by Anne Bennett
Eileen noticed how pale and tense Angela looked. Best to keep her talking, thought Eileen, keep her distracted from the worry.
‘This must have come as such a shock,’ said Eileen.
‘I just thought Connie was at the library, as usual,’ Angela said.
‘She didn’t tell you she’d changed her plans, then?’ Eileen asked.
‘No, not a dicky bird.’
‘Mothers are often the last to know,’ Eileen said. ‘According to Chrissie, she also has a young man. Daniel, I believe he’s called. Was he also hurt?’
Angela was surprised at that news. From what Stan had said, they had gone out a few times. In her mind there was a difference between Connie going out a few times with a boy she knew quite well, and having a steady boyfriend, when she wasn’t yet sixteen years old.
Eileen saw the shocked surprise on her face, and she asked, ‘Do you know him?’
‘Oh yes, I know him,’ Angela said. ‘I just didn’t know Connie was seeing him, that way. I mean, I thought her a little young for that sort of thing.’
‘I think the war made girls grow up quicker, doing things they’d never done before in factories all over the country.’
‘But that surely wouldn’t affect Connie. She wasn’t born till 1916.’
‘I know, but what the women did, were often forced to do, changed Britain’s perspective on women forever,’ Eileen said. ‘They have more freedom now.’
Angela was slightly aggrieved that Eileen seemed to know more about her daughter than she did. She knew she was being totally unreasonable to feel that way. Eileen seemed to know so much about Chrissie, that she even showed an interest in the girl’s friends. She also clearly shared her passion for the library, and Angela felt a pang of guilt at the times she had barely listened to her daughter talking about her work, seldom asking her any questions. To Connie she must have seemed totally disinterested in her life. No wonder Connie didn’t confide in her about meeting Daniel or her involvement in clearing out the bomb-damaged buildings.
Eileen had watched the slight resentment slide across Angela’s face just for a second or two, before Angela managed to brush it to one side.
Angela decided to find out more about the relationship between Connie and Daniel, and she asked, ‘Where did they meet up, this young man and my daughter?’
‘Well, that’s just it,’ Eileen said. ‘He used to meet her at the library, and the librarians felt a bit responsible, and so they made some discreet enquiries and found he lives locally with his father, who seems eminently respectable.’
‘Yes, he is,’ Angela said, and went on: ‘Daniel’s mother died when he was born, and his father and I have known each other for years. He served in the army with my husband – in fact, my husband died trying to save him.’
‘Oh, my dear! What a history your two families have between you.’
There was a slight pause and then Angela asked, ‘Did the nurses really think it might help Connie to have the child in here?’
Eileen nodded. ‘They did, and they asked the doctor, and he was all for it as well.’
So, although Angela didn’t want the child in, she hadn’t any right to veto something that might help Connie, so she said, ‘Please fetch her, Mrs …’
‘Eileen, that’s what I’m called,’ said the priest’s sister, getting to her feet.
‘I think you might need some time alone with your daughter,’ Eileen said. ‘How about you have an hour or so with her on your own, and then perhaps Chrissie can pop her head in to say hello?’
Angela realised that these two girls, who had met because both of them loved the library, were sisters, though neither knew that. Chrissie obviously cared for Connie, and as her sister had almost a right to be there.
A little bit later Eileen came to Angela at Connie’s bedside to ask if Connie’s little friend might come in to say a quick hello now. Desperately not wanting to let her, Angela bit back her refusal, remembering the nurse’s previous recommendation that close family and friends talk to Connie to try and pull her out of the coma.
When Eileen brought Chrissie in, Angela forced herself to look her full in the face for the first time. Her brown eyes looked large in her pale face and so sad, they were like pools of sorrow, and she realised this child she had abandoned was anxious about Connie too.
