by Emily Gunnis
Uncle Frank hadn’t noticed her mother’s silence. He had continued to rant, as usual, about the inadequacy of his dinner, the draught from the back door, the neighbours’ noisy children. But Ivy had noticed; she had watched her mother’s shoulders sink even lower than normal, and her eyes glaze over, with no emotion in them at all.
Since that first moment when she had found out that she had Alistair’s baby growing inside her, Ivy had been desperate to see him. She had told him about missing her period, and although he had smiled at her and told her not to worry, his voice had turned cold.
He had failed to arrive for their weekly Saturday drive in the country, for which she had waited excitedly all morning. She had sat in the sitting room, dressed in her new pale blue cotton skirt and white blouse, as Uncle Frank shouted at the horse racing on the wireless, and eventually she had conceded that her love was not coming for her.
In desperation she had snuck out the following night to the Preston Arms, a pub she knew Alistair drank at. She had walked through the smoky bar, tugging at her dress self-consciously, until she spotted the girlfriend of one of the other players from his football team and plucked up the courage to ask her to get a message to Alistair that she needed to see him urgently. The girl had smiled and promised that she would. But as Ivy had turned away, she had heard the girl’s friend laughing.
‘Al’s got another lovesick puppy pining for him, I see.’
‘Don’t,’ the girl had said. ‘We’ve all been there.’ Ivy had turned back to see them sniggering as she stepped out from the bustle of the pub onto the silent street.
Now she heard Uncle Frank’s voice bellowing through the floorboards, bringing her back to the present. ‘Wait till I get my hands on that girl!’
‘No, Frank!’ Ivy heard her mother trying to calm him, then Dr Jacobson’s low tones.
In a desperate effort to distract herself, she walked over to her desk, pulled a piece of paper from the drawer and began to write.
12 September 1956
My love,
I am fearful that I have not heard from you. All my anxieties have been confirmed. I am three months pregnant. It is too late for anything to be done; it is God’s will that our baby be born.
Ever since Dr Jacobson confirmed the news, I hear Mother crying in her bedroom. I took her some flowers in a vase and put them next to her bed, but she just turned away. How can you stop loving your own flesh and blood in an instant? We have been everything to each other since Daddy died. Uncle Frank thinks Mother loves him, but I know she doesn’t. I watched my parents dancing in the lounge when they thought I’d gone to bed; the way Mummy smiled at him when he spun her round, well, she never has that smile for Uncle Frank. In fact I’ve never seen her smile at him. She just takes things on a tray for him from the kitchen into the sitting room. He never thanks her.
We aren’t allowed to speak of Daddy now that we are living with Uncle Frank, but I know she hides a picture of him that Uncle Frank doesn’t know about in a box in a cupboard under the stairs. I hide in there sometimes when he’s angry, to stay out of his way, and I take my torch so that when it’s gone quiet I can get the picture out and look at it. It’s of Daddy in his uniform, and he is so handsome. His hair is slicked back under his hat and he is looking away into the distance, as if someone terribly important is standing on the horizon.
Daddy used to pull me onto his lap when he was going back to war and I was begging him not to leave. He would hold me close and tell me that whenever I was missing him, to look up at the sky and find the biggest, brightest star, and that he would look for it too every night. Then we would both know that we were wishing on the same star that he would be home soon, and that way, it would come true. But it didn’t come true and I felt dead inside after Daddy died – until I met you.
Oh why do I feel so wretched and scared? Where are you? Do you not love me any more?
‘Ivy! Get down here now.’ Uncle Frank’s voice bellowed up the stairs.
Ivy slowly returned the paper to the drawer, put her pen down on the desk and swallowed the sickness in her stomach. Her body trembling, she walked across the bedroom, down the stairs and towards the lounge.
‘Where is she? Ivy!’ Uncle Frank shouted again as she hovered at the door.
‘She’s here,’ said her mother quietly as Ivy forced herself over the threshold into the room where they all sat staring at her. The air was thick with smoke. Uncle Frank and Dr Jacobson sat on the faded brown sofa holding cigarettes, while Mother perched awkwardly on a chair in the corner.
‘Yes, Uncle,’ said Ivy.
‘Don’t you “yes Uncle” me, you little whore.’
‘Frank! Please, we have a visitor.’ Ivy’s mother wrung her hands anxiously.
‘Don’t protect her, Maude. You clearly can’t discipline the girl, so I’m going to have to do it myself. Well, what have you got to say for yourself?’
Ivy stood in silence, her head bowed. Tears stung her eyes and she felt so dizzy that the circles on the orange and brown carpet below her began to move and she thought she might faint.
‘Has the baby’s father any intention of marrying you?’ Uncle Frank spat.
‘I don’t know, Uncle,’ she whispered.
‘Well, have you spoken to him?’
She blinked, and tears began to streak down her cheeks. She reached up and brushed them away.
‘Speak up, girl, or you’ll feel the back of my hand.’
‘I can’t get hold of him,’ Ivy said.
The room fell silent before it erupted with the sound of Uncle Frank’s bellowing laugh. ‘I bet you can’t.’
He stood and walked over to the drinks cabinet, where he poured himself a large whisky.
