Nobody would ever know that she was once a mother

The baby lie on the double bed, tiny on the sweat stained mattress. Lilian tried to feel something as she looked at him, his white fists flailing as his eyes stared out into the darkened room. She had only meant to pop her head around the door but now she stood overwhelmed by the sight of this tragic, human creature. He was raw with need and although he was only a few weeks old he frightened her. It struck her that he resembled a fledgling bird, his mouth rooting for food as he thrashed his head from side to side hoping to find her milky breast. She knew he was looking for her and that he could probably smell her too, but Lilian had never fed her baby and Edie would be furious if she gave in now. She was hoping that her milk would dry up soon as her breasts were hard and sore. Every time she heard his thin cries from the top of the house, her bra would fill with painful milk and each morning her mattress was soaked. She just wished the couple would come and take him away soon so that she no longer needed to feel his deep and angry hunger. Soon they would be shot of each other, Edie her landlady had arranged it all. She said it was common for young girls who had been caught out. Babies could be lost in a war, she had seen them being pulled out of the rubble all the time. Edie told her she was lucky they were at war. You could get away with all sorts during the war apparently. Fathers were being killed all over the shop, families were getting mixed up all over the place. For all its faults, war was good at keeping secrets.

Lilian crept into the room and turned on the lamp. The room was even filthier than the rest of the house. One of the previous lodgers had tried to make herself at home by pasting postcards of film stars to the mirror but those radiant faces couldn’t make up for the dirt and grime. The surface of the table was caked with rouge and sticky rims of gin left over from someone else’s good time. She wiped the mirror free of dust with a discarded headscarf and stood back to get a full length view. Despite the fact her son was only a few weeks old, her stomach was almost flat. Her breasts seemed fuller than before and her hips had widened, giving her shape a more womanly curve. Edie told her that she was a “catch” and that the “blokes would be queuing up round the block" to take her to the pictures. She helped her set her hair, bought her some stockings on the black market and painted her unlined face. Edie had told her that the milk would dry up in a few days if she didn’t feed him. Then she could get on with her life, find a new fella, nobody would be any the wiser. After the baby was born Edie took Lilian under her domineering wing. She taught her how to powder her face, apply rouge and more importantly, how to put on a front. One of the other lodgers had made her a dress from shot green silk, copied from a photograph in `Picturegoer’ magazine. Lilian had never owned a woman's dress before. Together the women of the house had fixed her up and pieced her together and as she looked at herself in the dark mirror, she had to admit that they had done a good job. Even she thought she looked beautiful in the soft light of the lamp. She had followed Edie’s advice and applied her make up like a film star, had set her hair in perfect curls and dabbed perfume behind her ears. She had dressed the lobes with clip on pearls and draped a delicate rope of beads around her neck. She looked straight into her own eyes and practiced a bold and brazen smile. Practicing with her new ladies’ mask she raised and lowered her powdered lids as she had seen Bette Davis do at the pictures. Edie had told her that that Bette Davis was the best person to teach you how to put on a front. Nobody laughed at Bette Davis and she wouldn’t care even if they did. Edie said that if she put up a good enough front nobody would ever know she was once a mother. Downstairs someone was playing her favourite tune and her heart raced with excitement as she imagined the dancing she would do in her new dress. She had been so swollen and heavy for so long that she couldn't wait to feel the lightness of herself in someone's arms. She had been the best dancer in her town but London was full of beautiful girls and she worried that her steps would seem old fashioned, that she would seem plain. Edie said that she would knock spots off of the brassy birds around Camberwell, but Lilian didn't want to knock any spots off anyone, she just wanted to be as good, to fit in. She was meeting Rex at the corner of the street at 8.00 and he was taking her dancing.