But now that they were in a room together, Angela didn’t know what to say to the child sitting on a chair beside Connie’s bed, watching her intently. The child herself was utterly still and silent. Father John could have told Angela that the day he had fetched her from the workhouse, he had been struck by the way she could sit so still and for so long. Chrissie had later told him that it was her survival technique in the workhouse. ‘If you sit still and quiet for long enough, people more or less forget you’re there,’ she’d told him. ‘It’s the next best thing to becoming invisible.’ Now she was doing it again because she had promised not to bother the Connie’s mum. She thought if she did, or if Angela even noticed her in any way, she might send her away …
Angela, though, was well aware of the silent child in the chair and felt the deep silence between them was becoming awkward, so she steeled herself to speak to Chrissie. ‘I didn’t know you were so friendly with Connie.’
‘I’m too in awe of her to be really friendly with her,’ Chrissie admitted.
‘In awe of Connie?’ Angela repeated with a smile. ‘I’m sure there is no need for you thinking that way.’
‘Maybe not,’ Chrissie agreed. ‘She is always kind, but she’s older than me, and so pretty. It was her hair that attracted me first. I had never seen hair like it. She said she took after you and she does, you have both got the loveliest hair.’ And then Chrissie went on wistfully, ‘I wish I knew what my mother looked like. I suppose I could look a little like her, couldn’t I?’
Angela felt as if her heart was breaking in two at the anguished longing in Chrissie’s voice. She spoke slowly and hoped Chrissie wouldn’t guess how close she was to tears as she said, ‘Possibly Chrissie, though it’s not always like that. Some daughters don’t look like their mothers at all.’
Chrissie knew Angela was right because she had seen it herself in her friends’ parents, but when Angela said, ‘Would that upset you, if you found that you didn’t look that much like your mother?’ she shook her head vehemently.
‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘I would just like to know what my mother looks like, for my own sake.’
‘And you really would like to know what she looks like?’
Chrissie nodded, ‘Oh yes. More than anything in the world.’
Angela could hold the tears back no longer and they trickled down her cheeks, yet she wiped them away with her hands impatiently.
She was unaware Stan was approaching the side room at the bottom of the long ward. He’d come from visiting Daniel to check up on both Connie and Angela. He had had a word with the nurse on duty, who had told him that there was no change, but that the young girl’s mother was talking to her a lot, which was good. As he got closer to the side ward, he could hear the murmur of voices because the door had been left slightly ajar, but he couldn’t distinguish any words because they were speaking so quietly.
In fact, Chrissie’s voice had dropped to little above a whisper, and she began to unbutton her coat as she said, ‘And anyway, whatever my mother looks like, she left me something special. Father John said she told him in Confession that the gift she left with me was the most precious thing she owned, and that she gave it to me to show me that somewhere out there was a mother who loved me but couldn’t look after me. Apparently, she put it in my hand when she left me on the steps of the workhouse, and when they found me, I still had it in my fist.’ Chrissie suddenly lifted her jumper, and round her neck was the original silver locket Angela thought she would never see again.
She gave a cry of dismay and saw Chrissie’s eyes open wide with alarm, and all of a sudden, she knew she had to tell Chrissie the truth. There was no one left to
hurt now but Stan, and he was lost to her anyway. Was she ready to open up her deepest, darkest secret to the one person she had hurt most of all? Angela wondered if this was God sending her a sign that this was the time to make things right, to set things on the right course.
She first glanced over to Connie’s bed and saw that she was comatose and totally unresponsive, and gave a surreptitious sigh of relief as she turned to look into Chrissie’s deep, dark-brown eyes. She saw those eyes darken in slight bewilderment as, dropping her voice to a whisper to match Chrissie’s, she said, ‘I am going to tell you something very important. Not many people know it.’
‘Is it a secret?’
Angela gave a sigh. ‘It has had to be for many years, but now it is time to tell you the truth, because it concerns you.’
