Birmingham Friends (33 page)

‘I’m pregnant.’

Lisa stopped half way to the table with Don’s teacup. ‘You’re not! ’Ere – d’you ’ear that, Don?’

‘Course I ’eard – not deaf am I? Congratulations,’ he said, giving me a shy smile.

‘’Appy about it, are you?’ Lisa asked, sitting down wearily. She saw my face. ‘Course you are. Lovely.’ She looked across at her husband. ‘Shall we tell ’er, Don?’

He gave her a mischievous grin across the table. ‘Tell ’er what?’

Lisa tutted. ‘Tek no notice of ’im, Kate. I’m expecting as well.’

We both laughed and exclaimed and compared dates. Lisa’s baby was due a couple of weeks earlier than mine.

‘A baby brother or sister for you, Daisy,’ I said to the little girl, who was standing beside me.

‘If it’s a girl I’m going to call ’er Alice,’ she said, cheek bulging with the sweet.

Lisa shrugged. ‘Don’t ask me. She’s just taken a fancy to it.’

Don got up and lit the gas before carrying on with his job. It hissed quietly behind Lisa’s head. She sat with her teacup in one hand and a cigarette in the other. After a time I started to tell her about Olivia.

Lisa listened, frowning. ‘Olivia Kemp?’ she interrupted. ‘You mean . . .?’

‘Councillor Kemp’s daughter, yes.’

‘You never said you was friendly with ’er!’

‘She was away most of the war. I didn’t see her.’

Lisa let out her loud laugh. ‘Bit different from the likes of us, I’ll bet!’

I was trying to protest at this when I saw Don looking up at us, frowning.

‘Kemp.’ He turned to Lisa. ‘Isn’t that – ?’ He gave a jerk with his head, eyebrows raised meaningfully.

‘You mean Kemp’s,’ I said. ‘His factory’s on Birch Street.’

Don shook his head impatiently. ‘Anyone knows that. No, I mean that Joyce, up in nine court – you know.’

Understanding spread across Lisa’s face in the form of a blush. ‘The one with the babby?’

Don’s face reddened as well and he looked down again, realizing the full implications of what he’d said.

Lisa’s eyes widened. ‘Come to think of it, I’ve even seen ’im round ’ere once or twice. Course, I didn’t put two and two together at the time.’

My heart began beating faster. That foggy night towards the end of the war came back to me clearly.

Lisa and Don both looked very awkward. ‘Sorry,’ Lisa said. ‘We shouldn’t be saying all this.’

I put my cup down and sat forwards. ‘Are you saying that this woman – Joyce – has carried a child by Councillor Kemp?’

Lisa grew flustered, her cheeks red. ‘Look, we don’t want to make any trouble. It was just ’earing the name . . . I believe ’e gives ’er money – takes care of ’er a bit. ’E puts ’isself about a bit round ’ere like . . . Only in ’er case there was summat to show for it. I s’pose ’er ’usband thinks it’s ’is.’

‘I see,’ I said grimly. I sat back and automatically stroked Daisy’s hair, my mind lurching from question to question. ‘Look, this is very important. Can you be sure that Alec Kemp is the father of this child?’

‘Well, no one can tell you that for sure, except Joyce, of course. But she ain’t normally one for – you know, you wouldn’t call ’er fast. And she used to work at Kemp’s before the babby.’

Thinking aloud, I said, ‘I wonder how I can find out.’

Lisa looked at me doubtfully. ‘If it was me I wouldn’t thank you for asking, but I s’pose you could go and see ’er.’

I lifted Daisy on to my lap. ‘Oh, I will,’ I said with such determination that Lisa looked puzzled. ‘I shall be round there like a dose of salts.’

By the time I got home it was after seven o’clock. I was two hours later than usual. My mother was waiting for me.

‘He’s out,’ she said drily. ‘I gave him a meal, and he’s gone to have a drink with someone from the paper.’

I felt myself breathe easier.

‘Thank you, Mummy. I’m very grateful.’

She looked sternly at me. ‘Why are you so late?’

‘I called in to see Lisa Turnbull on the way back.’ I tried to enlist Mummy’s support. ‘I needed to talk to her. Was Douglas getting very impatient?’

‘I think for your sake it’s a good job he went out. He was very short with me.’ She relented for a moment. ‘You look tired. It’s a lot, all this back and forth to see Olivia. I’ve got some soup over – would you like some?’

I could have wept with gratitude. She sat with me in the kitchen as I ate.

‘How is Olivia?’

‘They’re giving her electric shock treatment.’

Mummy winced. ‘What a terrible thing.’

I nodded, my eyes filling. I looked down into my soup bowl, not finding it easy to show emotion in front of Mummy.

