As Time Goes By

by Anne Bennett

  She stopped and Chrissie urged, ‘Go on.’

  ‘I will, because you need to know,’ Angela said with a sigh. ‘Sorry I’m telling this so slowly, but this is extremely hard for me to tell.’ She paused and then went on almost in a rush, ‘I was nearly home when I was attacked by three drunken soldiers.’

  Stan gave a start in his chair outside the room, and there was even a slight movement from Connie in the bed, but it went unnoticed, for all eyes were riveted on Angela, who gave a grim laugh and said, ‘They said they thought I was a lady of the night. Do you know what that means, Chrissie?’

  ‘Of course I know!’ Chrissie snapped. ‘I’m not a baby. But why did they think that of you?’

  ‘First of all, it was late for normal factory workers to be coming home,’ Angela said. ‘And then I didn’t wear a wedding ring. I wasn’t allowed to wear any metal on the factory floor, so all metal had to be removed. I thought it was safer to leave it at home. I also had money in my pocket because, as the docks were a distance away, the boss gave me a ten-shilling note to get something to eat before I headed back. Thinking about it now, I don’t think those soldiers really believed I was a lady of the night. I think that’s what they told themselves to justify what happened next – because they raped me, Chrissie, all of them, and then beat me up so badly, I could barely reach home.’

  Chrissie’s mouth was agape. ‘That’s awful,’ she said, aghast. ‘What happened to them – the soldiers?’

  ‘Nothing happened to them, for I never went near the police,’ Angela said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because of Barry at the Front,’ Angela said. ‘We were told not to worry the men, especially as they couldn’t help us at all.’

  ‘But you wouldn’t have to tell him.’

  ‘And I wouldn’t have,’ Angela said steadfastly. ‘But believe me, if I’d gone to the police, there would have been a fuss made. Maybe it would be in the paper and people would get to know, and it would only take one of those people to write and tell Barry. I couldn’t risk that. All his life, he had tried to protect me.’

  She shook her head from side to side and went on, ‘If he knew I had been attacked and he wasn’t here … well, I don’t know what he might have done.’

  Outside the door Stan shook with emotion. It was monstrous that such a terrible thing should happen to lovely Angela. It was unbelievable that brutes like that should get away with such an atrocious attack on an innocent young woman, but he knew she was right to keep such news away from Barry. The love between Barry and Angela was special. It was beautiful to see them together. And she was right, all the womenfolk were warned not to tell servicemen distressing news from home. If Barry had heard one hint of what had happened to his beloved, he might have decided his rightful place was with his wife back home. If he’d done that, Stan knew he would have been hunted down and shot as a deserter.

  But Angela hadn’t finished: ‘All I wanted to do was to put this behind me, and Barry’s mother Mary agreed with me. And then I found I had been made pregnant by one of those thugs.’

  Stan could stand no more. He got up from his chair and opened the door to the side ward, to see Angela on the chair by the bed, hands clasped between her knees as she rocked backwards and forwards in deep distress. He crossed the room in seconds, put his arms around Angela and held her tight. ‘Oh my darling! How you have suffered!’ he said.

  Angela nodded. ‘I had help from an unexpected source,’ she went on. ‘No names, because even now she might get into trouble. She was a kind and sympathetic woman who helped me when I had no idea where to turn. She hid me away and after you were born, the plan was that she would take you to the Catholic orphanage where the nuns would find you a nice couple who would adopt you as their own little girl, and I’m sure they would have loved you very much.’

  Chrissie thought that was a good sort of plan and she would have loved to have spent her first eleven years with people who loved her. But that hadn’t happened, so she said to Angela, ‘So what went wrong?’

  ‘They wouldn’t take you – well, couldn’t take you, really,’ Angela told her. ‘They said since the war, the numbers of people willing to adopt had dropped off considerably, and they couldn’t place the children who were in the orphanage already, and some had already been waiting some time, so they could take no more.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘You know the answer to that,’ Angela said. ‘In all this, I didn’t expect to love you – you know, because of the attack and all – but from the moment I first held you in my arms, I found I did love you, with my whole heart.’

