by Maggie Ford
The following Saturday for Letty began with a small niggling pain low in her stomach that disappeared within seconds, then came back stronger to disappear yet again.
After a third even sharper stab she knew a corresponding stab of fear and a sort of slow collapsing, a yielding to the inevitable.
No going back now – a thought foolish and trite, but one which dominated all others. She could not help but think of the stigma she had thrust upon her unborn child, her involvement in its future, sins of the mother … never realised until now. Around midday, pain exploded, making her cry out and half double up and forget all about irresponsibility.
From then on minutes felt like hours, hours condensed into minutes; time distorted. Ada Hall telling her to hold on, frantically phoning the midwife and doctor; Dad white as a sheet, praying, ‘Look after ’er please, God! Don’t take ’er from me! Yer took ’er mum – don’t take ’er!’ Loud enough for her to hear, as if she needed that just now.
The pains growing stronger made her arch her back, cry out, sweat beading on her brow. Dad, in a panic, had rushed out, down to the Knave of Clubs to wash away fear with several pints of black and tan.
Alone with Ada Hall, a midwife and Doctor Levy, who, aware of her situation, had sympathy enough to kindly be present, Letty wanted only to die – such a simple solution. She was so very tired of fighting alone, months of apprehension and misgivings, now this.
Those she really needed were not here. Mum, who would have held her and comforted her. David who should have been pacing the floor in the next room, given between concern for her and joy of new fatherhood; would have rushed to her side as the baby lay in her arms. All she had was Ada Hall, pinned up hair beginning to fall down, flowered apron all askew, clumsy hands trying to bestow some semblance of comfort.
The child arrived at ten to seven next morning. A boy of eight pounds who bellowed lustily.
Vinny and Lucy arrived at ten to nine, in response to a telephone call from Dad. They flooded into the small bedroom, filling it with their fidgety concern; Dad awkward and withdrawn standing by the brown-curtained window, Vinny leaning over the baby, cooing at it, lifting it from its crib, cradling it in her arms as though it were hers.
Lucy sat beside Letty on the bed, held her hand earnestly.
‘Letty love, me and Vinny’s been talking. We think it might be best if you do it as soon as possible. It’ll make it easier.’
‘Easier?’ she repeated listlessly, hardly recovered enough to use her brain. What was Lucy talking about?
‘The baby – you do realise it’ll be awkward? We should have told you what we’ve been discussing, but really we didn’t want to upset you, being so near your time. You hadn’t planned to keep him, had you? I mean, Dad agreed that … Well, he agreed.’
‘To what?’ It was a job to concentrate. What had Dad agreed that he hadn’t told her about?
‘He agreed,’ Lucy continued gently, ‘that you’d never be able to cope here, with a baby, the shop to look after and everything else in the flat. Not properly. As things are. Well, you know …’
‘Mum did.’ Mum had brought up all of them in this small flat.
‘But we weren’t illegit –’
‘Lucy!’ Vinny’s voice was sharp. The younger sister threw her an abashed glance, then turned back to make an effort to rectify the blunder.
‘You see, it’s the neighbours. Seeing you pushing a pram and you … well, you know. You don’t want everyone pointing a finger at you. But this way … what we’ve discussed, me and Vinny and Dad, people do soon forget. Afterwards you can go on just as you did before.’
‘As I did before?’ Comprehension of what Lucy was trying to say began slowly to take shape. She regarded Lucy with startled eyes.
‘Well, it wouldn’t be fair on you or the poor little thing,’ Lucy blundered on. ‘Giving it for adoption by some stranger. That’s what me and Vinny were discussing. One of us would take it …’
‘No!’
Worn out by the birth as she was, Letty managed to push herself up to a half sitting position, a mixture of fear and anger starting from the pit of her stomach to explode from her lips in that one violent word – an impassioned birth of its own.
She saw Lucy start back, was vaguely aware of Dad by the window, his faded blue eyes wide, his mouth beneath the bristly moustache open like an O, chin dropping. Vinny had hurriedly returned the baby to the modest little crib, she came forward.
‘No!’ Letty’s second shriek took the strength out of her and she dropped back on the pillow with a moan.
