He had to stop her talking, it was driving him mad. ‘Mrs Vickers, I need to know Abby’s address,’ he said very quickly when she paused for breath. ‘I have to write to her or go and see her as soon as possible.’
Nora stared at him before lowering her eyes. Thousands, tens of thousands of lads and men killed in the war and this one had to survive. She’d hardly been able to believe it when his father had told her that a mistake had been made. He had been badly injured, Dr Benson had said, and with his identification gone and James being in a coma for weeks, he’d been shipped off to one of the German camps and that had been that. When his identification had been found amid the carnage of what had been men before the shells had hit, the obvious had been assumed. She had wanted to knock the smile off his father’s face but she’d restrained herself, knowing what she said or did could influence the way this thing went. And it would go the way she determined - by, it would, or she’d die in the attempt. She didn’t intend her upstart of a daughter to come up smelling of roses.
‘I have something to tell you, James,’ she said very softly, wondering if she should reach out and put her hand on his but deciding that was taking things too far.
‘Tell me?’ She saw his skin turn a shade greyer. ‘About Abby? Is she all right?’
‘Oh, she’s well enough, don’t fret about that.’ She chose a tone in which sorrow blended with embarrassment. ‘It’s just that - oh, I don’t know how to tell you! She wrote to say she’s getting wed this very week.’
‘Married?’ He put his head forward as if he hadn’t heard her clearly. He couldn’t take it in.
‘Yes, in fact it’s probably done and dusted by now. You know she went to Yorkshire as a land girl, to a farm? Your father told you about that?’
He nodded, just the slightest inclination of his head.
‘Well, the son of the farmer and Abby . . . She thought you were dead, of course, you understand that. I’m so sorry, James.’
‘I - It can’t be.’
‘It’s a beautiful farm, I understand, although I’ve never been, but she’s got Clara there with her. I can’t remember if I told your da that, but Abby took her after Raymond went. You know my husband passed away?’ She didn’t wait for an answer but continued, ‘And they took to Clara right away. But of course she’s so much like Abby that’s not surprising. So the pair of them are safe and happy, which is everything in these terrible times, isn’t it, and of course Abby marrying into wealthy farming stock means Clara will be set up when she’s old enough to think about settling down.’ She hesitated for the merest moment. ‘I thought it would be best to explain things face to face rather than tell your father. I hope you think that was the right decision. ’
‘What? Oh yes. Yes.’
‘And of course it has been, what, three years? You can’t blame her for making a new life.’
He ran his tongue round the inside of his lips. This was his worst nightmare come true. How often had he tortured himself, wondering if she was with someone before he’d reminded himself it was Abby he was talking about. His Abby. She loved him and he loved her and it was a lifetime thing for both of them. But she’d thought he was dead. He hadn’t known he’d been given up for dead until recently. Suddenly it made everything worthless - the escape from the camp and the beatings and brutality he’d endured in that hellhole, even when he’d been struggling with injuries which should have killed him, the weeks of endless walking in the dead of night when two in their party of five escapees had died of hypothermia and starvation.
He had to make an enormous effort to speak. ‘Could ... could I still have her address, please? I’d like to write, for old times’ sake.’ He didn’t know if he would write, he admitted silently. He needed to think things through somewhere quiet. But if he got the address now, at least it was an option if he felt he wanted to. He wouldn’t be able to face coming back here again.
Nora’s voice was very gentle when she said, ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea, James, and I don’t think you will when you’ve had time to think about it. I know this must be a terrible shock for you, but you are not the man you were and she’s not the girl she was. Three years is a long time, even without the war and everything you’ve endured. And she is a farmer’s wife now. Everything is different. If you contact her or go to see her, her husband might not like it; in fact he’s bound to resent it, knowing you were engaged once.’
‘He knows about me?’
Nora inclined her head. ‘And men can be very jealous,’ she said softly, ‘even though there would be no reason, not now. It wouldn’t be fair to Abby. You must see that. Far better to leave things as they are. She’s made a new life and you will too, I’m sure of that.’ She had interjected a bracing note and now stood up, her mug in her hand. ‘Would you like more tea?’
He felt a roaring in his ears, the same sensation that overcame him when his mind went dizzying away from him. Sometimes he went back into a past which was much more real to him than his present world, losing an hour at a time as he relived horrors. The doctors had said he had to apply mind over matter and that it would pass, he had to keep employing his will to keep his mind in the present and only the present. There would be a time, he’d been assured, when he could think of everything that had happened without bitterness and hatred. He had almost laughed in their faces when they had said that. But they were right about one thing, he had to exercise control and never more than now in front of Abby’s mother. But she had been kind, he had to give her that. Unease stirred. Too kind?
Nora saw the change in his face, the flicker of disbelief. She kept her voice easy when she said, ‘Of course it’s no secret Abby and I never got on, and I have to say that lonely though I feel here since poor Raymond died, I wouldn’t want her back. We’d only argue.’ She smiled a sad smile. ‘But the war does bring one’s values into perspective. She is my daughter after all, flesh of my flesh, and with Wilbert away fighting I’m so glad two of my bairns are out of harm’s way.’ She stared at him. Had she said enough? Dare she play her trump card or would he take her up on it? If he did, she’d just have to brazen it out somehow, say she couldn’t find the address or something similar.
She took a deep breath. ‘Look, lad, I can’t tell you what to do. If you really want to risk upsetting her marriage and everything that’d entail, I’ll give you the address but, like I said, three years changes people.’
