Ellie.
‘How do you spell it?’
Ellie smoothed out the newspaper that Jess had sneaked out from under the Major’s chair that evening.
‘P …a …s …s …c …h …e …n … ’Jess wrote out the name, letter by letter, ‘d …a …e …l …e.’
She had told Ellie, two days ago, when they were out shopping, that she was expecting Tom’s baby. It had been an ordinary Thursday in south London, no different from any other, with the Major complaining, as usual, about the dust she hadn’t brushed off the carpet and his wife unable to make up her mind about whether they did or didn’t need bread.
But on that same day, 20th September, near a village called Passchendaele in Belgium, a village not unlike her own with cottages, some big, some small, clumped together round a church, 21,000 allied soldiers had been killed or wounded at the Battle of Menin Road Bridge. All those boys, all those men; it was impossible to understand, impossible to take in. But it was all too easy, if you just thought of each one, singly; a son, a brother, a husband or a father, a Tom, standing outside his home, surrounded by his family.
‘My darling Tom, I hope you’re not there but somewhere far away where you are safe. I wear your locket all the time. I never take it off. You are in my heart every minute of every day…’
Ellie jumped up on the bed.
‘I’m off. All that stupid lovey-dovey stuff…’
She pulled back the curtains and wriggled out of the window. Jess watched as her friend made her way, step by step, along the narrow ledge that ran along the front of the two houses. The two girls waved to each other and Ellie slid through the window down into her bedroom. Jess closed her own window, drew the curtains and then ran over to the fireplace. She rapped twice on the wall. Two raps came back.
She picked up the pencil.
‘I have some news. I hope that you will be pleased. I have missed two monthlies. I didn’t tell you after the first one, in case it was a mistake, but now I’ve missed a second one so I think a baby must be on its way…’
She couldn’t avoid it any longer.
‘Please don’t be angry with me. I know that you asked me not to tell Ellie about us. But I had to tell her about the baby and now she is helping me. We can trust her. She had a fiancé, Oliver, a soldier who was killed, so she understands.’
The gold locket he’d given her so that they would always be together; his plea, tell me that you love me, standing there in his uniform holding her in his arms; his mother walking down the hallway, the clock striking twelve; asking her to wait for him, promising her that he would come back…
‘So please write to me but send the letter to Ellie next-door at Vanbrugh Villa. Address it to Eleanor Baxter and she will give it to me. I will wait here until you tell me what to do. And please don’t worry. We are both, mother and baby, doing well.’
She had to find out, for better or worse, one way or another. Everything he’d said, everything he’d done, was it the truth? Or was it a lie?
‘Your loving Jess.’
FORTY
October 1917
SHE GAGGED AND GAGGED again but nothing came up: her stomach was empty. She was twelve weeks gone and the sickness was getting worse rather than better. And it wasn’t just in the morning but throughout the day. The only food she could eat was dry toast. The only liquid that stayed down was water. She was skin and bone with a bulging ball of a belly which, day by day, if not hour by hour, was getting larger and larger.
It was four weeks since she had written to Tom telling him that she was pregnant. Each morning when she got up, she hoped that this would be the day when she heard something back. When she met up with Ellie later in the morning, she would be standing there, at their usual meeting place, but this time she would be holding a letter in her hand.
Jess would tear open the envelope and read the words that both she and Ellie had been longing to hear; Tom loved her, he was delighted with their news, he was writing to his parents without delay, she shouldn’t worry, everything would be fine. But there had been no such letter.
She didn’t want to have to confess her pregnancy to his mother and father. They would, more than likely, just throw her out. But if it came from Tom, if he said that he loved her, and wanted them to keep her on and look after her, they would have to take notice.
Had his mother guessed what had happened between them? If she had she gave no clue even when her maid-ofall-work spilt the soup or dropped a plate at the mention of her son’s name. When they were alone, going over the daily shopping list, sorting through dirty linen or doing some sewing together, the Major’s wife would repeat to her what Tom had said in his letters, where he was, what he was doing. But Tom’s last letter home to his parents had arrived over four weeks ago now. Just two days before she’d written her own letter to him. There had been nothing since.
A loud knocking echoed through the house. The chimneys had to be swept every October and this year was to be no exception. Jess had sorted through all the sheets and had selected the ones that were the oldest, greyest and most darned. She would use them to cover the furniture. There would still be dust, lots of it, all over the windows, the shutters, the shelves, everywhere. It would be the grey, sticky sort that was difficult to remove, but at least it would be done for this year. And next year? Next year, where would she be?
