The Married Girls

by Diney Costeloe

  ‘Thank you, Mr Shepherd, I would like to come. Felix will tell me the way, perhaps.’

  ‘Sunday afternoon all right?’ Felix asked. ‘I’ll bring him.’

  ‘Fine, we’ll see you then,’ said John as he took Edie by the hand. ‘Now then, Edie, you can help me push.’

  They set off across the green, Danny and Davy crammed into the pushchair, Johnny striding on ahead and Edie helping her grandfather to push the twins. Turning back, Dieter caught a smile pass between Charlotte and Felix. It was nothing, and yet, he felt, it was something; the slightest softening of expression, a gentleness about the eyes, an unconscious affection. He turned away so that they should not see him notice. He realised he was not surprised. He had met Daphne the afternoon before. He’d found her cold and distant and had wondered at Felix’s choice of wife. Clearly there was no warmth between them.

  But Charlotte? Charlotte was beautiful. She had a serenity about her, despite having four young children to bring up on her own. She bore little resemblance to his memory of the pale-faced girl who’d stood over him as he struggled with his pain all those years ago. There were lines on her face etched by the sorrow she’d had to bear, but they added depth to her countenance and when she smiled her whole being seemed illuminated from within. She smiled at Dieter now and he felt his heart flip, but he had no illusions. He was not the sort of man girls fell in love with, certainly not girls as beautiful as Charlotte.

  When John and the children were out of sight, Charlotte got reluctantly to her feet. ‘Better go,’ she said. ‘Nice to see you again, Dieter. How much longer are you staying?’

  Dieter smiled. ‘I do not know. A few days more.’

  As they were saying their goodbyes, Mabel came out from the bar to collect the dirty glasses.

  ‘Of course,’ Mabel said to Jack later, ‘that Charlotte Shepherd’s German. No wonder she was hobnobbing with him. But I’m surprised Felix Bellinger has anything to do with him, him being in the RAF.’

  ‘War was a long time ago, Mabel,’ Jack reminded her wearily.

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Still, it just goes to show...’

  37

  Ethel Higgins was peeling the potatoes for tea when the pain attacked her, a stabbing pain in her abdomen. She dropped the knife into the sink and doubled up, trying to ease it away as she had for the last few days, but this time it did not ease, if anything it became sharper, making her moan with its intensity, and she slumped down onto a chair. At that moment Norman came up from the garage and found her, grey-faced and gasping.

  ‘Ethel? What’s the matter? What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Ethel struggled to speak. ‘Nothing, just—’ The pain hit again and she cried out at its suddenness.

  ‘What d’you mean, nothing?’ cried Norman in alarm.

  ‘Had some stomach ache,’ Ethel gasped, ‘over the past couple of days. Nothing much. Worse now.’

  ‘You got to go to the ’ospital,’ Norman said. ‘Come on.’ He reached forward to help her to her feet, but Ethel couldn’t stand. She gripped the arms of the chair as she looked up at him, her face the colour of putty, sweat breaking out on her forehead. ‘I can’t,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t move.’

  ‘Stay still, then,’ Norman instructed, heading for the door. ‘I’m going to ring for an ambulance.’ As he rushed down the alley to the street and the phone box on the corner, he almost crashed into Janet, running towards him on her way home.

  ‘Hey, Dad—’

  ‘Jan, your mum’s been took ill,’ he said. ‘You go and sit with her, I’m going to call the ambulance.’ He gave a her a little push. ‘Go on, duck, I’ll be back in a minute.’

  Looking scared, Janet ran into the kitchen where she found her mother sitting on a chair, rocking with pain.

  ‘Mum!’ she cried. ‘Mum?’

  Ethel drew a deep breath and said, ‘Don’t worry, love. I’ll be all right again directly.’

  Not knowing what to do, Janet said, ‘Shall I make you some tea?’

  Ethel managed a smile and though she had no thought of tea, said, ‘Yes. Good idea. Put the kettle on.’

  Janet did as she was told and it was with great relief that she heard her father coming back up the path to the door.

  ‘Hold on, Eth, girl,’ he said. ‘They’re on their way.’

