Wartime Wife (41 page)

‘Ah! Yes,’ she said stoically. ‘Well, that explains that.’

‘Explains what?’ asked Mary Anne.

Michael put his cup down on the tray. ‘Another swastika was painted on the front door. I did not like to worry you.’

Mary Anne sighed and shook her head, the calm retreating from her eyes. ‘Thomas Routledge. I bet he’s got something to do with it.’

‘But you were born here,’ Lizzie blurted.

Michael’s smile made her feel terribly young and naive. The colour of his eyes, and the way they glittered in response to the creasing around them, made her heart skip a beat. He was older than her, younger than her mother, yet she could see the attraction.

‘But I do not sound British.’

There was more talk about the business, the family and the war. Mary Anne mentioned Harry’s visit.

‘I was so pleased to see him, and so relieved that Stanley is full of beans.’ Some fragment of the old Mary Anne flashed across her mind. Was Harry telling the truth? She had to have it confirmed. ‘He is full of beans, isn’t he?’

Lizzie smiled broadly. ‘Of course he is, though a bit wild, but I think he’ll grow out of it.’

Reassured, Mary Anne smiled and nodded gratefully. ‘Our Harry said that he was doing fine. I just worry,’ she said, gesturing with one hand before bringing it back on top of the other. ‘At least our Harry and you are there to keep an eye on him – and his father of course.’ She added the last comment in a more sober voice and there was no hiding the hint of bitterness.

‘It’ll be only me now. Our Harry’s left home. I believe he’s sharing a flat with a friend and he’s gone into business with someone. He hasn’t told me much about it, except that it pays better than making cigarettes and that I wouldn’t understand even if he did decide to explain. But he will call in regularly. He reckons he can’t help but do that. He worries, although he doesn’t always show it. But at least he’s around.’

‘I am surprised he has not been called up.’

Michael’s words had the same effect as cold water being poured down her back. She might have shrugged it off, but there was something about the way he looked at her that made Lizzie blush. She hoped to God he couldn’t read her thoughts.

Mary Anne stacked the saucers in a neat pile, the cups lying on top, one inside the other like a large porcelain flower.

‘No doubt he’ll tell me more when he next calls.’

Lizzie managed a tight smile. She still hadn’t come to terms with Harry’s deception, although she’d admired him taking a stand for what he believed was right. But using a crippled man to attend the medical in his place stretched her compliance. Patrick and John hadn’t hesitated to enlist and, even if he didn’t want to fight, Harry could have declared himself a conscientious objector and served in the medical corps.

‘I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s declared himself a conscientious objector,’ her mother said suddenly.

It was an extraordinary comment, perfectly attuned to her thoughts. ‘You could be right, Mother. Oh, and I had another letter from Patrick. He sends you his love.’

‘And another poem?’ Her mother’s eyebrows arched in expectation.

‘Of course.’

‘And John, and Daw?’

‘They’re fine.’

No news yet about the baby, thought Lizzie. I can’t tell her just yet.

Mary Anne cocked her head to one side and eyed her daughter appraisingly. They had the same colouring. She hoped they wouldn’t have the same lives.

‘And how is Peter Selwyn?’

Lizzie’s look was steadfast, and this was one sentence she didn’t need to rehearse. She knew
exactly
how she felt.

‘I wouldn’t know. I’ve left Mrs Selwyn’s employ.’

Her mother leaned forwards expectantly. ‘You’re not going to join the Wrens, are you?’

Lizzie smiled. ‘Don’t worry, Mum. Someone has to stay and look after our Stanley. There’s plenty of jobs on the home
front. I might train as a full-time firefighter. There’s a lot of jobs going with the fire brigade, what with some men preferring to fight the Nazis rather than fires.’

Her mother didn’t go on to ask any more about Peter, and for that she was glad. Peter wasn’t worth anyone’s attention and she’d have no hesitation in shopping him to the authorities, if it wasn’t for Harry. Oddly, Peter and her brother were two of a kind – though one was a coward and one was not.

‘And now …’ She got up to leave.

‘I will get your coat,’ said Michael and went ahead of them into the passage where a number of coats hung from a hallstand.

‘He’s very considerate,’ whispered Lizzie.

Mary Anne’s smile lit up her face.

