Sing As We Go

by Margaret Dickinson

  That clinched it, as the woman held out her greedy hand. ‘No pets, no children and no followers,’ she said tartly.

  Kathy did not answer.

  From the same newspaper, Kathy listed two or three jobs from the ‘Wanted’ column and the following day tramped the streets looking for work. She found it as a waitress in one of the seafront cafés for the season.

  ‘You’ll probably only be needed until September, if we get any kind of a season at all with the wretched war on,’ Mr Bates, the proprietor – a doleful man in his fifties – informed her.

  ‘That’s fine. That’s all I want anyway.’

  ‘And the work’ll be quite hard. You’ll be on your feet all day.’ He too looked her up and down, just like the landlady had done. But he seemed to like what he saw, for he smiled and said, ‘But you look strong.’

  Now Kathy could raise a smile. ‘Oh, I am. I worked on my father’s farm,’ she told him, but did not add about her months working in the fancy department store in the city.

  The weeks and months had passed quickly and already it was September. And today, the young girl who was the kitchen maid in the café had said, ‘By heck, Kathy, I reckon you’re putting on weight but I don’t know how you’re managing it with all this rationing. Poor Mr Bates is doing ’is nut ’cos he can’t get the stuff he wants.’

  Kathy had been able to conceal her condition with the loose overall she wore when working. But now the growing bulge could no longer be hidden.

  She sighed as she watched the waves rolling in towards the shore and breaking on the smooth sand. It was a lovely beach and she longed to walk on it, but ugly rolls of barbed wire barred the way and danger signs forbade entry.

  Hands deep in the pockets of her coat, Kathy walked along the seafront as far as she could. She was trying to come to a decision. Jemima’s final words to her had been, ‘Wherever you’re going, my dear, you must see a doctor, and don’t forget to sort out your ration books.’

  Kathy had handed her ration book to her landlady, who provided her meals, but she had not been able to bring herself to visit a doctor. However, she’d found out that there was a home for unmarried mothers and their babies on the outskirts of the town. And today she must visit it and seek admittance. She was putting off the moment for as long as possible, but by lunchtime she forced herself to walk along the road leading southwards out of the town towards the square house that sat in its own grounds.

  She walked through the gateway, noticing that, though there were posts and hinges, the gates had been removed. For the war effort, she supposed. She crunched up the gravel driveway and pulled on the bell rope. After what seemed an age, in which she almost lost her nerve and ran back down the drive, footsteps approached and the door was pulled open.

  A young girl, obviously far advanced in pregnancy, stood there. Kathy and the girl exchanged a solemn glance of mutual sympathy and understanding before the girl smiled and invited Kathy inside.

  ‘I . . .’ Kathy faltered, not knowing how to begin, but the girl filled the moment of awkwardness by saying, ‘My name’s Lizzie Marsh. We call each other by our Christian names but the staff here call us by our surnames.’ She grimaced and laughed wryly. ‘It’s supposed to make us feel even more degraded than we do already.’ She put her arm through Kathy’s. ‘Don’t look so terrified. It’s not so bad. If you behave yourself and do exactly as they tell you, you’ll be fine.’ She laughed again and this time there was a brief hint of a mischievous sparkle in her eyes. ‘I don’t, so I’m always in trouble.’

  Kathy warmed at once to the girl. ‘I’m – I’m Kathy Burton.’ So nearly had she become Mrs Kathy Kendall. Another few minutes and she would not be having to seek sanctuary in such a place.

  ‘I’ll take you to see Matron.’ Lizzie leaned closer and whispered. ‘That’s what we all have to call her – “Matron”. But I won’t tell you what we call her behind her back. You’ll hear soon enough.’

  The girl led the way and knocked on a door on the left-hand side of the wide hallway. In a moment, Kathy found herself standing in front of a broad desk behind which was sitting a large, sour-faced woman in a navy blue dress with a white cap perched on top of her short, straight grey hair. The bright light from the window behind the woman shone in Kathy’s eyes.

  ‘Thank you, Marsh,’ the matron snapped and Lizzie turned to leave. Unseen by the matron she gave Kathy a broad wink.