She loved someone else. She’d
married
someone else. Had she ever really loved him like he’d loved her? James knew he was being unfair but the disappointment and sense of loss was so acute he didn’t know how he could bear it. He stood up, thrusting his mug towards Nora instead of placing it on the table.
‘Thank you for the tea, Mrs Vickers.’ He had to get out before he started to cry. That would be the ultimate indignity, to bawl in front of this woman. ‘Perhaps you’d remember me to Abby sometime.’
‘Aye, I’ll do that, lad.’ Nora felt a surge of joy and triumph which made her turn her back and put the mugs on the hob, frightened he’d read what was in her face.
She followed James out of the room, and he didn’t stop to put his coat on before he opened the front door. ‘Goodbye, Mrs Vickers,’ he said flatly, barely conscious of a woman entering the house next door as he stepped onto the pavement.
‘Goodbye, lad.’ Nora held her breath as she watched James walk away, head bowed. When no figure suddenly re-emerged from next door, she breathed a sigh of relief. Who would have thought her dear sister would have chosen that precise moment to come home? But even if Audrey had glanced at him, she doubted her sister would have equated the gaunt, middle-aged-looking scarecrow of a man with the young handsome suitor James had once been. She herself would never have recognised him if she’d passed him in the street, that was for sure.
She shut the door quietly and then leaned against it for a few moments, smiling widely. She had done it, and it had all been much easier than she had anticipated.
Still smiling, she walked through into the kitchen and made a fresh pot of tea, allowing herself two slices of cake to celebrate.
Audrey hadn’t even glanced sideways as the door to Nora’s house opened. Since Christmas she hadn’t seen hide nor hair of her sister and that was the way she wanted it.
She walked straight through to the kitchen, past the now empty front room, and as always when she entered the house, she thought, I’m glad I made it up with Da before he went. She hadn’t been able to talk to the old man for a few days after the revelation about Nora and Ivor, but then one day she had broken down when she was handing him his tea and he had held out his arms and cuddled her as if she was a bairn again. And after that everything had been all right, between them at least.
Her mouth hardening, Audrey slung her coat on a chair and set about bringing the glowing embers in the range to a decent blaze. Once that was accomplished she put the kettle on the hob and stuck two jacket potatoes into the ashes of the fire where they would bake slowly. She would eat hers before Ivor got home, leaving his and a tin of Spam ready for him when he got in. And he was lucky to get that, she told herself bitterly.
Working fulltime at the munitions factory had proved very tiring in comparison to the four hours she’d done before her father had died, but overall she liked the company and the lack of time to think. The foul language and blue jokes which were commonplace among certain of the women as well as the men she’d more or less got used to now, along with having to wear mannish dungarees and a headsquare turban all day.
When she had told them at the factory she could do fulltime, the manager had asked if she’d consider the job of putting the caps on the detonators of bullets. It was classed as highly dangerous and the eight pounds per week she would earn reflected this, but that wasn’t what had persuaded her to agree. It was that the management advised such workers to wear no jewellery, not even wedding rings, and that suited Audrey’s state of mind exactly.
She mashed the tea, drinking two large cups without milk or sugar. She’d lost nearly three stone since Christmas, and she liked her new figure. She had let herself go when she had got married, she realised that now. Perhaps it was what happiness and contentment did to you.
The thought brought hot tears stinging to the back of her eyes and she stood up sharply. ‘None of that, Audrey lass,’ she said out loud. ‘He’s not worth it.’ She squared her shoulders before walking through to the hall and up the stairs to the bedroom in which she now slept alone.
The night it had all come out she had bolted the bedroom door against Ivor, and the next evening he’d come home from work to find all his things moved into the boys’ room.
Audrey opened the wardrobe which now held only her clothes and stared at the contents. Some of the women she worked with complained constantly about getting by on sixty-six clothing coupons a year, but considering she’d done without all her life to make sure Ivor and the lads were clothed decently, she had never had it so good as the last months. With a previously undreamed of amount of money in her hand each week the black market had become easily accessible to her, and dress materials or actual clothes could always be had for a price.
She selected a dress she had bought the week before and threw it on the bed. She took off her working clothes, a short-sleeved jumper and dungarees, and in her bra and knickers reached up to the top shelf of the wardrobe and brought down a bottle of Scotch and a small glass. She poured herself a measure, then sat down at her dressing table and surveyed herself in the old spotted mirror. She had never tasted strong liquor until the last few months and at first, when the other women from work had introduced her to it on one of their nights out, she hadn’t been sure if she liked the taste.
Just her luck she’d developed a liking for it when it cost the earth, she thought now, staring at the bottle which had trebled in price to one pound and six shillings since the war. Still, she hadn’t bought this particular bottle. It had come via Hank, a GI she knew, along with two packets of nylon stockings and some bars of chocolate. She found the alcohol perked her up before Jed came home from his pal’s house - the mother looked after Jed once school finished and gave him his dinner for a small fee.
She reached for a slip and pulled it over her head, followed by the dress. She didn’t bother with stockings; she would change again later before she went to meet the girls once Jed was in bed, and that’s when she’d make up her face and fiddle with her hair.
She finished the whisky in one gulp and squared her shoulders as though preparing to do battle, even though Ivor wasn’t home yet. But that was how she felt immediately she set foot in this house, that it was a battleground.