Before the Fall

by Juliet West

  ‘Keep in line,’ shouts their mistress, a tall woman with an old-fashioned black bonnet tied tightly under her chin. The girl with brown eyes shrinks back, and her little fist clenches at her side.

  He shivers again in the wind. Is the sun shining in France? It cannot last. Autumn will follow soon enough. He thinks of the trenches, the winter rain stirring up the mud.

  37

  Alice and Teddy aren’t happy. Their school’s all right; they don’t seem to mind that so much. It’s being in the flat they can’t stand. I thought Alice would be pleased to have a baby sister, thought perhaps she might even be a help. Instead she looks at Lizzie as if she’s her sworn enemy, a stranger who’s brought nothing but evil.

  The weather’s getting hotter. It’s so stifling up here some nights I’m tempted to sleep out on the stone landing just so I can breathe. The children are baking in the living room. There is only the tiny window to offer a wisp of a draught if the wind gets up.

  Another hour till I have to collect them from school. For once I want the baby to wake up. I’ve got bread soaking in milk and she needs to eat it before the milk goes sour. She’s had a rotten tummy for days now. I can’t turn the nappies round quick enough. What I wouldn’t do for the luxury of our own yard, a proper washing line. When I think of Sabbarton Street, it’s as if my body is hollowed out. It’s what you call homesickness, I suppose. I can cope whenever Daniel is here. But when he’s not with me, the dizziness takes over. It’s as if I’m suspended up in these dead-air rooms: dangling and ready to drop.

  No choice but to wake Lizzie for the sops. I manage to get a couple of spoonfuls in her mouth, but then she turns her head away, stiffens her body and starts to cry. Her muscles are strong for such a tiny scrap. I scoop up another spoonful and try to hold her head, force it in, but her face screws into a furious yell and I know it’s no use. Something flips in me and I sweep the bowl off the table. It crashes onto the lino and the milk and soggy crumbs spew across the floor.

  ‘Sod you, then,’ I shout. ‘You’ll be screaming hungry in an hour and then it’ll be too late.’ It’s as much as I can do not to throw her down into the cot.

  Lizzie cries even harder and in the next breath I am shaking with guilt. I rock her in my arms, try to soothe her with a kind voice. The other two tested me, but nothing like this. Maybe Jen was right, after all. I’m an unnatural mother. I don’t deserve this poor baby. She was born from love, love like I never knew could exist, yet love won’t flow between us. It’s as if the lock gates are fastened shut, the water rising higher and higher with nowhere to go.

  I have to get outside, away from Union Buildings, down onto solid ground. I tie a sling and put Lizzie into it, hold her close to my body and sway from side to side until her crying stops. When I step out onto the landing, Mrs Tendler is there, watering a tomato plant by her front door.

  ‘Got a good pair o’ lungs, eh?’ she says, straightening up.

  ‘You could say.’

  ‘Makes me glad mine are grown. I don’t envy you. ’Specially when it’s hot like this.’ She’s looking me over, sizing me up. ‘You keeping well?’ she asks.

  ‘Not too bad.’

  ‘And your husband?’

  There’s an edge to her voice, a note of suspicion. She’ll have heard Alice call him ‘Uncle Daniel’ – that’s what it is. Alice shouts at him from the landing. Uncle Daniel, my sunflower’s the tallest! I’m beating Teddy! Well, I’ll put Mrs Tendler out of her misery. I’ll tell her outright.

  ‘We’re not married. Perhaps you guessed.’

  ‘Over the brush, is it? Mr Specterman won’t like that, sweetheart.’

  ‘I don’t suppose anyone will tell him.’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose.’ She folds her arms and the little watering can dangles from her wrist. A few drops leak out onto the stone.

  Might she be a friend to me? Maybe she’ll be flattered if I confide. Offer to lend a hand. I can’t count on Nettie, as it turns out. She hasn’t visited for nearly a month, now she has the perfect husband and rooms of their own on the Old Ford Road.

  ‘My people don’t approve, you see. I ain’t got any help . . .’

  ‘Just you and him against the world, eh?’ says Mrs Tendler.

  ‘That’s about right.’

  ‘You want to go and see your family. We all have our troubles. They’ll melt when they set eyes on the baby – I’d put money on it.’

