Christmas with the Queen

Chapter 40 Olive

Chapter 40

Olive

London, November 1945

R osie insisted I go on the next group outing to take my mind off things, but I really wasn’t in the mood. Andrea had to pull out at the last minute to help out at the florist’s shop she was now working at, and Peter was ill, so it was just Jack, Rosie, me, and a chap called Arthur from the pub who Rosie was sweet on at the time. We spent the day in Windsor Great Park, admiring the castle and imagining living there like the royal princesses. Rosie still didn’t believe that I’d seen Princess Elizabeth in the conga line on VE Day, but I knew I had, and it was a moment to remember.

Jack didn’t understand our fascination with the royal family. He found all the traditions stuffy and old-fashioned.

“You’re very quiet today,” he said as we strolled along. “Everything all right?”

“I’m fine,” I said.

He offered me a small smile. “Liar.”

I shook my head. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“I definitely won’t if you don’t tell me.”

I hated him for being so blissfully unaware of the situation. I couldn’t tell him. That was the problem.

“Women’s troubles, that’s all.”

He pushed his hands into his trouser pockets. “Ahh, I see.”

We walked on in silence for a while.

At last, he said, “You should talk to Andrea. She’s good in a crisis. She’s so calm and sensible.”

Jack and Andrea. Like fish and chips and salt and pepper. The perfect pair.

“You two are still madly in love then?” I asked. “Still getting married?”

He laughed. “Of course we’re still getting married! She’s so excited about it all. It’s all set for Valentine’s Day.”

“And you? Are you excited?”

“Not in a bride-to-be way, no. But about building a life together, yes.”

“A life, and a family, I presume. Little Devereux children running around.”

At this, he let out a sigh. “Hopefully not for a while, although don’t tell Andrea I said that. She’s keen to start a family immediately, but I’m not ready for the responsibility of parenthood. Couldn’t afford a family right now on my wages anyway, even if I wanted one.”

As we passed a grove of silver birch trees, their golden leaves rustling in the breeze, my thoughts returned to VE Day, dancing with Jack in the jazz club, meeting Andrea in the fountain in Trafalgar Square. I wondered what might have happened if I hadn’t pulled her along as part of our group. Would it be Jack and Olive, the perfect couple, planning our wedding?

“I hate to see you so quiet, Olive,” Jack continued. “It’s not like you. Is Peter giving you the run-around again? I could knock some sense into him if you like?”

I smiled half-heartedly. “I’m not sure that would make a difference. Things are cooling off between us, actually.”

Jack stopped walking. “Sorry to hear that. If he’s not treating you right, then he’s an idiot. He clearly doesn’t know a good thing when he sees it.” He seemed to check himself and looked at the ground.

“I’m a good thing, am I? I’m not so sure about that.”

Jack looked at me and let out a breath. He reached forward and brushed a tear from my cheek. He let his thumb linger there a moment, at the edge of my lips, just as he had before he’d leaned in to kiss me three months ago. My heart raced beneath my cardigan.

“You’re definitely a good thing, Olive. Don’t ever forget it.”

But he had already forgotten it. I wasn’t a good enough thing to steal him away from his darling Andrea.

Just then, Rosie ran up to me and grabbed my hand.

“Arthur just asked me out! We’re going to the pictures later!”

Whatever might have been said between Jack and I was blown away with Rosie’s excitement and a cold breeze that sent a flurry of leaves tumbling along the path ahead.

I couldn’t keep my pregnancy a secret forever, no matter how much I tried to hide my morning sickness, or how carefully I dressed to conceal my bump. My typing pool supervisor was the first to notice, dispatching me unceremoniously on the basis that pregnant women could not, and should not work, let alone the scandalous matter of my being an unmarried pregnant woman.

“You will be paid until the end of the week,” she said. “And do stop sniveling. These situations are easily preventable, Miss Carter.” Her eyes fell to my empty ring finger, and she gave a sniff of disapproval. “You have nobody to blame but yourself.”

My mother was horrified, worried about what the neighbors would think, and shocked that I had been so careless. She took to her bed with a migraine.

“You can move back in here until we work out what to do about it,” she called from the top of the stairs. “I’ll send your father round to your flat to pick up your things.”

“But Mum, I don’t want...”

“I won’t hear another word about it.” She slammed the bedroom door.

I lay on the sofa and listened to her crying for an hour.

Among the group of friends, I kept up the pretense for as long as I could, but I felt different around them as my freedom slipped away with every half pint of lager I forced myself to drink. When I couldn’t hide my condition any longer, I made up endless excuses for not joining everyone—a cold, a touch of the flu, too tired. I finally broke things off with Peter before he found out. The truth was that I was ashamed, and afraid of my friends’ pity and judgment being added to everyone else’s.

Besides, if anyone in the group discovered I was pregnant, Jack would most likely realize the child was his. And how could I say anything when it would surely break him and Andrea apart? I wouldn’t be the one to end someone else’s happiness. I couldn’t do it.

I had never felt more alone.

Rosie kept urging me to tell Jack.

“What good would it do?” I said. “Telling him isn’t going to change this , is it?” I pointed at my stomach, still not quite able to believe another person was growing in there. “He doesn’t want a baby any more than I do.”

Rosie was furious about it all. “But it isn’t fair that you have to deal with it on your own, Olive. He should take responsibility. He is half of the reason you’re expecting after all, unless you’re the Virgin bloody Mary.”

I looked at her and burst into laughter for the first time since I’d found out I was pregnant. I laughed until I cried, months of emotion pouring out as Rosie held me in her arms and told me it was going to be all right, that things would work out, as they always did.

I was grateful for her unwavering friendship and support, but I didn’t believe her. This wasn’t something that worked itself out, like an argument, or making a muddle of something at work. This was a permanent, life-changing situation. One that everyone and the whole world would not only judge me for, but one that would make my life far more difficult, even if it wasn’t fair. It had already happened at work, and I knew worse was to come. I was terrified.

I moved back home, into my childhood bedroom. All my plans for a successful career at the BBC, all my dreams of a bright future, abandoned.

My mother made arrangements for me to go and stay with a relative in Cornwall until the baby was born. I had avoided the dreaded mother and baby homes, but I was being sent away nevertheless.

Shunned by society, banished from my home, I was as lost and afraid as a person could be.