We've Come to Take You Home (17 page)

FORTY-FOUR

S
HE
'
D HAD TO WAIT
another whole week before the Major and his wife went out in the evening. She needed time – just in case it went wrong.

She untied her apron, the best white for serving dinner, and dropped it down on the chair beside her bed. One, two, three, four, five, six buttons, and she peeled off her black dress. She unlaced and pulled off her corset. She unpinned and then un-tucked the first strip of sheeting. She passed it round and round her body, round and round, gradually easing her breasts out of their prison. She held them in her hands, slowly, slowly, massaging away the pain.

She unpinned and un-tucked the second strip of sheeting. She passed it round her body, again and again, again and again, until it fell to the floor and she was standing there, naked, the gold locket fastened round her neck glinting in the candlelight. She cupped the weight of her swollen belly in her hands, stroking it gently, whispering to the child inside, ‘Forgive me, please, forgive me.'

She lowered herself down into the hipbath, sat there in the steaming hot water, stained yellow with mustard powder, waiting, hoping, for the cramps to start. They didn't. She'd tried jumping down off a chair, again and again, but it hadn't worked. Drinking gin wasn't an option. There was none in the house and, even if there was, the Major's wife would have noticed. There was only one more thing she could do. And it was something you only did if you were really desperate. And she was.

Stitch by stitch she unpicked the seam of her corset. The Major's wife had stays made out of whalebone. But she, the maid-of-all-work, had stays made out of beaten steel. They weren't only cheap. They were also very hard and very sharp; when she was kneeling down or bending over she could feel the metal digging into her hips and belly. And something hard and sharp was exactly what she needed. She pulled the stay, inch by inch, out of its seam. It was about as half as wide as her little finger, very thin and completely flat. Both ends were slightly rounded.

Tom knew, from her last letter to him, that she was pregnant. If he was still alive, and he did come home, he would expect to find her with child. Her own mother had lost two babies, one at six weeks, the other three months into pregnancy before being safely delivered of her brother. It wasn't unusual. And that's what she would tell him. That she had lost the baby. And he would believe her. And understand.

She saw him running up the steps, through the front door and into the hallway of the house. He would scoop her up in his arms and hold her so tight that it was impossible to breathe. Then she saw them standing together, side by side, in front of an altar, Tom slipping a gold ring onto her finger.

She was lying in a white bed in a sun-filled room. Tom was standing looking down at her. She held the child up to him. He took their newborn in his arms. Happy, smiling, he cradled it in his arms. It was then that she noticed the little girl, standing at the end of the bed, staring at her. She went back to the church and there was the same little girl, standing between herself and Tom at the altar. And there she was again, standing in the hallway of the house, pulling at Tom's trousers, trying to get his attention. Her lie would follow them everywhere.

But he wasn't coming home. He was missing in action. That's what the telegram had said. And he was missing because no body had been found. And that was because there was no
body to find. He had been blown to pieces, his fingers and toes, eyes and ears, just lumps of dead flesh flying through the air.

And the child inside her was nothing more than a lump of flesh. No more. No less. Yes, it was alive, it twisted and kicked, but it didn't feel joy. It didn't know fear. And it didn't feel pain. It didn't matter whether it lived or died. It wouldn't know or care.

She poured water out of the jug into the bowl. She washed and dried the metal stay. Without the child she had a chance. She would work out her time here at Eaton Villa, get the Major and his wife to give her a reference and then she would apply for a better job with decent pay. She would start her life all over again. Years from now, married with a husband and children, all of this would be forgotten.

She spread out an old sheet on the floor, in the narrow space between the bed and the door, and lay down. She hitched her nightdress up above her waist.

‘What you trying to do? Kill yourself?'

Ellie jumped down through the open window.

‘Because if you are there's no better way of doing it…'

She grabbed the steel from Jess' hand.

‘Come here, you silly girl.'

She heaved Jess up from the floor.

‘So what's happened, because something must have?'

She pulled her down onto the bed. They lay, side by side, arms wrapped round each other.

‘She knows, I told her, but she already knew, she'd already guessed…'

They hugged the blanket around themselves to keep warm.

‘So what did she say?'

‘It can never be Tom's…'

‘So whose is it then? The Archangel bleeding Gabriel's?' Ellie snorted. ‘What else did the old bag say?'

‘The Major would throw me out if he knew…'

‘Listen, Jess, they want you to get rid of it and they'll be dead chuffed if they can get rid of you at the same time. But you mustn't let them. You want to keep this baby, don't you?'

It was easy to say but not so easy to do.

‘Tom's dead, he's been blown to pieces, he's never coming home…'

Ellie pulled the blanket tighter around them.

‘Listen, Jess, there was a girl back in my village. The day she found out her husband had been killed in action she never stopped smiling. It was the best thing that had ever happened to her. When he had a drink in him he'd beat her black and blue then he'd force himself on her. A month later she stopped her smiling. She'd had another letter. They'd made a mistake, got the name wrong. Her husband was alive and on his way home.'

Mistakes did happen; she'd read about them in the papers.

