Violets, page 9
flicks away his cigarette.
Yes, that’s them.
Catch them if you can,
down the Arms for a drink,
at the piano with a carnation in her hair
Or laughing with his head thrown back,
pint in hand,
a flash
of the gap
between his two front teeth,
his olive skin,
his hair a lighter shade of brown than before.
Handsome, like he’d won the war.
So tap the window with your tiny claw, peer in
Later, when they are grasping at the evening’s ends
See how they linger in each room of the house,
picking things up, putting them down
Sitting down and standing up,
laughing, embracing
Dancing a little; a little drunk.
Yes. There they are.
It is late when they grow still,
standing in the front room
with the deep chill of the night coming on,
their bodies warm, pressed close,
as they reach their hands up to undo each other’s clothes.
~
It had snowed overnight and the light when they awoke was a flat, telltale grey. Violet sat up in bed, listening to Fred down in the kitchen putting the kettle on the stove. She felt the draught and knew he had left the back door open, having a smoke.
Fred? She called. No reply.
By the time she got down, Fred was already outside. She went to the front window to look. The snow was blocking doorways in drifts all the way up the street. Fred was busy clearing a path, he didn’t stop. He bent over in a steady rhythm cutting great blocks of snow, twisting his torso to throw them into the road.
Violet thought back to the year before. Nearly Christmas, still the war. She’d have been wondering by now if they’d had some luck, if something had stuck.
Embryo. Funny word. No way to know, back then, that there were two. Or that she’d lose them soon.
She knocked on the window. Fred turned and she pointed up the road. The boys from number eighteen had come out. Father killed in France, mother a nurse. You often saw them, hanging about. They were all bundled up in wool, the smaller one holding the big one’s hand.
They called to Fred, packing great balls of snow in their hands. He pretended not to hear, then rounded on them, giving chase, nearly falling over himself. They threw their snowballs and missed, Fred made roaring sounds and when he caught them, they pulled him down to the ground.
After about half an hour he came in. He was out of breath, stamping his boots. Violet tutted at the snow melting on the mat.
Fred grinned, rolled another cigarette.
Funny, when he was away she’d almost forgotten how he was, had worried that they wouldn’t have anything to say.
After their quick goodbye, him walking away past the bins.
Twins, the doctor had said.
But they’d already gone by then. Scraped out. A surprise that came too late. They would have shaken their heads, said things like, Twins, imagine that!
Fred had finished his cigarette and was taking off his boots. Violet moved them onto the newspaper she’d put down.
Vi? he said.
Yes?
I thought now I’m back we could write to enquire.
About what?
Violet could feel him watching her as she laid the table with knives and forks, two mats.
About a baby. A little boy.
Adoption, he said. He had it all planned out. They’d tell him, of course, when he was old enough to understand. They’d say he was chosen. They’d put it like that.
Chosen. Violet nodded. A baby boy. They’d tell him that they chose him. Perhaps that would be enough.
Of course it would, said Fred. He’d be our son.
32
The boy was three months old. His eyes were alert to her smile, his head turned to the sound of her voice. His mouth moved at her breast, his sweet breath, his long fingers grasped hers, clutched at her flesh, let go, clutched again. His feet were always cold, his legs long and thin, dangling loosely when she held him and he slept, a soft, heavy weight.
She had brought him back. To England in December, standing on the scrubby tarmac in the cold, waiting for the Duty Officer to come. In an ill-fitting uniform, with a baby crying in her arms, she’d stood with his papers in her hand, flicked-through, signed and rubber-stamped.
Living Male Child, born 03:15, 15th Sept, 1945.
And under Name and Nationality of Father, and Rank,
~ ~
Two tildes. Two columns, blank.
Now every day was the same. The ATS Special Discharge Depot was on the outskirts of Birmingham, the barracks home to an infantry battalion and a military prison.
She had twenty-eight days, the sergeant said when she arrived. Enough time to sort your affairs and go home.
At least she had her own room. There was a cradle for the baby that they had borrowed from an officer’s wife, a chest of drawers, a sink, a shelf and a single bed. On the first night she had dreamt of tiny baby birds, grubby and taut-necked. Then of Maggie crossing an English lawn, pregnant and wearing a black dress.
Not waving but drowning, Maggie in the dream had said.
And Violet was holding back her hair to better see her face, then her hands were round her waist.
Sometimes, she was tempted to write, but what was the point?
~
She awoke with a headache as usual. The baby was crying. The nights were still fretted with his noise. Trappings and exhalations of air, cold fingers and toes, hawklike arcs of hunger cried out every three or four hours. Then he would wheeze, Violet would jolt up to look, then he would seem not to be breathing at all.
She took him into bed with her and fed him again. It was six in the morning and pitch-black. Outside, she could hear the barracks coming to life, vehicles turning, still needing their headlights. When the baby had finished, falling asleep with his mouth slack, a trickle of milk coming out, she left him on the bed and lit a cigarette.
