Authors: Maggie Ford
‘Nothing’s going to happen to you, son,’ he had told him sternly, but who could be that certain?
‘But it’s wartime,’ Lilian’s voice cut in. ‘They don’t know what lies ahead of them.’
‘It was wartime when we married,’ he reminded her gruffly.
Nothing had happened to him, had it, apart from a dose of mustard gas. Left his chest weak, but he’d survived. And so would Matthew.
The taxi going out of sight, he turned back to the registry office with the others to gather up the few belongings they had left behind when they’d gone to wave the happy pair on their way.
Lilian’s lips had tightened. She had no wish to be reminded of that utterly mad escapade of hers when she had been young, leaving service to get married to a man going off to join up. She, who had always kept her emotions in check, doing such a headstrong thing! She hated being reminded of it. ‘That was entirely different,’ was all she could find to say.
‘Absolutely.’ Leonard gave a playful laugh. ‘But we might not have married had I not swept you off your feet.’
‘Fiddlesticks!’ she shot at him, leaving him to smile after her as she marched ahead of him up the steps of the registry office to retrieve her hat that went with the smart suit she had bought with almost a year’s worth of clothing coupons to see her silly, lovesick son married.
In the taxi, Matthew bent towards his wife and tenderly kissed her. He did it, not just because he was in love with her, but to reassure himself of their future together. He badly needed that reassurance.
In the registry office he had stood beside her, smiling, feeling hot and sticky in his khaki uniform as with one eye on the large round clock on the wall he received the felicitations of those gathered there.
Susan had been dewy-eyed the whole time, overcome by the joy of her new estate, the centre of attraction. Her sisters had wept obligingly, her mother copiously, as though her dear daughter were being whisked away to Devil’s Island rather than wedded bliss. Friends and family on both sides had kissed Susan and shaken Matthew’s hand before wandering off to try the tiny, practically fruitless wedding cake Susan’s mother had made, rations not stretching to anything more. Its much larger, thinly iced cardboard cover was impressively decorated to emulate the fine wedding cakes of pre-war years.
Susan’s mother had looked overdressed in fluffy pink beside his own mother in a tasteful beige suit, yet it was for his mother rather than Susan’s that he felt somehow more embarrassed; the way she stayed aloof from Susan’s mother as though she were a lesser being.
His father had been different again. He stood talking to Mr Hopkins, oblivious of the man’s rusty best suit, his tobacco-stained teeth when he smiled, the rolled cigarette hanging wetly from his lips.
There had only been Matthew’s parents on his side, and Bob Howlett as his best man, the rest Susan’s, relatives, friends, workmates, all laughing and gabbling away in incomprehensible Birmingham accents, filling the tiny room with noise and tobacco smoke. It had been a relief to get away, to be alone with Susan at last, his kiss in the taxi a promise of that to come in the small one-bedroomed flat he had found for them, their own little love nest.
Susan returned his kiss, then broke away, pouting a little. ‘I wish we weren’t going to have to live in those two tiddly little rooms.’
‘Why?’ He grinned down at her. Pouting, she looked so pretty, her sweet red lips that he wanted to kiss again pushed out invitingly.
‘I was just thinking, Matthew, you coming into that trust your dad was talking about, I mean, surely, couldn’t we have got something better?’
‘You liked them when we found them,’ he told her, frowning. ‘You called them adorable, cosy, our own little love nest.’
‘Yes, but that was before …’
His frown deepened as she paused. ‘Before what, darling?’
‘Well, before …’ She tutted, shrugging. ‘Oh, nothing. But we will get something better in time, won’t we?’
‘Yes, of course.’ Matthew’s brow cleared. He was being stupid about the money coming to him, having for so long conditioned himself against the help his mother, almost selfishly, tried to give him. Even this trust seemed somehow tainted with her influence although he knew that too was stupid. And why should Susan be the loser because of his ridiculous obsession? Whatever he had was hers as well, and he shouldn’t be selfish in his feelings about it.
‘As soon as we get sorted out, I’ll look for somewhere you really like,’ he promised and was rewarded by her instantly snuggling against him, her surge of joy rippling through him as well.