‘Leave him alone. He’s mine!’
‘But Letty.’ Vinny’s tone was patient. She came forward, easing her confused sister out of the way. ‘Try to look at this sensibly. How on earth can you …’
‘No!’ Letty screamed again, too worn by her first outburst to rise again from her pillow, but her green eyes blazed in fear. ‘He’s mine. I won’t let you have him. He belongs to me.’
Vinny looked momentarily helpless. Lucy intervened.
‘Don’t be silly, Let. How can you? You’ve already brought shame on all of us. You’re being selfish and silly …’
Her last word ended in a squeal of surprise as Letty’s arm came up, caught her with the flat of one hand across the cheek. Dad gasped and started forward.
‘Look ’ere – I ain’t ’avin’ that!’
The look in Letty’s eyes stopped him and he seemed to diminish in size before her gaze, a dejected confused figure, his eyes wandering to take in the corners of the room, looking anywhere but directly at her, though his lips tightened perversely.
Lucy’s hand had flown to her cheek, already staining red, the white fingermarks standing out against the colour. Letty’s hand had dropped back on to the bedcovers, weak from the exertion. In his crib, the baby had begun to cry, a thin little whimper that grew by the minute. To cover her pique, Lucy went and took the child up, rocking it as the cries died away.
Letty had turned her head away from the scene, staring despairingly at the wall.
‘Go away,’ she whispered. ‘I’m keeping him – he belongs to me and David. No one’s going to take my David’s baby from him.’ Lying limp, she could say no more.
Lucy’s voice came to her, resentful from the injustice of the slap. ‘We’ll see about that!’
Vinny’s tone was gentle, persuasive. ‘You’re weak from what you’ve been through, so we’ll leave you now. But think about it, Letty. Do you really want your baby to grow up being pointed out as … as a … I’ve got to say it, Letty. As a bastard? That’s what he’ll be called. Kids can be mean. Can be cruel. When they learn he hasn’t got a father, that’s what they’ll call him. Is that what you want? If it is, then you’re thinking only of yourself and not him.’
She had come very close, her voice soothing and so low that only Letty could hear the words.
‘If I look after him for you, your own sister, it won’t be like a stranger is taking him away from you, that you wouldn’t see him again, would it? I could bring him up with the boys. He wouldn’t be so much a cousin as a brother. They’d think of him as a brother. They’re all too young to think anything else as time goes on. We could call him John or Christopher or …’
‘He’s got a name,’ Letty murmured, distraught, audible enough for the others to hear. ‘He’s got a name. David.’
‘Oh, I don’t think …’ Lucy’s protest was quelled by a look from Vinny over her shoulder.
She turned back to the mother, her voice hardly altering from its soothing quality. ‘It’s the best thing all round, Letty. Best for … David,’ she added circumspectly. ‘It’s not as if you’d never be seeing him again, as happens to some unmarr – some people. I wouldn’t stop you seeing him. You could see him as often as you like. But, you see, if I adopt him, he’d have a proper surname: Worth. No one’ll ever need know he was born out of wedlock. He need never know.’
It was obvious Lucy had been listening. ‘Worth?’ she queried n
ow. Putting the baby back into its crib, she came forward to do battle. ‘Who said? I can bring him up as good as you. What’s wrong with our name, Morecross?’
Vinny forgot momentarily to be circumspect and soothing, she swung round on her sister. ‘And how d’you think you’re going to cope, your Jack away in the army? You can’t cope now with those you’ve got.’
‘That’s a lie!’ Tears began to appear in Lucy’s eyes. ‘You just want him because you lost …’
‘You shut up,’ Vinny bellowed back. ‘You should know what it’s like, losing a child. You lost one!’
The screaming above her brought Letty out of her despair, replacing it with rage.
‘Stop it, the pair of you! Stop it! Stop it!’ She was very near to hysteria. Her voice poured out of its own accord, assaulting her own ears. ‘Stop it! I can’t take any more! He’s mine!’
How many times had she said that now? She couldn’t think beyond those two words. A claim, a plea. David was hers, would always be hers. His name was David. He’d have no other name but that.
