Dead Ernest

by Frances Garrood

  Andrew looked up and smiled at Janet.

  “Lovely shepherd’s pie,” he said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Annie’s Story

  Annie and Ernest started married life in the tiny flat that Ernest rented above an antiques shop in the town. The two rooms were modest, and the bathroom and kitchen shared with the landlady, Mrs Stubbs, a pinched-looking widow of uncertain age, who was in frequent attendance to ensure implementation of blackout regulations and the strict rationing of bathwater. While she was clearly very fond of Ernest, it was obvious that she did not approve of his wife or the ill-timing of her condition, for which she appeared to hold Annie solely responsible.

  Annie was desperately unhappy. Homesick for the farm and her family, missing the outdoor life and the work she was used to, she was bored and lonely. Ernest, meanwhile, made it clear that while he was responsible for earning their living, he expected high standards from his new wife in the housekeeping department. In this, he was soon to be disappointed.

  Apart from her tendency to daydream, Annie had always been a practical girl, but since the war her skills had been mainly restricted to the farm. At home, her mother had seen to the housework and cooking, helped two mornings a week by the daughter of neighbouring farmers, and thus Annie had little experience of washing, cleaning and cooking. She was used to making her own clothes, such as they were, and she could prepare a simple meal and light a fire, but that was about all. Now, her sewing skills were certainly required, not least because her increasing girth needed to be accommodated, but there was no fire to light, and Ernest told her that he expected something both palatable and substantial for his tea when he got home from work.

  Used to the luxury of fresh produce from the farm, Annie was bewildered by some of the ingredients from which she was supposed to make meals. Unaccustomed to queuing for her supplies, she was often too late to buy anything but the cheapest cuts of meat or the most dubious-looking sausages (Ernest was very fussy about sausages, as he suspected — probably rightly — that in these hard times, they were likely to be the repository for all the more distasteful by-products of the butcher’s trade). The pink rubbery texture of spam revolted her (there had been no need for it at home), and her attempts to incorporate dried egg into her cooking were a disaster. How on earth did other people manage, she wondered, endeavouring to cobble together a stew with a few scraps of scrag-end of lamb and a handful of lentils? Who had taught all those bustling queuing housewives what to do with their meagre purchases once they got them home?

  It didn’t help that her struggles in the kitchen were often observed by Mrs Stubbs, who had a disconcerting habit of standing in the doorway with folded arms, commenting on Annie’s efforts.

  “You’ll not get that to work,” she said with satisfaction, the first time Annie tried to make pastry. “You’ve added too much water.”

  “Well, what can I do?” Annie wailed, trying to scrub the sticky dough from her hands.

  “You’ll have to scrap the lot and start over.”

  “But I’ve no more flour, and I promised Ernest a pie for his tea.” Annie was almost in tears.

  “He likes his pies, does Ernest.” Mrs Stubbs seemed to enjoy airing her superior acquaintance with Ernest’s gastronomic requirements. “He used to enjoy my steak and kidney pies, I can tell you. Steak and kidney pie and a bit of mashed potato. That was one of his favourites.”

  Annie longed to hurl the ball of sticky dough at the sour smug face of Mrs Stubbs. She also wondered how the wretched woman managed to get hold of steak and kidney, but she certainly wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of appearing to need her advice. She couldn’t even ask Mrs Stubbs to leave her on her own when she was using the kitchen, because it was Mrs Stubbs’s kitchen and Mrs Stubbs’s house, and inexpensive digs were hard to come by. As for Ernest, he wouldn’t hear a word against the woman who he said had been “like a mother” to him.

  Once a fortnight, Annie and Ernest visited the farm, where the food was as good as ever and where they were afforded a surprisingly warm welcome. Annie’s condition was now openly acknowledged, her married state having apparently afforded it the respectability it had previously lacked, and Annie’s mother appeared to be anticipating the new arrival with considerable excitement. Old towels were brought out to be cut up and hemmed as napkins, and the ancient pram which had been used for Annie and her brothers was rescued from the loft.

