Coronation Wives (45 page)

Her heart fluttered. She could have screamed herself so wouldn’t have blamed the child for doing so. Susan’s fingers tightened on her hand. She squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her jaw tightly.

‘Hold on,’ Edna urged as the hot dressing was heaped around her leg. ‘Hold on!’

Tears squeezed from the corners of Susan’s eyes. It must have taken a monumental effort, but Susan did not scream and Edna felt humbled.

Like any caring mother, she wanted to take on her child’s suffering, to feel her pain, to keep her from harm. But Susan had got through it by herself though tears were bound to come.

‘I want to go home,’ she grizzled.

‘You will soon, sweetheart,’ said Edna.

‘With Peter and Pamela and everyone?’

‘Everyone,’ said Edna, and for some unaccountable reason she thought of Sherman, the letters and what she should do about it. Late at night, when the children had gone to bed and Colin had fallen asleep in the chair, she had retrieved the letters from their hiding place in the tea caddy. The standard lamp in the sitting room had a shade with a tasselled trim and hand-painted flowers. The dark parchment it was made of cast an amber glow and seemed to transport her to a warmer country as she secretly read and reread each letter until she almost knew the words off by heart. The letters had come with a piece of advice.
You have to tell Colin!

Charlotte’s voice rang in her ears. Of course she should tell him, but the moment never seemed right. Like now, she thought, there’s just too much to think about.

Gradually, as the heat of the thermal dressings lessened, Edna felt Susan’s grip lessening.

‘Is that it?’ she asked the nurse.

‘For now.’

Obviously she’s got other patients to torture, thought Edna, as she watched her make her way out from the glass partitioning that surrounded Susan and into the next cubicle where an initial whimpering gradually grew into a loud cry and then a scream.

Moist-eyed, Edna smiled down at Susan. ‘You were very brave.’

Susan swallowed as if she’d just been about to cry. ‘Will I be like my daddy?’

Edna couldn’t speak. Neither could she look at Colin who was standing on the other side of the glass. ‘What do you mean, dear?’

‘Will I have tin legs just like the ones he’s got?’

Edna gulped back what might be sobs, or could just as easily have been a cry of anguish. ‘Of course not.’

Outside the glass that enclosed two of the people he loved most in the world, Colin controlled his emotions. He stood stiffly, but dignified. No one looking at him could guess just how helpless he was feeling and how much he was dreading the time when Susan finally came home.

‘She looked over the moon to see you,’ Colin said brightly as they left Pucklechurch and headed back to the city.

The way the pale flesh had turned pink as the hot gauze was laid on it was still in Edna’s mind. ‘Sorry, Colin. I wasn’t listening.’

Colin repeated what he’d just said.

‘I’m sorry you couldn’t come in,’ said Edna.

A kind of half-smile skewed Colin’s mouth to one side. ‘Never mind. When a kid’s ill it’s Mum that they want. No one else. Not the best and kindest doctors, nor the prettiest nurses. Just their mum. It’s always been that way. Always will.’

Colin could not possibly imagine what he’d just said. It struck such a deep chord that Edna immediately twisted her face away from him just in case he could read what was in her eyes.

Who, she wondered, would be there when Sherman was ill? His adoptive parents were gone. There was no one, no one at all.

The Post Office in St George was a place of dark wood, heavy glass and high counters. When Edna went in there to buy stamps, she asked the woman behind the counter whether the paper from the notepad she’d bought in Woolworths would be suitable for airmail.

‘Oh no, my dear. You don’t need to bother with that,’ said the woman. A chain that kept her spectacles from getting lost tinkled like tiny bells as she shook her head and slapped her hand down on the stamp ledger. ‘You need one of these. See? It’s already stamped. You buy the whole thing.’ Proudly she held up a crispy piece of oddly shaped paper. ‘These are for airmail,’ she said excitedly. ‘You just write your letter then gum it down all around the sides. See?’

Peter came in from school for lunch when she got home. ‘I’m starving,’ he proclaimed and promptly took a bite out of the fish paste soldier that Pamela was presently nibbling.

‘It’s ready,’ said Edna. ‘Wash your hands and sit up at the table.’

