by Ellie Dean
It was a haven of peace, with Mrs Finch sitting beside the fire with her tangle of knitting, Harvey snoring on the rug and Anne reading a book. The plaster was off her leg, leaving it looking pale and wasted against the other.
‘How does it feel to have two legs again?’ Julie grabbed the oven glove and reached into the warming compartment of the range for her supper plate.
‘A bit strange, to be honest – and I’m much more nervous about putting any weight on it than I thought I would be.’
‘That’s quite normal. You’ll soon be dashing about as usual.’ Julie placed the hot plate on the table and lifted the metal cover to discover not only a sausage, but thick gravy and mashed potato. ‘My goodness,’ she breathed as her mouth watered. ‘This is quite a treat.’
Anne laughed. ‘Mum managed to get the sausages this afternoon and came back with them as if she’d found the hidden treasures of El Dorado. Dad was so pleased, he’s taken her out to the Anchor for a drink.’
‘Have you managed to tell Peg about you leaving?’
Anne nodded. ‘She was very good about it, really, but we both ended up in tears.’ She gave a weary sigh. ‘I hate what this war’s doing to our family.’
‘Oh, dear,’ muttered Mrs Finch. ‘I can’t seem to get this sleeve right, and I so wanted to have it finished for Ron’s birthday.’
Anne reached for the knitting as if glad to have the distraction. She eyed it doubtfully. ‘It looks a bit too big, Mrs Finch,’ she said. ‘Grandpa would need to be eight foot tall for arms this long.’
‘Well, it’s obvious I’ve got it wrong,’ the old lady replied rather crossly. ‘That’s why you need to sort it out for me.’
Anne smiled at her with affection and began to unpick the sleeve. ‘By the way, Julie,’ she murmured, ‘there’s a letter for you. It’s up on the mantelpiece.’
Julie glanced up at it as she finished the delicious meal. She felt drained of energy and ached for her bed, but a letter from London would cheer her up no end. Having washed up, she dried her hands and reached for it. But the postmark wasn’t London – it was Yorkshire.
‘I’ll read it upstairs,’ she said with a calmness that belied the awful turmoil in her heart. She left the kitchen, gently plucked William from the pram and carried him upstairs. Once he was settled in the old cot she’d found at the Town Hall, she sank onto the bed and turned the letter over and over in her hands, dreading opening it, but knowing she must.
There was only a single page of neat writing, signed at the bottom by Edith Wigglesworth – Bill’s mother. With a sense of foreboding, Julie began to read.
Dear Miss Harris,
Firstly, I apologise for not replying to your letters. It was very kind of you to keep us informed of William’s whereabouts, and we are extremely grateful that you are taking care of him. I would have written before, but I was advised to wait until Bill returned home on leave, so he could decide what to do for the best.
It is with great sadness that I have to tell you now that our son has been listed as ‘Missing in Action and presumed dead’. The telegram arrived a month ago, and I haven’t had the heart to write until now. Bill was our only child, and it is as if a light has gone out in our lives. But a part of our precious boy lives on in young William, and we feel it is only right to acknowledge him and raise him as our own. I realise it will be hard for you to let him go, but you are young and free and will have babies of your own one day. It is too late for us, and I beg you to give us the precious gift of our son’s child. We promise to love and cherish him as much as we did Bill.
As my husband and I are unable to leave the farm to make the long journey south, my sister, Charity Farnsworth, will be arriving in Cliffehaven within the month to collect William and bring him home to us.
I look forward to hearing from you very soon,
Edith Wigglesworth
Julie’s tears smudged the ink and she set the letter aside, her heart aching with the terrible burden of this coming loss. She’d begun to hope that this day would never come, had ignored the warnings and started to believe that William would always be with her. Now this had happened.
She gently lifted William from his cot and held him to her heart, breathing in his sweetness and warmth as the tears streamed down her face. She felt bound to him as only a mother could – and yet he was not hers to keep. How cruelly Fate played her games – and how empty her arms would feel when he was taken from her.
‘Oh, William,’ she breathed, ‘my precious, precious boy.’