  ‘You loved me?’ Chrissie said incredulously. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, my darling girl, I’m sure.’

  ‘The people at the workhouse said you couldn’t have loved me, or you wouldn’t have given me away. And if my own mother didn’t love me, then no one else would either. They said I must be unlovable.’

  Angela was angered by the cruelty of the warders, taunting unprotected, innocent children. And yet what had she expected? Had she naively tried to convince herself that the people that ran the workhouse would be good and kind? She knew that was just a fraction of what her daughter had suffered. That was only one thing, but it was something she could put right straight away. She pulled Chrissie towards her and lifted her head, so she was looking into her eyes as she said, ‘I loved you with all my heart, and just as much as I loved Connie. It was hard for me to sign you away to be adopted, but I had to do that to give you the chance of a better life. I believed it was the only option open to me, and I was filled with shame. I can promise you that the shame has never left me.’

  There was silence in the room and then Chrissie said, ‘But you left me on the steps.’ Tears glistened in Chrissie’s eyes as she went on in a shaky voice as she fought not to let the threatened tears fall, ‘That was one of the hardest things to bear. I mean, you claim you loved me, but you just left me on the steps like a pile of rubbish. Funny kind of way to show love, if you ask me. I always wondered why you did that.’

  ‘If I had taken you into the workhouse, they would have known who I was,’ Angela explained. ‘Then they’d have asked questions about who the father was, and I was petrified that someone might contact Barry, and then my subterfuge would have come to nothing. I might also have been forced to work someplace, and my wages would be given to them, to pay for your keep. I couldn’t do that. I had already left Connie with her grandmother, Mary, for months.’

  Chrissie had been watching Angela’s face as she spoke and saw tear trails on her pain-ridden face. The hatred that had been burning bright in Chrissie’s heart lessened a little, for she knew this woman – her mother, she thought disbelievingly – had spoken the absolute truth.

  ‘Believe me, Chrissie,’ Angela went on, ‘if there had been any other road, I would have taken it. There hasn’t been one day when I haven’t regretted what I was forced to do, and I am still filled with guilt.’

  She turned to Stan and said, ‘That day I shuddered when you were admitting your feelings for me – I remember it all now. I didn’t shudder because of the words you were saying – they were words I longed to hear – but because I didn’t think I’d ever have the courage to tell you what had happened to me. Yet I knew I couldn’t enter into a deeper relationship with you with such a secret on my soul. I am so disgusted with myself, and I couldn’t bear to see disgust in your eyes too, because I care for you too much for that,’ Angela said.

  Stan replied, ‘Angela, I can’t think of any situation when you could do anything that I would feel disgust for.’

  ‘Oh, you can say that,’ Angela said with an impatient toss of her head, ‘but how could you bear the thought that I am the kind of woman that sacrificed her baby – abandoned her to the workhouse! I can barely live with myself, I feel such self-loathing. How could I expect another to understand? You see how I’ve hurt and damaged Chrissie. Stan, I care for you and your good opinion too much to risk se
eing revulsion in your eyes.’

  ‘Why don’t you try me?’ Stan said. ‘Let me make up my own mind and don’t keep assuming how I would act and how I feel. You owe me that, at least.’

  Angela swallowed the lump in her throat and gave a sigh and said, ‘All right. Now that you know it all, what do you really think of me?’

  ‘Well, not disgust, certainly,’ Stan said determinedly. ‘Personally, I think you were more sinned against than sinning.’

  ‘How can you say that?’ Angela cried.

  ‘Easily,’ Chrissie said, looking tentatively at Angela, her hatred having burnt itself out, ‘for I think it too.’

  ‘Chrissie, I am so sorry you had to suffer such things,’ Angela said as tears trickled unchecked down her cheeks. ‘If I could, I would wipe away all memories of that dreadful time.’

  ‘I wish you could,’ Chrissie said. ‘They often come back to haunt me at night.’

  ‘D-did you blame me?’

