Under the Apple Tree (47 page)

‘I did love him,’ Jean sobbed. ‘I really did. I still do! It

wasn’t just being wicked, like Mum says. We couldn’t help

it - we loved each other. He was going away, and we just

couldn’t bear it. We had to do what we did.’

‘Jean, I’m sorry, I can’t hear you,’ Judy said gently. She

rummaged in her bag for the writing-pad. ‘Write it down. It

doesn’t matter what it is - just write it down. I get so fed up with people only putting down bits of what they’re saying,’

she added with feeling.

Jean wrote down what she had said, and then added, It

was only once. But I wish now it had been lots of times - so

there! and looked at Judy with an expression that was half

apologetic, half-defiant.

Judy grinned despite her unhappiness. ‘I’ll tell you

something, Jean - I wish me and Sean had done it, too! He

wanted to, I know, though he wouldn’t ask me. We’d only

known each other a little while, and Mum and Dad nearly hit the roof about our getting engaged. But now - well, I

wish we had. Just so that he could have had that to

remember.’ And me, too, she thought. I’d like to have it to

remember as well.

‘You wouldn’t,’ Jean said tonelessly. ‘Not if you’d found

yourself in the mess I’m in now.’ She scribbled the words

quickly and handed the pad to Judy again.

‘No, maybe not. But that’s why I’ve come to see you.

Mum and Dad and Gran - and me and Polly too, come to

that - we’ve been wondering what you’re going to do. Have

you thought about it yet?’ She made a face. ‘That’s a daft

thing to say - you can’t have been thinking about anything

else since you realised.’ Involuntarily, her glance drifted to

Jean’s stomach, beginning to show a swelling beneath her

loose dress.

‘I haven’t, actually,’ Jean confessed, and wrote down her

next words. ‘I tried to push it out of my mind. I suppose I hoped it would go away! Stupid, but that’s how it was.

‘But now your parents know, what do they think you

should do?’

Mum was all for turning me out straight away! Dad

wouldn’t let her, though. He said if I went, he’d go too. Jean

looked apprehensive, as though she thought it might really

come to that, and Judy remembered that Jean Foster had

always been the apple of her father’s eye. So Mum stopped

saying it, but she’s hardly spoken to me since. I don’t know what I’m going to do.

‘That’s why I’ve come round. We want you to know that

you can always live with us, if it comes to it. I don’t know

where we’d put you, mind,’ she added with a grin. ‘You

might have to sleep in the Anderson! But Gran said we’ll do

whatever we can, for Terry’s sake, and because the baby’s

her great-grandchild and she doesn’t want it going to

strangers.’

Once again, Jean dissolved into tears. ‘Oh Judy, I don’t

know what to say. I didn’t think anyone would want anything to do with me. I thought I’d be sent away, and

have to give my baby up.’ Unconsciously, her hand moved

protectively to her stomach. ‘I mean, I knew if Terry could

come home it would be all right because he’d stand by me,

but I didn’t know how long he’d be away. This horrible

war’s going on and on and it doesn’t look as if it’s ever going to end, and I was so scared. I thought, What’ll happen to me

if he doesn’t come home? And then yesterday, when I found

out he wasn’t going to — well, I just didn’t know what I was

going to do. And Mum’s been so awful - we had such a

terrible row last night over it - and I’ve been missing Terry

so much, and now I’m never going to see him again, and and

…’ The storm of weeping overtook her again and she

sobbed uncontrollably.

Judy held her tightly, not needing to hear the words, her

tears once more mingling with the frightened girl’s. As the

weeping eased again, she said, ‘Look, Jean, you don’t have

to worry any more. We’ll stand by you, since Terry can’t.

We’re your family now too. It’s your baby, and you’ve got

to decide what you want to do, but whatever you decide,

we’ll help you.’ She hesitated. ‘If you want to give it up for

adoption, we won’t stand in your way, but we don’t want

you to do that. It’s our Terry’s baby as well as yours, and we

want it to be part of our family.’

