A Christmas Wish

by Lizzie Lane

  ‘I know they’re adopting, but I’m not sure they’re going about it the right way. They promised to look after the boy for you indefinitely, not take him over.’

  That’s was the gist of the note she’d sent. That had been back in 1928 after the workhouse had closed down and after he’d already settled his other children elsewhere; Magda with Bridget Brodie, his brother’s wife, and the twins back in Ireland with his parents.

  He’d been meaning to get round to see his family more frequently, but Joseph Brodie had always been able to find excuses not to do what he should do, but always to favour what he wanted to do – which was mostly get drunk, fornicate and spend every last penny he’d earned.

  The fact was that he’d always worked hard, but in order to balance the scales so to speak, he’d also played hard – which meant no money left to meet his responsibilities.

  For the first time in his life, Joseph felt emotional about one of his children. He felt as though the boy had been stolen from him without a by your leave.

  ‘Fifty guineas,’ he muttered to himself as he stumbled and shuffled along the road, the long strides restricted by stiff knee joints. ‘My boy’s worth that. He has to be worth that, not the paltry sum they left at the Seamen’s Mission.’

  He kept muttering the same sum over and over as though doing so made the amount he wanted for his boy more acceptable to them that now called him theirs.

  The village pub was shut and in darkness, courtesy of licensing hours brought in for the duration of the Great War and never relinquished.

  He’d heard rumours there might be another war shortly, which to his mind was a great shame if it meant the pubs would remain shut and barred against a man wanting a drink.

  The long walk had proved tiring and the fresh air was setting his lungs tingling. Wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, he leaned against an ivy-covered wall. To his right was the neglected corner of the churchyard, a place of moss-covered tombstones and unkempt grass. The sound of a choir singing the wavering notes of Adeste Fideles – ‘Oh Come All Ye Faithful’, drifted out to warm the winter’s cold.

  The smell of rich earth, newly turned, hung heavily on the damp air as it always did at this time of year when the sun had gone south and the land had been turned by the plough and lay barren, waiting for the first signs of spring.

  ‘Not much further, not much further,’ he muttered as he waited for the pumping of his lungs and the gripe in his knees to settle down.

  Daylight was beginning to ebb and, although not ideal, he thanked his lucky stars he’d managed to get a lift in a coal lorry heading out to some grand house between the city of Bristol and the village of Long Ashton. If he hadn’t he would have arrived in Long Ashton in the dark.

  The cottage to which his feet dragged was made of stone, had small windows and no more than a foot wide of planting between the wall of the house and the narrow lane. Even from here he heard somebody singing a Christmas carol in a sweetly feminine voice: ‘Once in Royal David’s City’.

  One of the windows showed light and the smell of home cooking made his stomach lurch with desire.

  ‘Steak and kidney pudding,’ he murmured to himself. ‘Or shepherd’s pie. Or mutton stew.’

  The thought of his son feeding him a hearty meal, after first giving him a hearty welcome, warmed him no end.

  ‘Now for a tidy up,’ he said to himself. In response to his own advice, he lifted his hat with one hand and smoothed his hair with the other. ‘You’ll want your son to be proud of you, won’t you now.’

  Though his clothes were dirty and in need of repair, and his whole demeanour was not much better to behold than a tramp travelling the roads all year round, Joseph Brodie had decided that he was presentable enough, and in that knowledge, which was sure only to himself, he lifted the cast-iron knocker and gave the door a damned good clout.

  The singing stopped abruptly and a murmur of voices seemed to rise and then fall, then rise again, as though the folk within were arguing as to who should answer the door.

  ‘If it’s her or him – Mr and Mrs Darby that is – then I’ll say I’ve come to claim my boy. If it is Michael, then I shall say …’

  The door opened before he had chance to finish rehearsing what he would say and how he would say it.

  The boy looking out at him was nothing like the baby he’d fostered out. For a start he didn’t seem too shy of manhood; what had he been expecting? Of course he was close to being a man!

  ‘Can I help you, my good man?’

