Forget-Me-Not Child

by Anne Bennett

  ‘Oh it’s a distinct possibility,’ Barry said. ‘And proof isn’t needed. Just a hint of scandal like that and Stan’s life would be ruined. So you see it’s better that we don’t meet at all.’

  ‘I do indeed,’ Angela said.

  ‘And now we have talked enough,’ Barry said. ‘I want a special memory to take with me when I march out tomorrow.’ He took Angela by the hand as he spoke, but she made no protest as he led her to the stairs and they went up hand in hand.

  TWENTY-TWO

  The smoky steam-filled station was full even at that hour and Angela saw she wasn’t the only one saying goodbye to her husband or sweetheart. Some had brought children, as she had brought Connie because Barry had wanted her there. And all the men were in uniform and some of the women were crying. Angela didn’t blame them for she felt like doing the same, but iron resolve prevented the tears from trickling down her cheeks, lest they upset Connie.

  Barry felt as if his heart was breaking for he was leaving behind the two people he loved best in all the world, and yet he couldn’t in all honesty say he regretted his decision because it was not right for him to sit pretty at home while others risked their lives daily. ‘This is it then,’ he said as they walked towards the waiting train.

  ‘Yes,’ Angela said, her husky voice barely above a whisper.

  Barry knew Angela was perilously near to tears and so to help her compose herself he picked Connie up into his arms. ‘Now Connie,’ he said, ‘I want you to be a big brave girl for Daddy. Can you do that?’

  Connie nodded her head and Barry went on, ‘I must go away and I want you to be a big brave girl and look after Mammy.’ Connie’s eyes opened wide for she had never seen her father so serious before, but when he went on, ‘Will you do that?’ she nodded her head again and he placed her in Angela’s arms and put his arms around them both and said, ‘And Mammy will look after you too, until I come home again.’

  Angela thought her heart was breaking into pieces as Barry said, ‘That is the picture I want to take to France and the one I want to see when I come back, though you might not be in your Mammy’s arms then, Connie, for you are a big girl now and it takes time to win a war.’

  Angela gave Barry a watery smile but she did not speak for if she’d tried she’d have burst into floods of tears as many women were doing all around them. Barry knew there was no point in prolonging the parting any longer for it didn’t help. And so with a sigh, he kissed his wife and young daughter and boarded the train. He closed the door, for the guard was slamming the others, but slid the window down.

  ‘I will say the rosary every night,’ Angela promised, ‘and God will protect you.’

  ‘Aye,’ Barry said with a wry smile, ‘the bullets will bounce off me, or I may catch them in my teeth and spit them back.’

  It was too much and Angela could no longer hold her tears in her brimming eyes and Barry leaned forward and kissed them as they trickled silently down her cheeks.

  ‘All aboard.’

  The last few stragglers got onto the train, the guard slammed the last few doors shut, there was an ear-splitting shriek and the engines began to throb. The guard then blew his whistle and stepped onto the footplate as the train began to chug its way out of the station and Connie and Angela waved until they could see Barry no more.

  As she turned to leave the station Angela felt a sadness so deep it was as if she had lead weights attached to what was left of her heart. Connie noticed her tears and touched them gently with her finger. ‘Cry?’ she asked.

  Angela swallowed the lump in her throat and said, ‘No, it was just the smoke in the station making my eyes water. Now shall we go and see about this nursery for you?’

  ‘Ooh yes,’ Connie said, and Angela was glad she was distracted so easily and was too young to feel the loss of her father, for she imagined Mary’s sorrow would be enough for her to cope with.

  However that would be later because she had told Mary she would go straight to the nursery after seeing Barry off. ‘I only have this one day and I want to see around the place and talk to them and possibly put Connie’s name down for they might not have a place right now.’

  ‘Would they be open so early?’

  ‘They’re sure to be,’ Angela said. ‘They’re for mothers doing war work.’

