‘For the love of God, Molly, you have to tell her – and soon!’ Joyce had instructed over the telephone when Molly called her from the office.
‘I know!’ she whispered. ‘I have in fact decided to tell her tomorrow night, as I’ll be finishing a little earlier, and we can sit down at the dinner table and talk calmly, I hope. I’ve been practising it in my head.’
‘Well, amen to that! I’m on hand should things get a bit . . .’ Her sister faltered and Molly could only sigh.
‘Joyce, I am one hundred per cent sure that things will get a bit . . .’
‘Well, I’m nervous for you.’
‘You’re not helping!’ She ended their call and couldn’t help but smile briefly at the thought of her sister, who was on occasion a little too truthful.
Standing in the bathroom in her underwear, Molly looked at her limbs, which had gained no weight. Her narrow shoulders, neat, contained bump and slightly rounded breasts meant that from behind she didn’t look any different. Right now and turned to the side, there was, however, no mistaking her condition, although she was still very small. Her sadness at losing Johan and Geer had not lessened, but her main preoccupation had been avoiding her mother. This she managed by leaving early and coming home late, and then making her way upstairs to bed the moment she put her key in the door. When necessary, she conversed with her from her bed and in her nightgown; the smocked, high-necked design hid her changed body. Her mother thought her petulant and asked repeatedly how long she intended to sulk for. Molly had no answer and would sink down onto the mattress, giving her mother even greater reason to believe that she was acting like a moody teenager and not a woman on the verge of motherhood. She had registered at the maternity unit at the nearest hospital, leaving blank the line which asked for ‘Husband’s details’. She had pushed the form across the counter to the attendant nurse, who had stowed it quickly, as if embarrassed on her behalf by her single status. Molly had stood tall, her chin held high.
She cringed now a little to think of the encounter, smoothing her underslip over her form as she fastened the amber-coloured clip in the side of her hair to hold back her wayward fringe. Next, she captured the back of her locks in a net before twisting and smoothing it into a neat bun at the nape of her neck. She cleaned her teeth, patted a liberal amount of Yardley lavender-scented talcum powder under her armpits and into her cleavage, and then patted her face dry with the peach-coloured hand towel that lived on a small woven chair by the side of the sink. She ran her fingers over the little basket of flowers someone had embroidered in one corner, possibly her grandma or Joyce – and why not? It made sense: Joyce was exceptional at everything else, so why not at prettifying the hand towels too? She smiled at the thought of her beloved sister and only ally.
Bracing herself against the sink, Molly breathed in and fastened the girdle around her waist, as she had done every morning for the last few weeks. Wrangling with the contraption, sweating and quite light-headed, she dragged the wide band around her midriff to marry up the reluctant hooks and eyes as best she could, then staggered against the ancient towel rail, gripping it to regain her balance. Taking a deep breath, she whispered to her baby, ‘It’s okay, little one, you’re fine, you are safe and sound. It won’t be for long . . .’
She closed her eyes and let the tears gather at the ends of her long lashes as she thought of Johan and all that he would miss, and in turn of all that she would miss – all they would miss . . . It bothered her to have to girdle her child, confining its movement. She had read up about women in the past who had been corseted and restricted during pregnancy, and the one big advantage she had was that her bump being so small meant the baby was tightly confined in any case. It did little to allay her concern. Slowly she straightened and pulled her sweater over the girdle and put on her skirt. Again she looked in the looking glass, running her finger under the dark bruises of fatigue that sat beneath her eyes.
‘Johan . . .’ she said, touching her belly, ‘I miss you.’ She cursed the tears that were never very far away. ‘I miss you so much!’
She sniffed up her tears as she thought now of her mother and how she wore her grief like a cloak that at times covered them all, knowing this was not the future for herself. The difference was of course that her mother had had years and years of memories of times spent with her father, whereas Molly had only seen the man she loved on three occasions, just three. No more than eighteen hours in total. This small number, she knew, would diminish her loss in the eyes of others, but she also knew, knew without a shred of doubt, that it had been real and it had been love.
