After that I couldn’t stand to be there at night. I would make excuses that neither of them cared about and leave the flat, clenching my hands into fists and shoving them deep into the pockets of my overcoat. I would trudge down the stairs and let myself out of the front door, wondering how to fill the hours of darkness that stretched ahead. There was little to do except walk the streets, turning left or right at random, willing myself to be lost. It suited my mood. I crossed roads without looking out for traffic and went down alleyways that smelled of danger, not caring what I found. I ignored the sirens when they came and allowed the winter nights to seep into me in the hope that they might freeze out my bitterness.
When the snow came I went on walking, letting it cover me like a disguise. It seemed to soften the damaged streets, hiding the dirt and muffling the sounds of the city. A strange calm would settle over Soho on those nights. The only others in its empty passages were the prostitutes, who stayed out like me whatever the weather. As time passed we became friendly and the nights were made more tolerable. They introduced me to dark coffee in small cups from the café on the corner. It had been run by Italians before the war, they said, and that was why it was good. It was more of a comfort than the cups of tea that were supposed to make everything better but never did. When I was with them, drinking the good hot coffee that tasted of faraway places, I could leave myself behind. But as soon as I stepped back into the night, the thoughts returned and I was bleak again, waiting at the corner of the street for Bernard to leave. When I saw him come out of the front door, I forced myself to walk around the block one last time so that when I got back to the flat she would be asleep. I would tiptoe upstairs, take off my clothes as quietly as I could and slide into bed, trying to ignore the warmth that his body had left on the sheets.
As winter came to an end and spring arrived, London was filled with hope. Things would be better soon, they said on the wireless and in the newspapers that I read in the café. The nights were less of a trial without the wind and the snow and I began to explore new parts of the city, feeling my legs grow stronger as I walked further and further away from the flat.
But sometimes the thought of dragging myself about the streets was exhausting. One night I came back to the flat from the factory, hungry and tired. I slammed the door behind me and flung myself into Bernard’s chair staring at the flames of the fire as if they might hold the answer to all my worries.
After a minute or two, I heard a sob. I turned my head to look across at Grace, who was sitting in the other chair with her legs curled underneath her. Her eyes were red and her skin blotched, as if she had been crying for a while.
I was in no mood to be sympathetic. It was worse for me, I thought, about to be kicked out onto the streets when Bernard came to take my place. I wondered if for once I could persuade her to tell him not to come.
‘I feel rotten,’ I said.
She said nothing.
I tried again. ‘I want to go to bed. Can’t you ask your boyfriend not to come tonight? You don’t look in much of a state to see him, anyway.’
She sniffed.
‘Why are you making such a meal of it?’ I snapped. ‘I bet I feel as bad as you, but I’m not crying.’
She made a strange noise, a cross between a whimper and a sob. I began to wonder what was wrong.
‘He’s not coming,’ she whispered.
‘What?’
‘He isn’t coming.’
I was curious. ‘Why not?’
‘I said he shouldn’t.’ Grace pressed her face into her hands.
I had never seen her like this. I leaped out of my chair and went to her.
‘What’s wrong?’ I said. ‘Why are you crying? Tell me, whatever it is, you can tell me.’
She lifted her head away from her hands. ‘I told him that I’m not well.’
‘What is it?’
She turned her face to me and I saw shame in her eyes. ‘I’m in trouble,’ she said.
I didn’t understand. ‘What?’
‘I’m expecting.’
I knew what they did whilst I was walking the streets but I had never imagined that it would lead to this. I was silent with shock.
‘Please, Nora,’ said Grace. ‘Please, say something. Don’t be angry. I can’t bear it.’
I wasn’t angry. I was picturing Grace and me, bringing up a child, a little girl, holding her, feeding her, bathing her in front of the fire and sleeping with her between us. It was wonderful. But when Grace touched my shoulder, anxious for me to talk to her, I realized that it wouldn’t be like that at all. It would be Grace and Bernard, Grace, Bernard and the baby: a family with no room in it for me. I would be left to fend for myself.