  Angela was in fact pleased to have something to do after seeing her husband set off to join his regiment and presumably sail over to France in the very near future. She knew she couldn’t break down, but must be strong for Mary and Connie as well as herself for she knew they must bear it the same as everyone else.

  So she turned her energies to checking out the place where she hoped her daughter would be spending many hours of the day. She was delighted with the light airy rooms, and the staff who seemed to really care about the children, and the array of toys sent Connie into raptures.

  The nursery was open from 7.30 to 6.30 so Angela would not to able to bring her or pick her up, but Mary wouldn’t mind that so it wasn’t a problem. Because many children came early and stayed till late they had breakfast at eight o’clock, a full dinner and pudding at twelve o’clock and a tea at four thirty, Mrs Cassidy the superintendent of the nursery said, ‘And children of Constance’s age will be put down for a nap after dinner.’

  ‘That sounds wonderful, and the charges?’

  ‘For women engaged in war work it’s free, paid for by the government. You are doing valuable work and we are looking after your child so you can continue to do that. I don’t think I could ever work in a factory, but I am doing my bit this way.’

  ‘And just as valuable work as mine I’d say,’ Angela said. ‘When could she start?’

  ‘Well,’ Mrs Cassidy said. ‘The question is, is your daughter used to being left?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Angela admitted. ‘I have only ever left her with my mother-in-law and that was all right until she got more active. My husband was on leave and he said it was getting too much for his mother.’

  ‘Did she agree?’ Mrs Cassidy asked with a smile.

  ‘Not straight away no,’ Angela said. ‘My husband persuaded her and she listens to him. She will be the one bringing Connie and taking her back at the end of the day, because I work from 6.30 to 6.30, and when she sees this place I’m sure all doubts will leave her.’

  ‘It’s nice of you to say that,’ Mrs Cassidy said. ‘I was going to suggest that your mother-in-law brings her next Monday, just for the morning and stays with her. And then on Tuesday leave her to go shopping or whatever for a few hours, and gradually extend it so that she is ready to start full-time the following week. Not all mothers can do this but for those who can, we find the children settle quicker.’

  ‘I don’t think Mammy will have any problems with that,’ Angela said.

  And Mary didn’t of course and was looking forward to seeing the place herself. But that was for the future; when Angela rose from bed on Tuesday morning she knew she was in for a telling off at the very least. ‘And I have my answer ready too,’ she said when Maggie asked if she was nervous. ‘Because for a start Mr Potter shouldn’t be able to run our lives and tell us what to do.’

  ‘He has the power to sack you.’

  ‘Yes,’ Angela said. ‘And if he does how long do you think I would be out of work as an experienced munitions worker who can also drive?’

  ‘I’d hate you to leave.’

  ‘I’ve no intention of it,’ Angela said. ‘But I won’t be treated as if I am Connie’s age.’

  So Angela wasn’t surprised when Mrs Paget asked her to see Mr Potter before she began work and moments later she was standing facing him across the desk. ‘I am very disappointed with you, Mrs McClusky,’ he said.

  ‘Oh,’ said Angela. ‘Why is that exactly?’

  ‘I think you know why,’ Mr Potter said testily. ‘I explained how important the work we do is and that was the reason you could have no time off even though your husband was on leave, and you defied me.’

  ‘Yes,�
� Angela said. ‘I did.’

  Mr Potter was a little taken aback by Angela’s directness. ‘And why is that?’ he asked.

  ‘Mr Potter,’ Angela said, ‘I am not claiming to be a special case, for many here love their husbands, but I have known mine since I was eighteen months old, as his parents took me in and brought me up when my parents and siblings died. I loved Barry as a brother before I loved him as a husband. He has been a big part of my life always and it was an inhumane request for me not to go to the station and kiss my man goodbye, knowing that I might never see him again. In fact if I had come in I would have felt a failure as a wife, and just as importantly a hazard to myself and my fellow workers because I would be upset and my mind definitely not on the job in hand, and lacking in concentration can lead to accidents. I would say your directive is dangerous.’