The taxi began to slow to his directions at a row of small terraced houses behind spiked railings, with narrow patches of barren gardens in front. Worn steps led up to the sepia glass-panelled doors with names above each one: Rose Villa, Acacia Villa, Magnolia Villa, the taxi finally drawing up outside the one called Laburnum Villa.
The driver leapt out, opened the taxi door for them and, accepting Matthew’s generous tip, called good luck before getting back into his vehicle and rattling away to his next fare.
In the bright sunshine they gazed at their new abode. The owner of the house, a Mrs Robertson, had recently lost her husband. It was the first time, she’d said when Matthew had gone there, that she had ever let rooms, and from her nervousness and the modest rent she’d quoted, he had almost been tempted to offer her more, but a corporal’s pay didn’t stretch to such gallantry. At the time he had been labouring under his ridiculous aversion to using any of the trust his grandfather had left him. He had kept his mouth shut and guiltily counted his good luck at the poor woman’s expense.
Susan’s hand tightened convulsively on his arm. He understood. It might be a modest start but she was still excited at the prospect of entering their first-ever home, closing their door on the world and being alone together.
He patted her hand encouragingly. ‘We’ll find something much better later. But today’s our wedding day. Tomorrow I have to be back in camp, so let’s make the best of today.’
This wasn’t how it should have been. There should be a honeymoon, somewhere on the coast, somewhere really nice, Bournemouth or Torquay, a lovely hotel. There should have been a church wedding that had taken at least six months to prepare, and a good reception, with lots of money spent on it. There should have been a nice house awaiting them, the furniture bought and sitting inside to welcome them. Bloody war. Bloody Army. Bloody way of having to live …
Mrs Robertson was waiting for them. She had given him a key when he paid the deposit money, but motherly soul that she was, she had been waiting for them and now opened the door as they mounted the five shallow steps.
‘Come in, dears. Do come in.’ Her voice was high, a little weak, a little weepy; that of a woman in her late sixties still not yet adjusted to the loss of a husband after a long married life.
‘Now you must treat this place like your own,’ she continued, following them to the narrow flight of stairs, eager for conversation. Her main aim in letting her two upstairs rooms had been to secure a little company. ‘Don’t ever think you have to stand on ceremony now. Come and go whenever you want. It’s nice to know there’s someone else in the house besides me. There’s a little gas ring and a portable stove upstairs, as you know, and there’s a basin in the bedroom. My dear George had it put in when we had the bedroom. But of course, I sleep downstairs now. If you’d like a cup of tea now, my kettle is on the boil …’
‘It’s very nice of you, but no thank you,’ Matthew cut in, trying not to sound rude. All he wanted was Susan to himself. They’d have so little time together as it was without sitting in their landlady’s kitchen drinking tea and possibly listening to her life with her George, dear as he must have been to her.
He could feel the woman’s gaze following them wistfully up the stairs, her thoughts no doubt on when she’d been their age with all her life before her. He felt a surge of bitterness shoot through him. All her life before her – did he and Susan have all theirs before them, say forty years of marriage as she’d had, or would theirs be cut short by war? A quick, easy calculation, done automatically, told him that the woman had been married before the last war, but her husband had been lucky and survived it. Would he be as lucky surviving this one? A shudder passed through him and was gone as, reaching the little landing, he shrugged it away and opened the door to the larger room that had once been a bedroom, now their living room.
Susan paused on the threshold looking in, not attempting to enter. ‘It’s smaller than I thought it’d be.’
‘But it’s ours. At least for a while.’
He made his voice sound light and jaunty, needing to brighten up. Flipping open the door next to it, he lifted her and bore her inside, kicking the door closed behind him, with her clinging to him, any dejection she might have had dispersing. In one easy movement he tossed her on to the double bed that almost filled this even tinier room. The bedsprings bounced madly under the impact of their light burden.
‘That’s your place, Mrs Ward,’ he announced firmly, and while she lay breathless and laughing, he sat on the foot of the bed, yanking off boots, then socks, battle blouse, shirt, trousers, leaving the clothes draped untidily over the brass bedrail, one or two items already falling on to the floor in his haste as he flung himself down beside her. ‘And this is mine. Now – we’ll start on you.’
