Spilt Milk (16 page)

Vivian didn’t like the heat. Sometimes, at moments like this, when she had just had to deal with the second infestation of ants in the kitchen in a week, she thought she’d like to move to one of those Nordic countries where it snowed a lot. It was the first week in August and the heat was unbearable. She took a handkerchief and wiped a small trickle of perspiration from her brow. She adjusted her hairnet and put on her new straw hat bought for the occasion. She pulled on her gloves and explained to Matilda once again how she must put down salt around the doorway to stop the ants.

She stepped outside and, yes, there was the taxi coming up the cobbled road.

On the back seat, Vivian took off her hat and cradled it in her hands. It was a hat for a much younger woman. White Italian straw with red silk fuchsias around the brim. The more she thought about it, the more convinced she was that the shop assistant had made a fool of her. Would Mrs Williams think badly of her if she turned up hatless? It had been expensive too. She would give it to Matilda, she decided. And yet the hat was rather modern for Matilda. Perhaps Birdie might like it.

Mrs Williams was going to adopt Birdie’s baby. Vivian had sent Nellie a telegram to say Bernard Harding had found a couple to adopt the child when it was born. Right now, Birdie would be getting a train. Everything had been arranged as quickly as possible. In just two weeks, she reflected, so much had been achieved. Her back ached and her ankles were swollen by the heat, but she sat up straight, ignoring the desire to kick off her shoes and stretch her toes, content to endure her suffering, bolstered by the certainty of her mission.

Mrs Williams lived in a big house which sat in a slight valley. As the taxi rounded the higher country lanes, dipping down to a long gravel driveway, Vivian sat back in her seat and admired the property. It was a splendid-looking house. The lawns were mown and wide. There was a red-brick walled garden with honeysuckle and Russian vine scrambling over it. Inside the walled garden there would be espaliered fruit trees and lines of soft fruit. Raspberry canes and gooseberries. A beloved child could pick all that it wanted, choosing only the best, the softest.

Mrs Williams was a plain-looking woman. Vivian judged her to be in her late twenties. She wore a green day dress made of a soft cotton. Her brown hair was tied back loosely in a velvet bow. Vivian followed her into the hallway, the sound of their heels clicking on the polished floor. The parquet shone, though the woman immediately apologized for the scratches on it. The house had been rather badly damaged during the Great War, she explained. It had been requisitioned as a hospital. If you cared to look, there were men’s names scratched into the wooden panels and etched on windows. People always wanted to leave a trace of themselves everywhere they went, she supposed.

A wide sweeping staircase led the eye upwards, and Vivian knew she was being allowed a moment to take in the size of the entrance hall; that Mrs Williams, when she apologized for the state of her home, was also drawing Vivian’s attention to the grandeur of it all.

‘Come on through to the drawing room, Mrs Stewart. Would you like tea? I’m afraid it’s just us today. My husband is at work and Mrs … well, the woman who comes in from the village is not here today. Go on through and I’ll be with you in a moment.’

The living room was a delight, a cool, elegant room with a white marble fireplace and a large gold-framed mirror hanging over it. Two sofas faced each other across the room, upholstered in a floral glazed cotton. A vase of flowers glowed in the hazy
light, a generous display of blue and pink delphiniums and lupins. Some letters were under the white china vase. Vivian glanced at them. On a slip of blue-lined paper, poking out from an opened envelope, she read the name ‘Dorothy’.

Mrs Williams brought a tray of tea in and lit a cigarette.

‘So now,’ she said, and gave a little shrug of her shoulders. ‘When do you think … that is, the baby, when do you think we might …’

Vivian cleared her throat.

‘We estimate February or late January, though one can never be sure of these things. I cannot say exactly. Before then, I suggest you stay indoors as much as possible. Make sure you tell your friends that you are resting because the doctor insists on it. Perhaps you could go away for a while? Somewhere where nobody knows you?’