‘He’s mine,’ she said yet again, defiance melting into defeat from sheer exhaustion.
Vinny leaned over her, menacing, for all her tone had resumed its gentle, soothing note.
‘And what will you give as a second name, Letty? What will show on his birth certificate? Your name? It can’t be his father’s. If he’s adopted by … if he’s adopted,’ she corrected quickly as Lucy drew in a sharp breath, ‘he has a name for life. It’ll be his and he can hold up his head with the best. He’d never need to know you were his mother.’
‘No,’ Letty sobbed weakly.
‘If you keep him, what’re you going to say to him when he begins to ask questions? How are you going to face him when he looks at you accusingly?’
Vinny’s voice went on and on, setting her head reeling. Someone had begun to sob – her – and she couldn’t stop. Her whole body had begun to shake uncontrollably, great racking sobs coming from her.
She was in Vinny’s arms, being held close to her as though Vinny was her mother. She didn’t want to be held that way; wanted to sob until all the grief had died out of her, leaving just numbness – more than that – life extinguished with no anguish to tear at her; no more pain at losing her child, as something now told her she must lose him.
She lay limp in the arms of the sister about to rob her, loathing her even as she lay there, unresisting, because there was no alternative, no strength left to resist that Judas embrace.
‘It’ll be all right, you’ll see,’ Vinny said comfortingly, and laid her face upon Letty’s head, one hand gently smoothing the short damp auburn hair.
I hate you! The words torn from her, yet she hadn’t uttered them; only thought she had. I hate all of you. You, Lucy, Dad. Him most of all. I’d have been married but for him and David would be here because he wouldn’t have been enlisted. (It didn’t matter that he might just as easily have been killed in France or, as she still hoped, been taken prisoner.) David’s parents too she hated with all her heart. Between them, they had all taken him away. Now Vinny wanted to take his baby. But Letty wouldn’t let her. Yet how could she stop it? If she loved little David, she had to give in to their superior argument. One thing was certain David’s parents must never know or they too would lay claim to him and that would be the worst thing of all. She’d never see him again. Whereas if Vinny took him …
‘He’s mine,’ she whispered as if it was the last breath her body would ever gasp. She looked up into Vinny’s face. ‘He’s mine,’ she implored one last time. ‘Look after him for me.’
‘Yes, love. Of course I will,’ Vinny said softly as she continued smoothing the short auburn hair.
Chapter Fifteen
October in rural Chingford or in Walthamstow was golden, the leaves in mellow sunshine quietly turning from green to bronze and copper.
October in Bethnal Green was burnt sienna, the same sun reddening brick walls, adding a pearly blush to grey pavements and a jaundiced tinge to smoke-begrimed lace curtains.
October in Flanders held no colour at all, unless it was that of mud churned by shells and men’s boots after an appalling summer, the sun leaden behind the fumes of cordite, smoke of gunfire and the thick, crawling, silent yellow-green cloud of chlorine gas.
At the warning whistles, the corporal dragged out his mask, stepped back, tripped over the body behind him and went sprawling, the mask dangling uselessly from its respirator.
Stumbling over him, a comrade grabbed the mask, managed to help him on with it, but the man’s lungs were already burning, damaged. Corporal William Beans, having got himself a blighty one, was sent back to England to recover as best he could.
In October Arthur Bancroft had his fifty-ninth birthday; he’d had no intention of making much of it, but Lucy insisted.
‘Cheer you up, Dad,’ she said to him on the telephone. ‘We all need cheering up – the way the war’s dragging on. Three years! Me and Vinny thought we’d come over and make a day of it with you. Bring the children. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Dad? Seeing the children?’
‘Lavinia, she won’t … will she be bringin’ … the other one?’ he asked circuitously, his moustached lips close to the mouthpiece in case Letty overheard.
His other grandchildren he took on his knee and gently teased. ‘K-A-T, cat.’ He’d chuckle at the slighting way they looked at hm. ‘No, Grandad, C-A-T!’ He would regard them solemnly, say, ‘No K-A-T, cat.’ Until they either got off his knee in a huff or he would give in and have them hug him, relieved that he was wrong and they were right. His way of loving them was to tease.
