Chapter Text
March 1971
It seemed like only last month Patsy had joined her on the Heath, on a slow amble to the top the hill where the older woman would point with delight at the dome of St Pauls, as she did each and every time they recreated this scene. She would fumble in her deep carpet bag, and produce a sturdy and positively ancient thermos flask. Cream of Tomato (though once it had been Oxtail, and Patsy had nearly died from the shock). A few slices of buttered bread. A great many more, oh, you girls are so good to me’s. And a gentle shuffle to the bus stop that would deliver her back to East Finchley, parting ways, as Patsy, or Delia, or both together, returned to Poplar.
Delia’s auntie Blod had delighted in the whipping wind, greenery, and pale straw grass of London’s greatest expanse of internal countryside. It reminded her of Pembrokeshire. With less sheep. And now she would see neither again.
Patsy had thought Nonnatus would be the closest she would ever feel to having a family, but the last few years of visits to Blod had been something she’d found herself longing for before the monthly Sunday walks even came about. She still remembered the first time Delia had asked her to go in her place, with those pleading eyes. It was one thing to accompany Delia as her friend (the word bristled her), but it was quite another to collect her widowed aunt from the Welsh church service and traipse across Hampstead with the old dear alone. Before she had been able to protest, those blue irises darkened, and that smile turned coy. A peppering of kisses against Patsy’s neck had her mumbling an agreement before she could fully consider what the smaller woman was getting her into.
It was unprecedented that Patsy would begin to look forward to the regular interludes of quiet wisdom, wry and often raucous humour, and the twinkle in those hereditary azure eyes when she mentioned the friendship that she and Delia shared. But somehow, when Blod said it in that knowing tone, Patsy didn’t feel the usual bitterness rise into her throat.
Delia was unfairly punishing herself for staying in that last Sunday – the last Sunday that either of them would spend with Blod. “It wasn’t that bad a cold, I could have come on that walk.” Patsy had stroked her hair, saying what she could to ease her love’s pain, but knowing that guilt only shifted with time.
And now The Busby’s were coming.
Well, not all of them. Delia’s mother, her sister Marylin, and one of her brood of five – the eldest, Sian.
It had been two years since Delia had seen any of them. And it had been at least a year since Delia had last spoken to her mother, knuckles white around the telephone receiver, as the redhead listened helplessly. Patsy had known nothing good could come of Mrs. Busby getting a line put in.
“She is coming with me, or I am not coming at all…No, I’ve never expected you to like it, but I am so tired of you trying to make me feel like there’s something wrong with me…It’s not ‘in your face’, we’re hardly-“ Delia rarely raised her voice in anger, and it had taken Patsy off guard, “You did not just say that. My own mam did not just say that!”
The limits of Mrs. Busby’s feigned ignorance were quickly reached in a little teashop in Tower Bridge in nineteen-sixty-two, but her quiet discomfort around the open secret had taken near a decade later to dissolve into defeated pleas, for she was a proud woman, and she had never planned on begging her daughter to stop this. The added cruelty had been out of frustration, and utterly unnecessary not least because of its obvious futility.
“She said I was sick. In my head.” Delia had later sobbed softly into her shoulder. Patsy’s jaw had clenched, knowing that the addition of her own indignation would do nothing but stoke Delia’s upset. And it was her current duty to ease the pain.
Formidable Delia, bright and honest, fierce and loyal. With the only arms that had brought her any comfort since she was ten years old. The only hands that had ever clasped her face and thumbed tears from her cheeks as she grieved for the years she’d lost. Patsy could only attempt to imitate the comforting force that was Delia Busby. She and others had thought her cold and brusque, but Delia had thawed her, and taught her to be kinder and better.
The only thing that tripped the Welshwoman was her mother. Her weakness. Patsy couldn’t understand. She had never really had a parent. Not for long enough – just for her first twelve years. And then her father’s last twelve weeks. Not a lifetime like Delia.
