‘It would be an honour if I were, my dear, an honour.’
Oh, people could be so
nice
.
The small medieval church in Windsor was packed full with Rodney’s relations and friends, as well as a small contingent of her friends and old work colleagues from Sunderland, and the perfume from the cascade upon cascade of flowers lining the walls from floor to ceiling was rich and heavy in the beautiful old building.
Sarah was vitally aware of the tall dark man standing so straight and still at the end of the aisle as she began to walk towards her new life, and of Richard, as best man, at the side of him, but the rest of the smiling figures lining the pews either side were a blur. She kept her eyes on the back of Rodney’s head, and then, when she reached him and he turned to look at her, his eyes moving wonderingly over her face, she found she was grinning like a Cheshire cat.
They emerged from the church in a peal of bells and confetti, the warm sunshine of the bright September day turning everything golden. Everyone had cried - Maggie, Florrie, little Peggy who was there with her Michael, even Lady Margaret, and it was the latter who now dabbed away at her eyes under the enormous navy hat she was wearing as she declared, ‘I never cry normally. Really, I don’t.’
‘I think you are allowed to today.’
It had been the first time Richard had spoken, beyond the requisite words in the ceremony. Sarah knew an occasion like this would be an enormous trial for Rodney’s brother, and he had only recently endured yet another painful skin graft which was still red and angry, but Lady Margaret laughed back at him, as though he was the most handsome man in the world, as she said, ‘Well, if I have your permission, that will do.’
It was the first time they had met, and normally Lady Margaret was very reticent with strangers, but of course it was a wedding . . .
‘Happy, my darling?’
Rodney’s arm tightened round her waist as he looked down at her, the photographer calling for yet another photograph, and she smiled up at him as she whispered, ‘More than you could ever imagine.’
And she was,
she was
, so very happy, but . . . There was just one person missing from the day. Still, she would have photographs. She smiled into the camera, her face betraying none of her thoughts. Yes, she would have photographs, and one day she would show them to her mother . . . if she wanted to see them.
Part Three
Coming Home: 1952
Chapter Twenty-four
It was Sarah’s fourth wedding anniversary, and as she sat at the heavy oak kitchen table sipping a mid-morning cup of coffee, her thoughts were not on the pile of cards the post had brought, but the two letters she had read and re-read several times since eight that morning, and which had affected her quite differently.
Her eyes roamed over the wide expanse of landscaped garden leading down to a border of trees and a stream, but she wasn’t really seeing the grounds at the back of the large detached house, much as she loved them. The first letter, from Lady Margaret, or Margaret as she now addressed this dear friend of hers, had brought news that she had been hoping for for months, if not years. She and Richard were to be married, Margaret had written in her beautiful flowing script, and they were thinking of a Christmas wedding. Would Sarah and Rodney like to spend the holiday with them as they did so want them to share this happy time. The children were overjoyed, William was to be Richard’s best man, and Constance her bridesmaid. That letter was one of pure joy.
The second . . . The second had brought apprehension, mixed with mild panic and reluctant hope. Her heart began to thud again, and she stroked the swollen mound of her stomach wherein her first child lay, the voice in her head stern as it said, Steady, lass, steady, much as Maggie might have done. This could be something or nothing, as well she knew, having been down the same road several times in the last three years since she and Rodney had returned to Sunderland to live.
Rodney had said much the same thing that morning before he had left for the surgery, after kissing her in the manner that still had the power to take her breath away. ‘I don’t want you getting your hopes up again only to be disappointed, Sarah, so we’ll think some more tonight before we commit ourselves to anything, all right? By all means give Margaret a ring, tell them we’ll have a bridesmaid or a page boy available in a year or two if they want to delay a bit, but otherwise we’ll be down for Christmas.’
‘Oh you . . .’ She had pushed at him with the palm of her hand, laughing up into his face as she had said, ‘You’re a fine one to talk about delaying things. Three months was your limit before you galloped me up the aisle.’
‘I couldn’t help it if I was so madly in love with my fiancée that I couldn’t wait.’ He had grinned at her, patting the compact little protrusion as he’d added, ‘I’d have married you the week after you’d said yes if I could.’
‘Maggie and Florrie would have killed you if you’d done them out of a big white wedding for their “lass”.’
‘I don’t doubt it. It was only that which restrained my hand but it was hard going. Talking of which, I miss you like hell at the surgery. Rodney junior has a lot to answer for.’
‘It might be a girl.’
‘Ah, that’s different. I couldn’t blame a little Sarah for anything.’
As Sarah replayed the scene in her mind she found herself smiling, and she stretched like a plump little cat in the warmth of the September sunshine streaming in through the kitchen window. She was lucky, she was so so lucky, and if this latest lead didn’t come to anything, that was what she had to remember.
When they had decided to move back to Sunderland over three years ago, she had known she wanted to be part of the practice Rodney had had the chance of partnering. It was a large practice, right in the very middle of the worst part of town, and always desperately busy. The partner Rodney was to replace had not been in favour of the national health service which had come into being the previous July just before they had got married, and the other two doctors, whose vision for the future had exactly matched Rodney’s, had been very keen for him to join them.
Within weeks of their arrival, Sarah had recognized the need for an informal baby clinic, somewhere where young, and not so young, mothers could come regularly for an afternoon’s escape from their home and often dire circumstances, and shortly after she had set that up, and as a natural progression, had come an emergency call line for families with problems and new mothers at the end of their tether.
