Ambitious Love

by Rosie Harris

  It took considerable effort but after a few days she found that taking more notice of the customers did seem to divert her thoughts from her problem.

  By the time she was four months pregnant, the baby was already taking second place in her thoughts. She even resumed her social life and went dancing with Boris and occasionally went with Dairvy to hear Vladimir sing.

  As the months progressed, she did begin to feel very tired at the end of the working day, but Dairvy was well aware of this. Little by little she increased her own working hours so that Fern could go home and rest after the midday rush.

  ‘I’ll take Egor with me and after he’s had his nap then I can take him to the park,’ Fern suggested when Dairvy told her about the new arrangement.

  ‘Oh no, the extra time off is so that you can rest and you won’t be able to do that if you have Egor with you, not now that he’s toddling,’ Dairvy told her.

  ‘He’s as slippery as an eel these days and even Dairvy finds him tiring,’ Jacob laughed.

  Fern was grateful for their concern and she did take advantage of the arrangement to lie on her bed and rest. The only problem was it gave her even more time to think about Glanmor and wish that they could be together.

  She knew the route the Saturn was taking and she had written to him several times but she knew there was always the chance that her letters would not arrive until after the ship had left port and might not reach their next point of call in time for him to get them.

  More and more, she wanted him to find a shore job and she didn’t mind whether it was in Petrograd or in Cardiff. Nothing mattered as long as they could be together and he was able to come home every night. She resolved that next time he came ashore she would tell him that these long partings were more than she could stand.

  Fern’s baby was born without enough time for her to go to hospital on the last day of 1924 after a short, intense labour. Dairvy acted as midwife and afterwards claimed that it all went exceptionally well, even though Fern disputed this and said she had never experienced such agony in all her life.

  ‘Nonsense; there was nothing to it. You should think yourself fortunate that everything was so easy,’ Dairvy assured her.

  Afterwards, when she brought Fern a refreshing cup of tea and helped her to settle the newborn child to suckle, she added, ‘I suppose you know that being born on New Year’s Eve is considered to be very special for the child.’

  ‘She most certainly is very special,’ Fern agreed as she looked down proudly at the baby lying against her breast, her tiny hand curling and uncurling as she suckled. ‘I only wish Glanmor was here to welcome her into the world.’

  Once again she sent a letter, this time to tell him about the arrival of their baby and to ask him what name he would like to give their little daughter.

  Dairvy and Jacob pressed her to give the child a name and Vladimir and Boris both came up with suggestions but Fern refused to even consider them.

  ‘I’m not deciding on a name until I hear from Glanmor. I’m simply calling her “Baby”, because it is only right that Glanmor is the one to choose the child’s name,’ she insisted.

  The morning rush was over and Fern had settled down in a corner of the café to enjoy a cup of coffee and feed Baby when Dairvy and Egor arrived. Egor toddled over to where she was sitting and gave her something he was holding in his hand.

  Fern’s heart thudded as she saw that it was from the shipping line and she looked up questioningly at Dairvy.

  ‘It arrived at the apartment after you’d left this morning,’ Dairvy told her excitedly. ‘I can’t wait for you to open it. It could mean that Glanmor is coming home sooner than you expected. Here, let me hold Baby while you read it.’

  Her hopes rising by the minute, Fern extracted the thick sheet of paper inside the envelope and then she gave a gasp. Her body stiffened and the colour drained away from her face. In silence she handed the letter over to Dairvy.

  Frowning, Dairvy scanned the contents then with a gasp of concern she put her arm round Fern who was shaking with shock.

  ‘What’s going on? What’s the matter?’ Sensing that it was bad news, Jacob came hurrying over to them.

  Without a word Dairvy held out the letter to him and as soon as he’d read it his face registered disbelief.

  Within minutes Jacob had gone into the kitchen and come back with a bottle of vodka and three glasses. ‘Drink this,’ he ordered, handing Fern a strong measure.

