The Orphan Sisters: An Utterly Heartbreaking and Gripping World War 2 Historical Novel

by Shirley Dickson

  She heard footsteps approaching. Etty’s heart hammered in her chest.

  ‘You do know you’ve spoiled everything.’

  ‘Yes. I’m sorry, really I am––’

  ‘But I respect,’ his voice changed, becoming conciliatory, ‘that you could have married us without saying anything about the bairn.’

  ‘I’d never stoop to such trickery.’

  A pause.

  ‘It’s definitely over with… him?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ Shame and regret burned inside Etty.

  There was ruffling noise, and then he took her hand and placed what felt like a little velvet box in it.

  ‘I’ll marry you,’ he said, ‘but I have a condition. On reflection, make that two. As far as anyone’s concerned, the bairn you carry is mine. And we’ll never speak of it again.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have it any other way. The other condition?’

  A pause. ‘You be the one to tell Ma we’re going to wed.’

  Etty despaired at Trevor’s reluctance to cross his mother. He still hadn’t introduced the pair of them and Etty wondered at his reticence.

  ‘Agreed, but I also have a condition. Can we marry as quickly as possible?’ She didn’t want folk doing the sums.

  A pause.

  ‘Good idea. We don’t want Ma suspicious about dates.’

  Etty inwardly groaned. Mistress Knowles was turning out to be right, she was making a mess of her life.

  ‘Man, is this shift never ganna end?’

  The male voice came from Trevor’s right. He swivelled his head and as he peered into the gloom, the lamp attached to his hard hat shed a pool of light in the dark tunnel.

  Trevor worked as a filler at the coalface in a four-foot-high tunnel as black as night. Knees protected by leather pads, he shovelled lumps of coal onto a conveyor belt that ran behind him. The atmosphere was humid, sweat trickled from every pore and, in an attempt to keep the filthy air from reaching his lungs, he kept his mouth clamped firmly shut and breathed through his nose.

  He didn’t acknowledge the pitman who spoke, only grunting a reply.

  ‘Right, lads,’ the deputy hollered, ‘everybody out.’

  Trevor downed his shovel and, as he wiped his brow with a forearm, a rank smell of sweat wafted from his armpits. He wrinkled his nose in disgust.

  Even if the work was classified as a reserved occupation, keeping him out of the war, Trevor hated the job. Not that he would have bleated if he had been called up. He would have gone all right, to do his bit, but killing his fellow man was something he would rather not do, given the chance.

  Crawling on all fours, he followed the pitman in front, the beam from the lamp on Trevor’s helmet showing the way through a forest of pit props that secured a rock-solid roof. He then walked along the mothergate where the coal, gleaming like black gems was spilled from a conveyer belt through a hopper and into four-wheeled tubs. He made his way into the main throughway and straddled the railway line, ever conscious that tubs ferrying coal might hurtle by.

  The studs on his boots made a racket on the stone ground as he trailed behind the rest of the men, though he heard their voices echoing along the tunnel.

  A boyish voice piped up, ‘If I had me way, I’d be in Africa with the troops.’

  ‘By, that would terrify Jerry,’ a gruff voice said.

  Great guffaws bounced off the walls.

  ‘Me da says that’s where the action is.’ The young voice sounded peeved.

  ‘Lad, had yer tongue. You’re just oot o’ nappies.’

  As the men rounded a bend in the tunnel, the voices receded.

  Noticing the steel rope beneath his boots vibrating, Trevor dived for cover in a refuge hole dug in the wall and waited. The air changed, becoming intensified, and then tubs of coal, hauled by steel rope, thundered past. In the eerie silence that followed, Trevor emerged from his cover and made for the mineshaft.

  His thoughts returned to yesterday’s conversation with Etty and how his guts had twisted when she’d told him she was expecting. What a shocker that was. What surprised him was the anger – no, the jealousy he’d felt when Etty confessed she’d been with another man. Trevor loved her and had scarcely been able to wait for the time they made love and… damn it… he wanted to be her one and only. He could never express how deeply he felt because words of love didn’t come easily to him and besides, what man in his right mind confesses to such emotions?

  Now, Etty had bloody well gone and spoiled it all.

