‘We’ve got forty men with dysentery in this hospital,’ Sister said. ‘Two wards full and most of them are depressed, to some extent, if that’s any comfort to you. It’s pitiful to see. I think they’ve seen too many horrors.’
‘I sit by that bed,’ Rosie said sadly, ‘and I wonder if it’s still him. I want to help him, to make him feel better about things, to smile maybe, and I don’t know how to do it.’
Sister Castleton leant forward and patted her hand. ‘It’s very hard,’ she said. ‘What did he enjoy before he got called up?’
Rosie thought about it. ‘Fish an’ chips,’ she said, ‘going to the pictures or the Star, walking in the park. That was the best thing for both of us.’
‘Perhaps you could remind him how good it was,’ Sister suggested. And when Rosie looked doubtful, ‘Try remembering aloud. When he wakes, tell him you’ve been thinking about all the good times.’
But when Jim woke that afternoon he was thinking about Fred Feigenbaum and it was making him agitated. ‘I ain’t had a letter from him,’ he said. ‘Not since I come in. They’d have given it to me if I had.’
‘Have you written to him?’ Rosie asked.
He sighed. ‘Ain’t got the energy.’
‘That nice nurse ’ud write it for you if you asked her.’
He shook the idea away irritably, like a horse trying to rid himself of flies. ‘What’s the good?’ he said. ‘He’d never get it in that bleedin’ place.’
Rosie was trying to remember what he’d told her about Fred in those first postcards. ‘Don’t his father work in the Borough Market?’ she asked.
‘Well yes,’ Jim said dourly, ‘but I can’t see what good that is. I can hardly go lookin’ for him stuck in ’ere like this.’
‘No,’ Rosie said. ‘You can’t. But I can. All you got to do is tell me his name and what he sells an’ I’ll find him for you.’
She went to the market as soon as she got back to the Borough High Street and was rather daunted by what she found. It was a huge, impressive, confusing place, with a high glass ceiling curving many feet above her head and trains passing noisily just below it, behind an elaborately carved tracery of green cast iron. It was lit by naphtha flares and jostling with shoppers, with so many stallholders calling their wares to entice them, it made her feel quite dizzy. And to complicate matters even further there were several pathways leading off in various directions, strewn with sawdust and littered with empty crates, tufts of straw, crumpled orange wrappers and trails of blood and fish scales. She walked down the first path wondering how on earth she was going to find one man in all that. There was a stall selling fruit and vegetables just ahead of her but the name above the stall wasn’t Feigenbaum.
She waited until the stallholder had finished serving all the women who were standing in front of his stall and then stepped up to ask for directions, as boldly as she could and speaking loudly so that he could hear her above the noise.
‘Ol’ Manny?’ he said. ‘Yeh! I know him. Good bloke. He’ll cost yer though. My stuff’s cheaper.’
‘I’m not buying,’ Rosie explained. ‘I got a message for him.’
He grinned at her. ‘Oh well if that’s the case, I’ll tell yer,’ he said. ‘Turn off to the right. Four stalls down, left-hand side.’
After that, it was easy because she liked Mr Feigenbaum from the moment she saw him, stooping beside the stall, in his long black coat and his little skullcap, gently putting a pile of speckled apples into the battered basket of a grubby-looking girl in down-at-heel boots and a coat that was far too big for her. There was a tenderness about him that made her think of Pa. When the little girl had handed over her pennies and he’d patted her tousled hair, she stepped forward and greeted him by name. ‘Mr Feigenbaum?’ It was only just a question.
‘I am Mr Feigenbaum,’ he said, smiling at her. ‘Vhat I can do for you?’
‘I’ve come with a message for your son Fred,’ she told him. ‘It’s from Jim Jackson. He’s his friend. From the trenches.’ But then she faltered because the moment she’d spoken Fred’s name, Mr Feigenbuam’s face had changed in the most terrible way. It was as if it was folding in on itself, creasing and crumpling. Then he began to rock, backwards and forwards and she saw he was weeping and knew what had happened. ‘Oh Mr Feigenbaum,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Mr Feigenbaum was speaking in fits and starts. ‘Such a good boy,’ he wept. ‘The best of sons. I should live to see — this day. To be killed — so young — and so strong. All the vorld to me he was. All the vorld. He was going to — vork with me — in the market. Now — vhat vill I do?’
