Cast the First Stone (18 page)

Aunt Beattie was her father's sister but did not resemble him in looks. Wilfred was of a wiry build, but Beattie was undeniably plump. She and her husband, Donald, had grown alike over the years as many happily married couples tended to do, both being of a similar corpulent build. But that was also due, no doubt, to the good food they produced – and enjoyed themselves – on the farm.

From Fiona's bedroom window there was a superb view across to the distant hills, and in the nearer fields, criss-crossed by drystone walls, her uncle's flock of Cheviot sheep grazed. Just to look at the vista evoked in Fiona a feeling of calm and contentment, and she dared to hope that in the end all would be well, sometime, somehow . . .

Her mother wrote to her once a week, rather stilted letters – Mary had never had much call to correspond with anyone – telling her mainly of church matters and of the people there. She wrote that some of Fiona's friends – she did not say which ones – had been asking about her, but that she had not told them of her whereabouts. ‘Best if they know as little as possible. As far as they are concerned you are suffering from a breakdown following your illness.'

In the third letter she received her mother told her that she and her father had applied for a transfer from their present council house to one on the other side of Leeds. ‘It would be a good idea for us to be nearer to your grandma,' she wrote. ‘Her arthritis troubles her a lot now and I will be able to help her with her shopping and housework. Also, of course, I want you to have a fresh start when you come home.'

Fiona knew that this was the real reason. When she returned to Leeds it was to be to a place where she knew nobody and where she would be far away from her former undesirable friends, one in particular, of course. What lengths they were prepared to go to, she pondered, to keep her shameful behaviour a secret, and to safeguard their own pride. To move away, even to distance themselves from the church they had become so attached to, and their precious vicar and his wife!

Fiona told Aunt Beattie what her parents had in mind. ‘It seems as though I'm to have no contact with my old friends,' she said. ‘I do worry about Diane – she was my best friend. She must be thinking that it's all very strange that I haven't written to her. And Dave . . . Goodness knows what he must be thinking. Mum didn't even know his name, because I wouldn't tell her. It doesn't matter if I'm telling you, though, because that's all you know about him, his first name.'

‘And . . . did you love him?' asked her aunt, tentatively.

‘I thought so,' replied Fiona. ‘He was my first boyfriend. I was his first girlfriend too, I think . . . Yes, I'm sure I was. It all got out of hand, with us being away from home . . . and everything. And now . . . this.' She put a hand to her stomach.

Beattie smiled and put an arm round her where they stood in the homely farm kitchen. ‘It will pass, Fiona love,' she said. ‘All things pass. In less than a year from now it will all be over. It's just a year out of your young life; try to look at it like that. But you should think about what you'd like to do next. You were going to train to be a teacher, weren't you? There's no reason why you couldn't go to college later. It would be a shame to give up on the career you'd planned.'

Fiona gave a wry smile. ‘I rather think it was Mum's idea more than it was mine. I said to my gran that she liked the idea of me being a teacher. With Mum, you see, it's a question of what people will think. And they'd be impressed by that, wouldn't they? But now – well – I've let her down, haven't I, and she's ashamed of me.'

Beattie nodded thoughtfully. ‘Maybe, at the moment, but she'll never stop loving you, you know. Mothers never do.'

‘I should've been taking my A-levels next year,' Fiona went on. ‘I couldn't go to college without at least two A-levels. Anyway, I know that I really have no desperate desire to be a teacher.' She paused. ‘I've been thinking, though; I got a good School Certificate: distinctions in English Language and Literature – they were always my best subjects – and credits in all the rest. I'd rather like to be a librarian. Yes, I think that's what I shall aim for . . . when all this is over.'

‘Good!' said her aunt. ‘That sounds like a grand idea. And it's good for you to have something to look forward to . . . Now, let's get on with this jam, shall we?'