Chapter Eighteen
ALMOST THREE WEEKS had passed since Julie had received the letter, and now Charity Farnsworth was due to arrive on the late afternoon train. Julie’s emotions were in turmoil as she pushed the pram down the High Street in the warm June sunshine and turned into Camden Road. These would be her last few precious hours with William, and she couldn’t begin to imagine how the pain of losing him could grow any harder to bear than it was already.
She paused and reached into the pram, where William was sitting up batting at the rattle she’d tied to the hood. Her fingers caressed his soft cheek, earning her a beaming smile which revealed four tiny teeth. At six months old, William was still rather small, but he’d filled out and his little face was glowing with happiness beneath the cotton bonnet that shielded him from the sun. How on earth could she hand him over – how could she find the strength and courage to let him go now he’d become such an intrinsic part of her life?
She took a deep breath and was about to continue her stroll when she heard someone calling her. Turning, she saw Eileen hurrying towards her, and felt rather ashamed of the swift stab of resentment she felt at her intrusion on this intimate moment. ‘I was just on my way home to give William his lunch,’ Julie said coolly.
Eileen was looking very smart in a pair of tailored slacks and crisp white shirt, her hair freshly washed and set, her make-up immaculate as always. She regarded Julie thoughtfully. ‘You can spare me a minute, surely?’ she replied. ‘After all, we are sisters.’
The stab of resentment came again and Julie tightened her grip on the pram handle. ‘Not that you’d know it,’ she muttered. ‘You made it quite plain when I arrived that you wanted nothing to do with me or William.’
Eileen had the grace to look uneasy at this truth, and swiftly turned her attention to William. ‘He’s looking very well, considering his heart condition,’ she said, her expression softening as she tickled him under the chin and made him gurgle.
‘The doctors are very pleased with him,’ Julie replied, unable to stifle the quaver in her voice as the pent-up emotions threatened to overwhelm her.
Eileen looked at her sharply. ‘What’s the matter, Julie?’
‘Nothing for you to worry about,’ she replied, blinking back the tears and struggling to maintain a cool façade.
‘You don’t strike me as being someone who cries over nothing,’ Eileen said tightly. ‘Even as a kid you put a brave face on things, as I remember.’ She put her cool hand on Julie’s arm. ‘Why don’t we go to my place and have a cuppa?’
Julie had found some solace in pouring her heart out to Peggy, but despite her kindness and wisdom, Peggy wasn’t family. Perhaps it was time to take the olive branch being offered by her sister? ‘That would be nice,’ she murmured, the tears blinding her. ‘But I can’t be too long. I have to get back . . . back in time . . .’
‘Come on, we can’t have you crying in the street.’ Eileen steered the pram and Julie down the road and parked the pram outside her door. ‘Bring William, and I’ll put the kettle on,’ she said as she opened the door and hurried upstairs.
Julie’s breath hitched as she undid the baby-harness and lifted William out of the pram. She held him close, her tears dampening his sun bonnet as she followed Eileen and went into the sunlit sitting room. Loath to let him go for even a moment, she sat down and settled him on her lap as Eileen clattered about in her tiny kitchen. Now she was here, she didn’t really know what to say to her s
ister. They were hardly close, and Eileen couldn’t possibly understand what she was going through – let alone offer advice on how to cope with this piercing agony.
Eileen returned with a tray and set it on the table beneath the window. Quietly and efficiently, she poured the tea and handed William a biscuit finger, which he proceeded to gnaw with gusto and a great deal of dribbling. ‘Why don’t you take that blanket off the back of the couch and let him sit on the floor? Then you can drink your tea in peace.’
‘He’s absolutely fine where he is,’ she managed through the lump in her throat. Setting the cup and saucer on the floor, she held William close, not caring that the soggy biscuit crumbs were sticking to her skirt and blouse.
‘What is it, Julie?’ Eileen’s voice was soft, her expression concerned.
‘She’s coming to take William away,’ she blurted out on a sob, ‘and I don’t know if I can bear it.’
Eileen shifted from her chair by the table and came to perch beside Julie on the couch. She reached for Julie’s hand. ‘Who’s coming, Julie?’
