An Unsuitable Mother

5

Another week went by, and then another, taking Nell into December. Even now, the fear having churned her stomach into a pit of acid, she persisted in hanging on, visiting the Preciouses almost every night, and posting her letters to Billy. For, until confirmation of his death was put in writing, there remained the shred of hope that it had all been a mistake. All of it.

Being informed almost immediately that Bill was missing, Beata had been the source of comfort that Nell’s parents could never be, for they remained unaware – though of course they could see that their daughter was troubled by some matter. Hence, thinking it perhaps to be something at work, they were happy for her to accept her fellow nurse’s frequent invitations to the pictures, without guessing what these trips were meant to ease. Seated there in the darkened cinema, though, Nell felt anything but eased, barely concentrating on the opening film, let alone the tips on cookery and the shorts from the Ministry of Information – until the one that forewarned the audience about careless talk: ‘Keep mum!’

Oh, yes, she really came awake then, and took to picking over her dilemma in such great detail that when a cheer went up over the downing of another Hun, she almost jumped out of her skin.

Then, finding herself under amused inspection from Beata, she returned a half-hearted little smile, and momentarily attended the newsreel. But soon her mind was to wander again.

The interval brought community singing. Irritated beyond belief, Nell lit a cigarette and, whilst others sang, took puff after nervous puff of it, until the theatre eventually reverted to darkness. As if the uncomfortable seat was not bad enough, its rough moquette prickling the underneath of her legs, her bladder chose that moment to signal it required emptying again. Having purposefully gone before she came in, Nell damned her system for its current inefficiency, and tried to hold off for as long as she could.

But, constantly wriggling in discomfort, she was eventually to receive a tap on the shoulder.

‘Excuse me, love, but have you got worms?’ came an impatient demand from the man behind, whose view she had perpetually blocked.

Tutting with embarrassment, Nell apologised and turned back to the drama that had managed to capture her interest at last. But straight away an air-raid warning came onto the screen to interrupt a crucial moment, the slide instructing everyone who required to leave to do so in an orderly fashion.

‘Get on with it!’ hollered the man behind, the whole audience groaning in unison, and most people remaining in their seats.

Desperate for the lavatory by now, Nell rose quickly and made her way to the end of the row, whispering to Beata, ‘Don’t miss the picture, I’ll be back when I’ve spent a penny.’

Once in the cubicle, she took the opportunity to undo the top hooks and eyes of her corset, gasping as she lowered herself onto the seat, then sitting back to savour these few moments of relief. Soon, though, the sound of someone else waiting outside the door had her hurrying to do up her corset and emerge.

But as she did so, who should she almost collide with but Sister Barber.

Both looked stunned, before Nell turned shamefully aside to wash her hands, and Sister hovered to observe: ‘I heard nothing to the effect that you’d be here tonight. Nurse Spottiswood – you’re meant to keep the authorities informed!’

Nell could think of no excuse, other than to stammer, ‘I’m sorry, Sister, it was a last last-minute arrangement …’

‘One that could get you dismissed!’

Nell was immediately gripped by terror: how could she support a child with no job? Her parents were going to be angry enough as it was – perhaps even kick her out – she would need every penny to maintain herself. She turned with dripping hands from the sink, about to beg for mercy, when just at that point Beata came to look for her.

‘Oh, and this is your partner in crime!’ came Sister’s withering proclamation, giving Nell leave to dry her hands. ‘I thought better of you, Kilmaster. Do neither of you grasp how important it is that we know your every whereabouts? It’s imperative that we’re able to muster the entire crew at a moment’s notice, we can’t hang around whilst the messenger visits every pub and picture house in York in the hope of finding you there! Are you masquerading as nurses?’

‘No! I’m truly serious about this, Sister,’ objected Nell, both she and Beata apologetic. But Sister remained waspish and obviously not satisfied. ‘I’ll see you both in my office tomorrow morning.’ And she jerked her head for them to go.

‘Oh God, I can’t get the sack – not on top of everything else!’ uttered a frantic Nell to Beata as they hurried for the exit. She was close to tears again, and could not understand how the other remained so calm.

‘She won’t get us fired,’ assured her friend in that gently confident way of hers. ‘She was just letting off steam.’

Nell felt like shaking her older friend for such complacency. ‘Maybe not you, but she’s always had it in for me!’

Beata tried to coax her, as both made the decision to abandon their night out and turn for home. ‘I can promise you, you won’t get the sack. Listen to your Aunty Beat.’ She sighed. ‘Oh, I can see you’re going to spend the night fretting if I don’t tell you …’

‘Tell me what?’

‘I know Sister’s little secret,’ disclosed Beata with a sly grin. ‘She lives near me. Her husband runs a pub.’

Nell was utterly flummoxed.

