An Unsuitable Mother

by Sheelagh Kelly

  Had England thought she had seen the utmost that Goering could unleash, there came a change of tactics, and the worst raid of the war, this time upon Coventry. Stunned from the news, the fledgling nurses were still discussing this during their lunch hour at a restaurant in town, none of them able to fathom the scale of the destruction, nor how it must feel to confront so many casualties. A thousand dead, God knew how many more injured, rank upon rank of them being ferried to the first-aid post, of which there was one at the Infirmary.

  ‘I mean, where would one start with numbers such as those?’ Lavinia Ashton looked anguished. ‘Whom would one treat first? We’ve never been given any real practice – all right, we’ve applied one or two bandages, et cetera, but in the scheme of things they were small-fry. We’ve never been put to the test. I’m afraid I might not come up to scratch when faced with something so massive as Coventry …’

  Nell was afraid of this too, and was deeply thoughtful as she devoured the contents of her plate. After two months of visiting the Infirmary, her senses were no longer so acute to the disagreeable sights and smells, and the queasiness that had initially marred her appetite had waned.

  ‘Well, it hasn’t put you off your meal,’ reproved an amazed Joyson, breaking the serious atmosphere, having been studying Nell’s gluttonous attack on the suet dumplings that Beata had left on the edge of her plate. ‘By you can eat like a horse!’

  Suddenly aware that everyone else at the table was eyeing her in fun, Nell reddened and paused in her lusty consumption. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend anyone … I’m just ravenous with all that hard work.’

  ‘You eat all you like, love.’ Between sips of tea, Beata stuck up for her.

  ‘Yes, you jolly well deserve it,’ chipped in Lavinia, backed by her sister.

  ‘I’m glad to see them go, I never could stand suet.’ Beata shuddered and grimaced.

  ‘What did you order dumplings for, then?’ countered Joyson.

  ‘Because I wanted the stew that came with them,’ retorted Beata. ‘If that’s all right with you?’ She and Nell had been looking forward to this hearty meal, which could be had for only a shilling – including a pudding – and had attempted to sneak off by themselves. They had not minded Frenchy and the younger Nurse Green and even the Ashton girls tagging along, but Joyson was bad enough at work without having to suffer her at meal breaks. ‘Eh, she’d argue with her own reflection, she would,’ came her assertion to the others.

  ‘I ’ate zem too,’ declared the attractive Frenchy. ‘I ’ate all Angleesh fud.’

  Joyson turned on her. ‘What will you be having for your Christmas dinner, then? frogs’ legs and snails, I suppose?’

  Whilst Frenchy struggled for a reply, the questioner was criticised by Green, though not for her xenophobic assumption. ‘Heaven help us, Joy, it’s over a month away!’

  ‘Whatever it is, it’ll be a damned sight better than t’other Christmas I spent with Uncle Teddy,’ quoted Beata. ‘Pork ribs and cabbage – eh, he were that tight he’d make Scrooge look like Good King Wenceslas.’

  ‘Never mind, you’ll be able to buy yourself something tasty with all these extra three and sixpences you’re getting,’ said Green. The auxiliaries had lately received a rise.

  ‘Well, all I want for Christmas is to see some action.’ Feeling self-conscious at being the only one left eating, Nell had laid down her cutlery and now sat back with a look of frustration. ‘It’s so annoying being all dressed up and nowhere to go.’

  How she was to regret those words! For at half past eight that same evening, just as she was relaxing into a steamy bath, fantasising over Billy, her mother banged frantically on the door.

  ‘Eleanor, your debut is nigh!’

  Having shot upright, sluicing water from one end of the bath to the other and onto the black and white lino, Nell remained there for a second, suspended by shock and clutching the wedding ring that hung from her neck. ‘Oh, Mother – what was that?’

  ‘They’ve sent a messenger! You’ve to get to Leeman Road straight away – don’t waste the water, leave it in for your father!’

  Launching herself from the bath, a dripping Nell began rapidly to dry herself, stumbling and hopping over the putting on of her clothes, which clung to her still-damp limbs and much hindered her dressing. But it was all so exciting – she was needed at last!