‘I don’t know what made you believe a boy like that would be interested in you, other than to get into your knickers. Mark my words, you’ll never hear from him again.’
‘Frank, don’t!’ said Ivy’s mother again.
Frank walked across to Ivy and paused for a moment. She didn’t dare move as he circled her, his cheeks flushed with rage. She tensed every muscle in her body, waiting for him to strike her.
‘Lord knows I’ve tried to step into your father’s shoes and do a good job of raising you, but I have clearly failed. You were just waiting to disgrace yourself and bring shame on this family.’
Ivy looked over at her mother, who let out a sob.
Frank went on, ‘If it weren’t for Dr Jacobson, who has kindly offered to speak to Father Benjamin about a place at St Margaret’s for you and the baby, you’d be out on the streets. I’m disgusted with you, Ivy. I’ve never felt such disappointment in my life. I only hope they can take you soon, before you start to show.’
‘There will be a cost involved, I’m afraid, Frank,’ Dr Jacobson said. ‘They won’t take her for nothing.’
‘How much?’ said Frank.
‘I’d have to confirm with Father Benjamin on Sunday, but it’s about a hundred pounds.’
‘We don’t have that kind of money!’ Frank shouted.
‘Then she’ll have to stay after the baby’s been adopted and work to repay the debt.’
‘For how long?’ Ivy looked to her mother, who was as white as a sheet.
‘Three years, I believe,’ said Dr Jacobson calmly, as if he were discussing the weather rather than handing out a prison sentence.
Ivy gasped and rushed over to her mother, clutching at her hand, in which she held a sodden handkerchief. ‘Mummy, please don’t make me go.’
Uncle Frank strode over and pulled her away. ‘Don’t put this on your poor mother; don’t you think she’s been through enough already?’
‘You’re glad about it because it means you’re getting rid of me.’ Ivy wrenched herself out of Uncle Frank’s grip.
‘Ivy, that’s enough!’ said her mother, her eyes red from crying.
Ivy stood with her head bowed, watching the ripples move across Uncle Frank’s whisky as he clutched it tightly. Suddenly he threw the
glass against the wall, shattering it into fragments.
‘Get out of my sight!’ he shouted. ‘Your father must be turning in his grave.’
Ivy ran to her room, frantically wiping tears away as she pulled the sheet of paper out from her desk drawer and began to write again.
Uncle Frank says the only way out of this terrible shame I have brought on the family is for me to be sent away swiftly, before I begin to show, so that the neighbours won’t know. There’s a place called St Margaret’s in Preston where girls like me go to have their babies.
I know Mother won’t want me to go, but she’ll tell me that it’s Uncle Frank’s house and we are lucky to have somewhere to live as Daddy left us with nothing. I hate it when she says that about Daddy; it’s not his fault he was sent away to die in the war.
Dr Jacobson says I will have to be away for some time to pay for my keep at the home, up to three years, as we don’t have the £100 to cover the cost. From our dinners and the gifts you have so kindly bought me, I don’t think £100 is a lot of money for you. I understand that you may not want a scandal in the newspapers at the start of your first season at Brighton, but if you were to pay the £100 and promise Uncle Frank that we would be married some day, then I could bear this pain knowing we were to be reunited once the baby, our baby, is born.
These last few months, and that precious night we spent together at the Rose Hotel, have been the happiest of my life. I miss you terribly. I cannot eat or sleep; I am fearful of what will happen to me and to the baby growing inside me. I lie in bed at night stroking my stomach and wondering whether it is a boy who will grow up to be strong and handsome like his daddy.
Uncle Frank thinks that I am naive to presume that you ever loved a girl like me. He says that now you have got what you wanted, I will never hear from you again.
Please, my darling, prove him wrong. I will post this by hand now through your letter box, to make sure it reaches you.
Dr Jacobson is going to speak to Father Benjamin at church on Sunday about sending me away soon. I think it will be a matter of days before it is decided. I do not know what to think or do. Please, my darling, I beg of you, I will make you happy and we will be a family. Please come for me quickly. I’m frightened for the future.
With all my love for ever,
Your Ivy xx
She carefully folded the letter, pushed it into an envelope and sealed it. She would wait until Mother and Uncle Frank were asleep and then creep out and deliver it.
She knew the place they were thinking of sending her: St Margaret’s in Preston. For as long as she could remember, the huge mansion had haunted her as they passed it on the drive to church on Sundays. From a distance it looked like a burnt gingerbread house; tall and stretched, with jagged iced turrets, twisted candy cane for pillars, and stained-glass windows. The heavy crosses on every section of the house dominated the skyline, while ivy clambered up towards the slate roof, taking over like an uninvited guest.
There had been hushed gossip about a couple of girls from school going there to have babies. One had returned months later a shadow of her former self. The other girl had not been seen since. Ivy would persuade Alistair to marry her and do everything in her power not to be sent away. Once she stepped over the threshold of St Margaret’s, her fight to keep her baby would be as good as lost.
