The Watercress Girls (22 page)

‘Oh, I am!’

Louis appeared, removed the headgear smartly to a curved
coat-stand
. ‘Good evening, sir. Would you care for a drink? Are you ready to order?’

‘Whisky, please. Say, can’t you rustle up something more special than rabbit?’

Louis stiffened. ‘Are you not aware, sir, of the strict rationing over here?’

‘You think I come from the States? Well, I’m from Canada, of British
parents, and I’ve been over here almost from the start of the war.… It’s just that this is by way of being a reunion, and I guess I hoped to impress a beautiful girl.’

‘In that case, sir, I apologize, I’ll see what I can do. Leave it to me,’ Louis said.

The wait was worth it. Toad in the hole, one fat, herby sausage each, in batter made no doubt with dried egg and milk, served with thick brown well-seasoned gravy, mashed potato and glazed carrots. Some of the batter was reserved for crispy pancakes, served, to their delight, with maple syrup.

Louis beamed at their obvious enjoyment of the meal, but it was time for vacating the dining-room to allow the staff to clear up and lay the tables again for breakfast. It was past nine o’clock.

‘Would you like coffee in the foyer – or perhaps in your rooms?’ Louis asked.

He didn’t even blink when Tommy said immediately, ‘In your room, I think, Megan? Booking at the last minute, the only room available to me was on the top floor, next to the staff WC.’

‘Not quite, sir, it’s closer to the broom cupboard. You’ll find it adequate, I’m sure. Do you want your bag taken upstairs?’

‘No, I’ll keep it with me, thank you. Lead the way, Megan!’

They drank their coffee, sitting side by side on a
chaise-longue
. Megan removed her shoes and wriggled her toes. She gave a contented sigh. ‘This is nice. D’you have to go up to your attic? There’s a spare blanket, you could sleep on the couch, couldn’t you? I don’t want the evening to end yet.’

‘Nor do l,’ he said softly.

She didn’t look at him when she said, ‘Or, as you’ve noticed, there is a perfectly comfortable double bed.…’

His arms encircled her, he turned her gently towards him. ‘Are you ready for this?’ he queried, his breath fanning her cheek.

‘Not quite … I don’t want to crush my best frock….’

‘That’s easily solved,’ he whispered. ‘You don’t have to do this, Megan, you know. I didn’t realize you were all grown up, I admit. But please remember I’m older, and yes, more experienced than you. I don’t want to take advantage of you—’

‘I’m in love with you Tommy. I can’t help myself. I intend to marry you one day!’

‘Oh, Megan, how can I resist you? I think I’m falling for you, too….’

The talking, the meticulous planning was over – the D-day landings began in June, 1944. Europe would be liberated at last. Amid the euphoria, there was the cruel reality of great loss of life for the Allied
forces. Tommy was among those who would never return. Also, the war in the Far East was not over yet.

In August, Megan was flown home to North Dakota on
compassionate
grounds. Her war was over, too, because she was four months pregnant.

‘N
o more weeping, Mattie darling,’ Griff said gently to her that homecoming day. ‘No recriminations – promise?’

Mattie’s lips trembled. ‘I’ll try … promise. It’s just that—’

‘You’re her mother – it’s natural you should feel the way you do. Disappointed – let down – we both feel she’s too young. If … things hadn’t turned out the way they have, well, we would have been shocked and angry that Tommy was so irresponsible, as Megan is so young.’

‘She’s not grown-up enough to be a mother! Nor was I, at that age. We were married almost four years before she put in an appearance! Another thing, I don’t feel ready to be a grandmother – at just forty-two! I
could
still have a baby myself….’

Griff hugged her tight. His voice was muffled as he rested his face against her hair. ‘This one will do … Megan has suffered enough, losing Tommy. We must support and love her, and her baby. Is her room ready?’

‘You know it is. Oh, Griff, how will I know what to say to her?’

‘You will. She’s still our Megan.’

They had both taken the afternoon off work. Mattie had decided on a simple supper, Chicken Maryland. Not too heavy a meal, but
nourishing
for an expectant mother, she thought. This was a favourite family dish: chicken portions, coated in breadcrumbs, fried to a golden brown; sweetcorn picked from Mattie’s front vegetable garden and made into fritters, served with sliced, cooked bananas. Megan had written that bananas had been unobtainable in England during most of the war. For dessert, Mattie baked individual blueberry tarts, and whipped up a jug of cream.