  ‘Have you any petrol at all in the car, Father?’ came her breathless query upon rushing downstairs, clothes all awry.

  ‘I don’t want to waste it. You can borrow my bike, though!’ he offered.

  First came dismay – she was hopeless at balancing on two wheels – but then, ‘Needs must!’ Nell put on her hat and coat, and, with her father striding ahead to ensure the lights were turned off before opening the outer door, she hurried in his wake. Plunged into darkness, she held back whilst Wilfred tugged the awful contraption from the shed.

  Hardly able to see what she was doing, trying to cope with the over-large vehicle, Nell had to stand on tiptoe to accommodate its crossbar, and swerved all over the road as she fought to work the pedals, ‘Don’t wait up for me, I may be all night!’

  ‘A key! You’ll need a key!’ Thelma scuttled to fetch one, then raced to put it in Nell’s pocket, causing yet more delay. But, eventually, with a helpful shove from her father, Nell somehow mobilised herself in ungainly fashion towards town.

  With the traffic lights out of use and no policeman about, there was no option but to grit her teeth and hope for the best at junctions, and go careering into the black beyond, often forced to judder to an abrupt standstill by using her foot as a brake when a car almost flattened her, and nearly keeling over in the process. Only after a great many mishaps along the way did she get the hang of it, and finally sailed triumphantly into the sidings at Leeman Road, there to be met by a shadowy figure with a stopwatch.

  A shielded torch was quickly flashed on and off in order for Sister Barber to read the time. ‘You’ll have to do better than this when it’s the real thing, Nurse Spottiswood!’ Once again there was disapprobation on the pretty freckled face, before it vanished into darkness.

  Attempting to disentangle her leg from the crossbar, Nell tottered and almost capsized again. ‘You mean … we’re not going anywhere?’ Her voice and expression told that she could scarcely believe this.

  ‘No, this is just a dummy run to see how quickly we can be mustered in an emergency – and I have to say it’s found us wanting,’ Sister Barber added sternly to those other murky figures already assembled, all equally as dismayed as Nell. ‘Very well, you can go home now.’

  ‘To a cold bath?’ muttered a displeased Nell to her friends, out of earshot of Sister, as she fought to heft her father’s bike in the opposite direction and head off through the dark. ‘Thank you very much, I don’t think!’

  ‘Bath on a Tuesday?’ Beata called after her in amazement. ‘By, you’re posh!’

  A couple of days after the test run Nell was able to laugh about it with the others, and to use it as a source of jollification for Billy. Since telling him about her tour of the city pubs to follow the Bedpan Swingsters, his letters to her had been quite tense, expressing the fear that she might be snatched from him by another soldier. As a result, she had immediately refrained from going again. He would be much happier to hear that her only company that Thursday evening would be the sensible Beata, with whom she had arranged to go to the pictures.

  But, ‘I’m a bit reluctant to divulge where I’ll be, in case they spoil it again,’ she whispered to Beata now, as, after a day of keeping the train clean and making more unused dressings, they put on their coats to leave work.

  ‘I’m buggered if I’m telling them,’ replied her friend more stringently. ‘See you outside the Regal at seven!’

  Laughing, Nell went home.

  After a bite to eat and a change of clothing, Nell attempted to collect enough mascara for an application, scraping the little brush into every corner of its box, but all it produc
ed was beige spit. Well, that was that. Unable to obtain more, she rummaged in the cupboard that still held a few childhood toys and brought out a paint box, pondering the feasibility of using one of its brown squares. But this was a failure. She would just have to rely on her natural lashes.

  She had donned her coat, and was inserting her tuppence bus fare into her glove so as not to have to faff with her purse again, when her mother murmured confidentially in passing, ‘I’ll be going to the chemist in the morning. Would you like me to get you some things?’

  Her days had been so consumed by hard work and writing letters to Billy, Nell had not noticed the absence of her monthly visitation, but now it immediately leapt to mind, and she turned crimson. By the discreet way her mother formed her lips to say ‘things’, Nell knew she meant sanitary towels. It was a term neither of them ever used, except perhaps upon actually purchasing them at the chemist. Knowing how embarrassing her daughter found this, Mother was thinking to spare her blushes now, Nell recognised. However, there was much more to those reddened cheeks than she could ever imagine.