‘He’s very many things. You wouldn’t believe … No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I won’t tell you of the things he’s been through and the things he’s seen. Perhaps he’ll do that himself in years to come when this dreadful war is over.’

After Michael held Lizzie’s coat while she put it on, he slid the bolt back on the front door and waited patiently while mother and daughter said goodbye, rocking with emotion as they embraced.

‘I miss you, Mum. You know that, don’t you?’

Mary Anne bit her lip and nodded.

Lizzie went on. ‘I’m not going to ask you to come home because I know you’re happy here.’ She threw a thankful smile at Michael. ‘And we’re old enough to look after ourselves, and perfectly capable of looking after Stanley, but I need to tell him, Ma, and I also think Daw should know. Dad isn’t going to find out just yet, but you know how things go round. You can’t stay indoors forever.’

Mother and daughter held each other at arm’s length, Mary
Anne biting her bottom lip and frowning slightly as she considered what she was being asked.

Lizzie sighed. There was nothing for it but to tell her the one thing that would decide her.

‘Daw’s expecting.’

Daw threw Lizzie a sceptical glare, inhaling her disbelief through clenched teeth.

‘No!’

It was all she said. Her look said everything else, her eyes seeming to lock with the glassy-eyed remnants of her childhood sitting in a row on the chest of drawers.

As though she’s blaming them for all her misfortunes, thought Lizzie, and not for the first time it occurred to her how self-centred her sister was.

‘Mum’s happy. That’s what we have to bear in mind,’ Lizzie said, presuming Daw would want to know how her mother was and convincing herself that although Daw’s first priority was herself she did love her mother.

Daw shook her head in disbelief. ‘No.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I won’t visit her. It’s disgusting.’

Lizzie raised her eyebrows in surprise. ‘Because she’s living with a man who treats her well? It might be disgusting to the outside world because she’s not married to him, but what’s a marriage certificate anyway? Just a piece of paper. That’s all.’

Daw screwed up her face in horror. ‘Can you imagine the neighbours whispering when we walk past?’

Lizzie shrugged. ‘Let them whisper. People who live in glasshouses and all that …’

Daw frowned. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Older she might be, but Daw wasn’t widely read, had hated school and didn’t really care what the world was up to as long as it didn’t affect her. A house, a husband and children were all she’d ever wanted. Lizzie folded her arms and regarded Daw as though she were twenty years older than her and not twenty months younger.

‘They’ve all got their own dark secrets and shouldn’t be so quick to condemn others.’

Tight-lipped and flushed, Daw shook her head, her dark hair bouncing around her cheeks. ‘I don’t care about their reputations. It’s my mother’s that matters and the way it affects me.’

Lizzie tapped her foot impatiently as she sought the right words that might snap Daw out of her own little world. The wrong ones came instead.

‘Stop being such a selfish little cow.’

‘What will John say?’ It didn’t seem as though she’d heard. Her hands were clenched, her eyes staring at the floor.

‘About the baby or Mother?’

Daw shook her head. ‘I don’t know what he’ll think.’

‘He’ll be so pleased to hear about the baby, I doubt what mother is up to is likely to matter.’

Daw shook her head. ‘I don’t know. Living in sin is so shameful. She suddenly spun round on Lizzie. ‘Have you told Ma about the baby?’

Lizzie nodded.

Daw covered her face with her hands. ‘Oh, God!’

‘She was pleased for you.’

Emerging from behind her hands, Daw looked up at her wide-eyed, the darkness of her pupils in stark contrast to her creamy white skin, her lips blood red because she’d been
biting them. ‘Oh God. It almost makes me as bad as her, doesn’t it? I’m as much of a slut as she is!’

‘Daw!’

Daw began to wail and scream.

‘Daw! Stop it!’

She didn’t stop. Aware of the noise carrying downstairs, Lizzie swung out her hand and slapped her face, hard enough to leave a vivid red mark.

Daw was stunned to silence. She sat shaking on the side of the bed, her eyes staring at nothing, her lips quivering as she rubbed the hot hand mark on her face.

Seeing her sister’s round-eyed shock, Lizzie was suddenly overcome with remorse. ‘Daw, I’m sorry …’

Her sister stiffened before her outstretched hand, sniffed and stuck out her chin. ‘At least me and John will be married. There won’t be any shame attached to this baby. If there was, I’d throw myself in the river!’