She wondered whether Megan had an aversion to certain foods, as she had had when she was expecting her daughter; she hoped that Megan might be past the morning-sickness stage. She mustn’t treat her as an invalid – she hadn’t allowed that herself, she recalled wryly.

After Griff had gone to collect Megan from the station Mattie sat watching the clock, trying to relax, as Griff had suggested. She heard the car arrive, but she waited for the tap on the door, which would mean that it was Megan, for Griff had his key.

She opened the door slowly. Griff was backing the car into the garage. Megan stood there, pale-faced and unsmiling. Mattie held out her arms. ‘Welcome home, darling!’ She drew her daughter inside the house, pulling the door to; Griff would be tactful, she guessed, and allow them a few minutes together.

Megan followed her into the kitchen and Mattie set the kettle to boil for tea. Megan wore the striped baggy dungarees she’d bought at Bigelows in 1941, which accommodated her baby-bump. She didn’t look much like the cheerful girl in uniform in the full-length photograph she’d sent her parents before she left for her duties in England. This young woman was obviously desperately unhappy.

They were aware that Griff had come in, but he went straight upstairs with Megan’s baggage.

Megan spoke at last. ‘Poor Dad, I couldn’t say anything to him except hello….’

‘I’m sure he understood. Mug or cup, dear?’

‘A cup and saucer – I missed your china tea-set. I missed you, Mom. I missed Dad! I wanted you to be proud of me.’

‘We are,’ Mattie assured her. ‘Drink your tea. I have a letter here for you from Grace. I had to tell her about the baby, of course.’

‘Did she – understand?’

‘She said it was helping her to cope with her grief. It’s brought us even closer.’

‘Tommy didn’t know. I wasn’t sure, you see, at that time. After he’d – gone – I had a letter. He said he loved me, that we’d be married as soon as we could – how wonderful it was that we’d come together – destiny, he said.…’

‘You didn’t tell
us
for some time, did you? I was worrying myself sick about those awful flying bombs, knowing you drove into London quite often. Please God, I said, let Megan come safely home to us.’

‘And here I am,’ Megan said simply.

‘Any tea left in the pot?’ Griff asked, joining them.

Later, in her room, resting on the bed, Megan unfolded Grace’s letter.

The sobbing began then. She turned her face to the pillow, trying to stifle the sound.

A hand gently caressed her hunched shoulders. Her father sat down on the side of the bed. He used the soothing voice he had used when she was upset as a child, or had shouted at Mom when she was a teenager, railing against not being allowed to do some activity her parents didn’t approve of. He was the family peacemaker.

‘What’s up?’ he asked, as if he didn’t know.

‘Oh, Dad, I’ve let you down, you and Mom, and now I’m going to be a burden, because I haven’t any money, though the army says it will help, and how can I get a job, in my condition?’

‘Look, you don’t need to worry about that now. All that matters is that we are here for you, and always will be. If you want to pour your heart out, now is the time. I’m listening. Mom will call us when supper’s on the table.’

Megan sat up, and reached for his hand. ‘We were only together for a weekend, Tommy and me. Don’t blame him – please….’

‘It takes two,’ Griff said softly. ‘You may find it hard to believe, but your mom and I almost succumbed to all that, before we were married. Of course, times were very different then, but, it was frustrating. Barriers are broken down in wartime. A last chance to be together, who knows what will happen next? Is
that
how you felt?’

‘Yes. I don’t feel guilty!’ She fingered the pendant round her neck, remembering. ‘He said: “Let me see whose picture you have next to your heart,” then he opened it, and looked inside. I said, I had to cut you down.…’ She gave a little hiccupping giggle.

Griff cleared his throat. ‘Good to see you smiling. Want to share the joke?’

‘Well, now, you’ve confessed about you and Mom – I omitted to say that when we were in bed, that the pendant was all I was wearing!’

‘Mom’s calling! Ready to come downstairs?’

Mattie refrained from asking what they had been talking about. She said only, as she dished up the meal: ‘Oh Megan, after you left home I was sorting out the washing and I found a fraternity pin on your pyjama jacket! I put it back in that little box on your bedside table. Didn’t you miss it?’

‘I thought I’d lost it – I expect you realized that Max gave it to me that Christmas? I never heard from him – I guess he found a nice girl!’

‘I doubt it, in the jungle in Burma. Eat up, before it gets cold.’

Megan wasn’t prepared to stay at home putting her feet up for five months. She had too much nervous energy for that. She asked Mattie to approach Bigelow’s and ask whether they could do with another member of part-time staff. ‘They can hide me in a back room, and disguise me in one of those old-fashioned farming smocks,’ she said.