Daring rejection, she put a tentative arm around Chrissie’s shoulders as she continued: ‘Father John was right when he said your mother gave you that locket, which was the most precious thing she had ever owned, and I know that because …’
The lump in Angela’s throat threatened to choke her and she swallowed, knowing that if she didn’t go on now, she might lose her nerve altogether. She really didn’t know if telling the child there in that hospital room was a sensible thing to do. It was certainly something she had never envisaged having the opportunity to do; but then, she had never expected to ever see the child again. She certainly never thought for one moment that she’d come face to face with her in this way. Had she any right to deny Chrissie the knowledge of who her mother was? Angela reasoned that if she didn’t confess to Chrissie, she would be keeping her secret for her own sake, not for the sake of this innocent young child.
Taking a deep breath, Angela spoke at last, her voice choked and haunted: ‘I know it was your mother’s most precious thing because … because the locket used to belong to me. I am the one who left you on the workhouse steps.’
Chrissie sprang from Angela’s tenuous hold and stood up facing her. She had never thought she would discover who her mother really was, never allowed herself to imagine how she would feel or react. But now, hearing it from Angela’s own lips, the girl felt complete shock, mixed with white-hot fury. In a flash she remembered her harsh, loveless life before Father John rescued her. She remembered feeling so lonely at Christmas, when some children had had visitors, and some even went off to spend Christmas with their extended families, but no one came to visit Chrissie. The first birthday she ever commemorated was her eleventh, celebrated in Father John’s house, where Eileen made it special. The life she’d had to endure until Father John took her into his home was due to this woman in front of her.
‘Father John said the woman who gave me the locket was my mother, so that was you?’ she asked incredulously. ‘And after dumping me on the steps of the workhouse, you gave me the locket to make you feel better, not because you loved me at all. I expect that’s what you told Father John so he wouldn’t see what you’re really like, because you are bad through and through. Well, I am telling you now, a silver locket, however pretty, or even valuable, is no substitute for a family, a mother of my own.’
Angela was crying in earnest now. ‘No, Chrissie – it wasn’t like that!’ she spluttered.
‘Yes, it was exactly like that!’ Chrissie snapped, and she had the desire to leap on this horrible woman, this excuse for a mother, and score her nails down her face.
Hearing the commotion, Eileen came running to Connie’s bedside. When Chrissie told her the news, she too was shocked, for she hadn’t any idea that Connie’s mother was also the mother of Chrissie, whom she’d abandoned on the workhouse steps. But if this was an overwhelming surprise to her, Eileen could only guess at the distress it must be causing her beloved Chrissie, who she thought of as her own daughter and loved beyond anything. She put a gentle but restraining hand on each of Chrissie’s shoulders, squeezing them kindly as a gesture of support.
Eileen turned Chrissie towards her and enfolded her in her arms. Chrissie said to Angela, ‘I cried often too, but I had to stop in the end, because I was beaten if I continued to get upset. So I learnt to stop crying, but the hurt never went away. Did you have the least idea of what you were condemning me to?’ Chrissie too was sobbing now. ‘I hate you! All my miserable life I’ve hated you, and I probably always will.’
Stan had clearly heard Chrissie’s anguished outburst, and he had been totally stunned by what she was saying. In fact, he had been so stunned that he had staggered, and nurses came running, thinking he was going to collapse. He assured them he was all right, but he wasn’t. He wanted to burst into the room and demand an explanation, though he had no right to do that. Stan desperately needed to hear Angela’s response, and so he moved as close to the door as possible and listened intently.
There was someone else in the room as shocked as Stan had been, who was also listening intently, and that was Connie. The soft voices of Angela and Chrissie had not disturbed the fog surrounding her brain, but Chrissie’s angry, hurt-filled cry had punched a small hole in it. Everything was still vague and she felt very disoriented and had no desire to open her eyes in any case, so she lay there, able to half-listen to someone saying awful things about her mother that couldn’t possibly be true.
Then, piercing the fog, her mother’s voice came through clearly, and she heard Angela say in a voice husky with unshed tears: ‘Yes, Chrissie, I am your mother, and I’m sorry to the heart for what I had to do that dreadful, awful day. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to take away the pain I have caused you, but I would like to tell you why I was forced to do what I did.’
