by Lizzie Lane
Phyllis bent her head and folded her arms as though she was hugging herself. She didn’t want to be here. She didn’t want to know what would be said next.
Tom’s eyes fluttered nervously and his jaw dropped, his jowls turning to jelly before he finally cleared his throat. ‘It’s Robert. He’s reported missing in action, presumed dead.’
11
Bridget
It was a Saturday afternoon and it seemed the whole world had descended on Castle Street and its surrounding areas, even though the shop windows were nowhere near as interesting as they used to be. The fact that the sun was shining had a lot to do with it, plus most people had finished working at midday and were out to enjoy themselves, though frugally thanks to the war.
Maisie and Bridget were having a coffee and, as usual, Maisie was bemoaning her teacake being spread with margarine rather than butter.
‘Wouldn’t mind if they ’ad a bit of jam,’ she grumbled.
It was at that point that the door opened and Phyllis and the fresh summer air rushed in together.
‘My goodness! At long last,’ cried Bridget.
Warm hugs were followed by comments about how each was looking and what they were wearing.
Phyllis admired the yellow cotton dress Maisie was wearing and the blue blouse and spotted skirt that Bridget told her had been made with her mother’s help.
‘From a pair of curtains, would you believe.’ said Bridget, showing obvious pride in her mother’s sewing skill.
‘I made this belt,’ Maisie said, her thumbs inside the creamy-coloured belt encircling her tiny waist. ‘From cardboard and string.’ She went on to describe cutting out the piece of cardboard from a box into a long strip and winding it round and round with pieces of string more often used for tying up parcels.
Bridget offered to order Phyllis a cup of coffee and Maisie offered her half her teacake. Both were declined.
‘I can’t hang about. I hoped I might find you here.’ She glanced nervously over her shoulder at the crowds milling along the pavement outside. ‘I managed to lose my mother-in-law, but I swear she’s got the nose of a bloodhound. She won’t be long hunting me down.’
The three of them sat heads close together. Phyllis smelt of fresh talcum powder. In old times she’d smelt of perfume, but everyone was being careful with the little they had.
She took a deep breath, hating to have to speak the terrible truth she was about to impart. ‘I’ve had a telegram. Robert is missing in action, presumed killed.’
‘Oh, Phyllis.’ Bridget patted her friend’s white gloved hand.
‘Oh, God,’ murmured Maisie, equally taken aback by Phyllis’s bad news, though being Maisie, her mind raced forward. ‘So what will you do now? Come back to work? Move back in with your mother?’
Bridget welcomed the thought of it being the three of them again. ‘That would be wonderful.’
Phyllis started and half rose from her chair. Amongst the crowd, she detected Hilda Harvey’s hat bobbing around like a dinghy at sea. ‘I need more time to talk to you, but not here. She’s out there looking for me.’
Alarmed by her friend’s agitation, Bridget thought quickly. ‘I’ve got Friday off. How about I come along then?’
Pushing a tangle of red hair swiftly behind her ear, Phyllis nodded and got to her feet. ‘Please. I really need somebody to talk to.’
She was gone in a flash, leaving Maisie and Bridget speechless.
Bridget, for one, had thought the circumstances of their visit to the hospital might have been just the beginning of a happier life for Phyllis. She shook her head. ‘Poor Phyllis. She’s lost a baby and a husband.’
Maisie set her cup back into its saucer with an air of triumphant finality. ‘On the good side, she might also be losing her in-laws.’
Bridget threw her a disapproving look.
‘I don’t mean that the way it sounds,’ said Maisie. ‘There has to be some good to come out of this. Poor cow. She’s ’ad it rough. ’Ope ’er mother takes ’er back in.’
Bridget frowned. ‘I’m betting things aren’t so straightforward. Phyllis looked worried, but I’ll help her in any way I can.’
When Friday morning came, Bridget strode off along the road wearing a pretty dress and a straw hat with cherries bouncing on the brim.
Her secret hope was that Hilda Harvey wouldn’t be at home, but if she was, she wanted to hold her head high.