The statement was delivered with chilling resolve.

Lizzie turned away, telling herself that everything would turn out fine – or as well as it could be expected to.

But there was worse to come.

As she descended the stairs, her eyes met those of her father standing at the bottom. She could tell by his face that he’d heard every word.

Her abdomen tightened against the sudden urge to use the lavatory. ‘Dad … I …’ Whatever she might have considered saying froze in her throat. It was hard to read the look on his face, the darkness in his eyes, but she saw the way his cheeks flexed with tension and knew that he knew …

What he said next was not what she’d expected him to say.

‘Tell our Daw to write to John right now. Tell ’er to marry the bloke now. Get ‘im to put in for compassionate leave right
now, not in a few months, not when he gets a chance at some leave,
now
!’

Lizzie looked back up the stairs and saw Daw looking down, her perplexed expression mirroring her own feelings.

Stanley was eager to visit his mother and Lizzie offered to take him there. ‘Where does she live?’ he asked eagerly, as she pulled his balaclava over his head and tucked his scarf into a firm knot beneath his chin.

‘You’ll know when we get there.’

There was more than one reason for taking him with her; it would keep him away from the bad company he’d fallen in with. She wasn’t always there to keep him under control, her father had turned into himself since her mother had left, and Daw was too busy looking after herself.

Harry came by at least once a week and was the only one Stanley really looked up to.

‘All my mates have seen Harry in his car. Do you think he’ll take us for a ride in it when he’s not doing secret things?’ he asked her, as they walked from Kent Street, past the red brick of E. S. & A. Robinson, paper bag manufacturer, and into East Street.

Another one of his famous stories? she wondered. ‘What secret things?’

‘When I asked our Harry why he’d never had a car before, he said it was cos he couldn’t afford it, and now he’s doing other,
special
work, now he can, thanks to the war and all that. So me and me mates talked about it, and we reckon it’s because he’s doing
secret
things – you know – like a spy.’

‘Like Beau Drummond or Richard Hannay.’

‘Have they got cars too?’

Lizzie smiled. Spying was secondary in importance to an Austin Seven or a Morris.

Stanley continued to chatter, mostly telling her about his mates. Luckily, when he did ask more questions, only a simple yes or no was needed in reply, which gave Lizzie time to think.

How was it going to be when mother and son were reunited? She was very aware that on sight of Stanley her mother might resort to her old ways, putting his welfare and everyone else’s before her own. She was determined this would not happen. This war was going to change quite a few things, including women’s lives. Her mother had to be assured of this.

Lizzie half turned into the pawnshop doorway, when Stanley stopped dead in his tracks, a look of dark horror distorting his pale features.

‘I’m not going in there! That’s where Mr Hitler lives!’

‘Stanley, don’t be so ridiculous. This is where your mother lives now.’

Stanley was adamant. ‘You don’t understand. He keeps people there. He kidnaps them and keeps them there. Some of them he sends to Germany as slaves!’

Stanley’s outburst began to attract attention. Lizzie felt her face reddening. This was ridiculous!

‘Stanley. Do you want to see your mother?’

He nodded. ‘But not in there. I ain’t going in there, cos if we go in there, he’ll kidnap us too and put us in a box and send us to Germany.’

Losing patience, Lizzie tried to pull him into the doorway. ‘Now come on …’

Stanley’s hand slipped from her grasp. ‘No!’

Like a rabbit pursued by a pack of hounds, he was gone, darting off into the Saturday morning crowds, leaving Lizzie frustrated, her arms hanging loose at her side.

It was Wednesday evening, the time they’d agreed to set aside for cleaning and generally taking stock. The stocktaking had taken longer than they’d expected, so by the time it came to cleaning, a misty evening had settled, made darker by the rules of the blackout.

Mary Anne put more effort than usual into polishing the pawnshop counter and even tried putting some shine back into the brass grille dividing their domain from that of the customers.

Every so often, Michael looked at her sidelong, knowing what she was worrying about but leaving her to get it out of her system.

Lizzie had apologised for Stanley running away. Out of earshot of Michael, she’d reiterated Stanley’s view of the pawnbroker to her mother.