She stood at the window and inhaled in quick, sharp breaths. Some soldiers were gathering on the parade ground below, blowing into their cupped hands, smoking or scuffing the ground. Violet rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and wiped her nose on the back of her hand. There was ice on the inside of the windowpanes.
The soldiers were lined up in squadrons ready to march in basic formation. Violet stubbed out her cigarette. There were always a few of them out of step.
She’d been excused from drill herself, as well as exercise and inspection. The other women eyed her suspiciously every morning in the breakfast room. They’d be making their tea and toast as Violet boiled water for teats, tested droplets of milk.
The baby was awake and grizzling. She watched him from above. His nose was glistening with snot, his cheeks were red and cracked with cold.
His mouth, his lips, his tongue. The fleshy ridge of his gums. It seemed to Violet that he would consume the world if he could, take the slippery solidity of everything into his mouth. He sucked his fist raw and her nipples huge and flat, left trails of spit on her shoulders or mouth marks of wet cloth.
In Naples, he had lain bare-limbed like a grub getting fat. When he was not taken away to sleep in a tight cocoon of cloth, she would hold him lolling at her chest. Now he lay in layers of cotton and wool that forced his arms into stiff, padded slugs at his sides.
He cried and cried.
~
It was two weeks before Violet could get home. The sergeant gave her leave and a girl called Rose agreed to have the baby in her room overnight. Violet left his bottle and clothes along with a note. His papers were in the drawer, she said.
Make sure you come back, the girl joked.
It took the whole day to get to Pontypridd by train. When Violet finally arrived, she walked straight past her mother’s shop.
She needed more time, didn’t want to look.
As she walked, she imagined turning up with the baby in her arms.
Yes, she would say. The one I gave birth to while I was away.
She stopped at the bridge and took a deep breath. The water below was brown, the banks tangled and steep. She looked at the gentle hills ahead, patched with fields, the woods darkly green. She thought how grey everything had been since she got back. Birmingham, the parade ground. Clanking flagpoles instead of trees. Bare, flat brick.
She closed her eyes, opened them again.
It felt good to be home.
She picked up her bag and walked back up the street. It was Saturday closing time and the shops were all winding their awnings in. The haberdashery was about halfway up on the left. Violet stood outside, looking in. The blackout blinds had gone and the electric lights glowed. There was a Christmas garland of holly hung up with ribbon in the window.
That would be Aggie, Violet thought.
She had forgotten how handsome it all was. The polished oak, the glass cabinets and lamps hanging low over the bank of drawers.
And there was her mother. She was standing on a stool with her back turned. She looked smaller, a little hunched.
Violet ducked to the side. The butcher opposite saw her and gave a wave from behind his counter. She nodded and smiled, turned round, opened the door.
Her mother gave a short gasp.
Violet grinned, went over and leaned up to kiss her cheek.
For a moment they didn’t know what to say, how to speak.
Her mother climbed down, leaning on Violet’s arm.
So! You came back.
She pointed to the yarn she wanted bringing down. Violet took off her coat and reached up to the shelf. She felt her mother’s eyes on her back.
Well. You’ve filled out.
Violet rolled her eyes.
Yes, Ma, I’m all grown up.
There was a pause. Violet waited in case there was something else her mother wanted to say. Her hair had turned grey at the temples and in a streak at the front. Her curls were severe, set tight to her head. But there was something about her that looked frail, like it might crumble and give way.
Aggie will be back soon. She’s run up to the bank. I’ve got used to having her about.
That’s good, Ma. I’m glad.
And Violet walked round the counter and through to the house.
~
When Aggie got back her mother went out to catch the butcher before he closed. Aggie saw Violet and gave a gleeful shout, unravelling her long scarf from her neck, her cheeks picture-book red.
At dinner, her questions bubbled around the room. The weather in Italy, the Royal Palace, the Duomo, the food. All that Violet had written about before.
She wanted to hear it again, she said, first-hand.
Then her mother asked what were her plans. What about Christmas? What about coming back, settling down?
It’s redeployment, Ma. Just a few more months.
She said nothing, sat still as stone.
Was it voluntary? she wanted to know.
It was easier by letter, Violet thought. Now, sitting in the kitchen with the sound of the clock, there was nothing to say that wasn’t made up.
Aggie ushered the conversation on. The shop, the town, sons who hadn’t come back from the war.
What about that Polish boy, did you hear from him, Vi?
Violet’s mother appeared not to have heard, stood up and turned to the sink. Crockery knocked together in the water as she washed a cup.
I’ve no idea, Aggie. He’ll be far away, no doubt.
~
Upstairs, Violet undressed and got into bed. She felt the ache of a missed feed in her right breast. After a while she heard her mother come up. There was the opening of a drawer, the knock of hangers in the wardrobe as it creaked shut. Then quiet, before the murmur of her voice, a steady drone.
She would be kneeling at her bed, hands clasped in prayer, head down.
Violet turned off the lamp and let her eyes adjust to the familiar shadows of her room.
