An Ordinary Life

by Amanda Prowse

  David nodded. ‘Mum wrote to me, horrified of course, ranting even – the very last thing a chap wanted to receive in already trying circumstances, but there we are. I found it easier to get on with the job if I could believe that everything at home was fine. I know Clara kept a lot of her sadness to herself. I’m only now finding out how tough she’s found it all. In fact, it’s a topic she’s quite fond of.’ He gave a wry laugh.

  Molly felt a new and warm respect for this woman who was her sister-in-law.

  ‘And what Clara doesn’t yet know is that I’m going to be based in London during the week. The hospitals are still fully stretched and I’ll be of best use up here, but I’ll get digs or stay here and, hopefully, Clara and Clementine can come with me.’

  ‘I hope I can see you more.’

  ‘Me too.’ He smiled.

  ‘It doesn’t feel real, David . . . what I went through,’ she whispered, the first time she had openly expressed such thoughts.

  ‘What doesn’t exactly?’ he asked gently, and she knew this was the voice of the doctor in him and not her brother.

  ‘If I think about the last couple of years, it all feels like too much. Johan was’ – she paused – ‘he was marvellous, and we were so very excited about our future, and then to find out I was pregnant and to lose him, and then’ – she swallowed – ‘it felt like the best option in the world to give Joe a good start and keep him safe with Joyce and Albert, and he really is the dearest little boy!’ She beamed. ‘But now—’

  ‘But now what?’

  ‘I’ve been with him this weekend for the first time properly and it’s been wonderful! But I’m a stranger to him, and I understand that. I expected it, thought I had prepared myself, but I couldn’t have predicted how terrible it would feel.’

  ‘Children are adaptable—’

  ‘Yes, so everyone tells me,’ she said, drawing breath. ‘But it’s really brought home how much I’ve missed. I thought he’d be fine with me in my rooms in St Pancras for a short while, because I still at some level pictured him as a baby, but I can see that he lives in a beautiful home and to drag him to my place wouldn’t be fair. I need to find a decent house sharpish and give him the best life I can. We’re starting over, really, and it’s a little terrifying to be going it alone.’

  ‘It is, but you can do it.’

  ‘I can and I will.’ She nodded, picturing a bedroom painted pale blue with aeroplanes hanging from the ceiling . . .

  Their mother stirred. David raced to her side and Molly went quickly to the other side of the bed. Her mother’s eyes were milky, her breathing laboured.

  ‘Mary Florence,’ she managed, her voice weak. ‘God sees all and he forgives all.’ She paused. ‘Forgiveness.’ Again she closed her eyes.

  Molly looked at her brother, trying to fathom the nature of her mother’s words: an apology, maybe – was she seeking forgiveness? Or had she overheard their conversation?

  ‘Cup of tea?’ David whispered.

  Molly nodded and they left their mother dozing. David made his way down the stairs and Molly walked to the end of the corridor and slowly opened her old bedroom door. She ran her fingers over the writing bureau and then opened the wardrobe doors, digging underneath the sheets of newspaper placed there to catch the dust. And there it was: a letter, unopened, unsent and addressed to Lieutenant Johan de Fries, marked ‘Personal Correspondence’. She brought the envelope to her lips and pictured the words written inside:

  I so wish the news could have come from my mouth into your ear and then my lips could have touched yours, but this is the next best thing, a letter.

  Molly popped the letter in her pocket and crept back along the hallway. She could hear the sweet tones of Joyce and David, reunited, floating up the stairs as she stepped into her mother’s room and slowly took a seat on the mattress by her side.

  ‘I do forgive you, Mum,’ she whispered, ‘and I hope you forgive me.’ Bending forward, she gently kissed her mother on the forehead.

  ‘Two . . .’ her mother managed, her voice gravelly, ‘two grandchildren . . .’

  ‘Yes. Yes!’ Molly smiled, stroking the soft, crêpey skin on the back of her mum’s hand. ‘You have two – Clementine and Joe.’ She felt the smallest pressure from her mother’s fingers in return, a hug of sorts and the very best gift her mother could have given her, legitimising and accepting her grandson. It meant everything to Molly and filled her with confidence that she could and would be the very best mother to Joe; she would make him a wonderful little home.

