Mr Cadmus. Peter Ackroyd

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СКАЧАТЬ Sister Finch,’ Millicent said. ‘You have flown to the right nest. Finch and Swallow. Our parents named us after two birds caught in a storm. No, not a storm. A tempest. Thunder and lightning.’ She gave an involutary shudder.

      After a period of recuperation Maud Finch had been enrolled at the municipal hospital on Ealing Common; both her parents had died in the previous year, during the recent epidemic. Another nurse was a blessing. She now agreed to share her house at Lambeth with Millicent Swallow, who, after the death of her mother and grandmother in the fire, was looking for a new home. She was of course also to be trained at St George’s; it was a catchment area for females who could be prepared for war work. As a result, the two young women became natural companions.

      Maud had been ‘seeing’ a young man, Harry, who was employed in a department store off Oxford Street as a draper’s assistant. Millicent had been keeping a close eye upon the younger girl’s behaviour. On one Saturday evening Maud was setting out for a date with Harry at the Bermondsey Pleasure Garden in the grounds of the old abbey. ‘Now,’ Millicent told her before he arrived at the door. ‘Don’t you be allowing any “how’s your father”.’

      ‘Why ever should he do that?’

      ‘He’s a man, isn’t he? Men have sweaty hands. You just feel them, and you’ll see.’ Millicent did not trust Harry; she disliked his camel-hair coat and his brilliantined hair. Still, Maud was now sixteen and could make her own life.

      It was sixpence each to enter the pleasure garden, and Harry paid. He also bought a pitcher of beer from a stall in a circus tent, and pointed out the barrage balloon floating overhead, which filled her with a vague dread. Maud was not accustomed to drink. ‘That’s my girl,’ he said, as she attempted her first glass. ‘Get that down you, girl. There’s more where that came from.’ She now realised that he must have been drinking earlier in the day; his speech was slightly slurred and he exaggerated the wrong words. ‘Feel like a walk among the trees? Of course you do. Nothing wrong with trees, is there?’ He went back to the tent and bought another pitcher of strong ale. ‘This’ll do you good, Maudie girl. Get a bit of colour in your cheeks. Hold on a mo. I’m just going to pop behind this bush.’

      He unbuttoned his trousers and, to her astonishment, began to urinate. She had never seen anything like it before, and quickly began to walk towards the public spaces of the pleasure garden. He caught up with her and put his arm around her shoulders. ‘It’s a usual thing, isn’t it? You see dogs doing it. You see dogs doing all sorts of things. Isn’t that right? It’s a dog’s life, Maudie.’

      He was walking her towards the canopy of trees, but she did not struggle or call out for fear of making a scene. ‘Here we are. This is lovely, this is. Nice and comfy. You just lie down, my princess. Harry boy will look after you. I can promise you that.’

      He lay down beside her, watching her out of the corner of his eye. ‘You and I can have a little game. Fancy that, do you? No harm in it, is there?’ He touched her leg, and she pulled it away with a gasp. ‘Did that frighten you? It wasn’t meant to.’ He then took hold of her leg and pulled it back towards him, at the same time putting his hand up her skirt. ‘Here we go round the mulberry bush,’ he said. He unbuttoned his trousers and lay on top of her. ‘Nice and pink, princess. Nice and pink.’ He took down her knickers. ‘Here we go, here we go, here we go. Up the Gunners!’ He entered her so forcibly that it would have seemed, if anyone were watching, that he was in fact stabbing her. When he rolled off her, he stared up at the sky. ‘You won’t be saying anything about this, princess, will you? You being a nurse and everything.’

      Maud had to conceal her shock and hysteria from Millicent; no one could know. She told her that she had developed a migraine, possibly from excessive study, and took to her bed in a darkened room. She would not eat but would sometimes wander around the house with an expression that seemed to Millicent to be one of dismay or despair; Millicent knew very little about migraine, and concluded that these were some of the symptoms.

      Maud then began to suffer from abdominal pains, but refused to visit the local doctor. ‘You’re looking very peaky,’ Millicent told her. ‘You should take some iron pills.’ When Maud missed her period, she still refused to consider the possibility that she was pregnant. She told herself that it was simply the result of stress. Yet within a fortnight she knew; her knowledge came not from any outward signs, but from an inner sense that could not be contradicted. She was carrying a child.

      For some months she was able to disguise her condition and attend the municipal hospital. She wore large knitted sweaters and dresses that concealed her shape. She believed that there was no reason why she should not be able to hide her pregnancy until she reached full term. No one would ever know of her humiliation. Yet there soon came a time when it was too late for prevarication or concealment with her cousin. The signs were too urgent and too insistent. She walked calmly into Millicent’s room.

      ‘I’m having a baby.’

      ‘A what?’

      ‘A baby. A human being.’ Then she sat down and told her the story of the rape in the Bermondsey Pleasure Garden.

      Millicent was the first to bring up the subject of abortion. In her work she had heard of certain powders, and of certain instruments.

      ‘I don’t want it to die inside me. I don’t want to carry a corpse around night and day. What if it began to rot in my belly?’

      ‘But it doesn’t happen that way.’

      ‘How do you know? What if it begins to stink?’

      ‘You’re upsetting yourself, Maud.’

      ‘No. I want to see it come out of me naturally. Then I will decide what to do with it.’

      In due course there began the first contractions. Millicent had already taken a course of rudimentary hospital procedure, and immediately boiled a kettle of water. She washed her friend and then prepared for the delivery. ‘Don’t push too hard,’ she said. ‘It will come naturally. Yes, I see its head. It will just drop out.’

      Maud found herself staring intently at the wallpaper. It seemed to be moving of its own accord.

      The baby eventually emerged and seemed to be searching blindly for its mother’s breast. It was crying, but Maud sensed an apology in its wail. Millicent had been considering the unexpected birth with Montmorency, and both had agreed that the baby must die. After fifteen minutes the placenta had emerged, and Millicent now cut the umbilical cord with a vegetable knife. The two girls looked at one another for several seconds. Then Maud nodded. Millicent took one of the two pillows on the bed and thrust it down over the baby’s small body. It did not cry out, and only seemed restless under the unexpected weight until it was finally still. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘you must get rid of it.’

      ‘How?’ She looked around the room, as if seeking a hiding place.

      ‘Your handbag.’

      ‘My handbag?’

      ‘A shopping bag. Anything.’

      ‘Then what?’

      ‘You dump it. Take it to the river. It will be washed down to the sea. Or the estuary.’ She really had no idea what she was saying. ‘It doesn’t matter. It won’t have anything more to do with you.’

      ‘But what if it floats to the surface?’

      ‘It won’t. In any СКАЧАТЬ