‘Nurses’re not supposed to have a pub address,’ explained Beata. ‘Sister gave Matron a false one, I overheard her.’

Nell heaved a vast sigh of relief, but in that same turn she clicked her tongue. ‘You could have given me this ammunition before, instead of letting her boss me around all these weeks!’

‘You needed bossing around,’ retorted Beata, only half-joking. ‘Anyway, it wasn’t my place to let on about Sister, we’re all entitled to our secrets.’ Then, astonished that Nell’s eyes bulged with unexpected tears, she was swift to say, ‘I wasn’t thinking, love … keep your chin up, you’re bound to hear from him soon. That’s who you’re really worried about, isn’t it?’

Dabbing at her eyes and blowing into her handkerchief, Nell moved her head up and down, thinking but not saying, Oh, Killie, if only you knew the half of it. But then, did she know? Had she guessed? Darting teary eyes over her friend’s face, Nell tried to read what was there, wondering whether to throw herself on the other’s mercy …

But then the moment was gone. If Beata had guessed, she did not say as she delved into her pocket and handed Nell a sweet. And, knowing her friend’s opinion on unmarried mothers, Nell could not bear to incur such disapproval.

* * *

Thankfully, Sister’s own disapproval had mellowed by the following morning. Beata turned out to be right, neither she nor Nell were to be sacked, but received only an admonition to keep their superiors informed from now on.

Despite it being a relief, though, it was only one less thing for Nell to worry about. Awaiting news, day after day, night after night, she continued to haunt the Preciouses, and eventually those tireless visits were to bear fruit.

But it was the bitterest, most noxious of fruit. And the letter came not from Billy, but from his mother.

There was an unaccustomed delicacy to Mrs Precious’s masculine features as she handed it over, that suggested she already knew what was in its pages. Inviting Nell to sit down, she and Georgie hung on the youngster’s every nuance whilst the envelope was opened with trembling hands, and the reader braced herself to ingest the terrible words.

Mrs Kelly had found, amongst her dead son’s belongings, a bundle of letters. ‘Please forgive me for not writing to you sooner,’ she had painfully scrawled, ‘but I’ve been so terribly upset myself, and had no way of letting you know about Billy until I gathered the courage to go through his things, and found the letters bearing your name. I recognised Mrs Precious’s address at the top, because Bill occasionally dropped me a line from there whilst he was in York. And I knew, of course, that he had met a girl up there whom he thought the world of, and that he was going to marry her when the war was over. Always told me everything did my Bill, showed me your photograph, and said what lovely long letters you wrote him. Well, I could see that for myself when I came across them. I hasten to say I didn’t take the liberty of reading them –’

Nell felt sure she had, but cared nothing for this, and quickly read on, a pulse thrumming her neck. ‘– they were private between you and my son, and must remain so. You shall have them back if you wish. Billy did say that your parents wouldn’t approve of you going out with anyone, you being so young. But he was willing to wait. And he said you felt the same. That’s why I thought I should let you know the circumstances of his passing …’

Visualising the writer taking a deep breath in preparation of having to pen the following lines, Nell took one too, trying to fight the impulse to vomit, as the walls and all their bizarre contents seemed to press in on her, her hands trembling even more.

‘Even though it must be awfully sad for you to read, you will surely want to know why he suddenly disappeared from your life. We’d suffered a night of terrible bombing. I can’t describe how bad it was to you. Billy and other soldiers were sent out to help with the rescue. There were lots of people trapped under fallen buildings, and Billy crawled in amongst the rubble trying to locate a child whom he could hear crying. The walls collapsed, and my boy was killed instantly, along with a good few of his friends. I can’t tell you how my heart still breaks. I still keep expecting to see his smiling face appear round the door and saying, “Wotcher, Mum!” Life will never be the same without him. I fear I shall never get over it. But that’s as it should be, I’m his mother. It’s different for you, you’re still a girl, and Billy wouldn’t want you to be miserable. I know you’ll be terribly sad on reading this, but after you’ve had a good cry you must try to get on with your life …’ Nell broke down and sobbed noisily into her lap, unable to bear any more.

The Preciouses were immediately there with words of comfort, but Nell could take comfort in nothing, and merely sat weeping in the presence of talking heads.

‘She sent us a nice letter too, didn’t she, Georgie?’ Ma lowered her volume to fit the occasion, though it was less than gentle on the ear. ‘Thanked us for looking after him – I wrote straight back and told her we don’t need thanking, he was a pleasure to have, just like a son.’

His kind old face twisted in concern for the still-weeping Nell, Georgie asked tentative permission of his wife: ‘Shall I bring her it, do you think, dearie?’ And at her nod, he trotted from the room.

Shocked to the core, feeling ready to faint, Nell barely noticed him go, nor return, until a wristwatch was held under her nose.

