The Soldier's Bride (25 page)

She longed to be back at the helm, spent some time flicking dust from this piece and that, then weariness overcame her. Struggling back upstairs, a low throbbing in her back, the weight of a distended stomach no doubt dragging on it, she lay down exhausted on her bed to recover and wait for Dad’s return.

‘Dad, you’ll have to decide.’

Between Vinny and Lucy there was stalemate on the question of who would take the baby, and Vinny was furious. There was no talking to Lucy who’d thrown a fit and, between floods of tears, told her she was the worst sister anyone in the world could wish for. ‘How can someone with that sort of temperament have it?’ Vinny asked Albert.

‘She’d blurt out its background the very first time the poor thing played her up.’

She, Vinny, was definitely more suited. ‘But I can hardly nominate myself over her,’ she’d gone on to Albert. ‘I don’t want to cause any trouble between us. We should ask Dad for his opinion on it. She’d have to go along with what he suggested.’

For herself, Vinny was willing to abide by what Dad suggested, confident that he would choose her.

The only way to talk to him without Letty overhearing was to get him out of the flat. He had protested at going out
with them at first, his attitude towards motorised vehicles still as hidebound as ever, though not quite so rigorous as once it was now the motorcar seemed here to stay.

Somewhere beyond Ilford, where the countryside opened out, Albert stopped and took them all into a tea shop, and there Vinny explained the situation and asked Dad to act as arbitrator, peremptorily demanding, ‘You’ll have to decide, Dad.’

The following Saturday for Letty began with a small niggling pain low in her stomach that disappeared within seconds, then came back stronger to disappear yet again.

After a third even sharper stab she knew a corresponding stab of fear and a sort of slow collapsing, a yielding to the inevitable.

No going back now – a thought foolish and trite, but one which dominated all others. She could not help but think of the stigma she had thrust upon her unborn child, her involvement in its future, sins of the mother … never realised until now. Around midday, pain exploded, making her cry out and half double up and forget all about irresponsibility.

From then on minutes felt like hours, hours condensed into minutes; time distorted. Ada Hall telling her to hold on, frantically phoning the midwife and doctor; Dad white as a sheet, praying, ‘Look after ’er please, God! Don’t take ’er from me! Yer took ’er mum – don’t take ’er!’ Loud enough for her to hear, as if she needed that just now.

The pains growing stronger made her arch her back, cry out, sweat beading on her brow. Dad, in a panic, had rushed
out, down to the Knave of Clubs to wash away fear with several pints of black and tan.

Alone with Ada Hall, a midwife and Doctor Levy, who, aware of her situation, had sympathy enough to kindly be present, Letty wanted only to die – such a simple solution. She was so very tired of fighting alone, months of apprehension and misgivings, now this.

Those she really needed were not here. Mum, who would have held her and comforted her. David who should have been pacing the floor in the next room, given between concern for her and joy of new fatherhood; would have rushed to her side as the baby lay in her arms. All she had was Ada Hall, pinned up hair beginning to fall down, flowered apron all askew, clumsy hands trying to bestow some semblance of comfort.

The child arrived at ten to seven next morning. A boy of eight pounds who bellowed lustily.

Vinny and Lucy arrived at ten to nine, in response to a telephone call from Dad. They flooded into the small bedroom, filling it with their fidgety concern; Dad awkward and withdrawn standing by the brown-curtained window, Vinny leaning over the baby, cooing at it, lifting it from its crib, cradling it in her arms as though it were hers.

Lucy sat beside Letty on the bed, held her hand earnestly.

‘Letty love, me and Vinny’s been talking. We think it might be best if you do it as soon as possible. It’ll make it easier.’

‘Easier?’ she repeated listlessly, hardly recovered enough to use her brain. What was Lucy talking about?

‘The baby – you do realise it’ll be awkward? We should
have told you what we’ve been discussing, but really we didn’t want to upset you, being so near your time. You hadn’t planned to keep him, had you? I mean, Dad agreed that … Well, he agreed.’

‘To what?’ It was a job to concentrate. What had Dad agreed that he hadn’t told her about?

‘He agreed,’ Lucy continued gently, ‘that you’d never be able to cope here, with a baby, the shop to look after and everything else in the flat. Not properly. As things are. Well, you know …’

‘Mum did.’ Mum had brought up all of them in this small flat.