‘I will do that. You’re so very kind. And I must tell you I am not
Mrs
Williams. That is my maiden name. My husband thought I shouldn’t give you my married name.’

‘Well, it doesn’t matter,’ said Vivian. ‘All this is confidential, after all. What matters is that you have my name. Mrs Vivian Stewart, as I said earlier. Here …’ She produced a white card. ‘This is my address should you ever need to find me.’

‘Mrs Stewart, thank you. I’m so glad this is all going to be handled with discretion. Can I ask about the birth certificate? My husband wants to know what will happen with that. Nobody must ever know the child is adopted, you see. My husband will not take the child unless that is the case. He’s worried about the parents. They might be, I’m sorry to be so blunt, but they might be worthless sorts. You do hear of people being blackmailed over this kind of thing. At least my husband tells me he does. As a lawyer he tends to see the grim side of life.’

‘A lot of new parents are worried about this kind of thing, my dear,’ said Vivian. ‘Dr Harding will look after all the details. He will make sure the birth mother does not feature on any adoption
papers. The mother will sign a paper for the court, but she won’t see your name on the paper. The court keeps an original copy of the birth certificate, and you get one which names you both as the parents. After that the baby is yours.’

‘Just like that?’

Vivian nodded.

‘More or less.’

‘It’s sudden, you see. My husband and I, we’ve been trying for so long and now it’s really happening I wish I could meet her, the mother. I wish I could tell her how grateful I am.’

Vivian was exhausted by the hope this woman poured upon her. She reached for her cup of tea and took a sip. Her hand shook and she could feel a headache coming on. ‘I happen to know the mother is a most lovely young woman,’ she said. ‘I’m sure she’s grateful to you too.’

On the way home, Vivian thought of the large framed oil paintings hanging on the walls. Men in uniform, and women standing with children or sleek dogs at their feet. Mrs Williams had said she hated the paintings. That they were too serious. She wanted to hang something more colourful on the walls – landscapes, or perhaps some modern abstract paintings. But she had inherited the portraits with the house and she didn’t feel she had the right to take them down.

The portraits stayed with Vivian. The richness of the colours. The way the people had posed, straight-backed. Full of ownership and entitlement. She could not stop thinking of a relative of hers joining them. She thought of her own baby. The memory of her was always there, close to the surface. Josephine would have been twenty-five years old now. She’d have likely been married with children of her own. But what kind of life would she have had as the daughter of an unmarried woman? Vivian hoped Birdie, when the time came, would understand what a wonderful chance in life she was giving her baby. It would be different for Birdie. She would know her baby was loved and cared for. Vivian
would have given her own darling baby up for adoption without a second thought if somebody could have offered her that.

Track-side advertisement hoardings lined the route out of London. Gibbs Dentifrice, Bournville Cocoa, Bovril, and Greys cigarettes. The names huge and beckoning in bright colours. There were suburban back gardens, rows of identical brick houses and then fields and farms and woodland and silvery stretches of water and villages.

Birdie pressed her face against the window. She could not remember having been out of London before, and she wished she could get off the train and go straight back home. She’d not even had time to speak to Joan before she left. Heat hazed over cornfields and meadows. Men working in the fields stopped to stare at the train passing. The jolt of the rails rocked her back and forth, back and forth. She felt nauseous and unhappy. She had not wanted to be packed off to an aunt. She wanted only to undo this whole mess. To go back to her own life, before all this. She was ashamed and guilty. Sent away from home, she might as well be dead.

When the train pulled in and she got down onto the platform, Birdie decided not to take the bus as her aunt had suggested. She would walk. She crossed a bridge and stopped to watch ducks swimming in the narrow river below. At home they would be getting the pub ready for opening time. Nellie would be cleaning glasses with a cloth in the silent, careful way she went about all her tasks. Birdie wished she was back there, wiping down the tables, chatting to Uncle George.