Naples felt so far away. The dirty yellow streets, the American jeeps and motorcycles, the veg stalls, the dark-haired young girls. She had watched them all recede from the back of the truck as it drove away, the baby sleeping on her lap. Then a few factories flattened by bombs as the city fell off into farmland, red earth churned to mud by the cold rain that had come.
Compared to Wales, it was still warm.
She remembered the airmen had shown her how to strap the baby to her chest, handing her various bits of meshing and clips.
And she had thought, they would have seen bloodier, leakier cargo than this.
Then the plane, sitting straight-backed in the endless din, the thin scar of her perineum throbbing anew, until they landed into sleet and snow.
Violet plumped her pillow under her neck. The boy would be sleeping now, tucked up in his barrack room cot. The grey, chipped walls. The flickering light over the sink. She worried that he’d be too cold, hadn’t had enough milk.
She tried to imagine him close to her now. The gentle rise and fall of his chest as she watched him sleep, the occasional flutter of breath, his head turned to one side. Or tiny clothes in the chest of drawers, some toys on the mat. Or even with her mother in the shop, batting about the spools of thread.
She saw him in short trousers, woolly hat; a good trapper in the woods, mud trowelled on the edge of his boots.
In the bath she would scrub him with her sleeves rolled up, arm grabbed, wriggling like a worm on a hook.
Imagine that, Violet thought. Like a story in a book.
She turned over in bed, drifted off, but it wasn’t long before she was woken up. Her nightdress was wet with milk and clinging to her breast. She sat up and propped the pillow behind her back, picked up the glass from her bedside table. Holding it on her lap, she leaned over and squeezed her nipple until it was beaded with drops.
She tried to imitate the regularity of his sucks. Now the milk came in creamy, thicker drops. It trickled through her fingers as she squeezed the nipple flat. She leaned further over the glass.
33
Violet picked her way through the potholes and gravel of the haulage yard, looking for Fred among the trucks.
The dog pulled at its chain and barked at her, rattling the fence. She made her way to the cabin and placed Fred’s lunch tin on the shelf.
She stood for a moment watching the men at a fire burning in an old oil drum. They were sallow-skinned and listless. Out of work, most of them. They turned up hoping for a few hours’ pay, drawing on family connections, the Irish, or else they were sent there by people who knew Fred would help.
Violet looked around her. Fred’s overalls on a hook, papers stuffed in bulldog clips, an empty tea-stained cup. All of it thumbed with engine oil.
There was nothing here of the factory where she and the girls had worked. No one took care of themselves or polished their boots.
No, this was no place for a woman.
Fred had joined some of the men by the fire. They smiled warily, laughed at his jokes. He’d taken the business over from her father as soon as he got back. He never spoke about Burma and she didn’t like to ask.
All in the past.
Earlier in the war he’d brought her souvenirs or gifts. She had a bracelet from the Gold Coast, hammered out in silver by a boy in the camp. It was a chain of plates and links, with her initials and his regimental crest. But the clasp was rough and caught on her clothes. It didn’t look like anything that Flo or Elizabeth might wear. She kept it on the dresser but it tarnished, so she put it in a drawer.
Fred had gone back to work, rubbing his palms, slapping the men’s backs, shaking their hands until they dispersed.
Violet shivered. She hated the yard.
She decided to carry straight on, slipped round the gate brushing the hem of her coat and straightening her hat. She was on her way to visit Flo, who’d returned from Worcester two days ago. She’d sent a note for Violet to come round.
~
Flo was in the back room with the baby on her lap. It was only a few weeks old.
Oh, Flo. She’s a bonny little thing.
Violet crouched down and squeezed the baby’s feet in her hands, bicycling her legs, kissing her toes. A girl all in frills. June was her name.
Flo’s mother came in. Her sister Eleanor was there too. Eleanor picked the baby up and kissed her, squeaking loudly at her cheek. Her mother peered in close and tucked a frill under her chin. They made cooing noises as they carried her out to another room.
Flo exhaled loudly, flopped back in her chair. She spoke in detail of the birth, how long it had gone on.
She had been sick as a dog, she said. And the burning sensation when the head was there; how she thought she actually heard it go, the tear.
Never again, Vi, I swear!
She was still talking about the birth when Eleanor came back with June in the crook of her arm. Violet stood up, made clicking noises with her mouth. June’s eyes tried to focus at the sound.
Would you like a hold, Vi?
She was so light. Her head lolled slightly as Eleanor handed her across. She writhed a little, took a shuddering breath. Violet started bouncing left to right. Then they all stood there for a while, Flo and Eleanor smiling at June in her arms, their heads on the side.
She loves that, Vi.
Yes, it was good to see Flo. She always sailed through. As if difficult things were boring. As if there were better things to do.
She was talking about her plans, about going back to her job in town. The business with the baby had been hushed up enough so they’d agreed to take her back on. She and Eleanor would share a room, she said, and June would sleep in their mother’s bed.
And that was how it went, Violet thought. People adapted, moved on. Especially Flo. And June would never need to know.
Vi, shall we go to the caff before you have to get back?
The baby had fallen asleep in Violet’s arms. Flo took her and with her free hand picked up her coat.
