by Anne Baker
Millie looked after her with the help of the neighbours. She continued to go to work because her small wage was the only income they had. Ryan was very generous, he did their shopping when she was pressed for time, bought little extras for them, and sometimes put in money of his own. He also cleaned out the grate and laid the fire so Millie could concentrate on caring for her mother. She didn’t know what she would have done without Ryan. With his help she was just about able to manage.
She continued to go to the stable with him on Sundays and by way of repayment he asked for favours. She was scared and held back but not for long. ‘Why should I do all this for you when you won’t do anything for me?’ he asked. ‘Anyway, you’ll find it fun.’
Perhaps it was over the following six months, but that all changed the morning Millie woke up feeling that all was not as it should be with her body. She’d been fearful that she might become pregnant but Ryan had said no, he’d take good care that she didn’t.
Today, she was horribly afraid he could be wrong. With sinking heart and full of dread she got up and rushed through her early morning routine. She said nothing to anybody, hoping against hope she was mistaken. At work, she did her best to forget it and immerse herself in her work.
The passing days brought worry and growing certainty, until Millie had to accept she was going to have a baby. It was a calamity. She was sixteen and knew there was no way she could possibly carry on in this way for more than another few months. She knew only one person who could help her but she was unable to screw up her nerve to tell Ryan. He lived for the good times, she was frightened of telling him, frightened he’d not respond in the way she needed. A baby would be a huge complication in his life too.
It was getting colder so she took to wearing her mother’s larger bulky pullovers to hide her changing shape and blessed the fact that she was required to wear a shapeless white coat at work.
One Saturday night Ryan took her to the Odeon to see Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in The Big Sleep. He was keen to see it as he’d enjoyed many of the Philip Marlowe books. A neighbour was sitting with her mother and for Millie it was a rare break. In the semi-dark she held his hand, her eyes were on him more than on the film and she was taking in little of the story.
In the interval, she forced herself to say, ‘Ryan, there’s something I have to . . .’ but he was intent on kissing her. She turned her head away to avoid his lips and felt tears of fear and frustration burn her eyes. Ryan rubbed his cheek against hers and seemed not to notice.
Before going home, Millie knew Ryan would want to take her, as he usually did, to what he called ‘our special place’. She would tell him there, she had to. She walked through the dark back streets with his arm round her; it didn’t comfort her. He unlocked the door, took her by the hand and led her into the warm dark stable smelling strongly of horse. They always took time to pat and stroke Orlando before they threw themselves down on his meagre supply of hay and straw. Ryan was already unbuttoning her coat when she made herself say, ‘There’s something I have to tell you but I’m scared . . .’
He laughed and his lips came down on hers. ‘No need to be scared of anything,’ he whispered, ‘not with me.’
He was unfastening the buttons on her blouse when she got the words out. ‘I think I’m pregnant.’ She heard his intake of breath as he drew away from her. It was too dark to see his face. ‘Ryan?’
‘You can’t be! I mean, I’ve been using French letters. Well, most of the time.’
Terror had her in its grip. ‘I’m afraid I am,’ she choked.
‘When? When will it be born?’
‘I’m not sure.’ It had taken her a long time to accept that she really was pregnant.
‘You haven’t been to the doctor?’
‘No!’ It was an agonised cry, tears stung her eyes again. ‘He knows me, he comes to see Mum, he’d tell her. I can’t pay the bills he sends for her, I can’t add to them.’
‘Oh God!’ he said. ‘Perhaps you’re making a mistake. Perhaps you’re not having a baby at all. Perhaps it’s all in your mind.’
Millie shuddered. This was what she’d feared most. ‘I can feel it move inside me,’ she said quietly. ‘Sometimes it kicks me. There’s no mistake.’
He was sitting up, putting distance between them. ‘What are you going to do?’
Millie was horrified. He hadn’t said, what are we going to do. She could see only one way out of her difficulties and made herself say, ‘Couldn’t we get married?’ She held her breath waiting for his answer while tears ran down her cheeks.