  Once the girl had gone the matron appraised Kathy from head to toe, but she did not invite her to sit down.

  ‘How far gone are you?’

  ‘Nearly seven months.’

  ‘Have you seen a doctor?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Is this your first pregnancy?’

  Kathy felt the colour creep up her face. Embarrassment, shame – a tumult of emotions – swept through her. But she tilted her chin a little higher and met the woman’s cold stare. Deliberately deciding to take Lizzie’s advice – at least for the moment – she said, with feigned humility, ‘Yes, Matron.’

  The woman pulled a notepad towards her and picked up her pen. ‘I’d better take some details. Name . . .’

  The questions went on, endlessly it seemed to Kathy, until her feet were aching.

  ‘I shall need a referral from a doctor. Are you registered with anyone locally?’

  Kathy shook her head.

  ‘I’ll see that you are put on Dr Williamson’s list. It was he who started this place and he attends the confinements of all our inmates.’

  Kathy flinched at the word. It sounded like the workhouse and she was suddenly very much afraid that it would be little better.

  The matron laid down her pen at last, rested her elbows on the desk and steepled her fingers. ‘This place is run on charity. Women of standing in the community raise funds and support our efforts. And the girls are expected to contribute by working. We employ no staff other than myself and two more part-time qualified nurses who come in when required. All other work – cooking, cleaning and laundry – is done by the inmates.’

  That dreadful word again, Kathy thought, and now it sounds even more like a workhouse.

  ‘I understand, Matron.’

  ‘We also keep chickens, pigs and a small herd of cows. We grow our own vegetables. Even more so, since the war started.’ She glanced down at her notes. ‘I see you were brought up on a farm, so no doubt you would be most suited to the outside work.’

  Kathy felt hysterical laughter bubbling up inside her. She had left home to escape a life of drudgery and now, just because she had made the mistake of falling in love with Tony Kendall, she was back at the start. It was like a game of snakes and ladders and she had just slid down a very long snake.

  She quelled her laughter and composed her face, saying meekly, ‘Yes, Matron.’

  ‘Now, if you’ll sign these papers of consent, then I’ll be able to admit you.’

  In a blur of misery and shame, Kathy scribbled her name at the foot of several typewritten sheets of paper, which the matron laid before her. Then she returned to her lodgings to pack her few belongings and collect her ration book. Carrying her suitcase, she gave in her notice at the café and trudged back to the isolated house that was to be her home for the next few months.

  Kathy couldn’t remember ever feeling so lonely in the whole of her life.

  The days passed with monotonous routine. The work was hard, though no worse than Kathy had been used to on her father’s farm. But the months of comparatively soft living in the city made feeding pigs, milking cows and cleaning out the chicken huts seem doubly hard. Kathy was lucky. She was physically strong, and after a week or so slipped back into the routine as if she had never left it. She even helped some of the girls who found it exhausting, though this earned her a reprimand from the matron.

  ‘They’re here to work,’ Miss Delamere reminded her.

  ‘To be punished, you mean,’ Kathy muttered.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Yes, Matron,’ Kathy said,
staring boldly into the woman’s steely eyes.

  ‘Get on with your work,’ she snapped, turned and marched away. Behind her back, Kathy pulled a face and one of the other girls laughed. The matron glanced back, glared at Kathy for a moment and then walked on. But Kathy knew she had made an enemy.

  Despite the harsh routine and the unhappy circumstances that brought them together, friendships grew among the girls. There were one or two spats, as was inevitable amongst a group of lonely, frightened young woman forced to live day and night in each other’s company. But the others quickly resolved any arguments. From feeling desolate when she entered the house, Kathy soon felt among friends. Only the matron and nurses held themselves aloof and disapproving. Even Dr Williamson seemed to be a benign benefactor. He was middle-aged, round-faced and balding, and smiled over his steel-rimmed spectacles at Kathy when she entered his consulting room.

  When he had finished his examination of her he pronounced her fit and healthy. ‘You’ll have a fine baby, my dear, that some lucky couple will be delighted to adopt.’

  Kathy stared at him. ‘Adopt? What – what do you mean?’