  The voice crackled between high and low as it does when a boy is crossing over from childhood to manhood. Not that he could remember what the boy had sounded like as a baby let alone a child.

  ‘Michael. My, but you’ve grown. I hardly recognised you, my boy. Though I dare say, you won’t be recognising me. ’Tis your father, Joseph Brodie. Your father who’s been away at sea all these years.’

  Joseph spread his arms assuming the boy would feel an explosion of joy and run into them, lamenting how much he’d missed his father and how everything would be made up in time.

  Michael Darby stared aghast at the dirty, dishevelled man with the prickly beard, the sunken eyes and the hunched shoulders. On sniffing, he caught the stink of whisky or some other such strong drink that neither he nor his parents would ever countenance consuming.

  As for the claim that this man was his father … Michael recoiled at the very thought of it. His face clouded. He had not the patience of his adoptive father who sermonised on the giving of charity all year round, not just at Christmas.

  ‘Here,’ said Michael taking half a crown from his pocket, a small amount from a sum he’d earned writing music for Mrs Anderson who taught music and gave concerts. ‘Take this. Don’t spend it all at once and don’t drink it away. Now be off with you. And Merry Christmas.’

  The door was slammed so forcefully, that the shock wave blasted into his face causing him to take a step back to steady himself.

  He stared at the door, not quite able to comprehend why he hadn’t been given the welcome deserving of a long-lost father.

  Coming to no obvious conclusion, he turned his attention to the half crown, closing his fist over it whilst hoping that the pub he’d passed had now reopened its doors.

  Inside Church Cottage, Aubrey Darby, who had just finished writing his Christmas Day sermon, enquired of his son why the angry expression.

  ‘Some tramp at the door,’ said Michael, slumping down in front of the piano then picking up a fountain pen, seemingly intent on the piece of music set before him. ‘I gave him half a crown and told him to clear off.’

  Aubrey Darby sighed as he got to his feet. It wasn’t easy being a vicar with a headstrong son who wasn’t entirely convinced that God really did live in his heaven. But he’s at that age, Aubrey told himself. Sixteen and thinks he knows everything. He’ll come back to it.

  He got up, stood behind Michael and laid his hand on his shoulder.

  ‘My boy, your charity is commendable, but telling him to clear off afterwards was not the Christian thing to do. Whatever did he say to you to deserve that?’

  Michael huffed into his music sheets. ‘He said he was my father. Can you believe that? That dirty, foul-smelling man said he was my father.’

  The moment the words were out, Michael felt the hand that had lain softly on his shoulder tense. When he looked up into his father’s face, he saw a sweaty upper lip and fear in a face where he had never seen fear before.

  ‘Did he give you a name?’ His father’s voice was tremulous as though the question was reluctantly asked and that the answer would be reluctantly received.

  ‘Brodie. Joseph Brodie.’

  The vicar of St Anne’s church visibly paled above the whiteness of his dog collar.

  ‘Did he say where he was going?’ he asked Michael, already half a dozen steps towards the door and reaching for his hat.

  Michael felt his face warming as he lifted his eyes from the music
sheet. He stared at the Reverend Aubrey Darby not wishing to confront the sudden oddness of his behaviour, though conceding that it chilled him to the bone.

  He was still staring and feeling numb and confused after his father went out of the vicarage leaving only empty space.

  The landlord of the Angel shouted at the man rattling the doors to go away.

  ‘We’re not open, pal.’

  ‘I need a drink.’

  ‘Well, you ain’t gettin’ one ’ere. Anyways, looks as though the vicar wants a word.’

  The upstairs window he’d been leaning out of fell shut.

  ‘Mr Brodie.’

  Joe Brodie turned round to face the man to whom he’d given his son all those years ago.

  The Reverend Darby had a high forehead and forlorn features. Nature had bestowed him his sad expression. Even when he was happy he looked sad, but today his sadness was real and intense.

