The Color of Secrets (11 page)

She clung to the frame of the door, paralyzed, listening to the sound of his footsteps fading away. “What did you expect?” she whispered. Her voice sounded ghostly. She felt utterly alone. This was how it was going to be: just her. And David. And the baby. Her fingers tightened on the rough wood. She felt sick, dizzy. A gust of wind blew down the steps, ruffling the snow. It carried with it a mocking snatch of music from the dance hall. Dilys and Anton were in there. But the thought of going to find them, trying to lie about Bill’s absence, was more than she could bear. Pulling the collar of her coat up around her ears, she took a deep breath in and another out, counting to four in her head, trying to blot out everything but the business of how to get herself home.

Bill’s torch was still hanging from the hook on the wall. Mechanically she walked over and unhooked it. “He’ll want this back,” she said, staring at it, knowing that she was talking nonsense, but talking all the same to keep herself from breaking down. She shone it at the doorway and saw snowflakes in the beam of light. Pulling her collar tighter, she propelled herself out of the shelter.
Go to the bus stop. Get David from Cathy’s
. She repeated the words like a mantra as she stumbled across the square.

The bus stop was deserted. She waited for what seemed like hours, willing a bus to come. The snow had stopped, but it was as cold as ever. She could no longer feel her toes and standing for so long was beginning to make her feel breathless. She shone the torch at the buildings around her, looking for somewhere to sit within sight of the stop. There was a low wall outside the magistrates’ court. It was covered in snow, but she could scrape it off. As she turned, her foot slipped. She waved her arms wildly, struggling to keep her balance, but she felt herself falling.

“Jeez!” Bill gasped as he grabbed her under the arms just in time to stop her from hitting the pavement.

“You
. . .
you came back,” she stuttered, her teeth chattering as much from shock as from the cold.

“Yeah,” he mumbled, looking away. “You’d better watch out—you haven’t just got yourself to think about anymore!” He carried her over to the wall and sat her down. “Guess I shouldn’t have stormed off like that.” His voice was edgy, defensive. “I just want to know why you lied to me, Eva.”

“Because I wanted you,” she whispered. “And I thought you wouldn’t want me if you knew the truth.”

“Wanted me for what?” His voice sounded very loud in the silent, snow-muffled street. “For candy? For nylons?” He stared pointedly at her stomach. “By God, you sure got more than you bargained for, didn’t you!”

Hot tears coursed down her pale cheeks. “Is that what you think of me? Really?” She rose unsteadily to her feet. “Because if you do, that makes me nothing more than
. . .
than a prostitute! And a bloody cheap one at that!” She ran blindly down the dark street, not caring if she lost her footing.

“Eva! Wait!” She heard his footsteps crunching after her. “Please! I’m sorry—I didn’t mean it!” He caught up with her, catching her arm and nearly pulling them both over. “I want you,” he said, hugging her to him, “and I want the baby.” He stroked the snowflakes from her hair. “Listen, honey, I don’t care if you’re married or not: I’m not running out on my kid the way my daddy ran out on me.”

Chapter 12

Bill couldn’t sleep. He lay on his back on the hard bunk bed, staring into the darkness, turning the endless possibilities over in his mind. It was hopeless. How could he offer Eva and the baby any kind of future when he didn’t know if he had one himself?

The next morning he sought out the chaplain, one of the few white men in the US Army he felt he could trust. Father Corrigan had battled in vain to get Bill’s evidence heard at Jimmy’s court martial and had been with Jimmy the day he was hanged.

Bill hesitated outside the door. A tangle of emotions held him back. Guilt, shame, anger, and frustration. Fear too, although he hated to admit it, even to himself. He took a deep breath and knocked.

The chaplain smiled at the sight of him. “Good morning, Wilbur,” he said. “How are you doing?”

Later on, Bill wasn’t sure if it was the smile or hearing the name his mother always called him by that did it, but his carefully prepared speech went right out the window. Everything came out in a jumble.

“Hold on a minute, son,” the priest said, putting up a hand to stop him. “Just sit down, will you?” Bill bit his lip and did as he was told. “Here,” Father Corrigan proffered a pack of Lucky Strikes. “Have one of these.”

There were three cigarette butts in the ashtray by the time Bill had finished explaining. “You see, Father,” he said, “I can’t marry her, because she’s still married. And even if I could, where would we go? There’s nowhere in Louisiana we could live, a black man with a white woman.”

