Wartime Family (34 page)

Mary Anne sighed and put the hat down on the table, smoothing the brim with both hands. ‘I was just thinking that we can never quite escape our past.’

‘Very philosophical, my dear, but quite right. What we do in early life forms our future and who we are.’ She fell to silence. Mary Anne sensed her keen eyes were studying her, seeking her mood before disclosing her thoughts. ‘That young woman the other day; she meant something to you?’

Mary Anne played with the ends of the tiger-print scarf. Should she be honest? And what answer would
be
honest anyway?

‘I think so.’

‘I know so,’ said Edith softly. ‘I could see it in the eyes, you see. My mother always said I had the knack of seeing what people were really feeling just by looking into their eyes.’

‘I didn’t know it showed that much.’

‘It did, my dear. But I wasn’t really referring to you. Your emotion was obvious, but so was hers. That lady of the manor exterior didn’t fool me for one minute. I’ve known plenty like her in my time, their feelings hidden behind an expensive facade.’

From the very first time she’d entered the shop, Edith had been something of an enigma. She even had the measure of Gertrude Palmer.

‘She’s been a Girl Guide all her life,’ Edith had explained with a sly smile. ‘Absolutely loves uniforms and giving orders. I heard tell that she’d wanted to be head girl at the public school she attended, but was pipped at the post.’

Mary Anne had looked at Edith in amazement. ‘Edith, you know everything about everyone.’

When Edith had smirked her face lit up like a schoolgirl’s. ‘Don’t let these wrinkles fool you. I’m the same age as Gertrude.’ The smirk turned into a wide grin. ‘I went to the same school,’ she said mischievously.

Mary Anne burst out laughing. ‘
You
were made head girl?’

Edith nodded. ‘Just imagine me. Black stockings, gymslip and hockey stick. I may be small, but I kept them in order.’

Edith’s questioning eyes now met Mary Anne’s, shaking her out of her reverie. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Elizabeth Ford does mean something to me.’

‘And you mean something to her. As I told you, I saw it in her eyes. Did I ever tell you about my Frenchman?’ Edith sighed and her eyes adopted a faraway look as she dragged back the memories. ‘I was already a widow of mature years, but that didn’t matter to him. He was so attractive, and when he spoke in that wonderful accent—’

‘Perhaps another time,’ said Mary Anne abruptly. She got up from her chair and proceeded to prepare a pile of work to take home with her. ‘Look at the time. I’d better be going before our Stanley gets home from school.’

It wasn’t quite true; Stanley wouldn’t be home for another fifteen minutes, but if she didn’t get out Edith would soon know all her business and she didn’t want that.

‘I won’t be seeing you tomorrow,’ she shouted over her shoulder. ‘I’m going round to our Daw’s. John came home last night and I thought I’d go round and say hello.’

Edith’s eyes were steady and wise. She waved one slim hand in farewell. ‘Goodbye, Mary Anne. I’ll tell you more about my secret love, my
très joli
Frenchman tomorrow.’

That night Mary Anne dreamed of the day she’d given Elizabeth away and awoke mopping her tears with the sheet. No one could have known, not even her parents, but she’d actually chosen the name Elizabeth herself. The baby had been handed over nameless, but the new parents had chosen the same name. Perhaps it was something to do with the marriage of the Duke of York and Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon – the present King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. Their daughter too was called Elizabeth, just like Mary Anne’s first daughter – just like her third daughter too, though she always insisted on being called Lizzie. It didn’t really matter. The truth was that Elizabeth Ford’s visit had left a gaping wound where Mary Anne’s heart used to be. She had a great urge to make amends, to explain that she’d been forced to give her daughter away.
But she doesn’t want anything to do with you
, said a voice in her head. It hurt, but she had to face up to the truth.

The next day she washed her face in the old enamel bowl, patted it dry and eyed her complexion in the mirror. Her skin was healthy and her eyes shone with a brittle brightness that hadn’t been there the day before.

She addressed her reflection. ‘Today is a new day. You must put the past behind you and look ahead. Michael is depending on you. So is the Red Cross for that matter,’ she muttered, thinking of the pile of alterations waiting to be done.

Daw looked sour when she opened the door just after midday. John was slumped at the table, his head in his hands. Mathilda was asleep in her pram.

