Yes, Mama

by Helen Forrester

  ‘I’ll come to see you both,’ Fanny was promising.

  A fat lot of help that would be, Polly thought sourly.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  I

  With Fanny gone, the dining-room was left to gather dust. Cooking was reduced to the simplest recipes.

  In fact, shopping for food began to take up more time than the cooking of it. The shops were short of many items, and of staff, too, as more men and women went into factories; people were not yet reduced to queuing, but they had to wait longer to be served and often had to carry their parcels home, because errand boys tended to serve behind the counter, instead of doing deliveries.

  Elizabeth’s physical health deteriorated, but she could still heave herself out of bed and walk, and had, therefore, to be watched all day. Time off for both Alicia and Polly became a distant memory. Nevertheless, Alicia decided that to improve their diet, she would try to dig a part of the garden and put in some lettuces and tomatoes. One day in early March 1915, she put on a pair of boots and her shortest skirt and began to clear an old flower bed, while Polly ironed linen sheets in the library, now her mistress’s bedroom, so that she could keep an eye on the stricken woman and get some work done at the same time.

  Alicia had just driven a spade into the heavy earth, when a shocked, male voice with a strong Liverpool accent stopped her. ‘Miss! You shouldn’t be doin’ that!’

  Frightened, she turned. A soldier in an infantry private’s uniform stood behind her, cap in hand. She pushed back the old straw hat she was wearing and surveyed him coldly. ‘Who are you and what are you doing in my garden?’ she snapped as strongly as she could.

  The man’s face, already reddened by exposure, turned an even richer colour. ‘Sorry, Ma’am. I come through the garden door. I come to see Polly. I’m her brother.’

  ‘Billy!’ She let the spade drop, rubbed her dirty hands together and then held out one to be shaken. ‘How nice to see you. Polly will be thrilled. We both look forward to your letters so much. What are you doing here?’

  ‘I come over to join the Army, Miss. Didn’t write ’cos I reckoned I’d be here almost as soon as a letter.’ He shook her hand shyly.

  ‘Polly’s ironing in Mama’s room,’ she told him. ‘We have to watch Mama all the time, so we take work into her bedroom and do it there.’ She smiled at him. ‘Come in.’

  She led him into the house, stepping calmly out of her muddy boots and putting on her slippers, as she entered, something no lady would do in front of a gentleman. Billy carefully wiped his boots on the tattered doormat. As she took him through the old kitchen, which smelled of damp and mould, and up the back stairs, she asked him, ‘Have you joined the British Army – or are you with a Canadian contingent?’

  ‘I come over with some horses for the British Army, Miss, about six months ago, and joined the South Lancs. What a voyage, Miss! Never again – lost ’alf the horses, with broken legs.’

  She stopped in the hall, and told him almost coquettishly, ‘Billy! You fibbed. It doesn’t take six months for a letter to come from Alberta. You should have let us know you were here.’

  ‘Well, Miss, I thought Polly’d be all upset if she knew I were in the Army – thought it better to show meself when I were settled in, like. She’s goin’ to be as cross as two sticks, anyway,’ he said sheepishly.

  ‘I doubt it.’ The frank, light eyes surveyed him and his clumsy uniform. ‘I think she’s going to be very proud.’ She opened the door of the library, and said to Polly, ‘Come out a moment, Polly. I’ve a surprise for you.’

  Polly glanced at Elizabeth, for the moment sitting quietly in a chair by the window. She put down her iron and came to the door. Billy could barely restrain his sense of shock when he saw the pale, gaunt, grey-haired woman. Polly?

  But it was Polly and she had clasped him in her arms and was weeping on his shoulder. ‘Billy, luv. Billy.’

  ‘Take him into the morning-room, Polly. Make some tea,’ Alicia urged her, as she took off the sackcloth apron she had been wearing. ‘I’ll stay with Mama.’ She felt suddenly left out and wished that she cared for Charles like that.

  With his arm round Polly’s waist, Billy turned to her and said, ‘If you’ll excuse me for sayin’ so, Miss, don’t you do no more diggin’. I’ll come over tomorrer in civvies, and I’ll do it for you in a trice. I got three days’ leave and me sister, Mary, isn’t goin’ to want me round the house all the time.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you,’ she responded warmly, with the same grace her mother had had.