Chapter Five
Saturday 4 February 2017
After two hours of reading harrowing accounts of babies being taken away from their mothers, an experience it seemed the women never recovered from, Sam could bear no more. The girls were made to work in laundries, often handling heavy machinery right up until they went into labour. Their babies were then taken at birth, the mothers forced to sign away any right to try to find them.
The thought of it made Sam cry as she lay cuddling Emma in her white-framed bed, the little girl’s small, soft body melting into hers. It was such an overwhelming instinct to protect your child; how did the nuns have such a hold over the women? To persuade them not only to give up their babies, but also to sign contracts that made it illegal for them to try and find the children at any point in the future. It was barbaric.
She looked down at the letter and traced the sloping handwriting with her finger. Ivy had been born one generation too soon. As a recent single mother herself, it shocked Sam that St Margaret’s was on her doorstep and had been taking babies away from their mothers until the mid seventies.
She had to go there to see how they had lived, where the babies slept, where the girls worked to pay for their keep. Kitty Cannon’s potential link to the place intrigued her, but for some reason she could imagine herself in Ivy’s shoes, and felt compelled to see St Margaret’s through her eyes.
Her online searches had indicated that the old convent was going to be torn down on Tuesday, which gave her only two days to get to it before it was gone. She’d only just started her five-day shift, so she didn’t have any time off until after the house was due to be demolished. She would have to get up at dawn tomorrow if she was going to see the place for herself and still be at work at ten.
As she fell into a fitful sleep, her mind wandered again to the letter on her bedside table – a letter that had somehow found its way into her grandfather’s things – and to the terrified young woman who had written it.
Chapter Six
Sunday 5 February 2017
Kitty stood on the doorstep of Richard Stone’s central London mews house as he undid the double lock and then opened the front door, gesturing for her to come in.
The burglar alarm beeped its thirty-second warning as she stood in the hallway watching Richard punch in the numbers on the keypad. His hands, gnarled and covered in age spots, shook slightly as he did so.
‘Sorry about that. Since my wife passed away, I always forget to turn off the alarm when I get up.’
Kitty smiled. ‘I really appreciate you giving me this emergency appointment. I didn’t know where else to turn.’
‘Of course, that’s what I’m here for. I’m just sorry it’s so early. I’ve had this lunch with my son in the diary for weeks.’
Richard returned his keys to the hook on the wall, then led the way down the soft-carpeted hall lined with black-and-white photographs of his two sons on various holidays.
‘Would you mind if I used your bathroom quickly?’ said Kitty.
‘Of course not, you know where to go, don’t you? I’ll wait for you in here,’ said Richard.
When Kitty returned he gestured towards the brown leather chair in the corner.
‘Please take a seat.’
Kitty looked around the room, which by now was almost as familiar to her as her own sitting room, and let out an irritable sigh. The low table with the obligatory box of tissues, the innocuous print on the wall, the cream blind letting in just enough daylight to stave off claustrophobia. She had been coming to see Richard for weeks, pussyfooting around, talking about her insomnia, her career. She was sick of this room, sick of waiting for him to press her about her past, to have the breakthrough all psychiatrists harped on about – and to see his reaction.
‘Can I take your coat?’ Richard said, smiling at her warmly as he hovered next to her.
‘No thank you, I’m still frozen through,’ said Kitty, tugging at the fingers of her grey cashmere gloves one by one before lowering herself into the chair.
Richard sat too, crossing his legs and leaning back. Kitty avoided looking at him until she had finished putting her gloves in the handbag on her lap, which she then dropped by her chair with a soft thud. Finally she glanced up, checking that his blue eyes were fixed on her, then immediately looked away again.
‘How are you, Kitty?’
She shifted twice before eventually sitting back in her seat, her shoulders hunched. She listened to the sound of her own heavy breathing. A horn went off in the traffic outside, making her jump. ‘I don’t know how you can bear living in the centre of town,’ she said.
Richard smiled gently. ‘
It keeps me young.’
‘I’m surprised that listening to people’s moaning pays well enough for you to afford it.’
Richard took a sip of water. ‘I wouldn’t call it moaning. Are you sure you’re comfortable with your coat on?’
‘Yes. Please stop fussing. I come here to get away from all that insincerity.’
‘Do you think that if people are checking you are all right, they’re being insincere?’ asked Richard.
Kitty looked away again, examining his shoes to avoid his stare. They were worn brown leather brogues, but they had a shine to them that showed they were well taken care of.
Like Richard himself, Kitty thought.
He was over eighty, his head nearly bald, his eye bags heavy, but his faded jeans were pressed and his woollen jumper was soft and freshly washed. Everything in the room suggested that despite his wife’s recent death, someone was looking after him – a housekeeper perhaps, and of course his loving sons.
Kitty always felt Richard had the air of someone who had everything planned out, who had spent his life with a wife who wasted nothing and lived frugally: ‘Don’t throw that chair away, darling, I could varnish it and use it as a stool in the boys’ room.’ She could see them now, enjoying hearty camping holidays instead of expensive trips abroad. Enabling them to save enough money to buy a house in central London when they were young. A decision that meant that, apart from the odd very lucrative client, they had retired into a comfortable existence.
‘You look well,’ she snapped, as if she were dealing out an insult. ‘Have you been away?’