  Stuttering, ‘Oh, yes, thank you, Mother!’ she reopened her purse, handed over the cash, then grabbed her gas mask and left the house, undergoing worried calculation as she hurried through the dark November mist for town. She had not required things for over four months – before Billy went away. The realisation caused her to gasp aloud. Thank God her mother was no longer in earshot, for besides the sharp intake of breath, she would surely have been able to hear Nell’s heart thudding as panic began to gain hold.

  Forgetting all about the secret application of rouge that she would normally have made on her way, she bit her lip, her footsteps slowing as she tried to rationalise this – why, there was nothing really unusual, was there? Having only started her whatnots a year and a half ago, she had not yet achieved a regular cycle, and was accustomed to going two or even nearly three months without seeing a thing. What was the difference between three months and four? Exactly! Nell told herself firmly, as she began to walk at normal pace again. It was bound to happen soon. All she had to do was stay calm. Worrying over it would not make it occur any sooner. She must put any unthinkable idea out of her head.

  That was rather difficult to do when one was stuck on a bus with nothing to take one’s mind off it, and she concentrated on looking forward to meeting Beata. Prior to this, though, upon egress she handed her ticket back to the conductress, then made her way along the darkened streets to visit Bill’s former digs. Having arranged this evening visit to town, it meant that she had had no need to call on the Preciouses directly after work, but could leave it till now. She hurried for Walmgate – the wrong side of town, as her parents would say. Well, there were some dreadful people here, conceded Nell, as two drunken Irishmen loomed at her out of the darkness, reeking of alcohol, and she was forced to veer around them. But there were some lovely ones too. Just the thought of what lay beyond that archway and along the alley caused her to smile.

  There was an old fashioned gas lamp in the courtyard, though now it stood redundant in the blackout. Using the wall to grope her way, incapable of seeing much but viewing it from memory, she stopped before a once noble Georgian mansion, now jammed in by slums – indeed, one itself. The spokes of its fanlight were rotten, its windows bereft of putty, centuries of paintwork eroded to bare timber. A house with psoriasis. Even her light rap of the tarnished brass knocker caused a shower of flakes.

  Someone threw open the door. ‘You’re late!’ bawled Ma Precious at the top of her voice, a sergeant-major in a floral pinafore.

  Greatly familiar with this raucous behaviour, and perceiving no harm was meant, Nell smiled. ‘I had to go home straight after work, so I thought I’d come now. Sorry to put you ou—’

  ‘You’re not putting us out, you daft cat! Get yourself in before the warden gives us a rollicking over the lights!’ Ma waved merrily.

  Nell hopped over the threshold, allowing the door to be closed behind her, though truth be told it was almost as dingy in here, there being no electric lighting, and the one gas mantle casting only a pathetic glow upon the linoleum of the hall. There was an appalling smell of fish too.

  ‘At least you’ll have time for a decent natter if you don’t have to rush off home like you usually do!’ Ma set off with manly strides, the soles of her tartan slippers squeaking the lino, expecting the other to follow, and calling ahead, ‘Georgie, the lass is here, get that kettle on!’

  ‘Not for me, thanks!’ Nell refused hastily, remaining in the hall, the interior of the house being as neglected as the outside, with great fronds of wallpaper drooping over a once elegant staircase that wound its way up three more storeys. ‘I’ve to meet my friend in fifteen minutes.’

  Ma wheeled around, a hand placed indignantly on each robust hip. ‘Oh, so you thought you’d treat us as a convenience to save you having to wait in the cold?’

  Having learned to take all insults here with a pinch of salt, Nell merely giggled at the old woman, who was at first glance intimidating, with her mannish build, her sharp brown eyes, and her gun-metal hair parted in the middle and wound into buns on each side of her head in the manner of earphones, but she was in fact a generous soul despite her bossy nature.