She had very little detail about his death, but had heard, courtesy of Marjorie, who she assumed must have been in contact with Geer, that her beloved had died in a training exercise on a beach, with an unconfirmed suggestion that it had been friendly fire, not that she could see anything friendly in it. Regardless, she was in no doubt that he had died because of the Nazis. Without them and this whole bloody war, he would be by her side and she by his, sitting in front of an open fire, Mr and Mrs de Fries, preparing for the birth of their baby. The precise way in which he had died seemed almost secondary to her, the result being the same. It was, however, almost unfathomable that her colleague might know more about the passing of her great love than she did. And this in turn made her think of this child that Johan’s family would know nothing of. She understood their anguish, but quietly hoped that it might not always be the case. The pain of his loss sat like a small stone beneath her heart that dug in all day and meant she carried a pain in her chest that was sharp and physical.
Molly stood up straight and let her body settle into the new and uncomfortable garment. After a minute or two she got used to it, providing she kept her breathing shallow. The one small positive in the estrangement from her best friend was that in not having to face Geer, she avoided the only person who would most definitely have noticed the subtle changing shape of Molly. Who was she kidding? It was no relief at all.
Don’t think about it. Keep going. Don’t think too deeply. Keep going.
Molly wiped her eyes, pinched her cheeks, painted on a smile and made her way down the stairs.
‘Bye, Mum!’ In what was now a practised routine, she stood on the doormat and called up towards her mother’s bedroom, timed carefully so that if and when she opened the door of her room, Molly would already be somewhere along the pavement, clomping her way in her brogues to work.
The elderly newspaper man on the corner of Russell Square was giving his usual street cry of ‘Stand’d!’ as he stood with his flat cap pulled low on his brow, a rolled-up paper in his hand and the obligatory cigarette hanging from his bottom lip. ‘V2 hits Chiswick! Three dead! Read all about it! Get your Stand’d ’ere!’ She listened to his shout of the headlines and her stomach knotted at the words that, no matter how familiar, still had the power to shock and leave her feeling utterly dismayed.
This bloody war! Her thoughts raged and she felt the confined kick of her little one in response.
‘It’s all going to be fine, little darling. Don’t you worry about a thing. It’s all going to be splendid.’
She thought again of the three poor souls in Chiswick who had perished, and their relatives, possibly fighting abroad, and who were about to be dealt the lowest blow: that while they were out of the country, dodging Hitler’s bullets to keep those they loved back at home safe, those they loved had been killed by one of his ghastly bombs. It was the cruellest twist. And one she and the de Fries family understood better than most.
Marjorie approached the building on Malet Street from the opposite direction.
‘Good morning, Molly.’
‘Morning.’ She raised her hand in a little wave as they met by the front entrance steps. Her colleague was starting to feel like quite a close friend these days.
‘You look . . .’ Marjorie paused, eyeing her colleague before looking away, as if uncertain as to whether to give voice to her observations.
‘I l
ook what?’ Molly ignored the quake to her knees; they felt as if they might give way.
‘Tired. Very tired.’ There was a moment of silence when something passed between them – acknowledgement, understanding, empathy? Molly could not have said for sure, but the soft expression on Marjorie’s face was one from which she took comfort.
‘I am tired,’ she croaked.
Marjorie nodded. ‘I was thinking back to that day when I came out of the ladies and you were so excited—’
Molly swallowed the lump in her throat and let her eyes graze the postbox on the pavement that had known the weight of her lover’s touch, where maybe his scent still lingered, molecules of him. She resisted the temptation to throw herself around it, knowing it was ridiculous.
‘I can’t imagine what you’re going through. And I know there are no words, but I want to say that things will get better.’
‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘I have to believe they will. Life goes on.’
Marjorie took a step towards her. ‘We all walk the same path, Molly. All of us. We all trip, but more often than not we are so focused on looking ahead that we don’t notice the stumbles of those around us. And we all keep plodding on, because what’s the alternative?’
