War Babies by Rachel Billington

Author:Rachel Billington
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Unicorn Publishing Group
Published: 2022-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

MILLIE

Mummy invited me to lunch at the House of Commons as she did periodically. It must have been January 1968. For most of the time she talked about the ‘I’m backing Britain’ campaign which encouraged workers to put in an extra half hour without more pay and which was endorsed by Harold Wilson.

I don’t expect she meant to make me feel uncomfortable, she wasn’t thinking about me of course, but her excitable talk of duty and all hands to the wheel and serving your country with hard grit, ‘How many hours do you think I put in?’ as she glanced at me for a moment, were not the right words for the mother who had given up work because her husband earned plenty, liked her fresh for him in the evening and they both hoped for another child.

‘I know you work hard, Mummy,’ I agreed feebly. ‘But you look very well.’ As I said this I suddenly noticed that since I’d last seen her – only Christmas after all – she had changed. Her aura of lightness which came partly from her quick mind and partly from her pretty figure topped with the halo of red hair, had morphed into something more solid, more querulous, less confident; in short – older.

I watched her with this in mind and somehow was not altogether surprised when she said at the end of the meal as we sipped our coffees, ‘Do you ever think of your father?’

The real answer was ‘No’ or perhaps, ‘Almost never.’ If I did think of Dada it was in relation to Di who had hero-worshipped him and modelled herself on him. It was always Mummy for me. What could she be thinking? (This guessing at her thoughts was, incidentally, an exercise of the imagination I had practised since childhood.)

‘He went away so suddenly. So long ago. It must be ten years ago,’ I prevaricated.

This made her impatient, as almost anything I said did. ‘Don’t you ever wonder where he went? What happened to him?’

‘I know you tried everything to find him.’ I didn’t really know that. But I had always taken it for granted. ‘I think you said the charity he worked for lost touch with him.’

‘Well, I expect they did.’ She was still impatient.

‘It was a very dangerous area,’ I began again. ‘That guerrilla group – what was it called? – was very active. So tragic.’

She gave me a pitying look. ‘You have a tender nature.’

Even I could see this was an insult and began to weary of her game. ‘Have you heard some news of him?’

She blushed, the redhead’s blush which painted her cheeks with scarlet and then reappeared in blotches on her neck. ‘Of course not,’ she snapped. ‘Why ever would I? What a ridiculous idea! I suppose you’ve been talking to Di.’

Now I was really taken aback. Why or indeed how would I ever talk to Di about our vanished father? ‘I can’t talk to Di. She’s been in Vietnam for years,’ I muttered. ‘As far as I know, still is.

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