An Ordinary Life

by Amanda Prowse

  ‘I wouldn’t have expected you to, Joyce, but thank you.’ Molly thought for the first time how her sister had everything she didn’t – a stable marriage, a beautiful home of her own in the suburbs and money in the bank, but not this one thing, a baby, the very best thing . . . Life was so unfair.

  ‘No, thank you. Holding him has been the loveliest thing I’ve done in as long as I can remember. You’re very lucky.’

  ‘I feel very lucky.’ And in that moment as Joyce handed her back her son, it was the truth.

  Dr Venables, her second visitor, had checked on her and her newborn. His officious manner and clipped tone told her he was less than impressed with the fact that she had not confided in him, but that was too bad. He confirmed that her confinement was nearly up and that she would soon be ready to get up and get out, take fresh air and get some exercise.

  ‘And I can go back to work?’ she had asked, not that she had had a reply to her letter, as she swaddled Joe back into a crocheted blanket she had found in the linen press on the landing.

  The doctor gave a wry laugh, distorted by a snort through his large nose. ‘If you think that wise or indeed possible.’

  ‘I do, actually, Doctor.’

  ‘Which?’ he fired back at her.

  ‘Both.’ Molly stared at him until he looked away and went over to do up the clasps on his ancient leather Gladstone bag, leaving her with Joe. His words, which had been discouraging and laden with hidden portent, still echoed around the walls.

  Once Dr Venables had left, Molly decided to ask Mrs Mason outright if she might be interested in caring for Joe when she returned to work. If she was unable to get the Ministry to see sense or even respond, then she would take any other job that came her way. It wasn’t as if there weren’t plenty of opportunities for a fit woman like her.

  Molly waited until she heard the front door close and, confident then that her mother had left the house, made her way down the stairs with her son in her arms. She walked slowly along the street, the warm summer breeze lifting her hair and her spirits. With a brisk knock on the front door of the Masons’ house, Molly stood back on the top step, taking a deep lungful of air; it was such a novelty being outside in the bright light: restorative. She smiled brightly and full of hope as Mr Mason opened the door.

  ‘Oh, Molly!’ He looked at the floor and for the first time she considered that he might carry some awkwardness from what had passed between them and what he had seen. This only encouraged her to be bold, knowing that if they were to live in such close proximity, it was something they needed to get over pretty quickly.

  ‘Hello, Mr Mason. How are you?’

  ‘Good! Yes, good.’ He avoided looking at her directly, which did nothing to instil confidence. ‘Would you like to come in?’ He gestured down the hallway of his home, but curiously did not stand aside to allow her entry, forcing her to stand with baby Joe out on the step.

  ‘No, no, I don’t want to disturb you, but thank you. In fact, thank you for the clothes you very kindly dropped off for Joe and for being there when . . .’ – she let this trail – ‘and for fetching your sister.’ She smiled at the thought of these people, strangers, who had become part of her story.

  ‘Not at all. And you can rely on our discretion if that is what is concerning you.’ He smiled and looked from her to her son. ‘He’s a bonny little fellow.’

  ‘He really is.’ She smiled into the face of her boy, both delighted and buoyed up by the compliment. ‘I was wondering if I might speak to Mrs Mason?’ She peered down the hallway behind him.

  Mr Mason gave a hearty chuckle. ‘Oh, Molly, I’m afraid not. Mrs Mason has been on the coast in Dorset for some months and will stay there until the end of the war. It’s far safer.’

  ‘. . . boringly safe – an exercise no more, off the Devon coast. Does it get any safer than that?’ These words now rang in her head.

  ‘I see. I had thought maybe’ – she paused – ‘the baby clothes . . . I’d assumed that Mrs Mason had—’

  ‘Oh, that was entirely down to me. I thought the boy might need them.’ He rocked on his heels.

  ‘He did, and . . . and thank you. It was very kind.’ She watched as their neighbour looked over her head and glanced along the street, as if embarrassed by her very presence. ‘I should probably’ – Molly jerked her head in the direction of home – ‘I should get him inside. Thank you again,’ she offered as brightly as she was able and rushed along the pavement, keen to get back to the safety of her bedroom, where she sat and rocked her baby, mumbling to herself, ‘What am I going to do, Joe? What do I do now? How do I make this work?’

