The Fruit of the Tree

by Jacquelynn Luben

  We were sad to hear one day that he had died. Michael and one of the plumbers, Reg, who lived two doors away, went to the funeral, and I, with trepidation in my heart, felt it was incumbent upon me to visit the mourners very soon afterwards. They had devoted their lives to him and the reason for my reluctance was because I imagined I would have to face some sort of emotional scene. Perhaps I recognised even then the poignancy of the death of a child during the lifetime of its parents.

  Despite my lack of rapport with my neighbours and my fears of embarrassment, I could not let the occasion pass without acknowledging Gerald’s death. This would set up a barrier between us, and my embarrassment at any later meeting would have been all the greater.

  I knocked on the kitchen door (it was not usual for neighbours to use the front doors) and was welcomed in. I was surprised at how glad they were to see me. They gave me a sherry and showed me letters and talked about Gerald. They were relaxed, and even happy, perhaps, because he had not outlived them, and would never have to spend his days in a place where he was not loved. Far from being hysterical, they were very glad to talk about him. I recognised with satisfaction that I had made the right decision.

  By this time, we had lived in our so-called temporary home for well over a year. I wasted little time now on worrying about how I would adjust to living in the country, for I really wondered whether the dream bungalow would ever be completed.

  The laying of foundations had appeared to be a slow process, for much work was carried out under the ground. Twelve courses of bricks were laid and drain pipes put in place, followed by hardcore and a waterproof layer, but at the end of the first year’s work, all that could be seen was a rectangular slab covered in concrete.

  Then came a much more exciting era when the bricklayer, Mr. Dean, arrived and laid brick on brick with speed and skill, and within a few weeks there were walls and window frames, and we could walk giggling through the various holes which would become doorways, and point to the kitchen and bedrooms.

  All our visiting friends and relations were taken on a tour of the site until it became quite a bore, and still, as far as I was concerned, totally divorced from reality. The reality was our bare little semi, with its dusty corners, second-hand armchairs and uncarpeted bedrooms. The luxuries we would enjoy in our future home were a pipe dream—in which I did not really believe.

  Whenever we had visitors, the drabness of our present abode was accentuated, and despite the usual frenzied burst of tidying and polishing, at the end of the activity, I could always see it clearly for what it was.

  However, we were not unhappy there. We had made it a home, albeit an unglamorous one, and it was only when I looked at it with the critical eyes of an outsider that I found real dissatisfaction with it.

  While Robert was a baby, we were still fairly mobile. Visiting our friends, our parents in London and the in-laws was a major part of our social life.

  When money became tight, we ceased to run the Wolseley and drove to our visits in one of the vans, installing pram, high chair, and other baby paraphernalia in its convenient empty back.

  Once we returned from a trip to see Ruth and Roger, after Michael’s company had installed heating in their home, in an undignified ‘pick-up’ lorry, in order to bring back spare copper pipe, only to run out of petrol a hundred yards from home. We made a pretty picture, no doubt, marching up the hill with copper pipe on our shoulders, and carrycot being ferried along too, Michael striding along at the front and I scurrying along behind, with expressions respectively of amusement and irritation.

  There was often an element of ridiculousness in our travels, like the time when we hired a car to attend a function and found ourselves resplendent in dinner jacket and long evening dress faced with a puncture with no jack. Michael dealt with the situation by borrowing some marble stone from a funeral director opposite and driving the car up on to it, to change the wheel.

  I used to rely upon Michael’s ingenuity, just as he came eventually to rely upon my attention to detail. Other people too would call on him. Ruth’s sister, Rita, rang for help when we were in London one weekend, saying she was stranded at Euston Station with all the acquisitions and leftovers from a term at University, and since I had always regarded her with a mixture of the somewhat patronising superiority and affection of an older sister, we went to her rescue and delivered her and her accumulated possessions to her home.

  Early in 1968, Michael’s youngest sister, Philippa, followed her brothers and sister into matrimony. We left Robert with my two closest aunts for the occasion, since my parents were with us at the wedding. The Aunties were delighted to look after the baby, whom they adored, but their pleasure was tinged with sadness, for in an adjoining room, my uncle lay seriously ill.

  A few weeks later my uncle died, leaving unfulfilled his dream of spending his retirement at his favourite resort.

  My aunts sadly packed up and moved into the already purchased house in Hove, near Brighton. Not long after, my parents, lonely without their close family, followed suit. My last link with the home of my childhood was severed.

  4. Housey-Housey

  Three winters had passed since we first stood by the swaying grasses at the site of our future home, and we were still ‘living above the shop’. The bungalow was still incomplete, but considerable progress had been made. The roof was on, the garage was complete with doors, but a large amount of work still remained on the inside. The plastering, glazing and what is known as ‘second fixing’ (when pipes are linked to basins, wires connected to switches and cupboards inserted) still had to be carried out.

  Except for the plumbing and central heating, all the other tradesman, with such quaint names as the Sparks, the Chippie and the Spread, were called in from the outside, and the length of time between each trade depended upon the amount of money presently in the kitty, for needless to say, we were constantly short of money; the business was subsidising the bungalow. The bridging loan (for use in building the house) was supporting the business. The Bank Manager was frequently lecturing, but Peter often had to be robbed to pay Paul.