What she asked for, when she lay in her bed just before she fell asleep, was that this time next year t
he war would be over. That she would be safely delivered of a healthy child and that Tom will have arrived back home, neither blind nor deaf, with two arms, two legs and a head, with his brain intact. To ask for anything more, that she should be engaged, even married to him, was just too greedy.
She straightened her cap, smoothed her apron down over the dome of her belly, and ran up the stairs and along the hall to the front door. She opened it. It wasn’t the chimney sweep. It was a telegram boy, dressed in his general post office uniform, a bright red pillbox hat perched on the top of his head. She mumbled a thank you, closed the door and stood there in the hall staring down at the envelope. It was addressed to Major and Mrs Osborne. It was either from Tom or about Tom. The families of rank and file soldiers, privates like her own father, got their bad news by letter. The families of officers received their bad news by telegram.
The Major and his wife had gone to call on friends who had just recently lost their own son in the fighting. They wouldn’t be back for at least half an hour. And half an hour was too long to stare at this telegram, wondering whether it said that the man she loved, the father of her child, was on his way home on leave, that he was injured or missing – or that he was dead. The envelope was sealed tight but steam would open it. And she had a copper of water boiling on the range.
Ink runs when it gets wet. There had been no rain that morning, or for two days now. If she handed over the envelope, with the names and address all smudged, she couldn’t use that as an excuse. The Major and his wife would know, instantly, that someone had tampered with it. And she would be the most likely suspect.
She placed the envelope, face down, onto the back of the Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management. She picked up the book and, with the back of the envelope facing down over the water, held it above the steaming copper. She counted to ten and then lifted the book and the envelope out of the steam and onto the kitchen table. She pulled out a drawer, took out a knife and tried to tease the flap of the envelope open. It was still sealed.
She picked up the book and envelope and, once again, held them over the boiling water. She lifted the book and envelope out of the steam. She put them back down on the table. She picked up the knife and, once again, teased the tip of the blade underneath the flap of the envelope. The tip slid in. The flap lifted.
‘Jess, we need to talk about tonight’s…’
The Major’s wife was standing in the doorway. She and the Major had come home earlier than Jess had expected.
‘What are you doing?’
The envelope was lying, clearly open, on the table.
‘It came for you, while you were out. It’s a—’
‘I can see what it is.’
The Major’s wife came over to the table. She picked up the envelope. She turned it over, checked the address, and then looked up at Jess.
‘Have you read it?’
Her voice was as smooth and hard as ice – but also as brittle.
‘No.’
The Major’s wife pulled out the telegram. She opened it and then read it. Her mouth tightened. She held it out to Jess.
FORTY-ONE
‘IT WAS THIS HOUSE. I’m sure of it.’
Sam wedged her foot up against the closing door. There was no point asking for permission. It would only be refused.
‘I’m Amy Roberts, I live here, I don’t know who you but you can’t–’
Sam pushed past the girl, down the hallway, and into the front room. One sofa and two armchairs and, at the far end, in front of a window, impossible to see because the curtains had been drawn, a table with three chairs lined up on either side. A television with armoured vehicles driving along a dusty road on the screen, so probably the news but with the sound turned right down.
A mug, half full of what looked like tea with “No Sugar, I’m Sweet Enough” written on the side. Cards, including one very large, glittery one with “To My Lovely Wife” engraved in gold on the front. A wedding photograph; the woman in a white dress, a veil on her head, carrying a bouquet of white flowers, the man wearing old-fashioned top hat and tails. And next to it a photograph of the same couple, standing side by side; the woman cradling a young baby, presumably the girl who had opened the front door. Behind there was another, smaller photograph, of the same baby beaming up at the camera.
‘You can’t do this…’
Out of the front room, right down the hallway and into the kitchen. A fridge, one oven, not on, no smell of cooking; a washing machine in full spin; two apples in a bowl; three plates and one saucepan drying beside the sink; a postcard, blue sea and white beach, pinned to a board, along with lists and leaflets, and more cards. The door out into the garden was locked and there was no sign of a key.