‘I don’t know,’ Molly answered truthfully. ‘I’m too busy plodding!’ She gave the brightest laugh she could muster.
Marjorie again gave her that intense stare. ‘You know where I am.’
‘Thank you, Marjorie,’ Molly said, and meant it. The two exchanged a knowing look that was kind and connecting, before Molly followed her friend into the building.
She had felt a little out of sorts all day, with a niggling pain in her lower back and an uncomfortable pulse in her womb. She put it down in no small part to dreading the conversation she was to have with her mother that very evening.
‘Everything all right here?’ Mrs Templar asked the question while looking over Molly’s head, but she was in no doubt that she referred to her and her alone.
‘Yes, thank you. Bit of a tummy bug,’ she added for good measure.
‘Milk of magnesia,’ Mrs Templar offered, as she tapped the desk with her pencil and walked away.
Marjorie caught her eye from across the room and gave a subtle wink. Molly smiled, wondering if milk of magnesia was actually the cure to all ailments both physical and mental. She thought, if this were the case, she might need a very large bottle indeed. Her work, she knew, had been slow and her error rate higher than normal recently. She couldn’t wait to get home and release her stomach from the darned girdle, her fear growing daily of how it might be affecting her unborn child.
She walked home slowly, stopping every so often to rest against a wall or to lean on a lamp post and catch her breath. She put her key in the door.
‘Is that you, Molly?’
For the love of God! ‘Yes, it’s me!’
‘There’s potted meat and crackers on the kitchen table,’ her mother called from the parlour. ‘I’m listening to the wireless!’
‘Righto!’ Molly kicked off her shoes and forwent the potted meat and crackers, as the pain in her back was suddenly ferocious. She crept up the stairs, glancing at the parlour door, where her mother no doubt sat with her darning pile and a crackling wireless.
‘It’s a wonder to me sometimes that we live in the same house – you disappear morning, noon and night! It’s as if I live quite alone,’ her mother called out.
Molly paused on the stair. ‘Well, during the day I’m at work and in the evenings you’re not alone, Mum, because I’m at home. And right now I’m tired – but I am, as ever, just upstairs if you need me.’
‘Yes, but upstairs or not, when you’re sleeping sound enough to ignore a doodlebug, you’re not much company.’
Molly’s face fell. ‘I can’t help that I’m sad, Mum.’
‘Oh, and here we are again – back to the Dutch boy, no doubt.’
Molly shook her head, too weary and uncomfortable for the fight.
She closed her bedroom door and stretched out her lower back, shutting her eyes in a moment of pure bliss when the corset pinged to the floor. She then spent a good minute or more rubbing at the skin of her abdomen where the firm edges had cut in.
‘There you go, little one, have a good wriggle.’
After taking deep, unrestricted breaths, Molly climbed between the sheets in her nightgown. She didn’t care how early it was. Her body needed rest. It was now customary that she lie on her side and let her mind run free, with everything she had kept pent up during the day. Her grief was quieter now, but each night felt as raw as that first time when she had smiled and banged the lion’s head knocker on Mrs Duggan’s door.
‘. . . Very unexpected . . . It concerns her brother, Johan. Circumstances are all a bit murky and we don’t really know quite what happened, but he’s been killed. Her parents got the telegram late yesterday. A terrible business . . .’
Only an hour later she woke with a start and a grumbling ache in her pelvis.
No no no no! Her instinct told her that this rude awakening was nothing good. And then it came, sharp and fierce: a searing pain that felt like a knife in her gut, but working from the inside out. She put her hands between her legs and felt the soaked mattress and nightdress.
‘Not yet, no – it’s too soon, too soon! Oh my God, oh dear God!’ she said into the ether.