  Our business had expanded rapidly, but we did not have sufficient capital to finance the large contracts we had taken on. Payment from our main contractors was so slow that we could not afford the large weekly wage bills. On many weeks the tension mounted as we wondered if the wage cheque would be cleared. Once I drew the last ten or twenty pounds from my post office account, which many women secretly keep, to help pay the wages.

  In addition to our financial problems, a new delaying factor in our home-building was rearing an extremely ugly head. There was no mains electricity available at the site of the bungalow and cable would need to be laid along the rough footpath access to the site. The local military gentleman who owned this footpath, and who had shown no distress or even interest at improving its condition, now put in a claim for compensation for its disturbance. But although it would have been reinstated to its present condition, the compensation offered by the Electricity Board was refused by him, and he stated that it was not just a matter of money! It was a matter of principle!

  We were certainly not prepared to offer him money ourselves in order to discover the depth of his principles. The problem was academic at the moment, but at the backs of our minds was a feeling that we should be prepared for battle!

  But as, in spite of the lack of electricity, it really did look as if the end was in sight, we decided to put our semi, with builder’s yard attached, on the market.

  A few potential buyers drifted in to view the far from palatial home, in the hope of setting up a new business, for the permission to carry out certain trades or businesses was one of the property’s main assets. But because of the residential surroundings, we had to reject offers from people involved in a number of noisy trades and we ended up with one apparently genuinely interested visitor who wanted to turn the place into a market garden, but who had difficulty obtaining the money she needed.

  With the immediate pr
ognosis on all fronts rather unsatisfactory, we contemplated the least logical step of all—another baby.

  I had not, in the fifteen-month period since Robert was born, developed any greater affection for the race of new babies. In fact, I found that bringing up a toddler was in itself quite a time-consuming occupation. As soon as Robert had learned to stand and had made his first tentative efforts to walk around holding on to the furniture, he had become a hazard. As he progressed round the room, small tables would be in danger of being overthrown and hanging tablecloths, stacked with crockery, yanked to the floor.

  Our staircase was steep and I had taught him to crawl down on his front, but if ever I saw him poised at the top of the stairs, I was afraid he would topple down the entire flight, though he never did. It was an age at which I could not let him out of my sight and most of the time he accompanied me round the house as I worked. He rarely played with toys, being a sociable child who preferred the company of people. I used to talk to him non-stop, but sometimes I longed for a reprieve and would imprison him in his playpen for a short respite. I imagined that a new baby would soon become a companion for him, so for me, the decision to become pregnant now was a cold-blooded one based on my opinion that Robert’s brother or sister should be two years his junior. The financial and other considerations we assumed and hoped were merely transient problems, and in any case, Robert had made very little difference to our financial situation. Baby baths and carrycots were freely passed around the family and little boys’ clothes frequently handed down the line.

  In addition, Robert was an adaptable child, quite accustomed to the office activity, and fitting easily into our disorganised lifestyle. Was it possible that our second child would follow the same pattern?

  Initially, indeed it did. Just like Robert, it was conceived with startling immediacy, and calculations revealed that its birth would occur in October, the very month of Robert’s second birthday. We were impressed at our own cleverness and happily told the family the glad tidings.

  For some time, Michael had tried to awaken some spark of enthusiasm in me for the slowly growing bungalow. He suggested I leaf through glossy magazines, but I told him I had my own ideas about the decor and didn’t need to look at magazines. This was partly true, but my refusal was also a great deal to do with my feeling of disbelief that we would ever really move into the bungalow, and my fearful and unspoken desire to maintain the status quo, in spite of its shortcomings. For this reason, I had made no real effort to obtain a driving licence, other than suffering a few trial lessons with Michael. These had proved conclusively to me that I would never learn to drive with him at my elbow, issuing commands and rhetorical questions:

  ‘Why are you driving at forty miles per hour in second gear?’ ‘Why are you driving at twenty miles per hour in fourth gear?’ (I considered that being in the correct gear was additional to, rather than part of, good driving.) ‘Why aren’t you driving five feet from the kerb?’

  Michael was concerned at my lack of interest in this facet of country living, warning me time and time again that I would feel very cut off in the country if I couldn’t drive.

  When he arrived home one day, asking me to choose paint colours for the various rooms, I knew it was no longer possible to regard the move as some nebulous future happening. At last I knew in my heart that the time was drawing close.

  Apart from Michael’s fruitless efforts, I had also had the dubious benefit of inadequate driving instruction when I was eighteen years old (and had consequently failed my driving test twice). Now, I felt it was necessary to acquire an instructor of experience and good repute, and of calm and authoritative manner. Joan, the wife of one of our plumbers, Reg, who lived two doors away, had recently passed her driving test. She had been taught by a retired police instructor, a Mr. Oliver. He seemed to fill the bill entirely and had, in addition, as do most professional instructors, the advantage of not being emotionally involved with me. Slowly, some of the rules of the road began to penetrate.