  ‘Totally,’ Chrissie said. ‘And I hated you so much! But now you have told me how it was, and … well … sometimes things are taken out of our hands, and we are unable to change them. I think that’s how it was with you. Circumstances dictated how you had to behave. Perhaps you had no real choice.’

  Angela swallowed hard and her eyes were moist as she said, ‘Chrissie, I really have no right to ask this question, but do you think you could ever find it in your heart to forgive me?’

  Chrissie thought long and hard. She knew what Angela wanted was total forgiveness. She would have to work hard to cast from her mind all shreds of bitterness or antipathy, and write off the bleak years in the workhouse as if they’d never been. But she looked Angela full in the face and plainly saw the anguish there, and knew she was still suffering. Chrissie’s heart softened, and she was suddenly touched with pity, not for herself, but for Angela and for the whole situation.

  The silence had gone on so long, Angela was sure Chrissie was going to refuse to forgive her, and so she was surprised to feel a tap on her shoulder. She turned to find Chrissie’s deep-brown eyes fastened on hers as she said, ‘Yes, I will do my best to forgive you.’

  Angela’s relief was profound. She tentatively put her arms around Chrissie and tightened them as she felt the child sag against her, and from the bed came a deep and heartfelt sigh of relief. Angela was by Connie’s side in seconds. Connie’s eyes remained closed and she was as immobile as ever, but there was a fluttering beneath her eyelids that Angela couldn’t remember seeing before. They had all heard the sigh, and Stan went off to find a doctor. He was delighted with the news, though he was quick to warn them that Connie was still a very sick girl, despite the signs that she was coming out of the coma.

  ‘It’s good news,’ he said to Angela. ‘You did the right thing, talking to her like you did. The nurses told me there was an almost constant hum of conversation from this room.’

  Angela hoped it was just a hum the nurses heard, and not the actual words she had to say, but the doctor hadn’t finished. ‘Keep up the good work, and you are entitled to feel optimistic, but be patient and don’t expect overnight miracles. She is not quite out of the woods yet.’

  It was a very emotional group who tentatively celebrated Connie moving one step closer to coming back to the world. Angela wasn’t quite sure where she stood with anyone, but she did know that Connie hadn’t been taken from her, that Stan wasn’t appalled by her story, and that she had faced the demons of her past. Whatever happened now between her and Chrissie, it was in her hands to finally make things right.

  Angela was hopeful of Connie’s eventual recovery, though she knew that she was still very ill. She had a number of injuries and as soon as the doctors thought she had recovered sufficiently, she faced several operations to repair damaged organs.

  ‘I’m not a very patient person, that’s the trouble,’ Angela confided to Stan one day as they sat in the tea bar adjoining the hospital. One of the nurses had suggested that Stan should take Angela there to have a reviving cup of tea: ‘She has been sitting by her daughter’s bedside for hours, and now that Connie is asleep, she needs to get away, if only for a little while.’

  ‘Come on,’ Stan urged. ‘They say Connie is now in a more natural sleep. It’s good news.’

  ‘What if she wakes?’

  ‘Matron assures me we will be told. We will only be a step away,’ Stan said. ‘You don’t look at all well to me.’

  Angela went with Stan, knowing he was right, for she wasn’t eating or sleeping properly at all and had begun to feel quite weak.

  Stan waited till the cup of tea and buttered scones were in front of them before he said, ‘Angela, none of this is your fault. You must start believing that. And despite all she has gone through in that hell-hole of a workhouse, Chrissie acknowledges it too. You’re her mother and I’m sure she would like to get to know you better.’

  ‘Do you really think so?’

  ‘I’m certain,’ Stan said. ‘Eileen tells me she is a lovely young girl, and she doesn’t appear to blame you – or at least, she is trying not to. And in time, please God, she will get to know Connie as a sister, too.’

  ‘You think Connie will ever totally recover, Stan?’

  ‘I’ve no doubt of it,’ Stan said robustly.

  Angela sighed. ‘I know there have been signs of recovery,’ she said. ‘But they have been so slight. After a while, you wonder if you have imagined it. Sometimes it feels like she takes two steps forward, and then three back.’