She walked up a hill towards a church, a tall building made of stone and flint with a spire that rose above the rooftops. It was a hot day, but there was a breeze and nothing of the stiff heat of London. The trees that lined the road were fresh and green. Church bells rang out. There were cars and motor buses, plenty of horse-drawn carts. As she walked, she calculated the months
she would be staying. She’d be able to go back to London sometime in the spring. It was this thought that carried her on, towards the guest house and whatever it was that the future held there for her.

The Unicorn Guest House was down a narrow street away from the town centre. It was in the old part of the town, where the buildings were tall and striped with black painted timbers and white plaster pargeting. Some were three storeys high, and crooked-looking. All the houses seemed to lean out into the street, bent and rickety, like puff-chested old men. The front door stood slightly ajar. A glossy black door with a polished brass knocker. A sign next to it stated the guest house had comfortable rooms at moderate terms with modern electric light and garage parking. Under it, a large black cat sat sunning itself. Birdie bent down and stroked it, and it purred and rolled its body around her legs. It trotted up the steps, pushed the front door open and went inside. Birdie followed it into a hallway. The red patterned carpet under her feet was faded. Why did the place feel so familiar? She had surely never been here before.

There was a small reception desk in the alcove under the stairs. A green-fronded fern in a glazed green pot sat on the desk, along with a small brass bell. A carved wooden cuckoo clock on the wall loudly tick-tocked.

A young woman sat dozing in a chair. She had a black dress on with a white cotton apron over it, and her grey stockings were wrinkled around her ankles. Her blonde hair was parted on the side and scraped back into a bun. Birdie cleared her throat to attract her attention.

‘Hello? I’m Mrs Stewart’s niece.’

The woman yawned and rubbed her face, getting to her feet.

‘So you’re Birdie? Matilda Dunn. Nice to meet you. I’m cook and waitress here. My grandmother did the job before me. My dad, Stan, used to be the handyman here before he upped and left
us. You could say we Dunns come with the property. Come on, I’ll take you through.’

Birdie followed her along a corridor and down a small set of stairs. She opened the door on to a room cluttered with figurines. Shepherdesses and blue-coated boys and white china swans filled the mantelpiece. A large gramophone cabinet stood against a wall with its doors open, revealing a stack of shiny black records. And there was Aunt Vivian. She was slim and wore a grey linen dress, pleated at the front and belted in at the waist.

‘Come in and sit down, dear,’ said her aunt. ‘Matilda, why don’t you make tea and bring it in here.’

Vivian studied the girl as she sat drinking tea. She needed feeding up a bit. She was thin-cheeked, her pale grey eyes luminous and sad. She had a full mouth, carefully painted red. Far too much make-up. She looked a bit like a shop girl. Her complexion was dull. The inside of her dress collar was grubby.

City life, Vivian supposed. Never mind, there would be plenty of time to show her how to get her clothes properly clean and help her freshen her complexion and wear less make-up. She was a pretty girl with the Marsh family eyes.

‘I hope you’ll enjoy staying with me,’ she said, and thought how inadequate that sounded.

Birdie’s room was simple but homely-looking. The single brass bed was made up with clean white sheets. Beige wool blankets with pink satin bindings had been turned down ready for her. A churchy kind of tinted sunlight poured in through the coloured glass in the fanlights of the window. There was a wooden chair with a rush matting seat. A small chest of drawers and a print on the wall. A picture of a snowy mountain range, a vivid blue sky above its craggy summits. Sheep grazing in its valleys.

Birdie sat on the bed and swung her legs, the motion of the train still running through her. She lit a cigarette and kicked off
her shoes. A fly buzzed in the room. Outside, the sound of birdsong came and went. This place was only hours from London, but it felt as distant as the moon.

George said he wanted to do it properly. He got down on one knee in the backyard, but something in his knee bone went off like a bullet crack. He winced loudly.

‘You don’t have to,’ Nellie began to say.