Julie could no longer hold back the tide of anguish and pain that had been building ever since she’d woken that morning, and the words came pouring out of her as if a dam had been broken. ‘She’ll be here this afternoon,’ she finished, ‘and she’ll stay the night before she takes William back to Yorkshire. I can’t let him go, Eileen. I just can’t.’
Eileen took William from Julie’s arms and set him on the floor with his biscuit, then held her sister as the storm of tears slowly ebbed. When Julie finally had her emotions under control, she gave her a clean handkerchief. ‘You were upsetting William,’ Eileen explained as Julie looked down at him, ‘so I put him there until you’d pulled yourself together.’
Julie could see that William’s little face was screwed up in concern and realised Eileen had been right. She quickly blew her nose and did her best to appear calm. The last thing she wanted was for him to be in tears too. ‘How can I let him go?’ she whispered as he returned to gumming the biscuit. ‘I love him so much, Eileen.’
‘I know you do,’ she sympathised, ‘but sometimes we have to forget what we want and do the right thing. William was never yours to keep, Julie – and deep down you always knew that. He has a family – his father’s family – and now it’s time to let him go.’
‘But how can I? I’ve loved him from the minute I saw him, and he’s part of Franny – a part of our family too.’
Eileen looked down at their entwined hands. ‘I do understand, Julie,’ she murmured. ‘I know how hard this is for you, but William needs to be raised in a proper family, where he’ll get the love and guidance from two parents who will have time for him. He’ll be given a name and respectability, and the opportunity to understand who he is and where he belongs in the world. I’m sure they won’t let him forget you, or his little mother.’
Her candid and sensible advice gave Julie little comfort. ‘Wise words, Eileen, but you can’t possibly understand what I’m going through,’ she muttered. ‘How could you, when you’ve never had a child?’
Eileen took a deep, shuddering breath and released Julie’s hands. She stood and walked towards the open window, reaching for the pack of Players cigarettes that sat on the sill. The click of her lighter was the only sound in the room. ‘The pain is like a knife to the heart,’ she said softly through the cigarette smoke. ‘It comes in great waves that sweep over you and take your breath away. It fills your dreams and your days until you think you can bear it no longer.’
Julie’s heart was drumming as she watched the different expressions flit across Eileen’s face. ‘That’s it exactly, but how . . .?’
Eileen continued as if Julie hadn’t spoken, her gaze fixed to some distant horizon far beyond the window. ‘It eases eventually, like the pain of bereavement, but it’s always there – tucked away, waiting to catch you out when something reminds you of what you’ve lost.’
Julie stared at Eileen as realisation hit. ‘Oh, Eileen,’ she gasped. ‘I didn’t know.’
Eileen turned from the window and stubbed out her cigarette in the glass ashtray. ‘Nobody knew,’ she said flatly. She folded her arms round her narrow waist as she gazed down at William, who was happily mashing the soggy biscuit into the rug. ‘That’s why it was such a shock when you turned up here with him. It brought it all back, you see – and I didn’t know how to cope with it.’
Julie grasped her sister’s arm and gently tugged her down to sit beside her. ‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured, ‘but I had no one else to turn to.’ She put her arm round Eileen’s thin shoulders. ‘Was that why you left home so suddenly?’
Eileen shook her head. ‘I didn’t realise I was pregnant then,’ she admitted quietly. ‘I simply wanted to be with the man I loved.’ Her lips twitched with distaste. ‘I was young and stupid, dazzled by his charm and what I thought was sophistication, all too willing to believe his lies. Dad warned me he was a waster, and that no good would come of it, but I wouldn’t listen. I wish I had now, then perhaps things would have turned out very differently.’
Julie clasped her hands, her own sorrow edged aside for a moment in the light of her sister’s obvious torment. ‘What happened, Eileen?’
Eileen lifted her chin and took a deep breath. ‘I packed my bags and caught the first train down here. I think you could say he was surprised to see me,’ she said bitterly. ‘It turned out he had a wife and kids already, but as they were living further along the coast, he saw nothing devious in finding me this place so we could be together when his work and family commitments allowed.’ She sighed. ‘I’d burned my boats with Mum and Dad, and didn’t have the courage to go back home and admit they’d been right all along. And I was still dazzled by him, so I went along with it even though I knew it was wrong.’
