The Heart of the Family (30 page)

In order to make all that happen all Bella had to do was simply gently and kindly warn Lena that she felt it might not be such a good idea for Gavin to keep on coming round. Lena would accept what she said, Bella knew that, and as yet what she, Bella, could see flickering into life between them was something she was quite sure neither of them had recognised. There would be no broken hearts, no feeling of betrayal or hurt. It would all be so very easy. And, Bella decided painfully, so very wrong.

She exhaled on a shaky breath and told them with a smile, ‘I’m going to see my mother now.’

‘I’d better go myself then,’ Gavin offered straight off, like the well-mannered, considerate young man
Bella already knew him to be. She hadn’t been trying to test him but the knowledge that he was ready to put Lena and her situation first underlined everything that Bella had already been thinking.

‘I’m going to get a key cut for you, Gavin,’ Bella rewarded him with another smile, ‘then you can come and go as you please whilst we are out at work. There is no one I would trust more to do an excellent job, and it eases my mind knowing that you do have a key, especially for when Lena is here at home and I’m at the crèche.’ Bella could almost see Gavin’s chest swelling with pride along with Lena’s eyes growing luminous with hero worship for her.

Lena was so easily pleased, her gratitude and her joy in the smallest and simplest of kindnesses constantly making Bella aware of how generous and loving Lena’s heart was.

Leaving them both in the nursery-to-be, Bella went downstairs and put on her coat and her boots ready for the walk to her mother’s.

A sharp wind off the estuary had blown away the morning’s cold grey blanket of thick wet mist, leaving the sky ice blue and the wind with a sharp knife edge of cold that made her shiver, despite her warm clothes, and huddle deeper into the warmth of her fur-collared coat, whilst walking that little bit faster. Lena’s baby was due to be born in January, one of Bella’s least favourite months of the year, poor little thing, and it had already been arranged that Lena would go to the country to a special mother and baby nursing home to give birth. Bella had asked lots of anxious questions of both her doctor and the young mothers who brought their children to the crèche to make
sure that the best possible nursing home had been selected.

Despite the sharpening keenness of the wind, Bella found her walking pace slowing the closer she got to her mother’s. It didn’t seem to matter that Bella had done so much for her mother to keep her financially secure in her own home, Vi still complained so bitterly when Bella visited that sometimes it was almost as though Vi was blaming Bella for the fact that Edwin had left.

There was one thing she was doing, though, and it was that one thing that was in part responsible for Bella’s increasing reluctance to visit, even though at the same time it was also causing her to worry about her mother. And that thing was the fact that Vi had become very argumentative and verbally offensive, especially after a couple of G and Ts, when her complaints would become vitriolic criticisms of Bella and Lena, and of course ‘that woman’, which would then descend to heartbreaking outbursts of angry tears that left Bella almost as exhausted as they did Vi. It might only be a matter of a few short weeks since Edwin had left but Vi’s drinking had escalated during those weeks to the point where Bella had felt obliged to discuss her concern with her mother’s doctor.

His grave warning, that he too felt her mother
was
drinking too much and that he was concerned that Bella had no other family members whose company might have helped her to keep her mother too occupied to dwell on her situation, had not reassured Bella.

There was Charlie, of course, but the only response Bella had had to her letters to him telling him what
their father had done had been a laconic and typically Charlie comment that he was surprised the old man was up to that sort of thing at his age.

Bella was pretty sure that Charlie would not find the situation so amusing should Pauline give birth to a son or two, to displace Charlie in their father’s affections and potentially his will.

This being a Saturday, Bella was free to visit her mother earlier in the day than normal. The first thing she noticed as she unlocked the front door and stepped into the hallway was the silence. Her heartbeat quickened as she headed first for the kitchen where the sight of her mother lying fast asleep in a kitchen chair with her head on the table, whilst she snored gently, did nothing to dispel her anxiety. Also on the table were an empty glass, an almost empty bottle of gin and a half-full bottle of tonic. Bella’s heart did a slow somersault, fuelled by mingled guilt and anger.