‘I’m off out,’ said Daw, tying a headscarf beneath her chin. ‘I’ve got shopping to do. Not that I’m likely to get much, but seeing as someone came home and ate every last, bit of bread we had …’ She threw an even sourer look in John’s direction.

‘Oh, God. Give it a rest,’ he murmured from behind his hands.

Reluctant to interfere, Mary Anne went straight to the pram and looked down at her granddaughter. ‘Well at least someone’s content,’ she said softly.

‘I’m off,’ said Daw without a backward look. The door slammed behind her. Mathilda twitched but did not wake.

Mary Anne took off her brown felt hat that had a red trim. Her coat was of the same brown and was checked with thin strips of red and white. Two weeks ago it had been a car blanket; now it was the best coat she owned.

She turned to John, who had now emerged from behind his hands. ‘Have you had anything to eat?’

‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘She’s not too pleased with me. I came in after having a few beers with the lads and felt hungry, so I buttered the last piece of bread in the house. I didn’t know it was the last piece then. But I do now.’

‘And that’s what this is about?’

He nodded, then winced, rubbing at the back of his neck. ‘I also said I wouldn’t be home for as long as I thought I was going to be. That went down like a ton of coal down the chute. She said I should spend all my leave with her. I s’pose I should have really, but I just needed to unwind …’ He continued to rub at the nape of his neck.

John was fair and lightly built, though taller than Daw. Daw was well built, big busted and broad in the hips. Mary Anne asked the obvious. ‘Did she hit you?’

He looked surprised by the question, as though he didn’t quite understand.

‘Your neck,’ said Mary Anne. ‘You keep rubbing it.’

‘That’s because I’ve been sent packing from the bedroom.’ He pointed to the settee. ‘I slept there last night.’

‘Oh dear.’

He grimaced. ‘The trouble is that when Daw gets on her high horse, there’s no knowing when she’s going to get off.’

Mary Anne sighed. ‘I’ll find you something to eat.’

Daw marched stiffly along, shopping basket containing ration book, identity card and purse banging against her side.

The queue outside the vegetable shop was long, but she joined it anyway. Vegetable soup with plenty of potatoes would fill a gap. There were a few things underneath the counter in the corner shop that she could add to make it more flavoursome. She was tall enough to look over some of the heads in the queue. Women wearing headscarves tied in all manner of ways chatted and smoked ahead of her. The smell of Woodbines brought on a craving she’d been trying to do without. She searched in her coat pocket for her cigarettes and brought out only an empty packet.

‘Damn,’ she muttered. Tipsy, he’d said! Drunk more like! He’d not only been hungry, he’d wanted a smoke, couldn’t find his own and smoked the last of hers.

‘Have one of mine.’

She turned round. For a brief moment a strange sense of deja vu seemed to flash between them. Although the woman was slimmer and taller than she was, Daw was taken aback.

‘Thank you,’ she said, taking a cigarette from a case that looked to be made of gold. The woman offered her a light. Daw’s gaze never dropped from her face.

‘I’m sorry for staring,’ said Daw, ‘but we look so alike.’

‘I thought that too when I saw you join the queue,’ said the woman. ‘Perhaps we’re related. May I ask your name?’

May I!
A relative who spoke like that? Highly unlikely.

‘Doreen Smith, but I was born Doreen Randall.’

‘Ah!’ The woman nodded thoughtfully.

‘Are you a Randall or a Hodgeson?’ asked Daw. Hodgeson was her mother’s family name. She lifted her chin and spoke down her nose as she said it.

The other woman laughed in a short, sharp manner, the kind of laugh that is dropped in like a kind of challenge or even an insult.

‘Well, one can never be sure who one’s people are, can one? History and families make such chaotic twists and turns, one can be a prince one day and a peasant the next.’

Daw blushed at the thought of where she fitted in and it angered her. Damn the woman and her cigarettes, the stuck-up cow!

She made a rueful face. ‘Ugh. That tastes disgusting,’ she said. Although only its tip had burned to ash, she threw it down, grinding it into the ground with the heel of her shoe.

Surprised by her action, the woman’s lips parted slightly as though she were about to comment. Daw turned her back on her; a sure sign that she neither wanted to listen nor speak any longer.