Julie didn’t know what to say, but her heart went out to Eileen, who was clearly struggling with this confession and the memories it evoked.
‘He promised he’d get a divorce,’ she continued flatly, ‘and like a fool, I believed him. It was only when I found out I was expecting that he showed his true colours.’ She blinked and sniffed back her tears. ‘He accused me of being unfaithful, denying the baby could be his – and then when he realised he couldn’t get away with that, he said he’d pay to get rid of it.’ She took a shuddering breath. ‘I couldn’t do that, Julie, I really couldn’t.’
Julie had an awful, fleeting memory of poor, desperate little Melanie Hopkins, and quickly shut it away. ‘Why didn’t you come home? Mum and Dad would have come round to it eventually, just as they did with Franny.’
‘I couldn’t,’ said Eileen, shaking her head. ‘I’d shamed them enough by running off in the first place, and I was too proud to admit how wrong I’d been.’ She rose from the couch and lit another cigarette, dragging the smoke deeply into her lungs as she stood stiffly by the open window.
‘But you stayed here,’ said Julie. ‘It couldn’t have been easy with him on your doorstep.’
‘He did a moonlight, and I didn’t see him again for almost eighteen months.’ She grimaced. ‘By the time he came back, I’d dealt with the gossips, had the baby adopted and was working in the council offices. He had the gall to come round here expecting things to go back to the way they’d been before, but I wasn’t having none of it, and sent him off with a right flea in his ear.’
Julie noted how brave her words sounded, but they belied the anguish in her eyes and the tremble of her lips. ‘Was the gossip very bad?’ she asked softly.
‘Bad enough, but I handled it. Giving my baby away was the hardest part,’ Eileen said hoarsely. ‘You see, I had to stay in the maternity home with her for two weeks before I had to hand her over to the adoption people. And in that time I got to love her.’ She took a shuddering breath. ‘The agony of that moment when I gave her away is still there, buried deeply – but it comes back to haunt me when I least expect it.’
She stubbed out her cigarette, her features contorted with pain. ‘I called her
Flora,’ she whispered.
‘Oh, Eileen.’ Julie rushed to her side and they clung to one another. As their tears flowed and mingled they became sisters again, giving and receiving strength and courage for what lay in the past – and for what was to come.
Peggy was in a daze as she walked towards home, her thoughts and emotions plummeting and soaring in turn as if she was riding the old roller coaster that used to stand on the end of the pier. And yet she knew she must keep this maelstrom under control and maintain her usual outward calm, for change was coming to Beach View, and she would need courage and fortitude to see them through as well as guide Anne and Julie during the coming storm.
She stiffened her spine and lifted her chin determinedly as she reached Beach View Terrace and ran up the steps. Charity Farnsworth was due to arrive at teatime, and she needed to make sure her room was prepared and someone had made a start on the evening meal. It was most inconvenient for her to turn up on Ron’s birthday, for it was bound to put a damper on things, and she just prayed the woman was as charitable as her name. Poor little Julie would be devastated at having to let William go – just as she herself would be when Anne took Rose Margaret down to Somerset at the end of the following week.
With these thoughts came the cold reality of what she was facing. She stepped into the hall, closing the front door behind her with the knowledge that the changes at Beach View had already begun, and were out of her control. As she hung up her hat and scarf and slipped her feet into her slippers, she heard a gale of laughter coming from the kitchen and, glad of the distraction, went to see what was going on in there.
Jim, Anne and Rita were still laughing as Peggy walked in, and now she could understand why. Ron’s face was a picture of confusion and helplessness as he stood there in the sweater Mrs Finch had knitted him for his birthday. The wool had been unravelled from old sweaters and cardigans, and the stripes of colour clashed quite alarmingly. The dubious garment billowed to his knees, one sleeve dangling over his hand, the other reaching just past his elbow. He looked like a striped lollipop.