‘Give me one good reason why I should listen to you!’ Chrissie demanded angrily. ‘You abandoned me, and left me to the workhouse. It’s all cut and dried as far as I’m concerned, and I am certainly not prepared to listen to a list of excuses. I can’t believe I’ve spent so many years wondering about you. I have seen what you look like now and the type of person you are, and I don’t really want anything more to do with you.’
Angela gave a cry of anguish and pain, for Chrissie’s hate-filled words pierced her very soul. They reflected everything she’d ever thought about herself since the day she’d had to make that heart-breaking choice. She bitterly regretted telling Chrissie everything. She wished she could unsay the words that had hurt the child so much. What had she been thinking, just blurting them out? Chrissie was still so young; there was no way she was emotionally ready for the whole truth just then.
Risking further rejection, for Angela couldn’t just leave it there, she tried again. ‘Every word you said is true, Chrissie,’ she said. ‘I did leave you on the workhouse steps, and I fully understand your anger and resentment, for there isn’t a day goes by when I am not ashamed of what I had to do. But I beg you again, will you let me try to explain why I had to do it?’
Chrissie was going to refuse again but realised she really did want to know why she had done it. At the workhouse they had told her that her mother had dumped her on the steps because she didn’t want her, and no one else would want her either, because she was unlovable. When Chrissie told Eileen what they had said, she said they were talking rubbish, but Chrissie knew Eileen was a very special, very kind person. Chrissie wanted to hear what her natural mother had to say about it.
The nod Chrissie gave was almost imperceptible, but it was still a nod, and it gave Angela the courage to swallow the huge lump in her throat and brush the tears from her face. She wondered if she had always known that she would eventually come face to face with the child she had so obviously damaged. Chrissie had been saved by the intervention of Father John and his sister, but that in no way minimised what she had done to a helpless baby. It was right that she should shoulder the blame, but she was grateful to be given the opportunity to tell her daughter how it had happened. ‘To explain it to you,’ she said to Chrissie, ‘I have to go back to the days of the Great War, after my husband Barry enlisted.’
‘Connie told me that her father had died,’ said Chrissie.
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Angela nodded her head. ‘He did,’ she said. ‘In the Great War, like a great many more. And so, I had to get a job. We were fortunate that we had Barry’s mother living with us at the time, as she could look after Connie while I worked.’ Angela wished for a moment that Chrissie had got to know Mary, who was a lovely and generous grandmother to Connie. ‘War work was the best paid,’ Angela continued, ‘so I made shells. The hours were long and we were never allowed a day off, because the shells were so badly needed. There was a constant worry that there would be a shell shortage, which would be catastrophic for our loved ones fighting in France. It wasn’t all bad, though. The thing I enjoyed most about that time was when they taught me to drive.’
‘Drive?’ Chrissie repeated in awe. ‘You can drive a car?’
Angela shrugged. ‘Don’t know about a car, never tried driving one of those, but I can drive trucks well enough. I used to drive all over the city in trucks usually packed to the gunnels with shells.’
‘Golly.’
Angela suddenly caught hold of Chrissie’s hands, and Chrissie would have pulled away, but she was mesmerised by the story Angela was unfolding and felt sure it was a clue to why she had been abandoned all those years ago. ‘I loved driving,’ Angela continued. ‘But sometimes now I think if I hadn’t ever learnt to drive, none of this might ever have happened.’
‘What do you mean?’ Chrissie demanded angrily, tugging her hands away. ‘You are seriously asking me to believe that if you hadn’t learnt to drive, then you wouldn’t have left me on the workhouse steps? Sorry, but I don’t see any connection.’
‘Let me tell you how it was, please?’ Angela said, and then, without waiting for her response, went on to tell her about the day she had to drive a consignment of shells to the docks in the largest truck the factory owned, for there was no one else that could do it. ‘It took a long time,’ Angela said, ‘so when I got back it was dark.’