  “I remember pushing you up and down the hall in this, our Annie,” her father said, as he cleaned and oiled the wheels. “To get you to drop off so we could have a bit of peace and quiet. We never thought then — well, we never thought one day you’d be pushing your own babby around in this pram.”

  Ernest himself rarely referred to Annie’s pregnancy. It was as though he considered the baby, as well as its begetting, to be Annie’s fault and therefore her responsibility. If the subject had to be addressed, it was left to Annie to bring it up. Otherwise, his manner towards her was, on the whole, courteous, occasionally even tender, but frequently tempered with irritation and a resentment which he had difficulty in concealing. He rarely touched her, restricting any physical contact to a peck on the cheek when he left for work in the mornings, and the occasional brief squeeze of her hand or arm. In her more charitable moments, Annie was able to feel some pity for him. Poor Ernest. Trapped into this marriage, just as she had been, he was probably regretting it as much as she was, for no amount of money could be compensation for a life which was going to be, at the very least, unsatisfactory.

  Had Ernest any feelings left for her? Annie often wondered, and concluded that he probably didn’t. It seemed that the episode in the cornfield had toppled her off her pedestal as surely as if she had contrived to seduce half the county, and it wasn’t as if she had ever asked to be placed on a pedestal in the first place. It was all so desperately unfair. If only the fact that they shared the same fate could somehow bring them together, something might be salvaged from the whole sorry mess, but Annie knew that this could never happen. They were both, in their separate ways, too stiff-necked and strong-minded, victims of their personalities, as well as of their fate.

  Ernest never got his promotion, but in the new year, he was asked whether he would be prepared to be transferred to a branch in the Midlands. The idea appalled Annie, who had hoped that at least they might be able to remain near her home, but Ernest said that it was too good an opportunity to miss. He welcomed the idea of a new start, and besides, property would be cheaper and they would be able to afford a home of their own. So the decision was made. Ernest found a small flat in town, and used the money from Annie’s parents as a deposit. There was also enough to buy a few pieces of utility furniture, and with bedding and linen from the farmhouse and a few pots and pans Annie’s mother no longer needed, they were able to set up house.

  For the first time since their marriage, Ernest seemed genuinely excited.

  “Our own home, Annie. Just think of that! We’ll be able to do just as we like, and I know you’ll make it nice.”

  Annie did her best. She made curtains and cushion covers, she decorated the living-room and white-washed the tiny kitchen and polished the cheap veneer surfaces of the new furniture, but her heart ached with a dull despair. Miles away from her family, the farm, everything and everyone she had ever known and loved, she felt utterly abandoned. She wrote to her parents every week, begging for news, but neither of them had ever been much good at letter-writing, and besides, they were busy, so such letters as they did write were infrequent and brief. It is true that Tom, perhaps understanding her situation better than she had given him credit for, did his best to keep in touch, writing rambling stilted letters about leaking roofs and premature lambs and the pain in his leg, but there was no warmth, no chat, none of the gossip Annie longed for. Mavis did write once or twice, but her letters were full of envy rather than the sympathy Annie craved:

  How lucky you are, Annie! A house of your own, and a baby on the way!
You are quite the grown-up lady now, I’m sure; and would not want to get your hands dirty working with us on the farm. I’m using your wellingtons now. I don’t expect you’ll want them anymore, and they haven’t got so many holes as mine.

  If only Mavis knew. Annie would cheerfully have given up home, marriage, baby and all to be able to wear those wellingtons again and get cold and muddy delivering lambs by torchlight, returning home in the small hours for a mug of hot cocoa and a warm-up by the kitchen range.