“If she was single,” the chaplain said, stroking his chin, “would you have asked her to marry you by now?”

Bill frowned and looked away. “Hell, I don’t know. Like I said, marriages like that never happen where I come from—you know that.”

“You don’t have to go back to Louisiana, though, do you? You could settle anywhere when the war’s over. What’s to stop you from going north? New York, Illinois—someplace where it’s legal.”

Bill sighed and stared at the ceiling. “When the war’s over?” He shook his head. “When the war’s over, I could be dead—what’s the use of planning anything for the future?”

Father Corrigan shook his head. “You’re twenty-one years old, Wilbur—how can you talk about dying?”

Bill jumped to his feet and strode over to the window, hiding his face. “Because of Jimmy!” The hoarseness in his voice betrayed him. “Jimmy was only six months older than me and look what happened to him! Never got near no front line, did he?” He paused, staring at the groups of soldiers walking past in the yard outside. “I’ve just got this feeling inside, Father,” he whispered. “Jimmy never lived to see his baby, and I don’t believe I’m going to live to see mine.”

Father Corrigan walked over to where Bill stood and put both hands on his shoulders. “You can’t think like that,” he said, looking him straight in the eyes. “You’ve got to see beyond this war—for the sake of your own sanity, as well as for your girlfriend and the baby.”

“I want to—but I just can’t.” Bill buried his face in his hands. “What am I going to do?”

The chaplain frowned. “Well, you can’t send Eva to the States, that’s for sure—not until she has proof that she’s a widow—and that might not happen till the war’s over. But there is something you can do.”

“What?”

“You can get the Red Cross to send the baby over.” He smiled at Bill’s shocked expression. “Don’t worry—you won’t be the first to do it. There’ve been at least a dozen American soldiers who’ve done it already—white men, admittedly, but there’s no reason why you can’t do it too.”

“What, you mean the baby goes without the mother?”

“Yes. The cases I’ve heard about have all involved married women who’ve had affairs with GIs and faced a straight choice between keeping the baby or hanging on to their husbands. Once the baby’s weaned, it’s taken across the Atlantic by a Red Cross nurse on the first available boat.”

Bill stared at him, incredulous. “But what happens on the other side?”

“The father’s relatives take care of it—usually the grandmother.”

Bill grunted. “I couldn’t do that! Can you imagine what would happen to my mom if she took in a child half-black and half-white?”

“Haven’t you got relatives anywhere else?”

Bill scratched his chin. “Well, there’s my aunt Millie in Chicago
. . .
” He frowned. “But wait a minute—who says Eva’s gonna let the baby go?”

“Well, she might not,” the chaplain replied. “All I’m saying is if you want to do the right thing by the baby and you’re worried you might not survive the war, this is the only way of making sure he or she is provided for.”

Bill’s eyes narrowed as he weighed the priest’s words. “Guess you’re right,” he said at last. “Seems like it’s the only way.”

He lay awake for a second night, going over and over it in his head; planning the letter he would write to his aunt and the one he would also have to write to his mother and sister. By the time the first hint of daybreak lightened the sky beyond his window, he had worked most of it out—even down to the amount of money he would need to send to Chicago each month to provide for the baby for as long as the war went on.

What he could not work out was the part about Eva. If she agreed to the plan—which was by no means certain—would she go to Chicago when the war ended? Would she be willing to leave her family behind and start a new life in a new country? Of course, she would have to bring her other child, her little boy. Bill tried to imagine what that would be like: the two of them walking up Michigan Avenue, a white woman and a black man with a white child and a brown baby. In New Orleans he’d be lynched, no question. Was it really going to be so very different in Chicago?

A ray of sunlight fell on the pillow. He pulled his gray army blanket over his head and shut his eyes tight.

It was a whole week before Bill could face telling Eva what Father Corrigan had suggested. He chose his moment carefully. He took her for lunch at the quiet little backstreet restaurant they’d been to on their first proper date. Better than telling her when they were alone, he thought, less chance of another painful scene.

“Send the baby to America? Without me?”

Bill had underestimated the effect his words would have. If he had pulled out a gun and fired it at the ceiling, Eva couldn’t have looked more stunned, more outraged. The forkful of mashed potato that had been on its way to her lips clattered onto the plate.

