The Memory of Us: A Novel (28 page)

She put her head down a bit and shook it. “We think that you inhaled too much smoke before they got to you, and it scalded your vocal cords a bit. Truthfully, I don’t know if that will improve. Time will tell. But there’s nothing we can do for that.”

I nodded in understanding. I suppose there were many things that I had to get used to now.

“Are you ready for the last bit?” She pointed to my face.

I shook my head. “Not yet. Please, let’s wait.” My voice was going to take some getting used to.

“Whatever you prefer. I do need to replace the gauze, though.” She unwrapped it slowly. The air felt refreshing on my skin.

“How much longer before it heals?”

“Well, we’re nearly all there. I’d say another week before we can keep the gauze off for good, and then a couple more just to keep an eye on it.”

“Is it bad?”

She tilted her head sideways as she looked at me, as though she was trying to decide what to say. “I won’t lie to you. It’s not going to be like what it must have been before. But with some more care, no, it won’t be so bad.”

I decided to get the inevitable behind me after all. “Maybe I could take just a quick look, then.”

“Are you sure, dear?”

“Mm-hmm.” There was a hand mirror on the bedside table. I reached my right hand out for it, only to find that I couldn’t grip it.

“Don’t you worry, I’ll hold it up for you.”

I closed my eyes as she lifted it to my face. Then I opened them carefully, as if a slow revelation would make less of an impact. But my eyes couldn’t help but take in the whole image at once.

My face looked much like my hands, with red-and-white markings that left large patches all around. The area under my eyes was particularly raw, where the skin was thinner. Some blisters still remained, but they were healing as she’d promised. Remarkably, my features were intact. In school, I’d seen photographs of burn victims who’d lost ears or noses. Maybe they always show you the worst cases in class.

But I was unrecognizable as myself, and I wondered aloud if I would ever be. Jane heard me and answered.

“That’s hard to say, dear, but if I’m honest, and I think you want me to be, I would say no.”

I took a deep breath and held back tears, lest they burn my tender skin. I could never have imagined something like this happening, and it was too much to take in. At last I spoke. “What’s going to happen?”

“The markings will settle in over time and won’t be so vivid, but they’ll definitely still be there. Your skin will heal to the point that it doesn’t hurt anymore, but it will scar into a leathery texture. We have some moisturizers for that, but they are more for your comfort than anything.”

“Thank you,” I whispered. “Thank you for telling me the truth.”

I knew it could have been much, much worse. I knew that I was one of the lucky ones. But I was definitely mortified at my reflection. I didn’t see myself in there. The face of a stranger looked back at me, the face of someone who looked like she’d been beaten. This wasn’t Beatrice Westcott’s daughter, who had been the most celebrated debutante in Liverpool only a few years ago. This wasn’t the winner of the auction. This wasn’t the wife of a man like Kyle, the wife he called gorgeous every morning.

And this certainly wasn’t the face of a new mother, the face that a baby would look upon with adoration. Fear might be more like it. Fear and, later, embarrassment.

I tried not to cry. I already knew what that felt like. If I doubted before that I deserved such a wonderful man, that doubt had now been replaced by certainty. How could he love me like this? How could I even think of asking him to try? He had given up everything for me—his mother’s dream, his vocation. This was not what he bargained for. Not anything close to what he deserved.

Once I had been in paradise, being married to Kyle. But now it was just the opposite. This was hell. If I’d ever harbored any doubt about God’s existence, that doubt had now been swept away. There was a God, and he was punishing me for having stolen Kyle away from the priesthood. Lucille had been right. Upstanding, righteous, precious Lucille. The memory of her pained me more than my wounds.

So no, I would not contact my parents. I wouldn’t write to Kyle. It would be better if they all thought that I was dead. Then all would be as it should have been. He would not be bound to a damaged wife. He would not be tainted by my crime against God. And perhaps God would see fit to spare him and allow him to return to the life he’d been meant to have all along. The despair that gripped me robbed me of the possibility of any future happiness, but I could see no other way than this one.

As the days passed, the medicine was lessened and I gradually felt the sting of my injuries. I felt, too, the pain as my milk ducts dried, a dismal reminder that I had never seen my child. Jane was often there, and even came in when she was off duty. I learned that she was originally from Birkenhead and had moved to Liverpool with her husband after they married just over twenty years ago. Shortly after, he was shipped out with the army and died in the Second Battle of the Somme in 1918. She had never remarried, and they had not had a chance to have children.