Suddenly, not looking at me, she said resolutely, ‘It’s no good. If you don’t put Douglas and your marriage first you’re soon going to be in trouble. You can’t neglect him. He needs your attention . . .’

‘Look – I do want to put it first,’ I protested. ‘I do. But I love Olivia too. And Douglas – ’ I broke off, the frustrations of the past months welling up in me. Cheeks hot and red, I tried to talk. ‘He’s so possessive you see, and insecure. And it’s partly because – ’ I stumbled over the words. ‘We have – there are some difficulties . . .’

My mother held up her hand abruptly. ‘Problems in the bedroom are between you and him. It’s your marriage. None of that’s anyone else’s concern. And anyway,’ she added, ‘he’s managed to get you pregnant at least.’

I remembered Joyce Salter quite well. I had called to see her after the baby was born about a month before VJ Day. She lived with her mother in court nine, Stanley Street, and had told me that her husband had been called up for National Service. Thinking back to her delicate, pretty features, I could see what Alec Kemp would have found attractive about her.

Nervously I waited at her door, trying to prepare what I might say. I understood how she’d feel about me barging in to ask the identity of her baby’s father. She would most likely find my questions odd and insulting.

Fortunately she was alone with the child, so I didn’t have to contend with her mother, a mean woman whose features must once have resembled Joyce’s, but had since spread and roughened.

For a few seconds Joyce looked very perturbed at seeing me. Then her face cleared. ‘Miss Munro, isn’t it?’ I didn’t bother to correct her. ‘Couldn’t think who you were for a minute then. Come in. Take no notice of the mess. It’s our Maureen.’ She indicated the crawling baby. ‘Shocker for mess she is.’

I smiled. The small amount of confusion in the room was not such as could have been caused by the baby, who was in any case settled to play in an orange crate. Sitting down, I asked after Joyce’s health and had a good look over Maureen. She was a well-covered, healthy-looking baby, bar the catarrh which dogged just about everyone in the area. She gazed at me with interested dark eyes. I had a sudden instinct that she looked very much as Olivia must have done as a baby.

‘Joyce – I’ll tell you why I’m here,’ I said. ‘I need to ask you something which I’m sure you’ll think very strange and probably even rude, and I wouldn’t dream of coming here like this if it wasn’t very important. I’d like to assure you that I’ll keep anything you tell me in confidence.’

Joyce looked very anxious at my serious tone, and took refuge in wiping Maureen’s face with a cloth. ‘Whatever did you want to know?’

‘I need to know the name of Maureen’s father.’

Blood rushed across Joyce’s face. She pulled a hanky from her sleeve and stood worrying it between her hands. ‘My ’usband’s away in the army. I told you . . .’ She was a timid woman, not the sort to throw me out like some would have. She had a persecuted look, conscious of having done wrong. Trying to stand up for herself, she dared to say, ‘What’s it to you, anyway?’

‘Look,’ I assured her. ‘Strange as this may sound, the reason I’m asking you this actually has nothing to do with you and I shan’t want to trouble you again. I’ll explain to you in a moment. What I need to know is – is Maureen’s father Alec Kemp?’

Joyce grew very flustered, wringing the hanky, starting to cry. ‘My ’usband mustn’t find out.’ She looked into my eyes, her face stricken. ‘Who told you? No one was to know. I’ve never breathed a word. ’E said if I told a soul, ’e’d stop the money.’

I stood up and walked round the table to her. ‘Joyce – I’m afraid people have a way of working things out. Look, please, I don’t want to upset you.’ Shyly I touched her shoulder and she gazed up at me, eyes wide, pleading for reassurance. ‘I can guarantee your husband will never hear anything from me. I’ll tell you what this is all about. Let’s sit down, shall we?’

While Joyce listened, wiping her eyes, I explained briefly about Olivia. ‘I’m sure you can understand why I’m desperate to get her out of there. The only way I can think of is to force him into it. My knowing will make no difference to your position. He won’t stop the payments to you. You see, he’s well aware that my husband’s a journalist. We could make things rather awkward for him.’

Joyce was watching me in bewilderment. ‘His poor daughter,’ she said. ‘What a thing.’

‘Do you know of any others?’ I asked her.

She paused. ‘I know of others ’e’s bin with.’ She rolled her eyes to the ceiling with a hard laugh. ‘Thought I was the one and only, didn’ I? Jackie Flint – up at eight court. Lost a baby a month ago.’

‘And she said it was his?’

Joyce looked at the floor, blushing. ‘She’s a pal of mine. We was both on the line at Kemp’s.’ She raised her eyes to me and they were red and filling with tears again. ‘I never meant for it to ’appen. ’E’s not like the others, you see. I can’t say ’e forced ’isself on me or anything like that. ’E just has a way of making you feel sort of special – like the only person in the world. I can’t explain it to you. I s’pose I were in love with ’im. I’d ’ave done anything ’e wanted.’

