by Annie Groves
‘You aren’t acting much like parents, are you, sending him away and not even having him home for Christmas? And as for your Edwin, I reckon he never wanted him in the first place.’
Vi’s face was blotched with angry colour. ‘You’ve got no right to say that.’
Jean went cold and her heart missed a beat. She had been hoping against hope that Vi would not say that. But now it was too late, she had said it, and Francine had drawn herself up to her full height, which was a good two inches taller than Vi, closer to four with those high-heeled shoes she was wearing.
‘Oh yes I have.’
Francine’s voice was as soft as butter but as clear as the noonday sun. It shattered the careful ten-year-old fiction they had all spun between them with all the force of one of Hitler’s bombs being dropped on a glasshouse, and to just as devastating an effect.
‘After all,’ Francine pointed out fiercely, ‘Jack is my son.’
Jean bit her lip. This was what she had been dreading from the minute she had opened her front door and seen Fran standing there. There had been something she had seen in Fran’s eyes that had warned her that it wasn’t just the war that had brought her sister back. Even so, she truly believed that if Francine had seen that Jack was happy and loved by Vi and Edwin, she wouldn’t have said anything. After all, it was plain that she loved her son and wanted the best for him.
Francine had been so young when she had had Jack, and unmarried. Jean would have taken Jack herself if she hadn’t been so ill, and then afterwards, when she had lost her own baby, she had wished desperately that she had had Jack, but it had been too late then. Vi and Edwin had stepped in and offered to take Jack and bring him up as theirs.
‘He’s been nothing but hard work since we took him in,’ Vi was raging now. She had never liked being put on the spot or criticised, and of course she was taking it out on Francine. ‘There’s bad blood in him and no mistake.’
‘He’s a little boy,’ Francine protested furiously. ‘All you had to do was love him; that was all. But you don’t love him. If you did he’d be here with you, not sent away to live with strangers.’
‘Me and Edwin have done our duty by him and by you. I don’t know how you dare speak to me as you are doing after the shame you brought on yourself. The shame you could have brought on all of us if it had got out what you’d done. There’s many a man would have said that kind of child should be sent to an orphanage and not brought up in a decent family. I’ve done my best with him but when there’s bad blood there it always comes out. If you ask me it will do him good to find out how lucky he was when me and Edwin had him. Teach him a bit of a lesson.’
‘I want to know where he is.’
‘Well, I’m not telling you.’
‘It’s only natural that Fran should want to see Jack, Vi,’ Jean intervened to try to calm things down. ‘I’d like to go and visit him meself, the poor little lad. I know how busy you are with your war work an’ all.’ She paused and looked at Francine, whose eyes were shining with tears. ‘After all, Fran does have the right, and I can’t see that it would do any harm.’
‘That’s the trouble with you, Jean: you’re far too ready to see more good in people than there is. Edwin was right. He warned me that no good would come of us having Jack. And as for you, Francine, I’ve never heard of such ingratitude. In your shoes I’d certainly not want to be talking about what I’d done, but then of course I’d never have done something so shameful.’
‘You’re right you wouldn’t – not with your Edwin.’
Francine’s temper was up now, Jean recognised and her anxiety grew.
Vi’s mouth had gone thin and vengeful. ‘You’re a disgrace to our family and you should have stayed in America. That way I wouldn’t have to be reminded that my sister was an unmarried mother and wouldn’t even tell anyone who the father was – if she knew.’
Francine went white and for a moment Jean feared for her self-control, but Francine simply drew in her breath and then let it out again unsteadily.
‘I wanted to take Jack to America with me where we could have a new start, but you begged me to let you have him. You said that he would have a better life with you, that I wouldn’t be able to give him the time or the love that you could because I’d be on my own and working. You said that if I really loved him then I’d let you have him because you and Edwin could give him so much more than I could. You said that you would be the best mother in the world to him and that Edwin would be his father. You said all those things to me, Vi, but none of them were true were they, because if they were then Jack would be at home with you.’
Tears filled Jean’s eyes. She really felt for Fran and always had done; right from the moment Fran had come to her and told her about her trouble and the man who had caused it. Not that Jean would ever have dreamed of telling Vi the name of Jack’s real father, knowing how her twin felt about actors and the stage.
‘This is ridiculous. There’s a war on in this country, I’ll have you know, and it was the Government that said that children should be evacuated, not me and Edwin.’ Vi was blustering now. ‘We’ve done our best for him and no one could have done any more, but he’s not been an easy child. I’ve never known a baby cry so much, or be so sickly. Drove Edwin mad, it did; kept us all awake and upset poor Bella dreadfully. She couldn’t bring her school friends home because of him. He was that slow at walking we thought there must be something wrong with him. Edwin reckons that Jack hasn’t got a brain in his head.’
‘Give over do, Vi,’ Jean stopped her firmly. ‘Sam says he’s proper bright and you’ve said yourself that he’s always got his nose in a book.’ She turned to her younger sister. ‘He’s a lovely lad, Fran, a son anyone could be proud of.’
‘Well, you and me have got very different opinions of what makes a mother proud, then, Jean. That’s all I can say,’ said Vi.