  Spring came, although to Annie it seemed barely noticeable. Accustomed to life in the country, she was amazed at how little the town was affected by the changing seasons. At home on the farm, the first signs of spring had been heralded by early lambs, the flowering of snowdrops and aconites and the starkly white blossom of blackthorn in the hedgerows. Here in the town, bulbs sprouted and flowered in tidy clumps in the gardens, blossom appeared in organised sequence, the weather grew milder, but everything seemed colourless and muted; there was none of the exuberance and extravagance of light and colour and sound that accompanied spring in the countryside. Even the dawn chorus seemed subdued, almost apologetic, as though the birds were reluctant to disturb the busy self-importance of town life.

  Annie’s baby was due in the middle of May, and she was filled with fear, for how could anything as big as a baby (and this baby was certainly big; the doctor had told her so) possibly get out of a body as small and slight as Annie’s without causing terrible damage? Despite her experience with the farm animals, she had little idea of what to expect, and there was no mother nearby to advise and support her. She didn’t like to confess her fears to Ernest; she felt sure that he would find the subject distasteful if not embarrassing. Annie herself would certainly have found it very embarrassing indeed.

  But unprepared as she was for the actual birth, Annie had made all the necessary preparations. She had purchased a second-hand crib, and with the help of her additional clothing coupons and some advice from a kindly neighbour, she had assembled a basic layette, but none of these things seemed to bear any relation to the child she was carrying. Fingering the tiny garments, she couldn’t imagine them ever being actually worn by her own baby. She tried to envisage herself fastening napkins and tying the ribbons on miniature vests and nighties, holding and cuddling and feeding this unwelcome stranger, and her imagination failed her.

  Would she love her baby? Mothers were supposed to love their babies, and it would seem that many of them managed it without much effort, but Annie was not particularly maternal, and this baby had caused her so much heartache that the only feeling she had towards it was resentment.

  Annie went into labour a week early in the small hours of the morning. Ernest, shocked into unaccustomed concern, fussed and fretted while they awaited the arrival of the ambulance, and actually held Annie’s hand on the short but bumpy journey (although Annie, who hadn’t expected everything to happen so suddenly and painfully, would much have preferred to have been on her own). As anticipated, the baby was big, and the labour long and hard, and Annie, terrified beyond endurance, fought and screamed until she was exhausted. In her few calmer moments, she remembered the easy slithering of the pinkly polished forms of new piglets as they entered the world, and wondered at the contrast of the protracted agony of childbirth.

  “Mother’s not being very brave,” remarked the midwife unhelpfully, performing her excruciating and intimate examinations of Annie’s writhing body. “We’re not helping baby by behaving like this,” she added, pulling on an enormous and very businesslike looking pair of rubber gloves. “Baby can’t be born unless you help him, you know.”

  Annie’s son finally arrived almost twenty-four hours later. He emerged, blue and bald and howling, while the wind flung rain like handfuls of pebbles against the window outside.

  “A lovely baby boy,” announced the midwife with satisfaction, almost as though this happy outcome were purely a result of her own efforts.

  “Is he supposed to be that colour?” Annie whispered, glimpsing the furiously flailing limbs of her son as he was wiped and weighed and wrapped, almost as though he were some purchase at the butcher’s.

  “He’ll be fine as soon as he’s got some oxygen into his lungs. Would you like to hold him?”

  Annie shook her head. Tired beyond all tiredness she had ever known, dishevelled and damp with sweat, all she wanted to do was to sleep. Thank God she would never, ever have to go through anything like this again.

  The following afternoon, washed and tidied and sitting up in bed in the bed-jacket her mother had knitted for her, she received her first visit from Ernest.

  Annie was surprised at how tired he too seemed to be, and touched at the way he tiptoed into her room.

  “How are you?” he asked, placing a bunch of roses on the bedside table. “How was it?” He stooped and pecked her cheek.

  “Awful.” Annie grimaced. “Thank you for the flowers.”

  “A boy. That’s good,” Ernest said. “Congratulations.”

  “Thank you.”

  There followed a brief silence in which neither of them seemed to know what to say. Ernest shuffled his feet and coughed. “Have you seen him?”

  Annie shook her head. “Not properly.”