Jean wiped her face and blew her nose. She looked at

Judy gratefully and attempted a smile. ‘Thanks, Judy. It’s

really helped, having you come round. And I don’t want to

give my baby away either. It’s just that, I don’t really know

how I’ll manage. How am I going to be able to keep it? How

can I afford to? There’s so much a baby needs - a pram and

a cot, and lots of clothes and nappies - and how could I go

to work with a baby to look after? How can I earn a living

for us both?’ The tears were falling again as she picked up the pencil. How am I going to manage, Judy?

‘We’ll work it out,’ Judy promised, managing to follow

the gist of Jean’s tearful questions. ‘We’ll all put our heads together, and we’ll work it out. I’m sure Mum and Gran

will help, and I expect your mum’ll come round, once she

gets used to the idea. Anyway, just remember this, Jean you’re

not on your own. We’re all going to help you.’ She

wondered if she ought to say it, then added quietly, ‘I

almost wish it had happened to me, in some ways. I’d like to

have something of Sean to remember him by - his baby, a

part of him. As it is, all I’ve got is a ring and a few

memories, and even those are starting to fade.’

It ‘$ better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, Jean wrote with shaking fingers. I just wish it didn’t hurt so much, Judy - having loved and lost. I wish everything didn’t seem so hopeless.

‘It’s not,’ Judy said, wondering if she believed it. ‘There’s

always hope, Jean. That’s what Gran says. While there’s life,

there’s hope.’ She touched her friend’s stomach wonderingly.

‘That’s where our hope is - in there. Your baby.

Terry’s baby. Our baby.’

‘Hope,’ Jean said, also touching her stomach. ‘That’s

what I’ll call it - if it’s a girl. Hope.’

Judy looked at the name, written on a single sheet in the

writing-pad. Hope. It was an unusual name but a good one.

Perhaps this baby would be a turning point for them all. A

new life, to make up for the one that had been lost.

‘I’ll tell them at home,’ she said. ‘They’ll like that. It’s

what we all need, Jean. Hope.’

‘I might have known you’d come home with some fancy

ideas,’ Dick said disgustedly as they sat round the supper

table that evening. ‘Hope! Trouble, more like. It isn’t going

to be as easy as you all seem to think, not for young Jean

anyway. A baby costs money, and it goes on costing money.

How’s a girl like Jean, working in a shop for - what? Fifteen

bob a week? - how’s she going to be able to afford to bring

up a nipper? I mean, if they’d been married she’d have had a

pension, but as it is she can’t expect nothing from the Army,

nothing at all. And we haven’t got the means to help her

out.’

The women looked at each other. They knew Dick was

right: his own income was a war pension, and Cissie had had

to take in dressmaking for years to make ends meet. It was

easier once Terry and Judy were old enough to leave school

and go out to work, and Terry had been sending money

home regularly since he joined the Army, but now that

would stop. Alice too had only her small pension. There

wasn’t anything left over for a baby.

‘Well, we’re going to have to do something,’ Polly said

with determination. ‘Like Gran says, the baby is part of our family, and if Jean wants to keep it, we’ve got to help her. I don’t mind chipping in a bit. There’s always something I

can go without.’

‘Well, I dunno what it is, then,’ Dick said. ‘We’re going

without just about everything already.’ He sighed. ‘If you’re

all so set on it there’s nothing more I can say, is there? I

never had much chance with three women lined up against

me, anyway. You’d better tell young Jean to come round here for tea on Sundays.’ A thought struck him. ‘I bet her

mum doesn’t go much on all this, does she? I remember her

as a girl at the dances down the Oddfellows — stuck-up

piece, she was. What did she have to say about all this?’

He looked interrogatively at Judy and she stared back

blankly. Polly mouthed at her, ‘Mrs Foster. What did she

say?’

‘Oh, Jean’s mum,’ Judy said, and made a face. ‘Jean says

she’s been awful. They’ve had a really bad row over it, and

Jean thought she was going to turn her out, but her dad

wouldn’t let her. I don’t know what she’ll say about Jean

keeping the baby, though. I can’t see her letting them stay

there.’

