The War Before Mine

by Caroline Ross

  The hands of a large wooden clock pointed to a quarter to two. The end of the lunch hour. Work. The place she’d been before the telephone call from Sister Fran, meant nothing now. Just another word, like mother. She swirled the whisky in the bottom of her glass and took another swig, involuntarily pulling back her lips from her teeth as it burned its way down her throat.

  A man at the other end of the bar raised his hat. She closed her eyes and took a gulp of cooling beer, opening them to find the man beside her, filling the air around them with the sharp smell of his cologne.

  ‘How about another one?’

  Rosie drained the whisky glass and set it down on the counter. ‘Aye. Why not?’ The words came out in a voice like Aunt Betty’s.

  ‘A young lady from the north, I’m hazarding a guess?’ Underneath the perfume another smell came off him. Man on the chase. Da’s words, ‘We stink to animals, ye knaa that?’ Up on the moor after rabbits, batting his hand at her to keep downwind. Rosie lifted the second glass of whisky and swilled the hot spice of it round her gums.

  ‘Gorrit in one, pet.’

  ‘Had a bit of luck earlier today, actually. Delighted to share it with so lovely a young lady.’

  ‘A birrov luck, ye say?’ She gave a little sob of laughter at the sound of her own voice. ‘Will ye listen to that? Wae that’s what happens when they takes your bairn. Ye gans mad.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t quite follow…’

  ‘Never you mind, pet. Nowt worth hearing.’

  ‘You’ll have another, won’t you?’

  ‘Oh aye. Mekkit a double.’

  ‘Smoke?’

  Rosie watched herself pull a long cigarette from a red packet. She caught the man’s eyes on her unguarded flesh, a little bit of Aunt Dottie’s lace exposed. Ye’d like me to step out of that, wouldn’t you? Leave it in a little puddle on the floor.

  ‘I believe we’re ready for another, barman.’

  Ye can purra slip on the girl but you canna give the girl the slip.

  ‘Oh come on, share the joke… That’s the ticket. Cheers.’

  Philip slept for an hour, waking slowly to the babble of voices around him. So I says to him, what do you take me for? Personally, I think he’ll take the bait. Egg and bacon! Oh no you don’t, bonnie lad. One egg and bacon! I says I wouldn’t mind all this rain only I never learnt to swim. Whoops! Hang on, I’ve got a hankie here somewhere. Come on let’s be having you! Who ordered egg and bacon?

  Philip raised his head.

  ‘This your egg and bacon, sir?’

  ‘No.’ The waiter moved off.

  Philip scratched his head and looked over to the bar. Among several men he could see a woman sitting by the counter, a portion of her dark head and a deep pink shoulder visible. Some double-breasted spiv blocked the rest of her out. She turned her head slightly and Philip caught the line of her cheek. He pushed back his chair.

  Across the little rope barrier was the quickest way. But once over, a jostling group of men materialised, blocking his way. ‘Excuse me.’

  ‘We’re all looking for a drink round here, mate.’ Philip shoved his way through. ‘Oy! Steady on there.’

  The varnished curve of the bar appeared and a wraith of a barman, his long white fingers sliding a cloth around a glass. Philip felt himself revolve away past the suspended bottles of spirits, the brimming ashtray, reaching at last the woman with the dark hair. Short, dark hair. He hesitated.

  ‘Rosie?’ She swivelled towards her name, a glass in one hand, a cigarette in the other, the tight cardigan hanging open. Not dead. Not drowned. Not crushed. ‘Rosie.’

  Some gadgie stood there saying her name. Rosie blinked. He’d gone. Now there were two of them, now just one, with eyes just like Alex’s. A gadgie in a suit, looking at her like a piece of dirt. She closed her eyes and the world started to spin in a slow arc, little lights flashing. When she opened them there were faces all around her. Big-eyed, shining faces. He… Philip…was still there, saying her name. Now he came back, now. When it was all too late. ‘You’re too late,’ she shouted, and at the same time she thought it’s not too late there’s still time if we go now. She came unsteadily off the stool and the shining faces spoke.

  ‘Left you in the lurch did he, my dear?’

  ‘You give him what for.’

