At the Break of Day (29 page)

‘Left you, has he?’

‘He’s going to Korea. For a while. Only for a while.’ Rosie took her plate to the sink. Washed it, dried it. She could smell the soda but not him. At least she could not smell him.

‘Have you still got your job?’ Norah was wiping her plate with bread she had torn off the loaf.

‘Leave the girl alone,’ Harold said as he stood up, leaving his plate for Norah to clear, moving to Grandpa’s chair, opening his paper, stretching his legs out.

Get out of my grandpa’s chair, Rosie wanted to shout, but he had been kind. For a moment he had been kind. She stood with her back to the sink. She had given Lee’s present to his friend, who had been playing footie in the alley. He was lonely, he had said.

‘Don’t know why you don’t get yourself a live-in job.’ Norah pushed a crust that was too large into her mouth.

‘This is my home, for as long as I need it. Don’t you ever goddamn forget that. I have a right to be here.’ Rosie moved to the back door, lifting her coat off the hook, putting it round her shoulders. ‘I’m going out.’

‘Where to, now Jack has gone?’

Rosie turned the handle, opened the door, walked out into the cool of the evening and the fragrance that still hung on the air from the last of the roses. She didn’t answer. She didn’t know. Jack wasn’t there, nor Maisie, nor Lee. What
was
there, without them all?

As she passed the yellow rose she stooped, smelt its scent, touched its petals, picked it, held it to her cheek. It was soft, fragrant. Some things never changed.

She walked to the rec. She sat on the swings and heard the laughter of their childhood. She leaned against the chains. His hands had held these. She pushed lightly, her feet rocking against the ground. He had to come back. In spite of everything. He was her life. He must see that. He must see that she couldn’t have stopped Maisie. One day his mother would have had to live her own life. Or could she have stopped her? Perhaps she could.

She pressed her forehead against the chain, hard, rocking sideways now, crushing the rose, the stem with its thorns, but nothing helped the pain then, or that night or any night, or the anger.

Nothing helped the panic which caught and held her, pushing her up from the bed, making her walk, rubbing her hands up and down her arms at the thought that he might never want to hold her again. He might never want to look at her smile. How could all that love go, so quickly? How could all that love be pushed aside by hate? How could such anger and pain live inside her too?

The next morning she walked to see Mrs Eaves and thought she saw his head amongst the crowd. But it wasn’t him and the pain was too sharp and she turned, looked in the tobacconist’s window and cried but the tears didn’t make anything better.

The store was bright and warm in a world that was cold, empty and dark. Glenn Miller was being played by a girl with neat peroxided hair and Mrs Eaves saw her, waved, took her by the arm to her office. Her keys jangled as she walked. They talked and Rosie cried again and said that Frank was better but Jack had gone. Hating her, loving her, unable to decide.

‘But he’ll write. I know he will,’ Rosie said, watching as Mrs Eaves nodded, pressing out her cigarette in the ashtray which had Margate written on the edge.

‘Of course he will, but it’ll take time. And if he doesn’t it’s not the end of the world.’

But it would be. Rosie knew that, though she said nothing.

She did still have her job, though, and they liked the piece she had written about small-town America. Its fears, its guilts. Its hysteria. They edited it down to half and ran it. For a few days that took her mind from the ship that was taking Jack to Korea but for no longer than that. But now at least she would not hope to see him come towards her as she walked to the bus. Now he had gone but he would be back. She had to believe that, she told Mrs Eaves.

She wrote to Frank and Nancy, telling them that Jack had volunteered, that he was on his way.

She didn’t tell them that he might never come back to her because she didn’t dare to write the words. She loved him in spite of the pain, the anger. She would never love anyone else and all his love couldn’t just disappear, could it?

The day she wrote her letter to Frank she received one from them and read it in her lunch break sitting on a bench in the park.

Lower Falls
26 September

Dearest Rosie,

We miss you so much. How are things? Is it sorted out with Maisie? How did Jack take it? You must not think it is your fault. You couldn’t babysit the situation for ever, you know. I trust that Jack understands that.

