by Clare Harvey
The nurse’s footfalls came to a halt next to them. Laura looked up. The woman made a show of looking at the upside-down watch-thing she wore. ‘It’s not even visiting hours. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave,’ she said. Laura sighed and took her hat off the bed knob. The nurse put the fresh jug of water on the locker and began writing something on the clipboard. Laura put on her hat, and picked her bag up off the floor.
‘What about the painting?’ Violet said in that painfully hoarse whisper.
‘There won’t be a painting.’
‘So it was all for nothing?’
Laura didn’t reply. What could she say? She watched the nurse frown and hang the clipboard up on the end of the bedstead.
‘What are you going to do now, Dame Laura?’ Violet said.
‘That’s quite enough chit-chat, Miss Smith,’ the nurse cut in. ‘You need to rest those lungs and that larynx of yours.’
‘Dame Laura?’ Violet said, ignoring the nurse.
Laura pushed herself up off the covers and stood. How the bag pulled on her aching shoulder. She straightened up, ignoring the pain. She looked down at Violet, lying there on the bed. Her bandaged hands lay still on the covers, and she stared straight ahead, like a marble effigy on a tombstone. Not at all like the fidgety, sparky chit who’d been almost impossible to hold in a pose, Laura thought.
Looking down at her, Laura became again the lady artist visiting the injured factory girl, nothing more. ‘It was such a pleasure painting you and I do wish you a speedy recovery and a swift return to the vital work you and your colleagues are doing in the gun factory,’ Laura said, painting a smile on her face. ‘Goodbye, dear.’ And she turned and walked away from the bed, not answering Violet’s question, striding back through the lines of beds, looking neither left nor right.
But the polished lino was a river bed, and Violet’s words tugged at her ankles like underwater weed:
What are you going to do now, Laura?
Try as she might, she could not get the penny in the slot. Her right hand had completely seized up from drawing all night. It was no more use than a fleshy claw.
‘Hello? Hello?’ The voice at the other end sounded like a tinny parrot.
One last effortful try and the penny plinked into the metal mouth. ‘It’s Laura here. Is that you, K?’
‘Laura, where the devil are you? Gone AWOL? Harold said you were at the gun factory, but they said there was no sign of you so you must have gone home.’
‘Well, I suppose I have, in a manner of speaking.’
‘You’re in Malvern?’
‘No, Long Eaton.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘Derbyshire. I was born here, you see.’ (He’ll assume I’m visiting relatives. Let him think that, if it helps.)
‘I heard about the raid. Thank God you weren’t there, Laura.’
‘Oh, it was a dreadful business, K. I visited last night. The painting’s destroyed. One of my models was killed outright, and the other’s in hospital.’ She felt in her right pocket for the slip of canvas and touched it with her fingertips, still holding the clammy receiver to her left ear with her other hand. The phone box air smelled of stale smoke and urine.
‘I’m so sorry, Laura.’
‘So am I, K.’
A pause, then, the line hissing between them. Laura imagined it as a two-headed snake: one head in central London and the other here in this nondescript Derbyshire mill town, the telephone cable coiling and slithering down the miles between them. ‘Will you be all right?’
‘I’m very tired, that’s all – I spent the whole night in the factory and then I went on to visit the surviving girl in hospital. And now the ruddy train’s delayed, so I thought I’d just stay over here for the night and then – do you have anything else for me, K? After something like this I just feel one should get back in the saddle, so to speak.’
She heard K suck in a breath. ‘I thought this was to be the last one, Laura. You told me that Harold thinks—’
‘Oh, when has it ever mattered what Harold thinks?’ Laura interrupted. ‘I need to work. I need to keep on going, don’t you see?’
There was a faint scratchy sound at the far end of the line and Laura could imagine K running his manicured nails over a freshly shaven cheek. Laura looked out through the glass pane. Raindrops trickled as if the glass were melting. There was a red-brick building across the street: Station Hotel, the sign said in gold letters on a peeling black backdrop. The drizzle made everything smudged like an old photograph, where someone had moved too soon, leaving the moment blurred and uncaptured. ‘There’s not much about right now, unless you can stomach another factory?’ K said at last.
