Spilt Milk (21 page)

She turned to look at Framsden sleeping in his Moses basket,
and carefully picked him up. She pressed her face to the window. In the orchard her aunt was picking cornflowers. She headed towards the river with armfuls of blue. Then she slipped out of view.

Birdie would tell her son he had a sister when he was twenty. Just before he reached adulthood. It sounded like the silly kind of promise made in a fairy tale, but she believed he should know. Charles too should know. But not yet. Let them get through Framsden’s childhood first. By then she and Charles would have a large family. Large enough that one more child would not be all that remarkable.

After her aunt went home, Birdie took Framsden down to the water to watch the fish. Caught in the reeds were blue cornflowers. Vivian had thrown them in the river. They were beautiful, slowly sinking into the waters. She sat down on the grassy bank and made daisy chains and threw them in the water too.

They celebrated Framsden’s first birthday with an iced cake and sandwiches. Charles, Connie and Judith, and Kathleen with her new son James and her daughter Ella. Birdie had found it easier not to invite her mother or her aunt. She had her own life now. She could not avoid laying the blame for what had happened on them. They could have helped her keep her child, but they had been ashamed and acted accordingly. She knew she was cruel, but really it was easier this way.

Kathleen’s children danced around her legs. They had pearly pink fingernails and soft, pale faces. Both had milky-blond hair, but Ella had brown eyes and would grow out of her blondeness in time, whereas James’s eyes were blue and one look at his freckled skin was enough for Birdie to know he would always be fair.

Connie’s little girl, Judith, was a bright, dark-haired little toddler with big wide eyes framed by a straight fringe. She was strong-willed like her mother and sure of herself. Poor Framsden was always crying because she liked to take his toys away from him. They all stood around the kitchen table singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to Framsden.

Ella pulled on Birdie’s skirt, and she lifted the smiling little girl into her arms.

Birdie held her tightly, the child’s smock dress scrunched up around her chubby legs. Dear, sweet little Ella Hubbard. She was the same age Birdie’s daughter would be and such an adoring infant. The sun poured in through the open back door. The table was covered with plates of sandwiches and bowls of jelly that Birdie had been preparing all afternoon. Green and pink balloons hung from the ceiling, bumping back and forth in the breeze.

Connie had a new Box Brownie and insisted on taking a photograph.

‘Come on, Charles,’ she said, gathering them together. ‘Let’s get you in the picture too.’

Framsden’s babyish fingers were glossy with cake crumbs and butter icing. He sat in his high chair and grabbed Ella’s leg as Birdie stood over him. She pushed his hand away, telling him to be a good boy. Ella leaned towards Framsden and mimicked her, pushing him away too. They all laughed. Birdie gave Ella a kiss and then bent to kiss her son. It felt like things were getting easier after all.

Two years later, in 1946, Birdie thought she might be expecting another baby. Her periods were late and she waited, ticking off each day. On the ninth day she told Charles, and they grinned at each other. They sat on the verandah and discussed names. Birdie liked Rose. Charles liked Gillian. They were sure they would have a girl this time.

Birdie was in the dairy, milking the cows, when she felt a deep, cramping ache spreading across her back and between her legs. She knew there was nothing to be done. She went to bed in tears, holding a hot-water bottle.

Charles refilled the hot-water bottle for her when it went cold. He picked cornflowers that flowered in the orchard, putting
them in a vase in their bedroom. When Birdie refused to leave her bed, he took Framsden over to Connie’s house. The boy stayed for a week until Birdie felt strong enough to go and get him back.

Framsden and Judith were playing in the back garden with a red tin bucket and spade in a sand pit.

‘I had flu,’ she said, though she knew Connie had been told.

Framsden saw her and burst into tears.

‘He’s missed you,’ said Connie. ‘He needs you, Birdie. Don’t think of what might have been. Think of what you’ve got. That’s what I do, and some days I even manage to feel lucky.’

‘You go and enjoy yourself,’ said Charles. A month had passed and he thought she needed to get out and see her friends. Connie came by on her bicycle, asking her to go over to Kathleen’s. They were jam making together. Charles lifted Framsden into his arms, where the boy sat happily. He was three years old and stocky, with his father’s straight nose and long-lashed hazel eyes. A pudgy little boy who wasn’t quick to smile, but when he did, his whole face lit up. He had a way of nodding at things, as if he was taking his time to add up what might be said on different matters.

