My Real Children (4 page)

“I’m always hungry,” Patty said, sincerely, but all the men laughed.

She slept that night in a worker’s cottage in Barrow-in-Furness. She woke early to the sound of seagulls calling. She had not known Barrow was by the sea. She opened the blackout cautiously and saw gray waves by the gray daylight. It was just before seven in the morning. She dressed quickly. The room was a boy’s room with a carefully made hanging model of a Spitfire and framed amateur perspective drawings of birds. She wondered where that boy was, dead or away at the war? She remembered Stan’s face when he had said that Col was his nephew. She went downstairs. Flo was in the kitchen already, making up the fire. “You’re an early bird, Patty,” she said. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

“You’ve been so kind, and I would like a cup of tea, but I just saw from my window that we’re by the sea. I haven’t seen the sea properly since before the war, and I thought I might just slip out quickly for a walk now, first, before I do anything.” As she said it Patty thought she was being silly, but she remembered the clean-swept sand and the sound of the sea.

Flo looked skeptical. “It isn’t the proper sea, just the bay, like. You need to go around to Morecambe for the proper sea with a bit of a beach and things to do.”

“There wouldn’t be anything to do at this time of the morning anyway. I just want to run down and see it.”

“Well it’s right there at the bottom of the street, for what it’s worth,” Flo said.

Patty pulled on her coat and went out. The wind was gusting and the sky was brightening a little. The cords of an empty flagpole were clapping repetitively, a solitary empty sound.

As Flo had said, there was no proper beach. The waterfront was just a narrow shelf of stones and broken shells where the waves were breaking. Out across the bay she could see the shadow of the other shore. It couldn’t be more different from the blue sky and limitless horizon of Weymouth before the war. Yet still the waves ran in endlessly and comfortingly on the strand. In and back, each a little closer, breaking in a rush of spray, and then the sound of the shingle being sucked back, drowned as the next wave came forward, each wave different and each the same. The sea was as new as the morning, and yet the same sea as when she had been a child and Oswald and her father still alive, and the waves ran in and back as they had been doing all the time since she had last seen them.

Above the seagulls circled and called. Nobody else was down by the water. Patty felt herself taking deeper breaths. There were other birds at the edge of the waves, not seagulls, black and white birds with sharp beaks.

She crouched down. It was too cold to consider sitting on the pebbles. She did not throw a stone because she didn’t want to hurt or frighten the birds. She watched them wading in the shallow water at the edge of the sea. It felt like a blessing being there and watching them. She remembered Mr. Price preaching from the pulpit they had built for him one of those summer Sundays, not the King Canute Sunday, and not the day her father had quoted “When Adam delved,” some other ordinary holiday Sunday. “You can always bring your troubles to Jesus, and you can bring him your happiness too. Jesus is always there for you. Jesus loves you, loves
you,
in your griefs and your joys. God is your father, everybody’s father. He loves you like a father. If you turn to him in your troubles, God can help.”

In recent years she had grown away from the simple piety of her childhood. In school many of the girls mocked at the way the teachers hypocritically mouthed religious sentiments, and some of that slopped over into mocking Christianity itself. And the war had lasted such a long time, and taken so much from her. But the sea was still here, and just like it God was still here, waiting patiently, although she hadn’t been paying attention. Jesus was there, and loved her, and the sea was there, endlessly going in and out. She had lost her earthly father and brother, but she still had her heavenly father. And of course they were not just gone, they were with God. In a sense she still had Dad and Oswald. She had the hope of seeing them again. Tears came to her eyes and she let them spill down her cheeks. There was nobody there but the sea and the seabirds. She felt as if she had been given a great gift.

Back in Stan and Flo’s kitchen they had breakfast just ready: Cumberland sausage and fried bread and strong tea with milk and sugar. “We’d give you an egg if we could,” Flo said.

“Sausage is more than enough. I know that’s from your ration,” Patty said.

“Sausage makes the meat go further,” Flo said.

Stan said grace unselfconsciously, as he had the night before. Patty’s “Amen” was less automatic and more heartfelt than it had been then, but nobody remarked on it.

