Angel of the North

by Annie Wilkinson

  ‘ “Defrauded Credulous Girl,” ’ George read.

  ‘An actor with a repertory company that recently played in Hull is stated to have posed as a single man and persuaded a young woman to break off her engagement and go to London with him. Bill Pratt, a married man of thirty-five, of no fixed abode, was sent to prison for six months after he pleaded guilty to charges of making off without paying rent to his landlady, stealing an engagement ring, and obtaining two hundred pounds by false pretences from Miss Nancy Harding, a 23-year-old nurse of Duesbury Street, Hull. After Miss Harding had given her evidence, the magistrate remarked, “It is utterly amazing, in this day and age, to find that there are still such credulous young women about!”

  ‘Six months!’ he exclaimed. ‘When I heard the judge say that, I thought all my birthdays had come at once! Six months!’ and tossing the paper towards his mother, he roared with laughter, rocking to and fro on the settee, and slapping his knee, relishing the memory of his victory. Aunt Edie read the column with a broad grin on her face, then throwing herself back in the armchair she joined in the laugh, and soon had to pull a handkerchief out of her apron pocket to wipe her streaming eyes. Out of loyalty to Nancy, Marie restrained herself, but it was impossible to suppress a chuckle.

  ‘Well,’ George gasped, as soon as he recovered the power of speech, ‘I caught the man that blighted my life, and I dislocated his bally life! I’d threatened it for long enough, but I was never really sure it would come off. So now it has. I’ve got him! And I might still dislocate his jaw when he gets out of gaol.’

  ‘Pity you’ve not got your money, though,’ his mother said, suddenly serious. ‘The years it took your dad to save that eighty pounds he left you.’

  ‘Aye, poor old fellow, I think I’ve seen the last of that. She’s seen that off, and everything else with it.’

  ‘Huh!’ Aunt Edie snorted, ‘She’ll get what she deserves, don’t you worry about that. Pride goeth before a fall, it says in the Bible. She didn’t know when she was well off, and now she’s having a bairn, and no man beside her. She’ll soon know what that’s all about. She’ll never be able to hold her head up round here again.’

  A look of anguish flitted across George’s face, and was gone.

  Terry crooned words of love and romance in her ear as they glided across the waxed dance floor of Beverley Baths to the throbbing music of the band. It was Saturday night, and the place was full of young people out to enjoy themselves: couples; girls out with their friends, dressed to the nines and confident of getting partners among the influx of foreign servicemen.

  ‘It really bucks me up, coming out with you, Terry,’ Marie told him. ‘You never seem to let anything get you down. Not for long, anyway.’

  ‘I’ll give you a tip,’ he said. ‘If you’re feeling low, don’t sit on your own feeling sorry for yourself. Get washed and brushed and get your glad rags on. Get out among people – your friends, me, for example – and put a bright face on it. Laugh and joke as if you hadn’t a care in the world. In the end, the act will stop being an act.’

  ‘Is that what I do? Feel sorry for myself?’

  ‘No, you get your glad rags on and get out with your friend. Now let’s see you laughing and joking.’

  ‘That might take a bit of practice.’

  ‘Start now. This should cheer you up: it’s nearly the end of September, and we’ve only had one air raid this month, and we only had two last month. Things are getting boring in Hull, now that Hitler’s keeping the Russians entertained.’

  ‘No ill feeling, but rather them than us,’ she said. ‘Hitler’s sort of entertainment gives me the screaming abdabs. I’ve had enough to last me a lifetime.’

  ‘Aye, well, joking apart, there might not be much more of it. He might have bitten off a bit more than he can chew, with the Russian winter coming on. It beat Napoleon, and I reckon it’ll beat Adolf.’

  They danced in silence for a while, then Terry asked: ‘How’s it going with your young man? Is he behaving himself?’

  ‘As far as I know he is. He writes nearly every day, and I’ve had a couple of requests played on the wireless. He can’t do much more, being miles away, can he?’

  ‘What about her? Has she had it, yet?’

  ‘Her’ and ‘it’ needed no explanation. Marie stiffened and frowned, not thanking him for dredging that Hannah business up, just as she was beginning to enjoy herself. ‘Not as far as I know,’ she said.