But last Wednesday her love had solemnly called her mother to deliver the news that one of the last of the thinning threads holding them together had snapped.
Blod was gone. Yes, they’d find a funeral parlour. No, there weren’t only Jewish funeral parlours in Finchley. But, yes, there were lots of Jewish people in Finchley. They would start on clearing Blod’s flat. Of course, Patsy had popped around to check on her cat yesterday. The neighbour had taken it in. Yes, Patsy was helping. Why wouldn’t she be helping?
“Well, Auntie Blod was very fond of her.” There was a long and pregnant pause. “Thank you for saying sorry, mam.” She breathed.
Patsy sighed, relieved.
A week later they had spent the morning in a back and forth, with Patsy quietly combing the flat for things that could trigger the sensibilities of the Welshwoman’s family, and Delia running around in circles, doing nothing but fretting.
“Please come and pick them up with me.” Delia had insisted again.
“Oh, Deels, I’m sure the last thing your mother wants to see is my face.” Patsy replied, scooping up one of those periodicals that Delia had subscribed to after very little convincing from some young students at the Gates. “Or this.” She snorted, holding up the small magazine with a smirk.
LESBIAN RIGHTS NOW
Delia barely looked up, humming in a vague acknowledgement. Patsy wished it had made her laugh as it should have, with her eyes crinkling and her head tossed back. “Please, Pats. She won’t start on me as badly if you’re there.” She simply picked at her fingernail.
Patsy mulled it over for a moment. Perhaps she was being selfish. She did not enjoy the company of Mrs. Busby. And Delia’s large family disorientated her. She did her best to avoid people that tried quite as hard as they did to make her and her lover feel shame. The close of the sixties had given way to sweeping changes. The men had been decriminalised. There were a great many new bars for them up West. The students at their haunts were brimming with anger and hope – a powerful cocktail. They wrote and the argued and they protested. But the loud voices of the young and visionary had dragged quiet elders and their carefully carved existence into the light – the downside was that people’s blindness to what they were was shifting ever further into a silent but judging understanding.
Patsy wondered if she had really preferred slipping around unnoticed, under the noses of not only nuns but almost everyone they encountered, bar a few Phyllis Crane’s in their time. For these days, people did realise their relationship easier, but it still took no more effort to hate them just as much as they had before.
“Sweetheart, I need you with me.” Her voice sounded small.
That was all it took, really. She agreed, and slipped the political periodicals between the pages of a well-thumbed midwifery textbook.
It suddenly occurred to Patsy that not having seen a parent in years was quite odd. With her father a month’s travel across the world when she had been growing up, she hadn’t considered it. No wonder Deels was so on edge.
A last glance in the mirror as Delia fussed with her fringe, smoothing out her collar, then they were trotting down the stairs. Patsy held open the passenger door of the Morris Oxford for Delia, silently indicating that she would drive them to Paddington station. Not ideal, given that Patsy had taken to driving about as well as she had taken to the smaller woman’s early physical affections towards her – awkwardly but enthusiastically. A combination that didn’t work so well behind the wheel as it had under Delia’s hands.
“Come on, old girl.” She muttered as the clutch protested with a crunching sound. “Deels, I do believe the car is playing favourites with us again. She never does this with you.” The small laugh she received in response was insincere, and Delia’s eyes were fixed firmly on the dashboard. “Why don’t I let you choose the station then, hm?”
The thing to know about Delia was that one shouldn’t push her when she was quiet. She was so forthcoming with her feelings, and they spilled eloquently from her lips, but only when they’d been mulled over, and firmed up. Patsy used to think that Delia had some sort of magical power when her offerings of love, affection, upset and pain, were so measured and meaningful. Patsy had hurt the brunette so many times with her impulsive anger, quick to flare when she was overwhelmed and to say things she didn’t mean. She wished she could just let herself feel it as the woman on her left did. The redhead reached over and placed her hand on Delia’s knee as they waited for a light to turn green, rubbing with her thumb.