‘Matthew!’ she squealed as he made to get her out of her suit jacket. ‘You’ll rip the buttons off. It’s a new suit.’
‘Well, you do it.’
‘No, I want you to do it. But mind the buttons.’
With her he romped and laughed. With her help he rid her of one garment after another, she making a play at struggling, he at Victorian mastery, until finally she lay naked beneath him, his wife, ready for his demands, but still laughing, the pair of them trying hard to keep the sound down away from the woman below.
‘I’ve one night with you, woman,’ Matthew hissed. ‘And I intend to make the most of it. So behave yourself and do your duty. Now, lie back.’
After love stolen previously in secret, purported to be all the sweeter for that, this love was the most wonderful thing he had ever known. It must have been for her too, for she complied without any of the earlier tension he had always felt in her, the desperation of her acceptance of him. Together, man and wife, it would be the first of a glorious uniting, quite beautiful and satisfying. What more could either of them, or anyone, want than this?
He opened his eyes. He must have dozed. Sunlight was touching one wall of the bedroom; the sun had moved round just a little, so it was still afternoon. He couldn’t have slept long.
Turning his head leisurely to look at Susan, he studied her. She lay with eyes closed, vulnerable to his scrutiny so that he felt vaguely guilty in taking advantage of it. Deep in sleep, her breathing sounded gentle; her dark lashes lay against the pale cheeks, lips just slightly thinned as though in a smile of contentment. Matthew watched the quiet rise and fall of her breasts, small and firm with pale nipples, her flesh stretched taut as she lay full length, legs outstretched, the soft darkness rising between her thighs such that he wanted to bury his face there.
He felt his breath come shuddering with a longing to make love to her again. It wasn’t purely a physical need, but it still seemed he hadn’t been near enough to her even then – could never be near enough. No man is an island? Bloody hell! Of course he was. Trapped and isolated by thoughts impossible to explain, not even to this girl who had become his very life, whom he had this day married. He might try for a lifetime to describe to her how he felt, but she would never really know what it was he was trying to say. In turn could he ever really know her mind? He could bury himself inside her in a brief moment of love, tell himself they were one, yet he would still not know. They were two people, each with their separate sensations. It was that, he guessed, which really disturbed him, that they couldn’t truly ever be one in the sense he wanted – in a sense even he couldn’t understand. Suddenly angry at what he could not define, he swore softly and closed his eyes, perhaps the easier to unravel this unsettling need.
Her hand brushing lightly against his thigh brought him suddenly awake. The sun had moved round, now playing on their naked bodies. He glanced at his watch. He had slept away another hour – another precious hour lost in this one day together, and again he felt angered by the thoughts that had plagued him, by fate, by the powers that would soon tear him away from Susan. If only this moment could last forever, the sun hang in its present position, its light remaining warm and luxurious on their bodies.
Susan’s hand moved, caressing, not sensuously but possessively, claiming him as her own, reassuring herself of his nearness. The touch brought him back to reality. In the morning he must leave her, go back to the army that had first claim on him.
He stared up at the ceiling, an intense hatred seething inside him of those who could push him this way and that, a puppet manipulated by the strings pulled by some faceless power that had for this one day allowed the strings to dangle and leave him thinking himself free, only to pluck him up in the midst of his happiness to bend him again to obedience. One small jerk on a thread could tug him from this girl he had made his wife; another thread jerked would send him headlong into battle to fight not for his own life but for a continuance of a way of life. And if he should fall, the strings would be severed and he, like the toy he was, would be cast aside, the war going on without him, the peace when it came not for him to see.
Today he had been shown something so sweet, so wonderful; to have it all snatched away now came like a bitter taste in his mouth.
He sat up abruptly, went over and fumbled in the breast pocket of his battle blouse for a cigarette to calm his thoughts. At least moving about had dulled that sensation of panic he had felt. Susan had gone back to sleep. That was if she had woken at all: her hand on his thigh had likely been a purely instinctive gesture. He sat on the edge of the bed and watched her contented slumber. Susan lived for the day. She bent with the breeze, like a slender sapling and harboured no thoughts she couldn’t understand. He envied her contentment.