‘I’m still on a learner’s wage,’ he protested. ‘What would we live on?’
Millie began to do up her buttons, there would be no love-making tonight. ‘You could move in with me.’ She desperately wanted his ring on her finger and his assurance that they’d face this together, but she hated begging for it. ‘It wouldn’t cost any more.’
‘You’ve only got two basement rooms,’ he said, ‘and your mother’s there.’
She scrambled to her feet and made herself say, ‘She won’t be with me for much longer. I’d better get back to her.’ Normally, Millie couldn’t bear to think of it but her mother now spoke of death in matter-of-fact tones.
‘I hate the thought of dying and leaving you on your own when you’re so young,’ she’d said, ‘but the McCarthys will look after you.’ Now even that looked unlikely.
They walked home in silence, though Millie held on to his arm as she always had. She knew now that he wouldn’t willingly marry her. She had ignored the disquietening rumours she’d heard at work about Ryan – that he was frequently late for work and not so highly thought of by management as he’d led her to believe. He’d given up going to night school though she had not.
He usually came round on Sundays to see her and chat, but the next day he did not. And he usually called for her in the mornings, but on the following Monday he didn’t, though she saw him at work. They would wait for each other so they could walk home together but that evening there was no sign of him and she eventually gave up and went home alone with a heavy heart. She knew he was avoiding her and that filled her with dread.
On Tuesday she looked for him in the office but his colleagues said they hadn’t seen him since yesterday morning, that he’d disappeared at lunchtime and hadn’t turned up for work today. Millie had to hold on to the door for a moment, the room had begun to eddy around her. She felt sick with fear. Surely Ryan wouldn’t abandon her when he knew she really needed him? She’d never felt more alone and had no idea how she would cope.
When she got home, Ryan’s mother was waiting there for her. She was distraught. ‘Have you seen our Ryan? He went to work yesterday and he hasn’t been home since.’
Millie burst into tears. Mum was grey-faced and anxious and hardly able to pull herself up the bed. This would be another major worry for her. It took Millie a long time to get the facts out but there was no avoiding it now. Mrs McCarthy was furious and said a lot of hurtful things. Millie sat on the bed and her mother wept with her.
When at last they were alone, she said, ‘Millie, you’ve made the same . . . stupid mistake . . . that I made . . . I wanted you to have a better life . . . than I’ve had.’ There was agony on her face and she couldn’t get her breath. ‘But now look at the mess you’re in.’
It had never occurred to Millie that her mother wasn’t married. She called herself Mrs Hathaway and had always worn a wedding ring. Millie’s eyes went to the photograph in the silver frame beside the bed. ‘I believed you when you said my father died in the trenches,’ she choked.
‘He did. He was posted to France . . . That was the trouble.’
Millie mopped at her eyes and blew her nose. ‘At least you knew that if he could, he would have come back to marry you.’ She understood only too well that to have no husband and be with child was th
e worst sin any girl could commit. Society looked down on women who did that.
Ryan had no reason to leave, except that he didn’t love her enough to stay and help her. It was cold, heartless rejection and if he’d slashed her with a knife it couldn’t have been more hurtful. Millie was too upset to cook supper, she felt sick, and neither of them wanted to eat. She went to her bed in the alcove off her mother’s room but hardly slept all night.
When her alarm went the next morning Millie got up as usual and made breakfast for her mum though she felt terrible. Her mother was listless and red-eyed, she hadn’t slept much either.
In the cloakroom, before she reached the perfume department, Millie heard the rumours that were flying round. Ryan had disappeared and his account books had been examined; the sales he said he’d made did not add up. Somebody told her they’d heard he’d signed on as crew on a ship going deep sea. He wouldn’t return to England for two years.
Millie climbed the stairs to the perfume laboratory in a state of despair, put on her white coat and tried to follow her usual morning routine. Within five minutes, she’d dropped and broken one of the glass flasks she was cleaning.
