Sing As We Go

by Margaret Dickinson

  ‘Do you need any help? The bag’s quite heavy.’

  ‘I have a taxi waiting . . .’ Kathy snapped and turned towards the door, anxious to make her escape. The matron herself opened the door. ‘Bowen, carry the child’s bag out to the taxi for Miss – er . . . for the lady.’

  Kathy was out of the door and down the steps and willing herself to walk sedately down the drive to the waiting vehicle as she matched her step to the child’s. But all the time she felt a prickling sensation down her back as she felt the matron’s gaze still upon her. Any moment she expected to hear a shout, ordering her to stop. But she walked on and with every step she breathed a little more easily.

  The taxi driver leapt out of the vehicle and, taking the bag from the girl, opened the door for Kathy to lift the child in and then climb in beside him. As the girl lumbered back up the drive, the driver started the engine with a twirl of the starting handle and then climbed into the driver’s seat.

  ‘Eh, it’s grand to see another little chap leaving that place. He’s not yours, I suppose, is he? He’s older than the ones I usually have in my taxi. Not meaning to pry, like, but I just wondered if he was actually yours and you’d come back for him.’

  Kathy decided that it was better to keep up the pretence a little longer. The fewer people who knew the truth, the better. You never knew, she thought, in a small town like this just who knew who. If she were to confide in the taxi driver, he might well turn out to be Mrs Talbot’s second cousin twice removed. You just never knew.

  Although she wanted to shout it from the rooftops. Yes, he’s mine. Of course he’s mine. Instead she said, ‘His mother was killed in the air raid . . .’

  ‘Oh, poor little chap.’

  ‘But from now on, yes, he’s mine.’

  ‘Then his luck’s changed, madam, if you don’t mind me saying so.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  In the back of the taxi, Kathy removed her black wig and the glasses. She pulled the hat back on and tucked her own blonde hair beneath it, hoping, at the last ditch, that the taxi driver wouldn’t notice the sudden dramatic change in his passenger’s appearance.

  He didn’t. When the vehicle pulled to a halt outside the house, James started to whimper and the driver quickly helped her out and carried her bag up the drive to Mrs Talbot waiting at the door. He hardly gave Kathy a second glance as she handed the child to the daily help and then paid her fare.

  At last, the door closed on the outside world and they were safely home.

  ‘Isn’t he a little love?’ Mrs Talbot cooed. The child’s tears dried instantly and he smiled, his whole face lighting up as he beamed and chuckled. ‘I bet you’re hungry, aren’t you? I bet they’ve not fed you right at that horrid place. Now, you come with me and we’ll see what we can find for you in my kitchen.’

  Kathy smiled. She had her son back. She could be with him all day and all night too. For the moment, she was quite content to let Mrs Talbot fuss over him. Time enough for her to cuddle him and get to know him when they were alone.

  He had Tony’s eyes and his dark hair too. Even his nose had the makings of being the same shape. As she bathed him that night, Kathy examined every inch of him, touching him with gentle, loving fingers, revelling in the smooth skin, the rounded arms and legs. She kissed his forehead, his feet and his hands.

  ‘Oh, my darling boy,’ she murmured. ‘I’ll never let you go again. Somehow, I’ll find a way to stay with you.’

  And James smiled his beatific smile.

  Mr Wainwright had certainly not misled Kathy in his attitude towards his adopted son. He hardly saw the child. Though he made sure that Kathy had everything she needed for him and for herself, he wanted nothing to do with little James. That first evening, Kathy brought him down to the dining room where Mr Wainwright was eating his meal alone at one end of the polished mahogany table.

  ‘We’ve come to say “Goodnight”,’ Kathy said.

  Mr Wainwright looked up, a startled expression on his face. ‘Oh – er – yes – right.’ He made no move to get up but just gave a curt nod and said, ‘Goodnight then.’

  Kathy stared at him for a moment and then looked down at the child standing quietly beside her. He was gazing at the man with a blank look, as if he was a complete stranger.

  ‘That’s your daddy,’ Kathy said.