‘Yes I do,’ he grumbled. ‘Wait up a minute. I love you, Nellie Farr,’ he said, opening the box and showing her the wedding band inside it. ‘I would like to ask you to do me the honour of being my legal wife.’

She heard that word
legal
. She knew what he meant. She’d been his secret wife for years now.

‘Legal? Ah now.’

‘It’s simple, Nellie. Just say yes. Henry’s been gone a couple of years. He would want us to be happy.’

When he stood up, his trousers had green moss stains on them. His knees made more cracking sounds.

‘Let’s do it quietly,’ said Nellie. ‘Just you and me. No need to tell anybody.’

‘We’ll do it anyhow you want. Quietly suits me too. No need to shout about it, is there?’

‘A Wednesday would be best.’

‘A Wednesday?’

‘Don’t you know the rhyme?

Monday for wealth

Tuesday for health

Wednesday the best day of all

Thursday for losses

Friday for crosses

And Saturday no luck at all.’

George rubbed his chin. ‘Do you really believe that?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Well, midweek it is then.’

So Nellie became Mrs Farr for the second time in her life. There was a little joke in front of the registrar between her and George about her already knowing how to sign her name, and that was it. She went from being Mrs Henry Farr to being Mrs George Farr.

Two marriages, Nellie said to herself that night when she and George sat at the kitchen table. She had never imagined being married twice. It seemed to her she had been lucky in love. That Joe Ferier, who had broken her heart when she had been young and tender-minded, had set her life on a path that led her to this room, to this lovely man, the father of her daughter.

‘Here’s to Birdie,’ said George. ‘I hope she won’t be too upset she missed the wedding. I suppose your sister might be a bit put out we didn’t say anything. I know Lydia will be spitting feathers when she finds out. She can’t stand being left out of things. Maybe we should have a honeymoon? Go down and stay with your sister and see Birdie?’

Nellie said she’d rather stay at home. She knew George must not see Birdie until she had the baby adopted and could start life again.

‘To our daughter,’ said George, and it shocked Nellie to hear him say it openly.

‘To your sister, Vivian, and to my brother, Henry, who brought you to London and changed my life for good,’ he continued, lifting his beer glass. ‘God bless the lot of them. And us too. To you and me, girl.’

‘Oh, George, you are daft,’ said Nellie, blushing. But it was true that Henry had changed her life. There had been grace in the relationship between the three of them. Nellie had followed her heart, but she had also learned that the only way they could live as they had done was by keeping secrets. George and Henry
had understood that. They had gone through the years happily by agreeing not to discuss what went on between them. Keeping certain things private was what life was largely about, it seemed to her. Being seen to play by the rules was what mattered. That was why Birdie had to go away. After the adoption she could have a chance of finding a man she loved, and nobody would ever know.

As long as George didn’t know, he would think of Birdie as he always had, as a good girl, a girl to be proud of. There was some consolation to be found in keeping secrets if you thought about it like that.

When George went to bed, Nellie went outside, just like she had done twenty years earlier, back when she was still amazed by the city. She stood out in the yard and looked up at the night sky like she was searching for her own reflection. But no. She was nowhere to be found up there. She was here on earth, heavy as the soil, solid as rock and stone.

Aunt Vivian turned the volume up on the wireless. Chamberlain’s voice sounded tired and low.

‘This country is at war with Germany.’

Birdie didn’t care. She had too many of her own worries. Her mother and Uncle George had got married. They had sent a letter, not to her but to her aunt, who had given it to her. It was in her pocket and she had read it many times now.

Dear Vivian

George has sold the lease on the pub, and although I know I am very late in telling you this, we got married last week. I hope you will understand that George and I have always been friends. In order to live under the same roof, as we have always done in a most respectable way, we decided we should get married. Can you explain this to Birdie for me? I hope you and Birdie will forgive me for having not mentioned this earlier. George and I so
wanted you to be at the ceremony, but how could you both come? It is so important that Birdie stay hidden away until this is all over. Tell her I am sending her a parcel soon with a wedding photo and some chocolate to feed her sweet tooth.

