Authors: Annie Groves
‘He’d been lodging with me for about three months when he said that he was going to leave. Wouldn’t look at me at all, he wouldn’t, when he told me. I can see him now … lovely hair he had, and the bluest eyes. Said as how he couldn’t stay, not feeling how he did about me. Of course I felt the same about him. Three months we’d been living under the same roof. I knew him better than I’d ever known Bert, and I knew how I felt about him as well, but like you’ve just said now, Sally, him and me both thought that it wasn’t right that we should feel the way we did, with Bert having been killed. There was a lot of chaps that came back from that war feeling bad about being alive on account of all them that didn’t come back, and
Peter, well, he was the kind that thought a lot about things.
‘He went and had a talk with the vicar. What he said to him I never knew, but the next thing was that the vicar had found him somewhere else to lodge.
‘We’d agreed that he’d move himself out whilst I was working at the hospital, but then, well, there I was in the middle of having me dinner with the other nurses when suddenly I just stood up and said that I was going home.
‘Ran all the way from Mill Road, I did – I was only a slim little thing in those days. When I got home I knew straight off that he’d gone. I could sense it even before I unlocked the back door. I sat down in me kitchen and cried me eyes out like me heart was broken, which of course it was. And then I heard this knock on the back door and when I went to open it, he was there. He’d got on the bus, he told me, but he’d only gone one stop, and had to get off and come back.
‘Three weeks, we had together, and they were the most wonderful and precious weeks of my life, Sally. Of course the vicar came round and gave us both what for, but by then I’d got me courage up and I wasn’t having it. Me and Peter had as much right to be happy as anyone else, I reckoned, and I didn’t think my Bert would have begrudged me that happiness even if his mam had been telling everyone that I was no better than I should be for taking up with someone else.
‘All sorts of plans, we made; he had such dreams.
He went over to Yorkshire for an interview with a school so that we could have a fresh start …’ Doris shook her head, plainly battling with her emotions.
‘I never saw him again. He came down with the Spanish flu, and what with him being weak from the amputation and everything … well, instead of coming back to me he let them send for a doctor over there, and he said he wasn’t fit to travel, and then the next thing I knew the vicar was telling me that he’d died.’
‘Oh, Doris …’
‘Aye, it was a bad time for me … Without Frank to look after I don’t think I could have gone on. I miss Peter still, Sally, I really do. But what I’m trying to say to you, lass, is that through all the years I’ve had without him, at least I’ve had the comfort of those weeks we had together in the way that nature intended a man and a woman to be together. I know there are those that would say what we did was wrong – we hadn’t had any church vows, after all – but if you were to ask me I’d say it would have been more wrong not to do what we did.’
Sally couldn’t find the words to express what she was feeling, and not just because of her astonishment that Doris, whom everyone thought of as so rigidly strait-laced, should have done such a thing.
‘See, Sally, what I’m trying to tell you is that some things are more important than what the rest of the world thinks we should do. You say
that you feel ashamed of yourself because you’ve fallen in love with the doctor when you’ve only just been widowed, but how would you feel if you were ever to be in my shoes? What I think is that at times like this, with a war on an’ all, Sally, folk like you and the doctor what have a chance to be happy, should take that happiness, because you never know what’s waiting round the corner. Sometimes there’s precious little happiness to be had in life, and it seems to me that it’s like being wasteful and throwing away something that shouldn’t be wasted, when you don’t take that happiness when it’s offered to you. It’s like God’s giving you both the chance of a bit of happiness – yes, and your little lads as well, – and you’re throwing it back in His face, and that’s never right, is it?’ Cos what I reckon is that some things are meant to be, Sally, and that’s that. Of course,’ she added more briskly, ‘if you don’t love the doctor, then that’s different … But if you do … well, you have a little think about what I’ve said.’
The room was silent now, the only sound that of their breathing and the quiet tick of the clock. Wordlessly they looked at one another, two women separated by a generation but reaching across that separation to share the same knowledge.
‘I love him so much, Doris,’ Sally said at last. ‘It scares me half to death feeling like this.’