Here’s good news anyway. Frank has had details through of the Inchon landings. It seems MacArthur got it right. He came in strong, surprising the North Koreans but had to ride out a typhoon on the way. They had to time it exactly to land during high tide or they would be wading ashore in mud. As it was, some Marines had to do just that as they attacked Wolmi-do which guards the approaches to Inchon.

There were fierce battles as other forces landed on the mainland but they advanced rapidly, as you will know. Those in the South East are on the offensive too.

This success seems to have quietened down the zealots in our area which is a good respite for us both. Frank continues to do well. McCarthy is still stirring things up nationally.

Come back, my dear, whenever you can, whenever you want to. We love you so very much. We miss you. Give our love to Jack. Bring him too. Joe sends his regards to you.

Nancy

Rosie tore it up, dropping it into the bin over by the seats. She didn’t want to read about the war, not now, not ever, because Jack would be there soon. She wanted to go back to Frank and Nancy, to their arms and their gentle voices, but not yet. Not until she heard from Jack. He might write. He would write. He might be injured. She must know. She must stay, and fear began, at last, to dull the anger.

In the second week of October, Sam and Ted were buying a record of Frank Sinatra’s in Woolworths when they saw her. They came over, laughing, joking. They were older, much older. They were men but Jack was a man too.

‘Ollie says he’s gone, the daft bugger,’ Sam said, his smile wide but his eyes serious.

Rosie took the ribbon the salesgirl handed her. It was blue and wide.

‘Yes, he’s gone. He is a daft bugger.’

‘Ollie says his missus has gone?’ Ted was looking at her now. ‘Wasn’t your fault. Everyone knew. You couldn’t stay with her for ever, you know.’

Rosie touched the ribbon. It was soft and cool. Write to Jack, tell him, she wanted to shout but couldn’t. She knew now that he must realise that on his own.

‘Come up the Palais. It’ll be like old times,’ Sam said, looking at the ribbon. ‘Not your colour,’ he added.

They went that night but it wasn’t like old times. Sam and Ted drank beer. She drank sherry. It was too sweet. They danced but Sam and Ted met girls they knew and she was one too many but they had been kind and they knew Jack and for a moment it had been good.

At the end of October she received a letter from Nancy telling her of the UN advance in Korea, and how the North Korean forces had crumbled in the face of the UN forces. In the space of a few short weeks the UN had occupied virtually the whole of Korea.

‘Frank is worried that MacArthur cannot now be reined in. He might try to end the threat that Communist China poses to American interests in the Far East by not stopping at the frontier. Truman has to insist that this is a “limited action” against a specific Communist act.

‘Maybe it will be over by Christmas. If so, Jack won’t fight. He won’t be there long enough. Keep hoping, my dear.’

The Features Editor had been working her hard. She typed, took shorthand, read the slush pile, wrote short pieces and slowly the career that she had always striven for was within her reach, and that, at least, gave her pleasure, gave her purpose.

She took the letter into the park and read it again. Even though it was cold she brought her lunch here every day. It gave her some peace. An elderly woman sat next to her, eating ham sandwiches. She wondered where the pig had come from. There was almost no bacon or pork left in the country, or so it seemed. She looked at the snoek between her bread. The Government was pushing these tins offish at a protein-hungry public but the smell made her feel sick. The taste was rank and salty. It had upset her for days. So had the whalemeat which Norah kept for sandwiches. The taste of cod liver oil was too strong.

The old woman saw her looking, smiled, patted her leg and passed her one.

‘Thanks,’ Rosie said. ‘But no. I’m not very hungry.’

But the old woman insisted and she took it and tasted the fresh ham, but she felt the nausea begin again. She waited until the old woman had left the park, then fed it to the birds, watching as they flapped their wings, listening as they squawked.

The next morning she woke early, eased herself from the bed, put on her coat, crept down, heated the kettle, and ate a biscuit, but it didn’t work. She rushed to the privy, leaned over the pan, and vomited. She leaned back against the wall, sweat-drenched, cold; the sickness was in her stomach, her throat. She vomited again and again, but quietly. For God’s sake be quiet. She pulled the chain to drown the noise.

She dressed, and made bread and marge for her sandwiches, ignoring the snoek tin with its blue fish, ignoring the whalemeat and the cheese. She worked, and came home through the fog which was sulphur thick. Slept. It was the same all that week and the next but there was no letter from him. Still no letter.