But that one … From the very first, squalling and red-faced in its crib, he’d felt nothing for the baby Letty had given birth to; could not abide the boy if truth was known. Two years old now, the narrow delicate features framed by dark wavy hair, the dark eyes wary and uncertain. Not a bit like his mother, he was the image of his father, the man who’d had his fun with her and gone off to war and never come back – damn whether it was the war’s fault or not!
‘You mean Christopher?’ Lucy’s voice held total innocence, her father’s fumbling for words utterly lost on her. ‘She wouldn’t leave him at home all on his own, now would she?’
‘There’s that woman who looks after ’er boys sometimes.’ Silence at the other end denoted a shrug from Lucy. Arthur Bancroft went on purposefully, ‘It ain’t fair on Letitia, yer know. The circumstances regarding ’im bein’ what they are.’
‘It’s about time she got over that.’ Lucy’s voice had gone huffy.
‘Ain’t fair on me neither, you don’t ’ave ter live with ’er. ’Er goin’ into a sulk for days after she’s seen ’im. Lavinia knows ’er and me don’t get on best of times. She should ’ave more sense.’
‘I know, Dad.’ Lucy’s tone was stiff. ‘But you and Letty ought to try, being as you’ve both got to live there. I can’t tell Vinny to leave him behind. I couldn’t upset her like that. Honestly, Dad, me and Vinny are trying to come and make your birthday nice for you, and all you do is make us feel as if you don’t want us.’
She sounded petulant, ready for tears. Arthur quickly modified his own tone.
‘No, it’ll be nice to ’ave yer.’
He listened indifferently to Lucy, now placated, going on about her latest letter from Jack, still at the rear, safe, to her great relief; how she and the girls missed him, and oh, when would this war ever end? Automatically he answered her queries as to his own health, assured her that his chest wasn’t troubling him as yet; finally said goodbye, and went to inform Letty, in the briefest possible terms, what her sisters had planned for his birthday.
It was immaterial to Letty how Dad celebrated it, except that she’d have to queue for hours for something to put in sandwiches; must make a cake too, if she could lay her hands on the ingredients.
In 1917 the war was in its third year, London bombed by Zeppelins then aeroplanes – the Allen & Hanbury’s factory hardly h
alf a mile away destroyed, bringing home how awful it must be for the lads at the front. Then the German naval blockade with merchant ships being sunk and everything in short supply. Letty would do her best with what she could get, of course, but as with everything these days, she felt little enthusiasm preparing for Dad’s birthday, viewed it more with trepidation, knowing that Vinny bringing her boys meant bringing Christopher.
With fierce strokes, Letty spread the marge on the bread she’d cut thin and even for the sandwiches. A square of cheese and some slices of ham sat on the kitchen table by her elbow, the result of two hours of queuing outside Billy’s dad’s shop, for she couldn’t be so underhand as to whisper in his ear, knowing how others must stand for hours for a small portion of this or that. Even so, Mr Beans had slid an extra slice of ham on top for her.
Laying the fillings on the marged bread, she covered each one with another slice automatically, her mind on Christopher, the name that had been given to her son.
To everyone he was Vinny’s boy. Had always been. Dear God, how easily they kidded themselves into believing it, she thought bitterly as she cut the sandwiches across; thought that if they persevered long enough they could kid her into believing it too, didn’t realise that to her he would always be her child, hers and David’s.
An innocent to adult intrigue, the child had no knowledge she was other than he’d been told she was. To him she was Auntie, Aunt Letitia, Auntie Letty. How could she tell him otherwise?
Letty transferred the sandwiches on to two plates, not much caring how they looked, although her natural skill made the finished arrangement pleasing despite her embittered thoughts being elsewhere.
She ought never to have let Christopher go so easily. But then she had been powerless, weakened by the shame others had put on her, by her own grief and confusion. Today, she’d have made sure he wouldn’t have been taken from her. But things had gone on too long. He’d never understand now. Would be confused and frightened if she took him away now, tried to explain. Knowing only Vinny as his mother, to be told she wasn’t, that someone else was? A two year old boy? She couldn’t.