  Molly looked up at the sound of Joyce at the door.

  ‘Oh, look at her,’ Joyce sniffed, slumping down in the chair David had recently vacated. She took their mother’s other hand and held it to her cheek. ‘Isn’t it wonderful to see David?’ Joyce whispered.

  ‘It really is,’ Molly could only agree, as she slowly stood and left her mother and sister together.

  The kettle, she noticed, was already set to boil on the stove down in the kitchen. David sat at the square table where Molly had eaten more than her fair share of lonely suppers. She thought of the night she had neglected to come home for brawn and pickles: One drink! And I mean it, one.

  ‘Albert’s taken the little one around the block for a bit of fresh air. He’s a dear little thing, Molly.’

  She smiled at her brother. ‘Thank you.’ Her mother’s words had given her confidence; only yesterday, she knew, the same phrase from her brother would have left her unsure of the protocol, wondering whether or not it was her compliment to accept. She made the tea, reaching for cups, tea strainer, milk and whatnot with the ease of someone familiar with the kitchen. To herself she gave her great-grandmother’s dainty china cup decorated in forget-me-nots.

  ‘Poor old Mum.’ She looked around this kitchen, where the poor woman had spent so many hours of her life, her touch on every inch of it.

  David nodded. ‘I’ve seen so many young men who would have loved the privilege of dying at an old age, safe and warm in their family home’ – he paused, pinching the bridge of his nose – ‘so I know how fortunate she is, even though it’s sad for us.’

  ‘Of course.’ She thought, as she often did, of Violet.

  David shook a cigarette from a packet and lit it, inhaling deeply. He offered her one.

  ‘No, thanks, I don’t. Someone put me off at a very young age.’

  David laughed. ‘How old were you?’

  ‘About nine!’ she tutted. ‘I was fascinated, watching you smoke out of the attic window. I thought it looked very cool and so when you passed it to me . . .’ She pulled a face.

  ‘I remember you coughing like billy-o and retching until you were sick. I felt very bad.’

  ‘You did not feel very bad, David! You laughed until you had tears running down your face and all at my misfortune, you rotten thing! Can you imagine me giving a cigarette to Clementine?’

  ‘No.’ He grimaced. ‘What an awful thought. Do you forgive me?’

  ‘I do.’

  They both laughed. His next words, however, were more sobering.

  ‘You know, Moll, what you said about everything being a little terrifying . . . You don’t need to live by anyone else’s standards, you just have to do what’s right for you and Joe.’

  ‘I know that.’ She splashed milk into the teacups.

  David nodded. ‘Are you happy?’

  ‘Happy?’ she repeated, as the kettle boiled. ‘I think happy would be a stretch, but I’m perfectly fine and I’m optimistic that happy is achievable.’ She doused the tea leaves with hot water and popped the lid on the teapot. ‘I think, like all of us, I’m still processing what I’ve seen and what I’ve lost.’ She gazed into her brother’s eyes, knowing he would understand. ‘I’ve been in some terrible, terrible situations . . .’ Again the soundtrack and pictures played in her head, the way Violet had looked at her and that gurgle . . . that appalling gurgle . . .

  ‘Okay, but promise me, Molly’ – David’s tone was deadly serious �
� ‘that if you are ever not fine and the world feels like too much, then please, please promise that you will tell me so I can help you.’

  ‘Okay, David, bossy boots!’ She rolled her eyes.

  He stood and caught her wrist. ‘No, Moll, I am not joking. There’s something about you that I’ve seen before.’ He drew breath. ‘I think you’re trying to contain everything, but sometimes when we try to keep everything bottled up, when we tightly pack our emotions, we crack and it all comes leaking out.’

  She stared at him but did not disagree.

  ‘You’ve been through a lot and, if ever you feel that you’re on the edge or things are unravelling, call me or get someone else to call me and I’ll help you. Promise me!’ He spoke with an urgency that told her he was not prepared to lose anyone else, while his reaction suggested that he considered her unravelling to be a distinct possibility. It scared her more than she could say.

