Polly's Angel (50 page)

And she had proceeded to tell Polly things that had made Polly's hair stand up on her head with horror – a father who had in all probability killed his wife, a mother who was too worn down and weary to try to protect her numerous children from a violent husband, and after they had both died, her own struggle for survival. For the first time, Polly heard of Grace sleeping rough in parks and jiggers and other people's sheds. Of being attacked by a rat – Grace took Polly's hand and made her trace the faint marks of the rat's teeth, still there on one otherwise smooth young cheek – and of being constantly hungry, constantly in fear.

At the time, shocked though she had been, Polly had not intended to show it. She had turned a sulky shoulder on her new-found sister and had said: ‘Sure and I'm – I'm not after sayin' that I'd have enjoyed meself in Liverpool the way I did in Dublin, am I? It's the deceit, Grace, that's what I can't take in me stride. Why in God's name didn't they
tell
me I was adopted, instead of letting me believe I was their own little daughter?'

‘You know the reason, Poll; because Brogan stole you, that's why,' Grace had said with a sort of weary patience which, at the time, Polly had thought was an insult in itself. ‘You were only a little kid; you might have said something to anyone, anyone at all, and they couldn't risk that, couldn't risk Brogan being took up for kidnapping. Now could they?'

And in the end, of course, Polly had had to come round, to understand why Deirdre and Peader had said nothing to her, why Grace herself had been kept in ignorance. Indeed, she was forced to admit to herself that ‘Saint Grace' was a better person than she, because Grace absolutely longed to acknowledge her as her little sister, to tell people that she did have a proper relative, after all. But because of the various difficulties of the situation she had to be content with being Polly's pal, which wasn't quite the same thing at all, as Polly, in her more generous moments, acknowledged.

A few weeks after Grace's visit to Holyhead, however, Polly had felt obliged to return to Snowdrop Street and to tell her mammy and daddy that she was sorry for all she had said, that she
did
understand why everyone had behaved as they had, and to promise them that she would never think one whit the worse of them for not telling her earlier that she was adopted.

And then, when Polly had applied for the job of despatch rider attached to the Liverpool HQ of the Navy, Deirdre had had her brainwave. ‘Your daddy and meself have been thinking,' she told Polly as the two of them sat in the kitchen, knitting industriously for various members of the family who were in the Navy and needed warm clothing. ‘What would you say, alanna, if we adopted Grace? Officially, I mean.'

Polly had been so astonished that for several moments she could only stare, and Deirdre, interpreting this as dislike of the idea, hastily said that it was only . . . that it seemed a sort of solution . . . that poor Grace had had a rotten deal one way and another . . .

‘But she's a woman grown,' Polly had said at last, on a gasp. ‘Can you do such a t'ing, Mammy? Adopt a woman grown?'

‘You can; and then she can change her name by deed poll to O'Brady and the two of you will be sisters,' Deirdre said. ‘Or wouldn't you like that, alanna?'

For a moment Polly had very meanly thought that indeed she would not like it. She was the only girl in the O'Brady family, the boys wouldn't want another sister thrust upon them and Polly was not too sure, in her heart of hearts, whether she truly wanted ‘Saint Grace' to share her name, her brothers, her whole family. But then the more generous side of her nature came to the fore and she said: ‘Well, if that's what Grace would like, it would suit me just fine, so it would. It's rare kind of you and Daddy, Mammy, when you've so many kids already.'

But as it turned out Grace, though grateful for the suggestion, had turned it down with unexpected firmness. ‘It's awful kind of Auntie Dee and Uncle Peader,' she had said almost apologetically. ‘But I really think it would only complicate matters. Besides, Poll, you're going to be changing your name from O'Brady pretty soon – as soon as the war ends, in fact. Then we can be sisters without people wondering.'

‘I'm not going to change me name—' Polly had begun, quite offended, before light suddenly dawned and she giggled. ‘Oh! You mean
marriage,
I suppose. But you'll be changing your name as well, Grace – sooner than me, probably.'