  The kettle began to whistle, but nobody wanted tea and Norman turned off the gas. The ten minutes it took for the ambulance to arrive seemed an eternity. He paced the floor, completely at a loss, not knowing what to do, useless. Janet, whey-faced and scared, was on the verge of tears.

  At last they heard the distant clang of the ambulance bell. ‘You go to the end of the lane and show them where to come,’ he said to Janet. ‘I’ll stay with Mum.’

  Janet dashed off down the alley to the street, relieved to have something to do.

  ‘Looks like it could be a burst appendix,’ said one of the ambulance men as they carried Ethel out to the ambulance. ‘You want to come with us?’

  Norman glanced at Janet’s frightened face and shook his head. He couldn’t just leave her by herself.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ll get things sorted here and then I’ll be over as quick as I can.’

  ‘Right-ho,’ said the man and with the slam of the door, the ambulance set off up the road, its bell clanging to clear its way through the traffic.

  Norman went back into the kitchen and Janet ran into his arms. ‘Is she going to be all right, Dad?’

  ‘I’m sure she will,’ Norman said, though he was very far from sure. ‘Once they get her in the ’ospital the doctors’ll know what to do.’ He hugged Janet tightly. ‘She may have to have an operation,’ he said, ‘and be in there for a while. But we can go and see her, can’t we? And in the meantime, we’ll have to look after each other. Now,’ he looked round the kitchen, ‘let’s just make sure everything’s OK here and then we’ll head over to the ’ospital.’ He checked that the gas was off and the windows closed before locking the back door and moments later they were hurrying down to the street to catch the bus.

  When they reached Casualty Norman spoke to the nurse on the desk and was told that Ethel had been taken straight up to theatre.

  ‘They needed to operate at once,’ she said.

  ‘Is she going to be all right?’ asked Norman fearfully.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Higgins, I can’t say. The doctor will come and find you as soon as there’s any news. I’ll let them know you’re here.’

  They waited in a dingy waiting room for more than two hours. The walls, painted the colour of mud and criss-crossed with cracks, played host to a raft of yellowing posters. Norman read them all and read them all again. They could hear faint hospital noises from outside the room, the sound of voices, the squeak of a trolley, a cry of pain, but no one came to find them and the minutes dragged by.

  ‘I’m hungry, Dad.’ Janet tugged at his arm. ‘Can we get something to eat?’

  Norman realised he should have given her something at home, even if it were only some bread and cheese, but he’d been in such a hurry to get to the hospital, he hadn’t even thought about it.

  ‘In a little while, duck,’ he said. ‘We’ll get fish and chips on the way home.’

  Half an hour later a doctor came down to find them. He was a tall man with grey hair, clear grey eyes and a serious expression. He shook hands with Norman, introducing himself as Dr Faulkner.

  ‘It was peritonitis,’ he said. ‘We had to operate at once. Your wife was lucky she came in when she did, or it might have been too late.’

  ‘Is she going to be all right?’ Norman hardly dared ask the question.

  ‘It was touch and go,’ replied the doctor. ‘She’ll have to stay here in hospital for a while, so that we can make sure there are no complications, but if things are straightforward from now, she should be fine and back to normal in a month or so.’

  ‘Thank God,’ breathed Norman. ‘Can we see her?’

  ‘Not today. She’s
only just coming round from the anaesthetic. Come in at visiting time tomorrow and she should be up to seeing you then.’

  As promised, Norman bought them fish and chips on the way home, and was surprised to find that now he knew Ethel was going to recover, he was as hungry as Janet. They took the food back to the house and unwrapping the newspaper, sat down at the kitchen table to eat.

  ‘Hadn’t we better tell Daphne that Mum’s been took into the ’ospital?’ Janet asked through a mouthful of chips.

  Norman nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I was just thinking the same. Trouble is, I don’t know where she is... her address, I mean. I think that Felix give it to Mum when he come here that time, just in case we ever needed it, he said.’

  ‘Mum had it,’ Janet said. ‘I ’spect she put it somewhere safe.’

  ‘Probably in the papers’ box,’ said her father. ‘Why don’t you have a look-see while I go out and lock the garage gates. With the rush to the ’ospital, I left them open, and all the world an’ his wife could’ve been in, nicking stuff.’ He screwed up the greasy newspaper and pushing it into the rubbish bin, hurried off down the alley to secure his yard.