She could hear someone knocking on the back door. Before going to see who it was, instinctively she picked up the glass and the gin bottle, thrusting them out of sight behind the bread bin that was on top of the metal dresser, which was her mother’s pride and joy.

When she opened the door her mother’s neighbour was standing on the step, trying to peer over Bella’s shoulder and into the kitchen.

‘Ever so glad you’ve come, I am, Bella, and no mistake,’ Muriel James announced, so obviously intent on coming in that Bella was obliged to step back to allow her to do so. ‘I’d thought about telephoning you but you know what it’s like with those girls on the exchange: they know everyone’s business
and of course they are forever gossiping, everyone knows that. I didn’t want to embarrass your mother by having to say how worried I was about her and why. She was waiting on the step earlier for the grocer to deliver, you know, and it wasn’t her usual shop she’d ordered from either. This man came up to the door carrying a box of veggies and that, and – well, I wasn’t trying to look or anything – but you just couldn’t help seeing it. There was a bottle of something or other. And more than one. Two, I think, stuck in with the greens. Black market, I dare say. Your dad always did have good connections in that regard, didn’t he? I remember how envious we all were last Christmas when your mother managed to get those wonderful puddings from America. Anyway, like I was saying, this chap who was delivering in this dirty old van kept on looking over his shoulder the whole time and then your mother paid him and he put the box down, and after he’d gone I saw her carrying in the bottles from it and then the veggies. Poor thing. I do really feel ever so sorry for her, Bella, with all that she’s had to go through. Who would have thought that a decent upstanding man like your father would go off the rails like that? And as for that dreadful woman—’

‘Yes, thank you, Muriel,’ Bella tried to stop the other woman. ‘It really is kind of you to be so concerned.’

‘Well, how could I be anything else? Like I said, who would ever have thought of something like this happening? I remember when you all first moved in here, your mother was so proud of you, and so full of plans. We all marvelled at the way she set about changing things in the house, and getting all those
workmen in to put in a new bathroom. And such a pity that you are having to deal with this all on your own, Bella dear, what with Charles newly married, and in uniform and living so far away. It’s at times like this that a person needs a family to rally round and help out.’

From behind her Bella could hear the sound of her mother groan as she woke up.

Anxiously she turned to look at her, her heart sinking at what she saw. Her mother had lost so much weight that she now looked pinched and thin, her skin a yellow greyish, liverish colour.

By the time Bella had managed tactfully to persuade Muriel to leave, Vi was on her feet and weaving her way towards the stairs.

‘I don’t know why you’ve come round here, Bella,’ she announced, spacing out her words very slowly and carefully. ‘I’ve got a WVS meeting to go to in a few minutes.’

‘It’s dreadfully cold outside, Mummy. I really do think it would be better if you stayed at home and kept warm.’

What Bella really longed to say was that her mother was in no fit state to go out, and that if she did manage to get to her WVS meeting her fellow volunteers would be so shocked by the fact that she had so obviously been drinking that she would probably be asked to leave the group. But of course she couldn’t. She was too afraid of what her mother’s reaction might be. Not for her own sake – she had after all already withstood a drunken husband and a bellicose and violent father, and her mother in her present frail state was hardly likely to cause harm to anyone other than herself – no, what Bella feared
was the humiliation her mother would suffer at the memory of her current behaviour when she eventually got back to normal and stopped indulging in too many G and Ts.

‘It can’t be that cold. You’ve walked here, after all.’

‘Mummy, it is very cold. I wrapped up well and walked fast, and—’

‘I am not a child, you know, Bella, and I am perfectly capable of—’

When her speech was suspended by a huge hiccup Vi leaned against the wall looking astonished.

‘Come along, Mummy,’ Bella urged her. ‘Let’s get you upstairs so that you can have a nice lie-down.’

