The Nightingale's Nest

by Sarah Harrison

  Some programmed reflex caused my mother, doubtless rather alarmed by this outburst, to get up and push the door to. I wasn’t quick enough and she saw me. She made a fierce ‘run along’ gesture and I needed no second bidding. I fled.

  Now, though, I knew exactly how that poor woman had felt – that because her son’s life had been scarcely more than an eye-blink the world wanted her to discount him. But John Anthony had been a part of her family, and of her, a real person, her ‘lovely boy’ who only a few days before his birth had had his whole life before him.

  Matthew and I were like that. We too had had the best part of our lives before us. Our whole life together, light on plans but heavy on dreams, had been there for the living. I mourned not only what I had lost, but what never happened: the love-making and the fallings-out, the scrimping and the strokes of luck, the treats, the trials . . . The babies.

  I articulated none of this. I was very young, and in those days quite conventional. I accepted my parents’ well-meaning view of the situation and to all intents and purposes fell in with it. The end of the war came, and there was a party at that blasted chapel hall. This time, at my mother’s instigation, I made a cake, too, though not as good as hers. I remember feeling like a ghost: present but unconnected, barely visible. No one made a fuss, of me, or any of the other hardworking, quiet-mouthed war widows. Talking about it, people doubtless reasoned, would only have made it worse. Perhaps they were right. And after all, with so many of us, where would it have ended? There would scarcely have been a cheerful face at the party! I didn’t care. I was glad of the privacy. And besides, it was my husband’s uniqueness for which I craved recognition, the singularity of our love, not its commonplaceness.

  Without the warm, healing poultice of sympathy, I carried my brief memory of Matthew around with me like a speck of glass that gradually worked its way into my system and became buried – a minute, needle-sharp, stifled pain, too deep to dislodge. Maybe that was what the expression ‘the iron entering one’s soul’ means.

  After a year of living at home, helping my mother and being, I sensed, a slight worry and embarrassment to her and my father, I did the sensible thing (I say that without resentment, it was sensible) and took a secretarial course. I went daily by bus to the Eileen Nair College in Rathbone Road, Dulwich, and over nine months learned shorthand, typing, filing and bookkeeping. The twenty or so girls on the course were no older than me but none of them was in my position. One or two of them claimed to be nursing broken hearts over young men killed in the war. Many had lost fathers, or brothers. But none was like me, a widow. I hugged my widowhood to me, saying nothing: feeling, if I’m honest, a mite superior.

  I owe much more than my livelihood to that year at the Eileen Nair. It was my salvation, preventing me from becoming the sort of joyless, sour-faced prig whom Matthew could never have loved. I had something useful to do, and I made a friend for life.

  I befriended Barbara Chisholm believing I was doing her a good turn, long before I realised it was the other way round. She was a thin, plain, solitary girl who smoked at every opportunity and was a fearsomely quick study. No one was unpleasant to her, she wasn’t ostracised, but they tended not to include her. In spite of my secret suffering I was nice looking and conventional, as I’ve said, and easily assimilated. Smugly, I thought Barbara was left out, when she was leaving herself out.

  We ate our lunch in the college canteen – either what the canteen itself provided, or the sandwiches we had brought with us. The food wasn’t nice, so most of us brought our own and sat at a long table specially set aside for the purpose, as they do in schools today. Barbara always had a small flask of tea and a bun. She’d sit quietly at one remove from the rest of us, watching, and no doubt listening, in her detached way. I recalled how I’d felt at the street party, and wondered if that’s how I’d looked to other people. She was lonely, I decided, and forbidding in her loneliness.

  She’d always eat her picnic quickly, and then put away the thermos and go outside for a cigarette. Smoking was forbidden inside the college, and frowned upon outside the front of the building because of the bad impression it conveyed, but Barbara wasn’t easily deterred. I’d watched her – she smoked, urgently, absent-mindedly, without affectation, like someone who needed to smoke. Though she was plain she was saved from mousiness by a long nose and heavy eyebrows which gave her face a certain distinction. Her clothes, though, were hopeless even then, not even eccentric, but frumpy.