  Mr Wainwright set his spoon down in the empty dish. ‘Er – I’ve never liked the term “Daddy”. I always called my father by his proper title. “Father”. And I’d be obliged if you would teach James to use that name for me.’

  Again Kathy stared at him. What a cold, unfeeling man he was. But she smiled dutifully and said, ‘Of course. Is there anything else I should know? I mean, when would you like to spend some time with him?’

  ‘I wouldn’t,’ Mr Wainwright said bluntly. ‘He’s your responsibility – entirely. Please ask me for anything you need and I’ll see you get it – if possible, of course, in these difficult times. But – I don’t want to have anything to do with him. I – I’m not good with babies or toddlers. Perhaps when he gets a little older. School age, perhaps, then I might find him a little more interesting.’

  ‘I see.’ Kathy tried very hard to keep any note of disapproval out of her tone. She didn’t want to do anything that might endanger her position here. But she couldn’t resist the urge to say, ‘Don’t you even want to see him in the evening, just – just to say “Goodnight”?’

  For a moment Mr Wainwright regarded the child thoughtfully. James beamed and waved his chubby hand at him. ‘ ’Night, ’night,’ he said, endearingly. Kathy saw the man’s expression soften a little.

  ‘Very well, then,’ Mr Wainwright said at last. ‘Just at night, when I’ve finished my dinner, you may bring him to my study.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Wainwright.’ As she turned to go, he said, ‘Oh, Miss Burton, please feel free to use the sitting room whenever you wish. I shall be spending very little time in there. More often than not I shall be working in my study in the evenings. And please use the radio whenever you wish, though I’d be glad if you’d keep the volume turned low so that it does not disturb me.’

  Kathy was tempted to say that it was unlikely she’d have the radio playing so loudly that she would not be able to hear James. Instead she thanked him politely and carried the little boy up to his cot in the nursery. Clutching the knitted rabbit, he settled down at once and his eyelids closed as soon as she had tucked the covers around him.

  She set the nightlight and tiptoed into her own room and glanced around it. It had been furnished as a bed-sitting room. The bed was in one corner, with a bedside table and lamp on it. Nearby was a dressing table and wardrobe, but near the window that looked out over the back garden of the house, an easy chair and low coffee table had been placed. There was even a bookcase to one side, filled with a variety of books. Kathy ran her finger along the titles and smiled. There was a battered copy of Pride and Prejudice. She took it from the shelf, sat down in the chair and opened the book. On the flyleaf, in scrawling handwriting was written, ‘To dear Beryl on her fifteenth birthday from her loving Aunt Mary’.

  Kathy smiled. By the appearance of the book, it had been a treasured and much-read possession. Something else she had in common with Beryl Wainwright.

  Thirty-Nine

  The Wainwright household settled happily into a routine. Mrs Talbot did most of the housework and cooked evening meals during the week for the master of the house. Kathy had usually eaten by the time Mr Wainwright came home, for it coincided with James’s bedtime ritual. On the days Mrs Talbot did not come – at the weekends – Kathy cooked for both Mr Wainwright and herself and they both ate a little earlier, at six o’clock instead of seven. For the first two weeks Kathy ate in the kitchen with James while Mr Wainwright took his meal alone in the dining room.

  On the Sunday evening of the third weekend, Mr Wainwright came into the kitchen. Kathy jumped to her feet at once. ‘Is there something—?’

  He put his hand out, ‘
No, no, please, don’t get up. I was just thinking—’ He paused and eyed James sitting quietly in his chair, his brown eyes regarding Mr Wainwright solemnly. ‘Is he a good boy? I mean, at mealtimes? At the table?’

  Carefully Kathy said, ‘Usually, yes. I’m trying to teach him the way to behave. I – I don’t think one can start too young.’

  Mr Wainwright looked pleased and nodded. ‘Quite right. To be honest, Beryl was a little lax with him at times.’ A pause and then he went on. ‘What I was thinking was that it seems a little silly for you to be sitting in here and me in there – on my own. In the week, of course,’ he added hastily, as if not wanting to give away too much of his privacy, ‘it’s better to keep to James’s routine, but at weekends when you do the cooking – for which I’m very grateful incidentally, as that was not part of our original agreement.’