‘I can stomach anything. I need to work.’
‘There’s a ball-bearing factory in Skeffington that has been asking for an artist, and one that makes railway lines, too. And later on in the year there’s talk of doing something at the tank training unit in Barnard Castle, if that suits?’
‘I’ll take them, and anything else that comes in, in the meantime.’
‘You’re sure? I thought you’d had enough of painting the mucky business of war?’
‘Quite sure. How soon can I begin on the Skeffington job?’
‘Almost immediately, I daresay. I’ll need to make a couple of calls. But what about Harold, Laura?’
‘What about Harold, K?’ The pips went, then. ‘Call me back at the Station Hotel in Long Eaton to confirm,’ she managed to call out before the line went dead.
She hung the receiver back on the cradle. Her right hand was still in her skirt pocket, aching fingers pinching the edge of the torn canvas. She let go of it now, took her right hand out of her pocket and lifted it towards her left. Her painful fingers struggled to take the slippery gold band off her ring finger, twisting and pulling until it worried up the skin and wrenched away. She put it in the pocket, next to the scrap of canvas. It felt like the right place.
She splayed out the fingers of both hands. Her skin was stained with charcoal smudges, newsprint and old yellow nicotine, but there was no adornment.
They were no longer the hands of a wife; they were merely the hands of a working artist: empty and free.
Chapter 23
George
It ought to be simple, he thought, as the blue-green countryside flashed past and the open windows filled the car with the scent of hot tar. Simple enough, to end a life, in wartime. If he were in the boiler room on a convoy ship or a tail-end Charlie on a bomber – pretty much any other job except being in a senior management position in a reserved occupation.
He pushed his foot down hard on the accelerator so the car sped forward even faster, the engine making that choking whine it did when the revs got too high. The steering wheel started to judder.
Wilford Road was empty. He could see for the best part of a mile ahead and there was nothing but the poking smokestacks of the distant brickworks, and the railway line like a zip fastener, holding the yellow-green strips of farmland together.
He took a hand off the jerking steering wheel to push his hair away from his eyes and felt the car lurch onwards, almost driving itself. There was a heat haze like machine grease on the road ahead. If there was a pothole? He imagined the vehicle pirouetting, a tumble-rush of earth and sky, then nothing.
An accident, that’s what they’d say. It would save his parents the shame of suicide. He was overworked, racing between the two ordnance factory sites in Nottingham and Ruddington, pushing himself to the limit to do his best for the war effort. In a way he might be considered some kind of white-collar hero, and all this – this mess of life – would be over and done with. His breath tasted sour in his mouth. He didn’t bother replacing his hand on the steering wheel, instead leant an elbow on the open window frame, feeling the warm wind through his shirtsleeve. He kept his foot pushed hard on the accelerator as the brickworks approached, chimneys like proffered cigarettes, and the car sped over the slash of railway line and on in t
he direction of Wilford Village.
A sprinkling of houses up ahead, distant smatters like discarded confetti on a church step. A large old oak tree was a growing green blob, on the outskirts of the village. He’d passed it many times on his way to and from the Ruddington depot over the last year or so – the trunk must be nearly two yards in diameter. Could that be big enough? If he hit it at this speed?
The tree loomed larger now as the car thundered on. If he were to do it, he should do it, without thought or hesitation. He twisted the wheel and let the car swerve towards it. Now. He was ready.
Wait: what was that? A flash of white in his periphery – something? Someone?
He grabbed the wheel with both hands and twisted it away, hitting the brakes, forcing the car into a sideways skid: the sudden lurch, a thud, darkness, and silence.
