by Anne Bennett
Bridgette shook her head. ‘No, and what I did have my stepbrother, Georges, often broke or else spoiled in some way.’
‘Why?’
Bridgette shrugged. ‘I never knew why. I once had a doll my aunt sent to me from Paris. But Georges threw it in the fire?’
‘That’s a terrible thing to do,’ Molly cried. ‘I hope he was well and truly punished.’
Bridgette gave a bitter little laugh. ‘Nothing happened to him, but I was punished for making a fuss. One day I will tell you more of what my life was like, first with my grandfather and then my stepfather, but not today. It would spoil my first visit to this Bull Ring of yours and I would like the see these toys in Peacocks.’
‘If they have any,’ Molly said.
The store looked pretty well stocked with toys to Bridgette’s unaccustomed eye, but the scant number of dolls and basic dolls’ houses didn’t please Molly.
Bridgette found Woolworth’s store was just as Molly had said. There was kitchenware, general household goods and things for the garden and tools for the handyman, all for sixpence or less, but they were more interested in the jewellery. They saw sparkling diamond rings, or those with red stones that glittered like rubies, and there were pearl necklaces and a wide variety of brooches, earrings and bracelets, also all for sixpence. Besides the jewelry counter was one selling hairslides and ribbons and silver backed brushes and matching combs.
They bought nothing though and wandered back into the cobbled streets. Next door to Woolworths was the Hobbies Shop where plywood models had again begun to appear in the windows now that the war was over and they stopped a moment to admire the trains yachts and cars adorning the window. ‘They sell kits inside,’ Molly said as they turned away. ‘The shelves were virtually bare through the war, but I managed to buy Kevin and Ben one each last Christmas. It kept them quiet I must admit, but the glue stunk to high heaven.’
They had to dodge the trams rattling along at terrific speed in front of the church that Molly said was called St Martin in the Fields. There were also large beefy horses pulling wagons behind them but they were relatively easy to avoid. There also many men with trays around their necks selling things like razor blades and shoe laces or wind up toys and another man by the church had a crate of fluffy baby chicks for sale she noticed as she crossed the street and went up the steps and into the roofless Market Hall.
It was just like any other market there, Bridgette thought. There were flower stalls and those selling clothes and material, kitchen utensils, toys, haberdashery and junk. This latter had many interesting objects for sale. Interspersed were stalls selling meat and fish and cheese. Molly bought some cheese and horsemeat, though she said it was daylight robbery at two and six a pound. On the fruit and vegetable stalls she was delighted to see they had bananas.
‘I can’t really believe it,’ she said to Bridgette. ‘Bananas haven’t been in the shops for years.’
‘I wonder what Finn and Nuala will make of them,’ Bridgette said.
‘We’ll soon find out,’ Molly said. ‘And I will buy a bunch for Joe and lsobel too. I bet Ben and Kevin will like the taste of bananas.’
With her purchases stowed away Molly suggested, ‘What d’you say to us having a cup of tea, or coffee if you prefer it, and whatever they have in the way of cakes in Lyons Corner House before we make for home?’
‘That is a very good idea,’ said Bridgette. ‘And by the way, I like your Bull Ring. In fact, so far I like what I’ve seen of Birmingham very much.’
The days slid one into another, all very pleasant, but Bridgette began to worry about her finances. If she was going to make Brimingham her home it was no longer a holiday and she needed to find a job. Her savings would not last for ever.
The following Sunday, Bridgette waited until they were all relaxing with the inevitable cup of tea after Sunday dinner at Joe and Isobel’s house, and Ben and Kevin, not up to relaxing, had set off to the park with their football, before she said. ‘I am thinking of looking around for a job.’
To her surprise they were all against it. ‘There is no need to do that,’ Tom said determinedly.
‘But I can’t live off you,’ she complained.
‘Of course you can,’ Tom said. ‘That’s what being a family is all about.’
‘There may be something due to you being a war widow,’ Paul said. ‘I’ll help you look into it, if you like?’
