‘Shop-bought biscuits, Mrs B!’ I said. ‘Did you know these were lurking in your pantry?’
She blinked, and her face relaxed. ‘Dr Murray insists on McVitie’s. Reminds him of Scotland, he says.’
Lizzie passed me a biscuit. ‘It’ll settle your stomach,’ she said.
Food was the last thing I wanted, but Lizzie insisted. I sat at the kitchen table and nibbled at the biscuit while Mrs Ballard and Lizzie busied themselves around me. They got little done. When Lizzie wiped down the range for the third time, I finally asked if something was wrong.
‘No, no, pet,’ Mrs Ballard was quick to say. ‘I’m sure everything will be alright.’ But the frown returned to her face.
‘Esme,’ Lizzie said, finally putting down her cloth. ‘Will you come upstairs a minute?’
I looked at Mrs Ballard, who nodded for me to follow Lizzie. Something was wrong, and for a moment I thought I might be sick. I took a deep breath and it passed, then I followed Lizzie up the stairs to her room.
We sat on her bed. She looked at her hands, uncomfortable in her lap. It was me who reached out and took them in mine. She had bad news, I thought. She was ill, or maybe all my talk of choices had caused her to seek a better position. Before she said a word, my eyes had welled.
‘Do you know how far gone you are?’ Lizzie said.
I stared at her, trying to match the words to something I might understand.
She tried again. ‘How long have you been …’ she looked at my stomach and then met my eyes, ‘… expecting?’
I understood her then. I pulled my hands from hers and stood up.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Lizzie,’ I said. ‘It’s not possible.’
‘Oh, Essymay, you silly duffer.’ She stood to take my hands again. ‘You didn’t know?’
I shook my head. ‘How can you?’
‘Ma was always in the family way. It was all I knew before I came here. The sickness of it should be over soon,’ she said.
I looked at her like she was mad. ‘I can’t have a baby, Lizzie.’
Expect. Expectant. Expecting.
It means to wait. For an invitation, a person, an event. But never for a baby. Not a single quotation in D to E mentioned a baby. Lizzie calculated that I’d been ‘expecting’ for ten weeks, but I’d been oblivious.
The next day, I stayed in bed instead of joining Da for breakfast. A headache, I told him, and he agreed that I looked pale. As soon as he left for the Scriptorium, I went to his room and stood in front of Lily’s mirror.
I was a little pale, yes, but in my nightdress I could see no change. I loosened the ribbon around my neck and let the nightdress fall to the floor. I remembered Bill tracing his finger from my head to my toes. Naming every part of me. My gaze retraced his path; gooseflesh rose as it had each time we’d been together. I stopped at my belly, at the hint of roundness that could easily be a big meal or wind or the heaviness before my monthly bleed. But it was none of those things, and the body I had so recently learned to read was suddenly incomprehensible.
I pulled the nightdress back up and tied the ribbon tight. I returned to bed and pulled the covers up to my neck. I lay there for hours, barely moving, not wanting to feel what might be going on inside me.
I was waiting, but not for a baby. I was waiting for a solution.
I slept badly that night. In the morning, I felt worse for the lack of sleep, but I insisted on going to the Scriptorium. I kept a packet of McVitie’s in my desk and nibbled them through the morning post and while sorting slips. I tried to improve on the top-slip meanings suggested by volunteers, but nothing better would come to mind.
I looked over to the sorting table. Da sat where he had always sat, as did Mr Sweatman and Mr Maling. Mr Yockney sat where Mr Mitchell used to, and I suddenly wondered what kind of shoes he wore and whether his socks matched. Would another child be welcomed beneath the sorting table? Or would new assistants complain and chastise and accuse? Da coughed, brought out his handkerchief and blew his nose. He had a cold, that was all, but I suddenly realised that he was older, greyer, fleshier. Would he have the energy to be mother and father, grandmother and grandfather? Would it be fair to ask it of him?
At lunchtime, I joined Mrs Ballard and Lizzie in the kitchen and suffered their anxiety.
‘You must tell your father, Essymay. And Bill should be made to do the right thing,’ Lizzie said.
‘I won’t be telling Bill,’ I said. Lizzie stared at me, her face full of fear.
‘At least write to Miss Thompson. She’ll help you tell your father. She’ll know what to do,’ suggested Mrs Ballard.
‘There’s time yet,’ I said, not knowing if there was or there wasn’t. Lizzie and Mrs Ballard looked at each other but said nothing more. The kitchen became unbearably silent. When Lizzie asked if I’d be going with her to the Covered Market on Saturday, I said I would.
The market was crowded. It was a relief. I hovered beside Lizzie as she went from stall to stall, testing the firmness of one fruit, the give of another. The banter was familiar and reassuring; no one made a point of asking how I felt or of telling me I looked pale.
Eventually, we made our way to Mabel’s stall. It had been weeks since I’d seen her. She looked smaller, the unnatural curve of her back more pronounced. As we