  ‘Mr Brodie. You promised you would never approach us. We paid you not to. For the love of God …’

  ‘For the love of my son,’ replied Joe Brodie. He shook his head vehemently. ‘I did wrong. A terrible wrong. I shirked my responsibilities and went off to live the life I’ve always lived. May God forgive me …’

  The two men stood alone and apart, yet both knew there were turbulent feelings here. Aubrey Darby loved his adopted son. Joe felt that though he’d given him away, there was a strange tugging somewhere deep inside.

  ‘If God would grant me one wish, I would wish for the clock to be turned back and my family to be back together.’ He hung his head, shaking it just as forlornly as he had before. ‘I realise now that it’s too late. The boy didn’t know me. What’s more, he doesn’t want to know me.’

  Aubrey Darby knew from the words alone that he’d won the battle. Michael was his, but he still felt for the boy’s natural father.

  ‘We all have regrets. Nobody can live a life without having some regrets. Please, just be assured that Michael has a good life and is loved.’

  Joe Brodie nodded, his dark hair now turning grey at the temples, falling forward over his face. He raised one hand and swept it back.

  ‘I suppose that’s the best any of us can hope for.’

  Feeling awkward now, Aubrey asked where Joe would go now.

  ‘To visit my eldest daughter and pray that she’ll forgive me.’

  In a flurry of lavender water and natural concern, Michael’s mother came in from the drawing room.

  ‘Has your father gone out? I thought I heard the door slam.’

  Michael looked at the trim figure with her short blonde hair, tweedy clothes and single-strand pearl necklace. She looked every inch the vicar’s wife, as indeed she was. Daughter of a missionary couple who’d done good works in China and then amongst the poor in the East End of London, she was suited to the life.

  A suspicious thought entered Michael’s lively mind. His mother was wholesome and blonde, her eyes as blue as the sky. Not at all like his own dark brooding eyes and the lush hair, black as night and flopping over his eyes.

  When people remarked to his parents how unlike them he was, they always referred back to a Spanish grandfather on his father’s side, though haltingly, as if they didn’t want to admit to foreign blood at all.

  ‘Michael. I’m speaking to you. Tell me what the slammed door was about and where your father’s got to.’

  The adolescent she regarded as her son snapped out of worrying thoughts and turned to face her. As he did so, he caught the smell of the talcum powder she’d used after taking a bath. It would only ever be something as innocuous as talcum powder, not perfume.

  Pushing aside unfamiliar feelings of apprehension, he forced himself to sound unconcerned, even slightly offhand.

  ‘He’s gone after a man who came begging at the door. I think he must know him.’

  ‘Really?’ Eleanor Darby’s silky fair eyebrows arched in surprise. The fingers of one hand played with the rope of small, perfectly shaped pearls at her throat. ‘Did the man give a name?’

  Michael nodded. Determined for reasons he could not quite understand, he kept his eyes fixed on her face.

  ‘Yes. He did. He said his name was Joseph Brodie. He also said he was my father.’

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Magda 1938

  The smell of dirt, sweat and the sea entered the crisp cleanliness of Queen Mary’s Hospital along with three men, two of them holding the third man between them.

  ‘Got buried in the hold of a vessel carrying grain. He needs a doctor. Please! He needs a doctor.’

  ‘Bring him in here,’ ordered Magda.

  The men did as ordered, sliding the injured man onto an examination couch in a curtained cubicle.

  After taking off his cap, one of the men eyed her suspiciously as he addressed her.

  ‘Excuse me, sister, but I reckon this man will need a doctor.’

  Magda exchanged a knowing look with Indira. This was not the first time they’d been mistaken for nurses.

  ‘Although this is our first year on the wards, we are able to help.’

  ‘Are you doctors?’

  ‘Almost. We are in training and under supervision.’

  Indira was inspecting the leg wound.

  ‘This needs suturing,’ she said brusquely.

  ‘Cleaning first,’ said Magda.

  Since Winnie’s death she had thrown herself into her work, accepting extra hours without protest and hardly speaking to anyone unless she had to.

  Even Winnie’s belongings had been left untouched. She’d told Daniel that it was too early to go through them. Anyway, Henry Cottemore still had to probate the Will, though so far it looked pretty straightforward; everything was left to Magda including the cottage.

