Anne Bennett - Walking Back to Happiness

The sickness had passed by lunchtime and Hannah was glad of it. But the next morning it happened again. Tilly was waiting for her when she returned the third morning, wiping her mouth on her handkerchief, her face drawn and pale so that her eyes looked even bigger. ‘Don’t bite me head off, Hannah,’ Tilly said. ‘But you couldn’t be pregnant, could you?’

She saw from Hannah’s face that she could indeed, but also that the thought hadn’t crossed her mind till now. ‘Have you and Mike … you know. Have you done owt?’

Hannah gave a brief reply. ‘Only the once.’

‘Only needs the once though, don’t it?’ Tilly said. ‘When was your monthlies?’

Hannah had never taken much notice, but now forced to remember, she realised with horror, ‘New Year’s Eve. Don’t you remember we were up to our eyes serving that big dinner and I had to go running to my room?’

‘That’s right,’ Tilly said. ‘God, Hannah. Ain’t you seen anything since then?’

‘No,’ Hannah’s voice was a mere whisper.

‘Then I’d say you’re expecting all right, girl. Best write and tell him.’

‘No,’ Hannah said. ‘He’ll be home soon. I don’t want to write that in a letter for the censor to see. He’s due a leave soon.’

‘Someone will notice and they’ll throw you out,’ Tilly warned. ‘It’s happened afore. Oh, you needn’t think I’d ever tell on you, Hannah,’ she said, seeing the aghast look on Hannah’s face. ‘I’ll cover for you, but if they should guess like.’

Hannah pressed her nightie across her stomach. ‘No one will know. I’m not showing yet.’

‘It isn’t that,’ Tilly said. ‘They’ll hear you being sick every morning and put two and two together.’

But she could do nothing about it and each morning would find her galloping for the lavatory and feeling washed out for the rest of the morning.

She noticed the kitchen staff and the cook looking at her askance a few times, so when eventually she got the news that Mike would be home in late April for two days and she could go ahead and book the registry office, she was ecstatic. ‘So he’s coming back, is he?’ the cook remarked on hearing the news. And with a pointed look at Hannah’s stomach, she added, ‘And not afore time, I’d say.’

‘We’re going to be married.’

‘Not afore time there and all.’

‘They knew,’ she said to Tilly.

‘Well, they’re not saying owt,’ she told Hannah. ‘That’s good of them. If you hadn’t been so well liked, you’d have had your cards by now.’

She couldn’t wait to be married, to become Mrs Michael Murphy. She loved the sound of it and hugged herself with excitement as the day drew near.

She’d bought a full dress that would hide her slightly thickening waist. It was a shimmering blue and made of silk that cost her a fortnight’s wages and all her clothing coupons for a month, as well as some of Tilly’s, but she told Tilly she only intended to marry the once. Tilly went with her to choose her hat, shoes and handbag, the excitement mounting with each purchase.

‘Every time I think about it, I feel all jittery,’ she confessed to Tilly.

‘You better calm down,’ Tilly warned. ‘You’ll be a bag of nerves when the day arrives and won’t be able to say “I do”.’

‘Oh yes, I will,’ Hannah said with a laugh. ‘I’m practising already.’

Two days before the wedding, a letter came from Mike. He was distraught, even his writing was scrawling and disjointed, and Hannah’s heart fell as she read it.

Darling Hannah

I’m getting one of the kitchen staff to post this in the hope of getting it past the censors. All leave has been suspended or cancelled, no one is sure which. The camp is being dismantled so we’re on the move somewhere. Some say south. No one really knows. I’ll write more when I know. I love you, darling, but you’d be better to cancel the registry office .

‘Write and tell him about the baby,’ Tilly advised.

‘What can he do?’

‘Damned all maybe, but he has a right to know.’

So Hannah wrote and Mike’s frantic reply came by return of post.

Oh Hannah, my darling. I’m so sorry. What you’ve had to cope with all alone! I’ll see my commanding officer, plead extenuating circumstances, tell him all about you. Oh darling, something must be done. Even if I have just a twenty-four hour pass, I’ll make it and we’ll find a priest. It will be all right .

But Hannah and Mike’s problem did not move the commanding officer one jot. They were planning an invasion on a scale never before imagined. What was one soldier and his pregnant girlfriend in the great scheme of things?

Mike Murphy and his unit were shipped south.

‘It’s the big push everyone was talking about, isn’t it?’ Hannah asked fearfully. ‘Oh God, Tilly, what will I do?’

‘Go and see his parents. You get on with them all right.’

‘They don’t even know we were to be married. The ring Mike gave me is not an engagement ring.’

‘But they like you. You’ve always said that.’

‘They did like me. What if they think I’m trying to trap Mike?’

Tilly said nothing. She knew that parents of sons, especially only sons, often behaved in an irrational way towards girlfriends and to pregnant ones they could be even worse. But something had to be done.

‘Could you go home?’ Tilly asked.

‘To Ireland?’ Hannah gave a shudder. ‘You don’t know what you’re asking me. God, it would be awful!’ She shook her head. ‘I couldn’t bring that shame, that disgrace, on my sister and her family.’

‘Then where?’

‘God, I don’t know.’

Hannah sat with her head in her hands, sobs shook her body, and Tilly’s arms went around her and she held her tight. But she couldn’t tell her not to cry, not to worry, because by God, she had reason to do both.

Hannah didn’t expect Mike home. He could say nothing, but rumours flew about; army camps were emptying all over the country and almost the entire force of the United Kingdom and its allies were all assembled on the south coast for the make or break invasion.

Mike wrote again in mid May:

I’ll write to my parents and explain, I’ll tell them the child is mine and you are to go to them until I come back and then we’ll be married. It’s all right, my darling. You will be fine and I’ll be home before you know it .

‘He’s writing to his mother and father,’ Hannah told Tilly. ‘They’ll believe him.’

‘Will you go to them?’

‘No. I’ll wait until they send for me. I don’t know how long letters take these days.’

Mike’s letter did take time to reach his parents. It took him a while to even find time to write it for the whole camp was in an uproar. He’d never seen so many people concentrated in one relatively small area, nor so many tanks, jeeps, army trucks, cars and motorcycles littering the roads.

The whole area was a no-go area for civilians and those in the small farms and villages were trapped there too. Orders were given by one officer, only to be quickly rescinded by another. It was mayhem. Everyone was in a state of flux and rumours abounded.

There was little time for letter writing and certainly not for writing the type of letter he had to write to his parents. They had to help Hannah and to hell with the neighbours. His mind was constantly filled with Hannah and the child – his child – and worry about her filled his mind through the day and invaded his sleep at night.

The letter did arrive at Colm and Bridie’s home eventually towards the end of May. Bridie and Colm were shocked. They’d thought Hannah such a respectable girl for such a thing to happen. They’d got to know her so well, especially when Mike hadn’t been so well. ‘Mind,’ Colm said, trying to be fair. ‘Our Mike must have had a hand in it.’