  She felt on her neck the breath of the man behind her, the grip of his hand on her shoulder, heard words addressed over her head to Philip: ‘Now listen, sunshine, you’re too late, so just fucking clear off, will you? Can’t you see you’re upsetting her?’

  She turned and punched him hard on the chin, knocking him backwards into the crowd and sending his hand to his mouth, but he bounced back towards her, like a boxer coming off the ropes, and she closed her hand tight around a glass and smashed it, waved it in his face, looking backwards for Philip, thinking, We must go we must go, I just have to get away from these people, and where Philip had been were two men in uniform, closing in. Policemen.

  ‘And may I ask, sir, how you became acquainted with the young lady?

  ‘I knew her during the war.’ In all his imaginings, it had never been in a squalid place like this, ugly onlookers all listening in, hungry for details. His head thumped. More than ever he wanted to crawl back into that comfortable bed and forget about everything. ‘Can you tell me where they’ve taken her?’

  ‘All in good time, sir. Are you aware that the young lady had already caused something of a rumpus earlier today?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And you, sir?’ The policeman turned to another man, holding a piece of ice in a handkerchief to his chin.

  ‘No. Never met her before in my life. She’s knocked one of my teeth loose. Lucky my jaw isn’t broken.’

  ‘And I understand you wish to press charges?’

  ‘I most certainly bloody well do.’

  ‘I’ll need both of you gentlemen to go down to the station to make statements. It’s not far.’ He scribbled on a piece of paper.

  Walking in the rain with a man possibly even more of a bastard than Anderson, Philip said, ‘How much for you to drop it?’

  ‘Oh yeah, what’s the little tart got over you, then?’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Fifty nicker.’

  It cleared him out completely. Walking on alone, Philip lifted his face to the rain, as though it could wash the whole sordid thing away. Something had happened to her. She’d changed; or just become what she’d always really been. He felt a fool. That bridge into another world, the frail swaying rope bridge from his patch of jungle into hers – he should’ve known there was no crossing that.

  The fat policeman selected a key from the chain at his waist and unlocked the cell door. ‘Feelin’ better, darling?’ Behind him, Philip listened for a reply that never came. ‘Keeping mum now, are we?’ He turned to Philip. ‘She had plenty to say earlier, by all accounts, not much of it repeatable.’ The policeman laughed and shifted slightly to one side. ‘This gentleman says he’ll take you home. Is that what you want?’

  Rosie sat on a low bunk, her pale face turned towards the door, one hand at her throat. She nodded.

  ‘You understand there will be a summons issued to you in due course? For drunk and disorderly behaviour. You can count yourself lucky it’s not assault.’ He glanced significantly at Philip.

  Rosie signed for the return of her handbag, an expensive-looking leather one. Philip waited, watching. She was slimmer than he remembered. If she’d had a child, surely she should have thickened a bit?

  Outside they stood awkwardly apart, like strangers. It started to rain. Under the street lighting, the damp pavement shone a sickly yellow. Philip discovered that self-righteousness overwhelmed every other feeling. Don’t I at least deserve a thank you? ‘Here, you must be cold,’ he said, holding out his coat.

  ‘Thank you.’ She took it from him, not allowing him to put it around her shoulders. The physical rejection rankled. They started to walk northwards, towards Westminster.<
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  In the quiet street only the patter of rain broke the silence. Philip spoke at last. ‘I’ve been trying to find you for nearly two years.’

  ‘It’s been five years. Five years and five days.’

  ‘I know how long it’s been. I wrote. I never got a reply. I didn’t get back to England till the end.’

  She glanced at him. ‘You’ve changed. Your face is thinner. I didn’t recognise you at first.’

  It sounded like an accusation. ‘You have, too. I wasn’t sure. I always thought of you with long hair.’ She walked quickly on. ‘Why didn’t you go home, Rosie? I went to Gateshead. I found your family.’

  ‘I couldn’t.’ Westminster Bridge humped before them, and beyond it, the Houses of Parliament.

  ‘Is there a child? Were you…? Is that why?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then why? Why did you disappear? What have you been doing? How do you live?’