  ‘You mustn’t think that way,’ Stan said. ‘Connie is young and until this terrible thing happened to her, she was fit and healthy. She needs you to be as positive and supportive as possible. So no more defeatist talk!’

  ‘Maybe it’s better to face it,’ Angela said resignedly. ‘I sit by Connie’s bed, but I don’t know if she’s aware of me or not. I often wonder if that is going to be the pattern of my life from now on.’

  Stan saw the life being sucked from Angela, enveloped in wretched sorrow. He said, ‘Maybe the hospital would let Daniel visit. That might help bring her back to us.’

  ‘What could Daniel do that we haven’t already done?’

  ‘Who knows?’ Stan said. ‘But like it or not, Angela, they are incredibly fond of one another. Daniel was the one almost buried with her in that shattered building for hours on end. From what my boy says, they told each other things they might not have done yet, if they hadn’t been in such danger.’

  ‘They admitted to feelings that weren’t true?’

  ‘To get the truth, you’d have to ask them,’ Stan said. ‘It’s just that … Hell, Angela, they thought they were going to die in that wreckage. If you felt strongly about someone and you thought it was your last chance to tell them, wouldn’t you take it?’

  Stan sighed and continued, ‘All I know is, Daniel just might be the key to unlock Connie’s mind. Have we any right not to try, provided the hospital are willing?’

  Angela nodded her head. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘As you say, it can do no harm and it might do a great deal of good. Let’s go back in now?’

  ‘Yes, come on,’ Stan said, for he knew Angela was always loath to leave her daughter for long. Angela sighed with relief as she followed Stan into the hospital, but there was no change in Connie’s condition and Angela took her place by the bed again.

  Daniel asked for the lights to be dimmed so that if Connie opened her eyes again she wouldn’t be dazzled by the light, and he had also asked if he could see little Bobby Gillespie. Another regular visitor at the hospital, Bobby was bemused at being sent for, and a bit shy, for the room was full of people and he only knew who some of them were. Daniel, seeing the child’s discomfort, drew him towards Angela as he said, ‘This boy is the real hero of the hour, and showed great bravery and resourcefulness.’

  ‘You were incredibly brave,’ Angela agreed fervently, remembering how he had come to her door to tell her about the accident in the disused shell factory, when she’d thought Connie woul
d be at the library as usual.

  ‘You don’t know just how brave,’ Stan said. ‘Just as we lifted Bobby’s brother out, the whole roof collapsed.’

  Angela remembered Bobby’s concern for his brother, and she said, ‘Was he all right, your brother?’

  ‘Sort of,’ Bobby said. ‘Or at least he will be, so the doctor said. He’s hurt inside, so he faces some operations, and he busted his right arm and left leg, but they’ll heal in time.’

  ‘Yes, and from what I heard, Bobby was that intent on getting his brother out, he was nearly buried himself,’ Stan said.

  ‘I’m glad you’re both okay,’ Angela said sincerely. ‘But it sounds as if it will be some time before your brother is fully fit and able to work. How will you manage?’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Stan said. ‘We’re all going to look after the family. Neither of the boys have to worry about going back to work before they are completely recovered.’

  Bobby felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders. And then he thought his mother might view this as charity, as if they couldn’t manage on their own, and he shot an almost fearful look at Stan. Stan knew Bobby’s mother well and he said to him in reassurance, ‘I’ve squared it with your mother, Bobby, so you have nothing to worry about and you can get better in your own good time.’

  Bobby let out a sigh of relief, but Angela was the only one close enough to hear it, and she smiled at him over Connie and he gave a cheeky grin back. ‘I’m very grateful for what you did Bobby,’ she said.

  ‘She’s your sweetheart, right?’ Bobby asked Daniel.

  Daniel gave a slight start, but Bobby had asked a direct question and he said to him, ‘Yes, yes, I suppose she is.’

  ‘Thought she was,’ Bobby said, oblivious to the slight tension in the air, ‘cos I saw you was holding her hand sometimes – when you were going home from the library, and when you said she was in a bad way when I lowered the water down.’