by Maggie Ford
‘Where would you go if you left here?’ she asked.
‘Home. And as soon as I can. Trouble is, there’s no room at me mum and dad’s with our Robert and Les and our John there, and June and our Beryl. I’d rent a room somewhere nearby, but at least I’d be near my family. I’d have me mum near me. If only I wasn’t having this baby …’
She broke off, not in shame at what she’d said, but swamped by the injustice of it all; Jenny could hear it in her tone. The girl’s next words confirmed it.
‘Why did all this have to happen to me? It’s not fair! Landed with a baby, and Matthew God knows where.’
She began to pace around the room again while Jenny followed her with her eyes, the sympathy she had initially felt for the girl draining away.
‘Haven’t you stopped to think how dreadfully unfair it must be to Matthew?’ She couldn’t control the anger in her voice. ‘Wherever he is, he can’t be having much of a time either.’
She refused to think him dead. It was unthinkable. One day he would come home and take up his life again. That was all she ever wanted, to see him come home and be happy. The wish for that caught her like a pain. But not as great a pain as being compelled to keep her feelings for Matthew to herself when all she wanted was to sing them from the rooftops.
A day didn’t go by that she didn’t pray for his safe return. The notion of never seeing him again tore her to pieces. It was bad enough to know that if and when he did come home he and Susan could go off into the blue, that she would never see them again. But at least he would be in this world, somewhere. Far worse to know that he was gone from this world entirely. How dare this girl, his wife who professed to love him so dearly, take the news of his being missing as though she alone suffered – her loneliness, her grief, her plight, not his plight, not the worry and grief of his family, but hers.
Beneath the anger that welled up in Jenny was a dull ache for Matthew which she was sure would stay with her the rest of her life if he never came home again. And here was Susan thinking of him only in terms of herself.
‘Wherever he is?’ Susan’s voice had risen in near hysteria. ‘Wherever he is? Don’t you understand? He’s dead. Matthew’s dead! And here I am trying to be a wife, living with people that mean nothing to me.’
‘You’re carrying Matthew’s child. His parents’ grandchild. That’s what they should mean to you, Susan.’
‘Well, they don’t. Everyone keeps saying he’s been taken prisoner, but I know he’s dead, lying out there somewhere in that terrible jungle where no one can find him, his body being …’
‘Don’t talk like that!’ Susan had conjured up visions in her mind too awful to bear. ‘There had to be others with him. They’d have reported …’
‘I don’t care! All I know is he’s not here and I am, and I can’t take much more of this living with his parents. They’re not my family.’
‘They’re your baby’s family.’
‘I don’t care,’ she said again. ‘I don’t want this baby anyway, not now Matthew’s gone. All I want is to get away from here. I have to get away.’
She broke off in a flood of tears and threw herself back into the fireside chair, head twisted into one of its wings, her small body convulsed with weeping.
The door opened. Mrs Ward in hat and coat came hurrying into the room. ‘Susan! What is the matter? I could hear you shouting as I came in.’
Mr Ward had followed her in, also alerted by the cries. ‘What in God’s name is going on?’
‘Susan is upset,’ Jenny offered but neither of them looked at her.
Mrs Ward came forward and lifted the still-weeping girl from her huddled position in the chair. ‘This happens each time someone tries to offer sympathy,’ she said sharply, and Jenny might have taken umbrage had she not seen the girl’s reaction for herself and heard the things she had said.
‘Come on now, Susan,’ Mrs Ward was ordering as Jenny stood aside, unsure whether to stay or go, both of which seemed ill-mannered. ‘Pull yourself together now. We’re all worried and anxious, but it does no good to give way like this. We all have to be strong. We all have to believe he’ll be returned to us. You’re doing yourself and the baby no good. Matthew wouldn’t want that. I’m taking you up to your room and you can rest there.’
Helping the girl to her feet, she looked at Jenny for the first time.