  Mr Potter was affronted. ‘You, Mrs McClusky, are being presumptuous.’

  ‘No. I’m not,’ Angela retorted. ‘I am talking sense. But I was off for another reason. When I began here my mother-in-law took on looking after my daughter, but she’s not a young women and it was getting too much for her and I had to find a nursery place for my daughter, or I would be standing before you now giving notice because my child-care arrangements had fallen through. Would you have preferred that?’

  Mr Potter could find nothing to say to Angela because what she said made eminent sense, but the way she spoke to him was not exactly respectful. So he contented himself with saying curtly, ‘You will of course lose a day’s pay.’

  ‘I expected no less,’ Angela said. And then because Mr Potter’s pompous attitude annoyed her she added, ‘You’re all heart.’

  Mr Potter glared at her and Angela knew he would have liked to have given her the sack there and then, but he couldn’t because she was needed. ‘Will that be all?’ she asked and he growled, ‘Yes get back to work. You’ve wasted enough time already.’

  ‘You’ve made an enemy there I’d say,’ Maggie said when Angela told her what had transpired as they made their way home.

  ‘Well that won’t give me sleepless nights,’ Angela said. ‘It’s the constant worry about Barry that’s going to do that.’

  Mr Potter had assumed that when confronted and accused of defiance Angela McClusky would have been apologetic, cowed even, and her assertive attitude had stunned him. After she had gone though, he had to concede that much of what she said made sense with regard to saying goodbye to loved ones and he vowed to be a bit more understanding in the future.

  Angela was unaware of this and as far as she was concerned nothing had changed but she was far too busy to let it concern her unduly. On the homefront there were no problems. Mary had been very impressed with the nursery at the first session when she had stayed with Connie. ‘Not that she cared whether I was there or not,’ she said to Angela that evening.

  Mary was right and Connie who’d never before had so many friends to play with nor so many toys and she was in her element and settled to nursery as if she had been going to it every day of her life.

  Angela wrote and told Barry all about it because he said he wanted to know all the news from home, however trivial, and everything concerning Connie. In his reply he included a copy of the photograph the army had taken for their records. Angela had already received a similar photograph from Stan who asked her to give it to Daniel if he didn’t survive. Angela promised she would and put it away in the box where she kept the letters.

  However, when Barry’s came she took it to a photographer in the town the first Saturday afternoon and had it enlarged and bought a silver frame to put it in and it had pride of place in the bedroom. She was so glad to have it, not only for her own sake but also to show Connie the fine man her father was, lest as time passed, she might forget him. Every night Connie asked God to bless her Daddy and kissed his picture before settling down to sleep. And Angela had his picture before her each night as she knelt to say the rosary for she had made a bargain with God, a decade of the rosary every day in exchange for Barry’s safety.

  Mary too was glad to get a photo of her son for Angela had given her the original. And she too began praying for his survival and safe return. Time hung heavy on her hands to begin with and she missed Connie sorely though she owned caring for her full-time had been a strain and yet without her she didn’t know what to do with herself.

  Angela encouraged her to rest, but Mary said resting had never been a major part of her life and anyway a person can have too much of a good thing and she was done resting now. However, few people need to be idle in wartime and she was soon engaged in knitting for the troops. It was a social event, arranged by the church and all the wool was donated and they knitted gloves, socks and a strange thing called a balaclava. Another day she rolled bandages for the military hospitals and on another she helped out at the canteen at the Brracks. That together with the shopping, cooking, cleaning and taking Connie to nursery and bringing her home again kept her happily busy and made her feel she was doing something useful.

  So life settled down to as even a keel as it could in wartime. Worry about Barry was always there like a nagging toothache and Angela was concerned for Stan too. Barry had written that he had seen no sign of Stan and as he had said it was highly unlikely they would meet up, Angela wasn’t surprised. But she lived for Barry’s letters for they at least showed he was alive.