Why did these things happen? What little exposure I’d had to church had been so formal, as if God was an unreachable deity and we his obedient subjects. Kyle introduced me to a God that was kind, and for a while I believed it. But this God, who would take Jane’s husband so violently and rip Lucille from her family, punished me for having pursued love. I wanted nothing to do with this incarnation nor any other.

And yet people like Jane still believed.

I could tell that Jane loved children. When she wasn’t at my side, she could be found in the nursery, and she brought me stories of my daughter’s progress. I had, of course, refused every attempt she made to bring me the baby, which was baffling to Jane. What she didn’t understand was that if I held this little girl, this child I’d made with Kyle, I’d fall in love with her and could never let her go. And what kind of life could I give her? I loved her too much to see her.

My bandages came off with time, and I grew accustomed to my new look. Small patches of my scalp were burned, and it was unlikely that my blond hair would regrow in those areas. My hands looked like my face, the right much worse than the left. I had lost all feeling in that one. Jane worked with me every day to exercise the stressed muscles so that they would relearn their functions. My legs were relatively unscathed, and walking was difficult only because I had convalesced for so long. When I was able, Jane would help me stand, bearing my weight on her shoulders and walking me up and down the hall to strengthen them. She knew that I did not want to walk near the nursery.

“That’s a girl. One foot forward. Now the other. Oh, watch that table. Good now. You’re getting the hang of it.”

Every day it was like that until I didn’t lean on her anymore, and then I could walk quite well on my own.

After bringing my breakfast one morning and congratulating me on my increased mobility and appetite, Jane took a deep breath, ready to tell me something.

“Dearheart,” she called me, as I had still not told her my name, “I hope you don’t mind, but I can’t just keep calling the baby ‘Baby.’ Even at her little age, she is growing and becoming alert and developing a little personality. I’ve started to call her ‘Lily.’ She is so beautiful and so innocent, and she reminds me of an Easter flower.”

I hung my head, ashamed that I was the kind of mother who would not look at her baby, let alone name her. Even my mother, for all her faults, had named Charles. But I had to believe that this was for her own good.

“Of course,” she said hastily, “you can rename her whatever you like. It’s not as if she’ll remember. But for now, everyone in the nursery has taken to calling her Lily as well.”

“Lily is a beautiful name. I cannot think of a better one.”

Jane lit up like the Christmas tree candles from my childhood. “Does that mean that I can order her birth certificate now?”

I shook my head emphatically. “Not yet.” And I wouldn’t say more.

I hadn’t thought about a birth certificate, but it was a reminder that I needed to make some plans soon, as I could not stay in the cocoon of the hospital or Jane’s care forever. I was suddenly aware that she had to be keeping the hospital administrators at bay, putting off the inevitable reckoning for my care.

I still didn’t know what I was going to do next.

On Christmas Eve, Jane brought me a package—and, without knowing it, my answer.

“I’ve bought something for you. Merry Christmas.” And she placed the large parcel on my bed.

“You didn’t have to get me anything. I have nothing for you.”

“Well, your recovery is all the gift that I need. You have done so well, and the doctor has cleared you to leave on Saturday.”

I opened the present delicately. My hands functioned better now, although my right one still had little feeling. The left was very sensitive, and the coarse textures of the twill binding made it throb. I concealed my pain, though. Jane was looking at me eagerly, and I didn’t want to disappoint her.

The package contained everything I would need for my first day out. New leather shoes, stockings, undergarments, a skirt, a blouse, a coat, hat and gloves. They were plain and functional, a far cry from what I might have once worn. But they must have cost her plenty, and I felt unworthy of her generosity.

I choked back my emotions, more grateful to her than she could have imagined. “You shouldn’t have done this.”

“Well,” she answered, practical as ever, “we couldn’t very well let you run around in a hospital gown.
Vogue
would never approve. Not that these are
much
better . . .”

“Jane.” I put my hand on her arm to stop her before she could say more. “They are perfect. Thank you.”

I slid my hands up and down the gifts. The stockings were deliciously soft and smooth. But I avoided the rough fibers of the coat, as they would surely irritate my delicate skin.

A plan started to form in my head.

“And that’s not all,” she said. “The nursery girls have a gift, too.”

Taking out another parcel, she placed it next to the first one. It was a little smaller, and I couldn’t imagine what else Jane could possibly give me.

I felt my heart leap to my throat when I opened this one. Inside were clothes for Lily, nappies, and a rattle. All of the nurses who came to see me as well as the ones in the nursery had signed a card saying, “Merry Christmas, Little Lily.”

“They’re going to miss her, you know. I do hope that you’ll bring her by to visit once in a while.”