  He gave her a wicked smile, and a squeeze. ‘Well, if you decide you want somebody closer to home, you won’t have to look far. I’ll step into his shoes as soon as you say the word. Am I taking you out next week?’

  ‘I’m not sure when I’ll be free. I’ll working at the dressing station on Endike Lane by next week. Still living at Aunt Edie’s, though.’

  ‘Oh, well, I’ll call sometime next week, and find out.’

  Marie arrived back at Aunt Edie’s with dance music still playing in her head. Feeling much too lively for sleep, she spent an hour writing to Chas, giving him all the news.

  Chapter 34

  There was a blustery wind and it looked like rain when Marie and Alfie reached the grave that now held both their father and their mother. Alfie squatted to push chrysanthemums through the holes of the thick glass top of the vase.

  ‘At least they’re together again now,’ he said, standing back the better to see his handiwork.

  ‘I miss them,’ she said, and put an arm round his shoulder.

  A flash, and a crack of lightning interrupted their moment of silent remembrance. ‘We’d better get a move on,’ she said. ‘It’s going to belt it down.’

  They hurried away, to Jenny’s grave. The flowers on that little mound were dying. ‘Shall I put them in the bin?’ Alfie asked.

  ‘Better not. It’ll start throwing it down in a minute. Just lay ours on top,’ Marie said.

  Alfie obeyed. ‘Poor little Jenny,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ Marie agreed. ‘Our mam and dad died too young, but who would have thought a 6-year-old would be gone before them?’

  The heavens opened as they said a hurried prayer. Marie unfurled her umbrella, one damaged spoke flapping like a broken wing as they dashed towards the cemetery gate. Alfie took her arm, and huddled into her for shelter.

  ‘Well, boiled eggs for tea, again, thanks to Auntie Dot,’ Marie said.

  ‘Yeah. Better than dregs,’ he said.

  ‘What are dregs?’

  ‘It’s a riddle for you, Marie. If spiced ham is spam, what are dregs?’ he grinned.

  ‘Dried eggs!’ she laughed. ‘You daft ha’porth. But they taste like dregs, I’ll give you that.’

  A man was walking towards them, maybe in his late thirties, with the gait of a sailor. He hunched his shoulders and pulled up his jacket against the rain as he strode along, a gaunt but handsome man with rain dripping off his fair hair. As he passed Marie they glanced at each other.

  He nodded. ‘Hello.’

  ‘Hello,’ she said, and turned her head to watch him walk down the path. When he stopped beside Jenny’s grave she felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck, and chills tingling from her ears to her knees. A couple of lines of doggerel ran through her head:

  As I was walking up the stair

  I met a man who wasn’t there.

  She stopped, rooted to the spot. Alfie gave her a curious look. ‘Do you know him, Marie?’

  She shivered. ‘He’s somebody I’ve seen once or twice, but I never knew him,’ she said.

  She was tired enough, after the unaccustomed exercise involved in a busy day caring for patients, but Marie had something on her mind that she could not set aside. She itched to know for sure, and so she changed quickly into slacks and jumper, and took the first trolley bus into town. From there she took a bus to Hessle Road. When she turned down Scarborough Street, she saw him again, that man who had so disturbed her, walking away from her this time, down towards the docks.

  Trudie answered her knock
. Marie pulled her out into the street and pointed to his fast disappearing back. ‘Who’s that man?’ she demanded, just before he turned the corner.

  Their eyes met. ‘He’s my son,’ Trudie said.

  ‘Larry?’

  She nodded. ‘Come in.’

  The sailor had returned from his watery grave then, only to find his daughter sunk into hers. Marie shuddered and sank down onto a hard-backed chair beside the Welsh dresser in Trudie’s front room. ‘I was right, then.’

  Trudie sat on a chair arm opposite her. ‘It’s a miracle. I would never have thought it possible. He was as near to death as any man could be. He can just remember the torpedo hitting the side of the ship, and the scramble for lifeboats, and after that he can’t remember another thing, until he woke up in a hospital bed in Newfoundland with a broken arm and a broken jaw. It turned out he’d been picked up with a couple of others by an American vessel. He can’t even remember how it happened. He couldn’t eat properly for weeks – he says it’s a wonder he didn’t starve to death. He was skin and bone, and he’s not much more now. He’d lost his boots, and everything but the clothes on his back had gone down with the ship. He hadn’t a bean, no money to pay anybody, and nothing to come off the shipping company, either. They reckon if you’re floating about in the Atlantic, or lying in a hospital bed, you’re taking an unofficial holiday.’