‘No, nor can I,’ Cissie said. ‘And she won’t have the same

feeling about it that we have. After all, Jean could have other children, in wedlock. But if she does keep the baby, it might

spoil her chances of getting married at all.’

Polly sighed. ‘What a problem. I don’t know what to

suggest. We really haven’t got room for her here, we’re like

sardines as it is.’ She stood up and started to gather the

plates together. ‘Let’s clear this away and listen to the news.

Perhaps they’ll have caught the Bismarck by now. That

might cheer us up a bit.’

The pursuit of the German ship was the topic on

everyone’s lips. It had become an ogre in everyone’s minds,

a symbol of the terror that stalked the world. It was as if

nothing more could be achieved until it had been hunted

down and destroyed. To the family in number nine, as to so

many other families in the country, it seemed a personal

retribution - a just reprisal for the terrible loss they had

suffered - yet the need was almost as great to those who had

not known any of the crew. The Hood represented

something vital to the national sense of strength, and its loss must be balanced by an equal loss to the Germans.

‘An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,’ Dick said grimly.

‘That’s what it is. And a ship for a ship.’

‘And a thousand mothers’ sons for a thousand mothers’

sons,’ Cissie said sadly. ‘I don’t know, it seems wrong to me,

looking at it that way. The whole thing about war - leaders

like Hitler sending ordinary young men to do his dirty work

for him and the rest of us having to join in and send ours to

stop them - well, it doesn’t seem Christian to me.’

‘But there’ve always been wars,’ Polly said. ‘The Bible’s

full of them. It’s full of talk about God smiting people

down.’

‘Well, I can’t understand it,’ Cissie said. ‘But there, I

suppose it’s not for folk like us to understand, we haven’t

got the education. We just have to do as we’re told. And

send our lads to be killed,’ she added bitterly.

The wireless began its burbling warm-up and a moment

or two later the announcer’s voice came through. ‘This is

the nine o’clock news, and this is Alvar Liddell reading it.

The hunt for the German battleship Bismarck goes on as she

evades the British Force sent to engage her. There has been

more heavy fighting on the island of Crete which was

invaded three days ago by almost five hundred Junker

transport planes bringing thousands of paratroopers. Lord

Louis Mountbatten’s ship HMS Kelly has been reported

sunk, together with her sister ship HMS Kashmir. Many of

the survivors, including Lord Mountbatten, were rescued

by HMS Kipling, after being machine-gunned in the water.

More fighter aircraft have been delivered to the besieged

island of Malta, which has been under heavy attack from the

Luftwaffe. HMS Ark Royal and HMS Furious between

them brought a total forty-eight Hurricanes. German High

Command is believed to be building up a massive attack

force on the Russian Front. There were no reports of air

raids over Britain over the past twenty-four hours …’

‘That’s one bit of good news anyway,’ Alice said as they

switched off the wireless and stared at each other.

shouldn’t think they had enough planes to raid us anyway.

They seem to be everywhere!’

‘It’s terrible,’ Cissie said, ‘Lord Mountbatten being

machine-gunned in the water! And all those poor souls on

Malta. I heard yesterday that they’re just living in holes in

the ground, frightened to come out. And Crete - they can’t

leave our boys there, surely? They’ll have to go and get

them out.’

‘It’s another Dunkirk,’ Dick said. He shook his head. ‘I

can’t see how we can beat them this time. They’ve been

getting ready for it for years, while we’ve been shutting our

eyes to what’s been going on.’

‘Well, I believe in Mr Churchill,’ Alice said staunchly,

‘and if he says we’ll win, I reckon we will.’

Dick looked at her gravely. ‘I’m not sure that’s what he

has said, Ma,’ he said in a quiet voice. ‘He’s said we’ll fight them. He’s said we’ll fight them on the beaches and in the

streets and in the hills. He’s said we’ll never surrender. But

I don’t think he’s ever said we’re going to win.’

The Bismarck was sunk two days later, after a desperate

chase across the Atlantic, pursued by over a hundred ships.