by Mia Dolan
When the scenery became boring and the nervous churning of her stomach too much to bear, Marcie eyed the only other remaining passenger. She was sitting at the front of the bus, smoke from a cigarette circling her head. The chignon at the nape of her neck shone a healthy pale gold. Pearl earrings glinted from her lobes each time she turned her head to look at the view or light another cigarette; she’d smoked a whole packet on the journey, Marcie noticed.
They had to be going to the same place. Please God that it’s so, prayed Marcie. She hated the thought of being the only new arrival there.
Hidden by overhanging branches, the bus stop was not apparent until the bus slithered on wet leaves and eventually came to a halt.
Colder now as apprehension kicked in, she purposely fixed her gaze on the other side of the road to Pilemarsh Abbey, the place she was destined for.
Gaps in the trees disclosed acres of ploughed field on the other side of the road. The wind blew the grass on the verge. The trees were tinged with the first leaves of spring, a lovely apple-green colour.
It took quite an effort, but she eventually turned her head for the first sight of her destination.
A wall of grey stone ran along her side where the bus had stopped.
There was no point in hesitation. This had to be done.
The gap was narrow. Her small suitcase and her expansive belly contrived to prevent her from easing out.
Just as she’d hoped, the other passenger was getting off too. ‘Need a hand?’
Marcie’s eyes travelled upward to a coat loosely belted over a stomach that was as big as her own.
She quickly judged the girl to be around her own age, but totally different in looks and colouring. Whereas Marcie had naturally blonde hair, blue eyes and a heart-shaped face, the one she looked up at had wide-set blue eyes, high cheekbones and a straight nose above full, sensuous lips. Her hair was unmistakeably platinum blonde and straight from a bottle.
Marcie could be regarded as pretty, the blonde with the pearl earrings had a handsome face, the sort seen on Greek statues at the British Museum. She also wore very nice clothes, not so much expensive as wisely chosen to appear that way.
Awestruck in a way she hadn’t been since her schooldays when the gymslip-clad Head Girl had allocated her the job of milk monitor, she managed to blurt a swift, ‘Thank you.’
The tall blonde beamed as she grasped the worn hide handles and took the lead, moving sideways down the aisle. Marcie struggled to her feet. The feeling of being cast adrift, like a broken boat from a world-class liner, was less intense than expected.
The conductor eyed them in a surly manner and offered no assistance. Once their heels were digging into the soft grass verge, he sniffed and pointed to a sign and a gateway a few yards along the road. Like the bus stop it was half hidden by branches.
‘That’s the place for fallen women,’ he said, his tone as contemptuous as the look he gave them. ‘It’s like a bloody great rowing boat in that place – oars on both sides!’
Appalled at his meaning, Marcie blushed to the tips of her hair. Luckily she wasn’t easily roused to temper; things had to be pretty dire before she lashed out.
The platinum blonde was less restrained. Setting down her case, she stuck her fists on her hips and jerked her head high, her eyes blazing.
‘Whores! Is that what you mean, you dirty old sod? Now that’s where you’re wrong. Didn’t you know? This place is being turned into a convent!’ She jerked her thumb at Marcie. ‘She’s got the job of Mother Superior, and I’m the bloody Virgin Mary ’cause I like seeing men go down on their knees before me! Now sod off! Go on. Shove off and punch a few tickets, you bald-headed old coot!’
The bus conductor snorted and threw one last insult. ‘Tart!’
The blonde picked up a fallen stick and took a run at him. Despite her girth, she ran fast and looked strong enough to land a blow. ‘And who makes us tarts, eh? Men! That’s who! Prince Bloody Charming until there’s a bun in the oven!’
Firing puffs of black smoke from its noisy exhaust, the bus pulled away, the gears grating against the worn cogs, as the dying pistons rapidly coated the engine with choking layers of carbon.
The world around it responded to its passing, last year’s dead leaves swirling like dancing dervishes, finally settling in crisp brown heaps at the roadside.