But then, the agony of a breath, ripping open his lungs, gulping in the hot petrol fumes. Eyes opening. Everything fuzzy and half-erased. The brickworks on the wrong side of the zippered-up countryside, the tree nowhere to be seen, a pain across his forehead like a fallen axe. Blinking into focus. Hearing the car engine chugging, a slicing ache in his chest as he leant forward and fumbled with the key, turning it off. His breathing like pumping bellows. A wrenching spasm as he turned his neck. The car had skidded right round, and was now facing back towards Ruddington.
He got out of the car, slow as an old man. Everything seemed taut and stretched, like the skin over a blister. He looked round. Had he missed it? Whatever it was, that flash of white he’d seen? The road was empty, no screams of pain or running feet, no pools of accusatory blood on the hot gravel. His eyes travelled over to the oak tree, the broad trunk and the canopy of green. He could see the curlicue of tracks tracing the dust in front of it, where the car had skidded full circle. He stepped across the empty road. He had seen something, he was certain.
What was that? A noise, coming from the tree. He walked closer, stepping slowly through curving skid marks, feeling as if a bruise were seeping upwards from his toes, all the way up his legs, until each step was a gentle agony. He looked up, and there, where the branches began to fork off from the trunk, was a white cat, miaowing. So that was it. A cat.
He walked painfully under the green-cool of the shady tree and reached up. The cat ran its nose along his forefinger, half closing its eyes as it nudged him. He stroked its soft fur and it began to purr. As he stroked, the sweat that ran between his shoulder blades began to evaporate, and his breathing slowed. It was just a cat, skinny, half-feral by the look of it. Probably nobody would even have noticed if he’d run it over, such a small, insignificant life. But it was a life, at least, and worth saving.
He heard a steam train toot and chug down the railway line, heading towards the depot. And something shifted inside him.
He walked back to the car, got back inside, turned on the ignition and shoved it into reverse, manoeuvring back in the right direction, back towards the gun factory, and home.
He’d reached the outskirts of the village when he saw her: the woman in the blue dress, beige winter coat slung over one arm. She was plodding towards him on the opposite side, head down, staring at the dusty road. He swerved slowly across the road and came to a halt in front of her, aware of the tremor in his forearms, the fogginess in his head, and the smell of scorched tyres in his nostrils. Carefully does it. The window was still wound down. He leant out and was about to call out her name, when she looked up.
‘Mr Handford?’
‘Miss Smith.’
There were bluebells the same colour as her dress on the verge. She stopped, looking in through the window at him. And neither of them spoke, because what was there to say? He switched off the car engine and got out. They faced each other, and he thrust out a hand, because he couldn’t think what else to do – an embrace would be too much, but there had to be some contact between them, after the events of that night. When he took her hand in his it felt warm and rough-dry, and he found himself apologising: ‘So sorry, is it painful?’
‘No, no, they say I’ve healed up really well,’ she said. One side of her face was slightly pinker than the other, as if she’d had a nap in the sun. A green turban covered her hair. His eyes slid inadvertently down, over her blue dress, and he saw the way the fabric gaped a little where it buttoned, over the gentle mound of her belly. She moved the arm carrying the coat across the centre of her body, covering the bump. Had she seen him notice? He hadn’t meant to stare. What an oaf he was. And all these weeks she’d been in Nottingham General and he hadn’t thought to visit, so wrapped up in his own selfish grief. What a heel.
‘It’s good to see you recovering. I didn’t expect you to be out of hospital so soon,’ he said.
‘I was just discharged this morning. I’m on my way to the hostel. They phoned – Matron says I can have my old bed back.’
‘Good, good. That’s good. I’m sorry, I didn’t realise.’
‘No, they weren’t expecting to let me go today, so you weren’t to know.’
‘I would have arranged transport for you – a lift or a taxi – if I’d known, but I can drive you the rest of the way.’
‘No, I’d rather walk. It’s good to be outside, after all that time indoors.’
