Mary's Child

by Irene Carr

  Afterwards George handed Sally Youill into his Rolls. He said, ‘Come and see me some time. You will be welcome.’ Then he sent her off to catch her train and turned to thank the other mourners.

  There was a deputation of workers come from the yard who muttered their condolences, and privately told each other, ‘The old feller’s looking ten years older.’ He was, with a stoop and only a flecking of black in the grey hair now.

  He wrote to his grandson, Jack, now serving in his ship in the Atlantic, then he went back to work. He had a good staff, but one man was needed to co-ordinate their efforts and channel their energies. That was his job alone, now.

  Jimmy Williamson came home just twice after Chrissie saw him parting from Millie at the station. The first time he was convalescent after being wounded and the second, in April 1918, on leave. He told Millie and Chrissie, ‘I reckon there’ll be another big push this summer, maybe the last one.’ He could not hide his apprehension when he went back to France at the end of his two weeks, on the day of the memorial service for Richard Ballantyne.

  That same day, in the North Atlantic, a solitary steamer lay stopped and low in the water. Smoke and steam belched from the funnel of the rusty old tramp and she had a list to port, caused by a hole blasted in her bottom by a torpedo from a U-boat. Now the submarine had surfaced and was cruising at a leisurely speed to pass across the bow of the steamer, where her name was painted: Flora Dee.

  Her captain lay dead in his bunk, killed by the explosion of the torpedo. Most of her crew had lowered her boats in seeming terror and rowed away from her, following orders to form the ‘panic party’. Their action was intended to persuade the captain of the U-boat that the Flora Dee was deserted. She was not. She was a ‘Q-ship’, one of many sent to sea to trap U-boats. They posed as defenceless old tramps while having guns concealed aboard them. If the crew’s act was successful then the U-boat would consider it safe to surface and examine its victim, and sink her with gunfire if need be. Jack Ballantyne waited for that now.

  He lay close under the bulwark, only feet away from the dummy deckhouse that concealed the four-inch gun and its crew. He could see the U-boat, its captain standing in the conning-tower, its gun manned. The submarine had passed the bow of the Flora Dee a thousand yards distant but had turned in to run down the starboard side of the ship. When it was opposite the hidden gun it would be no more than three or four hundred yards away. That was point blank range.

  The day was bitterly cold with a biting wind but Jack was sweating where he lay on the rusty iron deck. He watched the U-boat come on, slowly, steadily, drawing closer, looming larger. Its gun pointed at him, seeming to single him out. He knew that when he gave the order he would probably be signing his own death warrant. He lay there through minutes that stretched out to seem like days and all the time only one face was in his mind’s eye.

  Then the U-boat was abreast of where he lay, he was looking down the barrel of its gun and he shouted, ‘Fire!’

  Chapter 22

  May 1918

  ‘Why, Mr Ballantyne!’ Chrissie heard the relief and delight mixed in her voice. She was crossing the foyer as Jack shoved in through the swing doors with their polished brass handles. He stopped in front of her and looked down at her hands, smooth and white now, and innocent of rings. Then his gaze, not smiling but serious, lifted to meet hers and she saw he had changed again in the last year and a half. She had not seen him since Lilian Enderby’s party in the summer of 1916 and thought he looked ten years older. There was a maturity and a hardness about him now and his youth was behind him.

  She said, ‘The last I heard you were in the Mediterranean.’

  He smiled but it was without humour. ‘I’ve been knocking about in the Atlantic.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Jack did not enlarge on the topic because he could not. ‘Q-ships’ were still shrouded in secrecy. He could not tell Chrissie of the short, bloody encounter that ended with the sinking of the U-boat and the death of half of his gun crew. But the Flora Dee had not sunk. The ‘panic party’ had boarded her again. Jack and the other survivors had managed to shore up bulkheads and hold down the level of the water in her by pumping until they brought her into Falmouth. Once there Jack learnt of the death of his father and grieved for him.

  He was silent now, remembering Richard Ballantyne and the men killed to the right and left of him during this war. To his mind only one good thing had come out of the slaughter: now he knew what he wanted out of life.