  Janet ate the last of her chips and then went to the cupboard where she knew her mother kept the old cash box. Known as the papers’ box, it was where Ethel kept all the important family papers. Janet climbed onto a chair and lifted the box down from the top shelf, setting it on the table. It was locked but she guessed where the key would be. Sure enough, when she felt behind the kitchen clock her fingers found it, a small key on a piece of string.

  Janet unlocked the box and as she’d expected, there were various papers her mother put there for safe keeping. There was an envelope with two five-pound notes in it, her mother’s emergency money, and lying on the top was a folded paper with ‘Daphne’ written on the outside. Opening this up she saw a scribbled address and phone number.

  Good, thought Janet. An address and phone number. We can ring her up and tell her what’s happened.

  She was about to close the box again but her curiosity was stirred by some other documents lying inside. She lifted them out and unfolded them. Birth certificates, four of them. Janet had never seen a birth certificate before and she peered at the top one. It was Daphne’s.

  Daphne, it informed her, had been born on 12 October 1922 in Barrack Street, Hackney. Named Daphne Ann. Father: Norman Higgins, mechanic. Mother: Ethel Jean Higgins, formerly Brown.

  Janet set the certificate aside and picked up the next one, her father’s.

  Norman was born on 15 March 1898 in King’s Cross. His parents were named as Alfred James Higgins, a railway porter, and Mary Jane Higgins, formerly Davies.

  Janet looked at this with interest. She had a vague recollection of Nan, her father’s mother, but none at all of her grandfather, Alfred the railway porter.

  Her mother’s birth certificate named her as Ethel Jean, born 19 November 1899 in St Pancras. Her father had been John Brown, another railway porter. Was that how her parents had met, wondered Janet. Their dads working together? Her mother was named as Eliza Brown, formerly Rush.

  Janet knew neither of her mother’s parents, both had died in the Spanish flu outbreak after the first war. She reached for the final document, her own birth certificate, and was about to put it back with the others in the box when she noticed something. She peered at the certificate in amazement.

  It gave her date of birth, 3 December 1938, and her name, Janet. She didn’t have a second name like Daphne, but that wasn’t what grabbed her attention. Her name and birthday were right, but all the rest of it was wrong. In the box for ‘Father’ was not her father’s name, but the word ‘Unknown’. In the box for ‘Mother’ was the name Daphne Ann Higgins.

  Janet stared at the certificate. ‘Daphne isn’t my mother,’ she said aloud. ‘That’s all wrong. The birth certificate people have got it wrong.’ She couldn’t understand it. Written there, in beautiful copperplate handwriting, were the details of her birth, but they’d got Daphne muddled with Mum and hadn’t put Dad’s name in the ‘Father’ box.

  Janet heard her father’s steps in the lane outside so she stuffed the birth certificate back into the cash box and quickly closed it again. What she’d seen needed thinking about and she didn’t want to ask Dad about it. She’d ask Mum when they went to see her at the hospital.

  When her father came back into the kitchen, he saw the cash box on the table and asked, ‘Did you find Daph’s address?’

  Janet didn’t answer, but handed him the scrap of paper.

  ‘Oh good,’ he said as he glanced down at it, ‘look, there’s a phone number, too. Tell you what, I’ll just pop down the phone box and try and get through to her.’ He pulled a handful of coins from his pocket but there weren’t enough for a trunk call, so he raided the gas money in the jar on the shelf.

  ‘Why don’t you get ready for bed while I’m phoning?’ he suggested. ‘I won’t be very long, but I think we should let Daph know that her mum’s been took ill. She might want to come up and visit.’ His face brightened at the thought. He loved his daughter and had been very sorry when she’d decided not to keep in touch. Perhaps, as her mother was ill, he could persuade her to come for another visit.

  As soon as he’d gone out again, Janet opened the cash box and removed her birth certificate. Then she closed and locked it again and put it back on its shelf in the cupboard. The certificate she took straight upstairs and hid it under the mattress on her bed. When her father got back from making his phone call she was in bed, ready to settle down.

  ‘Did you talk to Daphne?’ she asked when he put his head round her bedroom door.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied.

