An Unsuitable Mother. Sheelagh Kelly

the road as she fought to work the pedals, ‘Don’t wait up for me, I may be all night!’

      ‘A key! You’ll need a key!’ Thelma scuttled to fetch one, then raced to put it in Nell’s pocket, causing yet more delay. But, eventually, with a helpful shove from her father, Nell somehow mobilised herself in ungainly fashion towards town.

      With the traffic lights out of use and no policeman about, there was no option but to grit her teeth and hope for the best at junctions, and go careering into the black beyond, often forced to judder to an abrupt standstill by using her foot as a brake when a car almost flattened her, and nearly keeling over in the process. Only after a great many mishaps along the way did she get the hang of it, and finally sailed triumphantly into the sidings at Leeman Road, there to be met by a shadowy figure with a stopwatch.

      A shielded torch was quickly flashed on and off in order for Sister Barber to read the time. ‘You’ll have to do better than this when it’s the real thing, Nurse Spottiswood!’ Once again there was disapprobation on the pretty freckled face, before it vanished into darkness.

      Attempting to disentangle her leg from the crossbar, Nell tottered and almost capsized again. ‘You mean … we’re not going anywhere?’ Her voice and expression told that she could scarcely believe this.

      ‘No, this is just a dummy run to see how quickly we can be mustered in an emergency – and I have to say it’s found us wanting,’ Sister Barber added sternly to those other murky figures already assembled, all equally as dismayed as Nell. ‘Very well, you can go home now.’

      ‘To a cold bath?’ muttered a displeased Nell to her friends, out of earshot of Sister, as she fought to heft her father’s bike in the opposite direction and head off through the dark. ‘Thank you very much, I don’t think!’

      ‘Bath on a Tuesday?’ Beata called after her in amazement. ‘By, you’re posh!’

      A couple of days after the test run Nell was able to laugh about it with the others, and to use it as a source of jollification for Billy. Since telling him about her tour of the city pubs to follow the Bedpan Swingsters, his letters to her had been quite tense, expressing the fear that she might be snatched from him by another soldier. As a result, she had immediately refrained from going again. He would be much happier to hear that her only company that Thursday evening would be the sensible Beata, with whom she had arranged to go to the pictures.

      But, ‘I’m a bit reluctant to divulge where I’ll be, in case they spoil it again,’ she whispered to Beata now, as, after a day of keeping the train clean and making more unused dressings, they put on their coats to leave work.

      ‘I’m buggered if I’m telling them,’ replied her friend more stringently. ‘See you outside the Regal at seven!’

      Laughing, Nell went home.

      After a bite to eat and a change of clothing, Nell attempted to collect enough mascara for an application, scraping the little brush into every corner of its box, but all it produced was beige spit. Well, that was that. Unable to obtain more, she rummaged in the cupboard that still held a few childhood toys and brought out a paint box, pondering the feasibility of using one of its brown squares. But this was a failure. She would just have to rely on her natural lashes.

      She had donned her coat, and was inserting her tuppence bus fare into her glove so as not to have to faff with her purse again, when her mother murmured confidentially in passing, ‘I’ll be going to the chemist in the morning. Would you like me to get you some things?’

      Her days had been so consumed by hard work and writing letters to Billy, Nell had not noticed the absence of her monthly visitation, but now it immediately leapt to mind, and she turned crimson. By the discreet way her mother formed her lips to say ‘things’, Nell knew she meant sanitary towels. It was a term neither of them ever used, except perhaps upon actually purchasing them at the chemist. Knowing how embarrassing her daughter found this, Mother was thinking to spare her blushes now, Nell recognised. However, there was much more to those reddened cheeks than she could ever imagine.

      Stuttering, ‘Oh, yes, thank you, Mother!’ she reopened her purse, handed over the cash, then grabbed her gas mask and left the house, undergoing worried calculation as she hurried through the dark November mist for town. She had not required things for over four months – before Billy went away. The realisation caused her to gasp aloud. Thank God her mother was no longer in earshot, for besides the sharp intake of breath, she would surely have been able to hear Nell’s heart thudding as panic began to gain hold.

      Forgetting all about the secret application of rouge that she would normally have made on her way, she bit her lip, her footsteps slowing as she tried to rationalise this – why, there was nothing really unusual, was there? Having only started her whatnots a year and a half ago, she had not yet achieved a regular cycle, and was accustomed to going two or even nearly three months without seeing a thing. What was the difference between three months and four? Exactly! Nell told herself firmly, as she began to walk at normal pace again. It was bound to happen soon. All she had to do was stay calm. Worrying over it would not make it occur any sooner. She must put any unthinkable idea out of her head.

      That was rather difficult to do when one was stuck on a bus with nothing to take one’s mind off it, and she concentrated on looking forward to meeting Beata. Prior to this, though, upon egress she handed her ticket back to the conductress, then made her way along the darkened streets to visit Bill’s former digs. Having arranged this evening visit to town, it meant that she had had no need to call on the Preciouses directly after work, but could leave it till now. She hurried for Walmgate – the wrong side of town, as her parents would say. Well, there were some dreadful people here, conceded Nell, as two drunken Irishmen loomed at her out of the darkness, reeking of alcohol, and she was forced to veer around them. But there were some lovely ones too. Just the thought of what lay beyond that archway and along the alley caused her to smile.

      There was an old fashioned gas lamp in the courtyard, though now it stood redundant in the blackout. Using the wall to grope her way, incapable of seeing much but viewing it from memory, she stopped before a once noble Georgian mansion, now jammed in by slums – indeed, one itself. The spokes of its fanlight were rotten, its windows bereft of putty, centuries of paintwork eroded to bare timber. A house with psoriasis. Even her light rap of the tarnished brass knocker caused a shower of flakes.

      Someone threw open the door. ‘You’re late!’ bawled Ma Precious at the top of her voice, a sergeant-major in a floral pinafore.

      Greatly familiar with this raucous behaviour, and perceiving no harm was meant, Nell smiled. ‘I had to go home straight after work, so I thought I’d come now. Sorry to put you ou—’

      ‘You’re not putting us out, you daft cat! Get yourself in before the warden gives us a rollicking over the lights!’ Ma waved merrily.

      Nell hopped over the threshold, allowing the door to be closed behind her, though truth be told it was almost as dingy in here, there being no electric lighting, and the one gas mantle casting only a pathetic glow upon the linoleum of the hall. There was an appalling smell of fish too.

      ‘At least you’ll have time for a decent natter if you don’t have to rush off home like you usually do!’ Ma set off with manly strides, the soles of her tartan slippers squeaking the lino, expecting the other to follow, and calling ahead, ‘Georgie, the lass is here, get that kettle on!’

      ‘Not for me, thanks!’ Nell refused hastily, remaining in the hall, the interior of the house being as neglected as the outside, with great fronds of wallpaper drooping over a once elegant staircase that wound its way up three more storeys. ‘I’ve to meet my friend in fifteen minutes.’

      Ma wheeled around, a hand placed indignantly on each robust hip. ‘Oh, so you thought you’d treat us as a convenience to save you having to wait in the cold?’

      Having learned to take all insults here with a pinch of salt, Nell merely giggled at the old woman, who was at first glance intimidating, with her mannish build, her sharp brown eyes, and her gun-metal hair parted in the middle and wound into buns on