  Soon, we had filled the bungalow with pastels of various shades, green, blue, pink and lilac, with the pleasant knowledge that these simple decisions were far from irrevocable. Now, with the bungalow nearly habitable, it was time to enquire whether we could receive our mortgage. We had held a bridging loan since the commencement of building. Together with our business overdraft, the money we owed had grown to some phenomenal sum. We knew the Bank Manager would be quite relieved to see some part of it paid back. There was the problem of the electricity, or lack of it, however.

  Michael decided to make some general enquiries.

  ‘Would a person be granted a mortgage,’ he asked on the telephone, ‘if he generated his own electricity?’

  (He had actually acquired a paraffin-run generator from a scrap yard, which didn’t as yet work, but there was always the possibility that it might, given time.)

  ‘Oh, no, sir.’ came the reply. ‘We couldn’t possibly grant a mortgage without mains electricity.’

  Here was cause for real concern. With resignation we learned from the building society, in due course, that they would send their representative to inspect the completed property, when he would undoubtedly learn the worst. We suggested that he first telephone us in order that we might direct him there. Soon, we heard that their representative had attempted to inspect the property, but had been unable to find it. Patiently, we advised them once again—we were happy to direct their man to the site, which was very difficult to find, hidden as it was in the woods, if he would care to ring us when he was intending to attempt to inspect again.

  We never did hear from him—only a sheaf of papers arrived telling us our mortgage had been granted. We were quite hysterical with delight and amusement—and amazement! The Bank Manager must have been thrilled too!

  We never did find out if anyone had actually inspected the bungalow. Was it carelessness, laziness or maybe someone turning a blind eye? At any rate it had made a lot of difference to us that day!

  5. Disappointments

  I was hurrying frantically around a large department store, full of people. Or perhaps it was more like an oriental bazaar. I was desperately searching for a doctor—I was losing my baby! I knew I had to lie down and put my feet up. But there was no place to lie down and no one to help me.

  Relief flooded over me when I realised I was in bed dreaming, until, in my fully wakened state, the nagging ache at the pit of my stomach told me that the dream was coming true.

  I panicked; I wept hysterically when I told Michael and he could only react with impatience; he sent me back to bed and soon Robert joined me in the room. But I didn’t really want him there—I was too worried about myself; I couldn’t call upon my normal reserves of patience, necessary for dealing with little boys of eighteen months.

  Later in the day, I crept downstairs and telephoned Joan, as well as trying the doctor for a second time. Joan came over and promised to give Robert lunch, and later Michael came in and found her armed with the carpet sweeper, tidying up the living room, in case the doctor came, for I was still an awful housewife. He was unbelievably angry; he was a very independent person. I found it very annoying that, when he was not in a position to give me constant help, he couldn’t understand my seeking help elsewhere. He didn’t seem to understand that women with small children do help each other. But independent people seem to be so unbending in this respect. It did rather add to my misery to have to argue with him on this point. He also didn’t really seem to regard my possible miscarriage as of major importance.

  The doctor too, appeared to be fairly unperturbed; a couple of days’ rest and possibly all would be well, he told me.

  So I stayed miserably abed until things returned to normal, then warily returned to my disorganised existence. But soon relief made me almost complacent and I was full of plans for the next few weeks. After Robert’s birth, I had imagined myself to be a fairly healthy young woman who would not have problems such as my mother had experienced. In spite of my doctor’s st
atement that two out of five women spontaneously miscarry in the early part of pregnancy, it was a blow to my pride to find that I might after all be vulnerable in this respect. It was restricting not to be able to behave normally and I did not really want to believe in the necessity for restraint. On one or two occasions, I rebelliously flouted the authoritative voice of common sense that told me what to do and what not to do. Just once, I carried my heavy standard typewriter into a warm room to do some typing, assuring myself that such a small thing could do no damage.

  In the middle of April, a couple of weeks after the first warning, I haemorrhaged. Fearful and depressed, I waited for a doctor, who arrived after two or three hours and sent for an ambulance immediately.

  The ambulance men had quite a job carrying me down our steep steps, but they tried to cheer me up, making jokes as we went along. When I was finally in the ambulance, Michael told Robert to go and kiss Mummy ‘Bye-bye.’ He was a pathetic sight. He’d been suffering from an infection that he couldn’t shake off and he looked thin and dirty and neglected. He said ‘Bye-bye, Mummy,’ but I could tell he didn’t really understand what was going on. It was the first time I’d ever left him for more than a couple of hours and, as the ambulance drove off, I shed a few tears at the thought of his bewilderment at this incomprehensible situation.

  The ambulance men left me at the hospital gate, while they got permission for me to enter. No doubt such formalities are necessary even in the direst of emergencies! However, with permission granted, I was wheeled into a ward where a nun was preparing a bed for me.

  ‘I’ve warmed it up for you.’ she told me. It was deliciously cosy and comforting. I remembered then how after Robert was born a nun came and gently washed me and then sat by me for at least a quarter of an hour, mopping my brow whilst I was stitched. Such small kindnesses are not forgotten.