Emma’s husband Arvid was no substitute father to me. He was not out-and-out unfriendly, but he acted as if I were not there, and that is how things remained. From the beginning I had the impression that he had not agreed with his wife’s idea to take in an evacuee. Probably it had not been easy to persuade him. Perhaps the money the government gave host families had been an incentive. But a second child, the other child, as he called Brian, had turned up, more or less by mistake, and there was not even money for him. That did not exactly improve the situation.
‘The Red Cross will soon take charge of Brian,’ Emma said whenever Arvid moaned about another mouth to feed. In fact, no one came for Brian and I thought I sensed Emma’s relief. She did not want Brian to go to an orphanage. She herself would do nothing to put his stay on the Beckett farm at risk.
I liked life on the farm. You could not imagine a greater contrast to life in London. The empty spaces that seemed to go on for ever, the wide stone-walled pastures dotted with hundreds of grazing sheep. The scent of the sea. I loved to clamber down to the bay which belonged to the farm. It was a dangerous, secret path that went along a deep gorge and almost disappeared as it went through a primeval wood at the foot of a rock face. I fought my way through grasses and ferns, which were dark in the winter and bathed in a strange green light in the summer. I imagined that I was one of those great discoverers I had heard about in school: Christopher Columbus or Vasco da Gama. The natives could be lying in wait for me anywhere, cannibals – on no’ account could I fall into their hands. I jammed a stick between my teeth. It was my knife, my only weapon. Every snap in the undergrowth, every shrill cry of a bird made me jump and gave me goose pimples all over. The only thing I missed in these moments was other children. In our street in London, in the maze of its backyards, we had always gone around in a crowd of ten, sometimes even fifteen or twenty children. I was all alone here. Of course I went to school in Burniston and got on with my classmates, who found me a rather exotic creature, but unfortunately we all lived far too far apart to meet outside school hours. For miles there was nothing but sheep pastures, punctuated by the odd farm. You would have had to walk for ages to get from one to the next.
I was a child who liked to play, and who took advantage of the freedom and endless possibilities of life on the land. I was also a girl just entering puberty. Mum had always said I had matured early. That might be true, at least for the forties. I found a few rubbishy novels in my bedside table and devoured them, red with embarrassment. They were old and worn, and I wondered if Emma had devoured them with the same passion as me. ‘Passion’ – that was the word which best described the books’ content too. That is all they were about. Beautiful women, strong men. And what they did together made my cheeks burn. I wanted nothing more so much as to grow up quickly and to experience for myself everything that I was hearing about here. It was an almost inevitable development for me to imagine Chad Beckett as the man at my side, a strong, good-looking hero.
I had an immense admiration for him. I think I was even in love with him. Unfortunately he only saw me as some uninteresting girl his mother had brought home and who would hopefully disappear again soon. He treated me with almost more indifference than his father did.
The only male who was around me, whenever he could be, was Brian. Whenever he could be meant whenever I did not manage to shake him off. Over time I perfected the art of disappearing, and then he would wander around like a lost lamb, crying quietly to himself, as Emma told me each time with a gentle rebuke.
I countered that by saying that he just got on my nerves. ‘He’s so much younger than me. And he doesn’t say a word! What should I do with him?’
It was true. Brian still could not speak. Emma always wanted to know if he had spoken in the past. She thought I should know – after all he had lived in my neighbourhood.
With the best will in the world I could not remember. Had any of us in the street really paid attention to little Brian? I could only tell Emma that people had always said the Somerville children were all pretty thick. This expression made Emma angry – and it was the first time, by the way, that I had really seen her angry. ‘How can people just declare that?’ she exclaimed. ‘About children who can’t stand up for themselves? How can people make such sweeping statements?’
I did not want to make things worse, otherwise I would have pointed out that it did seem to be true in Brian’s case. An eight-year-old – or perhaps he was already nine, no one knew when his birthday was – who could not speak? That was not normal. The children in my school said the same thing once, when Emma came by on her bike to bring me the breakfast I had forgotten to eat. Brian was sitting on the bike’s rack. It was break time and he slid off the bike and rushed over to me making indefinable noises. He babbled something which no one could understand.
‘Your brother’s got a screw loose,’ the class representative said to me later.
‘He’s not my brother!’ I shouted, and I must have been looking daggers at her, because she stepped back in surprise.
‘It’s all right,’ she said gently, as you would talk to an angry dog.
It was incredibly important to me that no one thought I was related to the little moron. That’s what I called him in my head: little moron. I could not say that out loud, at least not in Emma’s presence.
That sounds very cold and harsh. And perhaps that could be said of me; that I did not behave in a particularly nice way to this disturbed little boy. But you also have to think about who I was in 1940 and 1941. I was a child who liked adventures, and at the same time a girl who read romances and. was experiencing confusing emotions about a fifteen-year-old boy. From one day to the next I had left London, where all was familiar, and was suddenly on a sheep farm in Yorkshire. My father had died, my mother was far away. I had sat in the cellar of our house when it had collapsed above us, hit by a German bomb. I had a lot of things to come to terms with, I realise that now.