“Did you find what you were looking for down by the sea, then?” Flo asked as she started to cut her sausage.

“More than I was looking for,” Patty replied as soon as her mouth was empty.

“More?” Stan asked.

Patty couldn’t speak.

“She said she hadn’t seen the sea since before the war,” Flo said.

“Reckon it might be a thing you could miss at that,” Stan said.

“What are those black and white birds with pointed beaks that run along the edge of the water?” Patty asked.

“Why, those would be oystercatchers,” Stan said after a moment’s pause. “Do you like birds then?”

“I don’t know much about them.”

Stan got up and went to the bookshelves above the big wireless in the corner of the kitchen. He pulled down a big green book and flicked through it to a sketch of the bird she had seen. “One of those, like?”

“Yes, that’s it!” she was delighted.

“Our Martin was very fond of birdwatching. It’s a nice hobby for a boy. Doesn’t cost much.”

“I can see this would be a good place for it,” she said. “And I’m sure my brother would have loved it, though Twickenham wouldn’t be so good.”

“You’d be surprised how many birds you can see in a suburb,” Stan said.

“That’s Martin’s room you were sleeping in,” Flo said. “He’s in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp. We don’t hear from him half as often as we’d like.”

“At least he’s still alive,” Patty said. “My brother—”

“There’s no call to upset yourself,” Flo said, and put a hand on her shoulder.

“No reason birdwatching wouldn’t be a nice hobby for a girl too,” Stan said. “I think we have a beginner book here that our Martin grew out of long ago.” He pulled out another much slimmer book. “You take this, and that’ll be a start.”

“You’ve already been so kind,” Patty said.

“Now I have to get off to work, but you’ll find your way back to the station all right, won’t you?” Stan said, finishing up his breakfast.

“I will. And I can never thank you enough for taking me in, and the book, and … and restoring my faith in human nature,” Patty said.

“You think of us when you’re an Oxford scholar,” Stan said. “And we’ll think of you. And when Martin comes home we’ll tell him he had a girl in his bed when he was far away!”

4

Sculling: 1944–1946

When first Patty went up to Oxford she threw herself into the Christian Union and her newly rediscovered love of God. All her friends were drawn from Christian Union circles, which were happy to include her. Although she remained shy and awkward, for the first time in her life she felt she belonged. It was the autumn of 1944, the Education Act had been passed, and free and equal access to education for everybody was for the first time a reality. The invasion of Europe had begun in June with the Normandy landings, and although she was no longer so entirely riveted to the radio for news updates as things dragged out, it seemed finally possible to imagine that the war might one day be over. There was a spirit of optimism and the sense that a better world was coming. Meanwhile the petty daily inconveniences of the war ground on, with everything in short supply. Oxford was full of women and cripples—men injured in the war. Patty rowed both in the women’s eights and alone. She went on outings organized by the Christian Union. She read Milton and struggled with Old English. She worked hard. Her essays got unspectacular but good marks.

VE Day came and Hitler died in his bunker, and although the war with Japan ground on, there was a sense that everyone was more than ready to be done with the whole thing and move on. Then in the summer the Americans dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima. Patty heard the news on the old humming wireless in her mother’s house, and shared the sense of relief everyone initially felt. She went back up to Oxford feeling a burden had been lifted, though rationing was worse than ever and new clothes were impossible to find even if you had the coupons. A few veterans were in that year’s intake, and a few young men postponing conscription now that the war was over. There was an election, in which Patty could not vote, being under twenty-one, but in which she took a close interest. The Labour party under Attlee were elected with a massive majority, which she saw as a mandate for social justice and true equality for everyone, and rejoiced. In other ways, her second year was much like her first.