  ‘That’s what Daniel says. You don’t know my sister, though. I think she’s grateful to have me out of the way.’

  ‘You got a mum?’

  ‘She’s not taken it well either.’

  ‘Churchy, are they?’

  ‘A bit. Not really. Just . . . respectable.’

  ‘I’ve got a little granddaughter myself, but she’s in Norfolk with my daughter-in-law’s people. While my boy’s at the front.’

  Her son is at the front. How can I tell her I have a husband fighting? If I don’t get away this second, she’ll ask more questions. And what about the older kids? Their dad still around? Mrs Tendler can never be my friend.

  Soon the school will close for the summer holidays. All those weeks cooped up with the children, all those extra dinners we’ll have to buy.

  How trapped I used to feel in Canning Town, hemmed in by the creek and the factories and the railway lines. Yet I haven’t escaped anything here. I’m more trapped than I’ve ever been.

  I start to wonder whether Mrs Tendler is right. If I call round to Sabbarton Street, Jen and Mum might relent. I wouldn’t be asking for forgiveness – there’d be no point – just for a little understanding, for the children’s sake. When I tell them how much Alice and Teddy miss their auntie and nana, they might see things differently. If the children could pop round on a Sunday, perhaps stay over now and then during the holidays, it would make all the difference. For Alice and Teddy’s sake. Jen couldn’t say no to that, surely.

  There might be letters at Sabbarton Street. I told Jen to forward anything on to Nettie, care of the cafe. But there’s a good chance Nettie has left the cafe, now she’s moved in with Spencer. She said he was earning pots of money, playing jazz trumpet at Dixieland dances, so much cash she might not need to work at all.

  The warm spell has broken and rain is chucking down. I can barely see out the tram windows for the muck and the spray kicked up from Whitechapel Road. The tram stops and starts, stops and starts, the carts, the motor vans and the bicycles tense with morning energy. Words jumble in my head and my pulse races. Lizzie is asleep on my chest. A woman next to me smiles down at the baby, but I turn away, back to the dirty windows.

  Along East India Dock Road, past Daniel’s old room. I stare up at the narrow terrace and there’s a new lace curtain draped in a crooked line across his window. Jealousy needles me. Somehow it feels wrong that someone else should be living there. With all my heart I want Daniel back in his lodging room. I want our old life back, the Friday nights when our happiness was a secret thing, a beautiful miracle we didn’t have to share.

  At Blackwall, the tram terminates. ‘Last stop,’ shouts the clippie, one thumb hooked through a belt loop at the waist of her skirt. We edge off the tram, and when I reach the pavement, the smell of the docks smothers me, tar-stained and wind-whipped. So familiar it hurts to breathe.

  The steps up to the iron bridge are slippery. I grasp the wet railing and Lizzie stirs, her head turning back and forth, nuzzling against my chest. I’ve covered her head with a handkerchief, but the cotton is already soaked through with rain. Over the bridge, the sleeping giant. The moored boats knock their greeting against weed-slimed piers.

  At Sabbarton Street, a muddy stream is flowing along the gutters, down towards the creek. A cold wind pummels my back. Number nineteen, number seventeen . . . almost there. My hands are numb. I wonder if there has ever been a July day so drear.

  Number fifteen.

  The whitening on the step is smudged and grey with rain. Will Jen be inside, putting baby Alec do
wn for his morning nap? Will Mum be sitting in front of the stove, drinking her tea? Please let Mum answer the door. Mum, not Jen. Please God.

  I knock twice, take the handkerchief from Lizzie’s head. With the cuff of my coat I try to dry her hair, softly, so that she doesn’t wake.

  The man who opens the door is small and bent. His hands shake. He is wearing pale blue pyjamas, which gape around his chest.

  ‘Dad?’

  The man looks up, straightening his spine a little. I am sure now: it is my father. His face is creased in confusion. He doesn’t know me. He’s clean-shaven, but there’s a razor cut close to his ear, dried flakes of blood stuck to the wound. He doesn’t have his teeth in.

  ‘Dad, it’s Hannah. You’re back, then. That’s good . . .’

  There’s not a scrap of recognition in his eyes; he simply turns his back on me while I am speaking and shuffles along the hall towards the scullery.