  Surely there would be facilities in place all over the city for working mothers or orphans or for the many families who found themselves displaced. Tomorrow she would wrap up her boy and take him out into the big wide world, to find a nursery, a crèche, anywhere she might be able to leave him for the working day. Remembering Joyce’s disdain for the idea, the thought filled her with worry about the level of care he might receive, but it was better than sitting in the bedroom and struggling.

  As night drew in and with Joe bathed, fed and settled in his crib, Molly lay back on her bed and opened up an old exercise book with loose sheets inside of her father’s scribblings. Her eyes fell upon his family-famous poem about Brussels sprouts. She read it aloud for Joe’s benefit.

  ‘Green and round and perfect, the beauty of the sprout,

  Yet it’s I alone who love them, causing many a chap to pout,

  “Lord, no!” they yell when presented with a sprout upon a plate.

  These are the chaps I favour, knowing if I’m their mate –

  That sprout will make a leap – from their dinner plate to mine and

  That my friend is glorious! Rather sprouts than fine wine!’

  Molly felt her mouth lift in the beginnings of a smile. This funny version of her father she had never got to know.

  ‘And you have a grandson now, Papa. His name is Joe – a cousin for Clementine, David’s little girl.’ She ran her fingers over his handwriting, talking about the family members he had never got to meet. It made her think again of Johan’s parents and she decided to write to them, to offer an olive branch, certain she could get the address from Mrs Duggan, and hoping her words might make them come around . . . Her bedroom door opened suddenly, interrupting her thoughts, and Molly closed the book with a snap.

  Her mother’s eyes were small and her mouth tight and Molly could tell that whatever it was her mother wanted to say had been cued up and practised on her tongue long before this moment. She reminded Molly of a coiled spring.

  ‘I am quite mystified at your behaviour!’ she began. ‘Mystified and mortified on your behalf! It seems it’s not enough to have ruined your own life and brought shame to my home, but apparently you have seen fit to further humiliate me by parading the bastard up and down the street, as bold as brass for the whole community to see!’ Her mother’s jowls shook.

  Molly ground her teeth at the use of a word so offensive to her ears and looked down at her son, who was miraculously sleeping through it all. ‘Don’t call him that.’

  ‘Have you no shame? No self-respect? Can you imagine my horror when Mrs Granton-Smythe waved to me from her parlour window? She was surprisingly cordial and desperate to chat. I waited while she ran down her steps with her spectacles in her hand, as if she’d been scouring the street, waiting for me.’

  No doubt about it, the frightful woman. Molly kept this to herself.

  ‘She then asked if I was well and if you were well and I told we were – quite well.’ Her mother’s voice cracked. ‘She then proceeded to enquire as to whose was the baby she had seen you with earlier, wandering down the street. I lied to her – as God is my witness, I felt forced to tell a lie! I told her you were minding the child for a friend who was indisposed, but I could tell by the slight smile on her mouth that she did not believe a word of it!’

  ‘I don’t care what she thinks.’


  ‘Well, you jolly well should!’ Her mother shouted loudly now, and flecks of spittle left her mouth. ‘You jolly well should care! And even if you don’t, even if you are too far down the route of sin and misadventure to know right from wrong, I care!’ She yelled again, jabbing herself in the chest. ‘I care, Mary Florence! This is my reputation that is at stake. What in God’s name possessed you to go out into the street?’ She gave her daughter no time to answer. ‘You float around like some ethereal creature, revelling in this state, wearing it like a badge of honour, but it is not good and you appear to be the only one who can’t see just how wicked a thing it is that you have done. You have had a child out of wedlock!’ Her mother covered her mouth with a shaking hand as if to voice the fact was almost a sin in itself.

  ‘Why does it matter what some old gossip thinks? Why didn’t you say, “Oh, that’s Molly’s baby” and be done with it, then there’s no need for her or anyone to guess or gossip. I think if we look at it positively, it means—’

  ‘You think it’s a case of staying positive?’ Mrs Collway clearly had not picked up on the tone of Molly’s words. ‘You still don’t seem to fully grasp the situation. You have blotted your own copybook,’ her mother said sharply again. ‘You will be considered no good, disgusting, loose! And I will be associated with that for as long as you and that child are here! People will question how I have raised you, question my morals!’

