Once a Land Girl (20 page)

Prue shook her head. No one could get bluebell blue, the Buckingham Palace dress blue, so there was no point in trying.

I’ll get all that under way, then, and come back this evening.’ He kissed her again, this time on the forehead. ‘Anything I can bring you?’

Prue shook her head.

When he had gone she lay down again. Barry and his son did not exist. She herself did not exist – at least, not as the person she had been this morning. All she knew was that she was in an
alien place after strange events where there were no feelings whatsoever. Not even curiosity.

The door opened again and the nurse came in with the flowers in an enormous jug. She put them on the table by the bed. Prue averted her eyes from their forest of hideous curry colours, but their
smell, of damp earth, evoked the autumn jugs of chrysanthemums that Mrs Lawrence had always put on the dresser. That memory was the best thing about the day so far.

‘Your mother’s outside,’ the nurse said. ‘She seems a little upset. Can I bring her in?’

Prue heaved herself up again. ‘I suppose so. Tell her I need to rest and she mustn’t stay long.’

A moment later Mrs Lumley shunted into the room, carrying another vast bunch of flowers. Prue didn’t know what they were, but shuddered as a barrage balloon of multi-coloured petals moved
towards her bed. On top of it rested the tearful face of her mother. ‘Prue!’ she shrieked. ‘I’m in shock. I’m telling you, darling, I’m in shock . . .’ Her
arms fell to her sides. The flowers dropped to the floor. The dull linoleum was now a chaos of orange, yellow, scarlet, purple, pink, blue, more orange, more yellow . . . ‘Look what
I’ve gone and done now. And I’m telling you, darling, those flowers cost me all of half a crown . . .’

Prue shut her eyes.

It was decided that she should stay in the hospital for a few days. After her first night’s sleep the drowsiness receded and between visits from Barry and her mother
– who both brought her small pots of Shippam’s salmon paste and reminded her they were quite a luxury – it was a peaceful time. She visited her son – she could not bring
herself to think of him as Alfred – every morning and evening. He was in a primitive-looking incubator: naked, small, pale. Sometimes his tiny fist punched the air, just as Barry had
imitated. Sometimes he lay completely still. The paediatrician said he would not be able to go home for a while. As Barry’s arrangements for the nursery were apparently not progressing fast,
Prue was not disturbed by this news. She wanted everything to be ready for him when they arrived home.

On her last night in the hospital Barry came later than usual, and stayed for a long time talking about Alfred’s future: he would go to public school, university, then into the army,
perhaps, a good regiment – all the things that had been Barry’s own unaccomplished dreams. ‘So much ahead, so much to look forward to, sweetheart,’ he said, when he got up
to leave. ‘I’ll tell you something: I’m the happiest man alive.’

When he had gone Prue got out of bed and went to the room where the incubators were gathered. A nurse was adjusting a tube that ran from her son’s nose. Prue thought she looked a touch
concerned, but there was reason for constant anxiety in this room of ill babies.

‘He’s very still,’ said Prue.

‘End of the day,’ the nurse replied briskly. ‘Babies this size don’t have much energy.’

‘But he’s a good colour, isn’t he?’

The nurse glanced at her. ‘He is,’ she said.

Prue put two fingers to her lips, eased her hand into the incubator. With a butterfly touch she transferred the kiss to the baby’s forehead. ‘Night, little one,’ she said, and
went back to bed.

Each morning in hospital Prue woke very early. The thinness of the ugly curtains meant the dawn sky turned the blue walls to a cloudy silver before the arrival of denser
November daylight. On the morning she was to go home – Barry had been in a dither about whether to fetch her in the Daimler or the Humber – Prue looked at her clock and saw it was four
thirty. She shut her eyes, but knew there was no hope of further sleep.

She was woken by someone opening the door. It was the nurse who had rushed to help when Prue arrived. She crept in.

Prue sat up. Alert. ‘So?’ she said. ‘You on night duty?’

The nurse nodded and sat on the bed. A small pulse twitched under one eye. ‘I wanted to be the one to tell you,’ she said. ‘Your son passed away in the night.’

Prue wished she could have said ‘died’. ‘Oh? Why?’ Her own voice was so tight she thought it might snap.

‘These premature babies . . . it’s always touch and go. His lungs – in Alfred it was his lungs. Under-developed. There’s not much to be done when that’s the case.
Some hang on, and the lungs gradually mature. Others . . . don’t make it.’

‘No.’ Prue sighed. There was a long silence.

‘Are you all right?’ the nurse asked. ‘Is there anything I can get you?’ Prue shook her head. ‘I’m so sorry. So very sorry. But still, you’re very
young. Plenty of chance for . . .’