Bubble and squeak, a mix of leftover vegetables from
Sunday, was frying in the pan and getting crisp around the edges. Topped with a fried egg, a plateful duly found its way to Peter who sat at the table, knife and fork held upright, ready for the attack.

After making Pamela another plate of fish paste soldiers, Edna sat herself down at the table. When she had left the Post Office, she had gone into Woolworths and bought a notepad, just as she had been going to do in the first place. The airmail envelope was still in her bag.

She fancied Peter was eyeing her quizzically.

‘What are you writing?’ he asked.

‘Don’t speak with your mouth full,’ Edna replied.

Not to be put off so easily, he asked, ‘Is it a story?’

‘Just a shopping list,’ she lied.

The airmail letter she’d bought was too precious to waste. She had to get the words down properly. This was her son she was writing about, a child that needed her as much as Susan did, a child who might be ill one day and want his mother to be there.

Peter was still curious. ‘Do you want some of my bubble and squeak, Mum?’

‘I’m not hungry.’

Despite Peter, she managed to get down the basics of what she wanted to write.

Once he’d gone back to school and Pamela had fallen asleep on the settee beneath a patchwork counterpane, she retrieved the precious airmail letter from her bag and carefully wrote that yes, she was his mother and, yes, she wanted her son.

After folding it carefully she gummed the edges where indicated. If she changed her mind about sending it off, it would tear very easily and she could throw it away. But, thanks to the vision of Susan lying small and alone in a hospital bed, she didn’t think she would.

‘Your father called from a phone box today,’ Colin said that evening after greeting both children with a kiss on the cheek. ‘He says you haven’t been over this week.’

Edna groaned, braced both hands on the sink, closed her eyes and threw back her head. ‘I’m tired! Doesn’t anyone around here realize that?’

Colin had been about to give her a kiss on the cheek too, but changed his mind. He recognized a bad mood when he saw one. Edna had quite a few of them nowadays and he knew all the signs. Tentatively, he rested his hands on her shoulders, felt her stiffen, so dropped them down to his side. He’d tried being gentle with her, but he was tired and his patience was wearing thin. ‘Well, she is your bloody mother!’

‘Don’t remind me!’

His tone gentled. ‘I know how you feel about her, Edna, but if anything happened to her and you hadn’t seen her for a while, you might feel bad about it.’

She sighed. He closed his eyes and thanked God as the stiffness left her shoulders and she shifted her weight from one hip to the other.

‘I suppose so. It’s just that I am so tired of driving out to Saltmead and back again …’ She turned and ran her hand through her hair.

She was still slim, as girlish as the day they’d married, and Colin still loved her, still wanted to do his best for her. ‘Tell you what, love,’ he said, cautiously resting his hands on her hips, ready to retreat should she reject him. ‘It’s Saturday tomorrow and I’ve got to go into the factory so I can’t drive you there, but what if I ring Janet and ask her to take you over your mother’s? You can give Polly her wages while you’re about it.’

Edna looked awkward. ‘If Janet forgives me. I feel terrible about how I treated her.’

Colin grinned. He knew she was still embarrassed about not allowing Janet near the children – Janet who had almost lost her job to see Susan.

‘I’ll ring,’ he said and went straight for the telephone. She looked over her shoulder as he left the kitchen and wanted to cry. He’s so good, she thought to herself, and I’m being a cow. But she was tired, terribly tired and full of guilt, remorse and downright confusion.

‘Ivan’s coming with her,’ he said when he came back from making the phone call.

‘Right.’

‘What’s for dinner?’ asked Colin, as he sat himself down at the table.

‘Bubble and squeak,’ said Edna.

‘With an egg,’ added Peter.

On Saturday, Ivan and Janet arrived as scheduled. Edna started to apologize about how she’d behaved about the children and how she should have been in touch sooner.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Janet, hoping her newly found contentment would filter through in her smile and make Edna happy again. ‘All that matters is that Susan gets well.’

A lot of the houses in Nutgrove Avenue had Christmas trees or fairy lights at the windows. On the journey over the children had been enthralled by the sudden sprouting of Christmas decorations, their little faces pressed tight against the car windows. There was no tree or decoration of any sort in the window of number nine and both doors were wide open. Edna looked at it bleakly, her actions stilted as she got out of the car and pulled the front seat forward so Pamela could scramble out too.