Bigelow’s was also adapting to a fast-changing world. There were two other expectant mothers, GI brides both of them, who were allowed to perch on stools behind the counter, and they welcomed their former student helper back.

‘I can work until I go pop!’ Megan told her mother.

‘I’m sure Mr Bigelow Junior didn’t put it quite like that!’ Mattie mock-reproved. She was aware that Megan was determined to make everyone believe that she was all right. She wasn’t, of course, but it was good she was keeping busy until the baby was born.

Mattie accompanied Megan to a prenatal appointment at the hospital in late November, six weeks before the birth was due. The doctors warned that her blood pressure was soaring, and there were the first ominous signs of toxaemia. They said that she must give up her job immediately and have bed-rest in hospital for ‘a week or two’. Megan was not convinced. ‘Supposing they make me stay there until my due date?’ she fretted.

Megan wasn’t allowed to go home, but was shortly lying on a bed, in a cubicle off the main maternity ward, dressed in a well-laundered hospital gown, which she complained was indecent because it was open at the back, while Mattie went home to pack a bag hastily for her. Meanwhile, Megan was given a sedative, tucked up and told to have a good sleep.

Sleep was just what she did, for the following two weeks. She was woken to take tablets, to be helped to a commode, washed like a baby herself as she lay on the bed. Visitors came and departed at different times of the day. Sometimes she was aware of their presence, sometimes she slumbered on. A delicious fragrance caused her to open her eyes one day, to see Sybil leaning over her to bestow a gentle kiss on her damp forehead. It was the perfume she had worn herself, the day Tommy came back so briefly into her life. Sybil brought flowers and also a special bunch of red roses. ‘These are from Max. He asked me to bring them, as he couldn’t come himself. He sends his love and best wishes,’ she said, not sure whether Megan could hear her.

Mattie busied herself at home, preparing for the baby, something
Megan had put off, saying there was plenty of time. The old trunk yielded up a few items she’d forgotten, like two tiny flour-sack
nightgowns
, trimmed with lace at neck and cuffs. She washed them by hand, and pressed them carefully, as she had for the little Megan.

A specialist was called in to give an opinion. He thought that the baby should be delivered a month early by caesarean section. Mattie and Griff were asked to give permission as her next of kin. They were told gravely that time was of the essence. Both the mother and her baby’s life were in danger.

Megan awoke at last to see a nurse with a thermometer in her hand and a big smile on her face.

‘I’m … still here?’ she managed. Her mouth was very dry, and although she wanted to, she couldn’t manage to struggle up in the bed. Her hands strayed to her abdomen. It was flat, but padded with
dressings
. She winced as pain gripped her, then receded.

‘You’re still here,’ the nurse agreed. She opened the cubicle door, called out: ‘She’s come round – you can see her for five minutes, but no more, this time. She is due for some pain relief.’

‘Mommy, Dad.’ Megan lay there, with a drip attached to her arm. ‘What’s happened?’

Mattie couldn’t speak for a moment. Griff took Megan’s limp hand in his warm clasp. ‘You have a baby daughter, Megan….’

‘Where is she?’ Megan asked.

‘She’s in the nursery with other premature babies, but she’s fine. Not a bad weight. The doctors are checking her over. You’ll see her very soon.’

‘I thought it would be a boy,’ Megan said, like her mother before her.

‘But you don’t mind?’ Mattie found her voice.

‘No … so long as she’s all right … Mom, I can’t remember … the baby being born.’

‘That’s because they had to put you out, operate,’ Griff said.

‘You’ll have to stay here while you recover,’ Mattie had to tell her.

The nurse came back. ‘Time’s up. Oh, have you a name for your baby, Megan?’

‘I thought … I’d call her after her two grandmas, but I’m not sure which – Grace Matilda, or Matilda Grace.’

Her tactful father said, ‘There’s only one Mattie, eh? Your Mom. Grace is good.’

Megan and Grace came home just before Megan’s nineteenth birthday, and Christmas. At Megan’s suggestion Mattie and Griff had redecorated her bedroom. Down had come the childish posters, the film star
photographs
,
but the picture of Tommy remained. They papered the walls with pink paper with a tiny silver star pattern, and Griff made a mobile of hand-painted butterflies to hang over the crib.

Mattie gave up her job. She was needed at home, she said. She could tell that Megan was not really ready to be a mother. ‘I can do the
practical
bits,’ she told Griff. ‘She’ll grow up fast. All she needs to do for now is give Grace plenty of love.’