‘I’m Elsie,’ she said.
‘Welcome back,’ Ivy said with a pleasant smile. ‘We were just reading this Make Do and Mend leaflet for pregnant women. It’s very funny—read some more, Phyllis.’
Phyllis stood up and put on a well-spoken, deep voice. ‘Shortages should be viewed as a blessing in disguise. Rubber knickers are not necessary and, quite apart from the fact that rubber is very scarce, they are very uncomfortable for the baby.’
The girls laughed then Freda snatched the leaflet. ‘This is my favourite bit…where is it…oh, yes. A laundry basket or even a deep drawer, suitably lined, can be adapted to make a very useful cot for the first few months,’ she read.
‘And when they get older, you can stuff them in your wardrobe,’ Ivy added with a laugh. ‘Honestly.’
Now it was Phyllis’s turn to snatch the leaflet, promptly tearing it into small pieces.
‘Phyllis!’ Ivy scolded.
‘Rubbish only a man can have written.’
The girls laughed again and Elsie found herself joining in and relaxing. She eyed Kath several times throughout the exchange; often Kath caught her looking. The whole atmosphere of the house had shifted since she had last been here; something she couldn’t quite put her finger on had changed.
Unassumingly, the afternoon slipped into the evening. The only interruptions to the four women getting to know one another better and the circumstances of their confinement at Cliff House were Agnes’s regular drop-ins. ‘Here are your glasses of milk, girls. Drink up.’ ‘Here are your vitamin A and D tablets—chocolate-covered—you lucky things.’
Elsie’s suspicions about Agnes’s seeming transformation into this caring matriarch that she barely recognised was heightened at the dinner table. ‘Are you sure we shouldn’t just book ourselves into a private nursing home for our confinement?’ Ivy asked.
‘Nonsense!’ came Agnes’s reply. ‘Pay sixteen-and-a-half guineas for two weeks when you can have the baby here, for free? Poppycock.’
Ivy and the other two girls smiled and a lingering stare from both Kath and Agnes made Elsie feel that she too should be joining in the joviality.
Elsie forced a smile, playing along. ‘It’s very kind of you,’ she found herself saying.
Agnes shot her a look of clear contempt.
By way of distraction, Elsie picked up her glass of water and drank the contents. As she went to set it back down on the table an odd sensation swished inside of her tummy. The glass slipped from her hand and smashed on the floor. Tiny splinters of glass were showered across the stone tiles. Confusion ensued as the table erupted with people wanting to assist.
‘Stand back!’ Ivy told Elsie.
Elsie lifted her dress and took a step backwards, revealing a large puddle beneath her feet.
‘Golly, you could have finished your drink first,’ Ivy remarked when she saw the water.
‘I did,’ Elsie stated.
‘Oh, goodness!’ Ivy replied, looking up at Elsie’s wet dress. ‘Agnes!’
Chapter Nineteen
19th May 1941, Capel-le-Ferne, Kent
An algid breeze rose from the channel, scaling the white chalk cliffs and bringing with it the silence of respite. But for one skylark, singing high in the polished skies above them, Elsie and her baby were entirely alone. She had been determined to escape the suffocation of her confinement but perhaps it had been too soon to leave after all; she was shattered. Her limbs were stodgy and it was an effort to put one leg in front of the other as she pushed the utility pram along the empty lane. Every night since her arrival she had been disturbed by the regular shrieking of the air raid sirens, followed minutes later by the long droning sound of hundreds of Luftwaffe bombers headed towards London.
Nobody at Cliff House had slept these past nights. The floorboards outside her bedroom had groaned with startling regularity as the women of the house scurried to and from the Anderson shelter in the garden. Elsie hated any kind of shelter now and resolutely refused to use them, preferring to take her chances in her own room. Each night she would remove the blackouts and would lie in bed watching the black cavalcades flying towards the capital, scarring the charcoal skies in endless relays until she fell asleep. Sometimes, she would hear the baby crying from the next room and her instincts would tell her to go to the child. But she couldn’t; Elsie had been allowed just the first night with the baby beside her—some kind of warped generosity from Agnes and Kath, before they had removed the cot and placed the baby in Kath’s bedroom, making it clear that Elsie was to have nothing more to do with the child.
