The Hidden Women - Kerry Barrett

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      I’d not known Annie long at that time, but I already knew she was someone I’d trust with my life.

      ‘Someone helped me once,’ I’d admitted. ‘Not like this, not …’

      Annie’s eyes had searched my face. I’d squeezed my lips together in case I cried.

      ‘And now you think we should help Polly?’ she’d said.

      I’d nodded.

      ‘We’ll find a way.’

      And that’s where Flora came in. She knew someone in Manchester. Someone who’d helped a friend of her sister. A doctor. At least, that’s what he said he was and we never checked. Flora made the arrangements, Annie and I worked out the logistics and the transport, and Polly went off to Manchester just a fortnight later. She came back even paler, but after a couple of days’ rest – we told our officers that she was having some women’s troubles and they didn’t push it – she was fine again.

      We had thought that was it. But it wasn’t. Polly told someone what we’d done for her, and quietly, word got round. Turned out there were women all over the place who needed help of one sort or another and it seemed we were the ones to help them. Gradually we built up a network of people, all over the country. Truth was, the network had existed long before we came along. We were just lucky that we could put people in touch with each other. Doctors who could do what we needed them to do, women desperate to adopt a baby, others willing to shelter a pregnant woman for a few weeks – or nurse someone who’d picked up an infection after their, you know, procedure.

      We criss-crossed the country delivering planes, and sharing information or arrangements with women while we did it. In two years, we’d helped eleven women – April was number twelve. We’d seen five babies born and adopted and the rest, well, they’d been sorted. And we’d had one death, a young woman called Bet who lost too much blood after her op, and who’d been too scared to go to hospital in case she got into trouble. We didn’t use that doctor again and we’d made sure we checked out new places now, but we were all haunted by Bet’s death. Never thought about stopping though. Not once. And if losing one of our women wouldn’t stop us helping others, nor would Will Bates and his clumsy flirting.

      I sat up in bed and looked across at Annie, who was lying on her own bed next to mine.

      ‘April’s going to let us know when the baby comes,’ I said. ‘Don’t reckon it’ll be long.’

      Annie nodded. ‘Glad we got there in time.’

      Flora was opening letters. We had a box at the local post office where people could contact us.

      ‘Too late for this one, though,’ she said, scanning the paper. ‘She wrote this last month and she says she was already eight months gone then. She’ll have had the baby by now.’

      Annie shrugged. ‘Can’t help ’em all.’

      But I wished we could.

       Chapter 6

      Helena

      May 2018

      It seemed Miranda and I weren’t the only ones to be thinking about Lil. On Monday morning, just before lunch, the office receptionist phoned me to say I had a visitor.

      ‘This is a nice surprise,’ I said as the lift doors opened and I saw it was my dad. ‘Are you working nearby?’

      We were based in Soho, and Dad often worked close by when a film he’d composed the music on was in post-production. It wasn’t unusual for him to pop by and say hello when he was in the area, but he normally phoned first.

      Now he gave a vague nod over his shoulder. ‘Nearby,’ he said.

      ‘I’m a bit busy at the moment but we could go for lunch in about half an hour if you like?’

      But Dad shook his head. ‘I wanted to ask you something,’ he said. ‘Could we nip into another room, perhaps?’

      Behind his back, I saw Elly studiously bashing away at her keyboard, pretending not to be listening.

      ‘Of course,’ I said, a flicker of unease in my stomach. ‘Follow me.’

      I led him into the meeting room where I’d met Jack Jones the week before, and shut the door.

      ‘Are you okay? What’s the matter? Is Mum okay?’

      Dad smiled. ‘Nothing’s the matter,’ he said. ‘We’re both fine. Fit as fiddles.’

      He gave a little skip as though to prove how fit he was even though he was approaching eighty. Mum wasn’t far off seventy.

      I raised my eyebrow at him and he pulled out a chair and sat down. I did the same.

      ‘So what’s up?’

      ‘I wanted to ask you a favour,’ he said.

      ‘Go on.’

      ‘I know you said you weren’t supposed to do your own research, but any chance you could have a quick look into this Lil stuff for me?’

      ‘Dad, no,’ I said. ‘I can’t.’

      ‘It’s important.’

      I stared at him. ‘Why?’ I said. ‘Why is it important?’

      Dad looked at his hands. ‘No actual reason that I can put into words,’ he said. ‘I’d just like to know more about my family. Before it’s too late.’

      He took a breath.

      ‘I never really asked my parents much about the war, and that generation just didn’t talk about it, did they?’

      I shook my head. More than once I’d come across the most amazing stories in the course of research that had never been mentioned in the family.

      ‘I think the war was so awful, more awful than we could ever imagine, and those who lived through it found it hard to talk about,’ I said.

      ‘My father – your grandfather – was in the RAF.’

      ‘I know,’ I said. ‘I’ve seen his medals.’

      Dad nodded. ‘Never mentioned it, not really,’ he said. ‘Not to us, at least not often. He had some old air force friends I remember him meeting up with, and I imagine they talked about what they’d done.’

      ‘Their own version of group therapy,’ I pointed out. ‘Must have helped.’

      ‘I wish I’d asked him more about it,’ Dad said. He looked really sad and I thought suddenly that even though my grandpa had been dead for more than twenty years, he must still miss him.

      I reached out and took his hand. ‘He might not have talked, even if you’d asked,’ I said. ‘Did Grandma ever say anything?’

      ‘Not about Dad in the air force,’ Dad said. ‘But, of course, I remember bits about the war. Not much, because I was very small. But I remember living with Mum, and not really knowing Dad when he came home.’

      He paused.

      ‘And I remember Lil,’ he said.

      ‘What do you remember?’ I asked, intrigued by this little insight into my own family history.

      ‘I remember her wearing a uniform,’ Dad said slowly. He tilted his head to the left and looked far away over my shoulder. ‘I remember sitting on her lap and playing with a toy plane and her arm round me felt scratchy, the material I mean. It was a uniform.’

      ‘How old were you?’

      He shrugged.

      ‘About four, perhaps? I loved that plane.’

      ‘Was

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