  ‘Yes, you let ’im do it, Allie. Keep ’im out of mischief.’

  Billy’s dark eyebrows went up in surprised query. No Miss Alicia? Just Allie?

  Alicia smiled, and went quietly into her mother’s room and shut the door. Elizabeth, disturbed, turned and burst into angry incoherent speech.

  In the shabby morning-room, Billy put his peaked cap down on to the sideboard. ’is the Missus still ill?’ he asked.

  ‘Sit down, luv. You don’t know the half of it.’ Polly gestured to an easy chair. His question opened a dam, and Polly poured out the story of Elizabeth and of Alicia’s bleak life looking after her and after Humphrey. Though she did not complain about her own harsh life, it was half an hour before she remembered to get up and make some tea.

  Early the following morning, while Alicia was quickly putting Elizabeth’s breakfast tray together, before the invalid woke up from her drugged sleep, she pushed back the lace curtain and peeped through the kitchenette window. Outside, there was a light mist which made the garden look soft and vague. Through it, however, she could see Billy digging with an even, methodical rhythm which she envied. She smiled.

  ‘Will he have had breakfast?’ she asked Polly, who was stirring a pan of porridge on the gas-stove.

  ‘I doubt it,’ replied Polly glumly. ‘Our Mary don’t have that much, what with the rent of her new Corpy house and her hubby drunk half the time.’

  ‘Well, ask him in to breakfast – there’s lots of porridge – and make some toast.’

  Later on, when Alicia came back to the kitchenette, to eat her breakfast at its little table while Polly watched Elizabeth, he was still sitting, elbows on the table, lingering over a cup of tea. As Alicia entered, he hastily stood up.

  ‘Sit down. Be comfortable, Billy,’ she told him, an unusual cheerfulness in her voice, as she helped herself to porridge from the pan on the stove. It was exciting to have a visitor, other than Dr Bell or Uncle Harold.

  As she sat down at the table, she glanced at him. This morning, he wore a pair of breeches with boots and leather gaiters. Knotted round his neck was a red and white cotton handkerchief. His eyes were brown, she noted, narrowed like a sailor’s, as if used to seeing great distances in a bright light. The mouth was wide, quirked up at the corners to suggest much laughter. The sleeves of his union shirt were rolled up to reveal hairy forearms tanned by strong sunlight. As she began to eat, he hastily rolled down his shirt sleeves and reached for a heavy, plaid jacket with leather patches on the elbows. When he moved, a collar stud flashed below a strong, red neck. On a drain-board by the sink lay his dark, flat cap. He smelled palpably of the stable, and she remembered that he had come across the Atlantic with a herd of horses.

  Feeling suddenly a little shy in such silent male company, she urged him to have another cup of tea. She filled his cup and poured one for herself.

  Except that she had filled out and become a woman, she was very like the child he remembered, he thought as he considered her out of the corner of his eye. Her hands were red from work, but the rest of her skin was still incredibly white; there was none of the leathery look of Prairie women. There were a few lines on her face; yet her mouth, pink as a white kitten’s nose, was as innocent-looking as that of the child he recalled so vividly.

  He suddenly became aware that she was staring at him over the rim of her cup, alert grey eyes making him feel uneasy and tongue-tied. She had overcome her nervousness and was thankin
g him earnestly for digging the garden. She did not offer to pay him and he was grateful for her not doing so; it confirmed to him in a subtle way his status as an up-and-coming young man.

  Her next words, innocently spoken, put him back in his slums, and he was secretly angry. She said, ‘Do you remember when you used to come here as a boy and Polly squeezed some breakfast out of Mrs Tibbs for you?’

  ‘Yes, Ma’am,’ he replied stiffly. She passed the sugar bowl to him and he took some and then stirred his tea quickly. And I’ve come a long way since then, Queen, he told himself crossly. And no matter what she may be thinking, I’m sitting here with her as if I were an old friend. And she int much different from Edmonton women I know – she’s not the usual stiff madam as lives round here. I remember her like I remember nobody else except me Mam, jumping down from a tree and showing the longest legs and the prettiest little ass I ever saw in a pair of divided pantaloons.

  ‘Are you still working at the stables – I mean when you’re not in the army?’

  He looked surprised and, with a spoon halfway to her mouth, she chuckled. ‘You must forgive me, but I always saw your letters – in fact, I often wrote part of the replies, until Polly got good at writing.’