  “I have.” Ernest spoke almost shyly. “He’s — beautiful. They let me see him through the glass. I think he’s going to have fair hair. Like yours.” He paused. “What would you — what shall we call him?”

  Annie noted the “we”, and was grateful, for up until now, Ernest had seemed reluctant to acknowledge his role as father of her baby. But she hadn’t thought of a name. The matter had never been discussed between them. She had vaguely thought of calling the baby after her mother if it were a girl, but a boy? She had no idea. For some reason, she hadn’t expected the baby to be a boy.

  “I like William,” Ernest continued. “I’ve always liked William. A nice sensible name. We can call him Billy for short.”

  “Fine. We’ll call him William,” Annie said.

  “Perhaps — William Ernest?”

  Annie opened her eyes and looked at him. Ernest’s expression was eager, almost boyish, and for a moment Annie felt an unexpected wave of affection for him. Could it be that this baby was going to mark a new beginning for them? Maybe — just maybe — there was a chance for them after all.

  She nodded and gave a small smile.

  “William Ernest,” she agreed. “William Ernest Bentley.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Ophelia

  Ophelia sat on the bed which had been hers for the past week and wrote in her diary.

  She had been keeping a diary ever since she was ten, when a godmother had given her a five-year diary as a Christmas present. At first, she had been wary of this unexpected and to a large extent unwanted gift. To invite someone to keep a record of a year’s activities seemed a tall order; of five years’ (half her lifetime so far), almost impossible. But in the end, Ophelia, possibly spurred on by her father’s comment (“well, she’ll never keep that up”) had risen to the challenge, and apart from the few occasions when she had been ill or overtaken by such events as the dismal failing of examinations, she had managed to keep it going. That first diary was, of course, long finished, but each year Ophelia bought a new one, and was now well and truly hooked, not only on the actual process of writing — of watching the words unfurl across the page in flowing black biro (Ophelia had nice handwriting) — but also on the immediate access it gave her to the past.

  Now, she paused, sucking her pen and wondering how much she ought to entrust to pages which could, despite her best efforts, fall into the wrong hands. She had always been careful what she wrote, using codes for anything too personal or damaging, but what code could there possibly be for a violent and passionate infatuation with a married man?

  Infatuation. Ophelia considered the word, and then drew a line through it and substituted the word love. Of course, it was usually accepted that it was not possible really to love someo
ne unless you knew them well, but what other word was there to describe the feeling of recognition, of coming home after a long journey, the sensation of wordless communication which she felt when she was with Andrew? As far as Andrew himself was concerned, she could be quite wrong; she knew that. It was more than possible that he was completely unaware of what was happening to her, for certainly nothing had been said. Such conversations as had taken place between them had been limited to mundane exchanges on safe subjects, nearly all of them in the presence of Annie. And yet there had been those few, precious occasions when they had looked at each other, and everything else had simply melted away and ceased to matter; when Ophelia had felt completely understood, almost as though she and Andrew, for those brief moments, had merged into one. There was physical attraction, certainly, but this seemed secondary to that other deeper magnetism, which was something she had never experienced.

  But, of course, it couldn’t be. It must never be. Whatever Andrew might think or feel, his position made the whole situation untenable. Ophelia turned to the back of the diary to the Notes section, and made a neat list.

  1. He’s married (probably unhappily, but could be wrong. Don’t know for sure).

  2. He’s old enough to be my father (40? Difficult to tell).

  3. He’s a vicar; and I don’t go to church.

  4. He’s Gran’s friend, and I don’t want to spoil things for her.

  Of course, the last three objections could be overcome. Age didn’t matter so very much, although her parents would object (but then they would probably object to anyone Ophelia fell in love with). Besides, Ophelia knew that in many ways she was quite mature for her age; being an only child had helped, but having to stand up to her parents had done even more. For with Sheila and Billy, there had been only two options: toe the line, or be yourself. Ophelia had long since chosen the latter.