Georgie gave gentle explanation as the watch was transferred from his gnarled old fingers, their nails split and stained with oil, into Nell’s young and chapped ones. ‘It’s Bill’s. I’ve had it in my workshop since he went. I didn’t have time to fix it then, so he left it with me. I did try, but my fingers aren’t as nimble as they used to be, I’m afraid, nor my eyes as good. A watchmaker would have no trouble, though. Anyway, we thought you might like it …’

Touched, but even more heartbroken, the tears streaming down her face, a shuddering Nell pressed the watch between her hands, unable to thank him.

‘It’s not much of a legacy for a hero, is it?’ submitted Ma with a heavy sigh.

And Nell sobbed again.

It was impossible, of course, to hide such deep grief from her parents.

‘Eleanor, whatever’s the matter?’ Thelma had been sitting in the firelight with her husband, listening to the nine o’clock news, but now put down her knitting and came hurrying to comfort her daughter, who had burst into tears at the moment of entry, her face already blotched and puffy from its previous onslaught. ‘Has something horrible occurred at work? We were worried when you were so late –’

Nell shook her head vigorously, spattering her coat with tears and mucus, trying to make herself stop crying in order that she might explain, but the moment she thought of Bill, she broke down again.

Wilfred Spottiswood turned off the wireless, sufficiently affected by his daughter’s distress to curtail the report of British exploits in the Western Desert. But he hung back, not knowing how to handle it, and so leaving it to her mother.

Finally, Nell was able to blurt in a shaky voice, ‘A very dear friend of mine was killed.’ It was all she could utter before dissolving again.

‘Today?’ Despite trying to commiserate, Thelma could not help questioning her daughter’s facts. ‘But there’ve been no raids.’

‘Not here,’ Nell managed to gasp. ‘London. Someone just told me.’

‘Oh, how horrible for you. Oh my dear, I’m so sorry.’ Issuing murmur of comfort, Thelma began to undo Nell’s coat, helping the deranged girl to take it off, then drawing her to the fire. ‘Come along and sit here, I’ve kept some cottage pie warm in the oven, you can have it on your lap just for tonight.’

The thought of this almost made Nell retch. ‘Mother, I couldn’t eat it!’

‘No, of course not …’ Thelma came back through the firelight to sit beside her daughter, wringing her hands and saying thoughtfully, ‘She must have been a very dear friend for you to be so upset.’

Nell nodded through a blur of tears.

‘How did –’

‘Leave the girl alone!’ Wilfred jumped in impatiently. ‘You’re making her worse by all these questions.’

‘Yes, yes, how thoughtless of me.’ Nell’s mother took issue with herself. ‘Maybe you’d just like to go to bed, dear?’

Nell required no further invitation to escape, and bolted for the darkness of the staircase. ‘I’ll fetch you a mug of Ovaltine with some aspirin, it’ll help you sleep,’ came the soothing addition from her mother. ‘I am very sorry, dear. We both are.’

Beneath the surface of her fitful sleep, her brain still reeling with visions good and bad, surrendering both to impulse and exhaustion, Nell chose to remain in bed the following morning. Lashing out to end the alarm clock’s violent demands, she pulled the sheets and blankets up over her head, and tried to gain oblivion. But as her hand slipped beneath the pillow it encountered Bill’s watch, and the tears came again. Forever seven o’clock – oh, would that it were, yearned Nell, as her mind replayed the scene that had led to this perpetuity. And to worsen her grief was the thought that poor Bill had died not knowing that he was to be a father.

A series of respectful taps came at the door. ‘You’re going to be late, dear.’

Nell crammed a fistful of pillow around each ear. ‘I’m sick.’ It was not pretence. This malaise felt as real as any bodily affliction.

But, ‘Lying there moping won’t take your mind off your bad news,’ persisted Thelma, peering in for a moment. Not one for hugs, she tried to comfort her daughter in the only way she could: with advice. ‘It might make you feel better if you throw yourself into your work – that’s what I always do when I’m a bit sad. Besides, it’s not very responsible to let the hospital down, is it?’

And ultimately, left alone, Nell was to see the truth in this, and to drag herself from the sparse comfort offered by the bed. After pondering one last time over Billy’s watch, through eyes that contained a ton of grit under each lid, she pressed it with a tender kiss, then hid it in the same place as his photograph and letters, in a hatbox, under the boater she had worn at school. And there they must remain from now on, came Nell’s miserable decision, as she donned her nurse’s uniform. For only in hard work could she hope to bury such enormous grief.

Preceding this, though, she must explain her stricken countenance to Beata – although the other had guessed the moment she saw those reddened eyes.

