An Unsuitable Mother

SHEELAGH KELLY

An Unsuitable Mother

Copyright

This novel is a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2008

Copyright © Sheelagh Kelly 2008

Sheelagh Kelly asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Soource ISBN: 9780007211586

Ebook Edition © DECEMBER 2008 ISBN:9780007287291

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For my cousin, Michael Kelly

Contents

Title Page Copyright Note to Readers Dedication Part 1 Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Part 2 Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Part 3 Chapter Twenty-one Chapter Twenty-two Chapter Twenty-three Chapter Twenty-four Chapter Twenty-five Chapter Twenty-six Keep Reading Acknowledgements About the Author Also by Sheelagh Kelly About the Publisher

1

What an intolerable burden, to be adopted by unsuitable parents. It was at times such as now that the holder of this view had a burning need to find the woman who had given birth to her. Whatever had made her abandon her baby, she could surely not be as insufferable as the one whose disembodied voice invaded this room.

Nell formed a weary reply to it now. ‘Ye-es, almost ready!’ When in fact she was not ready at all, but lounging on her bedroom windowsill, observing the newcomers moving in across the avenue; infinitely more fascinating than what lay in store.

‘You needn’t think dragging your feet’s going to help,’ inveighed Mrs Spottiswood. ‘And please don’t speak to me in that tone of voice! You’re coming to Ronald’s party, so get on with it.’

Some party, thought Nell, whose brown eyes remained fixed to the semi-detached house opposite, as yet another item of furniture was transported between the wooden rising-sun gates, and along a drive lined with hydrangeas. Her cousin’s send-off to war promised to be the dullest affair. Never mind that all involved had pooled their rations to concoct a good spread, with Aunty Phyllis in charge it would hardly be an electric occasion. At least, though thought Nell with a resentful sigh, there would be a do of sorts for the son of the house. Her own mother’s idea of a good send-off was to supply clean knickers, a flask of tea and a packet of sandwiches.

It was hard to believe there was a war on, with this dazzling August sunshine that lingered well into evening. No barrage balloons over York to mar the blue sky, nor even the faintest drone from one of the airfields that surrounded the city. Other parts of the county might be getting hammered, in southern skies British pilots battling desperately for what could be their final days of freedom, but the only bit of excitement around these parts came in the shape of foreign men seeking billets. None of them were around today, though, more’s the pity.

Nell closed her eyes and tilted her face to the sun, whilst waiting for the newcomers to reappear, and dreamed of the venue she would rather be attending, had she not been dragooned.

‘Eleanor!’

I am not an Eleanor, I am a Nell, came the irritated thought.

‘Coming!’ Sounding gay, but inwardly peeved at having to tear herself away, she went to grab a box of mascara from the dressing table. Spitting on the dwindling brown block inside, she worked it into a mud with the little brush. Then, determined not to miss anything, she repositioned herself by the window with her compact mirror, and began a hasty application to her lashes.

Whilst she was doing this, a figure entered her peripheral vision. In the hope that it was one of the new neighbours, and thus distracted, Nell poked herself in the eye. ‘Ooh, sod and blast!’ She was forced to cease everything, with a handkerchief pressed to her eye until the stinging receded.

And to cap it all, the figure had been no one important, only Geoff from next door, about whom she knew everything, for they had grown up together, though he was three years her junior. Fifteen: it seemed so long ago. She recalled herself at Geoff’s age in her final year at school, the trip to the hairdresser to lop off her plaits and reduce her dark-brown hair to jaw length, in preparation of starting work. But surely she had never been so childish as this boy? Certainly she had grown up very quickly in these last three weeks. A secret smile twitched her lips.

Still waiting for her right eye to stop smarting, tweaked by thoughts of other things, she continued to watch Geoff with her left. In his Boy Scout uniform, he was practising lobbing grenades, ripping out the pin with his teeth, and generally playing the big warrior. Except that the grenade was a potato. Stifling laughter, Nell leaned again on the windowsill to maintain her one-eyed surveillance, as, time and again, Geoff cantered with manly strides up the path, like a spin bowler hurtling for the wicket, his mouth emitting an explosion upon hitting the target.

Then his mother came upon the scene. ‘Geoffrey, what have I told you about wasting food?’ And, much to Nell’s further amusement, she cuffed him sharply round the head, ignoring his protests that he was only following orders.

Biting her lip in sympathy for poor Geoff’s plight, though still tickled, Nell finally managed to adorn her lashes with mascara, and added a quick smear of rouge to her lips and cheeks. At her mother’s further shout of impatience, she snatched a last look in the mirror, heaved in dissatisfaction for the tall and well-built figure reflected there, with its heavy breasts and thighs – such a big girl – then she prinked a dark-brown wave, smoothed the white sleeveless blouse and blue skirt, and tripped to the stairs.