‘What’s the matter, Millie?’ Mr Knowles asked. She didn’t want to tell him. She was too ashamed, it was all too raw and painful and she was afraid she’d be thrown out of her job. She couldn’t risk that. She needed to go on working for as long as she possibly could.
When she didn’t answer he went on in his slow, gentle drawl, ‘You’ve been crying and you don’t look well. In fact you look positively ill.’
She couldn’t explain. She couldn’t even raise her eyes to look at him.
‘Something’s happened to upset you, but not here. All is well here, so it must be at home. How is your mother?’
Some time ago she’d told him Mum was ill, but he didn’t know how much worse she was now. The memory of the anguish she’d caused her mother brought tears coursing down Millie’s cheeks again and she broke down and began to tell him. Once started, it all came flooding out, even the name of her baby’s father.
‘Ryan McCarthy?’ He was shaking his head. ‘Well, that explains one thing that was puzzling us. You’re better off without him, lass, I doubt he’d be much good to you. It seems your Mr McCarthy has been stealing and selling the company’s soap for his own benefit. The books show he’s been altering the figures over the last year.’ He thought for a moment and then said, ‘I’m going to tell Peter Maynard.’
Millie started to protest but he held his hand up. ‘You aren’t well enough to work and he’ll have to know why.’
‘I’m all right,’ she insisted and made to go back to the sink where she’d been working, but suddenly she felt dizzy, the shelves with their many bottles were swirling round her. She would have fallen if he hadn’t caught her and backed her into the chair.
‘When will your baby be born?’
‘I don’t know,’ she had to admit. ‘I haven’t told the doctor, he’d have said something to Mum, you see.’
‘Oh my goodness!’
At that moment Peter Maynard walked in. ‘Is something the matter, Millie?’
She could feel her cheeks burning but Mr Knowles said, ‘Millie’s in a bit of bother,’ and went on to explain while her toes curled up with embarrassment.
‘Why haven’t you been to see a doctor?’ her boss asked. ‘You must know you need to.’
She felt petulant. ‘It costs three shillings and sixpence to see him in his surgery, and he’d have told my mum. I didn’t want her to know.’
‘Oh dear, dear, dear,’ he sighed. Then he said gently, ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to tell her. You can’t go on hiding this for ever.’
‘She knows,’ Millie said. ‘Ryan’s mother came round to see us last night, and it all came out.’
Peter Maynard picked up the phone on Mr Knowles’s desk and asked the operator for Dr Fellows. ‘Right, young lady,’ he told her, ‘you can see the company doctor right away. You know Dr Fellows, he gave you a medical before you started work with us. His surgery is on the corner of the street just down there.’
‘Yes, I know,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’ Millie really needed to know how much longer she had before the baby would be born. She’d have to get things ready.
‘You’re all right to go that far?’ Mr Knowles asked.
‘Yes, I’m fine now.’
‘Come back here afterwards and tell us what he says. When you can’t work we’ll have to find someone else to take your place.’
‘Poor kid,’ she heard him say as she closed the door behind her. So they felt sorry for her. Millie wanted to die with humiliation. Telling them had been awful, but it was a relief that they knew and were offering to help.
The doctor gave Millie a date for the birth that was only eight weeks off and confirmed that her baby was developing normally. He prescribed iron tablets and vitamins and told her she must eat more if the baby was to continue to grow, recommending milk, eggs and cheese. ‘You’ll need to book a hospital bed for the delivery.’ He explained how to go about that but not how she’d be able to pay for it.
She returned to the laboratory feeling reassured in one sense but overawed at the short time that was left before she had to take care of a baby as well.
She told Mr Knowles and was reaching for her white coat to return to work when he said, ‘Go along to the boss’s office, he wants a word. Go on, he told me to send you.’
