Orphans of War by Leah Fleming

Author:Leah Fleming [Fleming, Leah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-00-733500-8
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2008-10-10T16:00:00+00:00

Maddy came when summoned, hugging her smart new briefcase and some overnight clothes. Miss Meyer had asked her to redo some accounts while she was away.

‘You’re all over the place, Madeleine. You sit with us, but I think your concentration has gone to Timbuktu.’

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘My grandmother is sick and I’m worried. I need to go home, she’s very ill.’

‘Of course, you must see to that, but I must have your work in on your return, dear. Life has to go on even when the ones we love are passing over,’ said Miss Hermione, patting her hand.

I don’t love Grandma, I never have, thought Maddy with guilt, but she would go back to Brooklyn. The last phone call to Miss Ffrost’s house had been a reprimand from Aunt Plum: ‘She won’t last long. I need you here, Maddy. Please come home.’

Maddy had taken to wearing a tight corset to hide her six-month bulge. Her pot belly was showing so she’d found a sort of gymslip without the belt, and a long jumper, and tried to look hip like the girls in the jazz club that Bella had taken them to after college. In the dark smoky basement, she could forget all her troubles in the smooth rhythms of the music.

How she longed to trust them with her condition, but she couldn’t bear to see pity flood into their eyes. Ruth and Thelma would want to pray for her, and Pinky was too wrapped up in going to see Malcolm and lambing to even notice that Maddy was not her usual self. If only she could trust one of them, but they were only college mates not confidantes. The only friend she had was Gloria, and lately she’d shoved her away too. There was always the fear that she might blab her shame all over Sowerthwaite in a careless moment of chatter.

Aunt Plum was distraught about Grandma and nursed her with devotion. She kept saying it was all her fault. Grace Battersby was running the household in her cheery way, and Mrs Hill in the cottage nearby came to do the laundry and shopping.

Now Maddy must go home one last time.

She’d not gone back to Dr Klein or the Welfare Offices. Better to carry on and get her exams passed, get her speed certificates, but she was all fingers and thumbs, making silly mistakes, and her grades had plummeted. She had calculated her birth date. If she could make an excuse for an absence on holiday, perhaps she might conceal the truth and come back with a baby?

No! She just couldn’t think so far ahead. It was all so unreal. The doctor said one thing and she wanted to do the opposite, in her usual disobedient fashion. Perhaps she could pay Gloria to be her mother’s help, but with what? She needed every penny to buy clothes for her baby, a pram and other expenses. She must find a room, but all the ads in the paper for places she could afford said ‘No children’.

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