  She said nothing. Behind the concern, she heard his anger and impatience. He hated her now, had seen her drunk with her tits hanging out. Rosie saw herself flapping in the breeze like one of Mam’s old sheets, pummelled and put through the wringer then hung out to dry with all its holes and patches exposed. You never showed people. Hung them out at night and took them down sharp in the morning. Cannot show people things. Fold it up, keep it inside.

  ‘Rosie? Do you want me to just fucking go? I’ve searched half the bloody country looking for you, thought about you, fucking dreamed about you being dead, or starving, forget sitting in a police station for three hours waiting for you to sober up, and now you won’t even fucking look at me. What’s happened to you?’

  ‘What’s happened to ye, more like. Ye never used to swear.’

  ‘What the fuck has that got to do with anything? I was in the fucking Army for four years. I’m asking about you.’

  She spat it out. ‘Nothing. Nothing’s happened to me. I’m a gyppo. I always was. Ye just didn’t see it.’

  He wanted her now, up against some slimy wall under the bridge. If they’d fucked a flame into being only a fuck could put it out. But when he looked at her pale face, her figure lost in the big coat, she’d turned from harlot into a ghostly child. ‘Look at me, Rosie. You went to the Island and told my mother you’d had a baby. My child. Is there a child?’

  ‘Your mam’s the biggest cow I ever met in my life.’

  ‘I wouldn’t disagree with that.’

  ‘She sent me away. Sent me packing.’

  ‘Look. Will you stop? Just for a minute. Look at me. Is there a child? Please Rosie. I’ve got a right to know.’

  Rosie stopped. They were half way over the bridge. She stared down at the Thames, the House of Commons spilling light on the rushing water. ‘No.’

  ‘No? So why did you say there was, you bitch? Why did you have me looking everywhere for you?’

  ‘Will you still be here when I come back?’ She saw Alex’s face again, pressed into the train window. Speaking, forcing out what must be said, felt like clawing at her own insides. ‘There was a child.’ She struggled to continue. ‘He’s gone.’

  The words, the fact, turned Rosie’s stomach. She twisted round and vomited into the river.

  ‘Do you wish to dine, sir?’ The waiter’s thin dark hair was parted in the middle.

  ‘We just want a cup of tea, actually.’

  ‘I’m afraid we have a fixed minimum charge.’

  ‘That’s all right.’

  He showed them to a table in the corner.

  Philip leaned towards Rosie. ‘I’m so sorry. Do you feel any better?’ She put her hand over her mouth and pushed back her chair. Sitting alone as tea and hot water arrived in silver pots, he wondered what she could have meant by ‘gone’. Was the child dead?

  She returned in yet another incarnation; pale, controlled, her hair combed back from her face, her neckline modestly high. When she sat down he realised she’d turned the cardigan back to front. ‘I’m sorry. Your jacket… I’ve cleaned it off as best I can.’

  ‘You smell of coal tar soap,’ he said, remembering.

  ‘All they had,’ she said. ‘Had to scrub my teeth with it, too. Horrible. I need that tea.’ She watched him pour and their eyes met for a moment. ‘You like yours weak, two sugars.’

  ‘Only one now,’ he paused. ‘Rosie?’

  ‘I know.’ She twisted a handkerchief in her hands. ‘You’ve got a right. I said there was a child because he’s gone.’

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘No. Not dead.’ She took a breath, seemed to steady herself. ‘They’ve taken him—’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The nuns, the Catholic Church, what does it matter – they’ve taken him to Australia.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I could laugh, you know. It sounds so ridiculous, My four-year-old son’s on his way to Australia. Ye know what my job is now? A travel advisor. I think I’d advise he’s a little young.’ She blinked, dabbed at her eyes.

  ‘But that’s outrageous. By what right?’ It sounded like something out of the 1800s. Savage, even for then. For stealing a loaf of bread: transportation.

  ‘Their right, their right. I signed the papers so he could be adopted and they’ve taken him.’

  ‘When did this happen?’

  ‘Today. That’s why I was at the station, to try and stop it. But I couldn’t. Then I got drunk. You arrived. Irony, you’d call that. See, I know some things now. I can use the right word when the knife gets twisted.’

  ‘But, Rosie – if he’s only just left we can stop him going, get a message to the boat!’