The blonde glowered after it, her cheeks pink from the morning chill. ‘Men!’
Marcie wasn’t fooled by the jutting firmness of the girl’s chin. There was also moistness in her eyes. Still, she had to admire her defiant stance, the way she stood with her fists clenched and head held high.
Finally they stood alone.
‘I’m Sally,’ said the blonde, swiftly turning round and taking Marcie unawares with a firm handshake.
‘I’m Marcie.’
Heaving her elegant shoulders Sally turned her classic features to the sign and the entrance to Pilemarsh Abbey. Her breasts, heavily expectant with baby milk, heaved her coat lapels apart when she sighed. ‘Well. Let’s get it over with.’
Pouncing on her suitcase and gripping it with a firm hand, she began to walk.
Eyeing the sign and the grey stonework with heavy misgiving, Marcie followed, though slowly, taking in every little detail, the curling paint at the corners of the sign, the way the leaves of the poplar trees rattled like tiny bits of metal, and the height of the walls – mostly the height of the walls. They were huge and meant to keep people in.
Sally got to the gate first, stopped and waited for her to catch up.
‘Sorry,’ said Marcie, puffing and rubbing at the hollow of her back.
‘What for?’
‘I’m a bit slow and my back aches.’
The classic features softened. ‘Nervous?’
Marcie admitted that she was. ‘My stomach’s doing somersaults.’
Sally laughed. ‘Of course it is. There’s a baby in there aching to get out and live.’
‘I’ve never had a baby before.’
Sally’s laughter died away. A spark of fear lurked in the clear-blue eyes.
‘Neither have I. So it’s a first time for both of us.’
Turning she scrutinised the gate as though she were looking for something in particular, perhaps for a way in that would be of advantage, unobserved by the authorities vested in the place. ‘No,’ she said at last. ‘Can’t find it anywhere.’
Bemused, Marcie eyed her with puzzlement. ‘Can’t find what?’
‘The sign – the one that says “Abandon hope all ye that enter here”.’
Marcie couldn’t help but laugh and found herself feeling immediately better. The nervousness was put on hold – at least for the moment.
There was a twinkle in Sally’s eyes. ‘That’s what it’s supposed to say above the entrance to Hell, and we can’t be going there, surely.’
Marcie pulled a rueful expression. ‘I hope not.’
Sally turned a graver expression back to the entrance and gave a disdainful snort. ‘Come on. Let’s see what sort of place this is.’
Chapter Forty
A woman wearing the sombre uniform of a Salvation Army captain smiled and took her suitcase. ‘Please come this way, Miss Brooks. Welcome to Pilemarsh Abbey.’
Marcie’s eyes swept from the building and over the dark uniform of the small woman with rounded hips and belly, and apple-red cheeks.
‘It’s an odd name.’
The woman looked surprised. ‘Odd?’
She saw the pale eyes flicker as though searching for some logical response to a question she didn’t entirely understand.
‘It doesn’t look like an abbey. It looks like a house.’
‘Ah!’ she finally said in a condescending manner. ‘You’re a Catholic, aren’t you my child, and thus may have been expecting an abbey or convent-type of hospital. I’m afraid it’s just a name given it by some past owner, though for the life of me, I can’t think why.’
Marcie tipped back her head, her ga
ze skimming over the Gothic-style arches above each window. ‘Perhaps the name had something to do with hopes of going to Heaven.’ Her own words surprised her, but not as much as they surprised the woman.
The round face convulsed with confusion. ‘I’m sure … I don’t know,’ she blustered.
Marcie’s attention was taken with another girl who had arrived by car. She was brown and pretty with velvet eyes and a graceful figure.
The car was a shiny black Rover that someone must have taken an age to polish.
A woman stuck her head out of the car’s rear window and addressed the Captain.
‘Do you have a telephone?’
The Captain nodded against the stiff bow of her bonnet as she smiled.
‘Yes. Indeed we do.’