  To be fair to myself, I may have been in danger of getting priggish, but I hadn’t yet done so. My desire to befriend Barbara was genuine – I felt sorry for her and I detected a possible kindred spirit. Also (and this was self-serving) I didn’t want anyone else, no matter what their status, to suppose I was the same as all the others. One afternoon in November, when we’d been on the course a couple of months, I got up from the table when she did and followed her outside.

  It was a damp, raw day and there was the usual one-legged man stumping up and down the pavement opposite accompanied by his lugubrious greyhound, with a collecting box strapped to its back. The man had a placard round his neck proclaiming LIFE RUINED AT WIPERS, PLEASE HELP. I experienced my customary twinge of disapproval. It hadn’t yet occurred to me that this prim response to the man’s desperation was pretty close to the way others had reacted to me after Matthew’s death. They acknowledged I’d been through something terrible but it was not deemed suitable to make too much of it. There was a delivery van parked outside the Criterion Café, and a lad shovelling horse droppings into a bucket. Two women with prams stood on the corner, jiggling the prams as they gossiped.

  Barbara Chisholm was sitting with her back to the building, on the low wall that separated the front garden from the road. Her feet were on the pavement. She had positioned herself near the College’s imposing name-board so that she could not be seen from the windows but (this may or may not have been intentional) her proscribed activity, viewed from the other side, was taking place directly beneath the words EILEEN NAIR.

  ‘Hello,’ I said, ‘may I join you?’

  She was in the middle of taking a drag, and didn’t answer but made a little tucking-in gesture with her skirt, to show there was plenty of room. I sat down. The wall felt cold and clammy under my thighs. My feeble altruism wilted a little, but I could hardly go straight back in.

  ‘Nasty day—’ I began.

  ‘I’d offer you one; she said, as though I hadn’t spoken. ‘But I’m on a ration.’

  ‘That’s all right, I don’t. Or not often,’ I added.

  She nodded, as if this was what she’d expected to hear. Already I had the oddest feeling that everything was the wrong way round – the opposite of what I’d expected.

  ‘What do you think of it so far?’ I asked. ‘The course?’

  ‘The course is fine.’ She placed a slight emphasis on the first two words that implied an unfavourable comparison with something left unmentioned. But I was unwilling to pick her up on this, and said instead:

  ‘I find the shorthand hard. But I suppose it will come.’

  She nodded. ‘Yup.’

  ‘You’re so quick. You must be miles ahead of the rest of us.’

  She shrugged, not denying it. Her cigarette was almost gone, but she continued to smoke the stub to the bitter end, holding it between finger and thumb like a working man.

  ‘And you’re married,’ she said.

  The unrelated nature of this remark and its suddenness, the fact that she wasn’t even looking at me, took me by surprise.

  ‘Yes – no.’

  Now she looked at me, raising one eyebrow. ‘Which?’

  ‘I was. I’m a widow.’

  She betrayed no particular reaction, but dropped the last fragment of her cigarette to the ground and placed a sturdy black shoe on it.

  ‘Really?’ she murmured.

  I could scarcely believe I’d heard her. I was incensed. I hardly knew her and wasn’t yet familiar with her vague, detached way
of speaking.

  ‘Of course, really.''

  ‘Do you have children?’

  ‘No. There wasn’t time.’

  She gave a sardonic little sniff. ‘There’s always time.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘I said,’ she repeated slowly, tucking her big bony hands into her armpits for warmth, ‘there’s always time for that. It only takes a couple of minutes, you know.’

  That was enough for me. I’d offered the hand of friendship and had met with nothing but rudeness. Fortunately for both of us the exchange was cut short by the appearance of one of the teachers.

  ‘Mrs Griffe, Miss Chisholm . . . Will you come in now please.’

  It was not a propitious first exchange, and I wasn’t anxious to repeat it. But I can only suppose that her curiosity was aroused by it as much as mine, because about a week later she came up to me as we trooped out of bookkeeping, our last class of the afternoon. More accurately, she drifted alongside; it was impossible to tell whether her presence at my side was accident or design.