  ‘I don’t mind. I enjoy it. And James sits in his chair watching.’

  ‘I was thinking we might all eat together in the dining room at weekends.’

  ‘That would be very nice. Thank you, sir.’

  ‘Of course, if I have guests . . .’ He never entertained, so Kathy couldn’t understand him even mentioning it, but dutifully she said swiftly, ‘Of course. A proper dinner party is no place for a child.’

  He nodded. ‘Right, that’s settled then. And – er – please call me “Henry”.’

  So a slightly altered routine was established. During the week, Mr Wainwright – or rather Henry as Kathy now must think of him – ate alone, and the only time he encountered his son was when Kathy took him downstairs, bathed and dressed in his pyjamas. At weekends, the three of them ate in the dining room together, Henry at the head of the table, Kathy at one side with James’s chair beside her. For the first three weeks things passed calmly enough, but on the Saturday night of the fourth weekend, James was fractious. He was whimpering as Kathy sat him in his chair, and as she tried to feed him with a spoon his cries increased and he turned his head away.

  ‘Is something the matter with him?’

  ‘Perhaps he’s getting another tooth.’ It pained her to admit it even to herself that she wasn’t sure at what age children cut their various teeth. ‘See how red his cheek is?’

  ‘Are you sure that’s all it is? He hasn’t got a temperature, has he? He looks awfully hot.’

  ‘That’s because – if it is a tooth coming through – his gums are hurting and he’s cross.’

  She tried James with another spoonful but he screwed up his face and pushed her hand away, spilling the food from the spoon on to the carpet. Kathy mopped it up at once with her napkin, but it left a dark, wet stain on the floor.

  Henry’s face was thunderous. ‘Perhaps this wasn’t such a good idea after all.’

  Kathy rose, leaving her own meal untouched. ‘I’ll take him upstairs.’

  ‘But what about your own meal?’

  ‘I’ll just put him in his cot and come back.’

  ‘Very well.’ Henry carried on with his own meal and didn’t even speak to or look at the child as Kathy carried him out.

  She laid him in his cot. ‘Poor little man,’ she murmured. ‘Is that nasty old tushypeg hurting, then? I’ll be back in a jiffy. I must just go down and clear our plates away. I’ll be right back.’

  She ran lightly down the stairs and went back into the dining room. ‘I’m so sorry about that,’ she said. ‘I’ll mind not to bring him to eat in here if he’s fractious.’

  She began to pick up her plate and James’s dish.

  ‘Aren’t you going to sit down and eat your dinner?’

  ‘He’s crying. I must get back to him.’

  A look of annoyance passed over Henry’s face. ‘Let him cry. It won’t hurt him for once.’

  ‘No,’ Kathy said quietly, hoping that defying her employer would not bring about her instant dismissal. ‘It’s not naughtiness. If it was I’d be the first to let him cry out his paddy, but he’s got toothache.’

  ‘As you wish,’ Henry said stiffly. ‘I see now that you’re as soft as Beryl when it comes down to it.’

  ‘Not when it’s naughtiness, I assure you. Only when he’s so obviously in pain.’

  With that, she gathered the dishes and left the room, returning only to move James’s chair back into the kitchen.

  Henry Wainwright continued his meal in stony silence, a churlish look on his face. Kathy was smiling as she ran back up the stairs. If that same look had been on James’s face, she would have classed it as mardy.

  They continued to dine with Mr Wainwright when James was sunny-natured and well-behaved. If he showed the slightest sign of ‘playing up’, as Mrs Talbot fondly called it, they ate in the kitchen. Kathy still waited on her employer, serving him his dinner and then clearing away and washing up after James was in bed and asleep.

  One evening about ten o’clock, when she was putting away the last cup and saucer in the cupboard, Henry wandered into the kitchen carrying two brandy glasses. He held out one towards her. ‘A nightcap.’

  She smiled and took it. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Is the child asleep?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Let’s go into the sitting room.’ He turned to lead the way, but Kathy hesitated. She didn’t want to anger Henry – he seemed in a particularly mellow mood – but she couldn’t be sure of hearing James if he cried.