Millie was swamped with the fear that he’d sack her. If he did she’d be without money for food or medicines for her mum. Since she’d given up work at Bunnies, she knew her mother had worried about having nowhere to turn but the workhouse. Millie had heard fearsome tales about the place from her neighbours, and she knew it would finish Mum if she had to apply. She tapped nervously on the boss’s door, dreading what might be coming.
‘Come in,’ he called and looked up as she did so. ‘Come and sit down, Millie. Did you get a date for when you can expect this baby?’
‘Yes, the doctor says November the tenth.’
He frowned. ‘That’s not long.’
She was suffused with panic. ‘Eight weeks but I feel fine. I can carry on working for another month or six weeks.’ She had to struggle to get her breath.
‘Millie, you can’t. I’ll have to advertise for another school leaver to help Mr Knowles.’
She was going to lose her job! ‘I have to earn . . .’ she was saying but everything was going black, the room was spinning and she was sliding off the chair.
She knew he’d stood up and was coming round his desk towards her. ‘Be careful,’ he called but he seemed a long way away.
She came round to find she was lying flat on the floor and Mr Maynard was standing over her. ‘You fainted,’ he told her. ‘It proves my point, you can’t go on working now. You’re not eating enough, are you? Lie there for a minute until you feel better and I’ll run you home in my car.’
‘I’m all right, really I am.’ She insisted on getting to her feet by herself although he offered her a hand to help her up. ‘I can’t trouble you to drive me home.’
‘It’s no trouble. How d’you get here, by bus?’
‘No, I walk, it isn’t far. I feel much better now, I’ll be fine.’
‘I’d be afraid you’ll faint again and fall under a bus. Come on, let’s go. Where is Wilbraham Street? Is that the Scotland Road area?’
‘Yes.’ Millie had never ridden in a car before and would have enjoyed it if she hadn’t been so worried about the future. He drew up outside the house where she and her mother had rooms and she got out.
A flight of five steps rose to the peeling front door, and the stout figure of Mrs Croft, her landlady, came bustling down to greet her. ‘About your rent,’ she said in ringing tones so half the street could hear.
Millie cr
inged. ‘I’m sorry . . .’
‘Sorry isn’t enough. I’m tired of having to ask for it. You owe five weeks now. You said you’d pay something on account but you’re making no effort. I know your mother’s sick but I have to live too. I’m sorry, but it’s now a question of pay up or get out.’
Millie was struggling not to burst into tears, she couldn’t take any more humiliation. She felt searing indignity that her landlady had said that in front of her boss, and had to hold on to the railings that fenced off the steps to the basement.
She heard him say, ‘How much is owed?’ but couldn’t listen to any more of that. ‘Millie, have you got your rent book?’
He had to ask twice before she took in that he meant to pay off her debt. ‘I can’t let you—’
‘I don’t think you have much choice,’ he said.
He was right, she hadn’t. She crashed down the steps to the basement, pushed her key into the door and called, ‘It’s only me, Mum,’ so she wouldn’t be scared. She rummaged in the sideboard drawer for her rent book and was back up on the pavement with it in moments.
‘It’s twelve shillings a week,’ Mrs Croft demanded, ‘and five weeks is owed.’
Millie was mortified to see Mr Maynard getting out his wallet. He handed over three pound notes and Mrs Croft scribbled in the rent book.
‘I don’t know how to thank you.’ Millie wanted the pavement to swallow her up. She went down to the basement door which she’d left open.
He followed her. ‘I can’t believe you’re battling against all this,’ he said. ‘You’re so full of smiles and bubbling high spirits in the lab. It never occurred to me you were in a situation like this.’
They were in the dark living room, the door to the bedroom was open and her mother was lying on the bed. Millie went to see her as she always did when she came home. ‘Hello, Mum, how are you feeling?’
Her eyes opened, she was sweating and listless, her skin was a greyish yellow, but she tried to smile. ‘A little better, I’ve dozed all day.’