All three doctors had been enthusiastic about her ideas, the more so when Sarah had qualified from her nurse’s training, begun a few weeks before her marriage, and had been able to take on some of the minor medical complications rising from the clinic and the practice in general. There were many women in the Sunderland area who, despite the earthy poverty in which they lived, still found it unacceptable to talk openly to a man - albeit a doctor - about their more intimate problems, and Sarah had found herself often being used as a sounding board for problems which could have been life-threatening if left unattended.
She missed her job, she thought now, but Rodney was right. She couldn’t have worked up until the day she gave birth, and the new nurse was a solid, brisk northerner who had already got the trust of most of ‘her’ women. She had handpicked her herself, warming to her instantly when the woman had waxed eloquent about the Commons vote in May for equal pay for women doing the same jobs as men. Since returning to Sunderland from London, one of the things she had first noticed was that a lot of the women, and a bigger proportion of the men, still considered a woman to be worth less in the wages realm - never mind if they were doing exactly the same work as their male counterparts. But Jenny was all right. Sarah nodded to herself as she pictured the big-framed young woman who was as strong as an ox and took no nonsense from anyone. She would stand up to some of the male bullies who occasionally came their way, complaining about the practice getting involved in cases of domestic violence and so on. Things were changing - and not before time.
Sarah rose from the table, walking across to the square-paned window and opening it wide as she breathed in the fragrant scents from the little herb garden below. She loved her house in its acre of ground on the outskirts of Roker, with the sea and sands just a ten-minute walk away. It was a good place to bring up children . . .
The telephone rang, interrupting her thoughts, and making her realize she still had a hundred things to do before Rebecca, Florrie and Maggie arrived for lunch. Maggie and Florrie were still in their rented house in the middle of town, and had firmly resisted all her requests to let her buy them a little bungalow of their own, insisting they were more than happy where they were. However, she had managed to persuade them to let her pay their rent, which meant the part-time work Florrie now engaged in at an old people’s home in Grangetown was as much for interest and pleasure as to provide for their small wants.
Rebecca had returned to Sunderland at the same time she and Rodney had moved back, taking up work as a housekeeper to one of Willie’s old workmates from the docks, whose wife had died in childbirth leaving him with newborn twin sons. She had wanted Rebecca to live with them for a while, but she had to admit the arrangement seemed to have been heaven sent. The man proved to be the very antithesis of Willie, and within eighteen months Rebecca had married him, providing Lucy-Ann with two young ready-made brothers to boss about, something the little girl - who had more than a touch of her paternal grandmother about her - relished.
The call was from Rebecca. The twins had come down with chicken pox that morning and she was unable to make it to lunch. Sarah expressed her condolences, thinking wryly that Lucy-Ann would come into her element with two young patients to tend to, and after telling Rebecca about the forthcoming wedding at Christmas, hung up.
She had a pile of paperwork from the practice to deal with, having taken on the job as secretary along with nurse, teaching herself to type two-fingered on the old portable the surgery had boasted, but the second letter was still nagging at the back of her mind and she knew she wouldn’t be able to concentrate.
A small blue butterfly alighted on the open kitchen window only to fly off again as Mrs Freeman, Sarah’s stalwart daily, opened the front door and came bustling through to the kitchen, nodding enthusiastically as Sarah offered her a cup of coffee. ‘Wouldn’t say no, Mrs Mallard.’ Mrs Freeman’s round face was red and sweating. ‘It’s like high summer out there, you’d not believe it was the middle of September. Here’ - she thrust a large square envelope at Sarah - ‘happy anniversary, Mrs Mallard.’
After a brief chat Mrs Freeman disappeared upstairs with the vacuum cleaner and Sarah wandered out into the garden, where she sat down heavily on the long, cushioned swing seat she and Rodney had bought at the beginning of the summer with her pregnancy in mind.
Mrs Freeman was right, it was every bit as hot as a July day, she thought now, letting the breath escape her body in a long sigh. It had been hard work carrying through the summer and she was glad she only had a few weeks more to go. And the thought of her child brought her mind back to the letter sitting on the kitchen table.
Should they follow through on it, with the baby’s birth so close? She knew Rodney didn’t want her distraught over another false lead, but she didn’t think she could bear the thought that it just
might
be genuine and she could miss it.
‘Dear Madam’ - she knew each word by heart now, the letters written in an untidy scrawl that suggested the penman had no love of writing - ‘I am replying to your advertisement in the
Sunderland Echo
of March 1952, with regard to any information about an abandoned baby girl who was left in the public conveniences in Sheep Street on October 26th, 1927. I may know something of interest, but due to family difficulties’ - what did that mean? Sarah asked herself for the umpteenth time that morning - ‘I would need to speak with you privately first. If you want to meet me, I shall be in the Fox and Hounds in Hansley Road on 19 September at eight o’clock. Ask at the bar for Jack.’ It had ended formally, ‘Faithfully yours’.
Jack. She hugged the name to her. Jack who? And why hadn’t this Jack given her his surname, a telephone number, anything? Could it be he thought he might be related to her? The pounding in her ribcage started again. Or was it a cruel hoax, or just another dead end? Rodney had warned her, when they had placed the very first advertisement some months after arriving back in Sunderland, that such things might happen. Up to now, three advertisements later, she had several letters from people who had been adopted or fostered themselves, and who wanted to write to someone who had been in a similar situation; two replies that had seemed very hopeful at first, but had fizzled out on investigation; and one other that had been someone’s idea of a sick joke, and had resulted in Rodney threatening police action. There had been nothing for the last six months since the March advertisement.