A while later, Patsy handled the car through London, with Mrs. Busby now in the passenger seat where Delia had sat before and the boot brimming with luggage. A wide-eyed Sian, sandwiched between Delia and her mother Marilyn, was gazing out of the windows with wonder at the afternoon London scenes that played out before her.
They were quiet, save a few pleasantries. Mrs. Busby had even thanked her quietly as Patsy had taken her suitcase for her, and directed her towards the passenger seat. She looked older and, whilst possessing none of the Mackeson induced ruddiness of Blod, a little more infirm since Patsy had seen her last. It was to be expected that the woman who usually had an opinion on everything, and no qualms about sharing it, remained subdued in the wake of her sister’s sudden death.
The silence was most likely induced by her presence, Patsy thought. It was better than Delia getting an earful without the armour of the flame-hared, cosmopolitan invert that her love’s family thought her. It used to bristle her, but now she couldn’t help being a little amused that she was thought of as such an alien species that to engage her in conversation was too dangerous an enterprise. She decided it would have to be herself that would break the tension.
“Sian, Delia tells me you’re a fiend for literature. Do you have any study plans after upper-sixth relating to the field?” She inquired brightly, glancing over her shoulder at the willowy brunette, who seemed to have drawn rather the short straw with the middle-seat, given that she was the tallest of the Busby clan by quite some. Patsy caught sight of the teenager in the mirror, breaking into an enthusiastic smile that so resembled Delia’s.
But apparently, this had been the wrong thing to say.
“Sian is finishing with school. Aren’t you?” Marilyn snapped.
Her daughter resumed gazing out of the window, humming in half-hearted agreement.
Patsy resigned herself to a conversational dearth for three days, supplemented by meagre discussion of Finchley flat clearing, funeral plans, and the extolling of Blod’s many virtues. The latter would at least be nearly as entertaining as the woman of whom they spoke.
The flat vibrated to the beat of Blod’s booming laugh. The old woman slapped her hand on her knee, doubled over in what would appear to be a painful ecstasy. She was sapphire-eyed and wide across. Other than the grey, she was the double of Mrs. Busby. Except for when her face cracked open into a wide smile, flashing smoke stained teeth in an infectious display.
“You girls.” She waved her finger at them. “I swear to god. You girls will be the death of me.”
Patsy tried in vain to reign in the gaze she directed at Delia, who was wiping tears from her cheeks, attempting to take deep breaths. She couldn’t help but admire the light in her eyes as she laughed. “Us?! You’re the one telling stories about you and my mam sneaking out."
“Exactly. I’m a dead woman walking now you know what we got up to. She’ll kill me if she knew I’d told you.”
The redhead smirked. Stories of the Great War came quite quickly to Blod after a few drinks. She talked of the time fondly. She had of course known that the elder woman had met her husband, a ‘nice North London boy’ training at a nearby facility, during that time. What they hadn’t known was quite how often Delia’s mother had been dragged along on Blod’s evening jaunts. She poured just a little less gin in Blod’s glass before adding the Indian tonic water. And immediately regretted her underestimation. Ever astute, the silver haired woman pointed at the meagre offering, “Don’t short-change me, girl.” Admitting defeat, Patsy topped her up.
“Do you know?” Patsy considered as their new record turned in the background. “If the doctrine had been presented this joyfully, I may have taken to it quite swimmingly.” One of Delia’s patients had gifted her the LP after a long-stay in The London. It was a recording of American gospel music, and Patsy thought it quite jolly.
Delia took a gulp of her drink, “Patsy went to a convent school see, Blod. She was on a diet of catholic nuns, kilts, and hellfire eternal.”
Blod snorted, “Lot of good it did you, I see.” She gestured with her glass between the two younger women.
Patsy choked on her gin.
The corner of Delia’s lips twitched. She reached over and rubbed Patsy’s thigh, fingers dancing over her skin, soothing her out of the shock. And revelling in the open secret. Alluded to but unsaid.
Unsaid but accepted.