‘I might,' Grace had agreed cautiously. ‘But I don't have fellers hanging on me every move like you do, Poll. Besides, isn't Sunny . . .'

‘Oh yes, I reckon I'll marry him one day,' Polly had said offhandedly. ‘But I dunno when – it might not be for years yet.'

But that had been some while ago, and right now, sitting astride her bike and looking down on the city as the light of the setting sun slowly deepened from gold to rose, from rose to crimson, she reminded herself that the way she was going on, she should be glad to marry Sunny just as soon as peace was declared, since she seemed to have cast off all her other boyfriends – and mostly, with no tears shed, on her side at any rate.

As for Tad . . . well, she was still cross with him, even after almost two years' absence. For as soon as he had ‘phoned her at her wrennery, telling her that he was going abroad to train as a pilot, she had regretted her cruel words. Not that there was anything cruel in telling someone she thought of him as a brother, exactly – she had a high opinion of all her brothers, hadn't she? – but she had known she was hurting Tad even as the words passed her lips. And it wasn't true, not really, it was just that she had known him for so long that it was difficult to take him seriously as – well, as a boyfriend. So of course she hadn't tried, not really. And though he was her pal, and a better feller never breathed, he wasn't anywhere near as handsome as Sunny. Well, he wasn't handsome at all, he was downright plain was Tad. It was just that he was familiar, and very much her friend.

Which was why, she reminded herself now, that she was so bleedin' cross with him. Called himself a pal and yet had he answered her letters, which she had sent at least once a week for the first half year of his time abroad? No, he hadn't. Oh, he'd sent a couple of those miserable standard letters which meant that he had ticked boxes – I am well, the weather is fine, we have been swimming – and a couple of scruffy notes too, but they hadn't been letters. In fact, they had been downright unfriendly, as though he were telling her that if she wasn't prepared to swoon before him then he meant to forget her and the sooner the better.

This, Polly reflected now, sucking on her sweet, had been totally unacceptable. She wanted her friend Tad as a pal, not a lover. She had Sunny to take her about and impress her friends with his good looks. She wanted Tad for . . . well, for the sturdy independence and friendship which he had always shown her. The plain truth was that she missed him, infuriating though he was, but Tad's behaviour had proved that this was futile – it was all or nothing for him. So she had gradually stopped writing to him, had allowed her letters to get briefer – and colder – and had tried not to mind when still he did not bother to reply to them. And then, out of the blue, she had discovered the worst thing of all; ten months ago – ten
months
– he had returned to Britain, to fly some plane or other – she did not know whether he was still with his beloved Beaufighters – from an airfield in Lincolnshire and despite being back in Blighty he had not once so much as dropped her a line or telephoned her or – or anything. If she had not happened to meet up with an old friend of his who had told her that he was back in England, she would not even have known that much.

She had considered getting in touch, naturally, but had finally decided against it mostly because she felt that he should have been the one to get in touch with her. After all, she had written and written and he had not replied. If he was so indifferent to her then she would take the hint and leave him alone.

Nevertheless it was on her mind, and a bit like an aching tooth; she could not stop thinking about it, examining her conscience, wondering whether, since it was she who had told Tad so unequivocally that she did not intend to take him seriously as a boyfriend, it should also be she who should break the barrier of silence and contact him. But she had done so, had she not? The first three letters she had sent had been mainly apologies for her behaviour, she remembered that clearly enough. And though she had not rescinded her words – how could she, without telling downright lies, since she did not have the slightest interest in Tad as a proper boyfriend? – she had definitely said she was sorry if she had been unkind. Further than that, she told herself severely now, no girl should be expected to go. And if Tad was not interested in her then she was not interested in him either. Though she did miss him most awfully, and sometimes wished . . . wished . . .