One of Fiona's favourite tasks that she had been allotted at the farm was helping her aunt in the kitchen, especially with the marmalade and jam making. Today it was strawberry jam. It had been boiled in the huge copper pan and now, sufficiently cooled, it was ready to be poured into the jars. It was Fiona's job to do the finishing off. A circle of greaseproof paper was placed on top of the jam, then a larger circle of fancy paper – red and white check – covered the top of the jar, secured with a rubber band. Then she wrote ‘Cragside Strawberry Jam' on a gummed label, in her best italic script, and stuck it on to the jar.

Before that, though, she had prepared the fruit ready for boiling. Hulling the strawberries was quite a simple job once you got the hang of it. Topping and tailing gooseberries and blackcurrants was more arduous, but Fiona was determined to do her very best at whatever job she was given.

It was great fun to go to market – Tuesdays and Fridays – with her Aunt Beattie. Fiona set out the stall with an array of jams and marmalades; jewel bright colours glistened in the jars, ranging from yellow to orange, red, deep crimson and purple, and the rich burgundy hue of the damsons and blackcurrants. There were pickles and chutneys too, and vegetables in season attractively arranged in their boxes and baskets. Potatoes; garden peas, full and almost bursting from their pods; runner beans, carrots and onions; and some vegetables that Fiona had never come across before, such as broccoli and asparagus. Her mother was a reasonable cook but by no means adventurous. Her accompaniment to a meal would be peas – often from a tin – carrots or cabbage, with Brussel sprouts at Christmas as a treat. Fiona had never even seen broccoli or asparagus, let alone tasted them.

One of her tasks was to cut the tender young shoots of asparagus, then arrange them in bundles of twenty and tie them with string, ready for sale at the market. The broccoli too – both the purple sprouting and the green varieties – were popular at the stall, arranged in shallow trays and covered with cellophane wrapping.

Fiona soon became popular at the market, both with the other stallholders and the customers. They welcomed her youthful prettiness and her cheerful face, a change from the middle-aged farmers' wives whom they were accustomed to seeing week by week. Her aunt often left her in charge whilst she went to do her own shopping. There were stalls selling all manner of things apart from farm produce: fishmongers; confectionery; sweet stalls; haberdashery and ironmongers' stalls, in fact almost anything and everything could be obtained there.

On the farm itself she lent a hand wherever she was required to do so. She became fond of the little piglets, as she had done when she was a little girl. She tried not to think ahead to what would ultimately be the fate of these dear little creatures. The calves, too, were lovable; but she knew that by the time the baby lambs were born in the early spring of 1952 she would no longer be at the farm.

As late summer turned into autumn, there was a decided nip in the air, more noticeable up there in the north, especially in the early mornings. She had been suffering from the dreaded morning sickness, but fortunately it had been of short duration. By the end of October, a month into her stay, she was feeling quite well again.

The family doctor had seen her a couple of times. He, of course, had been told of her predicament. She found the initial examination embarrassing and slightly painful, never before having experienced anything like it. The doctor tried to be gentle, and like Dr Mackintosh at home he was a kindly middle-aged man. It was this, though, that brought it home to her, more than anything else, that in another six months or so she would give birth to a child. Her breasts started to feel fuller and there was a slight thickening around her waist and tummy. It was not possible to tell, though, if one did not know, that she was pregnant.

Her parents had not been to see her despite their promise to do so. Admittedly, it was a long way up to Northumberland and they would need to travel by train and stay overnight. But Fiona guessed that they were closing their eyes and their minds to her condition, as much as they possibly could. She doubted that she would see them again until next May when she returned to Leeds. Then they would try to behave as though nothing had happened.

In December her mother wrote that they had been allotted a council house in the district of Harehills. This was several miles away from their present home in Headingley, and much nearer to her grandmother's house. They would be moving there in January and, of course, they were very busy at the moment. Mary assured her that they missed her and that Christmas would not be the same without her; they would be thinking about her and remembering her in their prayers

Fiona shed a few quiet tears. Despite everything she loved her parents, but she feared that the disgrace she had brought to them was such that things would never be quite the same between the three of them. Her mother also informed her that they had made arrangements, with the assistance of Dr Mackintosh, for her, Fiona, to go to a home for unmarried expectant mothers at the end of January. It was situated on the outskirts of Newcastle upon Tyne, not too far from Donald and Beattie's farm, and was run by the Methodist churches in the area.

