Pat Barker - Noonday

Mam. She knew it was stupid, but the word kept catching in her throat. He could be, she told herself — well, just about. Her son had been born bang in the middle of the last war, so that would make him, what — twenty-four, twenty-five? About right. Of course, it wasn’t him, she knew that, but…Well, no, actually, come to think of it, you couldn’t know, could you? Not for certain, you couldn’t. She needed to go back and see him again, look for resemblances, but she couldn’t. There was another ward to clean, and another. Far too many. Seemed to think you could work bloody miracles.

So she trudged from bed to bed, basin to basin, ward to ward. All the time, floating in front of her eyes, was the memory of the purple, howling dwarf they’d torn out of her all them years ago. She’d never seen a newborn baby before. Little babies, yes, a few days old, but not newborn. And my God it come as a shock, she’d no idea they looked like that.

She’d gone into the home the minute she started showing. For a long time you could cover it up with cardigans and jumpers, but not forever — and you weren’t allowed to work in the munitions factory if you were pregnant, something to do with the chemicals, so she more or less had to go in the home. Where was she going to find another job with a belly on her like that? No, it was the home, or starve.

They put her to work in the laundry — laughable, really — lifting buckets, twelve-hour shifts, wonder they didn’t all lose their babies — and probably better if they had. But at least the work tired you out. She was asleep the minute her head touched the pillow. And what a lumpy pillow it was. The pillowcase was always spotless — matron saw to that — but the pillow smelled of other people’s hair, all the girls who’d slept on it before her. But there it was, lumps or not, she’d drop off to sleep like falling over a cliff, only she didn’t stay asleep, not properly asleep. She was aware all the time of the ward: the iron bedsteads, humped bodies under pale green coverlets, gray light seeping through threadbare curtains — and then it all faded, and she was somewhere else.

A place she seemed to know. For some reason, in her dreams — well, she supposed she was dreaming, she didn’t know what else to call it — it was always winter. Men huddled under waterproof capes, sheltering from the sleety rain that fell ceaselessly from the evil, yellow sky. On cold nights their eyebrows were rimed with frost. After a while, she found she could hear them speak, taste the chlorine in their tea, feel the heat of the fire — even tell from the sound a shell made as it was coming over how close it was going to land. They weren’t aware of her, these men. Stared straight through her. She was the ghost.

And then, one night, it all changed. She was with them, watching them, as usual, but now a dark man with heavy eyelids was looking back at her. Watching her. She was so used to being the watcher, it came as quite a shock. At first she didn’t believe it, but then, when deliberately she moved a few yards to the right, he turned his head to follow her. She was so new to this, so ignorant, it took her a long time to cotton on that he’d passed.

Next morning, she washed her face as usual, brushed her hair, clumped across the yard to the laundry, where the steamy heat made her nose run. Exactly the same as every other morning, except this time she didn’t go alone.

She didn’t know Howard then, otherwise she might have sorted it out a bit sooner. Though Howard got things wrong too. He always said Albert was an officer, that he’d been killed on the first day of the Somme. But it was always winter when she saw him, and he wasn’t an officer: he crawled out of a funk hole in the side of the trench every morning along with all the other men. Anyway, whoever he was, whenever he died, from that night on he was part of her. Not that he was there all the time, she could go days without a squeak out of him, but he generally took over when things were bad. Gave her a bit of a break — and my God she needed it, because the last few weeks in the home things were very bad.

Mind you, bugger didn’t show up when she was in labor. He kept well out of the way then.

Lifting buckets of water all day long, her back ached that much she didn’t even realize she’d started till her waters broke. The supervisor told her to walk— walk? Was she joking? — across the yard to the infirmary, where she got undressed and hauled herself onto the bed. Sister Mortimer stood at the end, watching her. “Not as much fun getting it out as it was putting it in, is it?” Wasn’t that much bloody fun putting it in, she wanted to say. Didn’t, of course. Oh, and you didn’t dare groan. “Shut that noise up. You’ll be worse before you’re better.” Not a shred of sympathy, not a grain. Oh, she could’ve told them a thing or two, might’ve done, only another pain was building, and she needed every bit of breath…And then, amazingly, all in a great rush, there he was.

Purple. Was he supposed to be that color? Oh, but what a pair of lungs, couldn’t be that much wrong with him. She wanted to hold him, but they wouldn’t let her. She watched as he was wrapped, expertly, in a white cotton blanket and taken away. She caught one more glimpse of him, just the top of his head, as Sister Mortimer turned to push the door open with her hip, and she whispered, but only to herself: Good luck, son.

Back on the streets, with leaking breasts and a craving for sweetness no amount of cake could satisfy, she palled up with a lass called Millie and they went to Glasgow together. Back in munitions, earning good money, she thought Albert might disappear, just fade away, but he didn’t. If she got upset — oh, and she did, she couldn’t stop thinking about the baby — Albert was there. Some days he was in and out that often she lost track of things. There were holes in her memory, so many holes it was like lace, or a cabbage leaf when the caterpillars have been at it.

But then she met Howard. The best thing that ever happened to her. And the worst. In the twinkling of an eye — Howard’s eye, needless to say — she was pregnant, only this time she knew what to do. Howard was more or less disabled— gas, he said, though forty fags a day didn’t help much, either the budget or his lungs — so she had to work. So there she was, walking round the back streets looking for an address. Mucky old woman come to the door, you could’ve planted a row of tatties in her neck — now there was a warning — but really there was no choice. Up on the bed, spread your legs. Sometimes, looking back on her life, she thought she’d never done anything else. Well, yes, she had — she’d opened her mouth and let the dead speak through her.

Five days after, she collapsed in the street. Temperature sky-high. “You silly, silly, silly girl,” the ward sister said. Bit more sympathetic than most.

No more babies after that. Not that Howard minded — he was a baby himself.

Last bed now, last basin. She was free to go, get her hat and coat from the cupboard. Nice hat, she was very fond of it, it always made her feel good — and it hadn’t cost a lot, she’d picked it up for a penny in a jumble sale. Still, with a bit of green ribbon and some artificial roses it didn’t look too bad. Cheered her up, anyway — she could see the roses bobbing as she walked. She was passing the door of his ward now. Perhaps she better leave it? Just walk past? But no, she couldn’t do that.

The bed was empty, stripped, the screens folded and pushed back against the wall. Of course, she’d known he was going — but still, it was a shock. For a minute, she just stood and stared, then rested one hand lightly on the mattress. Mam. Probably the last thing he’d ever said. Ah, well. Never any hope, not with a head wound like that, the only mystery was why he’d lasted as long as he had. She patted the bed and turned away.