  ‘What people?’

  ‘People whose opinions matter!’ her mother shouted, and Joe shifted, threatening to wake.

  ‘Does it really matter what anyone thinks or what anyone says?’ Molly did her best to keep her voice calm while her stomach churned with the reality of her predicament, and her mother’s lack of support made everything feel infinitely harder.

  ‘Oh, don’t be stupid, girl! Are you honestly that naive? You will be ostracised. How in God’s name do you intend to care for him, pay for him?’

  ‘I’m figuring it out. I’ve made an approach to return to work with a girl I trust and I still have some savings to pay my way. And I was thinking I might wear a ring’ – she hoped her mother might be on board with this face-saving plan – ‘and say my husband was killed. He was killed.’ Her tears fell unbidden. Oh, Johan, my love! I need you. I need you right now!

  ‘How dare you call yourself a widow when I have lost your father! How dare you compare our marriage to some sordid dalliance!’

  ‘It wasn’t a dalliance. And it was not sordid. And I don’t regret it.’ Molly kept her voice low. The simple truth was that maybe Geer was right – how could it have been love? And then it came to her, an image of his intense gaze offering words of devotion when time was slipping from their grasp. ‘I loved Johan and he loved me. And I can do it, Mum. Please. There are plenty of widows and orphans in this city – who would know the difference?’

  ‘Oh wake up, Molly, you’re being foolish. You are going to condemn this child to a terrible life. Illegitimacy and infidelity are stains that do not wash off, not ever! As a woman of low moral conduct, what job do you think you might secure, exactly? You are consigning him to a life of scrabbling around for pennies and wondering where his next meal is coming from. Have you been to the East End? Have you seen how people like this live?’ Mrs Collway spat.

  ‘But that won’t happen, Mum! I’m smart and I can have a career. If we can stay here, just for a bit; if you could see your way to help with—’

  ‘Oh no, my girl! Oh no.’ Her mother’s chin jutted as she cut her short. ‘Be under no illusion that a bastard has any place under this Christian roof. Any place at all.’

  ‘But . . .’ Molly was staggered to find that she did not have the words. She thought of the hours spent with her mother at St George’s, listening to her recite prayers for the poor and unfortunate and giving thanks for her own very good fortune. Molly stared at the woman as if she were a stranger and knew she would never again set foot in a church.

  ‘If you will not see sense, Molly, I have no choice but to ask you to leave and to take the child with you. I’ve been generous thus far, but enough is enough. You have a month. One month, and then either you do the sensible thing and give this child up or you get out, both of you.’

  ‘Give him up?’ Molly’s voice was high-pitched and her heart raced. She jumped from the bed and gathered her son from the crib in which he slept. She held him close, and even the thought was more than she could bear. ‘You underestimate me, Mother. You always have. I would never give him up.’

  ‘And you underestimate me. You have one month.’ Her mother was resolute.

  ‘Where do you suggest we go?’

  ‘That is not my concern.’ Her mother reached out a finger and ran it over Joe’s downy scalp. ‘Poor little mite, I would have thought—’

  Mrs Collway’s sentence was cut short by the sudden wail of the siren, which cracked the air. Molly grabbed the crocheted blanket and the counterpane from the bed and raced down the dark wooden stairs towards the back door. Ordinarily, at the sound of the siren, she would walk slowly, taking her mother by the arm and guiding her down the stairs and out of the house with words of reassurance that belied her own fear. Across the muddy back garden and down the rickety steps to the Anderson shelter they would traipse, with Molly doing her best to make the whole event feel mundane. But not tonight.

  Tonight, with her son pressed to her chest, Molly took a seat on the makeshift bench along the side of the structure, where she rocked him back and forth.

  ‘Look at us, baby Joe, underground like moles, hiding under the earth, but we will be okay. I will keep you safe, my little one,’ she whispered to her child, who slept on, oblivious.