‘Good.’ The woman’s dark eyes turned to the girl. Judging by their looks, Marcie was looking at a mother and her daughter.
‘They have a telephone.’
‘So I hear,’ said the daughter.
‘Good. I’ll be in touch, darling.’
‘Give it a few weeks. It should all be over by then. I’ll let you know if it happens before then, but please don’t visit me. I don’t want that.’
The mother nodded. ‘I understand. Now take care, darling.’
Mother and daughter kissed. Even though their lips barely brushed each other’s cheeks, Marcie could sense the great affection between them. Seeing that made her feel incredibly bereft; she wondered how her mother would have acted in such a situation. She liked to think she’d be just like that, or perhaps even better – imploring me to keep the child, promising to stand by me regardless, she thought.
The weak sunlight flashed on the girl’s earrings.
‘Goodbye! Goodbye!’ The mother of the girl called goodbye until she was too far away to do anything but wave a gloved hand.
The girl turned to the Captain. ‘Right. I’m ready now.’
The Captain had very red cheeks and an amiable disposition. Her expression exploded with puce-coloured joviality. ‘Jolly good. Jolly good. Do come this way. You’ll be sharing a room between the three of you. You’ll have a lot in common. All three of you are at the same stage of expectancy …’
The red-veined cheeks, her facial skin as pitted and dented as that of an orange, and her joyous expression were as much a part of her character as the thick spectacles sitting on her nose. She chattered all the way to the front door.
The girl who had arrived by car adopted an aura of calm detachment. Marcie exchanged a brief look with Sally and mouthed the word ‘posh’.
Prams were ranged along the path running the length of the building. Some of the babies were crying, their little fists punching at the air.
The little band slowed as they passed as each occupant, who in turn joined the cacophony of sound.
‘They’re waiting for their feeds,’ her escort explained.
A bell sounded from within the building. It reminded Marcie of infants’ school, but instead of children a bevy of young women tumbled out of the door, peeling off to either side and taking charge of a pram.
‘The mothers,’ explained her companion, her face and body seeming to swell with pride, as though she were some sort of queen bee and these were her workers merely responding to orders. ‘They’ve come to collect their babies for their evening feed. Babies are fed every three hours for twenty minutes’ duration.’
The eyes of each new arrival followed the mothers swooping down on children they would soon give away.
Marcie guessed that these mothers had been lurking just inside the door, ready to spring forward at the first strike of the bell. Only a few were less than enthusiastic, eyeing the infants as though they constituted a severe intrusion on the life they’d planned for themselves. Did they really consider their babies in that way, she wondered, or was their defensive attitude a cover for deeply held pain?
‘Now then,’ said the Captain, her stout bosom thrust proudly forward. ‘The home is divided between those awaiting the arrival of their babies, and those who have already delivered prior to adoption.’
Adoption!
The word jangled in her brain. Up until now it hadn’t figured too prominently. The Reverend Haskins and his wife had chosen their words carefully – almost discreetly.
‘The child will be placed in a nice family home.’
In the aftermath of Johnnie’s death she’d allowed herself to be swept along by outside forces, his parents in particular. She hadn’t protested or even considered that there might be an alternative. The modern age still frowned on girls who got pregnant without a wedding ring on their finger, so there was no way she could possibly keep her baby.
Their room was just about big enough to take three single beds. Sally had bagged the one by the window. Marcie threw her suitcase onto the one immediately behind the door.
Allegra, the girl wearing Carnaby Street clothes and genuine Courreges boots, placed her luggage on the third bed.
‘Then I suppose this is mine.’
Her voice smacked of Chelsea and the West End of London.
‘I suppose it is,’ said Sally.
Marcie couldn’t help but remark on the bags. ‘They’re smart.’
‘Pigskin,’ said Allegra as she pulled off gloves that matched the luggage both in colour and material. She looked sniffily around the room. ‘This room must have once been the broom cupboard.’
‘And you’re used to something better, I suppose,’ snapped Sally with scathing sarcasm.
