The Edge of the Fall (33 page)

They'd said Arthur was a murderer, made him flee. Verena still refused to leave the house, saying that Arthur might come back – and she'd hate to be out. Really she was afraid of what people would say. ‘He's innocent!' Celia said to her, over and over.

But the other ladies in the area didn't like the taint of death. Verena couldn't bear their gossip. And Rudolf was struggling to balance the business without Arthur.

Please come back!
Celia thought. There was no reason for him to stay away.

‘I wish Arthur would come home,' Verena kept on saying. Celia knew she should stay at Stoneythorpe to help them, but she couldn't bear it. Instead, she'd gone to visit Emmeline.

‘You mustn't blame yourself for Louisa, sister. I've said this so many times. She fell. It was awful, but it could happen to anyone.'

‘It happened to her,' said Celia.

Emmeline pulled Albert from the railings. ‘Stop that!' She put his plump hand in his pocket. ‘Is that why you're eating so much? Because you miss her and feel guilty? It won't stop it hurting, you know.'

‘It's just this dress.' Celia blushed. It wasn't. She was getting plumper, no two ways about it. She couldn't stop eating. Bread, especially, potatoes, meat, any fruit she could find. She'd read an article in
The Times
saying that it was a common feature, ever since the 1920s had begun, everyone ate now it was a new decade and there was finally food. Lily was wriggling. Celia put her down, held her hand.

‘You ate too much cake in Germany. Now you can't stop.'

Emmeline had, rather annoyingly, returned to her old slim figure after the birth; three months of exercising and eating cabbage had done the trick. She prided herself on it rather too much, Celia thought.

‘More to life than being thin,' she said.

Emmeline scooped up Albert who was trying to slide down to the floor. ‘Poor Louisa. Perhaps you're right, we didn't take enough notice of her. Still, I think she didn't
want
it. She wanted to be with Arthur. And she had that, didn't she?'

Lily was whimpering and Celia patted her, gathering her close to her woolly coat.

Tom's face, his scarred face, came into her mind. He'd written to her three times since Baden. She'd thrown his letters away, torn them up before her mother might see them. Hilde had written to her, stiff words about Baden and how they had been pleased to see her. Nothing from Heinrich, Lotte or Johann. She'd meant to write to Johann, trying to tell him not to care what others thought, that he'd served his country and that was a great thing. But then she thought of him, creating his matchstick houses over and over – and she couldn't send it. At Stoneythorpe, there had been such a flurry over Louisa that Rudolf had barely asked her about her visit. She told him they had all been well and he made vague suggestions about visiting himself one day, when everything was calmer.

Celia tried, over and over, to stop herself from thinking about that night with Tom. But it rose in her mind, unannounced, like a guest you didn't want. She found herself weeping dry tears, crying out so loudly that on occasion she'd woken Lily. Once, in a moment of weakness, she'd written to him. It was late at night and Louisa had filled her mind.
I left her
, she wrote to Tom.
We should have gone back to London to find her
. She threw it away. He wrote again but she tore it up without reading, hating herself for considering writing to the man who had killed her brother.

She wanted to talk about Louisa and her parents, but Emmeline didn't want to.
You're upsetting Mama
, Emmeline said. Celia still couldn't quite believe it. She would see something, think,
I should tell Louisa about that
, then remember Louisa was dead.

‘Look, Lily,' Emmeline said. ‘We might see the Queen.'

‘Or Daddy,' said Celia. Emmeline gave her a cross look.

‘He will be off gaining equality for all somewhere,' said Celia. She barely saw Mr Janus, who was in London again, and she saw even less of his friends Mr Sparks and Jemima, who had returned to London and Mr Janus's causes. ‘Before we were talking,' he said. ‘Now we are doing!' They met secretly in places Celia and Emmeline weren't allowed to know about, planned meetings, demonstrations.

‘Don't you care that he's never here?' Celia had said to Emmeline.

‘He says he is changing the country,' Emmeline shrugged. ‘I can't make him stop.'

‘But changing the country would take for ever.'

‘He says he's got a lifetime.'

How can you love him so much?
Celia wanted to say.
Don't you ever think – I want something else?
Her sister who had once cared so much about money. Now, they all survived on the two days of teaching Mr Janus gave to private students.

She looked down at the men. Mr Janus said that the people of Britain had been conned. They had been told they were fighting for their country and the freedom of the world. And what had they actually been fighting for? Only big business, nothing more.
The freedom to sell British goods to the rest of the Empire, without the German ones or the Austrian ones coming in between. The freedom to buy big heavy arms and make money out of the misery of men.
The only winner was big business
, Mr Janus had painted on a banner.

‘But the Belgians were being killed,' Celia said. ‘That's nothing to do with business.'

‘Yes, it is,' Mr Janus said. ‘You just need to think deeper than the newspaper stories.'

‘Were we supposed to leave them to die?'

Mr Janus looked up from painting the next banner. ‘No, Celia. We should have an entirely different government. One for the people, not for business. If you doubt me, look at things now. Have any of the soldiers who fought been rewarded? No. Instead, they have less than they had before, they are told times are hard so they should expect no job, or less of a job, not even getting the same wage that women did in the war.'

‘Can't you say that women have been rewarded? With the vote.' ‘Well, not that you or your sister could vote, could you? They're afraid of young women. You understand more about the evils of this march for money.'

Celia gazed at the banner, the red paint. ‘Don't you think that you want so much change that it might never happen?'

Mr Janus returned to colouring in the ‘b' of business. ‘It will happen. I guarantee. We just need to be ready.'