  He glanced around and asked, ‘Is Lilian – Miss Enderby – here?’

  Chrissie replied, her tone polite but cool, ‘No, sir. We haven’t seen her in here for some weeks.’ She might have added that on the last occasion, Lilian had been accompanied by a young infantry subaltern on his way back to France, but she did not.

  He said, ‘I’ll see if she is at home,’ thinking, First things first.

  He left Chrissie staring after his broad back, walked across the street to the station and climbed into a taxi. When it pulled up in the drive of the house where Lilian lived with her parents, he found another car already there. The front door was open and he stepped on to the threshold. He reached out to thumb the bell-push but then a man came out of the room on the right of the hall and Jack greeted him. ‘Hello, Mike!’

  Dr Michael Dickinson was a contemporary of Jack’s, exempted from military service because of asthma. He was breathing heavily now and his face was drawn. He answered, ‘Hello, Jack. This is a bad business.’

  Jack stepped into the hall. ‘I don’t understand—’ But now he heard the sobbing. He peered past the doctor’s shoulder and saw Lilian’s mother crumpled and suddenly small in an armchair, her husband with his arm around her, both of them rocking in grief. Jack whispered, ‘For God’s sake! What has happened?’

  Michael Dickinson stretched out an arm and gently closed the door, stifling the sobs. ‘It’s their daughter, Lilian. You knew her, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, but I haven’t seen her for over a year. What’s wrong?’ Then he realised the change of tense: ‘What d’you mean: “knew” her?’

  ‘She died less than an hour ago.’ Jack stared at him, shocked into silence. The doctor lowered his voice. ‘They called me as soon as they found her but it was too late. She had lost too much blood.’ He explained, ‘She had had an abortion, a horribly mishandled job. I got out of her who did it and I’ll inform the police. They’ll jail the woman, of course, but that won’t bring the girl back to life.’

  The police made the arrest that evening. The constable knocked at the door and when the woman opened it he asked, ‘Agatha Milburn?’

  ‘That’s right.’ She glared past him at the neighbours watching from the steps at their front doors. ‘What about it?’

  ‘I have a warrant for your arrest . . .’

  On the day of the funeral Chrissie went with Jack and stood at his side by the grave in the rain. He talked with her afterwards, sitting in her office.

  ‘I went to her house to say goodbye. Dear God! The child she carried wasn’t mine, nor could it be, I made sure of that, but I guessed I wasn’t the only man in her life. I used her as the others did.’

  Chrissie remembered Frank Ward, without shame or regret, and said, ‘You mustn’t blame yourself.’

  Jack said harshly, ‘I don’t.’ He went to stand at the window, staring out at the rain. ‘I suppose the war is partly to blame. You think: “I’ll take my fun where I find it because I don’t know where the hell I’ll be tomorrow.” But that’s just an excuse. A man should still have a sense of responsibility.’ He turned back into the room and told her, ‘I’m grateful for your help. And more than that. I want to see you again but this is not the time.’

  Chrissie agreed, ‘No.’ They were both in mourning.

  In the silence they could just hear, distantly, the drumming of the riveting hammers in the yards along the banks of the river. Jack cocked his head on one side, listening, then swallowed the whisky she had given him an
d put down the glass. ‘I have to go to the yard. I think Grandfather needs me.’ He lifted his hand in salute, picked up his cap and left.

  Chrissie saw Jack Ballantyne just once more before he went back to his ship. She learnt, from comments overheard by chance in the bars of the Bells and the Railway Hotel, that he was working long hours at the yard.

  ‘The young feller’s havin’ to get stuck in doon at Ballantyne’s.’

  ‘Aye. The auld man canna cope wi’ it any langer.’

  But at the end of his two weeks he appeared at the door of her office, his cap under his arm. She could see his battered leather suitcase in the foyer behind him.

  He stepped inside, closed the door behind him and said, ‘I have an hour before I catch my train. Will you lunch with me?’ And as she hesitated he insisted, ‘Please. I won’t take no for an answer. I’ve asked you before.’