Nothing that either of them could say to her could persuade Vi to change her mind and tell them where Jack was, and as Jean confided to Sam that night when they were in bed, she reckoned that Vi knew she had done wrong but was refusing to admit it.
‘I never thought I’d say this about me own twin, Sam, but what she’s done is downright wicked. Poor Francine went up to Grace’s room after she’d gone and cried her eyes out. I felt for her, I really did.’
‘I said all along that no good would come of your Vi having Jack,’ Sam reminded her.
‘I should have teken him meself and I blame meself for not doing, Sam. Poor Fran’s that upset.’
‘There was nothing you could have done, not with you being so poorly.’
In Grace’s bedroom Francine lay awake and dryeyed, looking up through the darkness. Jack. The pain that tore at her was as real and as sharp as the birth pangs she had felt bringing him into the world. She could remember his birth as clearly as though it had only been yesterday. She had been so frightened when she had first realised that she was pregnant. She hadn’t even known what was happening to her at first, and then when she had she had been terrified. Con had already deserted her and she had known there was no point in turning to him for help.
Vi had been wrong about one thing. Con had been both her first and her only lover. Frightened though she had been to discover she was pregnant, she wasn’t going to pretend that she hadn’t enjoyed what had led to that pregnancy. Con had known all the right moves and all the right touches all right, and besotted with him as she was, she had been swept away on a tide of physical longing that had been at full flood. That, though, had been before she had learned that he was married and that she was just one in a long line of girls he had seduced and then abandoned. She had made a promise to herself when it was all over and she was on her way to America that she would never make a fool of herself in the same way again, and she had stuck to that promise, not risking dating any of the many men who had asked her out just in case the body she didn’t feel she could trust any more betrayed her a second time.
She had hated giving Jack up but sh
e had wanted to do the best for him. Despite the disgrace and shame she had brought on herself she had loved Jack from the first minute she had held him in her arms; loved him with a helpless aching love that she hadn’t expected and didn’t understand. She had been sixteen when he had been born, and when Vi had told her that the best thing she could do for him would be to allow her and Edwin to bring him up as their own son she had let her elder sister convince her that giving him up was what was best for him. Jean had been too ill to help her, too ill for her even to talk to her after the tragic death of her own baby. Poor Jean. Francine could only imagine what she must have suffered, knowing how badly she had ached physically as well as emotionally for her own baby in those first months without him, waking up wanting him and going to sleep crying for him. The only thing that kept her going had been her belief that she had done the right thing for him.
‘Come on, Grace, it will be fun going dancing. You might even get that chap of yours on the floor for a smoochy number if you’re lucky.’
‘Me and Teddy don’t want to go dancing, all right?’ All Grace had done since Teddy had told her about his heart had been worry about him. When she was with him she was constantly begging him not to overdo things, constantly trying to make sure that when they were together they didn’t walk too far or do too much, and the anxiety was wearing her down. It wasn’t like worrying about Luke being in France or worrying about Hitler invading England. Those were worries that she shared with other people, and that somehow made them easier to bear. And as well as feeling anxious she also felt guilty. Guilty because she was well and Teddy was not.
‘All right,’ Lillian answered her snappily. ‘Keep your hair on. I was only asking. Don’t come with us then.’
‘No I won’t,’ Grace agreed, equally snappy, picking up the notes she had been studying.
She might as well go to her room as stay here and fall out with Lillian. If Teddy had been properly well she’d have loved to go dancing, and she knew that if she were to tell him what the rest of her set were planning and that they were included, he’d have been eager to join in. But how could she let him? What if something were to happen to him?
She pushed her textbooks to one side and looked towards the window. They were back to double summer time now and the last of the day’s sun was warming her room.
There was a brief knock on her door.
‘It’s only me,’ Hannah called out.
Grace opened the door to let her in.
‘Are you OK, Grace?’ she asked, ‘only you haven’t seemed yourself just lately, and you were a bit sharp with Lillian. Is it because of your brother? I know he’s still writing to her.’
Grace shook her head. ‘No. It’s nothing,’ she lied. Tears brimmed in her eyes. Cross with herself, she wiped them away. ‘I’m sorry, Hannah. I don’t want to cause any upset.’
It was true that she wasn’t particularly fond of Lillian, but the other girl was a member of their set, and that meant that traditionally they owed one another a certain loyalty.
Hannah came in and closed the door behind her. ‘Look, if it’s the work, Grace, or if something’s happened on the ward, well, there’s nothing to be ashamed of in saying so. There’s been several girls drop out since we started out training, although … well, I’d got you down as the sort who would see things through.’
‘It isn’t the work … or anyone on the ward. It’s … it’s Teddy,’ Grace admitted.
‘You’ve had a fall-out?’ Hannah guessed. ‘And that’s why you don’t want to go dancing.’
It was no use, she would have to tell Hannah, Grace recognised, otherwise she would be imagining all sorts of things that just weren’t true.
‘We haven’t had a fall-out,’ she told her carefully. ‘But Teddy can’t go dancing, Hannah. In fact, he can’t do very much at all. He’s very poorly, you see.’