  Trevor would give his eyeteeth to know who this mysterious fella was. Where had they met? Was he a workmate? All Trevor knew was he’d knock the fella to kingdom come if he ever clapped eyes on him.

  As anger had turned into disbelief, Trevor had calmed down. Etty was a lot of things but not a liar and in his heart he believed that it had been a one-night affair. He’d heard tales of folk driven over the rim, behaving out of sorts in this mad war. The realisation hit him, that if he and Etty were to have a future, he’d have to put this business behind him.

  Trevor came to an air lock and, passing through, his lanky frame was able to walk upright. At the final bend, he swung round the beam, polished smooth by a generation of hands before him. At the mineshaft, he sat on a bench and waited for the cage. His mind foggy with lack of sleep, reality slipped away and he saw scenes in his mind’s eye, like a play: Etty, head thrown back, laughing hysterically at something funny at the flicks; her voluptuous figure as they glided across the dance floor; how her chin jutted when she wanted her own way.

  He rubbed his tired eyes and acknowledged that he saw through her game. She was in the family way and desperate for a husband and he – silly bugger – was happy to oblige. He cradled his chin in his hands. He found himself doubting her feelings for him but if this was the only way he could marry her, then so be it; he might never get a second chance. Despite everything, that was what he wanted. He would stand by her because one thing he knew was that Etty, proud and spirited, was the girl for him. If she carried another man’s child then, so be it.

  The cage came down the mineshaft, its metal doors rattling open, rousing him from his reverie. Trevor filed with the rest of the men into the cage and, squeezing between two mucky-faced workmates, he kept his counsel. A series of bells clanged and with a jolt, the cage made its rapid ascent.

  Aye, Trevor thought as he hurtled upwards, the time was ripe for him to be free of his ma. She’d brought him up alone and Trevor was all she had. But she had a tongue on her, and Trevor knew he was weak where she was concerned. Etty, spunky lass that she was, was a good match for his mother. She was a good match for him too – where he was headed, he would need a classy wife like Etty, with her posh speech and ladylike ways. He wanted more than to be working down the pit for the rest of his life.

  The cage reached the pithead and shuddered to a halt. Emerging into the bright November sunshine, Trevor vowed he’d be a good provider for Etty. No man worth his salt would want a working wife – he’d be a laughing stock of the community.

  16

  Etty stood at the foot of the sloping stairs and rapped on Mrs Milne’s back door, as a gale-force wind howled down the lane.

  Hair blowing wildly around her face, she smoothed it back with a hand. Nervous about meeting her future mother-in-law, Etty wanted to make a good first impression and had rehearsed what she was going to say.

  As it was such a chilly day, she wore an Aran cardigan that Dorothy had knitted from yarn she’d unpicked from an old sweater of Laurie’s. The board of trade had issued a leaflet telling everyone to ‘make do and mend’, and, ever resourceful, Dorothy had complied with the rules.

  Her mouth dry, Etty rattled the latch and, finding the door unlocked, poked her head inside, peering up into the gloomy stairwell.

  ‘Hello,’ she called, ‘anyone in?’

  ‘Come up whoever you are… me legs are bad,’ a wheezy voice called down the stairwell.

  ‘It’s me, Mrs Milne… Etty Makepeace.’ />
  She climbed the creaking stairs towards the chink of light on the top landing. As she reached the top stair, an overpowering stench of fish turned her stomach.

  A face peered around the door, a face furrowed with wrinkles.

  ‘Are you the trollop that’s been pestering my Trevor?’

  The door opened wide to reveal Nellie Milne, who stood in a pool of light. An inconceivably small person, whose pigeon-like legs looked too spindly to support her stout body, what the woman lacked in stature, she more than made up for with her air of dominance.

  But Etty would not be intimidated. She had faced bigger monsters at Blakely.

  She held out her hand. ‘Esther Makepeace… Trevor’s fiancée. Pleased to meet you, Mrs Milne.’

  The whites of Nellie’s eyes bulged like ice cream in a cornet. ‘Haddaway with you. Trevor wouldn’t marry the likes of you.’ Her chest heaving, she cackled, ‘It’s wishful thinking, hinny, on your part.’