Rosie held his hand and rubbed his arm and said, ‘I know, I know,’ and wished she hadn’t spoken to him so carelessly. Eventually he calmed and wiped his eyes on a huge check handkerchief and was able to speak normally again. ‘You must forgive me my grief,’ he said.
‘It’s all right, Mr Feigenbaum,’ she said. ‘My brother was killed. I know how it is.’
‘You too,’ he said sadly, shaking his head. ‘Vhat vaste. You vill tell your Jim, maybe?’
‘Not yet,’ she decided. ‘He ent well enough. I’ll tell him when he’s better.’
And then, as more customers had arrived and were waiting patiently, they parted.
It was hard to find things to talk to Jim about. She did so want to cheer him but nothing she said had any effect. He did say it was a good thing when she reported that Fred was all right but after that he just sighed no matter what topic she chose. Remembering their walks did nothing for him, he wasn’t interested in the latest pictures or the good turns at the Star, and even the news that the Germans were asking for an armistice only provoked a sigh and the bitter comment that he’d believe that when he saw it.
A fortnight later the papers were full of the news that an armistice had been signed and that bonfires were being lit all over the country, but he only said, ‘Not before time,’ and went on staring gloomily into space. She decided it was time for her to take action or he’d go on sitting there feeling miserable for ever.
‘Right,’ she said, briskly. ‘The war’s over. Now we can get married.’
‘You don’t want to marry me,’ he told her sadly. ‘I’m just a bleedin’ wreck. They made me walk this morning. Give me a crutch, they did. Six steps an’ I fell over. I wouldn’t even get up the aisle.’
‘Yes you will,’ she said, sticking out her chin. ‘I’m goin’ to organise it. The minute they say you can leave here I shall take you down to Binderton an’ feed you up an’ sit you in the sunshine an’ make you better. An’ then I shall call the banns an’ find us a flat an’ get it all clean an’ lovely ready for us, an’ then you can come to my church and say, “I do,” like you promised.’
That actually made him smile. ‘I’m a lost cause Rosie,’ he sighed. ‘You can’t cure me.’
‘No you ent,’ she said forcefully. ‘An’ it’s no good sayin’ can’t to me on account of I’m goin’ to do it. You just watch me. I shall go down to Binderton next Thursday an’ get started. You’ll have to do without me for once, but Kitty’ll come same as always.’ They were ringing the bell to mark the end of visiting hour, so she stood up, put on her hat and stooped to kiss him. ‘I’ll have a lot to tell you next time I come,’ she promised.
Which was true, although not quite in the way she foresaw.
Chapter 12
The train to Chichester was rather slow that Thursday afternoon and there was a lot of grumbling in Rosie’s carriage, which was full of people, all bundled up in their warmest clothes and eager to get to their destinations. A slow train didn’t bother Rosie. She was too busy making plans. By the time she was walking across the frozen fields to the cottage, she had everything sorted out in her mind. I’ll see the family first an’ cheer Ma up — she’ll like to know I’m goin’ to get married — an’ then I’ll go to St Mary’s an’ see Father Alfred an’ fix the wedding. She was smiling as she lifted the latch and walked into the cottage.
‘What’s up?’ she said, looking up at her.
‘Oh I’m so glad you’ve come, our Rosie,’ Edie said, pushing the scarf down under her chin. ‘I been at me wits’ end. Mrs Taylor come in. She’s been ever so good onny she said I was to wear a mask for the infection, an’ I ent got one but then she said a scarf would do. Oh it is good to see you. Did you get my card? I onny sent it this morning. I been at me wits’ end.’
She was so distressed that Rosie ran to hug her. ‘Is it Ma?’ she asked.
Edie nodded. ‘She’s ever so bad. It onny come on yesterday. She went to Chichester Tuesday an’ she was all right then. I mean she would go. She said she’d got to get some cloth to make a shirt for Tommy. An’ then yesterday morning… I been up all night with her. She’s ever so bad.’