  ‘Did you really, Miss?’

  ‘Yes. It was like having a pen-friend.’

  He was nonplussed at this revelation and was not sure how to reply. Finally, he said carefully, ‘Well, I hope we are friends, Miss.’

  Alicia smiled at him, as if amused at his embarrassment. ‘Of course we’re friends. You’re Polly’s brother and Polly’s been like a mother to me.’

  He slowly put down his cup, proffered a hand scarred from old blisters and she took it and they solemnly shook hands.

  They grinned at each other like two small boys making a blood oath. ‘Now we’re really friends,’ said Alicia, and then she reminded him of her question about the stable.

  ‘Yes, Miss. Me job’s there for when I go home. It’s not a great job, but it brings in ready cash for setting up on the quarter-section, and it’s kept me, meanwhile. I got a hay crop last year and some grain. And if you’ll forgive me mentioning such a thing, I can’t keep me mares in foal fast enough to meet the demand.’

  ‘Do you live there?’

  ‘No. I live over the stable. I got a Metis family livin’ in a one-room cabin out there, lookin’ after it while I’m away, and Ernie, me friend wot owns the stable, has promised to go out and check on ’im, an’ all.’

  A little later, he went away to spend some time with his other sister, Mary, while her husband was at work. He returned in the evening, however, and screwed some cup hooks into a shelf for Polly, while she prepared dinner; without asking Alicia, she made enough for four.

  ‘What happened to that Chink you lent money to?’ she asked idly.

  ‘Huang? I didn’t lend him the money ’cos he wasn’t sure he could pay back. I bought a half share in ’is café when he were fairly on the rocks – it were only a little hole in the wall, but not a few bachelors used to eat there. So I took a chance on him. You should see it now – quite respectable, it is – fourteen tables and a coffee bar – built ’em all meself. ’Is wife and son and daughter help ’im, and sometimes of a Saturday night I give ’im a hand in the kitchen. Full, most nights, he is. Pays me me share every three months on the dot. We don’t make a lot – but, you see, one day we will.’

  ‘Strewth! Why on earth did you enlist – you got more’n plenty to do?’

  ‘Well, you can get a white feather handed to you in Edmonton, same as you can in Liverpool, if you look young enough and aren’t in uniform – and I didn’t want no bloody feathers. So I talked it over with Ernie and with Huang and then, when there was a herd of horses goin’ on the train to Winnipeg, I come over for nothin’ for takin’ care of ’em. I wanted to be in a Liverpool Regiment – and they was recruitin’ for the South Lancs when I got here – and I thought that’d do.’

  ‘Blow the feathers! You was plain stupid, our Billy. You should’ve stayed out of it and sold them horses and made money out of ’em. You could get yourself killed.’

  ‘Well, this little lot’s not going to last long. Finished by Christmas, they reckon. Then I’ll take you back with me. You’ll like it there. You’d be married quick as a wink, if you want to – lots of fellas there, not so many girls.’

  ‘Don’t be daft. Anyways, how can I leave our Allie before her Mam dies? The old girl could live a few years yet and Allie can’t manage by herself.’ She lifted the lid from a pan of potatoes and tested their readiness with a fork. Then she went on, ‘It’s so unfair on Allie, ’cos her Mam never really cared a damn about her – it were me that brought her up.’

  He was silent for a moment, as he watched her drain the potatoes over the sink. Then he said slowly, ‘I’d like to take Miss Allie as well, if she’d have me.’

  ‘What?’ Polly whirled round to look at him, steaming pan in hand. ‘Now I know you’re daft, lad. You don’t know ’er – and she’s a lady.’

  ‘Not too much of a lady,’ replied Billy shrewdly. ‘She’s got more’n a bit of you in ’er. And things is different in Alberta. The way I’m goin’, I could use a wife what can hold her head up amongst the best. And it int true I don’t know her; we used to work in the garden together with that ould gardener fella. I thought she were a princess – and I still do.’

  Dumbfounded, Polly stared at him, her steaming potatoes forgotten. ‘You serious?’

  ‘’Course, I am. I always wanted to do it. Only I thought she’d sure enough be married before I could give ’er the kind of home I want to give ’er. Even now, I can’t give her anythin’ grand – but I’m gettin’ there, and I’m still not so old.’