Prue gave her an incredulous look. The nurse tried to take her hand, but she snatched it away.

‘You musn’t try to be brave,’ she went on. ‘Cry, scream, yell, let it all out. Don’t bottle it up. Everyone understands.’

Prue stretched her dry mouth into an approximate smile. ‘I’m not bottling anything up,’ she snapped. ‘I’m fine. My son was never real. Barry was never real. None of
it. None of it’s been real. So I’m fine. On, on . . . I’ll just get on with the unreal life till one day, perhaps . . .’

‘Of course.’ The nurse was frowning.

‘It must be very difficult, your job,’ Prue’s voice was unusually high, but steady. ‘I mean, breaking the news to parents that their baby has died.’

‘It’s not easy.’

‘No.’ Prue slid further down into the bed. ‘Can’t be. Could someone ring my husband at six? He’s always awake by then.’

‘Of course.’

At last the nurse stood up. Automatically she tweaked the bedclothes, ran a hand over a crumpled area of blanket.

‘Thank you for all your help when I arrived,’ Prue said. Her longing to be left alone pulsed through her.

‘You’d had a bad time. You were very courageous. Now, if you want anything just ring the bell.’

‘Thanks.’

At last the nurse and all her kindness were gone.

Barry arrived just after seven. His grey unshaven cheeks sagged. His tie was askew. In one hand he held his cigar case. He stood at the end of the bed.
‘Sweetheart,’ he said, ‘I’ve brought the Daimler.’

‘Right.’

‘I’ve come to take you home.’

‘I know.’

‘This is the worst day of my life. My son. Alfred. Come and gone. Just like that. Two days on earth. Two days.’ He held up two shaking fingers.

Prue nodded.

Barry gripped the iron bed end with his free hand. ‘I need to see him, last time. Then we’ll go. Are you coming with me?’

Prue shook her head.

‘Don’t you want to say goodbye?’

‘No. I want to remember him alive.’

‘Very well.’ Barry shuffled out of the room. Prue got out of bed. Somehow there was a pile of clean clothes on the chair. She put them on, imagining Barry staring at his dead
son.

Some time later he returned. He did not seem to know what to do next. Prue took his arm. ‘Where’s the car?’ she asked.

They moved in awkward tandem down long, chipped passages of gloomy beige, rank with the smell of disinfectant and tinned soup. At last, in wonderfully cold air, they came to the parked car.
Barry’s trauma was momentarily obliterated by surprise. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘It’s the Humber . . . I thought I’d brought the Daimler.’

‘Never mind. Get in – go on. Let’s go home.’ Prue opened the door for her bemused husband and they began the journey through the city. Barry, who knew the streets so
well, drove like a man who had lost his way.

A
fter the funeral Barry began to leave the house even earlier than usual each morning, and came back only in time for one cigar before supper.
Eating was now always in near silence. Once Prue said, ‘I do wish the baby’s coffin hadn’t looked so like a shoebox,’ and Barry did not reply. Another time it was he who
broke the silence, with the news that he was going to move into a different bedroom.

‘Now it’s all over, sweetheart, there’s no point in trying any more. I know you don’t like it. So I won’t bother you again.’ He gave her an expectant look,
perhaps hoping she would disagree and ask him to stay.

She nodded. ‘Very well,’ she said.

She wrote a long letter of apology and explanation to Steve Gander and said she would not be going back to the job. She had neither the heart nor the energy to spend further time on a non-job,
and she never wanted to see a mob of pigs again. She telephoned Ag and Stella, both of whom asked her to come and stay. She said she would, once she had made sure Barry was resettled. On several
occasions she had heard terrible sobs coming from the small room he called his office. Previously he had scarcely ever used it. Now he often shut himself in there after supper to deal with his
devastation undisturbed.

For some reason that was not clear to her, she was nervous of telling Johnny. But one morning he appeared at her chicken run with a basket of eggs he had gathered but failed to deliver. ‘I
heard,’ he said. ‘Barry rang and told me when you were in hospital. Asked me to look after your birds. Then he rang me again once you were home.’

‘Really?’ Prue frowned at this unexpected news.

‘I’m so sorry.’ Johnny turned away from her, fiddled with the eggs.

‘Well. It happens.’ Prue shrugged.

Johnny turned back to her, his face clenched. A pulse was wildly beating in his cheek. ‘Barry said the boy – Alfred, he said – looked just like him, except for the colour of
his hair.’ There was a long pause.