  As if reading her thoughts, Henry said over his shoulder, ‘You can leave the door ajar. You’ll be able to hear him then.’

  Breathing a sigh of relief, she followed him into the room and sat, a little self-consciously, on the sofa while he took his usual armchair by the fire. He swirled the brandy around in the glass and looked across at her through narrowed eyes. ‘Tell me about yourself.’

  Kathy’s heart missed a beat. It was the sort of question she’d dreaded him asking. She’d begun to feel safe here. Henry Wainwright seemed so wrapped up in his work, with little interest in his adopted son and even less in her, that she had been lulled into feeling secure.

  ‘I – there’s not much to tell, really. I was brought up on a farm but I wanted to see a bit more of life, so I went to work in Lincoln.’

  ‘So how did you come to join the concert party and end up visiting this town?’

  Unwittingly, he had made it so easy for her. Put another way, the question could have been impossible to answer truthfully. As it was, she could say honestly. ‘Mr Spencer, who formed the concert party, used to be the conductor in a choral society I belonged to in Lincoln. He asked me to join him.’ It was the truth, if not the whole truth.

  ‘And are you quite happy here? I mean, it doesn’t seem much of a future for a pretty young girl like you just to be looking after one child.’ He paused and eyed her keenly. ‘I mean, what about marriage? Wouldn’t you like to get married one day? I thought that was the ambition of every young woman.’

  ‘Perhaps one day,’ Kathy said carefully, but her heart was hammering painfully. The questions were getting a little too personal and any moment she expected him to ask something that would trap her.

  ‘Have you never had a young man?’

  ‘I . . . there was someone, but – but he went into the RAF. He – he was a fighter pilot.’ She knew her face looked bleak, her eyes haunted.

  ‘So,’ he said softly, ‘you’ve lost the one you loved too, have you?’

  Wordlessly, she nodded.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear it, Kathy. Very sorry.’

  Life might have continued in much the same way in the Wainwright household if the concert party had not returned to Saltershaven in June. Kathy saw the advertisement in the local paper, and on the afternoon of their first concert she wheeled James in his pushchair to the cinema knowing the cast would be rehearsing for the evening performance.

  ‘Kathy, my dear girl.’ Ron greeted her with open arms as she walked down the aisle towards the stage carrying James in her arms. ‘Hello, young man.’ He beamed at the child, and tickled him under the chin to be rewarded with a wide smile from Jam
es. ‘He’s a handsome little chap, isn’t he?’ He lowered his voice and winked at her. ‘But then, of course, he would be, wouldn’t he? How’s it all going? Are you happy?’

  ‘Yes, Ron, I am. I get to be with him all the time. Mr Wainwright isn’t very interested in him. It seems it was his wife who really wanted children. I think Mr Wainwright is married to his job, if you know what I mean.’

  Ron laughed. ‘I do. I’ve met a few like that in my time. Oh well, my dear, as long as you’re happy.’

  ‘Have you seen anything of Miss Robinson?’

  ‘Mabel gets a letter now and again. But I expect you do, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, we write to each other regularly, but I miss seeing her. Do you think she’ll ever go back to Lincoln?’

  Ron shrugged. ‘I doubt it. They’ve laid a few off at Hammonds. Business for them just isn’t the same as it was before the war. You can’t expect it to be. Folks haven’t got the money – or the coupons! I don’t think she’ll even try to go back there. She’s still with Ted and Betty. She seems happy enough.’

  And why shouldn’t she be? Kathy thought. She’s with her son too.

  Forty

  ‘Kathy, I have something to ask you.’

  Ron was standing in the kitchen of Henry Wainwright’s house, twirling his hat nervously in his hands. On the day she had been to the theatre to see him, he’d promised to come and see her before the party left town and now here he was. But she hadn’t expected this.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I wondered if you’d come back to the party . . .’ As she opened her mouth to refuse, he put up his hand. ‘Don’t answer straight away. Hear me out – please.’

  ‘Sit down, Ron. I’ll make a cup of tea.’