  ‘I was thinking of going over to the Criterion for a cup of tea,’ she said offhandedly.

  ‘Really?’

  If she noticed the sarcasm she didn’t show it. ‘Mm . . .’

  ‘Good idea,’ I replied.

  ‘What about you?’ The question was open-ended, more enquiry than invitation.

  ‘I hadn’t thought about it.’

  I saw her head turn away, but not enough to conceal the ironic tweak of her mouth, the lifting of an eyebrow.

  ‘Maybe I will,’ I said. Even to my own ears I sounded a bit defiant, as though she’d thrown down the gauntlet for a duel instead of a cup of tea over the road.

  We walked across, she with her rangy, loping stride, coat flapping, I marching smartly slightly ahead of her to demonstrate my independence.

  The Criterion was poor-respectable. Like it or not, I was my mother’s daughter, acutely sensitive to such nuances. Not poor-rough, nor smart-respectable, and certainly not posh. That is to say it was clean but sparse, it served beans on toast as well as Battenberg cake, and the tea came in mugs from an urn on the counter, not in pots, cups and saucers at the table. The other customers were a scattering of elderly ladies, two men in clean but shabby suits, with briefcases, and a smartly dressed woman who was making a great show of waiting for someone – looking at her watch, peering out of the window and so forth.

  I hadn’t been to the café before but from her manner Barbara obviously had. Away from the curious eyes of the Eileen Nair I felt less prickly, and relaxed somewhat. We ordered two teas and a buttered teacake to share, and sat at a table in the corner. Barbara immediately got out her Park Drives and this time offered them to me as well. I took one. It was true I didn’t smoke often – with me it was a social affectation – but I didn’t want to seem standoffish. There was nicotine on her fingers and they shook slightly. Rather surprisingly she produced a nice little black leather-covered lighter.

  ‘That’s smart,’ I said.

  She looked at it as if baffled. ‘I suppose so. Someone gave it to me.’

  This too was a surprise. She didn’t look like the sort of girl to whom people gave lighters.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘about your husband.’

  That was the first step towards our friendship – that she hadn’t apologised to me, but expressed sorrow, in however formulaic a manner, over Matthew. I nodded dumbly.

  We neither of us spoke for a moment. Barbara smoked unconcernedly for a while and then asked: ‘What was he like?’

  That was step two.

  I was still struggling. She waited, not exactly patiently, it was more neutral than that; she didn’t press me, or ask a second time. She simply sat there and got on with things till I was ready. She stubbed out her half-smoked cigarette, cut the teacake in two, and started to eat her half steadily, unselfconsciously, as though she were on her own. Sipped her tea. Lit another cigarette.

  Eventually I managed: ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Well . . .’ she puffed vaguely. ‘What did he look like? Colour of eyes? Hair, straight or curly? If any?’ she added – not smiling, but it broke the ice.

  I told her. She listened. Again, there was something comforting in her almost businesslike reaction. She did not assume an expression of sympathy, but paid attention, occasionally saying ‘Mm’ or ‘Yes’ as if I were giving her my views on moral rearmament or birth control. I had thought I craved sympathy, but this matter-of-factness was tremendously comforting. It was as if Matthew were at last getting the attention and respect he deserved, even if it was from a stranger.

  When I eventually ran out of steam it was quite dark and we had drunk a second mug of tea. Around us, the clientele had changed. The old ladies and the threadbare businessmen were gone, and the smart woman had finally given up on whoever she’d been waiting, or pretending to wait, for. Now there was a gaggle of factory girls in the far corner and another table full of lads, eyeing them up.

  ‘He sounds nice,’ said Barbara. ‘You were lucky.’

  That was step three.

  On the way home on the bus I became tearful and had to pretend I had a cold, but it wasn’t all sadness from talking about Matthew. There was relief, too. And for the first time I was able to see that I had indeed been lucky. In a strange way Barbara’s words, spoken in her casual, almost offhand way, had restored Matthew to me – the real, passionate Matthew whom it had been my good fortune to love and to marry.