 

The lease on the pub has ended and George wants to live by the sea where he and Henry grew up as boys. Please understand I am sad to be moving further away from you, Vivian, but George has worked so hard in his life, I feel he deserves to ‘finally return home’, as he puts it. We have found a bungalow in Hastings and will be moving there in January. My sister-in-law, Lydia, lives in the same town. She is the one who found the bungalow and showed the details to George. It is nice and modern as it was built only ten years ago and is five minutes’ walk from the sea. The house is called ‘Mon Repos’, which is French, so George says. There is a line of shops nearby. The promenade was all rebuilt ten years ago, and there is a new outdoor bathing pool complete with diving boards (though George says I am too old to be thinking of diving boards).

 

There was a terrible storm over London last night and a lot of people thought it was an air raid. In the pub they were all talking about it. There are kids from round here being evacuated to the country. Tiny tots sent off to God knows where. I’ve told some of their mothers that, for heaven’s sake, get them some proper wool socks to take with them. They’ll freeze without them. Please tell Birdie I hope her health is improving and that we miss her very much. Thank you again, Vivie, for taking care of our girl.

 

George sends his regards.

 

Your loving sister, Nellie

 

Now her home was gone and her mother and uncle had got married. How could they do this without telling her? She was being punished again and again. And how could her mother live near Aunt Lydia? She hated her. And then another thought struck
her. What if her mother told Aunt Lydia? Birdie could never look that awful woman in the face if that was the case.

There was a knock at the front door.

‘That’s probably Hitler,’ said Matilda weakly, beginning to laugh and cry at the same time. ‘Come to see about a room.’

She came back into the room with a man in corduroy trousers and a collarless shirt. He held a rough tweed cap in his hands.

‘Charles, how nice to see you,’ said Vivian, and Birdie noticed how she patted her hair and became girlish in his presence. Her aunt was nothing like Birdie’s mother, who treated everybody in the same slightly stiff, frank way, whether they were women, children, stray dogs or handsome men. Her aunt was flirty around men. Even the bad-tempered old coal man was treated to her gay laughter.

‘This is my niece, Miss Birdie Farr. Birdie, this is Mr Charles Bell. He farms in the same village your mother and I used to live in. His house is, in fact, built over our old cottage.’

‘Hello,’ said the man. ‘I’m just checking you are all right. I wanted to know if you need help with anything …’

‘Well, that is very good of you, Charles. So nice to have a gentleman around the place. Come and have a drink with us. I think we all need something for our nerves right now.’

‘Thank you,’ said the man. He smiled. ‘So you are Miss Farr? The piano player? I’ve seen your photos.’

‘Have you?’ Birdie blushed. ‘What photos?’

‘Don’t worry,’ said her aunt, as if she too was embarrassed. ‘I have photographs your mother sent me. Mr Bell here must have seen one or two of them. You have a very good memory, Charles, I must say. So clever of you to remember.’

‘I’ve seen lots of photos of you,’ he said in an amiable way. ‘I’ve been coming to your aunt’s tea room for years now. She’s very proud of you.’

A siren sounded in the street, loud and piercing. Matilda screamed and knocked her glass off the table.

‘It’s a siren,’ said Aunt Vivian. ‘For heaven’s sake, Matilda, they said it would happen. Please do calm down.’

Birdie bent to pick up the broken glass.

‘Mind your fingers,’ Mr Bell said. He crouched beside her and took a wet shard of glass from her. ‘I’ve got it. You let me do this.’

He had hazel-coloured eyes. Intelligent-looking.

Another siren sounded and Matilda screamed again.

‘That’s the all clear, I think,’ said Mr Bell. ‘You’ll be all right now.’

‘Why don’t you and Matilda walk in the garden together,’ Aunt Vivian said to Mr Bell, taking the broken glass and ushering them towards the door. ‘Perhaps you might see where you think we should put a shelter?’