Today was the first time that Elsie had spent more than a handful of minutes with her own daughter, and that was because of absolute necessity.
The baby began to cry—probably from the uncomfortableness of the pram. Elsie stopped and carefully picked her up. She placed the baby’s head to her chest and began to rock her gently. Elsie closed her eyes, wishing that things might have been different. ‘I’ll be going tomorrow,’ she whispered. ‘And I probably won’t see you again for a while.’ As she spoke, the enormity of her words struck her, catching in her throat.
The baby’s cries subdued and she seemed to stare at Elsie, listening. ‘You’ve got your father’s beautiful grey eyes,’ she said. This wasn’t ever how she had imagined her life to be. Standing there, in the cool sunshine, with France clearly visible across the channel, she considered how significantly her life had changed in the past year. Laurie was over there somewhere, in a prisoner-of-war camp—presumably still alive, and here she was, about to hand over her illegitimate child to his sister. Was she really doing the right thing? It was one thing to hand over the baby and run back off to her welcomingly distracting duties in the WAAF, but what about after the war? A cold shudder ran through her as she tried to envisage the possible scenario of Laurie’s return and an attempt to reignite the dying embers of their marriage.
She set the baby back down and continued to Cliff House. As she did so, she noticed a figure walking towards her. A familiar figure, she thought. She strained her eyes and pushed the pram onwards. Yes, it was Gwen, she was certain of it.
‘Gwen!’ Elsie called.
It seemed to take Gwen an age before the lack of recognition on her face turned to familiarity. ‘Oh, hello,’ she greeted flatly, about to continue past Elsie.
Elsie pulled the pram to a halt and applied the ridiculous brake—a dog lead that ran from the frame to the back wheels. ‘How are you?’ Elsie asked, delighted to see a familiar face.
‘Not so bad,’ Gwen answered, gnawing at a fingernail.
‘How’s the baby?’
Gwen nodded. ‘He’s alright.’
‘Where is he?’
‘At home,’ Gwen replied vaguely. ‘Must get back to him—bye.’
Elsie watched incredulously as Gwen scuttled off past her, finding it odd that she hadn’t even taken a glance inside the pram, never mind asking after the baby.
She pulled her greatcoat as tightly around her midriff as she could manage, then continued, desperate to sit down and rest.
Upon entering the house, Elsie was dismayed to find Ada Potter sitting with Agnes in the sitting room. She was a middle-aged spinster, dry and haggard, employed as the local social worker and welfare officer. Elsie hated her. When the two of them were together, Agnes returned to her old, hard self.
‘Ah, there you are,’ Ada remarked. ‘I’ve just brought your orange juice from the welfare clinic—you’d better have yourself a glass now.’
‘Did you get it done?’ Agnes demanded.
Elsie nodded and fumbled in her handbag. She handed over the birth certificate and watched Agnes and Ada poring over it.
‘Christina Finch,’ Agnes read dispassionately.
‘After my mother,’ Elsie said.
Agnes raised an eyebrow. ‘A German name.’
Then both women looked up simultaneously, sharing a look of dismay.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ Ada barked. ‘I knew you sh
ould have gone with her, Agnes.’ She threw the certificate to the ground. ‘You’ll have to go back—right now!’
‘What’s wrong with it?’ Elsie begged.
‘You’ve said that Lawrence is the father,’ Ada snapped.
Elsie’s tired mind was spinning in confusion. Had she told the registrar that Laurie was the father? She tried to think, but couldn’t make her jumbled thoughts run fast enough to keep up. The registrar had asked the name of her husband and must have assumed…
Agnes stood and folded her arms. ‘Oh, Elsie. We told you to put the dead pilot down as the father. What were you thinking?’
‘Is it such a problem?’ Elsie stammered, sinking down into a chair opposite the two women.
‘Well of course it is; what are you, stupid?’ Ada retorted. ‘He’s your husband—he has to give his consent! It would have been easier just to have left the father’s name blank. I’ve got all the paperwork here, but it’s useless now you’ve gone and messed up the birth certificate.’
