The Very Thought of You (25 page)

The blood was thudding so hard in Anna’s ears that she thought they must hear her. She wanted to climb out and cheerily apologize for eating the biscuits, but they had locked the door. She would have to remain hidden and make sure she didn’t cough. She held her breath, terrified.

It was then that she heard soft murmurs, sighs, quickened breathing, the creak of the bed – sounds she could barely understand, and yet she knew they were secret.

Anna sat shaking inside the wardrobe with her head in her hands. Never before had she felt such shame. She did not want to eavesdrop, she wanted to cry out – her overwound body was screaming with cramp. But she sat close, tight, furled in a small ball, waiting for it all to be over.

She moved her head round, and through the crack caught a glimpse of white naked shoulders against the bed. Quickly she looked away, but still heard strange sounds – soft private cries she had never heard before.

She buried herself there for some twenty minutes, feeling faint, sick, trapped. But then it was over. The lovers dressed, without speaking much. She heard the door being unlocked, and out they went.

Anna waited there in silence, still not daring to move. Until at last she unwound herself from the wardrobe and fled. She ran down the corridor and outside through the gardens, she ran along the grass terrace, and all the way to her favourite clump of aspens. The trees swayed in the breeze, and soothed her with the deeper, calmer air of life beyond people.

Mr Ashton and Miss Weir? Could it really be so? She would not dare to tell anyone what she had heard.

* * *

For Thomas and Ruth, this was just one encounter in the passion to which they were now both bound. For each of them, every day now brought the hope of touching the other. They only ever had snatched moments together, always in daylight, in that stripped-bare room – but they still thought themselves in heaven.

For two people who have longed for each other so dearly, thought Thomas, there could never be a joy so complete as the touch of skin against skin, fingers tracing faces, the warmth of an embrace. What had been so external with Elizabeth was now, with Ruth, charged with all the passion of true longing. Eyes finding each other, every inward part of him converging with her, their bodies unfolding into souls, both of them entwined in this private rapture of mutual love.

The discovery of an empty maid’s room, to which Ruth could wheel him without difficulty, was a gift. It was he who first realized that they might find a moment’s privacy there, and he directed Ruth there.

When they reached the room, they found a key in the lock, ready and waiting. Thomas locked the door from the inside.

The space between them was electric. This was the first time they had been safely alone together, and the silence hummed, as if the air had been struck with a tuning fork. Ruth closed the window shutters, then turned to Thomas; their intimacy began.

Their lovemaking continued, in the same room, whenever it was possible, with a steady increase in daring for both of them. They graduated onto the creaky single bed and felt each other, diffidently at first. Until the day of consummation. Thereafter, their desire grew frank and uninhibited.

He had already told her that he could not father children, so they never worried about contraception.

43

Roberta was careful to make sure that nobody could keep track of her comings and goings with Billy in London. Her work pattern was erratic: sometimes she took day shifts, at other times she worked through the evenings. Meanwhile, she kept up polite contact with Lewis’s parents, on occasional Sunday visits. She was fond of them.

“As soon as Lewis comes home, we’ll celebrate,” she said, and she meant it; she was looking forward to resuming family life, she missed all its rituals.

But for the moment, she drew solace from her time with Billy. As was usual on a Tuesday evening, she posted a letter to her daughter, then made her way to Notting Hill, where he was waiting in their flat. She made an omelette for both of them, with eggs saved for the occasion. Then they made
love languidly, and drifted into sleep before he had even withdrawn from her.

But Roberta woke abruptly before midnight. There was the familiar sound of sirens and bombers, in a distant part of London.

“We need to go into the shelter,” she said, rousing Billy.

He tumbled out of bed, and they set off for the cellar of their building. Billy was soon asleep once more on his camp bed, but Roberta was too much awake now. She had an interview with her boss first thing in the morning, and wanted to wear her best suit, which was hanging in the wardrobe at home. She would have to make an early start to retrieve it and change.

By two in the morning, she still could not sleep, and the bombing was receding. When she heard the all-clear siren, she stirred a half-conscious Billy to say that she was heading home, to have her clothes ready for the morning. Then she slipped out into the darkness.

It was a cloudy night, and there was still a distant rumble of anti-aircraft guns. But no German bombers over Kensington.

She walked down Notting Hill and headed towards Holland road. Why “
Holland
Road”, she wondered. What had it to do with Holland? She had passed this street so often, yet never before had she thought about its name.

Suddenly, a rogue plane buzzed through the clouds and, within moments, she heard a bomb exploding a few streets away. Panic seized her. She looked round for the nearest shelter, quickening her pace.

Another plane passed, and another. All heading somewhere else, but still frightening her. She could see no shelter as she hurried down the road, but she passed railings masking cellar steps.
I will have to knock on a stranger’s door
, she thought.