  Jen appears in the scullery doorway, drying her hands on a tea towel. In the poor light, I can see only the silhouette of her, the mad curls springing from her bun.

  ‘Dad! What are you doing down . . . Oh.’ Jen flicks the towel over the door handle. ‘You.’

  She takes Dad by the arm and guides him towards the stairs. ‘I’ll be down in a minute,’ she hisses, staring at my boots rather than look me in the eye. ‘Come in and shut the door. I don’t want the street seeing.’

  I close the door and stand in the dark hall, my skirt dripping onto the lino.

  Upstairs, the bed creaks as Dad gets back into it. He’s in my old room, then. Jen moves across the landing and closes the door to the front bedroom. I can picture baby Alec in his wooden cot, fast asleep under the summer eiderdown.

  At last Jen comes downstairs. The sling is dragging on my shoulders now and I’d do anything to untie it, sit down in the armchair with a cup of hot tea.

  ‘Well?’ says Jen.

  Lizzie starts to stretch her fists and I can tell she’s building up to a yell. I put one arm under her bottom and try to rock her back to sleep.

  The speech I’d prepared won’t come to mind. Instead I gabble, and as I gabble, I start to sob, so that my words come out in stupid splutters. ‘It’s the children . . . if they could just come round . . . and you’ll need my address . . . My friend at the cafe, I hardly see her no more. I hardly see anyone . . . I know I’ve done wrong . . . but won’t you just let the children visit?’

  Jen listens with a couldn’t-care-less attitude on her face. When I finish, she sighs, as if she can barely be bothered to speak.

  ‘And what was the last thing I said to you?’ she asks, like she’s a schoolmistress set on humiliating a disobedient child. ‘Don’t come crying when it all goes wrong – that’s what I said. Six months, I gave it. How old is this?’ She waves her hand towards the baby.

  ‘Six weeks.’

  ‘Six weeks old. And the father’s had enough, I take it?’

  ‘No! He won’t leave me. I’ve told you.’

  She snorts. ‘You mentioned all this to George yet?’

  ‘I’m going to write soon. Are there any letters?’

  ‘You’d better have them, I s’pose.’ She disappears into the scullery and I can hear her prising a lid from a tin. She comes back with half a dozen or so letters in army envelopes. It looks as if the envelopes have been opened.

  ‘He’s getting worried about you,’ says Jen. ‘Can you blame him?’ She gives me the letters, then wipes her nose with the back of her hand.

  ‘You’ve read them?’

  ‘Why not? Didn’t know if we’d ever see you again. Thought my only option was to write back and spill the beans.’

  ‘And have you?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  I open my bag and drop the letters into it. From my purse I take a small square of card and hold it out to her.

  ‘You should have my address. We’re in Whitechapel.’

  She shakes her head and takes a step backwards. ‘We don’t want your address, Hannah. Can’t you understand that? You made your choice. Alec feels the same, so don’t think you can start batting your eyelashes at him when the war’s over. Like I said, he knew all about your fancy man. He ain’t surprised. Said you always did have slutty eyes.’

  I clench my fist. The card crinkles and digs into my palm. Alec? She thinks he’s a saint? Christ, he’ll be first in the queue at the French knocking shops. I can’t rise to it, though. Can’t risk making things worse.

  ‘Is Mum here?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What about Dad? I’d like to go up and see him.’

  She shakes her head. ‘He’s come home to die. They did some more tests. Turns out he has a tumour in his brain. Nothing more they can do, and God knows they need his bed for the poor soldiers.’

  A tumour in his brain. All along, a tumour growing, growing, stealing my dad. Lizzie’s mew turns into a proper scream. Shush, shush. Not now. Please, not now.

  ‘Can I see him?’

  ‘He won’t know you.’

  ‘Can I see him?’

  I step towards the staircase, but Jen moves sideways to block me.

  ‘He. Won’t. Know. You.’

  She talks at me like I’m the local idiot. I could fly at her, tear out handfuls of her stupid hair, but she would just push me away with her leg-of-mutton arms. I turn round and try to open the front door. The wood has swollen in the rain and it takes a strong heave to shift it from the frame.