But before she was halfway down, her mother witnessed a crime. ‘You are not leaving this house with bare legs!’

‘All my stockings are laddered!’ With no need to impress relatives, Nell had been hoping to save her one decent pair.

‘Then you can wear ankle socks!’

She turned back with a grumble. ‘Oh, all right, I’ll go and have another look …’

‘And close your window whilst you’re there!’

Nell’s white sandals stopped in mid-track. ‘It’ll be stifling!’

‘Why do you have to argue with every single request I make?’ It was Thelma Spottiswood’s turn to sound weary now. ‘Close it! It’ll be after blackout when we return, and I’ve no intention of leaving an open invitation to every crook in York. Anyone who’d stoop to pinching the lightbulb out of a public lavatory would have a field day in here.’

Nell wanted to complain that, if previous so-called family parties were anything to go by, they would be home well before nine thirty. Nevertheless, she went back to her room to don stockings and to pull down the sash – which was criss-crossed with brown tape as a safeguard against being shattered by bombs, even though York had been virtually free of those after almost a year of war – for it didn’t do to upset Mother. Be prepared, that was Thelma Spottiswood’s motto, as testified in her stock cupboards, her first-aid box, the stirrup pump forever at hand, and the thermos flask close to the kettle ready to fill with hot water in case of an air raid. So, being a considerate girl at heart, Nell did as she was told, finally arriving downstairs to present herself with a smile.

But her heart was to sink, as her father ordered dispassionately, ‘You can get that muck off your face for a start.’ Making ready for his stint as a member of the Home Guard, and changed from his shirt and tie into its newly issued khaki, Wilfred Spottiswood bent to put on his bicycle clips. But just because he would not be attending the party did not mean he would allow his daughter free rein. ‘You look like a trollop.’

With no expectation that Mother would spring to her defence, a dutiful but inwardly hurt Nell rubbed at her lips with a handkerchief, hoping not to blot away too much of the colour. That was one of the drawbacks of having elderly guardians – no, positively ancient, thought Nell, who still found it astonishing that they had been children at the time of Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee – how could one expect them to understand a modern girl’s outlook? Father would quite gladly spend all weekend in his garden, or painting the house, and keeping both immaculate – but woe betide if his daughter should attempt to embellish her looks. Checking the pockets of his battledress for his identity card and his manual, and slinging a rifle over one shoulder and a gas mask over the other, he finally deigned to spare her another, rather resentful, glance. The fact that he made no comment informed Nell that she was classified as fit to leave the house.

Father, though, was the first of them to depart, saying, ‘Have a good time at your party, but don’t be too late home.’

‘That’s if we ever get there,’ sniped his wife, with an accusing glance at their daughter.

Good time indeed! A grouchy Nell knew where she would rather be. Waiting now for her mother to don hat and gloves, she wandered to the window and watched her father push his bicycle to the footpath, where he paused to run a critical eye over his newly clipped privet. What could possibly be out of place? Why, it looked as if he had used a blasted spirit level on it! Then he cycled off, a grey, reserved and unhealthy figure, who spared not a wink of curiosity for the folk who were moving in. This was no surprise to Nell, for, outside work, the only human being to whom he paid lip service was her mother. Mother was a marvel at everything, possessing the ability to whip up a delicious meal despite this rationing, and would have it on the table the moment Father came in, and treated him as lord and master. As for their daughter, they seemed to think it sufficient that they were donating every material comfort that Father’s good position at the insurance firm could endow: a room of her own in a well-furnished house; a family car – even though it might be stuck in the garage most of the time due to wartime restrictions on petrol; elocution lessons to oust any trace of Yorkshire accent that they themselves retained; a grammar-school education, and a decent job to follow it. Yes, Nell was grateful for their sacrifices, and it was perhaps understandable when they had endured twelve childless years before adopting her that they wanted to be constantly involved. But did they have to be such old miseries?

‘What are you sighing at now?’ came the testy demand.

Made aware that she had been thinking out loud, Nell turned to see that her mother was ready: solid, large-bosomed and respectable-looking in her navy spotted dress, navy shoes, white gloves and white straw hat, she cut a shapely figure – but shapely in the manner of a cooling tower, thought Nell, everything rigidly confined and uninviting. She donned a smile, and explained, ‘Oh, nothing, I was just envying those new people across the road their lovely French table.’

‘So that’s what kept you so long upstairs!’ Beads of perspiration had begun to seep from the menopausal brow. ‘I don’t know what there is to envy, they can’t be so well off if they’re having to do the removals themselves. Sunday night and still they’re at it!’