‘Having visitors seems to upset her even more,’ she said with a small, cold smile which Jenny could only take personally, this time smarting from the rebuff. But the things Susan had said made Jenny herself prefer not to pop in and see her again. Let the girl do what she wanted. It was none of her business. And yet came the thought that in the depths of her, Matthew was her business, would always be her business wherever he might be.
She had intended to wait until at least after the baby was born. But after one miserable evening in early May, still with no news at all of Matthew, and with Mrs Ward telling her for the umpteenth time that they were all worried and anxious for him, Susan made up her mind. Early next morning, she got up before Mr and Mrs Ward were awake and feverishly packed her suitcase with a few essentials. It mustn’t be too heavy. She was nearly seven months and she didn’t want to harm herself in any way carrying it.
She had enough money, thank God, something under twenty shillings a week serviceman’s wife allowance, and her National Savings book. Mrs Ward had never taken anything from her for her keep and she had been able to save quite a bit.
She left a scribbled note to Mrs Ward on the kitchen table, lacking the courage to face her. Retrieving her ration book from the shelf where they were kept, she silently let herself out.
The sun hadn’t yet risen. The horizon of Victoria Park with its trees clad in young green glimpsed between the houses opposite was a mere blush, and seemed to emphasise the quietness. It was Tuesday, just gone four thirty, too early even for workers to be up off to work. She couldn’t remember the road feeling so quiet or looking so wide. Lined by trees in new leaf, it was filled with the fresh, clean fragrance of the park and the new day, in May not even tainted by chimney smoke. She mightn’t have been in London at all. It was a morning that should have been savoured, but it only made her shiver.
Alone in this empty road, all the large bay windows of the bedrooms looking down at her like empty eye sockets witnessing her flight, for a few seconds Susan stood uncertain, fighting the impulse to run back indoors away from those accusing, silent windows that seemed to be asking what she thought she was doing. At least her mother-in-law’s home offered protection and comfort. With no idea exactly where she would go, a strong temptation to run back was growing stronger. Then she thought of the woman becoming even more dictatorial once the baby was born. With a final shiver, not at the silence of the morning, but at the well-intentioned if unwanted help of her mother-in-law, Susan turned her face towards Mare Street and Cambridge Heath Road, the bus stop and freedom. Once she got back to Birmingham and her own family she would be all right. It was her only comforting thought on this lonely morning.
Euston was a mad-house of hurrying people by the time Susan got there. Panting engines, the sudden shriek of released steam, the rumble of trolleys full of mail and parcels, deafened her. The last time she was here had been on Matthew’s arm, with him to defend her against all this. Now she was on her own, her figure pulled out of all shape by the baby it carried inside it. She felt lost, conspicuous, but no one took a blind bit of notice of her, being more locked up in themselves: people getting to work; couples saying farewell to each other; the men going back off leave. Uniforms of other countries jostled past her, the ever-attentive Americans alone giving her pretty face a quick appreciative glance until seeing her condition and looking away.
By now her mother-in-law would have been bringing her up a cup of tea, telling her she could get up when she felt like it or could have breakfast in bed if she didn’t, coddling her, concerned and managing. Suddenly that managing seemed preferable to standing here not knowing w
here to find the platform she was supposed to be on. Panic came and went in waves as she tried to gather her thoughts together, attempting desperately to hold back the tears her plight was prompting.
Once she found the right platform, the man at the ticket barrier told her the train would be leaving in five minutes. Hauling her suitcase, five minutes seemed hardly long enough to find a carriage and she worried that the train would pull out to leave her standing helplessly on the platform. So few trains ran these days, she could be stranded for hours. She struggled on, the suitcase banging against her legs, almost ready to turn round and head back to Hackney.