‘Celia!' said Emmeline. ‘Stop daydreaming. It's about to begin.' The first soldiers came marching out, smart, buttons shiny. Even their faces looked polished. Ranks and ranks of them holding up trumpets, waving flags. They were cheering. ‘Excuse me?' A man's voice came from behind her. Celia turned – and felt herself gasp. It was a soldier with a porcelain mask covering a face underneath too scarred to be shown in public. She rearranged her own face into a smile. ‘Please, do go past.'

‘Here they go,' Emmeline whispered. A stream of men cut across the soldiers, bearing right. They were marching slowly, holding up
banners.
Soldiers need you! Look after the veterans!
‘Hypocrisy!' they were shouting. ‘Unfair!'

The women behind them were shuffling and talking. ‘Disgraceful. Spoiling it for everyone,' one said loudly.

‘Well, I suppose they think soldiers deserve more than just a few shillings for all that bravery,' said Emmeline.

The woman gave her a furious stare. ‘They should arrest them, if you ask me.'

‘They deserve more than just to be wheeled out and shown off,' said Celia, to no one in particular, looking forward. The protestors were still marching towards the bands of soldiers. She thought she could just see Mr Janus at the front.

‘No!' Emmeline said. Policemen were dashing towards Mr Janus and the men, holding up sticks, blowing horns. She started, but Celia held her back. She gathered Lily to her chest. ‘Look at my pretty buttons,' she said. She buried her head in Lily's soft hair, heard the shouts of the men as the police pulled them away. The crowd were cheering the police on. Lily struggled against her, wanting her mother. Celia heard shouts that she thought were Mr Janus. She looked up and saw they were being dragged off, shouting and protesting.

‘You need to stay still. Don't move,' she said to Emmeline, who was holding Albert and covering her face. She lowered her voice. ‘Proves they were right to come here. It gets attention.' The discussions about whether to hold the demonstration in London at the Remembrance Parade had been going on for weeks, Emmeline said. Mr Sparks, the only one Celia thought talked sense, had said it would undermine their cause, lose sympathy. The others had said that if they were campaigning to improve the lives of veterans, then this was the only time to do it. ‘Don't move,' she said, again, clutching Emmeline. ‘We'll find them later.' If they left now, the crowd would fall on them. Emmeline grasped her hand, face still covered.

‘You can look now,' Celia said. In front of them were lines of men, marching in file, proud soldiers.

They watched together, holding hands. Lily began to whimper
again and Emmeline pulled a bottle from her bag. Albert was quiet, big eyes staring. Celia looked down at the veterans below them. She thought of Michael and a tear rolled down her cheek.

She held the bottle in Lily's mouth until the child fell asleep. Her mind wandered as the regiments marched past, her thoughts drifting to her body, as they so often did these days. Ever since she'd come back from Germany, it was as if she'd lost all her strength. She was constantly weary, always hungry, and all aches and pains. She'd read how a terrible shock could do that to you, change your body. But still. She thought back to the girl she'd been, careening the ambulance over potholes, reciting Shakespeare as she went. Now she was exhausted even standing up. Emmeline had said,
yes, well, that's how it feels looking after children!
But it was surely more than that. She had been living with Emmeline, helping her with the twins, but even during her week back at Stoneythorpe, before she came to London, she'd been so tired she could hardly get out of bed.
War fatigue
, she'd read it was called. She shifted Lily on to her other hip.

‘They're about to do the silence now,' said Emmeline.

‘Do you think the whole place will go quiet? Really?' It seemed impossible to Celia that it would.

‘It did when they bombed, didn't it?'

So it did. Ten minutes later and the whole of London was silent. There were no cars, no voices. A leaf might drop and echo. She stood there, engulfed in the silence, looking up to the sky. Then, in the quiet, she heard something from inside herself. A movement, as if something in her was shifting. She gazed up at the sky and felt it again: an almost imperceptible, unmistakable kick.

TWENTY-FOUR

London, November 1921

Celia

How could it have happened?
Celia asked herself, over the weeks after the Remembrance Parade.
How, from only once?
All those girls who took men back after Peace Day! It didn't happen to them.

But now look! She'd read about the surge in babies after the war, discussed it with Mr Janus and his friends. They talked about it in the flats in the evening. Emmeline served them tea, rushed off when Lily started to fuss as she usually did at night.

Celia was grateful that Emmeline said she needed her to stay. She couldn't bear to go back to Stoneythorpe. She wanted to stay and think about her secret. Emmeline had agreed. ‘I could do with the help now they're so big,' she said. ‘Mind you keep out of Samuel's way, though. And don't listen to any of his conversations.'

‘Of course not,' Celia said. ‘I don't care about his stupid conversations.'

‘Don't let him hear you saying that.'

As it happened, Celia heard a lot of Mr Janus's conversations.

‘We're nearly at the stage when it will be more acceptable to have a baby outside wedlock than in,' Mr Janus was saying. ‘Soon marriage won't even matter.'

‘It only ever mattered for women, remember, Samuel,' said Jemima. ‘No one punished an unmarried man who had a child.' Jemima and a group of ladies were pushing for a new law to make it easier to put babies up for adoption. One of her lady representatives had been to Parliament twice with it.

They had talked of abused servant girls, working-class women who didn't know, middle-class girls tricked by men who promised to marry them on the next day. All the time, they talked of girls who didn't understand, women who were baffled and tricked by wily men. Not people like Celia, who had done it with someone not really thinking that there might be a consequence. For she hadn't, she thought, she hadn't once considered that, she hadn't said, ‘Stop! I might have a baby!' The idea hadn't even crossed her mind. She'd lain back with Tom on the lake bank. All she'd wanted to do was stop thinking, stop everything hurting her heart. She blushed, painfully, to think of it.