“I know it’s going to be tough.” Bill reached across the table and took her hand. “But I don’t see what else we can do.” He tried to explain what the chaplain had said, but Eva was having none of it.

“You seriously expect me to send our baby across the Atlantic with some stranger?” This was not whispered. The woman on the till turned to look as she stood up. “I thought you cared about me! About both of us!” Throwing down her napkin, she dodged the approaching waiter and made for the door.

All Bill could see were the eyes turned on him. The waiter, the cashier, and the other couples in the room. Their hostility paralyzed him. For those few crucial seconds it was as if he was back in New Orleans, in a room full of rednecks and horribly alone. He looked away, at the space Eva had vacated. Jimmy’s desperate, pleading face hovered over the chair, crying out in terror, begging him for help.

Bill fixed his eyes on the crumbs of toast on the tablecloth, his head pounding. He needed to get outside. Talk to Eva. He glanced at the door. People had stopped staring now. He could do it. He could get out. As he rose to his feet, he caught sight of Eva through the window. She was half running, half walking down the street toward a waiting bus.

Eva didn’t see Bill chasing after her, didn’t spot him trying and failing to grab the metal pole of the double-decker as he sprinted along the pavement. She was sitting at the front, behind the driver, her face hidden from the other passengers. When the conductor came to take her fare, she held out the money without looking up.

Half an hour later she was sitting at Cathy’s kitchen table, a sodden handkerchief clutched in her hand. She had managed to keep it all inside until Cathy opened the front door. Then it had come rushing out in jumbled, sobbed sentences.

“How could he
. . .
suggest
such a thing?” she sniffed, as Cathy poured hot water into the teapot.

“Probably because he’s scared,” Cathy replied without looking up.

“Scared? Of what?”

“Of everything.” Cathy set the pot on the table and sat down opposite Eva. “He’s suddenly realized what he’s done. He’s going to be a father. That’s scary enough for a man who’s not even married.” She passed Eva the milk jug. “And he’s about to go to war. Ever since he arrived in this country he’s known that he could wake up one morning and find out he’s off to France or Holland or goodness knows where. You said yourself he thinks he’s going to die.”

Eva stared into her teacup. “But he’s
not
going to, Cathy. I just know he’s not.”

Cathy gave a guarded smile. “Well, I hope you’re right, but you’ve got to try to see it from his point of view. He’s just trying to make sure you don’t get left to bring up the baby on your own.”

Eva huffed out a breath. “I’d rather do that than send it halfway across the world to be brought up by someone I’ve never even met!”

“But think about it for a minute,” Cathy said. “How can you provide for David and the baby with no man to support you? Especially if your Mum throws you out—which sounds pretty likely, from what you’ve said.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Eva shrugged. “I’d get another job, I suppose. I’d manage somehow.”

“How are you going to get a job with a baby to look after?” Cathy sat back in her chair, her arms folded. “It’s all very well now, with the war work and the WVS nurseries, but what do you think’s going to happen when it’s over and all the men come back? There won’t be nearly as many jobs going then, will there?”

“You sound as if you’re on his side!”

“No, of course I’m not—I’m just trying to warn you what it’s going to be like. I know how hard it is trying to survive on a widow’s pension. If it wasn’t for my job, I don’t know how I’d make ends meet. I’m just hoping to goodness I can keep working until Michael’s old enough to leave school and bring some money in.”

“So what are you saying? That I should give the baby up? Send it away before it even knows who I am?” Eva’s eyes were bright with unshed tears.

“It’d probably only be for a short time,” Cathy said. “When the war’s over and you can prove you’re a widow, you and Bill can marry and you’ll move to America.” She paused. “He has said he’ll marry you, hasn’t he?”

“Not in so many words, no.” She brought her cup to her mouth, swallowing tea that was still too hot. “He won’t talk about it because he’s convinced himself he’s not going to survive.”

“Is that the real reason?”

Eva shied away from Cathy’s frank gaze. “I
. . .
don’t know.”

“All the more reason to send the baby to his relatives, then, I’d say,” Cathy replied.

Eva frowned. “Why?”

“Well, he’s bound to feel different when the war’s over, isn’t he? It’s hard for him now: there’s too much pressure. But if he gets back to the States and the baby’s there waiting for him—well, he’d have to be pretty inhuman not to want you there too.”