‘They will take good care of you,' wrote her mother, ‘both before and after the birth and will make all the necessary arrangements. And then, we hope and pray that this unfortunate incident can be put behind us.'

Fiona wept a little more at this news. Her baby was to be dismissed as though it was of no consequence. It was, in fact, an embarrassment. Beattie had also received a letter with the relevant information, and she assured Fiona that they would take her there to the home when the time came, and would visit her as often as they were able. They knew the whereabouts of the place, north of Newcastle and near to the coal mining area, but also near to green hills and pasture land and within easy reach of the pleasant sandy beaches of the Northumberland coast.

Christmas was a strange time for Fiona that year, both happy and sad. She still did not dare to make contact with any of her friends in Leeds, so there were very few Christmas cards for her to send. Her Aunt Beattie took her shopping in the town of Alnwick. She had a little money saved from the wages that her uncle insisted on giving her. It wasn't a great sum but her needs were few at the moment.

As the new year, 1952, started and January drew on, she felt a definite change in her figure. It was obvious now that she was pregnant, and in the middle of the month she felt an odd little fluttering in her abdomen, very slight at first and then it came again. She realized that the child inside her was stirring. She did not know whether to feel happy or sad, but more than anything she felt bewildered, desperately wishing for the next few months to be over.

On the last Sunday in January her uncle drove her to the place where she was to stay for the next four months. Her aunt sat with her on the back seat, holding her hand and talking in a friendly and comforting way.

‘We'll come and see you at weekends, whenever we can,' said Beattie. ‘From what I've heard of this place, it's not so bad. They look after you very well; and you know, of course, that the other lasses'll all be in the same boat as you. I dare say you'll make some nice friends there, girls you can get along with well enough at any rate. So cheer up, love. Like I've told you before, it's only a few months out of your young life, then it'll all be over.'

‘Looks as though we're here,' said Donald as they came to a sign at the end of a narrow lane stating that this was Burnside House. ‘Ready then, Fiona love? Let's get your baggage out and tell them you've arrived.'

Burnside House was situated a few miles from Newcastle upon Tyne, midway between that industrial city and the more rural town of Hexham; the nearest village was Bywell. It was a large house built of greystone, standing in its own grounds. Aunt Beattie had told Fiona that it had once belonged to a wealthy family until the line had died out, and it was then taken over by the nearby Methodist churches as a home for girls such as Fiona.

On first impressions it did not look too intimidating. There was a lawn in front of the house surrounded by a border which in the summer would be bright with roses. The bushes, now, resembled dead sticks, looking as though they would never bloom again. Likewise the tall trees – Fiona guessed that they might be beech trees – that partly hid the house from the road. It had snowed earlier that morning and traces of it still lingered on the bare branches and on the garden soil.

Beattie rang the bell, and the door was opened almost at once by a middle-aged woman wearing a blue overall. ‘Hello,' she said in a friendly manner. ‘You must be Fiona. We've been expecting you. And . . . Mr and Mrs Dalton?'

‘No, we're not her parents,' Beattie explained. ‘We're her aunt and uncle, Beattie and Donald Slater. Fiona's been staying with us for a while.'

‘Very good,' said the woman. ‘I'm Mrs Armstrong, one of the assistants. I'll take you along to Miss Copeland; she's our superintendent.'

They followed Mrs Armstrong into the hallway. It was rather dark and gloomy, with just a faint light filtering through the stained-glass panels on the door. The hall and stairs carpet was a nondescript design of brown and green leaves, toning with the dark-brown woodwork and the faded beige and brown wallpaper. The place looked a little shabby and in need of decorating, but at least the oaken banister gleamed with recent polishing. A faint aroma of lavender floor polish lingered on the air, together with the less appetizing smell of cabbage.