Hannah listened in silence whilst Grace explained, waiting until she had finished to say shakily, ‘Oh, Grace, how awful.’
‘Yes, it is, isn’t it?’ agreed Grace bleakly. ‘But you mustn’t say anything to anyone, Hannah. Please promise me you won’t. Teddy doesn’t want anyone fussing. That’s what’s making me so on edge, knowing that he won’t be careful. I’m so afraid for him. It’s on my mind all the time. I can’t understand why he’s doing what he is. He didn’t need to volunteer to drive an ambulance. He could be living quietly at home resting, but he says … he says … he says …’ Grace couldn’t go on. Her emotions had overwhelmed her. She could tell, though, from Hannah’s expression that she understood what she was trying to say.
‘I’ll have a word with Lillian, if you like, and tell her that you’ve not been feeling too good.’
Grace gave her a weak smile. ‘Well, you won’t be able to tell her that I’m having me monthlies.’
Hannah laughed. They had all been bemused at first when their periods had altered so that they all had them at virtually the same time but then Doreen had discovered from one of the more senior nurses that this was something that tended to happen when young women lived and worked together closely.
It just had to have happened, that was all, because if it hadn’t … Bella felt sick with fury at just the thought of what had occurred yesterday when she had called round at Alan’s parents. She, Trixie, had been there, sitting in the garden with Alan’s mother, whilst Trixie’s own mother and Alan’s fussed round her. None of them had seen her at first. Trixie was crying, her plain face looking even plainer. Alan’s mother had been holding her hand, comforting her, telling her quite openly that Alan had made a terrible mistake in marrying Bella.
That was when Trixie had seen her and had pretended to be embarrassed, but of course Bella had known she wasn’t.
Bella had been so furious that she had confronted the three of them there and then.
‘Well, Alan is married to me whether you like it or not,’ she had said, ‘and there’s nothing you can do about it.’ And then she had left and gone round to her mother’s, but her mother hadn’t been there so she had had to come home.
Just let them wait, all of them. She’d make them sorry and she’d give their precious Trixie something to really cry about when she dropped a few hints to other people about keeping their husbands away from her because she was the kind that went after married men.
The back door opened and the refugees, as Bella insisted on mentally referring to Bettina and her mother, came in.
‘What do you two want?’ Bella demanded, taking her bad temper out on them.
‘It is time for my mother to eat and have a rest,’ Bettina told her.
‘If she wants to eat you can take her to a café. And as for her resting, it’s high time she did a bit of work. This kitchen floor needs a good scrub—’ Bella broke off as the door opened a second time and a man followed them in and went to join them.
Bettina immediately linked arms with him, all over him like a rash. Bella could see why. He was extraordinarily handsome, tall, with very dark hair cut short. But no matter how handsome he was he had no right to be here.
‘I don’t know what you think you’re doing,’ Bella told Bettina nastily, ‘but I’ll tell you what you’re not doing and that’s bringing your fancy man here to this house.’
Bella looked at him as she spoke. He was looking back at her with angry contempt. He turned to Bettina and said something to her in Polish.
‘Jan is my brother,’ Bettina told Bella proudly. ‘He is here in England with the Polish Air Force and he has come to see our mother, who is not well. He will be staying here with us for two days whilst he is on leave.’
‘Staying here? In this house? My house? He most certainly will not.’
‘You have the spare room – why should he not stay? Your Government is paying you for the use of two of your bedrooms already, although you have forced Mama and I to share one.’
Bella could feel her temper rising. How dare this … this nobody, who did not even have a country any more, start acting as though she had
the right to make demands?
The mother had started to cough, just like she did at night. Bella glared at her whilst Bettina and her brother fussed over her.
‘There’s nothing wrong with her, you know. She just puts it on for sympathy.’
They were speaking in Polish again, and ignoring her, whilst Jan guided his mother to a chair, and Bettina filled the kettle and put it on the stove.
‘I’m not putting up with this,’ Bella began, but Bettina overruled her, telling her fiercely, ‘It is you who is making my mother ill. Do you really think that we want to be here, living like this, in this? At home in Poland we had—’ She stopped, bright red spots of colour burning in her face, and then continued passionately. ‘My father was a well-known and respected medical specialist. We lived in a beautiful and very old house. Our home was filled with music and laughter and friends. It was a life that someone like you could never understand. My parents loved one another very dearly and you could not understand that either. You, who has a husband who never wants to come home and who when he does needs to get himself drunk before he can bear to be with you. You see, it is as I told you, Jan,’ she continued, turning to her brother. ‘We must find somewhere else to live. I have complained already to the organisation that put us here and they have promised to find us somewhere else as soon as they can.’
Bella couldn’t believe her ears. Bettina had complained about her?
‘You come over here to our country,’ she raged at her, ‘where you don’t belong, expecting to be housed and fed by our government. You take jobs from our men and you can’t even speak English properly, and then you dare to complain? Why don’t you go back where you came from?’
Bettina burst into a torrent of Polish, stopping only when her brother put his hand on her arm and shook his head slightly before turning towards Bella, and telling her coldly, ‘You are the most despicable person I have ever met.’