She knew what shoes she was wearing, she had picked them out whilst her ankles were still swollen and elephantine. She had borrowed Gwen’s hat and had fantasised about the way she would walk when she approached him. The way she would swing her hips as she pulled on a freshly lit cigarette. It had seemed quite exciting when Edie had suggested it. Rex was a friend of the family home on leave from somewhere in Europe. Edie said it would do her good to get out with young people and it had taken her mind off the baby for a while. If she’d known that she would still be bleeding and that she would feel so shaky and so strange, she wouldn’t have agreed to it. A date now seemed unimaginable. She was trying to put on a front like a proper woman but she felt as though she was just slipping.

The baby began to cry and she realised that she had been sitting simply staring into the damp room. She noticed that the wallpaper was peeling from the walls and how cold it was even though the night was hot and close outside. It was as though this room had its own place in time, as though part of her would be here forever. She had only meant to pop her head around the door before heading out to meet Rex and now the baby was crying again. She turned and looked at him wriggling on the bare mattress; his face was red and his flailing more desperate than before. She felt a surge of warmth in her bra and looked down to see that the milk had seeped out into the silk of her dress. She couldn't meet Rex like this. All this milk, all these tears would put him off, She couldn’t even bear to look at herself sometimes. Why did she think she could meet someone and that they might like her? She pulled at the zip on the side of the dress and began to sob before slumping on the bed.

The baby had stopped crying. He was not yet able to focus his eyes on her but he was listening, she knew that. Lilian crawled towards him and nestled her face into his cheek and simply smelt him. She took a deep breath and took the smell of him inside her. For a moment they lay still as though everything outside of them had faded away and for the first time since she had given birth to him she felt like his mother. Lillian picked him up gingerly. She unzipped her dress, pulled down the strap of her bra and held him in the cradle of her arm. Somehow they both knew what to do and she suckled him until he closed his eyes and his mouth slipped naturally away from her nipple.

She had been ready to go out dancing; she had been ready to begin her life. But like a chipped, china cup painted with roses she would always have a fault. Not good enough to serve high tea in, but pretty enough to hold if the dirty chip was moved away from the mouth before they sipped. She thought of her the mother and the rock cakes full of currants and her delicate tea service that she would bring out only when family visited. She missed her mother and began to wish that she could take him home to Wales but she may as well be Hitler to them. She would rather take a bomb than go back to her father. He had broken her mother’s precious cups one by one. Now every time Lilian thinks of roses, she thinks of her mother.

She had only meant to pop her head around the door to make sure they had come to collect him and now she wondered whether or not this lack of feeling for him would pass; that if she gave it time she could even grow to love him. Lilian wondered if she could really be his mother. Only for a moment could she imagine how it was possible. She pressed her nose against his fragile head and smelled him again. She didn't want to remember him here, on the stained bed with only a torn up towel for a blanket. She wanted to breathe him in, to remember the moment she felt like his mother. They were coming tonight and they would have a perfect white crib and a soft blanket to hold him in. The lady would take him for walks along the promenade in a posh perambulator with sparkling wheels. People would say that he looked like his father, handsome and bright. They would not pity his mother, they would not call him a bastard , he would not live in a room that was damp and sticky with the rims of gin. He would not be the mistake of someone's good time.

Outside the sirens sounded and doors opened and closed all over the boarding house. Lilian stood up and straightened her dress. Pulling her stomach in she fastened the zip and checked her hair in the mirror. The dress was not too badly stained. With a little scrub and a carefully placed brooch Rex would never notice. She kissed the top of her son's head and turned off the lamp. In the cinema this would be the end of the scene where she played mother. Bette Davis would throw back her head, light a cigarette and walk down those stairs as though she was the Queen herself. Lilian knew this was the end of her scene but the music had stopped and London was in blackout, there was no audience for her descent. She walked out of the room without looking back at the sleeping baby and down the three flights of darkened stairs. The night was balmy so she didn’t need a coat and she slipped on the high heeled shoes that she had left in the pile of women’s shoes at the front door. She walked out of house and into the bombs. A man called out to her but she heard nothing, her tears fell too hard and her high heels scraped on the pavement. In the darkness, Lilian had put on somebody else’s shoes.

For Emily and Dilys

© Michelle Porter 2009