  ‘Time enough to have a cup of tea and a chat with us, surely?’ Ma proposed now in a more wheedling voice. ‘All our lads are out at the pub. Go on!’ And seeing Nell weaken, she dealt her a shove with one of her navvy’s hands into the living room.

  At once a time-traveller, Nell took delight in being plunged into bygone days, surrounded by aspidistras, Landseer prints and stuffed animals under glass domes. One exhibition of flowers and foliage, birds, field mice and squirrels was so gigantic it took up an entire corner. The furnishings were all very grand – there being much mahogany and inlay, mother-of-pearl, brocade and velvet, belonging formerly to a wealthier household – though, after fifty years with Ma, much dented, scuffed and torn – rather the same impression Nell had of the elderly man who rushed towards her now through another door.

  Battered maybe, yet there was a spry delight upon the dear old face that came intimately close to hers, imbuing her with the scent of linseed oil as Georgie reached up to cup her cheeks in hands that were gnarled, the fingernails split and stained from repairing musical instruments. ‘We feared you weren’t coming – ooh, what cold little chops!’ Dealing her cheeks an affectionate rub, he broke off in meek response to his wife’s stentorian demand.

  ‘Never mind “your tiny hand is frozen,” Casanova – where’s that tea I asked for?’ said Ma.

  ‘Sorry, dearie, the kettle’s on now!’ he hastened to say with an affectionate rub of her arm. ‘I was just getting rid of that pan of fish heads into the garden – I’ve been boiling up a little treat for our chucky hens,’ he added to the visitor, explaining the stench. ‘They’re not laying like they used to do. We’ve had barely half a dozen eggs this week. yet not so long ago there was a proper glut.’

  Ma lost patience. ‘You know what glut rhymes with? Foot! You’ll be getting mine up your khyber if you don’t fetch this lass her tea – by, he can’t half talk!’ she declared to their visitor as her husband rushed to obey.

  Nell bit her lip over this reversal of roles, as Georgie scuttled about getting teapot, cups and saucers. Never had she seen Mrs Precious lift one finger in the kitchen, or anywhere else come to that – but her husband seemed not to regard himself as henpecked, and obviously worshipped the ground she walked on. For all her bluster Ma loved him too, Nell guessed, from the way she encouraged his romantic serenades on the concertina. Hopefully there would be none tonight, though, for she was anxious to get away.

  Etched against a background of dark, elaborate wallpaper with crimson roses and acanthus leaves, and varnished woodwork, Ma swivelled to address her again. ‘Right, sit down!’ It was more order than invitation. ‘Then you can have what you really came for.’ And with a shrewd cast of her head she went to snatch a letter from the mantel.

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nbsp; With every surface cluttered, Nell trod a careful path to a sofa, avoiding the black and tan rug complete with head and glassy eyes, which had been one of the Preciouses’ favourite dogs. In addition to this, there was a ginger Pomeranian, also stuffed, and a live, if decrepit, black terrier with bad teeth and foul breath, which hankered to be petted as Nell finally reached the velvet sofa that had seen so many rears that it was almost bald. Perched against these fantastic surroundings, giving the dog a cursory pat, a cat on her lap and its tail snaking back and forth under her nose until she brushed the animal gently aside, Nell accepted the cup of rather stewed tea donated by Georgie, and was about to take a biscuit from the extended plate when at that same moment Ma thrust a letter at her.

  ‘Not enough hands!’ laughed Nell. Thanking them both, and trying to juggle the cup of tea, she put it aside in order to take the letter, which was then shoved straight into her gas-mask container, this being the norm.

  But, ‘Aren’t you going to read it to us then, seeing as you’ve deigned to honour us by sitting down?’ On the other sofa now, Ma leaned forward expectantly, her chunky legs apart to display flesh-coloured bloomers, and a hand on each knee. ‘We never get to hear what he’s doing, do we, Georgie?’

  The old fellow gave a dejected smile, and shook his pink, bald head as he lowered his wiriness next to her bulk, the plate of biscuits on his lap.

  Other than keeping them informed of Bill’s wellbeing, Nell was loath to share his words with anyone else. ‘Well, I’d better drink this tea, it’s a crime to waste it – and I don’t want to be late for my friend!’