  ‘I know the engagement has come as a shock––’

  ‘My son would’ve told us if he was betrothed. Wait till I tell him about your scheming lies.’

  Etty didn’t want to make an enemy of the woman but neither would she be spoken to in this manner.

  ‘It’s all arranged. Trevor and I can’t wait to marry. It’s arranged for Wednesday next week, at the registry office.’

  ‘You… conniving hussy.’ Purple in the face, Nellie launched into a paroxysm of coughing. She coughed and coughed, clasping her throat as if she were about to choke to death.

  ‘See…’ she spluttered, ‘what you’ve brought on… and me with a bad heart. Wait till I tell my Trevor.’

  She started coughing again, this time retching. Etty, looking around the makeshift scullery on the landing, noted it housed only a sink and gas cooker, where a fish head was poaching in milk in a pan.

  Moving past Nellie, the smell of unwashed flesh making her want to gag, she filled a chipped cup with cold water from the tap. She handed it to her future mother-in-law, who had stopped coughing and wiped her eyes on a pinafore.

  ‘Away with you,’ she croaked. ‘You’ll marry me son over me dead body.’

  ‘The wedding is at eleven, Mrs Milne. Trevor and I will be delighted if you would attend.’

  The next day, Etty opened the front door and was surprised to see Trevor standing there.

  ‘Ma’s furious.’

  ‘I’m none too pleased myself,’ Etty replied.

  ‘She’s taken to her bed.’ He ran his fingers through his hair. ‘I telt you she needed careful handling. She’s an ill woman.’ He pushed past her and strode along the passageway.

  Ill indeed! Etty thought. She banged the front door shut and followed him into the kitchen.

  Dorothy, relaxing on a chair listening to the wireless, looked up. Etty widened her eyes at her sister, warning her not to say a word.

  ‘Ma says you were full of cheek.’ Struggling out of his coat, he nodded curtly to Dorothy. He faced Etty. ‘Her heart’s bad and she doesn’t need aggravation.’

  ‘I just told her the truth.’

  He wouldn’t meet Etty’s eye.

  ‘Ma says she’ll come to the wedding on one condition.’

  ‘And that is?’

  ‘We live in the flat below her.’

  Dorothy rose and discreetly vanished through into the scullery, closing the door firmly behind her.

  ‘That’s blackmail,’ Etty cried.

  Trevor shrugged. ‘Think on it Etty, where else are we going to live? Ma owns the pair of flats… she says she won’t charge a big rent.’

  This was true. Decent property was hard to come by, especially these days when houses were being blown to smithereens. The only alternative would be to live in with Dorothy and that wouldn’t be fair on her, or them, for that matter.

  Trevor went on. ‘Ma says she’ll have Mrs McVay out of the downstairs flat by next weekend.’

  Appalled, Etty replied, ‘I’m not having it on my conscience that some poor woman got evicted because of us.’

  ‘Ma says Mrs McVay’s old and frail and her daughter should look out for her.’

  If Trevor said ‘Ma says’ once more Etty thought she would slosh him one. She didn’t know what was wrong with her these days. Tired and irritable, the least thing upset her. Dorothy thought she suffered from pre-wedding nerves, which could be the case because, in truth, Etty wasn’t ready to get married – not yet. In her turmoil she had a fleeting thought about Billy. If she were to marry him, would she feel the same way? In her present state, with all the provocation, she would like to call the whole thing off – but that wasn’t an option. As an unmarried mother, she’d be shunned and worse, her baby would be classed as a social outcast – a bastard. A chill ran down Etty’s spine. The child she carried might learn to hate her as much as she did her own mother.

  ‘Tell your mam,’ she resigned herself to her fate, ‘she can treat herself to a new hat.’ Trevor visibly relaxed and she was quick to make it clear: ‘But mind, living below your mam is only a temporary measure, until we find a place of our own.’

  ‘Aye, Etty, we’ll save as much as we can.’

  A glint of triumph in his eye, Trevor didn’t look like a man who wanted to be free of his mam.