“I will,” I promised vaguely.

I had avoided the anguish of seeing this perfect baby, and now she was more of a reality than she had been since I’d felt her kick inside of me. Displayed all around me was pastel clothing, chosen by those who nurtured her when I had refused to. Everything was so little—I couldn’t imagine a person being so small as to fit into these. How fragile she must be. She needed the care of someone strong and stable.

Jane put the packages on the chair next to me and put one more in my hand, a tiny one wrapped in tissue paper.

It was my wedding ring. She had brought it up from the vault. I tried to slide it on to my finger, but it didn’t fit, so I put it in my pocket. Maybe it was a sign, a confirmation of sorts.

During that sleepless midnight, I came to some conclusions. I was no longer Julianne Westcott, nor was I Julianne McCarthy. I was a nameless, faceless ghost, and my future was uncertain. Lily did not deserve to be brought into this. In my own way, I loved her too much for that. The embodiment of my love with Kyle, I couldn’t bring her into my curse. Maybe I was no better than my own mother, although I would have liked to believe that my reasons for leaving my child were more altruistic.

I wrote a note, barely legible with my shaky handwriting, stating my intentions. I remembered the words that Father had spoken just a few years ago to me: “Julianne, wait until you have a daughter. Wanting what you think is best for her sometimes means making tough decisions.”

25 December 1940

Dear Jane,

At the same time that I lost everything I’d known, I found you. Besides being my nurse, you have been a comforter, a counselor, and a friend. I deeply appreciate the gifts, and I want to give one to you, too. I am unfit to be a mother to Lily. She needs more than I can possibly give her. You have been more of a mother to her this month than I can ever be. I am leaving the baby gifts for you and begging you to take my Lily as your own.

Resolved, I folded it and left it unsigned. Donning the clothes from Jane, I peeked out of my room to see that the nurse’s station was empty, then tiptoed past it. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a handbag, left unguarded, just asking for me to take it. I asked to be forgiven for this one last sin.

Grabbing it, I rushed out into the cold night.

In my hurry I nearly ran into a motorcar that was passing by. “Watch it, missus,” a man shouted from the window.

Missus
. It reminded me that I was nameless. I couldn’t very well get on for very long like that. I would have to come up with something.

It didn’t take me long to choose a name. Taking my unused first name, a reminder of the grandmother I’d never liked, matching this new, troubling face, I would be Helen. And forming an eternal connection to my new friend and to the baby girl I was leaving behind with her, the name was complete. I would now call myself Helen Bailey.

Chapter Twenty-Five

The underground wasn’t running, as it was Christmas morning, so I walked as long as I could and then huddled from the cold in a storefront doorway for the remainder of the dark hours.

For a moment I questioned the sanity of my choice, peering in the direction that would take me back to the hospital. It was unlikely that my absence had been noticed yet. But no, my decision was final. It was better for Kyle to assume that I had died than to come home to a broken, unworthy wife. Better for my parents to lose me than to have even more to explain, and to have even more disappointment to endure. Better for Lily to grow up in a loving, stable home. These thoughts warmed me from within.

I ran my fingers through my hair, a habit that would be difficult to break. I had forgotten that it sat in patches now. Maybe I would just keep the scarf over it and simplify everything.

My hands were icy, and I slipped them into my pockets. I felt my ring in there, its lonely weight. I held it up to my left hand, sighed, and put it back.

My attention rested on the handbag that I had taken from an unknown nurse. I already felt guilty about that, but I convinced myself that it was a theft of necessity. Surely, the mitigating circumstance gave me some kind of pardon. And in light of what I had stolen from God, it didn’t even compare. But would anyone be looking for me because of it? I was easy enough to describe. I turned my head side to side and saw that the street was deserted.

I opened the clasp to see a little mirror, a lipstick case, a key, and an envelope with money in it. Five pounds, with a note saying, “Esther, pick out something lovely for yourself for Christmas. I wish I could be there. Love, Mum.” Esther’s mum had been generous, and I started to think about how I could best stretch this useful find.

As the light of Christmas morning peeked over the horizon, I started walking toward the nearest station. With five pounds, I could have found a cab and had much to spare, but I was determined to be frugal from the start. Wrapping my scarf around my face, I did not attract any attention, and I boarded the first train of the day.

I got off at Ranelagh and glimpsed the gray flats that had been, for four days, my first home as a wife. Memories flooded me—love and longing, sickness and salvation. But no, those were the memories of another girl. A beautiful girl. That was not me any longer. I shoved my hands into the pockets of my coat and walked on, bristling at the scratchy feeling of the wool against my damaged skin.