Up the stairs and along the landing. The first bedroom: pink, pink and more pink, with a double bed, presumably the parents’, was empty. The second, more of a cupboard than a room, was crammed, every inch of it, with junk: piles of yellowing magazines and newspapers; cardboard boxes overflowing with threadbare towels; a rail crammed with musty smelling clothes; battered holdalls and suitcases, zips broken, handles split, piled up on top of each other in the corner; even a cot, years old, its mattress sagging and stained.
Two more doors: a bathroom and a toilet. Three toothbrushes in three separate mugs, green, yellow and red, towels neatly folded, again nothing. There was just one last door, at the end of the landing. An unmade bed, acid green duvet cover decorated with giant sunflowers, music posters on the walls, clothes, T-shirts and leggings, jumpers and jeans, faded and torn at the knees, scattered all over the floor. A black leather jacket, with a red, blue and silver flash on its sleeve, thrown over the back of a chair.
‘Are you on something or what…?’
Charging her way into this house, running from room to room searching for nothing and nobody, poking around where she shouldn’t be poking around, this wasn’t the same Sam who had gone to the fair with her friends, on the Saturday afternoon, just a couple of days ago.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…’
The front door slammed in her face.
Sam walked back up the path and through the gate. She turned right. Ahead was the main road. Her mother should have received a call from the hospital by now to say that her father was back on the ward and everything was OK. But they would also have told her that Sam was no longer at the hospital; that the old man she’d been sitting with had had a heart attack and she’d run away. Which would mean that her mother would be even more worried now than when Sam first ran out of the house, two or more hours ago.
She turned on her mobile. She would phone and say that she was sorry, that she was fine and that if she caught a bus she would be home in forty-five minutes. There was no need for her mother to drive over to collect her. She punched in the number. The phone rang once, twice, three times. Why wasn’t her mother picking up?
The door from the kitchen out into the garden had been locked. It had also been bolted, top and bottom. The girl who’d led her to the house, the only way she could have left, without Sam seeing her, was through that door. Who the girl was, why she was following Sam, why she had led her to the house, were all questions that needed answering. And the person who could provide those answers was Amy. She was the only other person in the house: the only person who could have re-locked and re-bolted that back door.
Sam clicked off the phone, turned and ran back down the road, through the gate, and up the path to the house. The curtains were still open. The lights in the front room still on. She rang the doorbell. No answer. She rang it again. And still no answer.
She flipped open the letterbox. Lying on the floor, in the centre of the hallway, in a pool of blood, was the girl. And the pool of blood was growing larger by the second.
FORTY-TWO
HER LEGS DISSOLVED. SHE slid down onto the ground and dropped her head between her knees. Blood, blood and more blood but fainting wasn’t an option; the girl on the other side of the door would die. She pulled h
er mobile out of her jacket pocket.
‘I’m here outside the front door. The girl, Amy, she’s inside. No, I don’t have a key…’
It was the second time she’d dialled 999 in two days.
‘Yes, yes, I understand. Yes, I’ll talk to her, try to keep her awake, keep using her name, but you’ve got to hurry, the bleeding, it’s really bad. No, like I said, I can’t reach her…’
She knelt up.
‘Amy, can you hear me?’
She breathed long and deep.
‘You’re going to be OK. They’re sending an ambulance…’
She pushed open the letterbox.
‘There’s nothing to worry about…’
She was lying. What had been a pool of blood was now a lake.
‘You’re going to be fine.’
Fireworks shot up into the sky, a dog howled, a car slowed and then accelerated off down the street.
‘They’re on their way…’
The girls’ eyes flickered.
‘It won’t be long now…’
And closed.
‘Listen to me, Amy…’
She had to keep talking, say anything, however stupid.
‘That holiday you went on, the postcard with the blue sea and white beach, the one pinned on the board in the kitchen? You want to go back there, don’t you?’
The girl’s eyes opened.
‘And you can, all of you together, you and your mum and dad…’
No car stopped. No neighbour appeared. Nobody offered to help. Sam crouched there shouting anything she could think of, through the letterbox, to try and stop the girl from closing her eyes.
She was still shouting when the police car pulled up outside the house. The front door was forced open. The girl was loaded into the ambulance.
The accident and emergency waiting room was full, every seat taken, with bonfire night casualties.
‘Your address?’
‘7 Seaview Road.’
‘Your friend’s name?’
‘Friend?’
‘The girl you came in with? In the ambulance?’
