When We Meet Again

by Caroline Beecham

  “Yes?” he said, glaring at her from beneath hooded eyes.

  “I’m sorry to bother you . . . I hope you don’t mind me calling in like this,” she said, pressing her weight from one foot to the other. “It’s just that I wanted to stop by and say hello. I’m going to be moving in soon, just down the street.”

  He continued to stare.

  “And I thought it would be nice to meet the neighbors. Mr. . . . ?”

  “It’s not a good time right now. The wife gets a headache in the evenings.” His voice was a small monotone. “Come back during the day.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Who’s there, Frank?” a woman shouted from the front room.

  “It’s . . .”

  “Grace, my name is Grace,” Alice said, forcing a smile.

  “Grace,” he called back, “a new neighbor—”

  “Well, don’t be rude. Show her in!”

  “You heard her,” he said, taking a step backward. “You’d better come in.”

  Alice’s hairs stood on end as she passed by him, stepping cautiously into a hallway that stretched down a dark passage to the back of the house.

  “Living room’s just down there.” He pointed to where a streak of light shone beneath a door.

  “Come in, don’t be shy,” a voice sounded from the other side of it.

  The floorboards creaked as Alice took one small step at a time, measured against her breathing, before the loud clunk of the front door being shut behind her made her jump, and Frank’s heavy footsteps followed her in.

  The living room was cluttered, too much furniture competing for space with too many ornaments, and a teenage girl sat on the sofa, half-buried in plush cushions. On the other side of the room, beneath the netted windows, a plump woman took up the expanse of a high-backed armchair, her skirt pulled up over her knees, swollen feet resting on a footstool. Her square face and short brown hair gave her a masculine appearance, and she watched Alice cautiously through dark eyes. “Come in. Don’t be shy. Grace, is it?”

  Even from where she stood, Alice could see the woman’s face was scored with deep lines. “Yes. I’m sorry, Frank didn’t tell me your name. . . .”

  “It’s Beatrice.”

  “I didn’t tell you mine either,” Frank said, as he came to stand beside her.

  Alice’s heart skipped a beat.

  “You’re such a prat sometimes, Frank,” Beatrice said, and laughed. “She heard me calling you! Don’t mind me.” She grimaced at her puffy red ankles. “Things always get worse at night. It’s a good job I’ve still got Annie here to help look after me, eh?”

  Alice glanced at the girl on the sofa; her eyes were like saucers, and they were glued to her.

  “Sit down, love,” Beatrice said.

  “I’m all right, thank you. I just wanted to say hello.”

  She could feel Frank beside her, an unwelcome presence standing too close, and he had a sour, unwashed odor.

  “Tell me,” said Beatrice, “what number are you moving to?”

  “Two doors down, seventy-five.”

  “Really, the Robinsons’ place, I didn’t know they were moving,” she said, glancing at her husband.

  Alice let out a nervous breath. She’d never been a good liar—Ruth had taught her it was a sin—and now she wasn’t sure she could convince the Pritchards if she couldn’t even convince herself. “The truth is”—she swallowed—“I was looking for you.”

  “Looking for who?” the woman asked.

  “The Pritchards.”

  The couple exchanged a look before the woman glanced over at Annie. “Can you leave us for a while, love?”

  The girl rose ponderously and dragged her feet to the door, all the time with her eyes fixed on Alice.

  “And stop slouching!” Beatrice shouted behind her.

  The girl turned at the doorway to give Alice a small smile, then ducked out.

  Alice took a deep breath and closed her eyes, trying to summon Eadie’s face, her smell, her newborn essence.

  When Alice opened them, the Pritchards were staring at her.

  “What do you want?” Beatrice asked coldly.

  “I need you to tell me about your activities since you came out of prison, about all the baby farmers you know in London . . . or anywhere, for that matter.”

  “Who are you?” Frank asked.

  “It doesn’t matter, I just need your help.”

  “And what’s in it for us?” he said.

  Alice didn’t have much to bargain with. “Keeping your whereabouts a secret.”

  Beatrice gave a loud, throaty laugh. “That’s not much of an incentive, love.”

  Alice thought she understood how far she’d go to find her daughter. She’d returned to her Dulwich home during the day when her mother was at work to get her father’s gun. The trips with her father and brother had been to hunt for food, then when William was drafted he’d insisted she be able to defend herself. But as she fingered the pistol in her pocket and felt the cold hard metal beneath her skin, she didn’t feel capable of using it on another human being.

  Thirty

  Regent’s Park Road was in pitch darkness and the blackout blinds in all the houses were drawn by the time Alice stumbled through the café doors. The book group had finished, everyone long gone except for Ursula, who leaned against the counter, looking remote, and Penny, who threw her arms around Alice as soon as she appeared. “What happened?” she asked.

  “I’ll explain in a minute,” Alice replied, “I just need to sit down.” She sank heavily into one of the chairs, hands still trembling, while Penny scurried about, fetching her a mug of tea before sitting next to her. “How did you get on at the book group?” Alice asked, sipping it slowly. “Did Rex have any news?”