‘I'll look after you, Jess, hold your hand and everything, that's what I used to do for my mother and I'll do the same for you. Nothing to it, a bit of pushing, a bit of shoving, and out it comes. Give your Tom something to look forward to. A trouble shared is a trouble halved. So, what do you say?'

FORTY-FIVE

April 1918

A
LL SHE WANTED TO
do was scream. If she did, the Major and his wife would hear her. They would run up the stairs and along the corridor into her attic bedroom. They would see Jess lying on the floor, her nightdress hitched over her hips, with Ellie kneeling beside her. They would call for the doctor and there would be hot water and clean sheets.

But screaming would also mean having her baby dragged out of her arms, lying there, helplessly, while it was handed over to a stranger – never being allowed to see her child again.

Ellie pushed a bundle of rags into her mouth.

‘Here, bite on this.'

The Major and his wife had said nothing when, at six o'clock that evening, she'd told them that she was feeling ill and could she please have their permission to go upstairs to bed. The Major's wife had tilted her head to one side.

‘What exactly is the problem?'

If they didn't hurry up, the baby, and everything else, all the blood and bits, would squeeze themselves out, down here in the living room, onto the Major's precious Indian silk carpet.

‘It's…'

She indicated down below. Let the Major's wife think it was her monthly.

‘I need to… lie down.'

She stood there, eyes down, back straight, her hands clenched into fists, as the pain knifed through her.

‘Are you sure, Jess, that is all it is?'

All the Major's wife had to do was count back, the days, weeks and months, to when Tom was at home. But perhaps she'd already done that.

She bobbed a curtsey.

‘Yes, ma'am.'

‘You don't need a doctor?'

The Major looked her up and down over the top of his newspaper.

‘No, sir.'

‘Are you sure? If you do, you should say.'

‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.'

She curtseyed again. But she wouldn't be able to do a fourth. Her legs would give way underneath her.

‘Very well. You may go upstairs.'

Nothing to it, a bit of pushing, a bit of shoving and out it comes was how Ellie had described it. But then Ellie had never had a baby.

The pain was so awful she didn't think she would be able to get through the next two hours, let alone three or four, upstairs, alone in her room, with no one to hold her hand and no one to talk to. And Ellie had promised, when it happened, day or night, she would be there.

She'd used the excuse that a letter had been wrongly delivered to go round to the neighbouring house. She'd rung the bell and banged on the door, again and again, until after the third knock the door had opened.

She collapsed down onto her knees.

‘What the…'

Ellie knelt down beside her.

‘It's the baby. It's coming…'

‘It's early…'

‘Two weeks…'

‘When did it start?'

‘This morning…'

‘What did you tell them?'

‘That it was my monthly and I had to lie down…'

Ellie helped Jess up.

‘I'll do the same. Go on now, back to the house, up to your room before someone sees us.'

Maids-of-all-work, crouched down together on the front door steps, whispering, could only mean one thing – trouble.

‘Go on, I'll be as quick as I can.'

She'd crawled up the stairs to her bedroom. Her legs were shaking, her teeth were chattering, and the dull ache in her lower back was no longer a dull ache but pain so great it felt as if every bone in her body was being slowly and systematically crushed.

It had started that morning just after breakfast. She was completely unprepared when, out in the garden, hoeing the soil, ready for sowing seeds, she had felt a pop deep down in her stomach. Seconds later, warm liquid had gushed down the inside of her legs, soaking through the coarse brown skirt of her working dress.

The Major went on pacing up and down, marking out where the carrots, cabbages and swede should be sowed, while she continued on with the hoeing. It was a warm, sunny morning, the beginning of spring, and the liquid had dried quickly – something that only she could feel, and no one else could see, just like the baby turning inside her belly.

Her mother's waters had broken when they had been out together picking blackberries. Jess remembered her saying that there was nothing to be frightened about, that her brother or sister was now on his or her way. Nine hours later, the village midwife had called the two of them, her father and herself, into the cottage and there was her mother, propped up in bed, cradling a baby.

What she had tried to forget, but couldn't forget now, up
there in the attic, eleven hours into her own labour, was the sound of her mother screaming. It was like listening to an animal being ripped to pieces.

‘Jess, you've just got to get the baby round the bend. Push down, really hard, like you want to go to the toilet. Come on, now, push…'

Women died in childbirth, she knew that. She had seen it in their village. One day there was a mother, father, and two kids, and the next day, there was just a father and two kids. Mother and baby had died in childbirth. These things happened.

‘You're nearly there, girl, just push…'

It came in another wave, washing through her and over her. She sank underneath it, helpless, unable to breathe, suffocating in it, while her body expanded wider and wider, splitting further and further apart. She was no longer needed. It didn't matter what she thought, what she wanted, every muscle in her body was doing what it wanted to do, what it needed to do.

The pain became solid, more focussed.

‘Jess, I can see it, the baby, just one big push…'

She pushed. There, sticking out between her legs was the head. She pushed. Her lower body convulsed and widened. Shoulders appeared, then arms, and what had been inside her, was now outside her.