Hedges, bushes, borders and blooms in the front garden of the Harvey house were planted in rigid straight lines. Heavy net curtains hung at the curved bay window, an impenetrable barrier between the world within and the one beyond the square-cut privet hedging. Not a weed showed between the rose bushes and the lawn looked newly mowed, each stem of grass of the same height and proportion as its neighbour.
She studied the dimpled glass in the upper portion of the door, a sunray design of red, green and orange. It was as uncompromising in its design as the front garden, just like Mrs Harvey come to that.
Bridget pressed the bell. The living-room curtain twitched and just for a moment she was sure of Hilda Harvey’s pinched features, noting it was her and letting the curtain drop back into place.
The door was not going to be answered.
Taking a few steps back, Bridget glanced up at the bedroom windows. If she remembered rightly, Phyllis had one of those front rooms. The windowpanes reflected the green and trees opposite, nothing of what was inside, then suddenly there was movement.
Phyllis waved. Her lips moved. ‘Wait!’ She pointed across the road to the group of trees between the house, the road and the banks of the Malago, the narrow brook that ran there before disappearing beneath the road.
Bridget turned to look. She immediately understood what Phyllis was saying. Hide behind the trees and wait.
The hinges of the garden gate were well oiled but still she slammed it shut, determined that Mrs Harvey would know that she’d left.
Bridget set off across the road to the patch of green grass and the clutch of leafy sycamores. The heels of her white sandals sank into the soft grass, but she ignored it, accepting it as a small price to pay for meeting up again with her old friend. Asking her to wait must mean that at some point Phyllis expected her mother-in-law to go out.
There was a dip between the trees and a path down to the water worn smooth by kids fishing for tiddlers and tadpoles. That and the trees were enough to hide her from the house. Only somebody who had continued to watch would know that she was here.
It seemed like an hour, but possibly only half an hour before she glimpsed the stiffly upright figure of Hilda Harvey stalking off staring determinedly ahead.
Bridget stepped cautiously from behind the tree and watched until the feathers of Hilda Harvey’s hat had finally bobbed out of sight.
The grass was springy underfoot as she left the cover of the trees and made her way to the open green immediately opposite the house. All she had to do was cross the road and knock again… unless…
It was suddenly as though the house had come alive and exactly what Bridget had hoped for happened.
‘Phyllis!’ Her heart jumped with joy.
The two old friends broke into a run until they collided, hugged tightly enough to break ribs and cried warm tears into each other’s hair.
‘You look very well,’ said Bridget, as they held each other at arms’ length, hands clutching shoulders, smiling faces streaked with tears.
‘So do you,’ returned Phyllis. ‘Nice dress, though I did think you looked good in that nurse’s uniform. As for Maisie showing off those stockings…’
They laughed together, just as they used to laugh, as though there had been no gap in their friendship and everything was as it used to be.
Bridget glanced towards the house. ‘Will she be long coming back?’
Cheeks pink and eyes sparkling, Phyllis shook her head. Loosened by the breeze, wisps of hair escaped from the dull black snood Phyllis was wearing. ‘She’s gone to a British Urban Mother
s meeting.’
Bridget laughed. ‘Bum, as dear Maisie pointed out.’
‘That’s our Maisie,’ Phyllis laughed. ‘Hilda wouldn’t have noticed that. Anyway, its title is pretty short, but the meeting’s likely to be long. We’ve got at least an hour and a half.’
‘Shall I come inside?’
Phyllis baulked at the idea. ‘That’s the last thing you want to do. If she catches us… Besides,’ she laughed nervously, ‘I can’t stand being in there and you won’t much like it either. Anyway,’ she said, her face suddenly brightening, ‘I’m not staying here.’ Her smile vanished again as swiftly as it had arrived. ‘Robert is missing, presumed dead. I think he is, but his mother… well… you know what she’s like. She insists on me staying until he gets home. But I won’t. I can’t!’ She turned her head and looked to where bright green leaves were deepening with summer. She tapped the black snood. ‘I made this when I got the telegram.’ She turned back to face Bridget, her expression confused, her sad eyes apologetic. ‘The trouble is I don’t feel that sorry, Bridget. I know I should, but I just can’t seem to.’ She shook her head. ‘I feel guilty that I’m not grieving, honest I do, but I lost the baby and that was hard enough.’