‘Such a lovely man,’ said Aunt Vivian when they had gone. ‘But very shy. He’s been on his own too long, I think. Farmers can be such solitary creatures. Don’t say a word, but I have high hopes he will marry Matilda. She doesn’t seem to mind his reticence.’

Birdie watched Mr Bell walking with Matilda in the garden. How odd a feeling it was that he knew her. That he had seen photographs of her over the years. She had come here as a stranger, and Mr Bell had recognized her as someone familiar.

Her aunt put the wireless back on. An announcement was being given. Do not go out of your homes unless absolutely necessary. Do not go anywhere without your gas mask. Birdie wasn’t going anywhere in any case. She had to stay indoors like a prisoner and hide her condition. Dr Harding had made it clear she was lucky. A home for fallen women would be far harder than her aunt’s gentle hospitality. That was the right word.
Fallen
. Birdie saw herself stumbling, sprawled on a pavement with bloody knees, and a crowd, led by her cousin Roger, laughing at her.

The national anthem played on the wireless, slow and laborious. In the garden, Charles Bell and Matilda picked early windfalls under the apple tree. Watching them, Birdie thought it looked as
if nothing in the world had changed. She wished she could feel the same way.

In October the weather turned cold. The water in the jug by Birdie’s bed had a thin layer of ice upon it when she woke. And yet she didn’t feel the cold. She seemed to be generating heat all by herself. Mornings were bright with the palest blue skies, and Birdie longed to go out while the day lasted. She was not supposed to leave the house in case she was seen by somebody, but she was fed up. She went downstairs and slipped out into the garden where she walked up and down, breathing the fresh air.

As she came back in through the kitchen door, she felt a sudden low pain in her belly and a dampness between her legs. A small dark stain bloomed across her skirt. She was afraid. The baby. Oh, God, the baby. She held her belly, cradling her hands across it.

‘Aunt Vivian!’ Birdie cried out. ‘Aunt Vivian!’

Dr Harding put her to bed and raised the end of her bed on bricks so that her feet were higher than her head. She was not to move for a few days and then they’d see how things were. If she had any more scares, the best place would be an unmarried mothers’ home with a hospital ward.

‘You are very fortunate,’ Dr Harding said, as he examined her. ‘As long as the child is born without defects, there is a decent and loving couple who will take it.’

‘Twins would have to be separated,’ he added.

Aunt Vivian came upstairs carrying a bulky-looking gramophone and two records in paper sleeves. She set them down on the dressing table and sat on the bed to get her breath back.

‘I thought this might cheer you up. I know you like music. “The Merry Widow’s Waltz”,’ she said. ‘I’ve always loved this.’

Birdie watched her setting up the gramophone.

‘I have a letter for you too,’ said her aunt. ‘You try and get some rest, dear.’

Birdie waited for her to close the door behind her and then pulled the letter out of its envelope. She recognized Joan’s handwriting.

Dear Birdie

I forgive you for leaving in such a hurry but I’ve not had one measly letter from you. I had to ask your mother repeatedly for your address. She acted like I was asking for top-secret information. It was your uncle George who passed it on to me. He said you had a good job and wanted to be safe in the country. So, have you met anybody there? Some upper-class toff who wants to take you out shooting ducks or whatever it is they do for fun out in the sticks?

 

I haven’t been dancing since you left. With the blackout in London, no girl is safe walking the streets after dark. There are no lights on the trains or buses. The cinemas are all closed. It’s too dreadful.

 

Latest news: have decided to move out of home. Have found a ghastly bedsit that I adore. Am also driving ambulances as a volunteer. My mother thinks I will become one of these shameful modern women who live alone from choice. I haven’t told her, but I already am that woman. Independence is mine!

 

I hope you’re enjoying your work in the guest house. Write back and I’ll forgive you for being incommunicado for so long.

 

TTFN (ta ta for now)

 

Joan