I pushed my plate away. Thinking of Chad was too much for me. I could not eat another mouthful.
I saw too that Harold did not eat much. He more than made up for it in beer consumption. More than could be good for him. His ballooning body was probably more a result of the alcohol than the – to be generous – average cooking skills of my mother. Another drinker! At the time I did not think about psychology, otherwise I would have seen the fatal pattern in my mother’s life. Her father had been an alcoholic, her first husband too, and now her second husband. She obviously had a soft spot for drunks, and was unable to break this downward spiral. I did not understand that she too was a prisoner of herself. In disbelief I simply asked myself again and again: Why? Why? Why Harold Kane?
After the meal I went straight to bed. I did not even help to clear the table and do the washing up. They allowed for my tiredness after such a stressful day and did not object. However, as I got undressed in the claustrophobic narrowness of my room, I heard Harold complain to Mum in the next room: ‘She can’t stand me! I noticed straight away!’
‘She’s got a lot to get used to today,’ replied Mum. ‘She’s grown very close to the Beckett family. Now she feels uprooted. She’s rejecting everything she finds here. Don’t take it personally.’
‘I think it was a mistake to bring her here against her will,’ said Harold. I froze, full of hope that the two of them might come to see that—
Mum dashed my dreams immediately. ‘No,’ she said resolutely. ‘It wasn’t a mistake. It was high time. She was about to become completely integrated into their family. I should have stepped in much earlier.’
‘It was your idea to send her away to the country!’
‘You know how it was. Bombs were raining down night after night. I didn’t want to lose my girl. But now I don’t want to lose her in another way. Don’t you understand? By her seeing another woman as her mother!’
‘We’re doing all we can so she won’t be your only child,’ said Harold, and in spite of my youth and inexperience I could not help noticing that his tone had changed. ‘Perhaps we should try again now, what do you think?’
‘I have to clean the kitchen. And Fiona’s not asleep yet. She might come in any moment.’
‘Rubbish. She’s dead tired. We won’t hear a peep out of her tonight.’
‘Harold … stop it … I’m really afraid that Fiona—Stop!’
A chair fell over. I heard Mum giggle. Horrified, I held my breath. They weren’t going to … right now …
The sounds which soon reached my ear were unambiguous. It was just after dinner and my mother and Harold Kane were doing it in the kitchen and could not care less that I could hear everything, absolutely everything.
It was unbearable. Quite unbearable.
I did not continue undressing but crept into bed as I was, in my stockings and the flowery summer dress Emma had sewn for me. The bed linen smelt musty. I buried my face in the pillow and clamped my hands over my ears – anything to stop me hearing the disgusting goings-on in the next room. I had kept my feelings under control for the whole of this horrible, long day. I could not any longer.
I cried. I cried the hottest, most violent tears of my whole life.
9
I really did not make life easy for my mother and Harold in the following weeks and months. My anger that they had brought me to London against my will did not dissipate. On the contrary, it became even stronger. Autumn came, and with it fog and the early nights. My mood sank to an all-time low.
Harold avoided me and I him – as much as that was possible in the tiny flat. He was indeed away at the docks (where he was a foreman, after all) just about all day long, and when he came home he would pretty quickly get drunk. Then he would fall asleep on the wobbly little sofa in the kitchen. He snored and stank of alcohol. Every time I had to pass him I shivered.
‘He’s a drunk, Mum,’ I said to my mother once. ‘How could you marry a drunk?’
‘All men drink,’ claimed my mother, and from her perspective and experience that must have seemed like the truth.
I shook my head. ‘No! Arvid Beckett for example …’
Saying that touched a raw nerve. ‘Just stop talking about the Becketts!’ she snapped. ‘They can do no wrong in your eyes! They’re normal people like you and me and Harold!’
‘They don’t drink,’ I insisted.
‘Then they’ve got other vices. Everyone has a vice. Believe me!’