‘I know, lass,’ Doris told her gently.
‘Oh, Doris.’
Tears welled up in Sally’s eyes and the next
minute she was in Doris’s arms, the older woman hugging her comfortingly.
Shaking her head, Sally released herself. ‘I don’t know what I’d have done wi’out you in me life, Doris, I really don’t.’
They exchanged looks that were slightly embarrassed but wholly understanding, two strong women, who were both more used to keeping their own counsel than sharing their deepest feelings.
‘I’d better be on me way now,’ Doris announced determinedly, signalling both a return to their normal familiar relationship, and a sign that the time for confidences was over, ‘otherwise Molly will be worrying.’
Taking her hint, Sally made no reference to what Doris had told her. She walked with her to the back door, and opened it for her.
But then, as Doris stepped through it, Sally reached out and touched her arm, telling her emotionally, ‘I wish I could have met him – your Peter.’
‘Aye, Sally, I wish that, an’ all.’ Sally could see the sadness in Doris’s eyes. ‘He was a lovely man.’
‘Grey? You in there?’
‘Yes,’ Sam called back, shivering as the trickle of water from the shower suddenly turned icy.
‘Well, get a move on. Captain wants to see you – pronto.’
Sally grimaced as she tried to rub some warmth into her cold flesh. Her towel was still damp from the morning, but she had got so muddy and wet
driving the major from one bomb side to another that she had had no option but to have a shower. Her towel was beginning to smell slightly rank from overuse, but Sam knew there was no point in trying to get it laundered until the end of the week. Rules were rules, and one clean towel per week was all they were allowed.
Her clothes felt stiff with cold and slightly damp as she dressed as hurriedly as she could. Her shoes were wet inside – again – and she had no spare dry socks for the morning. But these small discomforts were nothing compared with the real reason for her current misery. How was it possible for a person to be so happy one minute and then to have that happiness torn from them the next? What did the captain want her for? If it was to tell her that she was being transferred somewhere else would she feel as glad as she ought to feel, or would she instead want to plead with her superior officer to be left where she was, in order to be close to Johnny?
‘Private Grey reporting as requested,’ Sam told the new warrant officer, as she saluted smartly outside the captain’s office.
‘Stand easy, Private,’ the warrant officer instructed her, knocking on the captain’s door to announce her.
‘Good news, Private Grey,’ the captain informed Sam without preamble when she had been shown into her office. ‘Your father telephoned earlier to say that your brother is safe and well.’
‘Russell is
safe
! I mean, yes, ma’am,’ Sam managed to correct herself.
‘Apparently your brother’s Lancaster was damaged on the way back from a mission but he was able land it on a small airfield close to the coast, where he and the crew repaired the damage. They had to wait for the fog to clear before they could take off again, and of course they couldn’t use radio communication in case they alerted the enemy to their presence.’
‘He’s always had the luck of the dev— I beg your pardon, ma’am.’
‘That’s all right, Grey. I too have an older brother who seems to have more than his fair share of our family good luck.’ Was that really a twinkle she could see in the captain’s eyes? ‘Just as well really that they do, in these times. Dismissed.’
‘Where’s Hazel?’ Sam demanded as she rushed into the dormitory several minutes later.
‘She’s gone for walk, she was feeling a bit low,’ May answered. ‘Try the chapel.’
The small chapel, which had been used by the school during its occupancy of the building, was tucked away down a long corridor on the ground floor. The house had apparently been built on the site of a much older dwelling, and since that dwelling had contained a private chapel, it had been decided to incorporate this within the new building, to be reached via a specially constructed windowless corridor, its walls half panelled and half covered in a sombre dark green wallpaper. Old-fashioned candle sconces still provided the only form of illumination for the corridor. Because
of the war and the need to use candles sparingly, only every third sconce contained a candle and then only one where the sconce provided for two, so that long shadows haunted the passageway no matter what the time of day.
Sam wasn’t overkeen on using the corridor with its darkness and silence, so she hurried down it as fast as she could, focusing on what her news was going to mean to Hazel, and what it would have meant to her had she been in the same position. Just as she reached the chapel she stopped abruptly. Life was so precious and so fragile, just like love. She put her hand up to her chest to ward off the spear of pain that had lanced through her.