  She’d tried to explain her inaction to him. ‘I can’t touch anything until I know it’s mine. It’s like waiting for Winnie to give me permission.’

  She thought she knew what Daniel was getting at; there could be something amongst her papers incriminating Reuben Fitts and his son for their various crimes over the years.

  ‘Henry Cottemore will confirm things shortly,’ Magda had told him. Becoming a doctor seemed even more important since Winnie’s death, her determination intensified by her feeling of helplessness as Winnie had slipped away.

  Daniel had initially been irritated by her stubbornness, and then relented – just as she knew he would. She would have her own way. She was independent now and reliant on no one. She’d even turned down his offer of marriage.

  ‘Not yet. Not until I’m sure I can survive by myself.’

  The comment must have hurt him. She hadn’t seen him for a few days, but she couldn’t find it in her heart to change her mind.

  In the meantime, she threw herself into her work.

  She worked quickly, clearing the man’s throat so he could breathe; calling for his wound to be cleansed before suturing could begin.

  ‘He’s lucky to be alive,’ Magda told the men who had brought him in. ‘Just the dust from the grain could have killed him.’

  ‘A very lucky man,’ said Indira.

  The two women worked well together, each instinctively supporting the other.

  A student nurse slid through the opening in the curtain surrounding the patient.

  ‘Excuse me, doctor, but there’s a policeman outside who says the man was fighting and was pushed into the hold of the ship. He wants to question the patient to find out if it’s true.’

  Magda looked round. The two men who had brought the patient in had disappeared.

  ‘He can’t do that just yet. Not until we’re finished.’

  ‘He said he would appreciate knowing when the patient will be available.’

  ‘Tell him …’

  The nurse cut across her reply. ‘I did tell him, doctor, but he said it had to be from the doctor who was treating him.’

  No nurse would purposely interrupt an instruction from a senior doctor, but medical students, doctors in name that had not yet
passed their finals, were shown less respect – even by student nurses.

  Magda’s eyes met those of Indira’s. ‘You or me?’

  Indira bowed her head and lowered her eyes back to the neat row of stitching. ‘I’m in the middle of some embroidery work. You might put me off my daisy chain if I stop now.’

  She threw Magda a sideways slide of her eyes and a bewitching smile.

  Magda glanced at her watch noting that she had less than an hour to go before her shift was over. Not that it was really ever over; it all depended on how busy they were.

  The greyish-blue eyes settled on her and a ready smile tripped the corners of his mouth.

  ‘Daniel!’ Magda declared.

  ‘This incident gave me an excuse to mix business with pleasure. The man in there.’ He pointed at the closed curtain with a pencil he pulled from his pocket. ‘His name’s John Smith – or so I’m told. He wasn’t saying much before he was brought here, and I doubt he’ll say much now. But I can try. I always have to try.’

  Magda frowned. ‘Has he done something wrong?’

  Daniel sighed. ‘I’m not sure. When can I speak to him?’

  ‘He’ll be better by the morning. We’ve cleared out his lungs and a colleague is sewing up the leg wound. There’s no reason you can’t speak to him in an hour or two.’

  Daniel nodded his thanks.

  Magda glanced at her watch. ‘Look, I have to go now.’

  ‘In case you’re wondering – which being a woman – and a very attractive one, you most definitely are, I hear you helped bring the seventh child into the world for one Mrs Gilda Payne.’

  ‘Well! News certainly gets around,’ exclaimed Magda, feeling somehow special that this man had taken note of the regard in which she was held.

  Daniel’s expression turned to one of concern. ‘Payne works for Fitts. So did that man in there – until he did something to upset our friend Mr Fitts. That’s why he got pushed into the ship’s hold. I don’t suppose I need to tell you that there’s a lot of crime attached to valuable cargoes. As you may have noticed he’s a big, muscled man. The word is that when he’s not working on the docks, he’s doing a bit of heavy work for Mr Fitts.’