  ‘Falling overboard is terrible enough,’ he commented, ‘but to be— Surely there was no need to tell you such gruesome details,’ he said angrily.

  Fern shook her head, her eyes wide with distress. She still couldn’t believe what she’d read and she reached out again for the letter but Jacob shook his head. He folded it carefully and put it back inside the envelope. ‘I will put this somewhere safe,’ he mumbled. ‘You do not want to keep reading it over and over again.’

  Fern felt too upset to argue. He was probably right, she thought. Perhaps the best thing to do was to forget she had ever read those horrible words. Perhaps they’d got it all wrong. Glanmor might have swum round to the other side of the boat and been picked up later on.

  ‘There’s daft you are, girl,’ she scolded herself out loud. ‘Duw anwyl, they’d all be looking over the side of the ship watching and wondering what they could do to help Glanmor, so they’d know exactly what happened. No one would have written such a terrible letter unless it was true.’

  She wished she could cry and release the hard knot in her heart and the lump in her throat, but there were no tears. It was as if the shocking news had dried her up completely.

  She looked down at the sleeping child in her arms, wondering what the future would hold for them now. It had been frightening enough finding she was pregnant without Glanmor being at her side. Now the thought of having to look after Baby and bring her up all on her own filled her with a feeling of trepidation.

  Jacob and Dairvy were kind and helpful but they weren’t her family. She didn’t want to stay in Russia for the rest of her life but how was she ever going to manage to get away on her own?

  She suddenly felt desperately homesick for Cardiff. Would she ever walk those familiar streets again and be able to understand everything that was said to her? she wondered.

  For the moment, there seemed to be nothing for it but to knuckle down and make the best of things. She supposed she ought to think herself lucky that she had such good friends as Dairvy and Jacob and a roof over her head as well as a job.

  She had been prepared to stay in Petrograd for another year or so, until Glanmor returned from his trip. When he came back, they were to have planned their future together. For the moment, nothing had changed really, she tried to tell herself.

  But in her heart she knew full well that it had. Knowing that Glanmor would be coming back had kept her hopes bubbling. Now they had been dashed and she had nothing to look forward to and it was impossible to make any plans whatsoever for the future.

  The news of Glanmor’s tragic death spread quickly amongst the customers. In so many instances it brought back vivid memories of unexpected deaths they’d known in their own families during the revolution. The expressions of sympathy expressed in Russian and broken English were so heartfelt that they released Fern’s pent-up tension and brought tears to her eyes.

  She tried hard not to give way to her emotions while she was at work but at night she sobbed into her pillow.

  Dairvy and Jacob said nothing about Baby’s crying but Fern knew that in the confines of the flat it was almost bound to waken them. She tried to control her grief but she sometimes wakened from a deep sleep to find herself sobbing and Baby crying because she’d been disturbed.

  In the stillness of the night the baby’s cries seemed incredibly strident. Anxious to quieten her down, Fern would take her into her own bed.

  As she cuddled her fatherless child she found holding the tiny body close gave her comfort. By the time Baby was calmed and slee
ping once more, Fern found her own eyelids drooping.

  Cautiously, so as not to waken her daughter, she would slither further down in the bed still cradling the sleeping baby in her arms, hoping they’d both sleep for another few hours.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Fern found that Glanmor’s death affected her deeply and she wondered if she would ever get over it. There were days when she was convinced that it had all been a dream; a very bad dream but, nonetheless, something that had occurred inside her mind.

  Then someone would commiserate with her, or say something that struck a chord in her heart, and she would be overcome with such an immense feeling of desolation that the world around her would suddenly become alien.

  She didn’t know what to do. The thought of working at the Korsky Kafe for ever depressed her. At the same time she knew full well that she was lucky to have a job where they made her baby welcome and allowed her to work the hours that best suited her.