Bridgette definitely did not like. If they investigated why she wasn’t receiving a war widow’s pension it would blow everything open.
Tom read the trepidation on her face and said, ‘Don’t worry about that for now. We have enough money to help you out and I think—and I am sure the other will agree—that Finn needs his mother while he is so small.’
‘I certainly agree,’ Molly said. ‘And what would I do now without Bridgette’s company? Unless, Isobel, you want Kevin to come back home now?’
‘Not at all,’ Isobel said. ‘He’s no bother at all. I hardly see either of them, with Kevin at work all day and Ben at school, and all too soon they’ll be off to America for a month.’
‘Yes,’ Molly said, ‘there’s not many apprentices I know would be allowed to have a whole month’s holiday.’
‘Ah,’ said Aggie, ‘but then Paul is not a usual employer, are you?’
‘No,’ Paul said with a grin. ‘I’m a saint, I am. But don’t worry, Kevin is a good worker and everyone deserves a treat once in a while.’
Molly, for all her token grumble, was grateful to Paul for his considerate nature because she thought Kevin had had a hard enough ride in his young life but she said to Joe, ‘Won’t you miss Ben awfully, Uncle Joe? A month is ages.’
‘Of course,’ Joe said. ‘But you have to remember that whatever differences Gloria and I had, she always loved Ben and always will. He didn’t want to go and live with her in America and still doesn’t, and Gloria had to accept that. So how can I begrudge him spending a month with her? It must be harder for her being without him most of the time.’
It must, Bridgette thought. She adored Finn and would guess that, however much Gloria loved her American, there would be a hole in her life because she no longer had her son to share it. On the other hand, though Ben wanted to see his mother and America, he had become used to being without her and was happy with his father and Isobel and the other relations. And that was what she wanted for Finn. He would grow up without a father, but he would have Tom and Joe and Mark, and, later, Kevin and Ben to model himself on.
Bridgette and Molly grew closer than ever and Bridgette became more and more certain that she had made the right decision. Both she and Molly had an extra ration book as they each had a child under five and they pooled them and would try out different recipes together that they would get from the wireless, or the Evening Mail, which ran a weekly recipe slot. Although some of what they produced looked less than appetising, Mark valiantly ate everything and usually declared it delicious.
Happy though she was, Bridgette had initially felt a pang of guilt about her aunt and uncle in Paris, who had been so generous to her, but as time passed their letters were all about Raoul and Monique and the wedding planned for the autumn, and Gerard, who was courting a nice girl from a good family.
Bridgette was so pleased. She knew that not that long after the marriage, Yvette would be looking forward to the prospect of becoming a grandmother, and she hoped she wouldn’t have to wait too long.
Marie Laurent wrote that Lisette and Edmund, who had been demobbed six months before, had moved into a house of their own because Lisette was pregnant again and they needed the extra room. It was as if Bridgette had been given the green light to go ahead and choose the life she wanted to live, and this is what she told Molly.
‘And, as Finn is half-French, I will teach him to speak both French and English, so that if ever I take him back to visit his French relations, he will be able to talk to them in their language.’
‘That’s a really good idea,’ Molly
said. ‘I only wish that I could do something like that for Nuala.’
‘You don’t have to,’ Bridgette said. ‘I can teach Nuala just as easily.’
‘You’d not mind that?’
‘Why should I mind?’ Bridgette said. ‘It will benefit them both, I should say, and then they can rattle on to each other in French.’
‘You know,’ Molly said with a catch in her voice, ‘I bless the day that you came into our lives, and not just because you have offered to teach my daughter French. It’s strange because I know that we haven’t known each other that long and yet…well, I think I feel as much for you as I would any sister.’
‘I feel the same,’ Bridgette said. ‘And I think that’s wonderful for both of us.’
‘You certainly have kept me company, with Mark working long hours,’ Molly said. ‘He says everyone and their dog seems to want the cars that they put under wraps for the duration made roadworthy again for when petrol rationing is eased a little. And, of course, many of the demobbed servicemen are using their gratuity to buy new cars. But I have told Mark if he is not careful Nuala will forget who her father is.’