  Angela didn’t know where he was, but by that time there was talk of a campaign at a place called Gallipoli and some other place called the Dardanelles and she supposed he could be involved there. But in the Evening Mail one night was a map showing the whole of the Western Front and she studied it for a long time trying to take in the vastness of it and could quite see why it was highly unlikely that Stan and Barry would ever catch sight of one another.

  Connie continued to love her nursery and would have gone Saturdays and Sundays if it had been open and in just a few short weeks she was more independent and her speech had improved tremendously, so when her second birthday loomed, 24th May, Angela decided to have a little tea party for her birthday and invite some of her special friends from the nursery too. Her birthday was on Monday that year so Angela decided to have the party the day before. Mary threw herself into cooking for this special party and the centrepiece was a beautiful chocolate sponge cake. ‘I don’t know where you got all the stuff,’ Angela said, surveying the table, for around the cake there were iced biscuits, fairy cakes, ginger loaf, sausage rolls and scones, small sandwiches cut into quarters and a jug of homemade lemonade.

  ‘It wasn’t easy,’ Mary said. ‘It wasn’t like before the war when you could just go to any shop and get everything you would need, now you have to pop from one shop to another and buy up what they have on the shelves.’

  ‘Oh don’t you miss George at times like this?’

  ‘Yes I do,’ Mary said. ‘I would have probably got everything in Maitland’s shop because, like you always said, he was a man of integrity and didn’t sell to the nobs and leave his regular customers in the lurch like so many are doing.’

  ‘I do miss him still,’ Angela said. ‘He was always so good to us and I wish he hadn’t had to die like that.’

  Mary nodded. ‘Me too. Nagged to death, poor soul. Still they got their come-uppance. What goes around comes around they say.’

  ‘Mammy what are you on about?’ Angela said, perplexed.

  ‘Oh I forgot to tell you,’ Mary said. ‘Some woman at the Knitting Club was telling me that Matilda and that sister of hers Dorothy bought a house in Pershore Road, near to this woman, and she said that Dorothy had a stroke not long after they moved in and she is completely helpless and Matilda has to do everything for her.’

  ‘No!’ Angela exclaimed, a bit ashamed of the smile on her face.

  Mary nodded. ‘It’s true enough,’ she said. ‘See, Matilda wanted to get Dorothy taken to the hospital, but they told her straight they hadn’t the space, or beds, or doctors. She was telling this woman all about it. Doesn’t do to be sick
now because most common wards are earmarked for casualities from the war and many doctors have joined the Medical Corps and are serving overseas and nurses the same.’

  ‘You know I never thought of that.’

  ‘Apparently they have these women called VADs in some places, it’s the Voluntary Aided Detachment and these are girls and women over the age of twenty-three from posh homes who don’t need to be paid and they’re there to help the nurses. But I heard lots of those have gone to the Western Front as well.’

  Angela nodded. ‘I read about that in the paper. A lot of these posh folk were in the suffragette movement before the war and they stopped all campaigning once war was declared to help in the war effort.’

  ‘Well since war was declared women have done so much they are virtually running the country, which I would say has done more to advance their cause than all the protests and demonstrations they made before it.’

  ‘You could be right,’ Angela said. ‘And they’re game enough. The nurses say they couldn’t run the hospitals without them and it’s pretty stalwart of them to travel to France to work in the field hospitals. They must see some horrific sights and it’s not exactly safe and yet I can’t help wondering if they see it as a bit of an adventure too.’

  ‘D’you think so?’

  ‘Yes I do,’ Angela said. ‘I think I’d feel that way for these girls were very constrained before, they had to be chaperoned everywhere and there were so many things they weren’t allowed to do. Even now they can’t be paid.’

  ‘Oh that’s because if they were paid, it would bring shame on their fathers because people would say their fathers couldn’t afford to keep them.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I mean,’ Angela said. ‘But really whatever reasons they have for doing it matter less than the good job they are doing as general nursing aides freeing the trained medical staff to attend where the injuries are more severe. I mean, I’d like the best doctors and nurses out there treating Barry if he was injured, and Stan as well.’