Nell’s focus had by now turned back to the street. ‘Ooh, look, there’s the lady of the house again! At least I think it is, but she looks far too young to have children – maybe they’re not hers, maybe they’re only nephews and nieces come to hel—’

‘For goodness’ sake!’ Thelma Spottiswood came to smack her away from the window. ‘I’ve already waited an hour for you to get ready, I’ve no wish to hang around further whilst you invent people’s life stories.’

‘I’m just interested …’

‘That’s obvious! I wish you’d show as much enthusiasm for your cousin as you do for the antics of strangers. I don’t know where you get your nosiness from – now go and fetch your gas mask then let’s be off to this blessed party, Nebby Nora!’

Hurrying to comply, Nell wondered, too, from whom she had inherited her boundless curiosity in mankind, how she could be so intrigued with what went on in others’ homes, not just in material concerns, but in their relationships, and how they coped with this war. Had her real parents been writers, artists, actors even? Often detached, her adoptive ones showed not the slightest interest in anyone outside their sphere. As anticipated. Thelma Spottiswood hooked her gas-mask container over her shoulder, and, in the same aloof manner as her husband, left the house with nary a peek at the newcomers or their furniture, discreetly nipping her daughter’s arm when Nell turned to stare.

Few words passed between them as they walked along the tree-lined avenue to the nearest main road. In fact, the avenue ran between two main roads, one end being quite genteel, almost countrified in appearance, and enclosed in its view a quaint redundant windmill upon a rise – having once formed a village west of York, prior to urban spread. But with their house being situated nearer the more industrial highway, it was there they must head. Nell’s aunt lived in the adjacent district, about a mile or so away. Before the war they might have walked there on an evening such as this, but now, with a thought to conserve shoe leather, they went only so far as the nearest bus stop.

Being Sunday, there was little traffic about, though still enough army vehicles to irritate Nell, who remained piqued at having her own jaunt vetoed. On the opposite side to the bus stop, behind a wall that extended from the carriage works, ran a vast network of railway lines, at this point in the road some of them bulging out from the main track, like an aneurism in a blood vessel, to serve another part of the city, before joining the chief artery again. Even today, the locomotives made for a great deal of soot, and Thelma Spottiswood puffed gently at her white glove to expel such a fleck.

Nell had something to broach to her mother, but it might not go down too well. Anyway, the bus came then.

There was a wasp on board, floating up and down the aisle and generally causing a nuisance, until a grim Mrs Spottiswood rose and squashed it with her bag against a window.

Five minutes later, mother and daughter alighted, to undergo the rest of their trek along a straight, wide avenue that had lesser groves branching off to right and left, the occasional shade of a tree, and a variety of building styles, some Edwardian, but most of them modern semi-detached residences, with leaded lights and neatly planted beds of marigolds, roses, white alyssum and blue lobelia. The avenue was around a mile in length, though Nell and her mother did not have to walk half so far.

Upon reaching her aunt’s gate, there was a warning. ‘Stop making it so obvious you’d rather be somewhere else! I won’t have your aunt and uncle offended. You never know, you might enjoy it.’ With Nell tagging behind, Mrs Spottiswood approached a door not dissimilar to their own, Buckingham green, half-glazed, with a circular formation of stained glass, and a cast-iron letterbox. Singing could now be heard from behind it, which presaged a livelier affair than usual.

‘Goodness, Phyllis,’ Thelma Spottiswood announced above the rowdiness upon entering, with a smile to her sister-in-law, ‘you do have a full house!’

Nell perked up too, there being several more guests than she had anticipated, her main focus being the young men in uniform who had commandeered the gramophone, and were leading a rousing chorus of ‘Roll Out the Barrel’, to which Ronald and his sisters and other relatives were happily singing along.

At such extraordinary sight, her mouth fell open. Whilst she continued to gawp, her mother waved and smiled to family members, and enquired somewhat dubiously over the din, ‘Are those Ronald’s army colleagues?’

‘Yes – at least two of them are,’ mouthed her sister-in-law, a mousey dumpling of a woman, not half so smart as the other Mrs Spottiswood, with a kinder though less intelligent face. Then, unable to speak without having to shout, she drew Thelma and her daughter aside, and divulged, ‘The others he met in town and just hit it off with. They were billeted in York after Dunkirk. Such grand young chaps. I don’t think any of them is over twenty, I could weep when I think what a terrible time they must have had, but they’re putting such a brave face on it – as you can hear!’ She issued a quick laugh. ‘And what with them being so far from home – from London, two of them – Ronald thought it would be nice to extend some local hospitality. He’s such a thoughtful boy. Look at our Daphne and Margaret, can’t even peel themselves away to greet you. I’m sorry about that – and the noise. I’m afraid they’re all rather merry, let’s hope they’ve left you something to drink – you should have come sooner.’