  The doctor smiled at her. ‘Well, you are not in a position to keep the baby, are you, my dear?’

  Kathy gasped. ‘Not – not keep my baby?’

  ‘Oh no. That’s out of the question. We cannot allow it. You came in here of your own free will, didn’t you? Nobody forced you to, now did they?’

  ‘Well, no, but I didn’t realize—’

  ‘So, you thought you could come in here . . .’ Suddenly, the blue eyes behind the spectacles were no longer friendly. They were sharp and greedy. ‘Be cared for and cosseted. And then what did you expect? After the birth? That you’d be found a home and supported? I think not, my dear. I don’t know your background or your circumstances, but obviously you don’t have a family prepared to forgive you and support you, else you wouldn’t be here.’

  Kathy leapt to her feet. ‘Then I won’t stay here. I had no idea that I’d be expected to allow my baby to be adopted.’

  The once benign face suddenly creased into an angry frown. ‘You signed the papers when you came in.’

  Kathy gasped and stared at him in horror. ‘I – I thought they were just something to do with my admittance here. I was never told that it was anything to do with – adoption.’

  Dr Williamson shrugged. ‘You were told—’

  ‘I was not told anything of the sort,’ Kathy shouted.

  ‘Don’t raise your voice to me, young lady.’ All pretence at benevolence was gone. ‘You’ve signed the papers. Your child will be adopted. Look,’ he said, his tone softening. ‘Sit down and let me explain.’

  Slowly, Kathy sank back down into her chair. Not so much because she wished to sit, but because she felt as if her trembling legs would no longer keep her standing upright.

  ‘Look, my dear . . .’ The cajoling tone was back, but now Kathy knew it was insincere. ‘If your baby is taken by a couple who are unable to have children of their own and are desperate to adopt, isn’t it going to have a much better life than with you? All its life it will bear the stigma of being a bastard.’ Kathy flinched and Dr Williamson nodded sagely. ‘Yes, you may well wince, but that, my dear girl, is exactly what your child will suffer the whole of its life. It will have that dreadful name called after it in the playground, in the street. It will never be able to hold its head up. It will be an outcast from society. It will never get a decent job, or marry well. The stigma will follow it all its days,’ he ended pompously.

  Kathy closed her eyes and groaned inwardly. Had she been wrong to run away from those who would have helped her? Jemima and all the Robinson family? And Morry? Especially Morry? She even wondered if she should have given Tony another chance. Perhaps she should have waited until he’d come home on leave instead of rushing away in pique.

  But no. If nothing else, she was an honest girl. She could no more force Tony into marriage than she could accept Morry’s proposal. And yet . . . Now she was being forced to give up her baby. She’d never even thought of such a thing. Yet now she had to face it.

  Calmer now, she stood up. ‘I’ll think about it.’

  The doctor was all smiles again, though now Kathy saw them as sinister. She gave him a brief nod and marched out of the room. She would talk to Lizzie and the other girls. Surely, she thought, there are others here who don’t want to give up their babies?

  ‘Of course we don’t want to,’ Lizzie said as three of the girls huddled together in the dormitory after lights out. ‘But what other choice do we have?’

  ‘How can we work and look after our babies?’ Pamela put in. She was near her time and every day her eyes became sadder and more haunted with the thought of what she must do. ‘I would if I could, believe me. I don’t want to give my baby away.’ Tears filled her eyes and Lizzie put her arm about her. ‘But your baby will go to a good home.’

  ‘You make it sound like a litter of puppies that goes to “a good home”,’ Kathy snapped.

  Lizzie shrugged philosophically.

  ‘Why can’t we get a place together? Three or four of us and help each other.’ Kathy was clutching at preposterous ideas. ‘We could get work and one of us could look after the babies.’

  ‘I thought of that, but it’s been done,’ Pamela sighed, wiping her eyes.

  ‘And?’

  ‘It didn’t work. The locals accused the girls of keeping a brothel.’

  Kathy stared at her, open-mouthed, to think that people could be so cruel. ‘You’d think in nineteen forty and in the middle of a war, folks would be a bit more understanding, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘You would,’ Lizzie said quietly. ‘But they’re not. We’re still “fallen women” in most folk’s eyes.’