If anything should happen to Johnny, she wouldn’t even have the right to grieve. How could she live the rest of her life not knowing where he was or even
if
he still was? She loved him so much. But he did not love her, she reminded herself.
The door to the chapel was always left open, and although it was no longer used for any religious services there was still some sense of peace and prayer about the small panelled room, with its arched ceiling and simple altar.
Someone, no one knew who other than that it had been one of the first groups of ATS to be billeted here, had started what had become a tradition in placing in the chapel a lighted candle that was never allowed to go out, as a symbol of hope. Very often one would come here and discover that several candles were burning: silent witnesses to the hopes and prayers of some of their number for loved ones.
As she stood in the open doorway, Sam could see Hazel in one of the pews, her head bent in prayer, Russell’s scarf, which he had given her the last time they had been together, clasped tightly in her hands.
What must it feel like to be praying for the life of the man one loved, not knowing what his fate might be, clinging to a hope so small and so frail that it was pitiful? Sam hoped she would never have to know.
Hazel was getting up. Although she was not particularly religious Sam waited in the doorway, feeling that to rush to Hazel with the good news would somehow not be right. So many people must have come here in hope and fear. You could feel it in the air and the silence. This was a place for humility in the face of terrible things, a place for acknowledging the heavy weight of human grief rather than celebrating human happiness. It commanded that there be silent respect for the fragility of those who came here to light a candle to ease the darkness of their despair. Gusting giddy careless laughter might blow out that light.
Sam waited until Hazel reached the doorway and then touched her arm gently.
‘Dad telephoned,’ she told her. ‘It’s good news. Russell is safe and well.’
‘Oh, Sam!’ Radiance illuminated Hazel’s face. ‘Oh, Sam!’ she repeated emotionally, as they stepped into the corridor. ‘I hardly let myself believe it. Tell me that I’m not dreaming.’
‘You aren’t dreaming,’ Sam assured her, ‘and it is true.’
‘Oh, thank God … thank God.’
Tears were running down Hazel’s face and Sam could feel her own eyes filling as well.
‘Whilst I was praying for him I felt so close to him. Perhaps he was trying to tell me that he was all right. Love is such a precious thing, Sam, but it makes us so vulnerable. I don’t know how I could have borne it if I had lost him. One must, of course, but to endure such a pain …’
Sam had to turn away from her so that Hazel couldn’t see her own pain. It hurt so much, contrasting Hazel’s joy and relief with her own despair. But then Russ loved Hazel, and Johnny did not love her.
She turned towards the corridor wall, and shaped her fingers to make shadows dance along the wall, making Hazel laugh.
‘My father used to do that when I was a little girl. Do some more,’ she encouraged her, laughing even more when Sam obliged.
At least she could make people laugh, even if she couldn’t make Johnny love her, Sam told herself as she tried to force her unhappiness away.
Hazel was still laughing when they reached their sitting room, insisting that Sam showed the other girls what she had been showing her.
One thing led to an other and before too long Sam was larking about, persuading May to let her show her what a good gymnast she was by leapfrogging over her and then pretending that she’d got stuck.
‘Oh, stop it, Sam, please,’ Alice spluttered. ‘I’ve
laughed that much my sides are aching. You’re a real tonic, you are, and no mistake.’
A tonic for them, maybe, but whilst she was laughing on the outside and playing the clown, inside her heart was weeping tears of loneliness and loss as it grieved for Johnny.
It had grown so late whilst Sally waited for Alex to return that she had dropped off to sleep in her chair a couple of times, woken by the sound of the wind buffeting the house, and the ache in her limbs from the awkward angle of her sleep. Alex had been gone for so long that she was beginning to wonder if he was staying away deliberately. She knew what she had said to him had distressed him. She hadn’t wanted to distress him but she hadn’t been able to think past her own feelings of guilt until Doris had made her see that her duty now lay to the living and the future and that for their sakes she must put aside her guilt.