As they bundled out of the car, stacking luggage at the side of the road by the Chrisp Street hotel, a slip of a boy ambled towards them.
“Nurse Mount, Nurse Busby!” He grinned, a smaller blonde chap trailing behind him.
Delia’s smile returned briefly but genuinely, “Ahoy there, Nigel. How’s that boat coming along?” She asked after the milk crate structure the boys had been working on for some time over at the bombsite.
“We found some pram wheels, so we’re making a jigger now. We’re gonna race it with the boys from Limehouse way.” He shook his head, dark blonde mop moving almost comically, seeming to remember something. “Uhm, Nurse Mount, mum’s having another baby. She said if I saw you, I was to say that she wants you to go ‘round our house. She don’t like the lady at the new doctor’s.” He seemed proud at having delivered his message.
Patsy sighed. “Do tell your mother ‘congratulations’ from Nurse Busby and myself. But I’m sorry, Nigel. I’m not your mother’s midwife anymore.” District practice had been phased out – the last time she’d delivered a baby at home in Poplar had been two years ago. “You go and let her know that next Saturday, she’s to knock on us, and we’ll have a chat about what’s worrying her over a nice cup of tea.”
Delia chimed in, “And you can tell her that when she goes to The London to have her baby, I’ll probably be on shift.”
Reassured enough, he scampered off, and Patsy turned to the trio of Busby’s, “One of mine.” She pointed after Nigel, “And the little one, Glen, well, you had to come and help with him didn’t you, Delia?”
She nodded, “I tried to swap you out of that awful ten-hour shift. When I arrived you were practically falling asleep on Mrs. Jenkin’s bed with her. The first thing poor Glen saw was us rowing about whether you should go home.” The light returned to her eyes, and she chuckled. The humour, perhaps due to its relation to the ‘horrible, nasty’ business of female reproduction, or the easy intimacy they slipped into, seemed to be lost on Mrs. Busby and Marilyn. But as they ascended the steps to the hotel, Sian piqued.
“Do you know a lot of the children around here?”
Patsy nodded. “Yes, and it’s lovely seeing them grow.”
“There was a lady like that in our village, wasn’t there, mam?”
Marilyn didn’t answer, her eyes fixed on Patsy, occasionally flitting to Delia, like she was anticipating something horrifying transpiring between them. Like if she stared hard enough, she might see what was so hateful about their existence. Like she was searching for it.
Delia nodded, “Yes, but she wasn’t a midwife. Just very old, and knew a lot.” She informed Sian. “She only spoke Welsh. Oh, I can’t remember her name.”
“Gwyneth Owens.” It was the first thing Mrs. Busby had said for quite some time. “She brought you and your sister into this world, Delia. You should know her name, god rest her soul.”
The hotel was not such that a handsome concierge was about to swoop by and relieve the Welsh travellers of their bags. Instead, a rather distracted young woman behind the counter fumbled through some sheets of paper, and after some searching, located the keys, and sent them on their way. Patsy was happy to be relegated to the muscle in this situation, though in general Delia did far better with heavy things. After some effort and very many stairs, they had located the rooms and were saying their goodbyes. She saw Sian’s despair as she spotted a double bed, with no doubt that she’d be sharing with her mother.
“Oh, mam. Please can I stay with-“
“No.”
“But I want to see their fl-“
“Don’t answer me back. You know we’re going over this evening.” Marilyn’s response came through gritted teeth. She sighed heavily, turning to Delia. “I’ll see you.”
Delia nodded, and leaned into give her sister a hug, who returned it stiffly. Pointedly the spare part, Patsy turned to Mrs. Busby, who was still struggling with her case through the threshold of her own separate room. “Oh, Mrs. Busby. Let me. I’ll pop it on your bed for you.” Patsy thought to herself that this woman must have brought the kitchen sink as she hauled it onto the pink bedding.
“Thank you, Patsy.” There was a sincerity to her tone that the redhead was not accustomed to. She had never heard it there before.