It was not as clear to me at the time. I only felt that Brian’s clinginess, his love, was suffocating me. I felt completely overwhelmed by him. The presence of this silent, traumatised child was too much for me somehow. I fought it tooth and nail. Maybe that was not so unusual considering my age.
What would have been normal would have been for Emma to take him to a doctor. It was clear that the little boy needed help, whether medical or psychological. And no doubt Emma saw that too. I never had the opportunity to speak to her about it, but I now believe that she was simply afraid she would wake sleeping dogs if she took the child to any official institution. No one had got in touch from London. Probably Brian had been lost somewhere between the nurses noting down his name that dark November evening after his arrival in Staintondale, and the authorities responsible for him in London. Emma was convinced that he would not cope with a transfer to an orphanage, so she was happy that no one seemed to have remembered him. She did not take him to the doctor. Nor did she send him to school, for which she did not need to feel bad, as it would have been immediately clear to anyone that Brian was in no way able to keep up with children of his age or even younger.
Although the whole story irritated her husband Arvid, Brian’s well-being was a matter that held no concern for him whatsoever, so she could do as she wished. Nor did Chad get involved. He was at an age when he had very different things in his head. For my own part, I soon had eyes for Chad alone, and only noticed Brian because I often had to find all kinds of cunning tricks to throw him off my trail.
Apart from Emma, he had become a kind of nobody for everyone. After a while that was what Chad started to call him: Nobody.
5
In February 1941 Mum visited me in Staintondale. She had wanted to come for Christmas, but the family for whom she did the housekeeping rather needed her help, and she could not do without the extra money. It had not been a problem for me. Christmas on the Beckett farm was lovely. It had even snowed a little. I had surpassed myself in helpfulness. Whenever I could, I had made myself useful on
the farm or in the house, and had saved up a tidy amount of pocket money. With it I bought Chad a sheath knife. I knew he had long dreamt of having one. When he unpacked it, his eyes shone, and when he thanked me something had changed in the way he looked at me. It was as if he no longer just saw a stupid little girl from London who just got on his nerves, but a person you could almost take seriously. That look and his smile were the most beautiful part of the Christmas festivities. And the book he gave me.
Little Women by Louisa Alcott.
‘Because you like reading so much,’ he said with some embarrassment.
I would have liked to give him a hug, but I did not dare. So I just held the book tight.
‘Thank you,’ I said quietly and swore to keep the book for ever. I managed. I still have it today.
Christmas passed in a flurry of church visits, singing and good food, and there was really no need for Mum’s long, guilty letter in which she explained and justified her absence. Indeed, her letter made me feel guilty. Mum seemed to think that I was missing her terribly and probably it would have been completely normal if I had. I asked myself why I was not homesick and why I had settled in to life on the Beckett farm within just a few weeks. I think I know the answer now. It was not just the fact that I had fallen in love with Chad Beckett. Nor was it because my mother and I had so often had run-ins, and Emma was gentler and easier to get on with. I think I had found my home there on the Yorkshire coast. I’m not a city person. Although I was born in London and lived there for the first eleven years of my life, I did not see its streets, its many people and high houses as my home. Whereas Yorkshire’s endless fields, its dreamy little villages, the way the earth and sky merged on the distant horizon, the nearness of the sea, all the animals and its clear air gave me the feeling of being home. Even if I did not realise that at the time.
When my mother finally did come one weekend in the middle of February, she could see that I looked well. Yorkshire was not showing itself to its best advantage, but which landscape does manage that in February? There was a constant cold grey drizzle. The farmyard was muddy, and the top of the hill behind the farm had been swallowed up in the low-hanging clouds. I would still have liked to show Mum the bridge, the gorge and the beach, but she refused to follow me outside.
‘Much too cold,’ she said and rubbed her arms, shivering, although we were sitting right by the living room hearth. ‘And too wet. I’m not going to go clambering over rocks, my dear, sorry. Last thing I want is to break an ankle.’
I was under the impression that she did not particularly like the Beckett farm, that she would not be able to stay half a week here. Nonetheless, it was better than the bombs in London.
‘The Germans are still attacking,’ she said. ‘Not as bad as at the start, but I’m happy you’re here. Safe. So many people’s children have been evacuated by now.’
She still lived with Auntie Edith, which was horrible, as she told me.
‘Just too many people and not enough space. And you know Edith. She really shows you that you’re getting on her nerves. She treats me like a beggar. I mean, I’m her dead brother’s wife! I’m not just anybody!’
Her gaze fell on Brian who, as always, was near me. He was sitting at our feet and pushing around a little wooden car that had once belonged to Chad. As usual his play did not seem to have any recognisable sense to it.
‘Does he understand us?’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t think so. He can barely speak.’
Brian had actually tried to form words in early January, for the first time since he had arrived. Emma had reacted euphorically, but I thought it was a rather limited success. To my annoyance, what he did manage to say rather clearly was the word Fiona. He could also say something that sounded like come! and boby. Emma wracked her brains to think what the last word could be. Chad and I were sure that he was trying to say nobody, the name we used when we were alone with him. But we did not let on. We knew Emma would have got rather angry if she heard.