Bella had taken her mother’s arm, but Vi pulled back from her, shaking her head like a petulant child whilst she told Bella crossly, ‘No, I don’t want to lie down. I want to go out.’

‘The doctor said that you must rest,’ Bella reminded her mother desperately, hoping that the mention of the doctor would carry enough authority to persuade her mother to let Bella help her up to bed.

‘Did he? When did he say that?’

Bella suppressed a sigh. ‘He said it when he came to see you the other week, Mummy. He said that you must have lots of rest and keep warm.’

‘He gave me some medicine.’

‘Yes, that’s right,’ Bella agreed brightly. ‘He gave you some pills to make you sleep, and a tonic because he thought you were rather low and not eating properly.’

So far neither of them had mentioned Edwin, and Bella hoped that she didn’t have to.

She had no idea how to deal with what had happened when talking to her mother. She was afraid of mentioning her father in case it sparked off one of the terrible scenes there had been in the first weeks of her father’s departure, during which Vi had sobbed and reviled Edwin and Pauline, using language that Bella had no idea her mother had known, never mind ever expected to hear her use.

In the end it took Bella well over an hour to persuade her mother to go upstairs and lie down on her bed. She stayed with her until she was sure that Vi was soundly asleep and then went back downstairs to tidy up the kitchen. Washing up was so much more fun when it was shared with Lena instead of being done alone, but knowing how house-proud Vi really was, Bella didn’t want to leave the kitchen in the untidy state it had been in when she had arrived, with the sink full of dirty dishes.

Bella also emptied what was left in the gin bottle down the sink, telling herself that she was doing it for her mother’s sake, whilst hoping that Muriel had been mistaken about her mother having found a black market supplier who was prepared to deliver gin direct to the house.

The afternoon was turning into a cold grey dusk when she eventually started to make her way home, the December light already starting to fade. To cheer herself up Bella tried to focus on Christmas instead of worrying about her mother This year
she
would be cooking Christmas dinner, having decided that that would be more comfortable for Lena than the two of them going to her mother’s. Now, in view of what she had seen today, she was glad that she had made that decision.

Lena had confided shyly to her that she felt very self-conscious about the fact that Bella had all those books and she had never read much at all, adding with that natural sweetness that was so much a part of her nature, that she ‘didn’t want Baby growing up ashamed of its mother because I hadn’t had a proper education’, so Bella had been going round second-hand shops and stalls whenever she was out, bargaining for the kind of books she had most enjoyed when she had been growing up. Books such as the ‘Chalet School’ stories,
Little Women, Pride and Prejudice,
and several others. It gave Bella a really warm glow inside to buy things for Lena that she knew Lena would appreciate. They could read them together in the long winter evenings whilst they waited for the baby, and still listen to their favourite wireless programmes. Lena loved popular music and sang well, and she and Bella often entertained themselves by pretending that they were Gracie Fields or Vera Lynn, their impromptu concerts almost always finishing in fits of shared giggles.

Bella started to walk faster, not so much this time because she was cold but because she was eager to get home to the bright warmth of her own house. Poor Mummy, it was terribly sad that Daddy had left her, sad and cruel, but Bella did wish that her mother would not drink. In the initial days after Edwin had gone Bella had suggested to Vi that she move in with her and Lena for a few days so that she wouldn’t be on her own, but Vi had announced that she was certainly not going to sleep under the same roof as the ‘little tart’ who had tried to make so much trouble for Charles.

That, of course, had got Bella’s back up and if she
were honest she had been relieved not to have to have her mother to stay.

In another couple of weeks it would be Christmas, the third Christmas of the war, and all the mothers who used the crèche were saying how sorry they felt for their children with no toys to be bought, and no treats to be had because of rationing, and how much they wished that things were different. Many of them had husbands who were overseas fighting, and Bella couldn’t begin to imagine how hard it must be for them, trying to make Christmas special for their little ones whilst they were worrying about the men they loved who were so very far away.