‘Indeed.’ He cleared his throat and ran his thumb and forefinger over his face. ‘But you must be very tired, and it’s really no trouble. After all, a woman in your, your—’ His muzzy brain searched for an appropriate word.
‘Condition?’
He felt himself redden, cleared his throat again. ‘Yes. I’d feel terrible if I left you to walk, alone like this.’
She nodded. ‘That’s kind of you, Mr Handford.’
‘It’s the least I can do, under the circumstances.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘The circumstances.’ Her tongue darted briefly out between her lips and she drew breath as if she were about to say something more, but instead she simply walked round to the passenger door and got in. George followed her lead and got back in himself, settling into the seat and turning the key in the ignition. The engine chugged awake. ‘Your car smells funny,’ she said. ‘Engine overheating?’
‘I had to brake suddenly to avoid a cat, just now,’ he said. ‘Tyres and brakes, that’s probably what you can smell.’
‘Oh.’ Her head lolled sideways against the doorframe as he pushed the car into gear and turned it round. ‘To tell the truth, I’m glad you caught up with me. It’s further than I thought, and I’m out of the habit of walking, what with having been stuck in hospital all this time.’ Her lids fluttered down and she closed her eyes as he drove her to the hostel. His forehead had started to throb and he felt sick. But all he needed to do was drive her the final mile or so to the hostel and drop her off. Surely he could do that? The rest – the awkward conversation about her future with the factory – that could wait.
‘I know what you’re thinking, but I’m coming back to the night shift,’ she said. He glanced across at her as they paused at a junction. Her eyes were still closed. He could hear a distant ambulance bell, but the road was empty. He turned left down the side road.
‘What about the baby?’
‘A girl’s got to earn a living, Mr Handford.’
He wished he could drive faster, get it over and done with, but he felt as if he had a bone-china teacup in the passenger seat, and in any case, he didn’t trust himself, not with the ache in his head, the tremor in his limbs and the rising nausea. ‘I’m sure we can find something that’s not overly taxing for you,’ he said, gripping the steering wheel and blinking in the strobing bars of light-shade as they drove through an avenue of beech trees. ‘When are you planning on coming back?’
‘Tonight.’
‘So soon?’
‘Why wait? What else am I going to do, mope around in the room and get poorer every hour?’
‘You wouldn’t prefer to be on days?’
‘Trying to get shot of me?’
‘Not at all – I’m only thinking that
you might prefer days, after what happened, and with the baby on the way. It might be less tiring.’
‘No, Mr H. The night shift is where I started, and that’s where I’ll stay, thank you.’
He clicked the indicator and turned off onto the private road that only led to the hostel, trying not to remember the last time he was here.
‘You can drop me here,’ she said. ‘I know you won’t want to go all the way to the entrance. You might end up having to talk to Matron or some other do-gooder.’ She knew. How did she know? She must be feeling the same way: steeling herself for the onslaught of prurient pity. He pulled in next to a five-bar gate. They were only a couple of hundred yards from the hostel block.
As she leant over towards the door catch, he touched her lightly on the shoulder. ‘I’m so glad you came through all right, Miss Smith, and the baby, too.’ But she didn’t answer him. She got out and slammed the door behind her and began to walk along the last bit of road towards the hostel. The hem of her beige coat dropped off her arm and trailed in the dust.
‘I’ll see you later, then, Miss Smith,’ he called out of the car window at her.
She lifted a hand and fluttered fingers, as she carried on walking away. ‘Not if I see you first, Mr Handford,’ she called back, without bothering to turn round.
He couldn’t help but smile. Brave, he thought. Brave girl. Puts the rest of us to shame.
Violet
‘You do know I hold a weekly surgery at the factory?’ the doctor said, her head tilted to one side over Vi’s bare belly, listening to the ear trumpet. The tip of her tongue was visible between her thin lips as she listened. The ear trumpet left pink circles on Vi’s skin as the doctor moved it over her bump.
‘But I’d rather see you here,’ Vi said, feeling the flesh dip under the pressure of the metal.