Missing Thelma’s blameful glance at Nell, Aunt Phyllis tried to catch her husband’s eye, waving above the sea of heads and summoning him. Eventually he came, holding his bottle aloft as he forged a passage towards the latecomers, a similar height and build to Nell’s father, though less poker-faced.

But even as Nell returned his kiss, she was gazing intently over his shoulder at the others.

‘Right, let me go and collar them!’ Upon the final line being hollered, Phyllis wobbled back to the gathering. ‘Settle down, boys, settle down!’ Then, with order half-restored, she led forth her sister-in-law and the mesmerised Nell to introduce them. ‘Ronald, I don’t want to curtail your fun, but let me just acquaint your pals with Aunty Thelma and your cousin.’

Tall and bony, the image of his father, except with pimples, Ronald bade a cheery greeting to the new arrivals, as did his sisters – all three cousins older than Nell, in their twenties – whilst their mother turned to those in khaki and began counting them off on her fingers. ‘Now, let me see if I can remember all their names – no, don’t tell me, Margaret!’ Her elder daughter had been about to leap in. ‘This is George, Sid – no, Stan, oh, I’m so sorry! – John, Reg, and last, but by no means least, Billy.’

Nell’s heart was already spinning, having flipped over in shock at her first glimpse of the latter, who epitomised the phrase ‘tall, dark and handsome’ – if a little chubby. Formally introduced to the young soldiers, she could only blush as Billy extended a confident handshake to her mother, his accent most definitely from the heart of London.

‘Very pleased to meet you, Mrs Spottiswood!’ Then, just as quickly, whilst Nell remained slack-jawed, he grasped her hand too and shook it firmly, smiling with genuine warmth – some might say impishness – into her face. ‘You too, Miss Spottiswood.’

‘Nell.’ She managed to find her voice, and smiled as she withdrew her hand, which felt as if it had touched a live wire, then moved it along the row to be shaken by the rest, one after another.

‘It’s Eleanor,’ corrected Mrs Spottiswood, though her exasperation was mild, and to her sister-in-law and the rest of the gathering she jokingly complained, ‘Really, you give your child a lovely name and what does she do but adulterate it!’

‘A rose by any other name!’ Billy’s eyes were warm and mischievous as they rested on Nell’s blushing face, only to receive a mute warning for this blatancy.

But her mother seemed very taken with the tall and good-looking young man, indeed with all of those who surrounded her, beaming in that coy fashion which always embarrassed Nell. ‘You’re not from round here, Billy!’ She wagged her plump finger at him. Nell wanted to drag one of Aunt Phyllis’s antimacassars over her head.

‘Ah, I can see there’s no fooling you, Mrs Spottiswood!’ Billy, with his sparkling blue eyes, had one of those faces that looked as if it were permanently laughing, but there was such kindness in it too, that no one could take offence at its teasing. ‘No, I have to confess I’m one of your perishing southerners – so is Johnny here.’

‘Nonsense!’ tinkled Thelma Spottiswood. ‘We’re very happy to have you in our midst, all of you.’ Inconveniently overwhelmed by a hot flush, she shed her hat and tried to fluff up the dark-grey waves beneath, which were soaked in perspiration, at the same time wafting her face. ‘Goodness, I thought it was hot enough out there – do excuse me!’

‘I’ll fetch you a drink of water!’ Billy shot off, soon coming back to press a glass into her hand. A crimson-faced Thelma sipped at it gratefully until recovered. Following which, the bout of polite interrogation continued, most of it directed at the handsome Billy, with whom she was obviously smitten – as were Margaret and Daphne, saw Nell, for they clung on his every word.

‘And are you and your friends liking it in York?’

‘Oh, you bet,’ vouched Billy, with a smiling glance at Nell. ‘Not to mention it’s a darned sight safer than the capital at the moment, what with Jerry creeping nearer by the day. Can’t help worrying about my old mum, though.’

Thelma Spottiswood sympathised; Nell, too, managing to display similar condolence, as he looked at her quite brazenly.

At his mention of the enemy, Daphne’s plain face had turned anxious. ‘I heard some people at church this morning saying the Germans’ve already landed and the government’s kept quiet about it.’

‘Don’t you think we’d have seen them by now?’ Touring the room with his bottle, her father remained calm and kind, though there was a hint of anger in his eye for those who had caused such disaffection. ‘Come on, I thought this was meant to be a party?’

With his words, it was back to another singsong, Margaret and Daphne swooping on their handsome visitor, one either side of him as they caroused. Provided with food and drink, Nell and her mother were to sway happily in time to the music, though Thelma didn’t actually know many of the words. Despite being sandwiched between his hostesses, Billy seemed unable to keep his eyes off the attractive dark-haired girl who stood out from the rest, not only because of her height, and though she persisted in turning her back on him, Nell herself could not resist sneaking an admiring look.