‘Actually I am.’
‘Well aren’t you the lucky one, your ladyship – though lady is hardly the right word, is it. Opened your legs and dropped your drawers same as we did.’
Marcie felt the need to intervene. ‘Look. There’s no point in going on like this. We’ll be sharing this room for a little while. It’s best that we all get on together.’
Both girls were older than her. They looked surprised that she sounded so authoritative.
While Sally and Allegra turned their backs on each other and began unpacking, Marcie bided her time.
After removing her shoes, she slumped down on the bed and wondered how long it would be before she was not just Marcie Brooks but Marcie Brooks and child. But that wasn’t all she was thinking. Annie came to mind, crying for her feed just like the newborns lying in their coach-built prams. Unlike the newborns Annie was fed whenever she was hungry and certainly not to a timetable.
Chapter Forty-one
One day on and things didn’t seem too bad. Anyway, you have to adjust, Marcie told herself. You have to face this, get it over and get on with your life. The two girls she shared the room with had much the same attitude – except that Sally couldn’t help digging at Allegra.
‘She’s such a bloody toff,’ spat Sally at their first mealtime when Allegra was still queuing for food.
‘You mean she’s not the sort you see serving behind a counter in Woolworths,’ a bemused Marcie responded. Mentioning Woolworths reminded her of Babs. Strangely enough she found herself missing her even though they hadn’t really got on.
‘She still needs bringing down a notch,’ Sally was saying.
‘Live and let live,’ said Marcie, but she doubted her room-mate could do that. There was bound to be friction between the two from day one – and there was.
As Sally polished her nails, Allegra took a satin and lace nightie from one of her pigskin bags. Unlike her room-mates she had not transferred her garments into the utility vintage chest of drawers. After selecting what she wanted the bags were pushed back under her bed.
Marcie was flicking through a woman’s magazine that Allegra had loaned her. Women in the most wonderful fashions imaginable smiled out at her. Their skirts were incredibly short, their legs long and encased in multi-coloured tights. They were posing at odd angles, accentuating their slender legs and the geometric designs they were wearing. Even their straight, glossy hairstyles had an angular look about them.
Marcie was enthralled. ‘I’v
e never read a magazine like this. It’s wonderful.’
She turned over another page.
‘Have you ever had your hair done at a really top-notch hairdresser?’ she asked Allegra.
‘Sassoon. The very best,’ Allegra replied.
‘Your hair does look nice.’
‘Thank you.’
‘This underwear,’ said Marcie, dropping her gaze back to the magazine. ‘Do they really make such wonderful stuff in Paris?’
‘Where else?’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Sally interrupted, a cigarette stuck in the corner of her mouth. ‘Surprising what you can get in the Old Kent Road or Petticoat Lane.’ She was painting her fingernails a delicate shade of pink.
Marcie sighed. ‘And these models. They’re so beautiful. I’ve never seen …’
She was about to say she’d never seen such flawless-looking women and that they had to be foreign because they were so slim and chic – nothing like British women – but she stopped in mid-sentence when she saw that Allegra had taken a huge Kashmir shawl from her luggage and wrapped it around herself.
‘This place is so chilly – typically British,’ in her usual refined manner.
Marcie’s jaw dropped. It was as though one of the models themselves had stepped out of the magazine – except for the fact that Allegra was so obviously pregnant.
‘Well that explains a lot,’ said Sally looking her up and down.
Allegra frowned. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘You’re obviously foreign otherwise you wouldn’t feel the chill. Touched with the tar brush are you?’
Allegra clenched her jaw and a faint flush came to her cheeks.
‘You’re very rude.’
‘We all are,’ said Sally, her face wreathed in clouds of cigarette smoke. ‘We played rude games with boys we shouldn’t have played with.’
‘That’s not what I meant,’ snapped Allegra.
Their arguing was giving Marcie a headache. She was sensible enough to know that there had to be harmony if they were to share this room even for a short time.