FORTY-SIX

J
ESS FOLLOWED
E
LLIE DOWN
the narrow flight of stairs. Just less than nine months ago, she had crept down the same staircase and along the landing into Tom's bedroom. When she pushed open the door there he was waiting for her. That was their last night together. And now here she was carrying their child, less than two hours old, wrapped in a blanket in her arms.

The door of the Major's bedroom opened. Snores echoed up through the house. A floorboard creaked. Jess scrambled underneath the tapestry-covered table. Ellie darted through the door into the toilet. There was a shuffle of slippered feet on the landing carpet. And then silence. There was another shuffle. Jess peeped out. She could see her mistress; she was standing at the top of the staircase, directly in front of where Jess was hiding, looking down towards the hall below. She turned towards the bedroom. The door closed.

Almost immediately, the door opened and the Major's wife stepped back out onto the landing. She started to walk towards the toilet. Jess closed her eyes. Please, no, don't let her go in and find Ellie.

The footsteps stopped. There was a creak and a sigh and then the shuffling came back down the landing, past where Jess sat, crouched down on the floor, below the table. She tightened her arms around the bundle of blanket containing her baby. The footsteps stopped and then started up again, down the landing, towards the bedroom. The door closed. Silence.

Jess opened her eyes. She crawled out from underneath the table. The toilet door opened and Ellie stepped out. They stood there, white faced, staring at each other. Together they went down the stairs, step by step, to the half-landing, and then down the final flight of stairs into the hallway. They pulled back the first bolt, then the second.

‘When you go back up be careful…'

Ellie rolled her eyes.

‘Jessica Brown, it was you not being careful that got us into this mess. And it will be me, Eleanor Baxter, who will get us out of it. Go on, hop it. Better wear out shoes than sheets.'

The front door clicked shut.

Keeping to the shadows, every few seconds glancing up at the sky, Jess followed the same route she and the Major had walked, marched, almost a year ago, when he collected her from the station that first day in London. Past the bombed out school where eighteen children had died and more than a hundred injured, down Glebe Road, Hillier Road, Honeywell Road, Ebbs Road.

Back in the village, when Jess and her mother had helped her father and the other men bring in the harvest, a full moon in a cloudless sky had been something to be welcomed, even celebrated; it would give them enough light to work on into the night. But in the city, in time of war, a full moon, like the one shining above, was something to dread.

Anti-aircraft fire started just as she was approaching the station. They were easy targets. All the enemy planes had to do was follow the tracks, shining in the moonlight, up the coast to London. If this one took a direct hit none of the people here, an old lady trying to comfort a whimpering dog, the little girl humming to a yellow bird in a cage, a mother watching over a sleeping child, would have a chance. What had made them all come to the station? They would have been safer staying at home.

Her ticket was checked. She'd been careful with the money. But, day by day, month by month, with every letter she'd written, and with every stamp she'd bought, it had disappeared. Buying her return ticket had all but emptied her purse. All that was left of the five pounds Tom had given her were two pennies and one sixpence.

The last train out from London to Lewes was leaving in two minutes. She had to catch it. Going back to the house with the baby wasn't an option. A child screamed, a man kicked, a woman cursed as Jess walked through, round and over the sleeping bodies, bunched up in blankets, carpeting the tunnel floor. Flights of steps led up from the tunnel onto the platforms; eight and nine, ten and eleven, twelve and thirteen.

She saw it, the hospital train, just before she reached the top of the steps. The doors were open and the wounded, and the dead and the dying, were being unloaded. Men in military uniform and nurses, white caps on their heads, red and grey capes covering their shoulders, walked up and down, whispering instructions. One stretcher was directed here, another there, another was loaded onto a truck parked at the side of the platform. There must have been hundreds of them.

A young woman, wearing a blouse, skirt and coat rather than a nurse's uniform, was walking down the platform towards where Jess was standing. Head down, looking from side to side, she checked each stretcher, before moving on, down the row, to the next, and the next, searching the battered and bloody remains for the one face she wanted to see.

There was a cry. The woman walked on. The cry was repeated. The woman stopped and turned. Jess had never seen Arthur Crow, the doctor's son, when he came back home from France. She'd only heard about him. How the children when they saw him, walking down the street, had screamed and run away. Now she understood why.

A young man was struggling to sit up. Or what was left of a young man. Where there should have been an arm and a hand with five fingers there was splintered bone. Where there should have been a leg and a foot with five toes there was a stump. On the right side of his head, instead of an ear and eye, there was a gaping hole.

The woman took a step back. She twisted from side to side, once, twice. She opened her mouth. Jess waited for the scream, for the young woman to pick up her skirts and run away. But instead the woman closed her mouth. She took one step forward, a second and then she ran towards the young man lying there on the ground. She knelt down beside him and took his hands in her hands.

Doors slammed shut. A whistle blew. The train pulled out of the station. Jess sat, looking out of the window, as it rattled southwards through the suburbs of Balham and Croydon. Two planes, one small, one twice its size, were caught silhouetted against the moon. The larger went into a steep dive, spinning round and round, down and down, towards the ground, fire flickering along the length of its fuselage.