‘You want this?’ Ivan held out a brown wages envelope with Polly’s name on it.

Edna looked at him appealingly. ‘Will you bring it in?’

The smell of old urine mixed with soapy steam rolled up the passageway from out back. Edna hesitated. How embarrassing! What would Ivan think?

‘We’ll go in here,’ she said and opened the door of the front room in which a big bay window looked out over the road. It was little used, but she couldn’t possibly take a stranger out back where her mother’s bloomers were being boiled free of stain and smell.

The front room was too tidy to be welcoming and she shivered as she entered. She always had. Perhaps it was something to do with the pristine plainness of it, the cold green lino, the beige and brown mat in front of the grate, the sharp brightness of the chrome-plated companion set and ashtray. It might have been none of those things, but purely the fact that the room was little used. But not today.

A figure huddled close to the dull darkness of an empty fire grate.

‘Hello, Dad.’

Her father held his head in his hands, his half crescent of hair standing proud of his head, unwashed and stiff with old Brylcreem.

‘Dad?’

Slowly his fingers parted like the folds of a fan and his face appeared. Beaming now, he got up from his chair. ‘It’s lovely to see you, pet.’

The sound of Pamela’s running footsteps echoed down the passageway behind them as the little girl ran off to the garden.

‘This is Ivan,’ Edna said, suddenly remembering the handsome man who stood at her side. ‘I’ve got Polly’s money.’ She took the brown envelope from Ivan’s hand. “Where is she?’

‘She’s not here.’

Her father’s recumbent expression altered. His eyes stared, his mouth hung open and the jowls hung like bags of blancmange.

‘Dad? What is it?’

‘She’s gone again. Polly’s gone after her.’

Edna wanted to shake him for sounding so pathetic, but who was she to talk? How often had she been weak, soft and easily manipulated?

He wrung his hands then ran one through what remained of his hair leaving it standing out each side of his head like a sticky white halo. ‘It’s getting difficult.’

She was reminded of some poor halfwit that used to live further down the road. The children used to bait him, shout names and follow him to the shops just to force him to share his sweets with them, a sad way of buying friendship. But her father was not a halfwit. He was just tired, confused and afraid.

Edna turned to Ivan and Janet. ‘We have to find her.’

Ivan immediately made for the door. Janet followed him. ‘I’m coming too.’

Ivan placed his hands on her shoulders. ‘No. You stay here.’ He jerked his head at Edna’s father. ‘He needs someone to look after him.’ Then he turned to Edna. ‘Where shall I look?’

Her father, his voice heavy with weariness, said, ‘The park. She likes the flowers, and the bowling green.’

Edna gave Ivan a brief description. ‘She’s thin with sharp features.’ She had another thought. ‘Look for Polly. She’s pretty, blonde and dressed in black and white.’

‘I know her,’ he said. ‘She comes to visit at my house.’

My
house, thought Edna, and briefly felt a sense of things passing, never to be the same.

As she chased around Victoria Park looking for Ethel, Polly muttered, ‘Silly cow! Time she was put out to Barrel.’ Barrel
was the nickname for Barrow Gurney, the site of a psychiatric hospital to the south of the city.

Polly wasn’t too sure of her bearings around Victoria Park. It was a case of marching on and keeping her eyes open. The smell of leaf mould and wet grass drenched the air and small children – too young for school – ran along the low walls next to the road. At one time they’d had railings on top of them, but along with a pile of old saucepans, they’d gone years ago to make Spitfires, or so they’d been told. She kept to the level path, presuming the old girl’s legs wouldn’t cope with the one that led up to the Bowling Green. Eventually she came to a concreted area where swings, a slide and a roundabout were skirted by cast iron seats and close cut grass.

‘Have you seen an old lady go past here?’

The young woman she asked was sitting on one of the seats, a Pedigree coach built pram in front of her, a baby in her arms. She started at Polly’s question. Polly apologized for frightening her.

The young woman nodded her acceptance of the apology and asked, ‘What did she look like?’

Polly eyed the fat baby that sucked at the woman’s breast. No wonder she’d started. Fancy getting her bosom out in the middle of the park!

‘Thin. Sharp features. Wearing a pale green candlewick dressing gown.’

The woman’s eyebrows rose in sharp surprise. ‘Bit mental, is she?’