‘But we weren’t illegit –’

‘Lucy!’ Vinny’s voice was sharp. The younger sister threw her an abashed glance, then turned back to make an effort to rectify the blunder.

‘You see, it’s the neighbours. Seeing you pushing a pram and you … well, you know. You don’t want everyone pointing a finger at you. But this way … what we’ve discussed, me and Vinny and Dad, people do soon forget. Afterwards you can go on just as you did before.’

‘As I did before?’ Comprehension of what Lucy was trying to say began slowly to take shape. She regarded Lucy with startled eyes.

‘Well, it wouldn’t be fair on you or the poor little thing,’ Lucy blundered on. ‘Giving it for adoption by some stranger. That’s what me and Vinny were discussing. One of us would take it …’

‘No!’

Worn out by the birth as she was, Letty managed to push
herself up to a half sitting position, a mixture of fear and anger starting from the pit of her stomach to explode from her lips in that one violent word – an impassioned birth of its own.

She saw Lucy start back, was vaguely aware of Dad by the window, his faded blue eyes wide, his mouth beneath the bristly moustache open like an O, chin dropping. Vinny had hurriedly returned the baby to the modest little crib, she came forward.

‘No!’ Letty’s second shriek took the strength out of her and she dropped back on the pillow with a moan.

‘Leave him alone. He’s mine!’

‘But Letty.’ Vinny’s tone was patient. She came forward, easing her confused sister out of the way. ‘Try to look at this sensibly. How on earth can you …’

‘No!’ Letty screamed again, too worn by her first outburst to rise again from her pillow, but her green eyes blazed in fear. ‘He’s mine. I won’t let you have him. He belongs to me.’

Vinny looked momentarily helpless. Lucy intervened.

‘Don’t be silly, Let. How can you? You’ve already brought shame on all of us. You’re being selfish and silly …’

Her last word ended in a squeal of surprise as Letty’s arm came up, caught her with the flat of one hand across the cheek. Dad gasped and started forward.

‘Look ’ere – I ain’t ’avin’ that!’

The look in Letty’s eyes stopped him and he seemed to diminish in size before her gaze, a dejected confused figure, his eyes wandering to take in the corners of the
room, looking anywhere but directly at her, though his lips tightened perversely.

Lucy’s hand had flown to her cheek, already staining red, the white fingermarks standing out against the colour. Letty’s hand had dropped back on to the bedcovers, weak from the exertion. In his crib, the baby had begun to cry, a thin little whimper that grew by the minute. To cover her pique, Lucy went and took the child up, rocking it as the cries died away.

Letty had turned her head away from the scene, staring despairingly at the wall.

‘Go away,’ she whispered. ‘I’m keeping him – he belongs to me and David. No one’s going to take my David’s baby from him.’ Lying limp, she could say no more.

Lucy’s voice came to her, resentful from the injustice of the slap. ‘We’ll see about that!’

Vinny’s tone was gentle, persuasive. ‘You’re weak from what you’ve been through, so we’ll leave you now. But think about it, Letty. Do you really want your baby to grow up being pointed out as … as a … I’ve got to say it, Letty. As a bastard? That’s what he’ll be called. Kids can be mean. Can be cruel. When they learn he hasn’t got a father, that’s what they’ll call him. Is that what you want? If it is, then you’re thinking only of yourself and not him.’

She had come very close, her voice soothing and so low that only Letty could hear the words.

‘If I look after him for you, your own sister, it won’t be like a stranger is taking him away from you, that you wouldn’t see him again, would it? I could bring him up with the boys. He wouldn’t be so much a cousin as a brother.
They’d think of him as a brother. They’re all too young to think anything else as time goes on. We could call him John or Christopher or …’

‘He’s got a name,’ Letty murmured, distraught, audible enough for the others to hear. ‘He’s got a name. David.’

‘Oh, I don’t think …’ Lucy’s protest was quelled by a look from Vinny over her shoulder.

She turned back to the mother, her voice hardly altering from its soothing quality. ‘It’s the best thing all round, Letty. Best for … David,’ she added circumspectly. ‘It’s not as if you’d never be seeing him again, as happens to some unmarr – some people. I wouldn’t stop you seeing him. You could see him as often as you like. But, you see, if I adopt him, he’d have a proper surname: Worth. No one’ll ever need know he was born out of wedlock. He need never know.’