‘I do know a little bit of the way you’re feeling,’ Beata confided, wanting to heal the ugliness that defaced Nell’s gentle features. ‘I lost someone I was madly in love with – he wasn’t killed,’ she added swiftly, ‘but he might as well have been, the way it hit me. You feel as if your own life’s not worth living, don’t you?’ At a fresh gushing of tears from Nell, she went on softly, with a faraway look in her eye, ‘We’d been courting for ages, but the only obligation he felt towards me was to let me down lightly by letter. We lived too far apart, and he’d found a girl closer to home. We’d remain good friends, he said, and me thinking we were so much more, but there you are …’ Her glazed expression melted into one of kind concern, as she stroked Nell’s arm. ‘I know it can’t compare with your loss, not one bit, and you won’t forget about him. But believe me, it will pass.’

No it won’t, howled Nell’s heart. Still tearful at the mere thought, she begged her friend, ‘Could you tell Sister and the others? I couldn’t bear having to go through this time after time …’

Beata promised that of course she would.

But unnervingly, upon Sister being apprised, she insisted on having a word in person. Expecting a soulless lecture, dashing her gritty eyes for the umpteenth time, Nell approached her superior’s office with dismay. And, true to form, even if the words were ones of sympathy, the sermon began in the usual terse fashion.

‘First, let me say how sorry I was to hear of your bereavement, Nurse Spottiswood.’

Immediately revisited by the gargantuan lump in her throat, Nell tried to swallow it, but it refused to budge.

‘I do understand the fragile state you must be in,’ continued Sister. ‘It’s a ghastly thing that’s happened to you, and there’ll be times when you can’t prevent yourself from bursting into tears …’

But you must try not to display such an unprofessional attitude, prophesied Nell, anger and resentment fermenting in her breast. And try as she might, she could not allay the scalding mist that rushed to her eyes yet again, and she bent her head so that Sister might not take this as an indication that she was too feeble to carry out her work.

‘Whenever that occasion arises,’ finished Sister, ‘I would simply ask that you take yourself off to a cubby hole, and have your little weep in private, get completely rid of it, then clean yourself up and get on with your work. We shall all make allowances if you suddenly go absent.’ As Nell’s bloodshot eyes shot up to transmit surprised gratitude, Sister added, ‘I’m not a complete ogre, Nurse.’ And with a protracted and telling look, she ordered softly, ‘Off you go now.’

Such compassionate treatment brought the tears in full flow now. Mindful of the advice, Nell dashed straight to the lavatory and spent a good few minutes racked in sobs, hoping to dislodge that choking lump in her throat in order that she might breathe, trying to wring every last drop of unshed grief from her aching body, so that it might suffer no repeat of this handicap and allow her to operate like a professional human being. Finally, she splashed her face with water, took a series of deep, steadying breaths, and emerged red-eyed, but prepared to get on with her job.

Against all determination to the contrary, that shedding of tears was not to be Nell’s last. Far from it. But, with her colleagues equally sympathetic, and none of them seeking to interrogate, she was at least able to indulge in these bouts of sorrow as often as they afflicted her, everyone naturally assuming that her tears were all for Bill.

But what if they or Sister had known of her other anxiety? Would they have been so philanthropic then? The fear of being stigmatised prohibited any foray. There was no one in whom to confide, not even Beata, for Nell was well aware of her friend’s views on the matter of illegitimacy.

So, Nell continued to bear her burden alone, at times consumed by terror, at others elated that her lovely, heroic Bill had left a part of him growing inside her, and though the memories of him were to endure, eventually her tears were to recede.

Following the initial concern over her daughter, and having lent her a couple of weeks in which to get over the loss of her friend, Nell’s mother was finally to note one December eve, ‘I’m glad to see you enjoying your food again, dear, and looking so much better too.’

Nell regarded her with eyes dulled by fatalism. How could one’s body appear in such rude health, when one’s soul felt close to death?

‘I told you eating properly would do the trick,’ said Thelma, yet she was not quite so insensitive as to believe that all was fine. ‘I know you must still be feeling sad, but you’ve done exceptionally well in covering it up. I think you were right to go back to work straight away. There’s nothing like it for taking your mind off things, especially in a job such as yours where people are worse off. Let’s hope the Christmas festivities will help to put the vim back – such as they are with this blessed war on.’

Christmas. How Nell had been dreading all the manufactured gaiety that this would spell for her, having to pretend for those around her that she was enjoying it, whilst constantly arrested by this tiny being that fluttered inside.

Nevertheless, when Christmas morning arrived, for others’ sakes she was to adopt the obligatory beam of gratitude over the presents that had been bought for her, and to uphold this aching rictus throughout the morning whilst helping her mother cook the dinner, indeed through the eating of it, and to carry it forward even into the late afternoon, when she and her parents made a teatime visit to their kin.