  “Yes, he told us to remember the name Sidney Jardine,” Penny replied, before exchanging a look with Ursula.

  “What’s happened?” Alice asked, glancing from one to the other.

  “Ursula knows, Alice. I’ve told her everything.”

  “Everything?”

  “Well, she guessed, actually.”

  So that was it; Ursula knew now. Alice was uncertain how she felt; a mix of relief and regret that she hadn’t told her friend personally.

  “I’m so sorry, Alice,” Ursula said. “I can’t imagine what you’ve been going through . . . what you must still be going through.”

  “Thank you. How did you guess?”

  Ursula told her about the evening’s events. They’d all sat in the usual horseshoe around the table: Helena, Rex, Marjorie, Terrance, Henry, Penny and Ursula. Terrance had propositioned Ursula. “As if I would contemplate a relationship with him,” she said, sounding amused and appalled as she threw some humor into the conversation. “It’s about as likely to happen as Churchill striding through the door and asking to join the book group!” She went on to explain how the group had argued about whose turn it was to open the box of books, and they’d waited patiently as Rex retrieved The Body in the Library and his eyes lit up. Everyone had seemed overjoyed—except Penny, who was gazing distractedly into space. “That’s when I knew something was wrong,” Ursula said, looking at Alice.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know, I just did—call it intuition. We were talking about the dramatic events of the book, when it struck me that the change in your behavior was akin to that of any literary heroine who has suffered great tragedy—and grown more distant and troubled.” She raised her eyebrows. “Not only that, but there’s the anxiety you’ve never suffered from before, the claustrophobia, the compulsive behavior, all of which we’d noticed. And they’ve all cropped up since you left to look after your cousin’s baby.”

  Ursula’s voice brimmed with emotion as she explained how she couldn’t stop thinking about how everything had changed: Alice’s disa
ppearances, the secretiveness surrounding her cousin’s baby, the falling out with her mother. And then how she’d heard Penny’s children upstairs, their giggles and bumps and squeals as if they were jumping on the beds, and Penny’s glance upward and the maternal frown followed quickly by a smile. It had clicked: the baby was Alice’s. “I’m sorry, I forced Penny to tell me. But I wish it had been you.”

  “I know, and I’m sorry, Ursula, but at least now you know.”

  Penny had given her all the distressing details of the past six months—everything except for who the father was.

  “And what about tonight?” Penny asked Alice. “Did you find out anything?”

  “It was a waste of time—the Pritchards didn’t know anything, and I couldn’t wait to leave,” she replied. She didn’t want her friends to know she’d been too much of a coward to use the gun, or that she even had a gun at all. But she’d learned one thing for certain, that the Pritchards weren’t any of the baby farmers who Ruth had described, and that they no longer seemed to be part of that world either, as Olive had thought they might be. “No, nothing at all. Now I’m back to square one, apart from this name . . . Jardine. I’ll need to investigate that.”

  “Maybe, but you’re not going anywhere on your own this time,” Penny said. “One of us is coming with you.”

  * * *

  It was a few days since her visit to the Pritchards, and Penny and Ursula had refused to let her out of their sight as they’d had no luck tracing Rex’s lead.

  “Hey, what do you say about going to the cinema?” Ursula asked. “Women Aren’t Angels is on.”

  Alice gave a weak smile.

  “It’s a comedy. . . .”

  “I don’t really feel very much like laughing,” she said flatly.

  They were in Ursula’s bedroom, standing in front of a full-length mirror. Alice stared at Ursula’s masculine clothes: baggy trousers, white shirt with a woolen pullover and a striped Etonian tie, a jacket slung over her right shoulder.

  “You know, Alice, I think you’ve possibly been approaching this the wrong way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, it should be a couple looking for a baby, not a woman on her own.”

  “How does that make any difference?” Alice said grimly.

  “Think about it . . . a couple are much more likely to be considered suitable, whereas on your own you tend to arouse suspicion.”

  “That’s what Penny told me to do, with Michael’s help,” Alice said. “You’re probably right. I did consider it, but I didn’t want to inconvenience anyone. God, I’ve been such a fool!”

  Ursula placed a hand on her arm. “Don’t say that. You’re not a fool—no one could be doing any more than you are now. I really don’t know how you’ve coped for so long.”

  If only Theo were still there; if only she could have confided in him and got his help, she thought. But that seemed silly now.

  “I’m not giving up, you know,” she said. “I’m going to keep on looking.”

  “Of course you are, Alice. And I’ll completely support you.” Ursula withdrew her hand and started pinning back her hair. “I don’t think even my merciless family are capable of anything like this.”

  Alice forced a smile.

  “Anyway,” Ursula said, smiling at both their reflections, “the good news is that with me dressed like this, I think we’ll get away with it.”

  Alice laughed for the first time in days.

  “I’m serious!”

  “You are?”

  “Of course. If we make our approach as a couple looking for a child, it might be your best chance yet.” Ursula selected a trilby from her dressing table and tucked her auburn curls underneath so that only wisps showed above her ears. “I think I look the part,” she said, linking arms with Alice. “See, I told you, there will be no questions.”