She acquired a boyfriend, an earnest young man called Ian Morris. He was a year younger than she was, one of the men who deferred his conscription to go to Oxford. He had not taken any part in the war, and it was hard to imagine him as a soldier. She found him profoundly unthreatening. The Christian Union might argue passionately over faith versus works or on the precise way to administer charity, but they were united on the subject of sex—they were against it. Rather, they professed to be for sex within marriage for the purposes of procreation, but for all of them that was for a distant future. Patty rarely thought about sex, and when she did she felt a vast apprehension and an equally vast ignorance. She knew almost nothing about it. Some men, and indeed some girls, she found sexually frightening. She felt safe with Ian. He occasionally put his arm around her shoulders when in company, never when they were alone. They agreed that they were “waiting.” He did not press her. They danced together at Christian Union dances, and Patty pretended not to notice that she was taller than he was.

She had imperceptibly become aware that neither the Christian Union nor Oxford were as shining and perfect as she had initially thought them, and had become accustomed to making excuses for them in her mind when they fell short of what she felt they should be. She called this “being charitable.” She easily began to exercise the same slightly brisk charity with Ian. He never came into her mind when she read the Metaphysical poets.

It was towards the end of the Trinity term of her second year that Patty fell out with the Christian Union.

There were two girls who lived on her staircase in St. Hilda’s, Grace and Marjorie. Marjorie was in the Christian Union and as such was a friend of Patty’s. Grace she knew mainly for her extreme shyness and nervousness. She was reading chemistry and was reputed to be brilliant, though how brilliance in chemistry manifested itself Patty had no idea. She had long pale hair and large breasts and tended to scuttle, clutching her books to her chest, darting sideways glances if addressed. The first Patty knew of the scandal was when it was whispered to her by Ronald.

“Have you heard about Marjorie?”

“Heard what about her?” Patty had stopped in at Bible tea on her way back from the river. She’d had a ducking and her hair was dripping down the back of her neck, which made her rather impatient. The Bible tea was a regular event held in the house of Mr. Collins, a minister attached to the Christian Union. A group of them would meet in his house for tea and then a Bible reading and discussion—they were working their way through the Acts of the Apostles, and Patty generally enjoyed it very much. She was early today, and nobody was there except Ronald, who had an artificial leg and was reading PPE. PPE, the dreaded Politics, Philosophy and Economics degree, often seemed to attract know-it-alls, in Patty’s experience. Ronald was one of the members of the Christian Union toward whom she found it most difficult to extend charity, though she had prayed to do better.

She cut herself a thick doorstep of bread and buttered it, then ladled on gooseberry jam. The gooseberries had been extremely plentiful that year, and they had all saved their sugar ration for the jam. Patty had put in a great deal of time stirring the jam in Mr. Collins’s kitchen, so she felt entitled, as well as hungry. She felt that Ronald was observing her greed and that he would report on it unfavorably to others.

“She’s a lesbian!” Ronald said, as if delighted to pass on the intelligence. Patty literally did not understand for a moment until he went on. “She’s actually been caught sleeping in the same bed as another girl.”

Patty knew about this kind of thing. It went on in girls’ schools as it did in boys’ schools, however hard the teachers tried to stamp it out. She was more repelled by Ronald’s prurient delight in telling her about Marjorie than by what Marjorie was supposed to have done, which she could not clearly imagine.

“Mr. Collins has spoken to her and she refuses to give it up or repent,” Ronald went on.

“It’s probably all the most ridiculous nonsense,” Patty said, stuffing her bread and jam into her mouth and speaking with her mouth full. In Patty’s private opinion, Mr. Collins was too ready to be uncharitable and had it in for the women. “I’m going to talk to her.”

“You’re not!”

“I certainly am.”

Patty strode off full of indignation, which carried her back to her residence and to the door of Marjorie’s room. She hesitated before knocking, and then the memory of Marjorie’s clear voiced declarations of her love of God sustained her. She knew Marjorie wouldn’t have done anything wrong. She knocked.

“Who is it?” Marjorie asked.

“It’s me, Patty,” Patty said.

“What do you want?”

“Just to talk to you.” Patty’s courage was draining away. “It’s not important. But Ronald told me the most frightful nonsense about you and I wanted to tell you I didn’t believe it.”

Marjorie opened the door. It was apparent that she had been crying. “Oh, it isn’t true!”

“I knew it couldn’t be.”