Just a few blocks more and I arrived at my destination—Saint Stephen’s. It hadn’t been a conscious decision to come here, but as I reflected on it, it made sense. Despite my protestations, something inside me craved anything that was familiar. I couldn’t return to Westcott Manor, and I couldn’t bear to go see Lucille’s home. In my mind she was still my best friend, and I knew that she would never again walk through my gate and stay at my house. Saint Stephen’s had seen me only a couple of times, but it was somewhere warm, somewhere I knew I could feel safe for a few hours.

The church glistened with candles and wreaths, and by eight o’clock a children’s choir had begun rehearsing for the Christmas morning Mass. I stayed in a pew off to the side and smiled when I saw the procession coming up the aisle. Dear Father Sullivan. If only he had counseled Kyle to remain in the seminary. He would be serving at Mass in Durham right now instead of fighting to survive on a faraway battlefield.

At the end of Mass, I decided to try an experiment. The congregation filed out, each person shaking the hands of the priest and wishing him a good holiday. I joined the ranks and took my turn. I held on to his hand for just a bit longer than necessary, forcing him to look at me more closely. But Father Sullivan didn’t recognize me. Not a flicker.

I went back in to the church and stayed for the next Mass, too, all the while considering what I would do next. I was afraid that if I stayed in Liverpool, I would be tempted at some point to inquire about my parents or about Kyle or Lily. And that only opened the door to the bigger temptation of reentering their lives. But I had brought the punishment onto myself, and I was not going to carry them down with me.

The money in my handbag—Esther’s handbag—would take me anywhere that I reasonably needed to go. Julianne Westcott had nursing credentials, but Helen Bailey did not, and I couldn’t turn to those skills without papers. Although, in wartime desperation, could evidence of that proficiency at least open some doors?

As if I was being sent a sign, Father Sullivan said a prayer for the citizens of Manchester, who had suffered a devastating blow from the Germans just two days before. On the twenty-third and twenty-fourth, thousands of bombs had been dropped on the city, igniting the largest fire in the war so far. In one hospital alone, they lost fourteen nurses. Surely, they could use some help from someone who could demonstrate an ability in that field.

The next morning, as thousands of people evacuated Manchester, I headed toward it.

And this was how I earned a living. I followed the war from town to town, going where tragedy had struck the hardest. I would present myself as a traveling nurse who had lost her paperwork in the Blitz. It was a credible story, enhanced as I proved what I could do and by my obvious injury. When things stabilized in an area, I traveled on to another devastated town desperate for skilled, albeit disfigured, hands.

Whenever I could, I sent money anonymously to Esther at Smithdown to repay what I stole, plus a little more for the inconvenience.

People looked at me twice, which was something that I eventually grew used to. But instead of looking at me because they saw beauty, as they once did, they looked because they saw the opposite. It was just a flashing thought, I could see, because I was surrounded with the wounded and the dying, most of whom looked much worse than I did. Nevertheless, it was tiresome.

I managed to tolerate this unusual life, chasing disaster. If I died, I didn’t care. I was already dead to everyone I knew and loved, and the sooner the Germans took me, the sooner this nomadic life would come to an end.

Month after month I ached to step into the crosshairs. To join Lucille, who had deserved to live so much more than I did. If I hadn’t been such a coward, she might be alive today. If I had been willing to see my parents straightaway, we might have stayed at Westcott Manor, having one of our sleepovers, laughing until they told us to go to sleep. Little Lily would have broken the ice with my parents, and they might have welcomed Kyle when he returned.

That vision wasn’t to be. But I’d tried to make it right, as best as I could. I died so that Kyle could live and the good God that Kyle somehow believed in had to live up to his end of the bargain. It was tragic that I had to deny Kyle knowledge of his daughter, but with no idea when, or if, he would ever return, I had to choose what was best for her. I had to believe that he would have understood.

Year after year an end was denied to me as millions died and yet I lived. Each November brought a bittersweet awareness of the milestones that must have been attained by the daughter who was in the arms of a more deserving mother. What did her first smile look like? When had she cut her first tooth? Did she wear her hair back in plaits or down in curls? With the only reverence I had remaining for anything, I found a post office and sent an annual offering, care of Jane Bailey at the hospital. A pressed flower, a doll’s dress, whatever could be found or made along these sparse times, sent always with the same unsigned message:

To dearest Lily, I wish you the happiest of birthdays.

I moved to a new town after each one, so that the postmark would already be outdated by the time it arrived.