Birdie and Connie rode their bicycles up the farm track towards the village. They rode down empty lanes, on the slight downhill incline to Ark Farm. Dog roses scrambled through the trees and spikes of foxglove flowers reached as high as their shoulders. The hedgerows on the back road were filled with tall young trees forming a tunnel of green-flecked light overhead. Through this leafy canopy, Birdie could see Ark Farm. It had been pebble-dashed during the war and painted a pale pink. There was a narrow gravel drive and two dark holly trees either side of the front door. The lawns in front of the house were silky green and dotted with white daisies.

‘Marvellous, isn’t it?’ said Connie, looking at the house. ‘But
Kathleen’s not as smart as you think. She’s had voice training, you know. She was Norman’s secretary. That’s how they met.’

Three overweight black spaniels ambled across the grass, wagging stumpy tails. They pressed their soft mouths to Birdie’s hands as she stooped to pat their heads. The dogs ran away as they walked across the gravel drive to the front door of the house. Only the eldest of the dogs, greying at the muzzle, with a sagging body and long, ugly, improper pink nipples that Birdie tried not to look at, stayed loyally beside her.

‘Why, it’s our Pearly Queen,’ Norman said, opening the door. ‘And Connie. Come on in. Her ladyship is expecting you.’

Kathleen’s voice drifted through the house. ‘Is that you, Connie? Birdie? Come on through. Ignore Norman. He thinks he is being funny.’

They stepped into the kitchen. It was the nicest room in the house, Birdie thought. The other rooms were neat and unlived in, the floors shone and the furniture gleamed, but it was in here, this room with its long refectory table and colourful rosettes won at horse shows pinned on the walls, that Kathleen spent her time. A large orange cat was curled up on a chair. There was a sweet smell of sugar and the sharp tang of cooking blackcurrants.

Kathleen stood with a wooden spoon in her hand, a flowered apron over riding trousers and a navy-blue jersey. In a big copper pot, a purple-coloured jam boiled and bubbled on the stove.

‘The children are both having their afternoon nap,’ she said. ‘I could be out walking or riding, but instead here I am, being the perfect wife.’

Norman came in behind them, asking Kathleen where his cigarettes were. He wore a cardigan and a striped shirt with a narrow tie, wide trousers and polished brown brogues. He had bright blue eyes and a boyish smile. Birdie felt herself smiling too.

‘You are always the perfect wife, my dear,’ he said.

Kathleen rolled her eyes. She picked up a packet and handed it to him.

‘So, how’s the gang?’ Kathleen asked as he shut the door. ‘Cup of tea? Do you want to make it, Birdie? Only I’m watching this jam like a hawk in case it begins to burn.’

Birdie boiled water, gathering cups and the teapot, reaching up on the shelf for the tin of black tea. Kathleen had a way of expecting people to do whatever she asked. Connie was putting out jam jars. Kathleen said Norman was furious with her because she’d sacked their nanny. Now they had to find somebody else.

‘I can have the children,’ said Birdie. ‘I’d be glad to.’

‘Would you?’

‘Of course,’ she heard herself say. ‘Framsden would be pleased to have friends to play with.’

‘Wonderful. I’ll take you up on that. And what about the new job?’ Kathleen asked Connie. ‘Do you enjoy it? I suppose you must know everything about us all in this village, working for the doctor.’

‘It’s good to have a bit of work. The pay’s not great, but I only do three days a week. When Judith’s older I’m going to train to be a nurse. And I’ve put my name down for one of the new council houses being built in the village. Married couples will have first pick, of course. Unmarried mothers don’t count for much, according to this government.’

Kathleen said that she hoped council housing wasn’t going to have a bad effect on the village. All this new building was just the kind of thing that was destroying country life. Connie shook her head.

‘I’d like a council house. And there’s a housing shortage, you know. People need new homes.’

Kathleen tutted. ‘Well, I’m only going on what Norman says. I don’t know anything about it. He thinks the countryside is under attack from urban planning and property developers.’ She peered into the copper pan. ‘And I think this jam is done.’

Kathleen carefully ladled out the hot jam, and Connie put waxed paper over the full jars. When they’d finished, Kathleen refilled their teacups and they took them outside onto the red-brick terrace.

The lawns were smooth and striped, and a rose arbour covered in yellow blooms gave the place an elegant look. Ella came pelting across the grass, her smocked dress billowing, James not far behind her.