  Sometimes, life simply rolled on and, like a boulder gathering momentum down a mountainside, you felt you didn’t have any choice but to roll along with it. That’s how Etty felt on her wedding day. It was a surreal day, when all she wanted was to hide beneath the bed sheets and tell everyone she was too young to be a wife, let alone a mam – as she didn’t have the faintest idea about either role.

  Yet, there was a tinge of excitement too, she couldn’t deny it.

  ‘I’ve lit the boiler in the washhouse so you can have a bath whenever you wish,’ Dorothy told her, when she delivered tea in bed that morning. Still dark outside, Etty felt cocooned in her bedroom, her sanctuary ever since she’d left Blakely.

  An hour later she was sitting in the tin bath in front of a roaring fire, with steaming water a couple of inches above the wartime regulation line.

  ‘If you can’t bend the rules on your wedding day, when else can you?’ Dorothy laughed.

  ‘The water’s lovely and soft,’ Etty called through as she leaned back against the towel, strategically placed on the tin bath’s cold rim.

  ‘I dissolved a lavender bath cube in the water before you got in,’ Dorothy said.

  ‘It’s heavenly. Are you wanting in after me?’

  ‘Just try and stop me.’

  Etty closed her eyes and relaxed and, as she drifted, a letter she’d read in a woman’s magazine popped into her mind. It had been written by a girl who described herself as a ‘distraught brunette’.

  The girl explained she was going to have a baby. Two fellows could be responsible, which at the time, Etty had raised her eyebrows at. Both men wanted to marry her, but she couldn’t decide between them. The so-called expert replied that, as the girl obviously didn’t love either of them, she should make a fresh start and strive to be a morally stronger person in future.

  The sanctimonious tone angered Etty. What right had this person to advise when she was obviously biased? But in truth, what rankled were the words ‘morally stronger’. It had touched a raw nerve. She’d done the honourable thing, though, by telling Trevor about the baby. She might be young, but experience had taught her that it was wisest to be honest – for in the end, you still have to live with yourself.

  Later, as Etty stood eyeing her outfit in the long mirror in the bedroom, it occurred to her that, at heart, people were kind. Clothes were on the ration, and when the women at the factory had heard she was getting married, they’d chipped in with their coupons so she could wear a new outfit. Her hair was coiffed into a style that befitted her halo-rimmed hat and she wore a mushroom coloured crepe-de-chine skirt, with matching jacket and shoulder pads, feeling rather special in it. The shoes were new, the net gloves borrowed from Bertha (who’d become her
friendly self again once she’d heard Etty’s wedding plans) and the blue lace-edged handkerchief tucked in her pocket was old.

  Ready and, with a flutter in her stomach, she called to Dorothy.

  ‘You look… stunning,’ Dorothy gasped when she entered the room. ‘Except for one detail.’ She pinned the pink carnation she carried onto the lapel of Etty’s jacket.

  She stood back and admired her sister. ‘Perfect.’

  The weather that December day was wet and drab and Etty, afraid she might end up with dirty splash marks on her calves, took extra special care when she walked outside to the waiting limousine, kindly provided by Mr Newman.

  It was the type of car in which, when seated, you faced each other. The Newmans sat erect as they watched her approach the car. While Mr Newman’s smile was warm and genuine, his wife looked as if she had attended under sufferance.

  Mr Newman opened the car door and alighted. ‘You look as pretty as a picture, my dear.’

  Ramona Newman looked scathingly at Etty.

  ‘Eee, Roland,’ she shrieked. ‘I think I’m overdressed.’

  She was wearing a two-piece suit trimmed with astrakhan, a skunk stole draped around her neck and a jaunty quill in her hat. Etty refrained from telling her that she certainly was overdressed.

  Climbing into the limousine, the smell of leather and mothballs suffused Etty’s nostrils. Dorothy came next, followed by Mr Newman. This is it, Etty thought, as she settled back into the sumptuous seat that scrunched whenever she moved – my wedding day.

  For no apparent reason, she thought of her mother and, absurdly, a lump came into her throat. Quick to regain composure, she banished her mother from her mind and turned her attention to Mr Newman.

  ‘Have Trevor and his ma left yet?’ she asked.

  ‘Over ten minutes ago in this very car,’ Mr Newman closed the limousine’s door.