  ‘I promise.’ She tilted her head and their eyes met. ‘I promise.’

  Molly opened the French windows and looked out over the cottage garden. It was a space full of possibilities; bowers heavy with blossom that promised a good crop of apples in late summer, a glorious climbing lilac against the back wall and overgrown winding paths that, when cut back, she could picture a little boy with a strong sense of curiosity hopscotching along to build secret dens in the wide hedging.

  ‘And it’s not too far from the local school?’

  ‘No, a ten-minute walk at most. How old is your child?’ the man asked.

  ‘He’s only a baby, but they grow up fast. I blinked and nine months passed!’ She laughed at the truth of this statement.

  ‘Absolutely. Well, this is a lovely family area, quiet. Chelmsford is a good place to live.’

  Molly nodded; she could certainly see herself in a lovely little cottage like this.

  ‘I’m assuming that you will need to return with Mr Collway?’

  ‘Oh, that’s very sweet of you, but my father died, and I really see no need to bring my brother over; after all, he won’t be living here. It would be me and my son, just the two of us.’ She held the man’s gaze and kept her voice steady, knowing she was going to have to get used to the conversation and face it head on.

  ‘Of course.’ The man inclined his head, indicating she had made her point.

  ‘I had intended to rent, but a mortgage does seem to make sense,’ she thought aloud.

  ‘Absolutely.’ This, she learned, was his habitual word. ‘I know a lot of people are wary of mortgages – they think it’s debt, but it’s more of a very favourable loan from the bank and at the end of the term, you will own the house outright, something you never get with a rental. A home is for life.’

  ‘Yes.’ She thought of the house in Old Gloucester Street that her parents had bought when they were first married and which now, after her mother’s funeral in three days’ time, would become part of the estate, to be divided up between herself and her two siblings. ‘What’s the price again?’

  ‘It’s on the market for eight hundred pounds.’

  ‘That’s an awful lot of money.’

  ‘It is a lot of money, but it’s also security for the future and a jolly nice place to live.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Molly agreed, feeling her cheeks redden as the word popped out. ‘Can I go and have another look at the bedrooms? I forgot to look at the view.’

  ‘Yes, of course, but please do mind the stairs; this is a very old cottage and they’re a little steep.’

  Telsie jumped up the moment Molly walked into their shared office the following morning.

  ‘So what was the house like?’

  Molly was touched the girl had remembered. Telsie’s enthusiasm, however, for this and all things, no matter how mundane, was standard.

  ‘Quite lovely, actually. Quaint, with the most glorious garden. I told the bank I’d take it!’ She shrugged her shoulders, smiling at her colleague.

  ‘Goodness, that’s huge – you’ve bought a house!’ Telsie clapped her hands in joy.

  ‘I did or, more accurately, I am buying a house.’

  ‘A house, Molly! Your own front door, your own garden, your own kitchen – how very exciting.’

  ‘It really is. And a bedroom for Joe and even a spare.’

  ‘Joe, your son,’ Telsie confirmed.

  ‘Yes.’ Molly hadn’t mentioned him often, preferring not to mix her personal life with her job. ‘I can see us living there.’

  ‘Family is everything,’ Telsie whispered. Molly was again reminded that this girl had none, and it was jarring. She couldn’t imagine a life without the support of Joyce and David.

  ‘Well, once I’ve got the keys and have got settled, you should come and have tea. I can’t promise any great patisseries, but I might be able to rustle up a biscuit.’

  She felt embarrassed at how the girl’s face lit up, as if she had offered her something precious.

  ‘Oh, Molly – yes! That would be absolutely wonderful.’

  ‘Well, that’s all settled then.’ It felt good to know how much joy a simple invitation had brought the girl.

  This conversation came at the end of the day, as Molly wrote the last of her notes on one of three men they had visited the previous week in Sussex, who was in a relationship with a local girl called Millicent. The girl had slipped her hand inside his as they spoke to her directly.

  ‘What can I say, Miss Collway? I’ve had a lot of stick, what with people spitting at me in the street, calling me the worst names imaginable. My own mother won’t have him at her table, but Ralph is a good man and you can’t help who you fall in love with, can you?’