‘Daddy’s angry,’ announced James grandly in his high-pitched three-year-old’s voice. Norman came across the lawn, yelling that the little menaces had pulled all the books off the bookshelves. Why could Kathleen not keep an eye on them?

‘I’m going out,’ he said, as if the horror of having children was forcing him from his own home. He was off to the Conservative club in town to get away from this bloody madhouse. He would have drinks with a couple of the chaps and wouldn’t be home until late.

Kathleen began deadheading a red geranium in a terracotta pot, with quick deft pinches, putting the papery petals in her apron pocket.

‘I should go,’ said Connie, getting up.

‘You don’t have to.’

‘Me too,’ said Birdie.

‘I can’t believe you are deserting me,’ said Kathleen crossly. ‘Well, never mind. At least take some jars of jam with you.’

They went into the kitchen, and with jars of jam in their hands Kathleen insisted they take a look at what the children had done.

‘Norman says I have let myself go since I had James,’ she said, pushing open the door to the study. On the floor were piles of books and she began to pick them up. ‘I know I should make more of an effort, but what’s the point? If I spend my days polishing up my good points, wearing a dress and doing my hair, then it just makes me feel worse when he looks at other women. And he does. I can’t see why I should lie to protect him. At least in my jodhpurs and old sweater I can still pretend that if I made an effort, it might change him. For heaven’s sake, he actually told me the other day that I should dress Ella better. You know, ribbons in her hair, like a dolly.’

‘I want a ribbon,’ said Ella loudly. ‘I want a new dolly and a ribbon.’

James crept round Birdie’s legs and ran to his mother.

‘Naughty!’ he yelled, kicking a book.

‘Exactly,’ said Kathleen. ‘What am I to do with you?’

‘Throw us in the river and drown us like kittens!’ yelled Ella, and Kathleen scooped her daughter into her arms.

‘Ding dong bell,’ she sang, turning in circles with her children. Birdie and Connie began to laugh too, all of them shaking off the embarrassment they had felt over Norman’s anger. The women cleared up the books and the children sang, ‘Ding dong bell, pussy’s in the well,’ over and over. Birdie sang with them, and then Kathleen insisted she sit at the piano, a mahogany baby grand in the drawing room, and play for them.

Birdie played nursery rhymes she had learned as a girl, hitting a few wrong notes every now and then, making a joke of it as her uncle had done whenever she made mistakes. ‘You’re a natural,’ George had said, sat beside her at the pub’s upright piano, teaching her to play ‘Little Boy Blue’. She’d been five years old. Her mother and father had come into the bar to listen to her.

‘Don’t go,’ Ella said to Birdie at the back door, as she left. The child’s face was flushed from dancing.

‘I’ll come again,’ said Birdie, smiling. She touched the child’s head. ‘And when I do, I’ll bring you a present. What would you like?’

The girl giggled. ‘I don’t know. I’ll ask Mummy.’

‘I tell you what,’ said Birdie. ‘I’ll bring you a red velvet ribbon for your hair.’

How nice it was to see the pleasure on the child’s face.

There was a letter waiting for Birdie when she got home. She put it on the mantelpiece and started peeling potatoes for the evening meal. After tea, she washed Framsden in the kitchen sink, sitting him naked on the draining board with his feet in a tub of warm water.

‘Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag,’ she sang as she dried him and dressed him in pyjamas. Sometimes she wondered at her younger self, the girl who had been so sure she would be a singer in a jazz band. What a silly dream that had been. She bent to do up his buttons and Framsden wriggled away from her, laughing and giggling. She chased him up the stairs to his bedroom, still singing to him, and he bounded onto his bed. It was
Rupert Bear
at the moment. That’s all he wanted, so the book was got out and the story read. She kissed him on the forehead and tucked him in.

Afterwards she sat on the top stair of the landing and opened the letter. It was from Aunt Lydia, who was in a home for the aged these days.

I will tell you straight, Birdie. Your father is not my brother Henry. It is George. You have a right to know. My husband deceived me for years and now my son, my only remaining son, has put me away in this place where they serve salt on the porridge in the mornings. I ask for cream and they pretend not to hear me. I am lonely and your mother, who visits twice a week, does not stay long. Do not tell her I wrote to you. I am afraid she and Malcolm would be angry with me. I write because I know how well you and Roger got along. He always thought you should know the truth.