It was obvious Lucy had been listening. ‘Worth?’ she queried now. Putting the baby back into its crib, she came forward to do battle. ‘Who said? I can bring him up as good as you. What’s wrong with our name, Morecross?’

Vinny forgot momentarily to be circumspect and soothing, she swung round on her sister. ‘And how d’you think you’re going to cope, your Jack away in the army? You can’t cope now with those you’ve got.’

‘That’s a lie!’ Tears began to appear in Lucy’s eyes. ‘You just want him because you lost …’

‘You shut up,’ Vinny bellowed back. ‘You should know what it’s like, losing a child. You lost one!’

The screaming above her brought Letty out of her despair, replacing it with rage.

‘Stop it, the pair of you! Stop it! Stop it!’ She was very near to hysteria. Her voice poured out of its own accord, assaulting her own ears. ‘Stop it! I can’t take any more! He’s mine!’

How many times had she said that now? She couldn’t think beyond those two words. A claim, a plea. David was hers, would always be hers. His name was David. He’d have no other name but that.

‘He’s mine,’ she said yet again, defiance melting into defeat from sheer exhaustion.

Vinny leaned over her, menacing, for all her tone had resumed its gentle, soothing note.

‘And what will you give as a second name, Letty? What will show on his birth certificate? Your name? It can’t be his father’s. If he’s adopted by … if he’s adopted,’ she corrected quickly as Lucy drew in a sharp breath, ‘he has a name for life. It’ll be his and he can hold up his head with the best. He’d never need to know you were his mother.’

‘No,’ Letty sobbed weakly.

‘If you keep him, what’re you going to say to him when he begins to ask questions? How are you going to face him when he looks at you accusingly?’

Vinny’s voice went on and on, setting her head reeling. Someone had begun to sob – her – and she couldn’t stop. Her whole body had begun to shake uncontrollably, great racking sobs coming from her.

She was in Vinny’s arms, being held close to her as though Vinny was her mother. She didn’t want to be held that way; wanted to sob until all the grief had died out of her, leaving just numbness – more than that – life extinguished
with no anguish to tear at her; no more pain at losing her child, as something now told her she must lose him.

She lay limp in the arms of the sister about to rob her, loathing her even as she lay there, unresisting, because there was no alternative, no strength left to resist that Judas embrace.

‘It’ll be all right, you’ll see,’ Vinny said comfortingly, and laid her face upon Letty’s head, one hand gently smoothing the short damp auburn hair.

I hate you! The words torn from her, yet she hadn’t uttered them; only thought she had. I hate all of you. You, Lucy, Dad. Him most of all. I’d have been married but for him and David would be here because he wouldn’t have been enlisted. (It didn’t matter that he might just as easily have been killed in France or, as she still hoped, been taken prisoner.) David’s parents too she hated with all her heart. Between them, they had all taken him away. Now Vinny wanted to take his baby. But Letty wouldn’t let her. Yet how could she stop it? If she loved little David, she had to give in to their superior argument. One thing was certain David’s parents must never know or they too would lay claim to him and that would be the worst thing of all. She’d never see him again. Whereas if Vinny took him …

‘He’s mine,’ she whispered as if it was the last breath her body would ever gasp. She looked up into Vinny’s face. ‘He’s mine,’ she implored one last time. ‘Look after him for me.’

‘Yes, love. Of course I will,’ Vinny said softly as she continued smoothing the short auburn hair.

October in rural Chingford or in Walthamstow was golden, the leaves in mellow sunshine quietly turning from green to bronze and copper.

October in Bethnal Green was burnt sienna, the same sun reddening brick walls, adding a pearly blush to grey pavements and a jaundiced tinge to smoke-begrimed lace curtains.

October in Flanders held no colour at all, unless it was that of mud churned by shells and men’s boots after an appalling summer, the sun leaden behind the fumes of cordite, smoke of gunfire and the thick, crawling, silent yellow-green cloud of chlorine gas.

At the warning whistles, the corporal dragged out his mask, stepped back, tripped over the body behind him and went sprawling, the mask dangling uselessly from its respirator.

Stumbling over him, a comrade grabbed the mask, managed to help him on with it, but the man’s lungs were already burning, damaged. Corporal William Beans, having got himself a blighty one, was sent back to England to recover as best he could.