  Her one consolation was Baby. She still hadn’t decided on a name for her and, as no one insisted that she do so, she still called her Baby and so did all the customers.

  Baby went everywhere with her – cradled in the crook of her arm or carried in a shawl Welsh-fashion – and they were inseparable. Fern no longer took the trouble to make her sleep in her crib at night. Instead, she took her into her own bed knowing that when she had her child alongside her they both settled better, gaining comfort from their closeness to each other.

  Fern’s other solace was vodka. It had started when Jacob had given her a strong measure when she’d first heard the terrible news about Glanmor. After that, when the nightmares became too frightening to bear, she found that a small tot of vodka would calm her down and drive them away.

  As the weeks passed, however, the small tots became more frequent and gradually she found they needed to be larger in order to drive away the ghosts of the past; especially last thing at night before she settled down to sleep.

  Jacob warned her that she was drinking more than was good for her, especially since she was still feeding Baby herself, but she ignored his advice. It was far better to go to bed in a slight haze, knowing that she would fall asleep within minutes of her head hitting the pillow, than to lie there haunted by thoughts of what sort of future she might have had if Glanmor hadn’t died.

  Baby was a sickly child; Fern worried endlessly because she wasn’t thriving as well as she ought to be. She blamed the intense cold of the Russian winter even though Dairvy argued that the cold had made Egor strong and resilient.

  ‘He’s a boy and he has both his mother and father to nurture him,’ Fern told her gloomily.

  ‘I think Baby would thrive better if you let her sleep on her own in her crib at night,’ Dairvy kept pointing out gently but Fern refused to listen to her.

  ‘She needs feeding during the night and if she was in her own crib, I’d have to get out of bed to pick her up and attend to her. By the time I did that she’d have wakened the whole lot of you with her screaming.’

  The accident happened on a Friday night. They’d had a very busy day in the café and they were all exhausted. When Jacob suggested they should all have a vodka to help relax them after they’d finished their evening meal that night, Fern was the first to accept.

  ‘Not for me,’ Dairvy said, shaking her head and smothering a yawn. ‘If I drink vodka this late at night I sleep like a log and I can’t wake up in the morning. You’re drinking far too much these days, Fern,’ she added reprovingly.

  ‘That’s the way I like to sleep,’ Fern told her as she picked up her glass and drained it down in one gulp. Then with Baby cradled in her arms she said goodnight to them both.

  When Fern didn’t appear at breakfast the next morning, Dairvy scolded Jacob. ‘It’s your fault for giving her so much vodka last night,’ she chided.

  ‘She’ll be here at any minute; leastways I hope she will, because she’s on early shift at the café.’

  When, ten minutes later, Fern still had not put in an appearance Dairvy became worried. ‘Do you think I should knock on her door and waken her?’

  ‘Do whatever you think is best,’ Jacob said with a shrug. ‘If she is still sleeping, then perhaps you should come down to the café this morning instead of her.’

  ‘No, that is not the arrangement,’ Dairvy protested. ‘I need to be at home with Egor this morning.’

  Dairvy knocked twice on Fern’s bedroom door but there was no answer. She called out her name, but there was still no response. She tried the handle but the door was bolted. In desperation she called to Jacob to come and force the door open because she was sure there was something wrong.

  Jacob wasn’t at all keen to break into Fern’s room but Dairvy was so concerned that when there was no response to his own repeated knocking and shouting he put his shoulder to the door. The flimsy bolt gave way instantly.

  It was clear to both of them as they went into the room that Fern was in a deep sleep. Dairvy went over to the bed and shook her by the shoulder. As she did so, Fern stirred but still didn’t waken; not until Dairvy let out a scream.

  Startled out of her deep sleep by the intrusion Fern sat up in bed, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and pushing her hair back from her face as she did so.

  As she stepped towards the bed Dairvy pointed down to Baby who was lying half underneath Fern. Her little arms were blue and when Dairvy picked up the child, Baby’s body remained completely limp.