  Jen steps forward and holds the door by its handle. ‘One last thing,’ she says. ‘We had Meena Flynn round here last week. She wants Dor’s things back. She knows all about you and Dora’s sweetheart. Spitting feathers, she was. I won’t repeat the language.’

  She closes the door softly, so as not to wake her baby.

  I stumble to the end of the street, squinting through rain and tears, sheltering for a moment in the alley, under the brick arch where Daniel and I stood on the night of the explosion. I cry for my dad and I cry for Dor. Dor, what must you think of me? The pawn tickets are in my purse. Five shillings for the hat, twelve for the clothes. Never a hope of buying them back.

  Lizzie screams as I press on towards the creek. Last time I thought too hard. I stood on the bridge and I pictured myself climbing up and over, imagined myself falling. Why stand on the bridge at all? That was my mistake, of course. Far easier to wander down the bank, wade in through the slimy grasses.

  The creek is in sight now, the path that leads down to the bank, the boats knocking against the piers. The water is flowing fast. Tide’s going out, rushing downstream.

  ‘Dear? Is that you?’

  It’s an old lady, her wide-brimmed hat tipped low on her face. Her hand is on my arm. Mrs Hillier.

  ‘It is Hannah, ain’t it?’

  I can’t speak for weeping. Just a nod, a forced smile, and I hurry past before the questions start.

  I take George’s letters from my handbag. The first letter is dated 18th March 1918: We’ve had a hell of a show here. Can’t say too much, but our lot come through all right. Strange not to have heard from you. Then on 21st April: Must be some problem with the post. Queer, though, because the other lads have been getting their letters. On 5th May: Write as soon as you can. I am getting worried, but I tell myself no news is good news. The boys soon get wind when there is a problem at home. And 19th June: We are on our way back to France and our battalion has joined the 89th Brigade, 30th Division. Thought I would let you know, if you’re still interested. I know it has been an awful long time, but I still think of you every day and I am longing to hear news of you and the children. I have sent a note to your mum, but no reply as yet.

  So many letters. More in three months than he’s written over the last year. I stuff them under the pillow and lie down on the bed. I can’t leave George wondering anymore. I’ll write tonight, when Daniel is home. We’ll do it together.

  Daniel’s clothes are sodden. We hang them on the wooden dryer, then stand the dryer in the tin bath to catch the
drips. I light the burners on the gas stove to try and get some heat in the kitchen. Impossible to get anything dry.

  Alice and Teddy fall asleep by eight. Daniel and I shut ourselves in the bedroom. He has the baby on his shoulder, rubbing her back. I stand at the window, looking down into the courtyard of the German church. There is a circular flowerbed with a rose bush in the middle. The rose blooms have been battered by rain and red petals lie bruised on the earth among clumps of valerian. An old priest emerges from a side door, takes a key from his robes and locks it. As he walks towards the high street, he stares up at Union Buildings and seems to gaze straight at me. I turn from the window.

  ‘I went back to my sister’s today.’

  Daniel stops rubbing Lizzie’s back.

  ‘How was it?’

  I shake my head, my eyes stinging as the tears come. ‘She can’t stand the sight of me. Says everyone feels the same; I’m never to come back. Dad’s home, but he’s dying. A brain tumour. And she gave me these.’ I move towards the bed, take George’s letters from under the pillow and drop them on the blanket. ‘I feel so guilty, you can’t imagine . . .’

  He places Lizzie in the cot, puts his arms around me and says he is sorry. I weep into his chest, clinging to him, wishing I was a child again, wishing for a strange moment that it was Dad’s arms I could feel, the smell of liquorice instead of peppermint.

  Dad is lost to me now. Only Daniel can make me safe. Yet even with his arms around me, I feel uneasy. Weightless before the fall.

  Daniel breaks away, picks up one envelope and slides out the notepaper. It’s George’s most recent letter. His eyes flit across the words, stopping every so often as he deciphers the writing.

  ‘He’s going back to France, then.’ He sighs and returns the letter to its envelope.

  I sink down onto the bed, gather the envelopes together and shove them back under the pillow. ‘I’ll have to reply. I don’t need to tell him anything much. Just let him know that Alice and Teddy are fine. Give him the new address.’

  Daniel sits next to me on the bed and takes my hands. ‘You’re sure?’