She must have yelled or screamed out because she heard her mother call up from the parlour. Ignoring her, Molly hauled herself out of bed before staggering along the hallway to the bathroom. Her bare feet were sticky on the linoleum floor as she locked the door. Instinct told her to squat and this she did, holding on to the side of the tub for support. The position offered momentary relief. She was sweating, her hair loose about her shoulders, stuck to her face and forehead. Without warning and more quickly than she would have anticipated, wave after wave of pain rippled through her and it was all she could think about. No sooner did one wave calm and she found a second to catch her breath than the next one started, building to an almost unbearable crescendo. And pretty soon, all the waves rolled into one with no glorious moment of relief in between when she could catch her breath.
Molly became aware of the sound of her mother stomping up the stairs.
Oh please, please go away! Just go away! she prayed, to no avail.
‘Aargh!’ The shout surprised her. Her body doubled with pain that was cutting and unexpected in both its ferocity and duration. Her mother banged on the door.
‘Molly! Good Lord above, what is going on in there? With all this crashing, bashing and shouting I can hardly hear the wireless. Molly? Molly, answer me!’
She wished she could answer, wanted nothing more than to tell her mother she was fine, to find a tranquil voice that would allay her mother’s fears and send her scurrying back to the parlour and her wireless. Some part of her brain also registered that to speak calmly would soothe her baby, convinced that to hear this level of distress would do it no good at all.
‘Aaaaaaah!’ She hadn’t meant to shout out again, hadn’t intended to make a peep, but it was beyond her. Her reaction was as visceral as it was overwhelming – her body’s natural response to the sensation of being torn apart. ‘Mum,’ she managed between tight breaths, panting like a dog, ‘Mum . . . go . . . go . . .’
Again her mother banged hard on the door. ‘Unless you unlock the door right this very second and let me in, I will have to take action. Talk to me, Molly! For goodness’ sake, talk to me – are you ill?’ Her mother’s voice had gone up an octave.
Molly gripped the side of the tub and bore down, gritting her teeth as the sweat poured from her, and the low, growling noise she made was almost primal, drawn from deep within. She was lost to the pain over which she had no control. Her mother’s next words barely registered.
‘I don’t know what’s going on in there, but I don’t like the sound of it. I’m going to fetch Mr Mason to come and barge the door down!’
There was a br
ief lull, a pleasant welcome moment of silence that wrapped Molly. A chance to breathe, she hoped, but before she had time to gather her thoughts came a further strong contraction, followed immediately by another, so fast and so intense they took her breath away, leaving her suspended on a crest of pain so acute, so all-consuming, that she felt she was hovering above the floor, above reality, lost to this intense and unnatural feeling that was such an immense shock to her body and mind.
The baby came quickly then. And the surprise of it was enough to make her sob. There it suddenly was: a slithering, damp little thing that looked to be all arms and legs. No more than a couple of pushes really and there it was – he, there he was – delivered into her own hands, fresh with blood and more liquid than she would have expected, but then she hadn’t known what to expect. She had read a book and knew enough about the rudiments of pregnancy, but no book could ever have explained how this felt, the brutality of it, the raw pain, and yet at the same time how wonderfully invincible it made her feel to have come through it.
‘Oh . . . oh!’ she managed through her tears as she gripped her little boy tightly with one hand and reached for the towel in which she wrapped him. He screamed – yelled! It was loud and violent and she understood, wanting to yell at the world too!
Molly, feeling quite light-headed now, sank down onto the bath mat and leaned against the side of the tub. It was shocking what she had been through, but she was at the same time euphoric. With trembling limbs she held her baby, kissing his squashed little face and taking in every bit of him, not at all alarmed by the umbilicus that still connected her to this beautiful, beautiful boy.
‘Oh, Johan!’ She looked towards the window and up at the shadowy moon. ‘Johan – your son, our son!’ Her tears were hot and splashed down onto the face of her boy. He raised his little fist and batted at his cheeks, eyes screwed shut as his wailing stopped, and then he looked up towards the ceiling with the milky gaze of new, unfocused lenses, a tiny new human. A wonderful thing!
An Ordinary Life Page 9