  Dairvy drew back and put a hand over her mouth as she gave a cry of horror.

  ‘What’s happened to her?’ Fern gasped as she tried to move Baby and there was no response at all from the child.

  There was fear on her face and her voice was a distraught whisper as she stared from the baby to Dairvy and back again.

  Gently Dairvy lifted the little body; it was cold and as floppy and lifeless as a rag doll.

  ‘My God! Your child is dead,’ Jacob gasped. ‘You’ve rolled over and slept on her.’

  The horror in his voice brought Fern to her senses. She reached out for Baby, snatching her back, cradling her and crooning to her as she chafed the little arms and legs desperately trying to restore the circulation.

  ‘Do something, fetch someone, Jacob,’ Dairvy pleaded, her face wet with tears.

  ‘It’s too late for a doctor,’ Jacob exclaimed hopelessly.

  ‘It will have to be reported, though, because the baby is dead,’ Dairvy pointed out.

  ‘You stay here with Fern and I will go and open up the café. Perhaps one of our customers will know what we ought to do.’

  How they all survived the next few days none of them ever knew. There were so many questions asked that Fern thought she must be going completely mad.

  Her grief over losing the baby was such that she couldn’t even cooperate when Jacob asked her to give it a name before the burial service. ‘I only ever called her Baby,’ she said sadly, ‘won’t that do?’

  To add to her distress Jacob and Dairvy refused to let her have any vodka. They blamed themselves for encouraging her to drink it in the first place because they were sure it was what had led to the terrible accident.

  Dairvy was so upset by what had happened that she couldn’t stop crying. Fern remained like a zombie, dry-eyed and silent, taking no notice of what was going on around her.

  She remained impervious to all the investigations, and even left Dairvy and Jacob to make the funeral arrangements. She watched impassively as Jacob carried the tiny white coffin containing Baby’s body for burial.

  Afterwards she stayed in her bedroom refusing to eat or drink or talk to anyone for almost a week, leaving Dairvy and Jacob to manage the café and look after little Egor the best they could.

  When she finally returned to work, apart from looking pale and tight-lipped, Fern acted almost as though nothing at all had happened. One or two of the regular customers tried to express their sympathy but she ignored their words and merely shrugged and got on with what she was doing. For the most pa
rt they accepted her stoical reticence without comment.

  Within a few weeks it was as if Baby had never existed. Fern worked hard in the café, managing to smile when it was necessary to do so but remaining rather aloof. She continued to look after Egor as she had always done.

  The only change in her routine seemed to be that since Jacob would not allow her to drink vodka when she was in the flat, then, whenever she was not needed to look after Egor in the evenings, she became restless and went out.

  At first it was with Dairvy to hear Vladimir sing or occasionally to watch Boris dance as they’d done in the past. Gradually, however, when Jacob wasn’t able to look after Egor or when Dairvy said she had jobs she had to do around the home, Fern started going out on her own.

  She still went to the same places but now that she was on her own she no longer wanted merely to sit and watch. As a child she’d always loved to dance and she was eager to take part.

  At first, because they felt sorry for her, both Vladimir and Boris arranged for her to participate in some minor way. Within a very short time she was so appreciated by the audiences that the management of the theatres where they performed began including her as an independent act.

  Although she claimed that she couldn’t sing her voice was pleasant, and when she sang popular songs in her own tongue some of the audience who understood the words were delighted and many of them tried to join in.

  Her dancing was even more successful than her singing. She was happy to partner Boris in demonstrations of ballroom dancing but she preferred to perform solo and again the audience was pleasantly receptive.

  As she spent more and more of her evenings either dancing or singing she began to resent having to work in the café. For one thing, with so many late nights, she was constantly tired; for another, she found her work as a waitress was not nearly so stimulating as being part of the entertainment scene.

  When she told Jacob she would like to work less hours at the café so that she would have more time for her other interests, he was most annoyed.