Bridget could tell there was a lot Phyllis wanted to say, things she could say to a friend that she couldn’t possibly say to anyone else. ‘Go on. Tell me more.’
Phyllis swallowed. ‘I feel sorry for ’im, Bridget. I wouldn’t wish anyone to die, but…’ She took a deep breath and her narrowed eyes widened. ‘I don’t mean to be selfish, but these last months livin’ with ’is mother ’ave been ’ell. Hell,’ she said on realising that she’d drifted back into a strong dialect, aitches dropped and words ending in ‘r’ sounding as though they ended in ‘l’. During these long, dreary months, she’d borrowed a book of elocution from the library, read it from cover to cover, and dipped into it again and again. She reminded herself that she would have to pay a fine when she took it back. For some reason she didn’t want to admit it to Bridget of all people. For her own reasons, Bridget had long modulated her voice into a cross between melodic brogue and clear articulation. Phyllis had never said so, but she’d much admired it. ‘
‘How’s his mother taking it?’ Bridget asked, imagining Hilda Harvey entertaining a greater bitterness than the one she already owned on a day-to-day basis.
Phyllis shook her head in a despairing fashion that stabbed Bridget to the core. Even in her worst moments when the real father of her child had abandoned her, she’d still shown some of the old exuberance. ‘She’s refusing to believe it. Reckons the War Office employs a load of idiots who can barely read and write, let alone keep tabs on whether soldiers are alive or dead.’
Bridget blanched. ‘They wouldn’t be doing the job if that was the case.’
Phyllis sighed deeply. ‘You know enough of her to realise she thinks nobody can do anything right.’ She glanced up at Bridget from beneath pale lashes, unadorned with make-up. The rest of her face was unadorned too, unusually for Phyllis who had loved her make-up and looking glamorous.
It was hard to know what to say next. Wives who cared for their husbands would normally be weeping a river by now. Phyllis was just despairing, her eyes flitting around as though seeking some path of escape.
Phyllis fixed her with a very direct look. ‘I can’t help feeling the way I do, Bridget. I was frogmarched into this marriage.’
Bridget was loath to remind her that she’d been expecting the child of another man and Robert had been her lifeline to respectability.
Phyllis seemed to read her mind. ‘I know what you’re thinking, and you’re absolutely right. I didn’t marry because I loved him.’ She stared at the ground, pursed her lips and folded her arms as though shielding herself from any condemnation. ‘I’ve put up with livin’ with that old cow all the time Robert’s been away.’ Strands of Phyllis’s auburn hair escaped from the snood as she shook her head in exasperation. Her eyes suddenly flashed at her in the old endearing way Bridget remembered. ‘But I swear, Bridget, that if I ’ave to stay put for much longer, I’ll either throw meself out of the window or drown ’er in the Malago.’
Bridget knew enough about Hilda Harvey’s character to understand, but couldn’t help laughing. ‘Marry me, marry my mother. That’s what Robert should have said.’
‘It sometimes feels like that,’ said Phyllis, and Bridget’s laughter vanished.
‘So what will you do?’
A garden gate suddenly chose that moment to swing on its hinges and make a loud squeaking sound. Phyllis gulped, melted closer to the tree trunk and glanced nervously over her shoulder. She emitted a great sigh of relief on realising that the sound belonged to the gate of a house further along, but the moment seemed to galvanise her. She spun back to face Bridget, a fiery determination in her eyes.
‘I intend to get away as quickly and as far away as I can. That’s where I need your help. I need a job and a place to stay.’
Bridget shrugged awkwardly. ‘We do have a bit more room now…’ She went on to explain about the young ones being evacuated, something she hadn’t had time to do in the hospital.
‘I don’t want to stay round ’ere,’ Phyllis exclaimed, eyeing the house across the way with dismal contempt. ‘I thought I might get a flat once I get a job. I’m still getting army pay until it’s proved one way or another and then it’ll be a widow’s pension.’ She bent her head. ‘Hilda’s taken charge of the book until it’s time to draw. She keeps it in a writing bureau. I don’t ’ave a key, but a kitchen knife should do the trick. Then I’m off. I still need to get a job. I need to save. I think a girl should save.’