  There was one more stage to the development of our friendship, and it was even more unexpected.

  It took a while to develop, because we didn’t spend that much time together. Barbara remained on the fringes of life at Eileen Nair, and I continued to be one of the herd. Neither of us envied the other but we each respected the other’s position. I think we both liked the oddness of our association, its unexpectedness, and didn’t want to jeopardise that by becoming too familiar. The others looked at her a little differently because we were friends, but any attempts to include her were repelled by her poker-faced air of self-sufficiency.

  One of the girls asked me about her. ‘What’s she like?’

  I didn’t have an answer. I said she was nice – what on earth did that mean? – and the girl gave me a look that said she’d take my word for it. I realised I knew next to nothing about Barbara except what I could see. Her identity, as far as I was concerned, rested solely in her interest in me. Rebuking myself for my selfishness, I took the next opportunity to restore the balance. It was late December, the last day of term, and the Criterion had a small Christmas tree in the window and a holly-wrapped collecting tin on the counter, coyly labelled: ‘Compliments of the season from our staff.’

  ‘My treat,’ I said grandly as we sat down.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘No reason. Because.’ She made her wry face. ‘Because I feel like it.’

  ‘That’ll do.’

  They were serving ‘chef’s’ fruit cake and we had a slice each with our tea. I asked Barbara what she would be doing on Christmas Day.

  ‘Getting through it,’ she said grimly.

  ‘Oh dear,’ I said. ‘You don’t like it much.’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘Who will you be with?’

  ‘Nobody.’

  ‘Barbara . . .’ I was dismayed. ‘From choice, or necessity?’

  ‘Both.’

  ‘Would you like to join us?’ I asked. It was on the face of it a reckless invitation – I could just imagine my mother’s reaction on hearing that a perfect stranger was coming to Christmas dinner. On the other hand I was pretty sure what the answer would be and to my considerable relief I was right.

  She gave a faint smile that told me not to be silly. ‘No thank you.’

  In anyone else I might have thought this bluntness quite rude, but I was used to her manner by now. I also knew that I could, without giving the least offence, be as direct with her as she was with me.

  �
�Why do you hate it so?’

  ‘For a start –’ she began the process of lighting a cigarette – ‘I’ve never liked it. Even when I was a child. All that forced merriment . . . Games, forsooth!’ She shuddered. ‘I was never any good at it, and then one was made to feel one was letting the side down.’

  She drew on the cigarette. That first drag was like much-needed fuel to her. Sensing there was more to come I played things her way and didn’t press her. She exhaled slowly. Smoke drifted up past her face, her narrowed eyes. In retrospect, I realise that she was deliberating, weighing up the advisability of her next remark, its effects and consequences.

  ‘Also,’ she went on, gazing out of the window, turning the cigarette packet on the table with her long, stained, ringless fingers. ‘I miss my son.’

  It was never her intention to shock. I had asked her a straight question and she was returning a straight answer. I should have been flattered, but at that moment I was too flabbergasted to do anything but blurt out:

  ‘Barbara! You’ve got a son?’

  ‘Had.’ To allay my worst fears she added: ‘I had him adopted. Or other people did it for me. He went when he was one week old.’

  ‘How awful,’ I breathed, though part of me was shamefully thrilled by the awfulness of it.

  She shrugged. ‘It’s what girls like me do. At least I had time to get to know him. Some of them went at birth.’

  ‘But didn’t that make it harder – to give him up?’

  ‘No.’ She gave me a level look. ‘He was mine for that week. And he still is, wherever he is.’

  ‘Do you know the people?’

  ‘I didn’t want to. If I’d liked them I’d have been jealous, and if I hadn’t – it doesn’t bear thinking about.’ She stubbed out her cigarette, with hard, grinding movements. ‘He had to go, and that was it. I’m sure he’s well looked after. And whoever they are he’ll be used to them by now. They’ll be his parents and he’ll think all parents are like them.’