‘Come on,’ Rosie said, heading for the stairs. ‘Let’s have a look at her.’
Edie climbed after her, worrying, ‘You got to wear a scarf our Rosie. Mrs Taylor said.’
But Rosie was already in the bedroom and scarves were the last thing in her mind because she could see how seriously ill her mother was. She was turned on her side, struggling to breathe and coughing up a dreadful blood-streaked phlegm, and her face was streaked with sweat and an ominous shade of grey-blue. The room smelt very bad, of sweat and piddle and something else that Rosie couldn’t quite place. ‘Where’s Pa?’ she said.
‘Diggin’ ditches.’
‘Go an’ find him. Tell him he’s to go for the doctor.’
Edie was alarmed. ‘We can’t afford doctors, our Rosie,’ she said. ‘I mean for to say not with the rent an’ all, an’ me not earnin’.’
‘Just go!’ Rosie said shortly. ‘I’ll pay him. An’ be quick about it.’
‘She’s wet the bed,’ Edie said, sniffing the air.
‘Yes,’ Rosie said, ‘she has. I’ll see to it.’
‘I’ll have to get a towel to mop up the worst,’ Edie said. ‘We put the rubber sheet under her, but it needs a good wipe.’
‘I’ll do it,’ Rosie said. ‘Just go!’ And as soon as her sister had left her, she went to the linen cupboard to find clean sheets and set about making her mother more comfortable.
It was a back-breaking job, because although Maggie had lost a lot of weight, she was still very heavy to lift and pulling the wet sheets out from under her took a lot of effort. But eventually the bed was clean again and Rosie could fetch a bowl of warm water, a towel and a cake of soap and wash her patient down, stopping whenever a coughing fit began and cleaning her poor mouth when it was ended. And as she worked, she was remembering the newspaper headlines that had been screaming at her for weeks, only she’d been too concerned about Jim to pay much attention to them. ‘Spanish Flu. Hundreds ill.’; ‘Spanish flu. London Telegraph Office crippled. 700 workers taken ill.’; ‘Death toll rises.’ She was exhausted and anguished by the time Edie and Pa returned but she did her best not to show it.
‘We been to the doctor’s our Rosie,’ her father reported. ‘He said he’d be here presently. An’ we told young Johnnie. He says he’ll come directly, onny he’s got to see Bert first. Is there anythin’ we can do?’
But there wasn’t anything any of them could do except watch and wait. At about half past three, Johnnie walked in and at four o’clock Tess arrived from Petworth in a dog cart, her eyes popping with anxiety. ‘I just got your card Edie. Is she very bad?’ Edie made tea for them all and they went on waiting, taking it in turns to sit with their mother, with scarves over their mouths and watching the clock. It was half past six before the doctor put in his appearance, looking very grand in his black suit and his yellow waistcoat and his fine white shirt. He took his half guinea before going upstairs and once there, he didn’t take long to make his diagnosis and come down again.
‘I’m afraid your mother has the Spanish flu,’ he said. ‘There is very little I can do for her. Keep her clean and warm. If she can drink water offer it to her.’
‘Should we give her aspirins?’ Rosie asked.
‘There would be no point,’ the doctor said. ‘And in any case, I doubt whether she would be able to swallow them. Her throat is too congested. We have no cure for this disease, I’m sorry to say. We just have to let it run its course. Good evening.’
With which he touched his hat and left them. They watched from the window as he drove smoothly away in his big black car. Edie, Johnnie and Tess were crying, Pa was biting his lip and Rosie felt deserted.
‘Can you stay here, our Rosie?’ Tess asked her.
‘Yes,’ Rosie said firmly. ‘I can. I’ll write to the maître d’ and ask him.’
She stayed for the next three days, cooking for her family, washing all the dirty linen and doing what little she could to care for her mother, living in a nightmare. On the first day she sent a letter to Jim and another to Kitty to tell them what was going on and they both sent loving messages back by return of post, but for the rest of the time she lived in abeyance, doing things automatically and always aware that there was worse to come.