She might or might not have been right. I could not judge. In any case, Harold’s alcoholism and the sight of his bloated face disgusted me so much that all my life I have had something against alcohol and never touched the stuff. I hate it. I cannot even stand having a bottle of a digestif in the house.
I went to school, conscientiously did all my homework and spent my spare time writing endless letters to Chad. I described my bleak routine, the miserable atmosphere in bombed-out London, the dark flat and the scarcity of food. In my letters Harold was a real monster. Chad must have thought my mother had married a fat, stupid and constantly drunk ogre. I hoped Chad would console me, but he seldom replied. He let me know that he did not like to write letters and that there was a lot to do on the farm, but that he missed me and often thought of me. I had to be satisfied with that. He was a man, after all. They all seemed to find it hard to express their feelings on paper.
At the end of November I received a letter from him, in which as usual he moaned about having to sit out the war on a sheep farm instead of fighting for England. ‘The Germans’ luck is changing,’ he wrote. ‘They can be beaten, and I want to be there!’ At the end of his letter he mentioned that his mother was seriously ill again. ‘A cough, fever and she looks terrible. The cold, damp weather is no good for her, but we don’t have the money for her to have some time in the south, and the times are not favourable. The Channel Islands would not be bad, but Hitler’s gang is there. Anyway, how would we manage here without her?’
I had to think of Nobody briefly. Who was taking care of him, if Emma had to stay in bed for weeks? Maybe they would finally put him in a home. It would be best for everyone.
There was a special surprise for me at Christmas. After we had exchanged presents in the morning (I received mainly practical things like a scarf, hat and gloves), Mum revealed that I was to have a little sibling in July.
‘A baby brother,’ Harold added. He was sitting on the sofa, and in honour of the special day had drunk his first whisky at nine in the morning.
‘We don’t know yet,’ Mum replied.
‘I know it,’ insisted Harold. ‘It’ll be a boy. You’ll see!’
‘So – are you happy?’ Mum asked me.
‘In July,’ I said slowly. ‘So it might have the same birthday as me.’ That was all I needed: for Harold’s son, who would no doubt take after his father, to dispute my birthday with me.
‘Definitely not,’ thought Mum. The doctor said early July. Maybe even late June. You won’t get in each other’s way.’ Her eyes were shining and her face had a soft expression. She really was happy to be having a child with this red-faced alcoholic!
I thought of something else. ‘There’s no room for another person here! It’ll be far too crowded!’ Perhaps, I hoped, they would finally see the need to send me back to Staintondale.
Mum did not think of that. ‘The first year the baby will sleep in the room with Harold and me. And then we’ll see. Maybe we’ll find a slightly larger flat.’
‘Of course we will,’ intoned Harold. I would have liked to ask him how he was going to pay the higher rent, seeing as he so consistently spent most of his wage on alcohol, but I bit my tongue. It was Christmas. I did not want to spoil the day for all of us.
We need not have worried about the date of birth or the question of space, as it all ended dramatically earlier.
In late February Mum had a bad fall on the icy street in front of our house. She dragged herself upstairs to our flat, her face contorted in pain. Once there she sank
onto the sofa and whimpered softly to herself. I made her a cup of tea, but she only had a few sips.
‘It hurts so much, Fiona,’ she whispered. ‘It hurts so much!’
‘Mum, we should call a doctor.’
She shook her head. ‘No. He would just scare me. I just have to lie here and rest for a bit. Everything will be all right.’
In fact her pains got visibly worse. She was moaning loudly and pressing her hands to her stomach. I was starting to be very worried. Apart from the odd cold, my mother was never sick. I only knew her as an active, healthy person. Now her face was yellowy white, her lips were bloodless and she was writhing back and forth. With great effort she stood up, to walk a few steps, in the hope the cramps would relax. I saw a large red stain on the light-coloured sofa.
‘Mum, you’re bleeding,’ I said, shocked.
She stared at the stain. ‘I know. But … that happens … that doesn’t mean anything …’
‘Just let me fetch a doctor!’ I pleaded.