‘I know,’ I told her gently. ‘Don’t worry – I believe you. I haven’t come here to judge you, Joyce. But I would like you to tell me one more thing. D’you know when I’m likely to find him around here?’

Silence began to take root between Douglas and me. Silence which I began to imagine might never be broken. There were days when almost the only times we spoke were in response to my mother. That was when Douglas was there at all. He worked every possible hour, late into the evenings. Isolation and work were familiar havens for him.

I began to panic. I was being punished and I felt I deserved no punishment. I imagined bringing up a child in this silence.

In October it was Douglas’s birthday.

‘Will you be free tomorrow night?’ I asked the morning before. We were both dressing, Douglas careful and immaculate as ever. ‘I thought I’d book a table at the Midland. It’d be nice to celebrate properly.’

I’d caught Douglas’s morning mood, brisk, already with the aura of the newsroom about him, not welcoming intimacy. ‘I can be. I’ll check.’ He fastened his tie. ‘Good idea of yours.’

I moved forward to embrace him but he kept me at a distance, allowing only a light kiss on the cheek. ‘Breakfast. I need to be off.’

The next evening I put on the soft wool dress I had worn after our wedding. I wanted Douglas to remember it; the dress, the day. He was late arriving, but not enough for me to have become edgy. I waited in the bar, self-consciously a woman alone. When he finally came limping across the smooth carpet I met his eyes and smiled. We had spent too many days avoiding each other’s glance. Douglas could see I was making a special effort, and with an intensity of relief which surprised me, I realized he was going to respond.

‘Sorry I’m late.’ He returned my smile and kissed my cheek. There was a glow about him, some pent-up excitement. ‘Just fetch a drink. Another for you?’

We sat in the bar for a time, Douglas smoking and talking over the day with what felt like exaggerated courtesy. Once we had settled in the softly lit dining room and ordered some food, Douglas sat back, looking into my face. ‘I’ve got some news.’ I had not imagined the excitement. ‘I was talking to a chap on the
Express
today – ’

‘The
Daily
?’

He nodded, lighting another cigarette. ‘He said there’s nothing doing so far as jobs are concerned at the moment. Too many demobbed and would-be journalists. But he said he knew I’d been on the job all through the war and he’s read some of my pieces – he liked the bits I did on the blitz. So he said I can send stuff in on a freelance basis, and as soon as there’s a job going, he’ll be in touch.’

‘Douglas, how marvellous for you!’ I cried. ‘Well done – you thoroughly deserve it.’

Douglas leaned back and took a satisfied drag on the cigarette. ‘So, we’ll be heading for the big city. Not before time, I’d say. I mean Birmingham’s all right, but it just doesn’t have London’s – ’ he waved his arms expansively, ‘atmosphere, excitement. Does it? Even the Hun couldn’t knock the stuffing out of London.’

I watched him, trying to keep my own feelings at bay. I couldn’t leave here now. Birmingham was home. I didn’t want to go to a strange place to have my baby, and above all, there was Olivia.

‘How long d’you think you’ll have to wait?’ I asked, forcing myself to sound bright and enthusiastic.

‘Anyone’s guess. Weeks, months, who knows, darling. But the main thing is’ – he gave a gleeful smile – ‘I feel sure I’ll be in there before long.’

This was not the moment to argue. Douglas, of course, took it for granted that I would do whatever suited him. After our food had been laid in front of us, I raised my glass. ‘Happy birthday, darling. And I hope it turns out to be a very successful year for you.’

We ate in silence for a few minutes. Douglas’s cigarette sent up a thin thread of smoke from the ashtray.

‘I wanted to try and clear the air a bit,’ I said eventually. ‘Things have been so awkward between us recently, and – Douglas, we shouldn’t be like this with each other. It’s no good, especially with the baby coming. It’s wretched, it really is.’

‘Oh, look, I’m sorry.’ Douglas reached for my hand across the table. ‘I know I’ve seemed rather preoccupied the last few days. It’s just my way of . . . Sometimes I find it difficult. Things don’t feel quite right. Not how I think they should be.’

‘What d’you mean?’ For a moment I was encouraged. I shared this feeling. I wanted to take apart the whole puzzle of our marriage, to examine and restore it. But there were areas of it we could never reach with words. What happened between us in bed was something we could never even begin to discuss, even if this had been the place to do it. It was too fraught, too embarrassing. And the fact that I was now pregnant had apparently convinced Douglas that all was well in that department. But there were all the other uneasinesses between us. I hoped that Douglas, too, wanted to face and alter them.