  Chrissie remembered that he had, and that she had refused him because of the social gulf between them – and Mary Carter’s warning: ‘Have nothing to do wi’ that sort! They’ll use you . . .!’ She knew a moment of confusion and temptation but fought it down, told herself this was not a time for emotion but for facing facts. She said, ‘It just won’t work, Mr Ballantyne.’

  ‘Don’t call me Mr Ballantyne! My name is Jack!’ He took two long strides to the desk. ‘What d’you mean: “it won’t work”?’

  Chrissie explained, trying to be calm, ‘You’re the son and grandson of shipbuilders, well-off people. I’ve watched you mixing with your own sort and you fit in there. But I wouldn’t.’ She saw his mounting anger born of incomprehension and frustration and she burst out, ‘I’m a bastard!’

  Her voice rose on the word. That name, given her by Agatha, still grated in her memory. ‘My mother is a “theatrical” and she told me my father was a seaman. She abandoned me when I was born and I only know he’s in the Australian Army somewhere in France. That’s what I mean when I say it won’t work. We’re like oil and water.’ She stopped to draw breath and realised she had almost shouted that last.

  She had silenced Jack Ballantyne, temporarily at least. He stared at her for some seconds before saying absently, ‘I always took you for an orphan.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I just – assumed. Because there was never any mention of your family.’

  ‘Well, now you know the truth,’ she said tersely, glad it was out of the way. Not that she had been apologising; she had just stated some facts. She had nothing to apologise for. She looked up at him standing before her desk in her office while she sat, and they talked as equals.

  And as this came into her mind he said, ‘And so should you.’ He leaned forward, resting his hands on the desk so he hung over her and she felt stifled. He said, ‘For your information my great-grandfather was a foundling who never knew who his parents were. He started his working life as a labourer in the yards. And you’re under a misapprehension; I’m not proposing marriage, just asking you to have lunch with me.’ He finished, ‘I’ve wasted enough time.’

  Chrissie wondered what he meant by that, then concluded he was referring to his leave running out. But he had thrown her off-balance now, she could not summon up words to argue any longer and found herself rising to obey. She wanted to go with him and as he opened the door she swept out of the office and into the dining-room. They received curious glances from the other diners because Jack Ballantyne was well known – or notorious. There were startled looks from the staff: what was their Miss Carter doing with him?

  At the start of the meal they talked politely of routine matters, still conscious of the recent, latest flare-up. He answered her questions about the yard: ‘Grandfather is showing his age. I’ve helped him get rid of an accumulation of work but I don’t know how much longer he can carry on.’

  She replied to his about the hotel: ‘Staff? I’m lucky because I’ve managed to hold on to most of mine. Finding replacements is almost impossible.’

  He agreed with her glumly on that. ‘Grandfather’s cook retired and he hasn’t been able to get another, so one of the maids is doing her best.’ He pulled a face. ‘It’s not a very good best.’

  Chrissie laughed. ‘Then I’m glad to have got one good meal inside you.’

  That lightened the atmosphere and it became cheerful. Afterwards they wondered why they had been so lighthearted and each separately and privately decided it was because of the presence of the other.

  The laughter ceased when they stood beside his suitcase again. They were serious now. This was a busy time and people passed back and forth around them. Chrissie could see her receptionist beckoning to her and Mrs Wilberforce was waving from the door leading to the kitchen.

  Jack said, ‘I decided a long time ago that I wouldn’t become – involved – with anyone until the war was over. What I’ve been through recently has only confirmed that. But I want to see you again, Chrissie.’

  ‘I’ll be here.’ She started to turn away. ‘I’ll put on my coat and—’

  His hand on her arm stopped her. It was a seaman’s hand, big and long fingered, the skin thick and rough with callouses. He turned her back to face him. ‘No. Don’t come to the train. I’ve seen enough of those partings. No goodbyes.’ He let go of her arm then but only to wrap his own around her and kiss her. Then he released her and jammed his cap on his head, picked up his case and walked out.