  ‘So – is everyone here giving their babies up for adoption?’

  No one spoke. No one denied it.

  ‘Lizzie?’

  ‘It’s the best for the child,’ Lizzie said, though her voice trembled.

  ‘But what about your baby’s father. Won’t he . . . ?’

  Lizzie pursed her lips, trying to hold back the tears. She shook her head. ‘No. He didn’t want to know. He – he even said he didn’t know if the baby was his.’ Now her tears fell. ‘How could he say such a thing to me? He was my first boyfriend and he knew that.’

  ‘I was an absolute fool,’ Pamela murmured. ‘My baby’s father was married, but I was so head over heels in love with him . . .’ She needed to say no more. Each one of them knew what it was to fall in love, to be so sure that their lover felt the same. That nothing would ever come between them . . . Oh they’d heard it all before but they believed it would be so different for them. But it wasn’t. And now they found themselves here, brought together by a common bond, their only fault having loved too much.

  ‘And – and I take it your parents . . . ?’ Kathy began, but she got no further. There was wry laughter.

  ‘You must be joking,’ Pamela said. ‘My parents arranged for me to come here. I can only go home again when it’s all over and then only so long as it’s without the baby.’

  ‘But it’s their grandchild. How can they . . . ?’

  ‘Oh they can. Very easily, it seems,’ Pamela said.

  ‘My parents just turned me out,’ Lizzie said dolefully. ‘I’d nowhere else to go except a place like this. A friend of mine whose sister had a baby out of wedlock told me about Willow House.’

  Two other girls told their similar, sorry, tales and then all eyes turned to Kathy.

  ‘I was almost married,’ she said bitterly. ‘Five minutes more and I would have been.’ And she went on to tell them the details of that chaotic day.

  ‘That’s awful, but couldn’t you have waited till he came on leave again? It doesn’t sound as if he’s deserted you. Just – just circumstances,’ Lizzie said logically.

  ‘I know,’ Kathy sighed. ‘Maybe I’ve been a bit hasty. I see that now. But I still don’t think there’s much hope. He’s a mother’
s boy and that’s never going to change.’

  ‘Does he know? About the baby?’

  ‘No,’ Kathy said firmly. ‘And he’s not going to. Not from me and no one knows where I am. I – wanted to handle it myself, but – but I didn’t realize it involved giving up my baby.’ She turned to Lizzie and said softly, ‘And I’m not going to. Once I’ve had it, I’m out of here and taking my baby with me. At least I do have a place to go back to. Someone I lived with in – in the city. She’ll stand by me. I know she will.’

  The girls all glanced at each other. ‘You’re lucky then,’ Pamela said. ‘Good luck to you.’

  They crept back to their beds and Kathy lay staring into the darkness and planning how she could escape from this place that was like a prison.

  Twenty-Eight

  Pamela gave birth to a baby girl. She refused to look at it or hold it and the child was handed over to eager parents at a week old. The next day, Pamela said her goodbyes and returned home. Several other girls gave birth and stayed for about six weeks, caring for their child, feeding it, dressing it and bathing it.

  When the day came that they too had to part with their babies, they were heartbroken.

  ‘I’ll never see her again,’ a young girl called Rachel sobbed on Kathy’s shoulder. ‘I’ll never see her smile or nurse her when she’s teething. I won’t be there when she starts to walk. And it won’t be me she learns to call “Mummy”.’

  Kathy held her close and stroked her hair, but she could think of nothing to say to comfort the girl. There was nothing she could say.

  And then it was Lizzie’s turn.

  ‘Stay with me,’ she begged Kathy. ‘Don’t leave me. I’m so frightened.’

  ‘There’s nothing to be frightened of,’ Kathy tried to reassure her as the girl writhed on her bed in agony.

  But there was plenty for Lizzie to be afraid of. She endured three days in labour to be delivered in the end of a stillborn child. A week later, distraught and weakened, Lizzie succumbed to an infection and followed her child to the pauper’s grave in the nearest churchyard.