  ‘Well, she int married.’ Polly plunked the saucepan she was holding on to the draining board and picked up a fork to mash the potatoes. ‘She’s never had a dog’s chance of gettin’ married; her parents saw to that – she’s been too useful to ’em.’ Then she said carefully, ‘You’d better wait till you’ve finished winning the war, before you ask ’er.’

  He stretched himself, and said, ‘Oh, aye. I don’t want to leave ’er a widow.’

  Polly shook her fork at him. ‘Now, remember, I don’t know what she’ll say – because she’ll think first of her Mam – she knows where her duty lies. So don’t take it too personal, like, if she says No.’

  II

  Billy’s sister, Mary, prevailed upon him to stay with her on the last day of his leave, so he did not come again to see Polly and Alicia. A couple of days later, however, they received a letter from him saying that he was to be trained as a sniper, ‘Seeing as I’m used to handling a hunting rifle.’

  ‘I thought only rich people went huntin’,’ Polly remarked, as she put the letter down on the kitchen table.

  ‘Well, he told me when he was here that he and his old pedlar often fed themselves by hunting or trapping.’ Alicia picked up Elizabeth’s breakfast tray to carry it into her room.

  ‘Hm, Canada must be a proper queer place. Don’t they have no butchers nor fishmongers?’

  Billy never went for his training. With a number of other ill-trained men, he was rushed across the Channel and found himself with Haig’s 1st Army, ready to attack a place called Neuve Chapelle. At first it seemed that the proposed break-through across the German lines would succeed; and a sickened, terrified Billy was thankful to a long-forgotten God for his survival. But his little unit ran out of ammunition, and the curtain of artillery fire which, on the third day, was supposed to soften up the enemy line, faltered for the same reason. Pinned down in a shell hole by the weight of German fire, Billy lay beside a weeping wounded man. With his field dressing, he did his best to staunch the blood from a ghastly rip in the man’s back, to no purpose. He died, and Billy lay by him while machine-gun bullets rattled overhead. He himself screamed, when a swordlike piece of flack smashed into his left shoulder.

  Desperate for help, he managed to inch himself out of the hole and then
fainted. After dark, he was found by a Canadian medical orderly crawling round, looking for the wounded amongst the dead.

  He languished for some months in a London military hospital, while they tried to save his arm. As his next of kin, Mary received a postcard saying where he was. Whey-faced, she hurried over to see Polly. Because her husband tended to beat her if she left home, she rarely visited Polly and the very presence of her, hammering on the back door, indicated disaster.

  Once he was able to move about, Billy wandered round the overcrowded ward and helped the nurses to dish out food to their patients. From other outraged wounded, he learned that the shortage of ammunition had been caused by strikes and slowdowns ordered by trade unions seeking to oust unskilled people, like Fanny, from the factories.

  ‘Ought to put the bloody skunks in the Front Line and see how they like it with no ammo,’ he raged as his useless left arm reminded him of a life full of special problems to a man with only one working arm. He was suddenly glad that he would be going back to Canada. ‘Who needs mates who’d betray yez like that?’ he asked himself bitterly.

  A worried Polly asked Alicia if she could possibly manage Elizabeth alone for one whole day while she went to London to see Billy. She had decided that this was a time when one of her long-hoarded sovereigns had to be spent.

  Alicia agreed immediately, and Polly set out with a little basket of precious butter and sugar and some apples from the garden, to augment Billy’s spartan hospital diet.

  III

  It was an extremely difficult day for Alicia. The moment she left the invalid to prepare a meal or go to the bathroom, Elizabeth would begin an unsteady perambulation through the house. The weather was cold and if Alicia turned off the gas-fires, Elizabeth became chilled; if she left them on, she feared that her mother might brush against them and set her skirts aflame; Elizabeth was, in any case, capable of turning them on and leaving them unlit.

  At one point, Alicia guided her mother into the kitchenette and sat her down on a chair, so that she could prepare dinner and watch the older woman at the same time. Elizabeth objected violently to the strange, little room and the unaccustomed chair, and she had to be taken back to her library-bedroom. In despair, Alicia tied her into a small easy chair, with the aid of a couple of long scarves, and left her there; she shrieked steadily until Alicia returned with a tray of hastily assembled cold food.