After Mum was sure that Brian would not repeat what he might hear, she came out with the news which was probably the only reason for her trip north.
‘It might be that I won’t be at Auntie Edith’s much longer,’ she said.
‘Is our house being rebuilt?’ I asked.
‘No. That will take some time. They’re clearing the rubble from the streets, but there’s not much point in starting to rebuild while the Germans are still bombing.’
‘And so where will you go?’
She hummed and hawed a while before saying quietly and hastily, ‘I’ve met someone …’
I did not understand right away. ‘And?’
‘He’s called Harold Kane. He is … he works in the docks. As a foreman!’
‘A man?’ I said, not believing my ears.
‘Yes, of course a man,’ Mum replied somewhat sharply. ‘Who else?’
I was stunned. I had barely been gone four months and my mother was already going courting. I was old enough to put two and two together. When she said she had met a man, and in the same breath said she would not be living with Auntie Edith for much longer, then that meant she had fallen in love with this Harold Kane and would soon move into his flat. How could it happen so quickly? Daddy was dead. England was at war. Hitler was out to conquer the world. They had needed to evacuate me. And yet even with all this happening, Mum had nothing better to do than look for a new man. I found that embarrassing and a little undignified.
Furthermore, I realised I was a little envious. My love affair with Chad was just as one-sided as it had ever been. It had not started. In the meantime, Mum had snagged herself a guy who was probably ready to marry her. It was my turn. I was young. Mum seemed ancient to me; she was thirty-two. She had already lived through the most important part of her life.
‘Why is he working in the docks?’ I asked with a poisonous and challenging tone to my voice. ‘Why isn’t he fighting in the war?’
Mum sighed. She had understood my provocation and saw future difficulties. ‘He is exempt because his work is essential to the war effort,’ she explained.
I would have liked to murmur something like shirker, but I did not dare. I had a feeling that Mum would react very angrily if I did. It probably was not true, either. Arvid Beckett was exempt too, because he was needed on the farm, and I would never have thought of judging him for it. I would have not minded in the least if no man had to go to the front. I shared Emma’s deep worry that Chad might get called up, if the war did not end soon. No doubt Mum was worried about her Harold and happy that he had been able to stay in London.
‘Well, then I won’t have much of a role in your life any more,’ I said darkly – a comment which Mum of course objected to in no uncertain terms.
‘You’re my child!’ she exclaimed, and hugged me. ‘Nothing between us will change!’
She no doubt meant what she said. But although I did not yet have much life experience, my instinct told me that something would change. A new member joining a family always changes something. And who knew how this Harold would act towards me? I could not imagine that he would be all that enthusiastic about the fact that his bride was bringing a twelve-year-old daughter into the relationship.
Accompanying Mum the next morning on the rather long walk to the main road where the bus to Scarborough drove past once a day, I wished with all my heart that my stay on the Beckett farm would be long, really long. I felt the need to return to London less and less. The paradox was that the period of my stay in Yorkshire was dependent on the length of the war, and no sensible person would hope for that to continue for long, especially as Chad was going to turn sixteen in April and then the situation for him would become critical.
Standing at the side of the road and waving Mum off, the tears started to flow. My life seemed confusing and difficult. It was dark and frightening. No one in the world gave me a feeling of security, perhaps my mother least of all.
And the following summer it happened. A few days after m
y twelfth birthday I received a telegram from Mum. In it she told me that she and Harold had married.
6
It was a dry hot day. The sky was that crystal-clear blue which is so typical of August. The apples were ripening on the trees. The wind carried the smell of the sea and the freshly mown grass. It was a perfect day. Holidays. Freedom. I should have been lying under a tree and reading, dreaming and lazily watching the clouds drift by above me.
Instead I was sitting on a boulder on the beach, falling apart. In my hand I held the telegram which in a few meagre words told me that the previous day I had gained a stepfather. Stepfather! I knew stepmothers from fairy tales. Stepfathers could not be much better.
I cried my eyes out.
Of course I had somehow known that it would come to this, but strangely I still went into shock. I felt betrayed, taken unawares. Mum should have talked to me first, instead of presenting me with a fait accompli. She should have introduced me to Harold, to find out whether he was nice to me, and whether we got on. What if he hated me at first sight – and I him? What if he ordered me about, made my life difficult, shouted at me? Perhaps she did not care. Perhaps she was so euphoric about her conquest that she was no longer interested in whether or not her child was doing well.
And at the word ‘child’ I had another horrible thought: what if Mum and Harold had a child together? I supposed Mum was not too old, otherwise Harold would probably not have married her. If that happened, I’d really be only on the edge of their lives. Mum would spend all her time caring for the crying baby, and Harold would adore his little offspring, and I would just be in the way. They would put me in an orphanage with Brian. Harold would go on at Mum until she agreed.
Crying and railing against my fate, I was too taken up with these dark thoughts to notice someone approaching. When I suddenly saw a movement from the corner of my eye, I looked up in surprise.
The Other Child Page 16