  ‘An’ is she coming up?’ Janet sounded excited. As a little girl she’d been fond of her sister and was sorry they hardly saw her any more.

  ‘No, afraid not,’ Norman responded sadly. ‘Not for a bit, anyway. Maybe when your mum’s feeling a bit better.’

  Janet eyed him seriously. ‘She is going to get better, i’n’t she, Dad?’

  ‘Of course she is,’ he said encouragingly. ‘That Dr Faulkner said it was just a matter of time. They’ll look after her in the ’ospital until she’s feeling well enough to come home. Now then,’ he added, knowing this was a question Ethel always asked before Janet went to bed, ‘you got everything ready for school in the morning?’

  ‘Yes, of course, Dad,’ Janet said and reached up for his goodnight kiss. ‘There’s only a week to go before the holidays.’

  Janet made use of that week. She visited her mother, but when she saw her looking so pale and worn out, lying in the hospital bed, she didn’t mention having found the birth certificate with the mistakes in it. No, she decided, when school finished at the end of the week she was going to find Daphne in this Wynsdown place and tell her about it. Daphne’ll know what to do, she thought.

  At the back of her mind there was growing unease. Several girls in her class at school didn’t have fathers; girls like Rhoda whose dad had been killed in the war, and Elsie whose dad had gone to live with someone else, after. But one girl, Marion, had never had a dad. She used to say she was really a princess who’d been stolen from the hospital at birth and been given to her mother to look after. When they were younger, her friends had half believed her, but when Rhoda told her gran, her gran had laughed and said that was a load of rubbish; that Marion’s mum was a fool who’d got caught. Everyone knew that Marion’s dad was some soldier home on leave. ‘Had his fun,’ said Rhoda’s gran, ‘and was never seen again. Silly cow didn’t even know his name.’ Marion and her mum only had each other.

  Could something like that have happened to Daphne? Janet wondered, before dismissing the idea as too ridiculous to be given serious consideration. No, certainly not. She, Janet, had both a mum and a dad. But the idea niggled and she needed Daphne to tell her it was all wrong.

  The question of the train fare had exercised her mind, until she remembered the emergency money in the papers’ box.
Once her plans were laid, she faced her father with them, ready with answers to get her own way.

  ‘We break up tomorrow, Dad,’ she told him when they were eating their tea on the last evening of term. ‘I’m going to go and visit Daphne then.’

  ‘To visit Daph? When?’

  ‘On Saturday. I’m taking the train.’

  ‘Has she asked you?’ demanded Norman in amazement.

  ‘Sort of,’ Janet lied. ‘I rang her from the call box again, just to tell her how Mum was doing, and I said I wanted to come and stay for a bit. And she said OK. She’s going to meet me at the station.’

  ‘She ain’t coming up here to see yer mum, then?’ Norman sounded disappointed. He hadn’t phoned Daphne again in the hope that if she had no news of how her mother was doing, she might decide to come up to London to find out for herself.

  ‘Not just yet,’ Janet answered, improvising quickly. ‘She said we’d come back together in a week or so.’

  Norman scratched his chin and thought about this. In some ways Janet going to stay with Daphne would make life a lot easier for him. He wouldn’t have to worry about her once school was closed and her at a loose end. Would she be all right, going down there to Somerset on the train by herself? He said this and Janet laughed out loud.

  ‘Oh, Dad,’ she cried, ‘I’m not a kid any more, I’ll be fifteen at Christmas and leaving school. Of course I’ll be all right.’

  So, Norman reluctantly agreed and though Janet had already removed the emergency ten pounds from the papers’ box and hidden it with the birth certificate, she accepted the pound note he gave her for her fare. That night she packed her case, putting both the birth certificate and the cash in at the bottom and piling her few clothes on top of them.

  On Saturday morning Norman had been going to shut the garage and go with her to Paddington, but as he was closing up the night before, a last-minute rushed job came in, the car to be ready again by Saturday lunchtime. Norman couldn’t afford to turn away business and so, reluctantly, he’d seen Janet off to catch the bus by herself. As she gave him a final hug, she said, ‘I didn’t tell Mum I was going. I didn’t want her to worry. If you tell her, she’ll be fine about it, won’t she?’