There was one from Frank though.

Lower Falls,
1st November

My dear Rosie,

I got it wrong. I thought things were cooling down a bit. I’ve been pulled up before the Un-American Activities Committee. Interviewed, hectored, treated with contempt, shouted at until I couldn’t think straight. It’s this Anti-Nazi League thing and because I know a Hollywood screenwriter who’s been blacklisted. You know. You met him.

They wanted me to name friends of his and mine that we knew at College. How can they do this? How can people believe all this garbage about good people? He claimed the 5th Amendment. He hasn’t worked for four years as far as they know. But he writes for me under another name. They don’t know that of course. Thank God. But am I a coward for saying that?

I thought things were improving. I guess they’re not. McCarthy is still fuelling the fire with that goddamn bulging briefcase of his which never actually pulls in any ‘spies’. Just ruins good folk. Thank God I don’t have an employer. I would have been sacked. People think you’re guilty if you stay silent. Have they all gone mad to believe this bunch of lunatics? Haven’t we just spent years fighting this in Europe?

Have you heard from Jack? Things still seem to be going OK out there. You are our bright spot. My health is OK so don’t worry. I’m just mad.

Maybe you can come out for Thanksgiving, or Christmas? The fighting will be over by then, the troops will be home.

Our love always,
Frank

But Rosie couldn’t go. Two days later, on 17 November, she fainted as she shopped at Woolworths, and Mrs Eaves took her into the office and pushed her head between her legs.

‘When did you last have a period, Rosie?’

She was stroking Rosie’s hair, her other hand was on Rosie’s wrist. It was a plump hand, like Nancy’s, and now Rosie leaned her head against this woman and wept but said it was only the snoek because that had to be the truth.

That afternoon they took two hours off and travelled by taxi to a doctor that Mrs Eaves knew. There was a brass plate on the wall, polished so that the letters were smoothed almost to flatness. The bell didn’t sound outside but a nurse opened the door, showed them upstairs, and gave them magazines to read while they waited on amber-covered chairs.

Mrs Eaves didn’t come into the consulting rooms with her. She went alone. There was a large desk, a letter rack, a blotting pad. There was no ink on it. It was white, pure white. The man who rose and shook her hand was Ollie’s age. He had a bald head, a moustache, and kind eyes beneath full, bushy brows. How could someone with no hair on their head have so much above their eyes? Rosie wondered, sitting down, feeling too tired to be here. To be anywhere.

‘So, we have a problem, eh, Miss Norton?’ The man steepled his hands, rested his mouth on his forefingers, pressed his lip up into his moustache.

‘I don’t know,’ said Rosie, bunching her hands inside her coat pockets. She felt nausea rising. She swallowed, watching the signet ring on his little finger.

‘Let’s have a look shall we?’ he smiled, pointing to the back of the room. ‘Just leave your petticoat on. The nurse is there waiting.’

She lay still on the couch behind the curtain at the back of the room, looking up at the coved ceiling, feeling strange hands pressing her. She lifted her legs as he asked. She answered his questions, not looking at him. Tracing the crack which wound up the wall, beneath the coving, then on to the ceiling until it was finished. This could not be happening to her. This man wasn’t real. The nurse, who would not meet her eyes, wasn’t real.

She dressed, and walked to the chair again.

‘Well, my dear. You are almost certainly pregnant. We’ll run a test, just to confirm, but there’s really no need.’

His hands were steepled again. He tapped his teeth this time. She watched that, listened to that. She didn’t think of the words which had been in her own mind for six weeks. It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be possible. What would she do? For God’s sake, what would she do?

She stooped to pick up her bag from the floor. She said nothing. She couldn’t speak. There was too much fear.

‘There are things that can be done.’ The man was playing now with a paperknife, turning it over and over, the light flashing on its blade. He stopped, looked up at her. ‘You aren’t married?’

Rosie covered her left hand but then said, ‘No.’ He knew that already. He had called her Miss Norton. Oh God. What would she do?

‘How will you support the child?’

She shook her head. Until those words she had not thought of a child, only of the shame.