Although she could barely stand on her feet, she snapped back, ‘No! On no condition! Do what I say!’
‘Why not, Mum? I …’
She pressed her lips together, then gasped, ‘No!’, before shuffling back to the sofa and arduously sitting back down again. I was at my wits’ end.
I just did not understand why she was so set against seeing a doctor. She was in pain, and was losing blood … Did she seriously believe these pains would simply vanish into thin air? I was too young to know that my mother was suffering from shock. She was losing her child and knew it unconsciously but she was fighting the realisation with all her strength. She wanted at any cost to give Harold the son he deeply wished for, and she had taken long enough to fall pregnant. Her mother’s instincts were also running away with her. She clung to the unborn child, tried to protect herself and her little one from the objective and no doubt devastating diagnosis of a doctor. She refused to face reality, putting her own life in danger. I stood there helplessly, intimidated by her sharp tone into not going for help.
Towards evening she could not bear her pain any longer and finally she seemed to realise that something had to be done.
‘Run to the docks,’ she croaked hoarsely, ‘as quick as you can! Fetch Harold. He has to come at once!’
Without a doubt it would have been more sensible to go straight for a doctor, but I was relieved to be able to let an adult take responsibility. It was not far to Harold’s dock from our house, maybe a twenty-five-minute walk. That frosty February evening in 1943 I think I made it in about ten minutes. Although there were dangerous patches of black ice everywhere, I flew through the terraces, my heart hammering. I had a stitch, a dry mouth and was wheezing. My panic gave me strength. My instinct was telling me that Mum could die if she did not get help. We had wasted far too long. I prayed that I would meet Harold, and that he had not already headed for one of the grotty pubs at the docks for his first drink of the evening. In that case, I knew, I would have almost no chance of finding him. Luckily I caught him, just as he was saying goodbye to his mates. He was completely astonished by my sudden appearance in front of him out of the dark. I fought for breath and bent double with the stitch.
‘Mum,’ I gasped. ‘You have to come home at once. She’s … she’s in a bad way!’
Harold surprised me. Without further ado or questions, he hurried home with me. I would not have thought that this large man could move so quickly. His face was a deep red and glistened with sweat when we arrived; he had not paused for a second. We could probably say he was lucky not to have had a heart attack.
Mum lay bent double on the sofa, her arms around her stomach. Her face was gaunt and yellow. I could not understand how, but it seemed as if she had become years older and pounds lighter in the course of that afternoon. She stared at her husband with eyes like saucers.
‘Harold.’ It sounded like a sob. ‘I think … our son … he’s …’
‘Rubbish,’ said Harold. ‘We’ll have the most beautiful boy in the world, you’ll see!’
He accompanied her to the hospital. For a moment I saw his face when he was not putting on a show for Mum. It did not bode well.
My memories of that evening and the following night are hazy. I think I tried to distract myself by tidying up the flat and washing the blood out of the sofa, at which I did not succeed completely. Later there was always a darker patch on it, and when Mum could no longer stand the sight of it, Harold had to have it taken away. I never found out where he took it.
Finally, when there was nothing else to do, I waited and waited. I made myself a cup of tea, sat at the table and stared at the walls. I felt terribly guilty. I had felt such a strong inner resistance to this child. I had often wished it would not see the light of day, and now it seemed as if my secret wishes were coming true in a horrible way. And on top of it all I would lose my mother. She had looked terrible, and had lost so much blood. What would happen if she did not come home? Why had I not ignored her order and fetched a doctor much earlier? I wrestled with my feelings, I cried. For the first time in my life I realised that waiting can be the worst of tortures.
It was after midnight when I heard Harold’s slow, heavy steps outside. It sounded as though he were pulling himself up the banister. I raced to the door. He was standing in front of me, staring at me with bloodshot eyes and stinking of alcohol. He must have stopped off in a number of pubs on the way back from the hospital.
‘Fiona,’ he said, dragging out the syllables.