Bridgette knew Molly had a point. Mark was away from the house before anyone else was up and back home grey-faced with exhaustion long after the children had gone to bed. However, he had obviously taken Molly’s words to heart and one Friday in early July he asked Bridgette and Molly if they would like a run out the following afternoon.
‘Where to?’ Molly asked.
‘Sutton Coldfield,’ Paul said. ‘I have to deliver a Ford Prefect to a customer. I thought I might play hookey after that and spend the afternoon in Sutton Park if the weather holds and we could come back by train. What d’you say?’
‘I say, yes please,’ Molly said. ‘And I’m sure that Bridgette is of like mind.’
‘I am,’ Bridgette said. ‘I love Sutton Park.’
And so they were all waiting for Mark when he drove up that following afternoon in the maroon Ford Prefect. ‘It’s lovely,’ Molly said, slipping in beside Mark with Nuala on her knee.
As they drove past Joe and Isobel’s bungalow, and then Paul and Aggie’s house, Molly said, ‘Why can’t we have a car? Think of all the places we could go so easily on Sunday.’
‘You told me one time that you never wanted a car,’ Mark said.
Molly had. In fact she had been nervous of riding in cars, she presumed because her parents had been killed in one. She knew she had had to get over it, though, and she said to Mark, ‘That was ages ago.’
‘Well, I’ll look around as soon as the petrol ration is increased,’ Mark said. ‘I told you this before.’
Bridgette in the back of the car wasn’t really listening to the conversation she could barely hear anyway, but was pointing things out to Finn, who was sitting on her knee looking out of the window.
‘I know but—’
‘Believe me,’ Mark said, ‘it is more frustrating having a car sitting outside the house that you cannot drive because you haven’t the petrol, than not having a car at all. This chap is going to find that out.’
‘What’s he buying it for then?’
‘To have it ready, he said,’ Mark told Molly. ‘That’s what they’re all doing, and when it seems feasible I will be in a good position to buy us a really good model. Don’t worry, I am keeping my eyes open.’
He drove in silence for a minute or two and then said. ‘I sort of know the man who is buying this Ford, from my days in the Forces. He didn’t know Terry and I owned the garage. He just called in on spec.’
‘Is that why you offered to deliver it, because you know him?’
‘Well, I do deliver some if it is difficult for the customer to collect,’ Mark said, ‘but I offered to do it this time because I thought about what you said. I missed enough of Nuala’s early life and really have to make time for her now, and I have hardly got to know Finn at all.’
‘So, the sky is blue, the sun is shining and when you and your RAF wallah have finished, we can take off for the park, can we?’
‘Course,’ Mark said. ‘But this chap was never in the RAF, he was in the army.’
‘So what was he doing on an RAF base?’ Molly asked. ‘Seconded like Will Baker, I suppose?’
‘No,’ Mark said. ‘It was nothing like that. I mean no one was supposed to know then, it was all terribly hush-hush, but I asked him the other day when he came in to finalise details about the car and it was what we all suspected.’
‘What, for heaven’s sake?’
‘He was an agent dropped behind the lines in France.’
‘Oh, gosh!’ Molly said. ‘I always thought them terribly brave.’
‘They were, and so were the Resistance workers that liaised with them. The information they gathered was sometimes vital for the Allies.’
Molly, knowing Mark was hopeless at the remembering people’s names, said teasingly, ‘You might have recognised this man’s face but I bet you didn’t remember his name and ended up calling him thingy.’
‘No I didn’t,’ Mark said with a laugh. He put his name on the order form—James Carmichael.’
That name seared through Bridgette’s brain and she leaned forward. ‘What did you say?’
Neither Mark nor Molly noticed Bridgette’s agitated tone and so Molly repeated almost nonchalantly, ‘That’s the name of the man who is buying this car, James Carmichael.’
‘Oh God!’ Bridgette almost screamed. ‘Oh, Almighty Christ.’
