Fallen Skies Read online

  “It’s not a baby he wants,” Lily said bitterly. “He wants to keep me at home.”

  “You can finish the season at least,” Madge said consolingly. “You won’t show for a month or two.”

  “If I can keep it secret from Stephen, I can finish the season,” Lily said. “And maybe I can come back to work after it’s born.”

  “Yes,” Madge said without much hope. “Maybe.”

  Lily looked at her pale heart-shaped face in the dressing room mirror and shook her head. “The chorus girls think I’m the luckiest girl in the world,” she said. “They should try being me for one day. It’s not such a lark then, Madge.”

  • • •

  Three weeks later, almost to the day, Stephen reached for Lily in the night and moved to lie on top of her. Apart from a small half-silenced gasp of discomfort Lily did not refuse him. Stephen stopped at once. “Are you not unwell?” he asked.

  Lily’s face, pale in the shadowy dawn light of the room, looked shocked. “No,” she said.

  Stephen smiled. “Then, if I am right, you have not been unwell for two months.”

  Lily saw the trap she was in. She swallowed on a dry throat. “I am due in a few days,” she said. “I don’t really like to discuss it, if you don’t mind, Stephen.”

  Stephen smiled more broadly. “But Lily,” he said cleverly, “I am your husband. Your health is my concern. I have kept a little diary to assist you in these matters ever since our wedding day. I was concerned at first how often you seemed to have a little visitor so that you were unable to make love. I thought it more gentlemanly if I knew in advance when you would be forced to refuse me, so that I would not press you.”

  Lily swallowed again. She felt crushed by Stephen’s body and overwhelmed by his courteous authority.

  “I see from my little diary that you were due last month, but you made no mention of it. And that you are due now, but you tell me that you are not unwell. My darling, I think you have some news for me, is it not so?”

  Lily shook her head.

  Stephen’s hands were hard on her shoulders, his fingers pinched her.

  Lily nodded.

  “And what is the news?” Stephen asked.

  “I think I am pregnant,” Lily said dully.

  Stephen eased gently off her. “Well, that is wonderful,” he said. “I can’t tell you how delighted I am, Lily. Wonderful news for me and for the whole family. Mother and Father will be thrilled.”

  Lily nodded again.

  “You must see the doctor tomorrow,” Stephen said. “He will call here at eleven. I made an appointment yesterday.”

  “You knew already?” Lily asked.

  Stephen patted her cheek. “Sooner or later, little Lily, you were bound to be pregnant. I know my duty by you, don’t worry. We’re going to be happy now. We’re going to be very very happy.”

  • • •

  Dr. Mobey examined Lily gently and confirmed that she was two months pregnant.

  “I want to go on working,” Lily said blankly. She was lying on her bed. She pulled down her skirt and sat up. “I want to go on working to the end of the season, until October the nineteenth.”

  Dr. Mobey sat at his ease in the bedroom chair. “D’you think that’s wise, Mrs. Winters?” he asked pleasantly. “Most young ladies I know would welcome the chance to put their feet up and enjoy a bit of fuss.”

  Lily smiled an insincere smile. “I am a singer,” she said. “I love my work. I do very little dancing now. I would like to finish my contract.”

  “Well, we’d better see what Stephen thinks about it, hadn’t we? It must be his decision.”

  “But there’s no medical reason why I should stop work, is there?” Lily pressed.

  Dr. Mobey hesitated. “Let’s see—October you said—you will be three months pregnant by then—there’s no reason why you should stop work. But if you are guided by me you will take things easily, and eat properly.”

  Lily gave him her sweetest smile. “Oh please, Dr. Mobey,” she said coquettishly. “Tell Stephen I can work, and I shall send you a complimentary ticket to a box!”

  He chuckled. “Well, you’re a persuasive little thing, there’s no arguing with you! I’ll tell Stephen you can finish your little season but then there’s to be absolute rest and no more work.”

  Lily nodded earnestly.

  “And if there are any signs, any . . .” He hesitated, embarrassed. “Any show of blood or discomfort, you are to stop work at once.”

  Lily nodded again. She knew that if she saw the least trace of blood she would dance all night and jump down the stairs until dawn.

  But it did not happen. Lily took baths as hot as she could bear and inspected her knickers every morning, hoping to see a bright spot of red blood. But the baby was strong and healthy despite her. The supply of tepid cinnamon milk was doubled, and Lily was sent to the theatre every day with two rounds of beef sandwiches for her tea, glistening with fat and chewy with gristle. On fine days Lily walked around the Canoe Lake before Coventry picked her up so that she could feed the sandwiches to the swans. When it rained she gave them to the chorus girls. Of the two, Lily much preferred the swans.

  Stephen no longer permitted her late nights. Coventry brought her straight home from the theatre, but after he had seen her to bed Stephen sometimes went out again. From sly giggles and odd silences when she came into their dressing room, Lily concluded that Stephen went out to nightclubs with the chorus girls. She could not find any jealousy in her. She could not find any reason to care.

  With the show in its two final weeks all the talk backstage was what work was available elsewhere. Two girls had gone for the same audition and would not speak to each other in their dressing room. Madge had work as a fashion model in one of the Southsea shops, she had to walk up and down in the store’s dresses while fat women popped eclairs in their mouths and their husbands ogled her.

  “Steady money,” she said determinedly. “And not much else going on.”

  There was a season of classical plays coming to the Kings. They would audition actors who could take serious work, but a boisterous vamp like Madge would not be needed until the panto season which would not rehearse until the last week of November. Charlie promised Madge a part.

  “What about you, Lil?” he asked. He had come to Lily’s dressing room, between the matinée and the evening show, with a pot of tea and two battered mugs. Lily was sitting in the broken armchair with her feet up on the bentwood chair.

  She watched him pour the tea and took her cup. “I’d better tell you something,” she said slowly. “I won’t be auditioning for panto. I won’t be working here again.”

  Charlie put down his cup and looked at her. “Stephen,” he said. It was not a question.

  “Not exactly.”

  “What then?”

  “I’m having a baby.”

  Charlie caught his breath and a swift expression contorted his face so dramatically that Lily thought he had trapped his finger in the chair leg, or scalded himself with tea. He looked away for a moment and when he looked back at her his face was set. “Are you pleased?”

  Lily shook her head. “I don’t want it,” she said bleakly.

  “What a damned mess,” Charlie said softly.

  There was a long silence. Lily sipped from her mug of tea and Charlie took up his own cup.

  “Does Stephen know?”

  “He knew almost as soon as I did. It didn’t happen by accident.”

  Charlie nodded, his mouth twisted. “Is he pleased?”

  “Like a dog with two tails.”

  “When are you due?”

  “May.”

  Charlie raised his mug to her. “I wish you very well, Lil. I wish you all the best.”

  “Thank you.”

  The atmosphere in the little room was full of unspoken longings. Charlie walked towards the barred whitewashed window and rested his head against the coolness of the painted glass.

  “I wish to God I coul