Secrets

  I’ve been to quite a few dances with Joan and some of the other nurses recently. It’s funny how people seem set on enjoying themselves more now than they did in peacetime. You’d think they would all be scared and sombre. The West End is really jolly at night, despite the blackout, even if they have got Eros all boarded up. We stayed up there late one evening and you couldn’t see a hand in front of your face out on the streets. But it makes people talk to each other more and help one another. I’m sick of carting my gas mask around though!

  There’s a great many more children back in London now, I do think their mothers are a bit foolhardy bringing them back, however much they miss them. I helped at my first caesarean birth the other night, the mother had been in labour at home for two days until a neighbour finally called an ambulance. It was an incredible thing to watch, and it made me much more interested in midwifery. The baby, a little boy, was fine, but his mother is still poorly. Her husband is in the army and she’s got three other children to take care of. Some women have it so hard, don’t they?

  No other news I’m afraid. We’re all a bit bored really with so few patients. How is Towzer? I’m really glad you have him, if a German drops out of the sky I’m sure he’ll savage him for you!

  Look after yourself and don’t work too hard on growing vegetables. Just sweet talk the rabbits so they have more babies. Give Misty a cuddle, and Towzer a stroke from me. Keep safe.

  Love,

  Adele

  Honour smiled, and tucked the letter into her apron pocket to read again later. She worried so much about Adele, but each time a letter came she could feel a little easier for a while.

  At midday, as Honour was weeding her vegetable garden, Rose half sat up in her bed in London to reach for a cigarette.

  ‘Damn,’ she muttered on finding the packet empty, and slumped back on the pillows.

  It was a year and five months since she got the thousand pounds from Myles Bailey, and at the time she thought she was set up for life. But then war broke out and her plans fell apart.

  Everything was so good for a while, she didn’t even want to drink much. Following advice from a businessman who used to eat in the restaurant where she worked, she bought a very cheap eight-room house in Hammersmith. He said she would make more money letting out rooms than she could earn anywhere else, and she’d still hold on to her capital. It sounded like good advice, and although she had difficulty finding a plumber to put in another kitchen and bathroom for the lodgers, she finally got it done and decorated too.

  She toured the secondhand shops and haggled for furniture and other stuff she wanted, and once it all came together, for the first time in her life she really felt she was going somewhere.

  It was bliss to have a real home of her own, a bathroom all to herself, a little garden, and enough money to splash out on clothes, perfume and getting her hair done. The first lodgers were perfect too. Two married couples in the two biggest rooms, and two older businessmen in the other two smaller ones. They all paid their rent every week without fail, the wives kept their own rooms and the kitchen and bathroom clean. The two businessmen went home to their wives at weekends, and they didn’t even use the kitchen.

  It was all so harmonious and peaceful – the most noise Rose ever heard was laughter and chatter between the two couples who had become friends. In her naivety Rose assumed they would all stay indefinitely – the two older men were past the age for call-up, one of the younger men was a fireman, and the other did something in the Civil Service which gave him an exemption. But Rose hadn’t really considered that the start of war would affect civilians the way it did.

  The man in the Civil Service got moved away from London and of course his wife went with him. The couple she replaced them with fell out with the fireman and his wife, and they used that as an excuse to move back home with her mother. Then the two businessmen left one after the other as they both felt they would rather commute to London each day and be home with their wives and children at night if bombing began.

  Rose soon found she couldn’t be so choosy about tenants as so many people were moving out of London that there were hundreds of flats and rooms to let. Before long she was letting the rooms to anyone who wanted them, and trouble quickly followed. She had Jewish refugees from Holland and Germany who couldn’t speak English. Rough, noisy men who skipped off owing her rent. She had women with children who upset the other tenants. She had one man who used to smash things up when he was drunk, a woman who turned out to be a prostitute, and any number of fly-by-night characters who were in trouble with the police.

  Still lying back on the pillows, Rose surveyed her bedroom with jaundiced eyes. She had been thrilled when the decorator put up the pink and white wallpaper – after what she’d been used to, it looked like a film star’s bedroom.

  The big window offered a view of leafy back gardens and the early morning sun made the walnut bed, wardrobe and dressing-table gleam with amber and gold lights. They suggested much-loved family heirlooms, as did the fringed pink and sage green carpet, but they were all secondhand. Rose had kept this room as if it were for royalty until quite recently, smoothing out the pink satin quilt, even putting a few flowers in a vase on the dressing-table. Sometimes she just sat in here, savouring how pretty it was, but she hadn’t done that for some time now.

  Clothes were dropped on the floor now, the sheets were none too clean, and a film of dust lay on the shiny furniture.

  Rose was by no means destitute. She still had a couple of hundred pounds tucked away in the bank, and the rent she did get covered her living expenses. But she was demoralized. She had believed she knew every trick in the book that tenants could come up with. She thought she could recognize a shyster immediately, and she was also convinced she was tough enough to face up to anyone, but she was mistaken.