She had mentioned the rift to Grace a month or two back and Grace had reminded her that Tad would not know that she was now working as a despatch rider in Liverpool and living at home once more in Snowdrop Street. ‘How can he contact you when he's only got the Holyhead address?' she had asked in her sensible, practical way. But though Polly's heart had given a little leap at the thought that maybe Tad had been bombarding Holyhead with letters for months and months, common sense made her reluctantly discard the lovely thought. The Navy were very good at seeing you got your post – why, she had once sent Sunny a seven-page epic in a box of Mammy's homemade fudge with some ginger snaps which she had laboriously made herself, and Sunny had got both eventually, though by then the fudge had mould all over it and the biscuits were so hard that no human teeth could break them. He had described how he had battered them into fragments with a sledge hammer and then sucked the bits – she had laughed like anything over that, she remembered.

So no hope that Tad had not been able to discover her new address. If he had wanted to reach her he could have done so. The plain old truth was that he was now as indifferent to her as she was to him, and she should forget him, push him to the very back of her mind. All that was now due to him was an invitation to her wedding, when she and Sunny got spliced, she told herself vengefully. And he wouldn't come to the wedding anyway, she knew that, since he hadn't even bothered to answer her letters.

Still. Sitting there in the late sunshine, Polly told herself that however she might feel about Tad, her feelings about Sunny were at least, very definite. I'm crazy about him, she told herself now. He's the best looking, nicest, cleverest feller I've ever met, and I'm madly in love with him. Why, when he touches my hand my bones turn to jelly and my heart thumps like a drum, and when he kisses me . . . !

But this would not get the baby a new bonnet, Polly told herself, yet still she lingered. Somehow, up here on the hill with the city spread out before her, she seemed to be able to think more clearly. Being billeted at home, she acknowledged to herself, was a mistake. She missed the companionship of the other girls, the feeling that they were all in the same boat, the easygoing sharing which went on so that when kit inspections were called, each girl would help the others over some missing bit of equipment. Stockings would be passed from bed to bed, small items such as a hat or a decent pair of shoe-laces would be shot along the row of beds when the officer wasn't looking . . . All of that was impossible, of course, when you lived at home. If you lost equipment you applied for a replacement which was supplied and they could stop the cost of it from your pay if they thought you had been careless. But somehow, the fun had gone out of it. And though Mammy's meals were a good deal tastier than the food frequently served up in either the canteen or the WRNnery itself, it wasn't quite the same. Sitting down with your parents round the kitchen table at the end of an exciting day was an anticlimax for it was impossible to say much because a good deal of what she did was confidential.

But of course her rotten behaviour over her being adopted had meant that she had little choice. She could not very well live in billets in the city when she had treated her dear Mammy and Daddy so shamefully, she had felt obliged to go home to live.

However. Polly took a deep breath and expelled it in a long sigh. She should be getting back to the transport section just as soon as she could so that her bike might be put right in time for work in the morning.

Deirdre was darning a pair of Ivan's socks which were more darn, she thought ruefully, than sock and keeping half an eye on the bake oven, where a peculiar dish of her own invention was slowly cooking on a low heat. It was a vegetable pie, made more interesting by the addition of finely minced bacon rinds with the pastry the richer for some beef dripping which the butcher on Stanley Road had slipped into her basket the last time she had been in his shop. Deirdre knew that the beef dripping was a thank you for a couple of large onions which Mr Hartley had been delighted to receive the week previously. Peader's allotment provided the family with many small treats. So now she waited for the moment when she could produce the pie from the oven, cooked to a lovely golden brown, and receive the congratulations of her family and also of Monica, who was coming to tea this evening.

Monica, Deirdre thought, finishing off a black sock with navy blue wool and telling herself that she was lucky to have found any darning wool at all, despite their initial doubts, had turned out to be a good little daughter-in-law; one of the best.

When Martin's ship had gone down she had gone into a factory which made uniforms and when this no longer satisfied her, had joined the WRNs as a writer, which was what they called the office staff. Peader and Deirdre had wanted her to live with them in the house in Snowdrop Street where there was plenty of room and where she would have been very welcome, particularly to Polly, but Monica said she would rather go the whole hog and live with her fellow WRNs. So she had moved into the wrennery at which had once been the Royal Hotel on the Marine Terrace at Waterloo, and was a good deal happier there, Deirdre thought, than she would have been sharing a house with them and reminded of Martin at every turn.