‘Does he know?’ I said.
She shook her head. ‘No. I just said that I wasn’t well. I don’t want to tell him. I’m frightened.’
‘Why? Won’t he be pleased?’
She hesitated.
‘What? What is it?’
‘He’s married,’ she said quietly. ‘Yesterday we had an argument. I said that I wanted to see him more often, in the day, not just at night. He said he didn’t have time. I kept asking him questions. I wouldn’t stop, and in the end he told me he had a wife.’ She hung her head. ‘He’s got children too, a boy and a girl. He wouldn’t say anything more about them. That’s all I know.’
I stared at her.
‘I’ve been thinking about it all day.’ She was blushing now, and trembling. ‘I’ve been picturing him, going back home after he’s been here. His wife is probably happy to see him, like I always am. I hate her for having him. I feel as if I could kill her, just to keep him to myself. I’d do anything, no matter how bad it was.’
I understood, far better than she knew.
‘I love him, Nora. But he won’t want a baby, I know he won’t.’
‘I’ll help you,’ I said. ‘I mean, I’ll help you look after it. I’ve got a job. We’ll manage.’
She shook her head.
‘No,’ she said sadly. ‘I can’t bear to lose him. I know it’s wrong, but I don’t care that he’s got a wife. I won’t give him up.’
I looked at her, puzzled. Then I remembered the hushed conversations at the factory, girls covering shifts for one another, whispering, swapping tips like recipes. I saw the determination in her eyes. I shivered.
‘You don’t mean it,’ I said, already knowing that she did.
She nodded, and I knew then that I had lost her. She would do anything to keep him, even get rid of her child. And like all the times before, I did as she wanted. I have regretted what I said next ever since.
‘I’ll help you. Bernard need never know.’
‘But how?’
‘Gin,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘Gin. It’s what the girls at the factory say. You sit in a hot bath and you drink as much gin as you can. I don’t know how it works but it does something to the baby and it comes out.’
Grace looked doubtful. ‘Are you sure?’
I wasn’t, but I didn’t want her to know it. I was frightened, but I had promised to help. Somehow I would make it all right. I wanted her to know that she could rely on me.
I cleared my throat. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Tell Bernard not to come tomorrow. Say you’re still not well. We’ll do it then.’
The next day we waited until it was dark outside. It seemed somehow wrong to do it in daylight. I pushed away my worries, passing the time by cleaning the flat. I scrubbed the bathroom, scouring the bath until my arms ached, mopping the floor and rubbing the taps with vinegar to make them shine. I poured bleach down the lavatory, standing next to it with my eyes closed, inhaling the sharp smell as if it might cleanse my thoughts at the same time.
When the clock struck seven, I almost wanted to hear Bernard’s key in the lock so that we could pretend that nothing was wrong and I could escape to the streets. Instead, we shut ourselves in the bathroom, locking the door behind us. For once we were pleased there was no window.
‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘We’re safe. No-one can see us. No-one will ever know.’
Grace was hunched on the lavatory seat. I had taken a bottle of gin from one of Bernard’s boxes. It had a picture of a galleon on the label and its name spelled out in green letters.
‘Look!’ I said. ‘Victory Gin. That’s a good sign, isn’t it? The name, I mean. It’s bound to work. We’re going to be all right, you’ll see.’
‘Where did you get it?’ she said.
‘From one of the boxes, of course.’
‘Do you think we ought to use it? We’re not supposed to touch any of those things.’
‘Where else would we find a bottle of gin?’ I said impatiently. ‘Anyway, he owes you something, don’t you think?’
Her lips trembled and I was sorry for being sharp. I put my arm around her shoulders. ‘Don’t worry. There are dozens more bottles. He won’t miss it, I promise.’