The first four carriages were full of people standing in the corridors. The fifth carriage seemed less full and with a struggle she got herself in. There’d be no seats, not here with the corridor partially occupied by servicemen. How could she face standing all the way to Birmingham? If an empty seat couldn’t be found, she would go back home. Home. It seemed odd that she should think of it as that now she was away from it. Her heart seemed to sink down at the realisation. She had no home. Common sense told her there was no room for her with her family, and she had shunned the one she’d left behind. Mr and Mrs Ward would be up by now, would have read her note, devastated, not knowing how to find her and bring her back. And she so desperately wanted to be brought back at this moment.
Just as she was on the verge of turning round and forcing her way off again, a voice with a faint northern accent spoke in her ear.
‘Pardon me, my luv.’
She turned to see an elderly man in a cap rising from a seat in the near corner of the apartment beside which she was standing.
‘Have my seat, luv,’ he said, and taking hold of the suitcase, added, ‘Allow me,’ and hoisted it up on to the string rack above.
‘When you want, I’ll get it down for you, like.’
Indecision had been taken neatly out of her hands, and she accepted gratefully. The sailor next to her looked a little crestfallen that he’d not offered his seat as the train gave a jerk, then with several more slowly began to move.
‘Ooh, love, what you doing here?’
Her mother, her blonde hair in curlers, stared at her from the back door on which Susan had prudently tapped rather than surprise her mother by walking in on her after all this time away. ‘How’d you get here? Is anyone with you? You’re not on your own?’
‘I’ve come home, Mum,’ was all Susan could gulp.
‘Good Lord. You’d best come in, love. How’d you get here?’
‘I came on the train.’
It had been a long, drawn-out journey, the train stopping and starting as all trains seemed to do in wartime, sometimes to let a troop train through or one carrying munitions, sometimes for no known reason at all. She’d eaten a Spam sandwich she’d bought at Euston, somewhat stale, its grey corners turned up, but there’d been nothing to drink; that train had not carried refreshments. People going on journeys usually brought their own, just in case.
At New Street station she’d had some baked beans on toast and a much-needed cup of tea, then had come straight here on a bus. She felt tired and a little sick from the rather strong-tasting baked beans that were already repeating on her.
She was glad to follow her mother into the single living room. Nothing had changed, the room still looked worn, shabby, comfortable.
Susan had expected to find no one at home other than her mother, with everyone this afternoon still at work or school. So she was surprised to see her grandparents sitting there, having looked up expectantly at her entrance. Now her grandad was rising on his rickets-curved legs to greet her.
‘Now then, there’s a surprise, gel. Didn’t expect to see you, like. What you doing ’ere?’
‘That’s what I asked her,’ her mother put in as Susan leaned forward to give his lips beneath their bristling grey moustache a kiss.
She went over and kissed her grandmother too, feeling the bristles on her chin dig sharply into her like tiny needles. Her grandmother cut them with scissors.
‘Nice to see you, luv. Y’look a bit peaky, love. ’Spect it’s the baby. Y’r mam told us, but you ain’t never come a-visiting. Is y’r husband with you, love?’
‘He’s away,’ her mother explained quickly as Susan’s eyes began to mist. ‘An’ she will look a bit peaky, like, not getting any news about him. I told you, Mum, they reported him missing, like, and nothing more’s been heard. Come on, now, our Sue. Sit down and tell us why you’re here and I’ll get you a nice cup of tea. And I expect you’re hungry an’ all. So why’re you here then, luv?’
‘I couldn’t stay with Matthew’s people any longer – not now he’s not here.’
‘They ain’t turned you out, have they? I wouldn’t think …’
‘No, Mum, I left there.’
‘Whatever for? A nice cosy place there to live, everything you want there.’
‘I can’t stand it there, Mum. I can’t stand being told what to do and when to do it and what I should eat and when I should rest, and when I should go to bed, and I mustn’t do this and I must do that. I can’t stand it.’ The words flowed out of her, all the pent-up things she’d been unable to say to anyone.