  Her mother’s foot tapped on the step outside the door, feeling her way. She stared at Molly, her chest heaving, clearly out of breath and furious to have been thus abandoned.

  ‘Is this truly what you want for the boy?’ her mother asked. ‘This life, but without the security of a home? Give him up, Molly. Let him go to a family in the country – a married couple. There are plenty who would treasure the gift of a baby. It would be the noblest thing to do, the kindest.’

  ‘And just what would you know about kindness?’ Molly spat.

  The ferocity of her response and the intensity of her stare saw her mother sit down and shrink a little. And Molly was glad, unable to cope with any more of her berating. Not tonight, not when the threat in the skies from the Luftwaffe quite literally hung over them. She imagined what it would be like if an attack came and Joe was in the care of someone else, the kind of facility she had been thinking of earlier, where a woman might have several babies in her care . . . It was a horrific thought. She thought of Alresford, a rural town surrounded by rolling green fields and babbling weirs . . . Was that the solution: to let Johan’s family take him, assuming their anger had dissipated, their grief now come under control?

  Molly shook her head and closed her eyes, burying her face in her son’s blanket. An image of Joyce filled her mind, her lovely sister, who had been denied all the gifts.

  The first bang sounded a little way off. Molly shook, trying to stem the tremble of fear in her limbs. Joe started to cry.

  ‘Don’t cry, darling. It’s okay, sweetie. Don’t you cry.’ She tried to get him to suckle, knowing this usually calmed him, but not tonight. As the sound of the planes grew louder overhead, so his crying increased.

  ‘Close.’ Her mother, whether consciously or not, said the word out loud.

  Then came another loud bang, and this time the shelter shook, grains of dirt fell from the ceiling and pooled in dark tears on the makeshift floor. Molly couldn’t help the scream that left her throat involuntarily. Her limbs trembled as the lights flickered and went out, and there they sat, in the dark, waiting for the sky to fall in, for the earth to fill the shelter, for the house or falling masonry to crush them dead or for Hitler’s boys to score a direct hit and blow them to smithereens.

  This was the reality of war. This frightening, fire-filled night o
f destruction that saw homes destroyed all over the city, families and landmarks wiped out in wanton ruin, was a turning point. The fear Molly felt and the clarity that came with it was like a knife plunging into her chest and piercing her heart, making breathing difficult. She held her son close and tried to take even breaths, tried to recall the words that might soothe him while fighting her own rising sense of panic, remembering what Johan had said, words she now took as advice . . . ‘Children need to feel safe, don’t they? Need to know there’s a steady hand on the tiller, otherwise it’s not fair. Poor little mites . . .’ And as a thought crystallised in her mind, she let out a long, low moan, drawn from her very soul.

  ‘Molly?’ Her mother’s urgent tone floated through the darkness. ‘Molly, what in God’s name is going on? Are you hurt?’

  ‘Shut up,’ she managed. ‘Just shut up.’

  EIGHT

  Bloomsbury, London

  September 1944

  Aged 19

  Molly had spent the last ten days in a kind of subdued panic, having made a decision that was almost too huge to consider. What was the word her mother had used? Ethereal . . . That was it and, yes, Molly did indeed feel a little otherworldly, as if living in a nightmare of her own making and only able to sleep if she put thoughts of separation from her son far from her mind.

  The night the bombs fell so close was the first time she had experienced white-hot fear at the prospect of her baby boy getting hurt. It was the night things changed for Molly, when she fully understood that she could not keep her son safe here in the city. Her only viable alternative was to give him up, just for a while, until peacetime. With Joe now sleeping and her mother having reluctantly agreed to watch him, she made her way to Eaton Square Gardens. It felt good to be out of the house, to close her eyes for a brief second and concentrate on the feel of the sun on her face as it peeped through the clouds, and not the enormous weight of her heavy heart that felt as if it might drop right through her chest and fall to the floor. She felt different now she was a mother out alone, as if she had forgotten something, overly aware of the perils of crossing the road, the abundance of guns carried by the military police and Home Guard and any loud noises that made her jump. She was now on high alert, knowing she needed to return home safely as there was a little human who relied on her. She knew she would have to get used to this feeling: being apart from her baby.