I turned the tap, hoping that for once there would be hot water. It spat some out, then spluttered and stopped. It was barely enough to cover her heels. We stared down at the bathtub sadly.
‘What shall we do?’ Grace said.
‘I’ll boil some water on the stove. We’ll fill it that way. You stay here. You may as well start drinking. You’re supposed to get as much down as you can manage.’
I poured an inch of gin into a teacup and passed it to her. ‘Drink up!’ I said, trying to sound cheerful.
Grace drank as I boiled kettle after kettle of water, pouring it into the bath, filling it as deep as I could.
The five-inch rule be damned, I thought, remembering the last time I had broken it.
Between kettles, while we waited for the water to boil, I perched on the end of the bath, watching the steam rise, mixing with the smoke from the cigarettes that Grace was lighting one after another so that she was never without one between her fingers.
She insisted that I drank with her.
‘I feel funny doing it on my own,’ she said. ‘Please, Nora, let’s pretend we’re somewhere else, somewhere nice.’
I brought a cup from the kitchen and poured in a measure of gin. It was strong enough to make me shiver and I wished I had thought of getting something to mix it with.
‘It makes me think of those afternoons with the communion wine,’ she said. ‘By the lake, do you remember? You and me, in the sun. Those were the best days, weren’t they?’
I remembered. But I also remembered the trouble they had caused. I hoped we would get away with it this time.
‘I think the bath’s ready,’ I said, changing the subject.
For a moment we looked at each other, frightened. Then Grace held out her glass. She had been drinking quickly and had got through almost a third of the bottle.
‘I suppose we’d better get on with it,’ she said. ‘But will you give me some more? I think I’m going to need it.’
‘I’ll wait outside while you get undressed,’ I said quickly.
‘Please stay,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to be alone. Don’t leave me.’
I took her place on the lavatory while she took off her clothes and hung them on the hook on the back of the door. It was the first time I’d seen her naked body since we’d left Kent. It was different, fuller, with new curves from the extra rations that Bernard had fed her and, I supposed, from the child. Her breasts were heavy, and her thighs, always lean, now met each other in the middle, plump and soft. I longed to reach out and trace her body with my hands. Instead, with an effort, I looked away and took a long swig of gin. Grace stepped into the bath and let out a cry.
‘Lord, that’s hot!’
‘I’m sorry.’ I was apologising for more than the water. ‘They said it has to be as hot as you can bear, otherwise it won’t work. Do you think you can sit in it?’
She took another mouthful of gin and sat down, breathing hard through her nose. I watched colour rise in her cheeks and spread through the rest of her body. As she lay back, the water came almost to her collarbone.
‘What do we do now?’ she said.
I wasn’t sure. ‘I think you just stay in the bath for as long as you can and keep drinking. Can you feel anything yet?’
She took a while to respond. ‘No,’ she said eventually. ‘I feel a bit woozy, but I think that’s the gin. It’s nice. I feel like nothing matters any more.’
And oddly, she was right. The bathroom was like a private club with just the two of us for members. I felt properly warm for the first time in months. The gin, combined with the steam and the smoke from the cigarettes, made everything easy and vague. Grace and I were together again, partners in crime in a way we hadn’t been since we had come to London. We drank more gin and were giddy, laughing at our own silly jokes. I smoked part of a cigarette and liked the way it made my heart beat faster. We held hands and talked about good times in Kent. I was so happy to be close to her again that I almost forgot why we were there. But it came back to me when she started to sing the song that she had sung when she came back to the flat, the morning after her first time with him.
I’ve got you, under my skin,
I’ve got you, deep in the heart of me.
So deep in my heart that darling, you’re really a part of me,
I’ve got you, under my skin.
The gin made her sing off-key. I was suddenly sober, nastily aware of what was under her skin; the child that we were trying to kill. I thought of her sister, Elizabeth, the other bath-time death. I still wasn’t sure how much Grace knew and I had drunk almost enough gin to ask. But I knew that I couldn’t, not now.