  ‘I know,’ Marie said. ‘It’s unbelievable. The whole thing’s unbelievable.’

  ‘Well, believe it. You’re paid until the ship goes down, and not a minute after, and now he’s in debt to people from Newfoundland to Hull, and everywhere in between. And you already know what greeted him when he got back. Her, out to here,’ Trudie said, holding the palm of her hand a foot from her stomach, ‘all his money spent, and ready to drop, so he knew it wasn’t his. So he said, “What’s this, then?” And she said, “You can see what it is, and I don’t suppose you’ve been without a woman all this time.” Cheeky bitch, as if he’d had any time or money to get with any women. So he just walked out and came down here. I nearly collapsed. He didn’t even know about our Jenny. I got the job of telling him that – and after he’d trusted me to watch out for her.’

  ‘How terrible,’ Marie said.

  ‘Oh, I felt so awful, I was nearly wishing he hadn’t come back, so he wouldn’t have to hear it. But she made it so hard. If they’d still been living nearby, I might have stood a chance, but she rented that house on Clumber Street as soon as he was on the convoys. Handier for the dance halls, I think, and well out of my reach. The poor bairn couldn’t run to me from there, could she?’

  ‘Didn’t he write to you?’

  ‘He was unconscious for days, and when he came round he couldn’t even remember who he was or where he lived. He couldn’t talk properly, and his right arm was broken. He eventually got somebody to write to her, though, and let her know he was alive, and he asked her to tell us, but she never.’

  ‘When was that?’ Marie asked. ‘How long has she known . . .?’

  Marie had another visit planned for the following afternoon, to Park Avenue. She found Mrs Elsworth dressed in an old skirt and jumper in the rear garden, sitting on her heels, busy storing potatoes in boxes for the winter.

  Marie got straight to the point. ‘Have you seen Hannah lately?’

  Mrs Elsworth stood up. She hesitated for a moment, then admitted: ‘We went to see her the Sunday before last, before the last air raid, and offered to pay for her to have the baby in Poperinge Nursing Home in Cottingham. I had both my boys there, and we knew she’d get good care.’

  ‘Oh. I see,’ Marie said, sharply enough to show her aversion to the idea of their having anything to do with Hannah.

  ‘She’s having my first grandchild, Marie. What can I do?’ Mrs Elsworth asked, with a helpless shrug. ‘I don’t see how I can cut her off altogether. Anyway, her answer was that she didn’t want to be in there, having all those snobby women looking down on her. So we suggested the nursing home on Cranbrook Avenue, but no, she’d rather have the money it would cost, and go to Hedon Road. She’s very short, now that she’s alone in the world. We weren’t offering money, but when she turned the nursing home down, she seemed to expect it in lieu, so we gave it to her. And there’s another thing that makes us feel we ought to do something: her husband having died in the attempt to keep us all fed. We haven’t seen her since, but she must be very near her time. She’s left our friends on Newland Park, so we don’t hear anything now.’

  ‘Well then, you can cross the killed husband off the list of things she’s holding over you. Her husband’s very much alive, and stopping with his mother off Hessle Road. And Hannah’s known he was alive since around the beginning of August.’

  Mrs Elsworth froze, looking intently into her eyes. ‘Are you sure? Absolutely sure?’

  ‘I’ve seen him. I’ve spoken to his mother. There’s no mistake.’

  Mrs Elsworth slowly shook her head. ‘My God,’ she said, after a pause. ‘To come back to that! His child dead, and his wife pregnant by another man. But that removes all danger of Charles marrying her, I’m glad to say, at least until her husband decides what he wants to do.’

  ‘I don’t think there was ever any real danger of Charles marrying her,’ Marie said drily.