  She felt like crying when she saw the damage some of the tenants did to their rooms and was revolted by how dirty some of them could be. But over and above all that, she was terribly lonely. She couldn’t get friendly with people in her house or they would take her for a ride. Jobs like unblocking the sink or changing a washer in a tap were beyond her, and when she had to be ruthless and throw someone out she felt physically sick with nerves.

  Yet worse in many ways was the guilt. Not about taking the money from Myles Bailey – she believed he owed her that – but about what she’d done to Adele.

  It hadn’t come to her straightaway, at first she was too cock-a-hoop about getting the house to care about anything. The guilt crept in almost unnoticed, just a little pang when she saw young airmen and their girls walking hand in hand, or if she saw a nurse from the local hospital. But she felt it more and more now, and however much she told herself she had to prevent her daughter marrying her brother, she knew Adele must see her as the most despicable woman in the world.

  Rose was thirty-nine now, and when she looked in the mirror she could see for herself what time, drink, loveless affairs and selfishness had done to her. No amount of money would bring back her looks – money could buy company, but not real friends. It could buy material comfort, but not affection. Who would care if a bomb dropped on this house and killed her? There wasn’t one person who would come forward to say something good about her.

  She would lie awake at night remembering the holidays she’d spent as a child with her parents in Curlew Cottage. She could recall her parents’ laughter as they made supper in the evenings, walking between them holding both their hands, sitting on her mother’s lap by the fire while her father read to them. If Adele ever looked back on her childhood, Rose doubted she’d have even one good memory of her mother.

  For so many years Rose had viewed those years of her own childhood on the marsh like some of her father’s charcoal sketches, everything just shades of grey and black. Cold, gloomy and miserable. But maybe it was because she went back that day in bright sunshine that the charcoal sketch had gone, replaced by a picture in glorious Technicolor. In her mind’s eye she saw waist-high me
adowsweet swaying in the breeze, emerald-green grass studded with golden buttercups and purple clover. Darting kingfishers made brilliant flashes of turquoise along the river bank, and yellow wild iris grew in the boggy places.

  She couldn’t even see her mother as the hard-faced shrew she used to picture. Instead, she found herself remembering her telling her stories as they made gingerbread men together, picking wild flowers, or cuddling up together by the stove on cold evenings. It made her eyes smart when she imagined Adele in her place, the pair of them blanking out all memory of the mother and daughter who had cared so little for them.

  Until quite recently Rose had never felt bad about running away from home the way she did. She could justify it completely, for she worked all the hours God sent at that hotel and had to hand over all her wages to a mother who didn’t even appreciate how hard she had to work. Besides, Myles had seemed like her big chance in life. Then, when everything went wrong and she was alone with a baby on the way, she was too proud to write and admit she was in trouble.

  She supposed she lost that pride somewhere along the road, and apathy took its place. Most of her adult life was now a mere blur, with only a few images sticking up like rocks through a mist. One was getting married to Jim in that horrible dirty register office in Ladbroke Grove. The registrar had smirked at her swollen belly and said something about ‘they’d made it just in time’. There was Adele’s birth too in a grim boarding house with bugs in the bed. She had hours and hours of white-hot pain, with only a sharp-tongued old biddy to help her. Was it any wonder she didn’t feel loving towards a baby who had torn her apart, prevented her ever going home again, and forced her into marrying a dimwit like Jim Talbot?

  Pamela’s birth also stood out clearly in her mind, but a different experience entirely. It was quick and painless, and Jim had been so kind and loving that she almost fooled herself into believing she loved him. When she looked down at Pamela’s sweet little face she felt such tenderness and pride, and she thought that at last her life had taken a turn for the better.

  They moved into Charlton Street not long afterwards, and it seemed like paradise after the hideous places they’d lived in before.

  Pamela was around eighteen months old when everything turned sour. Rose had had times before when she’d felt exhausted and morose, but it had always passed. This time, however, it was as if a cold grey fog was swirling around her, refusing to lift. She didn’t want to get up in the morning – the thought of nappies to wash, meals to be cooked and the endless demands of the two children was just too much to bear. She wanted complete silence, to be alone, and just the sound of Jim or Adele’s voice made her want to run out of the flat and keep running until she found the peace she craved.

  It was Pamela who held her there. Hers was the only voice that didn’t grate on her nerves. Her smiles were the only thing that lifted the fog a little. Rose wished she could feel the same way about Adele, but whenever she looked at her, she was reminded of Myles, and what he had put her through.

  Once, when Pamela was three, she’d tried to leave with her while Adele was at school. She had managed to save a couple of pounds out of the housekeeping money, and she thought she’d catch a train out into the country and find somewhere to live. But as she began to pack up all the things they would need, she realized she hadn’t got the strength to carry a heavy bag and a small child who couldn’t walk far. She sat down on the floor and cried like a frustrated child.

  She thought of leaving many more times after that, but she knew she couldn’t work and look after Pamela. And the more trapped she felt, the worse it got.

  Then Pamela was killed, and all at once there was nothing left in her life. Drinking dulled the pain a little, but as soon as she sobered up, it came back again. She had no real recollection of the events that led up to her being committed to the asylum. All she remembered was that after Pamela’s funeral she felt as though someone was winding her up tighter and tighter like a mechanical toy, and she guessed that in the end the spring inside her broke and she lost control of her body and mind.