Molly turned her head in alarm. ‘What is it, Bridgette? God, you’ve gone as white as a sheet.’
Bridgette couldn’t answer. Her mind was in such turmoil that she couldn’t formulate coherent words to say to her cousin, who was now looking alarmed.
And then there was no time anyway. Mark was turning the car into a drive and someone was yanking open the front door and running towards them. Bridgette turned and looked at the man she thought she would never see again in the whole of her life. She opened her mouth to call his name but no sound came out. She fought the blackness threatening to throw its shroud upon her, but she was powerless against it, and as she sagged against the car seat, Finn slipped from her knee onto the floor.
TWENTY-NINE
When Bridgette came to she was in a bedroom and James Carmichael was in a chair beside the bed.
‘Are you all right?’ he said.
She shook her head almost in disbelief and, ignoring the question, said, ‘The baby…’
‘He’s fine,’ James said. ‘My mother is in her element. She loves babies. Mark told me his name is Finn.’
‘His full name is Finbar James,’ Bridgette said.
James gave a gasp and said, ‘I must ask you this, Bridgette. Is the child mine?’
Bridgette stared at him before saying stiffly, ‘I am surprised that you even have to ask that question. Quite apart from the fact Finn has your dark hair and eyes, what sort of girl do you think I am? I slept with you only because I loved you.’
‘I’ve offended you, and I’m sorry,’ James said. ‘But it’s just when the letters were returned I thought—’
‘What letters?’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ James said almost impatiently. ‘You said loved me. How do you feel about me now?’
Bridgette shook her head. ‘When I thought I had lost you I thought my heart would break in two and the pain sometimes was almost unbearable, but I thought you were dead until a few moments ago, and I was trying to live my life without you in it.’
‘Why were you so sure that I hadn’t made it?’
‘They found Charles’s body,’ Bridgette said. ‘And I was talking to a fellow Resistance worker and he said that you were probably lying dead somewhere in the dense undergrowth, and the only reason that they hadn’t found you was because they didn’t know to look for another body. He hunted down and killed the two German soldiers, so there was no way of knowing whether they had killed one man or two. Not long after he had left in the ambulance with Charles he said
the Germans had got wind of the shootings and were swarming all over the place. In other words, if the original two hadn’t got you the others would, and even if you should still be alive you would never get through the forest on your own. What was I supposed to think, James?’
‘Every word that man told you was the truth,’ James said. ‘And it is little wonder that you thought me dead. I didn’t know that you were aware of any of it, of course, but I still wrote to you as soon as I could.’
‘But what happened?’ Bridgette said. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘We stumbled unexpectedly upon two German soldiers,’ James said. ‘Fortunately they hadn’t seen us but we knew they would if we made any sort of movement so we hid in the undergrowth and we waited for them to move off. But they didn’t; they settled themselves. Charles and I just looked at one another because precious minutes were passing by and we had no idea what the two lone German soldiers were doing there. Had Charles been able to get closer to them without being seen he would have finished them off with his knife. He indicated that much to me, but there was no way that he could do that, and though we both had pistols, we dared not use them.
‘Then the two German began talking to one another and Charles listened intently because he knew a smattering of German. He whispered to me that the two soldiers were waiting for reinforcements. They must have worked out that many Resistance fighters were using the forest and they intended to flush them out. I imagine it was a sort of last-ditch attempt to kill as many as possible before the Allies should reach the town. We both knew then we had no time to lose and we had to be a good way through the forest before those reinforcements should arrive. I didn’t know how it was to be achieved because the minute we tried to move forward we would be heard and hunted down.
‘Suddenly Charles seemed to make a decision. He shook my hand and said, “Farewell, my friend. Kill as many Germans as you can in my memory,” and he slipped away. I was so stunned I almost followed him. Then I thought that wouldn’t be what he wanted and I heard him crashing through the trees, making no attempt to be quiet. He began to yell and shout, and he even fired a few shots. Of course, the Germans were off in hot pursuit, but Charles knew the forest like the back of his hand. Even so, I knew they would get him in the end.