I did not make friends where I went, nor did I keep records, so the end of the war still found me without the necessary credentials to be hired permanently. As the country celebrated, I waded aimlessly through an endless shower of streamers and confetti. As the country recovered, my skills were not needed as urgently.

I was able to stretch out my unusual employment for just a few more years, going to cities that had not yet recovered from their devastation. But that couldn’t last forever, and soon I was faced with dwindling funds. I had saved enough to get by for a little while, but it wasn’t going to support me for long. I checked into a boardinghouse in Stoke-on-Trent for no other reason than the bus got a flat tire on the city’s outskirts and I had decided to get off.

But funds were not the greatest of my problems. I began to choke on my own loneliness.

One day I picked up a knife with my right hand, which I was still trying to regain the full use of after all this time. In my left hand, I held an apple. As I applied pressure to the fruit with the blade, it slipped, cutting instead my wrist. I reached for a towel but hesitated to stop the flow of blood, mesmerized with the growing red pool on the counter. I watched the blood leave the wound, and all the sadness flowing out with it. It dripped onto the floor and onto my shoe, and still I watched.

At last I took the towel and wiped up the mess, but the image didn’t leave me, nor did the feeling. I managed to bind my wrist tightly.

It happened again, a few weeks later, this time on purpose. Again I watched, detached, as the blood and sadness left my body. If only I could cut deep enough, if only I could wait long enough, that would be it. This would be over.

But something always made me reach for that towel.

That something, I discovered, was my brother. I hadn’t thought of him in some time, having buried him along with the rest of my former life. But the birth of the new prince made his memory difficult to ignore. The name Charles was all over the newspapers and the trinkets and the conversations. For a little while you couldn’t go a day without hearing it to the point of nausea.

“Charles, such an adorable child.”

“Charles, new hope for the monarchy.”

I was long past due to visit Bootle. I used the last of my money for train fare.

As the countryside grew more familiar to me, I shut it out by focusing on a
Vogue
magazine someone had left on the seat. Flipping through its pages with the eyes of a different woman, I noted that hat fashion had taken a peculiar turn. They were taller now, with creases and curves that looked unnatural. Skirts were pleated. I rather liked the pleats, but the hats I could have done without. At last I put the magazine aside, bored with its triviality, and closed my eyes, hoping to sleep through the rest of the ride.

A jerk to the train startled me, and I looked out to see that we were inching our way along.

“That’s because of the new tracks they’re constructing,” someone next to me said. I looked up to see a squat old lady across from me holding her handbag and umbrella in her crossed hands. Her hat was saucer shaped, the practical kind, with a silk flower tucked into the sash.

“They’re always building and rebuilding,” she continued. “All over the country. Sometimes it seems as if we’ll never recover from the war.”

“Yes,” I added. I’d been here, there, and everywhere in the three years since VE Day. It was the same story at each stop. Towns starting over. Life slowly returning.

“Of course, this area received such a pounding from the Germans.”

“Was Bootle hit hard?” I asked. It was the one part of the country I had avoided.

“Oh yes, but no harder than any other, I suppose. I had a dear friend on Milton Street that died. Marly Conyard, poor thing. She was putting out food for a stray cat when it hit.”

“I lost a friend, too.”

“It’s ugly business, war. I’m glad it’s over.”

I didn’t answer her.

“And what are you here for?”

“I’m going to Bootle Home to visit . . . a friend.”

“Bootle Home. Ah, that was sad.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was damaged severely just before the end of the war. They lost one whole wing.”

My heart froze. “I didn’t know.”

“You’ll see when you get there. They’ve patched it up quite properly, although the stone wasn’t from the original quarry, so you can see the new part if you know where to look.”

“Was anyone hurt?”

“Oh yes, and a few died. I suppose your friend made it, though?”

“I can only hope.”

I didn’t feel like talking anymore. I didn’t want to have to wonder if anything had happened to Charles, or imagine Bootle Home as anything other than what it had been.

We swayed back and forth as we crossed the makeshift tracks while men worked to repair the gaping crater left by an explosion.

When the train pulled into Bootle, I said good-bye to my companion and stepped out. The exhaust from the train polluted the air that I knew from memory would otherwise have smelled sweet.

“Taxi, Miss?”

A toothless man offered to take me wherever I needed to go. I pulled out my coin purse, which was nearing a death of starvation, and turned him down.

“I’ll walk, thank you.”

It was roughly three miles to the north, as I recalled, and the weather was pleasant enough. I took a sandwich from my handbag and ate it along the way.