‘Grace,’ I said.
She was still humming.
‘Grace,’ I said again, more loudly. ‘You should get out. The water’s cold. It’s not going to do any good. We’ve messed it up.’
The only thing to come of it was the pain in our heads the next morning. The thing was still inside her and the drink had made us miserable. We sat by the fire sipping tea. Even lifting my cup was an effort.
‘What will we do?’ Grace said. She was very pale and her eyelids were swollen from lack of sleep and gin. She kept shifting about in her chair, unable to settle.
‘I don’t know. There’s no-one to ask.’
‘There must be somebody. You know more people than me. Please, Nora. I’ll do anything.’
I thought of the people I knew. They were not many. My world was the factory by day and the flat by night. The girls in the factory were easy with each other in a way that I could never be. I marvelled at how much they told each other about their lives. I listened to what they said, hovering at the edges of their conversations. But this would mean taking them into my confidence. It would mean gossip, the latest thing to be chewed over in tea breaks and passed from person to person. It was a horrible thought. Apart from those girls we knew no-one. We were as alone as we had been on our first day in London.
We sat by the fire for the rest of the day, trying to come up with an answer. We couldn’t think of a way to put off Bernard and so he came to the flat at the usual time. Grace had managed to tidy herself up for him but he commented on my appearance as soon as he came in.
‘You’re looking worse for wear,’ he said, grinning at me.
I shot him a dirty look. ‘It was a hard night,’ I said, pushing past him to the door.
Once again I found myself trudging through the streets. As I walked past the shut-up shops and dark houses, finding a way out began to seem impossible. Everything was closed, as if London was turning its back on our predicament. The only signs of life were the prostitutes, standing in their doorways, flashing their torches on and off.
‘All right, Nora?’ one of them called out. It was Mary, one of the girls from the café. She was a big woman, somehow comforting in her bulkiness, and always kind. I waved, pleased to be recognized on a night when I felt so small and so alone.
It was not until I was halfway down the street that I realized that perhaps she was the answer. She would know what
to do, I was sure of it. I turned around and went back to her.
‘Back already?’ she said.
‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Ask away, but make it quick. I’m working.’
I swallowed. ‘It’s a friend of mine. She’s in trouble—’ I trailed off, not knowing what else to say. Mary looked me up and down.
‘Oh, lovey,’ she said.
‘It’s not me,’ I stammered. ‘Really it isn’t. It’s a friend.’
She glanced at my stomach. ‘How far gone is she, this friend of yours?’
I didn’t understand what she meant. ‘Gone? What do you mean?’
‘Lord, you’re an innocent! When did she fall pregnant? Can she remember when she last had her monthlies?’
‘Yes,’ I said eagerly. Grace had told me the night before. ‘It was two and a half, almost three months ago.’
She whistled. ‘She’ll need to do something about it sharpish then. Has she tried anything already?’
‘She drank gin in the bath. But it didn’t work.’
Mary shook her head. ‘It never does. It’s an old wives’ tale, that one. She needs to see someone who knows what they’re doing. Have you got a pencil?’
I scrabbled in my bag and found one. Mary wrote a telephone number on a scrap of paper.
‘Tell this girl I sent you. She’ll sort it out. She always uses the same woman, Mrs Pitts. She’s good. She’ll come to your flat and she’ll be quick and clean. But do it soon. You haven’t got much time.’
Twenty-Three
I KEPT REMEMBERING A SCENE FROM THE FILM OF REBECCA, near the beginning, just after Maxim and the heroine have met. They are driving through the south of France in an open-topped car.
‘I wish there were an invention that could bottle up memory like a perfume,’ she says, ‘so it would never go stale and then whenever I wanted to, I could uncork the memory and live it all over again.’
He says quietly, ‘Sometimes, you know, those little bottles contain demons that pop out at you, just when you’re trying most desperately to forget.’
Days of Grace Page 22