‘You’ve got to come back to Wills’s,’ Bridget responded brightly. ‘They’ll welcome you back with open arms.’
Phyllis shook her head. ‘It would be the first place she’d look for me. I also need to live away from here.’
‘Or she’ll drag you back?’
She nodded gravely. ‘As far as she’s concerned, Robert is only lost, in which case everyone’s got to wait until ’e gets back. Forever if necessary. That includes me.’
Bridget could hardly believe what she was hearing. ‘That is so unfair.’
Phyllis nodded. ‘That’s the reason I have to get a job and somewhere to stay in another part of Bristol.’
‘That shouldn’t be a problem, what with able-bodied men – and women – being called up. Firms are crying out for replacements. Have you anything in mind?’
Phyllis sighed. ‘Not really. I’ve been thinking of joining up, though not yet. I need time to think.’
There was silence between them as they thought it through. The warm breeze rustled their hair just as vigorously as it did the leaves on the trees.
‘I’ll ask around,’ Bridget said at last. The silence descended again before Bridget said, ‘I’m sorry about the baby.’
Phyllis only shrugged. ‘It couldn’t be helped.’
‘No, of course not.’
Bridget smoothed her hands over her hips, loving the feel of the material, the way it fitted her so well. The dress had been huge, bought by her mother from a jumble sale and cut down to size. The colour suited her complexion and just for the moment she preferred thinking of its feel and its provenance rather than reading Phyllis’s mind.
‘Do you think you’ll ever have children?’ Phyllis asked.
Bridget was taken unawares. It was suddenly as though her tongue had swollen and was too big to wrap itself around any suitable words.
Their eyes met. Bridget breathed a heavy sigh before responding. ‘To tell you the truth, I don’t know. I’ve seen what my mother went through. I don’t mind telling you that it’s put me off.’
‘Oh, Bridget. I didn’t know that. I think you’d make a wonderful wife and mother, but it’s your decision. Don’t ever let anyone push you into anything. You’re better than that.’
‘And you were better than Robert,’ stated Bridget.
Phyllis shrugged. ‘I was
weak. Stupid. You’re not stupid, Bridget. Not like me. Robert never took no for an answer.’
Bridget considered what she might have done in the circumstances but, she wasn’t Phyllis. They were great friends but different in character. In a way she thought Phyllis braver and perhaps also a bit more exciting than her. Phyllis had always come across as daring; her fling with Alan Stalybridge proved that. Bridget recalled her saying how much more passionate he’d been than Robert.
Bridget kept her own counsel and merely said, ‘I remember you voicing reservations about whether you cared enough for Robert.’
‘I did,’ said Phyllis with a helpless spreading of her hands. ‘Everybody said I couldn’t go wrong with Robert. I got persuaded into it.’ Her expression was both sad and confused. ‘But then… of course, there was Alan. I wish he hadn’t gone off. But there you are, he did and Robert was there.’ She shrugged and there was pleading in her eyes. ‘I had to do what had to be done, but…’ She studied the intertwining of her fingers as she tried to put all that she felt and what she had not felt into words. ‘I slept with Alan before I was married and it was marvellous.’ Her face shone with enthusiasm, then fell as she recounted her wedding night. ‘It was so different with Robert. So cold. But that’s all in the past. At least I know how it should be now, don’t I.’ Her eyes shone and she hugged herself. ‘And I want to find that again.’
Bridget felt her face warming and left her silence open to interpretation. To judge her would be unfair. For now at least she needed comfort. ‘So it’s a new life on all fronts,’ Bridget said at last.
Phyllis nodded. ‘I thought about moving in with me mum, but Hilda would be round there all the time, keeping an eye on what I was doing.’ She folded her arms, threw back her head and looked up at the sky. ‘I can imagine it now: Hilda banging on the door and my mother doing her best to persuade me to wait until I knew for sure whether Robert was dead or alive.’ She shook her head. ‘I can’t wait, Bridget. I’m young and I’ve got a life to lead.’