‘What is it? Harold, how is my mother?’
He swayed into the flat and headed straight for the sideboard in the kitchen. He got out a bottle of the hard stuff. I could have hit him.
‘Harold! Please! How’s Mum?’
‘She’ll be all right. They op-operated on her.’
I closed my eyes. I felt faint from relief. Mum was not dead. She would come back to me.
‘The child,’ whispered Harold. He was tongue-tied. He took a long swig from the bottle and turned to face me. ‘It r-r-really w-was a b-boy. My son … is d-dead.’
I have to admit that I was not particularly moved by this news. I had nothing to do with Harold Kane’s son, even if he was my half-brother. I could not stop thinking: Mum’s alive, Mum’s alive, Mum’s alive!
An enormous weight had fallen from my shoulders.
Harold, however, was in the middle of a terrible crisis. He was in utter despair. He drank more and more, moaning and complaining with an ever more mumbling voice about the unborn child. The child that they had been waiting for. The child who had meant everything to him. The child who was supposed to change his life.
In the end I could not stand it any more and said, pretty stroppily, ‘For God’s sake, Harold. She’ll have another child. It’ll be all right!’
He lowered the bottle he had been about to put to his mouth.
‘Never … again,’ he said. ‘Never again. The d-doctor said it w-wouldn’t be p-possible a-again.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said awkwardly. What else should I have said? Harold stared at me and then to my horror he burst into tears. ‘Oh God,’ he moaned. ‘Oh God!’
He swayed over to me. ‘F-fiona, F-fiona, hold me … hold me tight.’
I immediately stepped back, until I had the edge of a cupboard pushing into my back.
‘Harold!’ I said sternly.
He was right in front of me. He stank terribly of alcohol. I almost felt sick. He was also scaring me. We had never hugged, even if Mum would have liked us to. I did not want to, and he had respected that. But now, here in our flat, in the middle of the night, in his extreme emotional state, drunk and in despair, he was losing it.
‘Not a step closer,’ I warned him with a hoarse voice.
‘Fiona,’ he moaned again and went to grab me.
I ducked under his hand and was now standing in the doorway. I was more agile and quick than he was. Plus I was sober. But naturally he was much stronger, and if push came to shove, I did not stand
a chance. Not a chance – if what, exactly, happened?
Later I came to the conclusion that Harold Kane was not planning to assault me sexually. Neither on that night nor any other had he ever given any indication that he had his eye on me. On the contrary, I came to realise that he was completely fixated on my mother. He never even seemed to notice other women.
He really had only wanted to be consoled. He was in utter despair. His world had collapsed. To feel better he would have thrown himself into anyone’s arms right then, whether a man or a woman. But I was very young, and touchy. I already felt such a strong suspicion and dislike of him. I was exhausted after my horrific afternoon with my groaning, whimpering mother. My nerves must have been completely shot.
‘I’ll scream,’ I warned him. ‘If you come a step closer, I’ll scream so loud the house comes down!’
He stood there, confused. ‘Y-you d-don’t really think …?’
I did not wait for him to finish the question. I turned round in a flash and raced through the tiny hall and into my room. I slammed the door shut behind me and leant against it from the inside. There was no key, which I had often regretted but never as much as that night. I felt completely exposed, in danger. Harold could enter at any time and I would not be able to defend myself from him. The only thing I could do was to stay awake and make assault as difficult as possible. If he were to try to step into my territory, I would fight and scream. He would not catch me asleep, in any case.
So I kept watch all night, until the morning. I sat on the floor, with my back leant against the door, and stared into the darkness. I was dead tired and at the same time awake. My heart was pounding. The thoughts were racing through my head. I could not stay here. That much was certain. Harold had said Mum had been operated on. That meant she would have to stay in hospital for a while. At least ten days, maybe even a fortnight. There was no way I was going to stay in the flat alone with her drunk husband all that time. I could not bear him. I was afraid of him.
The Other Child Page 22