‘I thought you said we had to legally wait six weeks.’
‘Don’t backchat me, Miss,’ Ada yelled.
Agnes sighed and glanced at the old grandfather clock. ‘We’ll have to go first thing tomorrow now, we won’t get there before closing today.’ She turned to Ada. ‘Can we complete any of the other forms now?’
Ada’s angry brow rose in exasperation. ‘We can fill in one or two, but I can’t process it without the birth certificate. Honestly.’ She sat down and pulled a leather bag onto her lap, then removed a large bundle of papers. ‘Right, sit down,’ she directed. ‘I’ll need to take all the details, read you the Adoption of Children memorandum, then get you to sign the forms.’
Elsie nodded, taking a brief glance at her daughter sleeping silently in the pram beside her. As with so much of Christina’s short life so far, she was entirely oblivious to the situation and life into which she had been born. ‘And then that’s it?’ Elsie asked. ‘Kath is just given the baby and I walk away?’
Agnes looked across at her. ‘Well, yes. She’s not your baby, Elsie. She never could have been after your terrible lapse. Besides, I thought that you wanted to get back to the WAAF.’
Elsie wanted that more than anything. She burned inside to leave this house and never to return, frankly. But could she just walk away, leaving Christina behind?
‘I’d like to have her baptised,’ Elsie said.
‘Well, you can’t,’ Ada stated bluntly.
‘Why not? Other girls have done it,’ Elsie replied.
‘They were single—you’re married,’ Agnes retorted incredulously. ‘There’s no way you’re getting her baptised and that’s that.’
‘Can we get on with the forms now?’ Ada demanded.
The paperwork took almost an hour to complete, after which time Elsie took to her room under the guise of needing rest. Once ensconced in her bedroom, she hauled the two suitcases out from under her bed and began to pack so that she could make a swift departure once the birth certificate had been amended in the morning.
Having swiftly completed the packing, Elsie stood back and smiled at the suitcases; with the exception of her wash bag, she was ready to go. Opening her door, she padded down the hallway to the bathroom, tossed her toothbrush and flannel into her wash bag and headed back to her bedroom. The low murmur of conversation filtering up from the front door made her pause. The words were muffled, indistinct but with the definite tone of agitation. Elsie moved to the top of the stairs and craned her head over the banisters. She could distinguish the words ‘resting’ and ‘another time.’ It was Ada who was speaking with somebody outside. The words were lost but Elsie recognised the other voice: it belonged to Susie. She quickly scrambled down the stairs, just as Ada was pushing the door shut.
‘Wait!’ Elsie exclaimed. ‘Susie!’
Ada held the door in place. ‘You should be resting, not flying down the stairs like some wild dog, for goodness’ sake.’
‘Open the door,’ Elsie demanded. ‘Susie, you can come in.’
Ada reluctantly opened the door, then skulked off towards the sitting-room. Susie stood bashfully in the doorway. ‘Sorry,’ she mouthed.
Elsie rushed to her and pulled her into an embrace, sagging into her arms. ‘Oh, it’s so nice to see you, Susie.’ She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘Some sanity, at last.’
Susie held onto her for a moment, then released her. ‘Golly, things must be mad around here if I’m the sane one,’ she said softly.
‘Come in—come up to my room,’ Elsie implored, reaching for Susie’s hand and almost dragging her up the stairs.
Inside her bedroom, Elsie shut the door, lifted the suitcases from her bed and sat down. ‘Sit,’ she ordered, patting the bed beside her. ‘I want to hear all your news and salacious gossip. Everything.’
Susie laughed, tossing back her blonde hair. ‘Tell me about you first. How was the birth? How’s the baby—if you don’t mind me asking?’
Elsie shrugged. ‘It all went okay—a bit of a blur now, really. My mother-in-law delivered it. All I can remember is her big red rubber apron and a horrendous pain down below that felt like I was trying to pass a small rhino.’
Susie laughed. ‘What was it?’
‘Oh, a girl. Christina.’
‘And what’s going to happen to her?’ Susie asked tenderly.
‘Kath—my sister-in-law—is going to adopt her.’
Susie’s face contorted into sympathy. ‘And is that what you want?’