  ‘No, you can’t, Millicent,’ she had agreed. ‘No, you can’t.’

  ‘I didn’t know whether to mention it earlier because I didn’t want to upset your day, but I was very sorry to hear about your mother,’ Telsie offered quietly, as Molly closed the file.

  ‘Thank you, Telsie. It was a pleasant death, really. My brother and sister and I were with her and she just went to sleep.’ Molly pictured the rather anticlimactic moment, as she and David sat on either side of their mother, cups of tea in hand, while Joyce leaned on the windowsill. They watched her slow, stuttering breaths, and then suddenly she wasn’t breathing and that was that. ‘It’s strange because we weren’t close, not for a couple of years now, and I think I should be feeling more, but somehow I don’t.’

  Telsie nattered so much it felt easy to be this candid. The girl seemed to consider this. ‘That’s strange for me because I lost everyone all at once and so no one had the individual grief they deserved; instead it was all lumped together in one big bundle of sadness and it’s hard for me to think about any one of them – they’re all entwined in my head. I don’t know how they died, not exactly, which is probably a good thing. I picture them in the water and dream they call to me with their arms stretched up and their eyes pleading, but I can’t get to them.’ She tapped her forehead. ‘I can’t let myself think about it or I go cuckoo.’

  Molly understood this, remembering not so long ago, when the image of Johan leaning on a postbox was enough to see her crumple with grief. ‘I’m so sorry, Telsie. I should think more and speak less.’

  ‘Now I’m sorry for making you feel bad.’ Telsie sighed. ‘Can we just call it quits, because there’s one hell of a lot of feeling sorry going on here and I have a bus to catch.’

  Molly laughed. She might not have intended to make a friend in Telsie, but it seemed to be happening anyway.

  ‘I hope everything goes okay with the funeral.’ Telsie smiled. ‘See you the day after tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes, see you the day after tomorrow.’

  Telsie grabbed her handbag, swinging it as she waved cheerily and practically skipped from the building.

  Molly got back to her digs and couldn’t help but compare them to the sweet cottage she had found in Chelmsford. One look at the grubby hallway and Molly knew she had done the right thing in buying the cottage. She pictured Joe i
n his little pyjamas while she read him a bedtime story and kissed him goodnight . . . How she longed to feel his arms around her neck when he held on to her like he did Joyce. With her old peach-coloured housecoat pulled up to her chin, she tried to identify a lingering scent from her baby Joe on the fabric, once or twice catching a gentle whiff, breathing so deep and fast that it left her quite light-headed. Her desperate need to smell his baby odour left her spent, but it was worth it just to inhale one tiny molecule of her boy, of her milk and of their too brief time together. The thought alone was enough to make her smile, even as she sat on the saggy bed in the small room where old layers of wallpaper hung in flaps from the walls, revealing tea-coloured stains of damp plaster. She picked up her precious brass button and ran it over her cheek for comfort, missing her love and their precious boy.

  Molly barely slept, which was not unusual, but lay silently mourning her mother, her sadness somewhat eased, however, by their final exchange. She rose early and washed herself in the little plastic basin with water warmed on the hot plate in a saucepan, once more picturing how she and Joe would take their baths in a tin tub by the fire in the cottage in Chelmsford. She brushed her hair and swept it up at the side before fastening it with a tortoiseshell comb, and pulled her one good dress from the wooden hanger: mustard-coloured wool with a pussy-bow tie-neck and a high-waisted skirt. It was important that she looked her best, wanting not only to pay her respects to her mother in the right way, but also to send a very clear message to the likes of Mrs Granton-Smythe that she was a single woman in control, a single woman with a son.

  David and Clara had spent the night with her mother in the house; Clementine was with her maternal grandparents in Dorset, deemed too young to be present. And Joe was apparently being dropped with Mrs Mason until after the funeral, their neighbour having positively leapt, according to Joyce, at the chance of babysitting the little one. The plan was still for Joyce, Albert, Molly and Joe all to spend time together to enable a smooth transition and, with things in train to secure the cottage in Chelmsford, they had decided that Joe would come to her when she had the keys and just before Joyce and Albert left for Canada.