‘He did think that, yes.’ Prue moved a little away from him, stared at the grovelling birds through the wire netting. ‘Thing is, Johnny, I’m going to go away for a while.
Both Stella and Ag have asked me to stay, have a break. After that, I don’t know . . . I haven’t made any plans but I think I might. . .’

‘Of course I’ll look after the hens. You know I enjoy it.’

Prue suddenly smiled at him. ‘What I’d really like is for you to have them. I want to give them to you.’

‘I don’t know about that.’ Johnny looked touched, but uncertain.

‘Please. You’ve done so much for me.’ She stopped, feeling the break in her voice. ‘The least I can do is give you my chickens.’

‘Well, if you’re sure.’ Johnny ruffled his hair, reflecting. ‘I won’t move them in with mine till I’ve extended the run. If it’s OK with you I’ll
keep them here for a while.’

‘That’s absolutely fine.’

‘And thank you.’ He moved over to Prue, touched her cheek with the back of his hand. ‘You look pale. I’m glad you’re going away. Let me know as soon as you’re
back and we’ll go off for the day in the Sunbeam. Bakewell, perhaps. Take care of yourself.’

For the first time in weeks he gave her a light kiss on the cheek, then walked quickly away, the basket of eggs over his arm, still undelivered.

That evening, sitting by the gas fire in a haze of cigar smoke, Barry looked particularly wretched. He had not touched the sliver of cod at supper, or even his favourite
junket. Prue sat on the other side of the fire, worried. She wondered how and when this period of his abject misery would end.

Barry stubbed out his barely smoked cigar, stood up. ‘I’ve things so crushing on my mind, sweetheart, that I have to tell you. I’m sorry . . . but I have to.’ He flapped
his arms up and down against his sides, reminding Prue so strongly of an anxious penguin that she felt a surge of untoward laughter. She could see that, without a cigar between his fingers, he felt
at a loss, yet for her sake he resisted lighting another.

‘What I have to tell you is this. I’ve made a big mistake. You’ve made a big mistake. We, together, have made a big mistake. We married.’ He spoke slowly and quietly. He
sighed, long and deep. Then he began to waddle about the room, in and out of the chairs and tables. Prue had to keep turning her head to follow his random progress.

‘Thing is, sweetheart, and perhaps I wasn’t so sure of this then as I am now, I married you without care or real thought of proper love. I married you for the wrong reasons. And it
wasn’t long before I could see you married me for the wrong reasons, too. You wanted security, a roof over your head, a child, company, above all the safety of money. No?’ He waited for
Prue to nod very slightly. ‘I wanted a wife. I most definitely wanted a wife. I found you by chance, waiting at a bus stop one rainy night. Chance meetings so often end in mistakes,
don’t they? They bring a special kind of hope, a feeling that Fate itself has made them happen. But marriage, like anything else, should be researched before entering. Rather like buying a
new car . . .’ His sad mouth rose briefly into a smile. ‘And we didn’t research each other, did we? We just plunged in, hoping but not convincing even ourselves, didn’t we?
I’d found this very pretty land girl with lots of life and spark and spirit. But very soon here at The Larches the gaiety began to go out of you, even when you got the chickens and that daft
job . . . I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to ask you what to do. Money’s only a temporary balm, I’ve always believed. I knew the presents would soon lose their
novelty and I felt I was losing my way. And then came the news of the baby – happiest day of my life.’

He stopped by the fireplace, put a hand on it, moved it over the grain of the stone. ‘But that wasn’t to be, was it? Alfred came and went so fast it was scarcely believable. Worst
time of my life – but probably the same for you, too, sweetheart.’ Their eyes met but Prue made no sign of acknowledgement.

Barry launched himself back across the room, arms flapping more strongly, the sound of flesh against baggy clothes ruffling the quiet. He reached a large mirror on the wall, glanced at it. Prue
was able to see his reflection: a tightening in his face muscles as he braced himself to go on.

‘Don’t suppose I’ve ever spoken for so long outside a board meeting in my whole life . . . Anyway, now I’ve started, I must go on. There’s another confession I have
to make.’ Clumsily he spun round to face Prue. ‘No man could hope for a prettier, sweeter girl,’ he said, ‘but the fact is . . . I’m not interested in smooth youth.
What appeals to me – and I understand if you think this is peculiar, or even perverted – is the older woman. The well-worn skin, the friendly wrinkles, the comforting sense of someone
who has seen much more of life . . . I don’t know. I don’t understand it myself. But I feel at a loss with the young. I’m not sure how to behave. I’m sure if ever young
girls deigned to show an interest in me, it would be only for my money. You, sweetheart, were very interested in money, but you put up a good show of being kind, easy. I appreciate that. But I know
I’m not the husband for you, any more than you’re the wife for me.’