Elsie paused when she thought she heard a low creaking outside in the hallway. She spoke quietly, deliberately. ‘I don’t have a choice, do I? I’m married.’
‘But haven’t you grown fond of the little thing?’ Susie probed.
Elsie kept her feelings and emotions towards Christina compartmentalised, locked away in a mental chest. At least, that was how she imagined it. With the ending of their relationship being so inevitable and so ghastly, this was the only way to dilute the natural connection between her and the child. If she didn’t become attached, then she couldn’t mourn the loss. But the reality had been so much harder to bear. Elsie began to sob quietly. ‘I just need to get away from here and start my life again.’
‘Oh, Elsie,’ Susie said, placing a hand on hers. ‘I didn’t mean to cause upset.’
Elsie took a deep breath and wiped her eyes. ‘It’s okay,’ she sniffed.
‘What about the baby’s father? What does he think?’
She thought for a moment. The truthful answer was so short and simple and she wanted to tell someone, at last, to vocalise it and make it real. To accept that what she did had been a mistake. But then she heard the soft creaking outside her door and knew that someone was out there, listening. So instead, she told her the lie that cloaked the truth. ‘It was William—William Smith and he’s-’
‘Dead,’ Susie finished. ‘God. I didn’t think you were interested in him.’
‘It was a one-off. A slip-up. What does it all matter now?’
Silence sat between them, tugging the two women into their own minds.
Elsie stood up. ‘I need a cigarette and I need you to tell me all your news.’
Then there was a rapid knock on the door, followed by the bursting in of Agnes. Elsie was certain that she had been outside the door for the entire duration of their conversation.
‘Right, time to go,’ she ordered, glowering at Susie. ‘Elsie needs rest.’
Susie’s pale face flushed red and she hurriedly stood.
‘I’m rested enough, thank you,’ Elsie replied to Agnes. She switched her gaze to Susie, reached out for her hand and pulled her back down onto the bed. ‘You can stay.’
Susie glanced awkwardly between the two women. ‘I’d better be off anyway; I haven’t got any lights on my bike. Last week I got a fine from a miserable warden.’
‘I’m sure he was only doing his job,’ Agnes argued.
‘Yes.’ Susie stooped down and hugged Elsie. ‘It was lovely to see
you. Write me a line when you get back to West Kingsdown.’
‘Goodbye,’ Elsie muttered.
‘I’ll see you out,’ Agnes said, holding the door open.
Elsie watched, dumbfounded, from her bedroom window as her friend was marched off the property.
Later that night, Elsie put on her nightdress and climbed into bed. No sooner had she made herself warm and comfortable beneath the blankets than the air raid siren began to sound. Outside her door she heard movement and the low murmur of discussion as people contemplated heading out to the Anderson shelter. If the past week had been anything to go by, the siren would be sounding all night long. There was no way that she was going outside. She sighed with relief as she regarded the bedroom around her in a manner akin to a prisoner looking around their cell the night before the end of their captivity. It was her last night at Cliff House. Tomorrow, she would go back to the registrar and have the birth certificate amended, then take the first train out of Folkestone. She pictured herself on the train, enveloped in relief, heading back to a new chapter of her life. Her thoughts became feathery and her eyelids cumbrous as she saw herself entering the billet. She saw the delight on Violet’s face. Violet spoke, but her words were inaudible and interrupted by an intermittent tapping. Elsie’s thoughts were now crumbling like wet paper as sleep lured her in. The sound of tapping drifted slowly into a faint muffle, taking with it the sound of the air raid siren. She thought she heard her name being called and re-emerged from her sleep. She sat up and listened. Had she been dreaming?
The door burst open and Agnes entered the room. ‘You must come and take shelter outside—I insist upon it. Now.’
‘What’s the sudden urgency?’ Elsie asked, swinging her legs out of the bed. She was minded to argue but had no strength left to fight. It was easier simply to comply.
‘They’re dropping bombs nearby—out!’
Tomorrow, Agnes would lose control over her, but Elsie obeyed her for now.
Chapter Twenty
The Spyglass File (The Forensic Genealogist Book 4) Page 22