‘But …’ Her mother was looking at her, bewildered, a little concerned and, with the truth of her visit dawning on her, a little wary. ‘But where d’you think you can go? Look, love, I don’t want to appear hard and unkind or not caring or anything. I do care. But there’s no room here at all, if you’re thinking of coming here. I’d love to look after you, you and the baby, when it comes. I’d love to. My first-ever grandchild. Y’r grandma here’ll be a great-grandma. Y’r looking forward to that, ain’t you, Mum? But staying here, that’s another thing, love. Y’see, last week they was bombed out in one of those daylight tip-and-run raids. House was condemned. Cracked walls and the roof’s had it. Until it’s repaired they’ve had to come here to live. That’s why they’re sleeping down here, don’t y’see?’
For the first time Susan noticed the sagging double bed in the corner where the old scratched oak sideboard used to be. The sideboard was probably down in the cellar with all the other junk. Too damp for anyone to sleep down there even though during the night-time raids before she’d met Matthew, all the family had endured its damp conditions for safety’s sake.
‘I didn’t know,’ she mumbled. ‘What am I going to do now?’
‘Well, I think you ought to go back to Mr and Mrs Ward. They won’t be cross with you, I’m sure. Just say you wanted so much to come and see us all up here.’
‘Like this?’ Susan looked down at her small bulging stomach.
‘Well, you’ve got to say something. They’ll understand. But you do see you can’t stay here.’
But she could find somewhere to live nearby, some cheap room for the time being, until her grandparents could return to their repaired home. Her mother must have read her thoughts.
‘The council people said your gran and grandad’s place might not be repaired until the war’s over. There’s so many homes needing repair. Some people’ve had to be evacuated all over the place for the duration. At least your gran and grandad won’t have to do that at their age when we can at least give them a roof over their heads, awkward as it’ll be for them. You do see, love, don’t you? I don’t know what you can do except go back to London and I don’t think you’d want to bunk in with any of your aunts and uncles, would you?’
No, she wouldn’t. Go begging cap in hand to any of them, asking to foist herself on them, saying her own mother couldn’t put her up, and them all knowing she already had a posh roof over her head down south.
Her mother appeared to think the problem solved. ‘You can’t go back tonight. You look all in. We can make a bit of room for you in with June and Beryl. It’ll be a bit awkward for them but it’ll only be for one night. But you can see, it couldn’t be permanent, not with a baby to look after when it comes – nowhere to put a cot or anything. You do see, our Sue, don’t you? Well …’ She brig
htened as though everything was solved. ‘I better get you this cup of tea and a quick sandwich of something. And when the boys come home and your dad and the girls, we’ll all have a nice tea. I’ve got a nice big stew for us all.’ Susan had smelled it as she came in and her mouth had watered and her stomach rumbled at the lovely aroma.
‘I can get a better bit of meat with your gran and grandad’s ration books added to ours,’ her mother went on.
Susan fished into her handbag. ‘I’ve got mine.’
Her mother looked horrified. ‘Good Lord, love. I don’t want yours, not for one meal. We’ve got plenty of stew. We won’t even know it’s been stretched. But, Sue love, you must go back home in the morning. Dad’ll see you to the station all right. It won’t matter if he’s a bit late going into work.’
‘I shall be all right, Mum.’ It sounded pathetic, her mother using the word ‘home’.
‘No,’ her mother argued as though bequeathing some bountiful gift. ‘I won’t have you going back to New Street on your own with the workmen. Y’r dad’ll take you. He’ll see you all right.’
Chapter 18
She hadn’t felt so tired in all her life. The suitcase seemed to weigh a ton. Outside Euston station Susan checked the money she had left. There wasn’t a lot, not enough to waste on a taxi back to Victoria Park Road and she just couldn’t face the bus ride, nor see herself creeping back mollified to face Mrs Ward’s wrath or relief, whichever it turned out to be. But where else was there to go? No one here to help her, no one to care for her, she felt as lonely as it was possible to be. She just wanted to sit here on her suitcase and burst into tears.
Nearby a news vendor’s raucous voice was calling out: ‘Standard, Ev’n Standard! Get y’r Standard.’