  She did remember some of the treatments she had in the asylum. Being plunged into icy baths, being forced to swallow some terrible medicine which made her vomit. But what really brought her wits back was none of these things. It was being shut up in a room on her own.

  To be left alone, no one trying to talk to her, asking her to do anything, to be able to sleep and sleep, that was what saved her. Once her mind and body were rested, she was able to think clearly again.

  At the time she was informed her mother had become Adele’s legal guardian, she was also told that she could not be discharged from the asylum without her husband’s agreement. She knew that meant she’d be in there for life, as Jim wasn’t likely to come forward.

  Rose observed that the asylum staff were hardest on those who caused them any trouble. She had been beaten herself when she first arrived there for screaming abuse and fighting the staff. Fear of injury had made her become silent and obedient, and she saw that the only way she might stand a chance of escape was to stay that way.

  So she gave up protesting that she wasn’t mad, she didn’t speak, cry or shout at all, just did exactly what she was told, and made no trouble for anyone. She thought if she kept up this docile silence they would begin to give her little jobs, and she could win their trust.

  Her assumption was correct. Before long they gave her mending to do, washing floors, even work in the laundry, and finally they allowed her to walk in the grounds.

  There were times when she even began to believe she really had lost the ability to speak, along with smiling, laughing and walking briskly. She got so used to keeping a blank expression, to shuffling along slowly with her head held down, just like the other patients, that she found she didn’t even care when the staff talked about her in front of her as if she was a real imbecile. But she kept her eyes open, listened carefully and made mental notes of anything that could be useful to her.

  She had told Johnny she escaped from there in a laundry van, and this was true. But what she would never admit to him or anyone else was that she used her feminine wiles on the simple-minded driver to get him to smuggle her out. She felt no real shame that she tempted him with the offer of sex so he would hide her in a basket of washing, that was fair game. But she was ashamed that once she was outside the gates she kept up the pretence of loving him so he would clothe, feed and keep her.

  Poor simple Jack had never had a woman before and he had worshipped Rose. He didn’t smoke or drink, he lived a frugal life in the same tiny, dilapidated cottage on the outskirts of Barnet that he’d been born in. His parents were both dead, he hadn’t a real friend in the world, and his job as a van driver was the only thing he had to be proud of. It wasn’t right that she stayed with him for over a year, gradually building up his belief that she was his woman, and all the time stealing from him until she had enough money to flee.

  She read in the papers a few weeks after she’d left that he hanged himself in a wood. That made her feel really bad. He had willingly risked losing his job to help her. He might even have been sent to prison for harbouring her if he’d been found out. He was just thirty, a man who had spent most of his life as the butt of jokes, isolated and friendless. And she’d broken his heart.

  Rose couldn’t understand why she was suddenly dwelling on the past so much. She had always believed that once she had financial security and a decent place to live, happiness would come with it. But she wasn’t happy. How could she be when she was for ever looking over her shoulder, tormenting herself with memories of people she’d used, shabby tricks she’d played, and remorse for what she’d done to her mother and Adele?

  Sometimes, when she’d had a couple of drinks, she even tried to write to them and apologize, but she’d re-read the letters the following morning and tear them up. Whatever she said was never going to be enough to be forgiven.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Honour paused at the kerb of Shepherd’s
Bush Road, making Towzer sit. Looking across to number 103, she felt a mixture of relief she’d finally found it, and trepidation at what was to come.

  She had only been to London a few times in her life, and then only to art galleries or the West End shops, so she had little idea of what to expect of ordinary working-class areas. Instinct, and descriptions Adele had given her of the East End, told her that Hammersmith was a quite respectable area, but it looked hideous and squalid to her.

  It was 23 August, yet another hot day, and the leaves on the trees hung down limply, covered in a film of dust and soot. Windows criss-crossed with sticking tape, and piles of sandbags were an inevitable and expected aspect of war, but the overflowing dustbins and the smell of drains repulsed her. She didn’t think she could bear to live in a street where hordes of grubby children ran around yelling stridently all day. She thought the women in pinafores and turban-style headscarves gossiping on the front steps should get their backsides off and take their offspring to a park.

  Yesterday, Honour had received a letter from Rose. Apart from the shock of a letter after all these years, she was greatly surprised by the uncharacteristic meek and apologetic tone to it. She had read and re-read it dozens of times in the course of the day, wondering at the real motive behind it. She began to reply to it last night but, defeated as to what she should say, early this morning she’d decided to come to London and see Rose face to face instead.

  She wasn’t merely curious to see how Rose lived now, or even desperate to make the peace with her errant daughter. But she believed that it was time at least to attempt to draw a line under the past.

  No one could predict what this war had in store for them, and there had been reports of bombs dropped around London very recently. One had landed in Wimbledon on 16 August when people were killed, and according to the map that wasn’t so far from Hammersmith. Honour knew that if Rose was killed or badly hurt in an air raid she would always be sorry she hadn’t at least attempted to see her. As it was a Saturday today she thought there was every chance Rose would be at home.