  Chrissie watched his tall figure cross the road, striding easily, and disappear into the station. She came back to earth then and saw Mrs Wilberforce staring, Arkley pop eyed, the receptionist open mouthed. She smiled at them all and walked straight backed and head high into her office, where she shut the door and laughed and cried.

  Chrissie had told Jack that it was almost impossible to replace staff. The key word, however, was ‘almost’. She consulted her contacts in the trade and before the month was out Parsons, old George Ballantyne’s elderly butler, told him, ‘There’s a Mrs Gubbins applying for the position of cook, sir.’

  Mrs Gubbins was large, with a ruddy complexion and able to keep the secret of who recruited her. She told George, vaguely, ‘I just heard as your last cook had left, sir.’ He took her on a week’s trial, confirmed her in the job at the end of it and gave thanks for what he saw as a miracle.

  Sergeant Burlinson called on Chrissie on a day of July heat and she sat him down in an armchair. He was too old for the Army, past retirement age for the police, for that matter, but carrying on ‘– for as long as this war lasts,’ he grumbled, ‘or I do.’ He sweated in the dark blue uniform and mopped at his face with a handkerchief. He balanced his helmet on his knees and fidgeted while Chrissie waited and wondered why he was so obviously embarrassed. Finally he said, ‘I have to ask you this, Miss Carter.’

  Chrissie, bewildered, answered, ‘Ask me what, Sergeant?’

  ‘Has any person – or persons – offered to sell you food at inflated prices? I mean, not one of your usual suppliers?’

  Chrissie shook her head definitely. ‘No, Sergeant.’

  He looked relieved but still pressed her. ‘Have you heard of any such persons?’

  That was different. Chrissie said, ‘I have, but only rumours going around in the trade.’ Walter Ferguson, at the Palace, had heard them and passed them on to her. ‘No names given but just a suggestion that “anybody who has the money can get the grub”,’ she said, quoting Walter. ‘And there was a chap in the bar here one night who said he’d heard – no names again, mind – that there were people selling bacon, pork, butter and beef.’

  Burlinson nodded his balding head, wiped perspiration from it with his handkerchief and sighed. ‘Well, if you do hear of anything, I’d be glad if you’d let me know.’

  ‘Of course.’

  The sergeant drank the beer she had given him and went on his way. Chrissie wondered who was at the back of the illegal selling of scarce food. She could think of no one who might be suspect. Max Forthrop’s name never entered her head. She thought she had finished with him. He had not finished w
ith her.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Morgan!’ Chrissie shook the rain from her umbrella as she stood in the doorway of the Bells. It was August, but a day of showers, fine rain blown on the wind.

  ‘Morning, Chrissie,’ Lance wheezed as he worked behind the bar.

  Chrissie turned to face him and let the door close behind her. This was a Tuesday, a working day, so there were only four men in the public bar, sitting around a table playing dominoes. They were all elderly and probably retired. There was little unemployment in those wartime days.

  Chrissie thought, It’s just as well there aren’t many customers, with Lance here on his own. She asked, ‘Where’s Millie?’ and glanced towards the sitting-room. Its door was open but she could not see the girl in there.

  Lance Morgan took a rest and held on to the bar, his face grey and chest pumping. ‘She’s not turned in yet. I was just wondering if there was summat the matter with her.’

  So was Chrissie, because the girl was never absent or late. She said, ‘I’ll go round to her house and see.’ And she warned, ‘Don’t you do too much while I’m away. Just sit yourself down and wait till I come back.’

  ‘Right y’are.’ Lance Morgan was glad to agree and sank down on to a stool behind the bar.

  Chrissie hurried through the rain to the house down by the river where Millie rented two upstairs rooms, one of which she had let to Jimmy Williamson when he was on leave. Chrissie had been born in the next street. Half a dozen small children, dirty, near naked and barefoot because this was summer, played in the downstairs passage. Chrissie edged through them with a pat, a smile and a ruffling of a boy’s hair. They stared at her in her good dress and polished shoes. She climbed the bare wooden stairs, scrubbed clean – Millie would have done that.