When she next turned round the woman was gone. The fact that they’d looked so alike had unnerved Daw. She craned her neck, seeking a glimpse of the burgundy suit, the handsome black fedora with the green goose feather at the side.

Expensive clothes, she mused. Now how could any relative of hers afford such expensive clothes?

Her mother’s family of course – not that she ever saw them nowadays. She wondered why. She was sure Harry knew, and Lizzie would of course. But neither of them imparted secrets to her. They were different from her. As her mother kept saying, she was more like her father than they were, and to be honest she was glad of that.

Mary Anne was sewing huge brown buttons on to the patch pockets of the winter coats when Gertrude came calling. She looked glum and stood with her hands folded in front of her. Mary Anne immediately thought the worse. Once again Gertrude had decided to ban her from the shop because she was ‘living in sin’ with a man much younger than her. Deciding attack was the best form of defence, she held up her hands in surrender.

‘Some coats are finished. You can take them with you. In fact you can take the lot if the thought of having me on your premises continues to cause offence.’

Gertrude’s expression remained glum. ‘That’s not why I’m here. Lady Macory died in her sleep last night.’

Mary Anne looked at her blankly. She’d never heard of the woman.

‘Edith,’ Gertrude explained on seeing her confusion. ‘I came to tell you I could do with more help and also that the funeral is next Tuesday. If you haven’t got any mourning clothes, I’m sure we can fix you up with something.’

Mary Anne’s shoulders slumped. No more Edith. No more tales of her romantic Frenchman.

‘No doubt I shall see you tomorrow,’ said Gertrude and without another word turned away.

Mary Anne watched her go, noting that a dowager’s hump was forming between Gertrude’s meaty shoulders.

‘I’m sorry,’ Mary Anne whispered to herself. A tear ran from one eye. Edith had been alive at this time yesterday. She’d been licking her lips salaciously, about to tell more lurid tales about the love of her life, the handsome Frenchman who had swept her off her feet. Mary Anne was wracked with guilt. If only she’d stopped and listened. If only she’d asked her more about how one’s past actions affect one’s future.

Suddenly she wanted to tell someone about her past, about Elizabeth Ford. But who? She had no close friends who would understand as well as Edith. Daw wasn’t approachable, and Harry and Michael were away. She and Biddy, her old neighbour, were not as friendly as they used to be. There was no alternative but to write to Lizzie and tell her everything. She’d have to send it via Patrick. Damn the war and the need for all this secrecy! Never mind. Down to the letter-writing.

She chose her words carefully, getting right to the point but without wanting to cause pain. She’d told Lizzie months ago that she’d had a child before marrying her father. She’d told her most of the circumstances, but not any hope that the child would one day turn up seeking her mother. Things were more simply outlined at the end of the letter.

I realize now that we never really escape our past. All that we have been and have done goes through life with us. I never expected Elizabeth to turn up, but she did. Now I regret not being more responsive to her. I could have done more, surely I could. I was told that giving Elizabeth away would be best for me and for the child. Now I know they were wrong. I should have fought like a tiger to keep her. No matter that we’d have been poor and ostracized, we would have been together. There would have been no gap between us.

The time at Margot’s cottage passed quickly for Lizzie, though the feeling of loss and damaged expectations never went away. In December she packed her case and caught the bus to a home run by the Salvation Army for unmarried mothers, the one Bessie would have gone to had she not miscarried.

After reading the letter from Mary Anne, Margot had tried to persuade her to think again.

‘Think how this half-sister must have felt when she found out she was adopted.’

‘That’s not supposed to happen.’

Margot had given her a ‘things do happen’ look.

‘Your mother regretted doing it. So could you.’

Stubbornly she ignored Margot’s advice. ‘Everything’s arranged.’

She purposely turned down Margot’s offer of a lift to the nursing home. Her mind was made up, but Margot would have kept asking her to reconsider. She wasn’t sure how long she could hold out. As it was, the question kept repeating inside her mind: could she really go through with this?

Yes
, said a firm, nagging voice.
You must or your life will be ruined.

The fat little bus snorted its way along the country road, the sound of its grating gears reverberating between high walls and hawthorn hedges. She stared out at the scenery but saw nothing.