  There was that intent look in Mrs Elsworth’s eyes again, as she gazed into Marie’s. ‘There’s none,’ she said, ‘unless you throw him over. I hope you won’t, but I can’t say I’d blame you. Which reminds me, there’s a letter for you. He’s coming home on leave, and Mrs Maltby forgot to give you the letter he sent last time he was coming home, apparently. He says it’s particularly important that you get this one. I’d have sent Danny to find you, if you hadn’t come today. And I ought to tell you: Leonard and I, we’ve offered to have the baby if she can’t look after it. I can’t bear to think of him having the same sort of life that Jenny had.’

  Marie said nothing, but the shock must have shown on her face. She walked back to Aunt Edie’s turning that prospect over in her mind. Leonard and Marjorie, with Hannah’s baby, a constant reminder of Charles’s betrayal, and an everlasting excuse for Hannah to intrude in their lives, perhaps causing as much trouble in the future as she had in the past. What were the Elsworths thinking of? Marie’s dearest wish was to chase Hannah right out of her life. She wished they had never suggested it.

  She read the letter as soon as she got back to her room. It was long, and affectionate, and avoided all mention of Hannah. He would be home on Friday the tenth, and he would guarantee to be the most faithful and devoted husband who ever lived. He was genuine, she was sure of it, and she was filled with optimism. She wrote a short letter back, telling him that she was looking forward to seeing him.

  Chapter 35

  Marie went round to see Nancy later that week, and arrived in time to see her come home, still wearing her auxiliary nurse’s uniform. To anyone who didn’t know her, Nancy’s pregnancy wasn’t obvious yet, but it was bound to cause some comments within another month or so. For Marie, the uniform and the slightly swelling tummy under it underlined the end of all Nancy’s hopes of getting her nursing finals, and all her prospects of a good marriage.

  ‘You’ll have heard about Hannah, I suppose?’ Nancy said.

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘She’s had it. Eight pounds two ounces.’

  ‘A boy?’

  ‘A girl. Big enough then, wasn’t it?’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘One of the nurses at the union infirmary has a sister who’s working as an orderly at Hedon Road.’

  ‘Small world, isn’t it?’

  Nancy grimaced. ‘A lot too bloody small sometimes,’ she said. ‘It’ll be my turn before long, to set all the old fishwives’ tongues on fire.’

  Marie said nothing, thinking back to the day she’d come to visit Charles in the hospital, and found Hannah with him, patting her bump, and proclaiming that the child would be a boy, because she was ‘carrying this one different
’. So much for that. And what did Charles think to his parents’ offer to bring up his baby as their own, Marie wondered. There was nothing about it in the letter. Perhaps they hadn’t told him.

  ‘Yes, we’ve seen the baby,’ Mrs Elsworth said, when Marie went to see her the following day. ‘Hannah brought her last night, after taking her own discharge from the hospital. I just hope she hasn’t done either of them any harm by it. I didn’t step out of bed for seven days, after I’d had my babies, but that woman – she’s a law unto herself Her eyes lit up with sudden amusement, she chuckled, and added: ‘She seemed quite surprised we knew her husband was back in Hull.’

  ‘I’ll bet,’ Marie said.

  ‘I really think she might have gone on playing the tragic widow, had we not told her.’

  ‘I shouldn’t wonder. I hear the baby was a good weight,’ Marie said, burning with curiosity about it, in spite of herself.

  ‘About eight pounds, I think. Mine were both around that weight, but it’s quite big, for a girl. She’s a beautiful baby, but . . .’ Mrs Elsworth hesitated.

  ‘But?’

  ‘Well, I can’t see any resemblance to either of my boys, that’s all, or anybody else, on either side of the family, but I suppose that’s not unusual. And it’s early days yet.’

  Marie gave a sardonic smile. Much as she would have liked to believe that Hannah’s baby was anybody’s rather that Charles’s, she couldn’t pin her hopes on Mrs Elsworth’s failure to see an obvious likeness to him in a baby of a few days old. By his own admission, Chas’s encounters with Hannah had been a lot too regular and a lot too enthusiastic for there to be much chance of her being anyone else’s, and those hairgrips had been found in his bed at exactly the right time. If his mother was now trying to make out that baby wasn’t his, she was kidding herself, and if she hadn’t seriously believed the baby was his, she would never have made that insane offer to bring it up. Maybe she was attempting to back-pedal about that now, Marie guessed. ‘Newborns are queer-looking little creatures anyway, I always think,’ she said. ‘The ones I’ve seen have never looked like anything but each other.’