  Alice examined Ursula’s reflection and decided to acknowledge what had always remained unspoken between them. She knew that Ursula understood what it felt like to be an outsider, and to be judged and isolated because of it.

  Their eyes met in the mirror, and Alice gave her a meaningful stare. “I know, Ursula.”

  “Know what?”

  “I know why you dress the way you do, why you act as if you don’t care.”

  “About what?”

  “About not being like the rest of us . . . about not wanting to have a man in your life.” Alice maintained eye contact. “But it doesn’t matter to me. It doesn’t matter in the slightest.”

  Ursula placed the trilby back in its place and shook her hair free, then she turned to Alice. “Is that why you didn’t tell me about Eadie?”

  “Partly. I didn’t think that motherhood was something we could talk about so easily.”

  The bed was strewn with clothes, but Ursula cleared a space and indicated for Alice to sit down. “Perhaps with other people, Alice, but never with you.”

  Alice smiled. “Is there someone special?”

  “Yes,” Ursula said, smiling. “Her name is Bridget, and she’s a wonderful companion.”

  “Does your family know about her?”

  Ursula laughed. “Of course not.”

  “Are you going to tell them?”

  “Why on earth would I?”

  “Because . . . because . . .”

  “Because they’ve never been there for me before, because they won’t be there for me now. I haven’t seen my sister in two years, or heard from my parents since I tried to visit them three Christmases ago.”

  Alice knew that Ursula was right; it was similar to what her experiences with Ruth had shown her.

  Ursula told her the full story. She’d been sixteen when she read The Well of Loneliness and realized she wasn’t alone, but she also realized that lesbianism was frowned upon by most of society, including her family. Her parents confiscated her book collection and packed her off to university, where she completed an English degree before moving to London, landing a job at a newspaper and embarking on an affair with a young male reporter. The six-week relationship proved to her that there was no place in her life for romances with men, and she sought out a new circle of friends.

  Now she told Alice that she’d tried hard not to laugh when George had asked the team to “dig deep” into their personal lives; she was certain he wouldn’t want to publish any of her or her friends’ stories.

  “But none of that matters anymore; what’s important is finding Eadie. I’ll do whatever I can to help you,” Ursula announced. “And for everyone’s sake, we need to finish this book and send it to print!”

  Thirty-one

  London, May 2, 1943

  The woman in front of Alice turned sharply and glared disapprovingly.

  “Sorry,” Alice whispered.

  She’d caught the woman’s heel as she’d joined the latecomers funneling into the red-brick church. It was a warm spring day, but the sun had done little to raise the temperature of the dark Gothic interior, and everyone still wore their hats and coats. Alice pulled her scarf a little tighter, for warmth and to hide her face. It had been two years since she’d been here for Will’s memorial service, and she’d forgotten how vast the inside was, with its four-bay nave and double-pitched roof, and how unwelcoming the draft was from the cavernous crypt below. Alice glanced toward the nave where several aisles led away to arches and porches, and a staircase climbed to the tower and bell turret four floors above. On the south side of the chancel, the vestries and organ chamber occupied the space, and Alice watched as the organist readied herself ceremoniously beneath the tall vertical pipes.

  Maybe this is why Ruth’s grown so stony and cold—she’s spent too long in this dark and ancient place, the chill seeping into her bones.

  Father Mitchell was in the midst of delivering his sermon, his deep voice reaching far beyond the altar as his g
aze swept greedily across the congregation.

  Alice found a seat close enough to the back that she wouldn’t be noticed, and looked around. The pews were nearly full, with some locals she recognized but mostly strangers. Then she spotted Ruth a few rows in front, head tilted up to nod as the priest talked.

  “. . . to all thy people give thy heavenly grace, and especially to this congregation here present—that, with meek heart and due reverence, they may hear and receive thy Holy Word, truly serving thee in holiness and righteousness all the days of their life.”

  But Alice wasn’t there to hear the Holy Word; she wanted to watch Ruth. She still couldn’t begin to understand how her mother could have chosen the Church over her family, especially since it meant she had no one now. Ursula’s situation had made her question this attitude even more, and as she listened to Father Mitchell she struggled to work out what he stood for that would make a person sacrifice their family. Perhaps if their father hadn’t worked every weekend, or if Ruth hadn’t forced her children to accompany her for years, then she might have shared her mother’s faith, but instead she’d stopped going as soon as she was able to.

  She half-listened, concentrating on Ruth, on the strands of graying hair that brushed the collar of her worn coat; on the ivy-green of her sensible hat, the one she no longer needed in church but chose to wear. She and Alice had never shared the same taste in clothes, music, people—in fact, if Alice hadn’t seen the birth certificate, she would have sworn she was the one who didn’t share Ruth’s flesh and blood, not William.

  “And we most humbly beseech thee of thy goodness, O Lord, to comfort and succor all them, who in this transitory life are in trouble, sorrow, need, sickness or any other adversity,” Father Mitchell continued.

  Ruth bowed her head as the congregation joined in the general confession, their voices uniting in a chant that echoed across the transepts and sent a shiver up Alice’s spine as she recognized his words.