  ‘No, no. You don’t understand. ‘For a moment in the bar when I realised it was you, I thought that. I thought we can go after him. We can stop it, and then that man pulled me back and I couldn’t help it. I had to hit him.’ She rocked back and forth, hands gripping the sides of the chair, her face clenched.

  ‘Rosie—’

  ‘No. Let me say it. I think someone up there has a good laugh at us down here. In the cell I realised we couldn’t go after him because I signed. I signed the papers so they own him. He’s not mine. They can do what they want with him.’

  ‘But–’

  ‘No. No. I’ve thought about it. I don’t know the name of the boat. I don’t know where it’s going. They’re not going to tell me because nothing says they have to.’ She looked at his doubtful face. ‘I did fight. I tried. You thought fighting the Nazis was bad. You want to try fighting fucking nuns. I fought longer than you did without anything but hope and sweat.’

  She paused to wipe tears away, then went on in a steadier voice, ‘I know I can’t win. Doesn’t matter about rights. It’s who’s got the power. You understand that, don’t you? You must do. No. I’m all right. When anything really good seems possible it’s just a game; fate, or whatever, holding something shiny out for you to follow and all it does is lead you into a darker and darker place. Look – we just had a few hours together when you count it up and yet I thought about you every day for, I don’t know, three years. We had a few hours. And I prayed for years that you’d come back and rescue us. It was plain stupid.’

  ‘Rosie.’ Philip tried to put his hand over hers but she shifted back, opened her handbag, tucked in the handkerchief. ‘In some of my worst moments I’d conjure you up, think about us in the wood, the story of the magic horse. I don’t accept what you say. It’s got to mean something.’

  ‘It’s a joke, that’s all. God passing the time.’ She drained her cup, placed it back on the saucer, rested her right hand on the table. Not quite the same hand he remembered, not a working hand. This hand was smooth, the nails neatly shaped. A little blue stone winked from a ring on her second finger.

  The waiter loitered. ‘I regret, sir, this table is booked for eight o’clock.’

  ‘All right. Just give us a minute.’

  Rosie spoke in a low, firm voice. ‘You’d stopped looking for me, hadn’t you? And I’d stopped waiting for you. I’d accepted Alex w
as going to other people, parents – just not so far away. It’s cruel it’s so far away.’ Tears welled again and she paused for a moment, collecting herself. ‘But we’ve seen each other now. It wasn’t anybody’s fault, what happened.’ She looked steadily at him. ‘If guilt is what you’re feeling, you don’t have to feel guilty.’ She pushed the chair back, stood up and held out her hand. Just like she’d held it out that time in Falmouth.

  Philip took the hand, overwhelmed by a sense of helpless admiration. In a moment, they’d walk away from each other. It didn’t seem possible. He followed her towards the pay kiosk, set down the bill and opened his wallet. Rosie stood apart, on her way out of his life.

  He stared for a moment at the empty leather compartments. ‘Oh God, Rosie. This is terribly embarrassing. I haven’t any money.’

  She looked at him, puzzled. The blue eyes widened, incredulous.

  ‘I’m awfully sorry.’

  She laughed as she counted out some coins. ‘Do ye know, ye’ve never bought me anything. Cannot even buy me a cup of tea.’ The waiter’s stony expression made them laugh some more. ‘His face!’ she said, as they wound down the stairs.

  ‘I did give you a lobster, don’t forget that,’ Philip said, when they reached the pavement. She gave him a sad smile. A few yards distant the intersected circle of the London Underground symbol hovered, like a threat. ‘Don’t go yet. Please don’t go. It’s not raining now. Do you remember, that time I came back, and you wanted to walk? “I want to show ye off”, you said.’

  Rosie allowed herself to be taken across the road towards Big Ben. After a bit, she spoke. ‘Where were you going, from the station?’

  ‘France.’

  ‘To see a woman?’

  He hesitated. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well next time, with any luck, you won’t run into any drunk women from your past.’

  ‘What about you? The ring you wear?’

  ‘My boss gave it to me.’

  She’d slipped away again. He tried to think how to get back to shared ground, but it felt like looking for way up a huge mountain in the dark. The doors of Westminster Abbey came into view. ‘Let’s go in,’ he said. Rosie looked uncertain. ‘Come on. I’ve been in one of yours.’