It came at two in the morning on Sunday, when Tess shook her awake to tell her that their mother was ‘breathing funny’. Rosie had never heard a death rattle before, but she knew what it was as soon as she heard it. ‘Go an’ wake the others,’ she said to Tess.
‘Is it the end?’ Tess asked, her face very pale in the candlelight.
‘Yes,’ Rosie said. ‘Make haste an’ tell them to wrap up warm.’
They kept watch for the next two hours, huddled together on the chairs they’d brought up from the living room and saying very little. The wonder of it was that their mother could breathe at all, but she struggled on, occasionally stopping for several seconds before making yet another shuddering effort. And after what seemed an interminable time, her long struggle suddenly stopped, and she was still and peaceful. The three kids cried most terribly, and Rosie hugged them all in turn and rubbed their backs and told them she loved them. And at six o’clock, as it was still dark and very cold, Pa went back to bed and the rest of them huddled together in Edie’s bed, where they talked until the sun came up. And after breakfast she had to go back to London.
‘I’d stay longer,’ she said to her father, as she washed the dishes, ‘only it’s Christmas comin’ an’ it’s very busy Christmas time, an’ we’re short staffed.’
‘No, no, ’course you must go,’ her father said. ‘I mean to say work’s work. You got to go to work. We’ll be orl right. Mrs Taylor’ll come in an’ lay her out an’ such. I’ll have to burn that old mattress. It’s soaked right through, never mind the rubber sheet.’
He looked so crumpled and woebegone that Rosie stopped the washing-up and turned to hug him, soapy hands notwithstanding. ‘Oh Pa!’ she said. ‘This is so awful.’
He put his arm round her shoulders and kissed the top of her head. ‘Truth is we lost her when our Tommy died,’ he said. ‘She weren’t never the same after that. Fine woman she was afore that. Salt a’ the earth. But after we got the telegram, she sort a’ became someone else.’
‘I know,’ Rosie said, still hugging him. It was true. She had a sudden vivid memory of her mother down on her knees scrubbing the kitchen floor and wiping the sweat from her forehead, her hands red from the soda. The image made her yearn with loss. Poor, poor Ma, she thought. You worked so hard and suffered so much. And poor Pa. ‘I wish I didn’t have to leave you with all this to see to,’ she said.
He was steadfastly under control. ‘We’ll be orl right,’ he said. ‘You go.’
So she kissed them all and went, even though she was ashamed to be leaving them when she knew they needed her. And grief walked with her across the fie
lds, freezing her into a state of such aching emptiness that nothing she saw seemed right or as she expected it to be. The hedges loomed over her, goblin-black and foreboding, like creatures from a nightmare, the frozen grass was the colour of steel and sharp as knives, the downs brooded on the wintry horizon, as distant and uncaring as whales. It’s a terrible, ugly, cruel world, she thought, and death is everywhere, first Tommy and then Fred Feigenbaum and all the millions of other poor devils the papers keep talking about, and now Ma. She wept as she walked, feeling totally bereft.
It wasn’t until she was on the train and heading for Victoria that she began to feel even marginally better and then the fog in her brain began to clear and she remembered why she’d gone to Binderton in the first place and realised that she hadn’t done anything she’d planned to do and, worse than that, she’d bargained away her next two days off and wouldn’t be able to visit her poor Jim for another fortnight. I’ll see if I can nip out for an hour or two to see Kitty, she decided. She’ll have visited him again by now and she can tell me how he is. I’ll drop her a card.
It was a cold walk back to the RAC Club but, now that she’d started to think her life back into a little more order, she felt a bit better. She wrote her postcard to Kitty as soon as she finished work that evening and took it out to the post-box at once. And Kitty wrote back the next day to say she’d be in all evening and to promise ‘all the news then’.
She was in and she had a good fire going and the kettle on the hob and two mugs and a tin of condensed milk ready and waiting on the table. She pulled Rosie into the room as soon as she knocked, kissing her most lovingly and once she’d tucked the draught excluder back into place below the door, settled her in Jim’s chair by the fire with a rug over her knees and made a pot of tea. ‘How’d’yer get on then?’ she asked, as she poured. ‘How’s yer Ma?’
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