She ran down some steps and knocked on a basement door. No answer. The planes were still flying over.
Please, please, let me in
. She ran to the next house, and the next. No answer.

It was as she reached the basement door of the fourth house that she heard an eerie whine above her head, followed by a deafening crash.

When she came to, she could not move, though her head was free and she could crane it to either side. It took her a few minutes to realize that she wasn’t badly injured; just a throbbing left shoulder.

It’s a miracle I’m still alive
, she thought, wiggling her toes.
Alive, and in one piece. I’ll just have to wait until somebody digs me out.
“
Help!
” she called, and again, “
Help!
”

But there was no answer – nor could she hear any sound. And shouting made her splutter and choke with dust. She was completely buried in the front basement-well of a terraced house.

She assumed that any minute now she would hear cheery shouts, and gallant firefighters would pull her out with offers of milky tea. But no voices came. She realized that the fire engines must be over by the river warehouses. A few rogue bombs in Kensington could hardly attract a furry of firemen. And the house looked so deserted: perhaps the neighbours had assumed that nobody was at risk.

“
Help! Help!
” she cried, till she was hoarse, and with each yell she breathed in more dust and sucked away more air.

Claustrophobia began to suffocate her, and a terror that she might die when she could so easily be rescued. “
Help! Help me!
”

She thought of Billy, just up the road in the shelter. Lewis, in Egypt, preparing for another day in the Western Desert. And her daughter, asleep in her Yorkshire dormitory. All of
them oblivious to what might be her last hours in a random London street. She was not ready to finish her life – surely she could not be cut off so haphazardly?

The minutes seeped away, and a rising panic began to take hold of her stiffening body. Her lungs were heaving, and sweat poured down her face. She felt nauseous, with head spins. Would anybody find her? Of course they would. Soon she would hear pickaxes and shovels scooping away at the rubble. She must wait, just wait.

Yet still there was no sound.

Her panic came and went in waves. Would she see Anna again? Her beloved daughter whom she had so – abandoned. They could have been dancing down the street and laughing together – but all that would be denied to Anna now.

She wondered if this was God’s way of punishing her. A pang of regret made her cry out loud, but it was no use. Her own selfishness had ruined her daughter’s life. Anna’s eyes flashed before her. She would never have a mother to teach her female secrets, or praise her budding beauty.

How could she have let her daughter go? She should have visited Yorkshire more often, or found work and lodgings outside London for the pair of them. But she had given all that up, for what? For an affair which lit up her senses.

She had always thought there would be time to be with Anna, and eat ice cream with her again, in tall glasses—

The air was thickening now, and she was fading. As her life leaked away, she grew calmer. Lewis would return from the war, to look after their child, there was that hope. She thought of him with love, and prayed for his safety in Egypt. She ended her conscious life repeating all the litanies she could remember, praying rhythmically, concentrating all her strength on Anna, beseeching God to let her own love reach through the night to her sleeping daughter.

All the while, dust was clogging the air, until Roberta could breathe no more. After four hours trapped under the rubble, she was finally released from her anguish and gave up her ghost.

It was several days before she was uncovered, by which time her body was beginning to decompose. Her papers were found damp but intact in her jacket pocket. It was her neighbour, an elderly postman, who helped the police with their inquiries when they came knocking at her door.

The following Tuesday, Billy waited for her at their flat. When she did not turn up, at first he worried, but then he fell asleep assuming that she must have changed her work shift. The next day he tried to ring her at the BBC, where he heard the dreadful news.

44

When Miss Weir found Anna in the gardens and asked if she would follow her to Mr Ashton’s study, the girl worried at once that she was in trouble. Her stomach lurched as she wondered if she had been seen, after all, in the wardrobe with her tin of biscuits. But Miss Weir did not seem cross. She put a hand on her shoulder and steered her inside the house.

Behind the heavy door of his study, Thomas was waiting for Anna with a gloomy heart. Ruth had told him that the news would come best from him in the quiet and privacy of his study. But she was such a blithe child – he wished he could prolong her ignorance.

There was a light knock on his door.

“Come in!” he said, as gently as he could. The child appeared, her face expectant, nervous. He saw that she was
trembling, and remembered his own school fears, the headmaster, the canings.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “you’ve done nothing wrong, Anna.”

He moved his hand, as if he were about to speak, and yet no words came. Anna thought she could hear her own heart beating louder than the clock on his desk.

“I have some difficult news to tell you, and you will have to be brave.”

He could hear himself falling into phrases. Do I spin this out gently, he thought, or tell her straight off?

The child looked puzzled, distant – hardly there, really. A surge of tenderness swept through him.

“You’re a very special girl, my dear, I want you to remember that. You’re blessed with many gifts and you have a life waiting out there for you which will be – wonderful. You must look after yourself, and believe in yourself.”

Anna was thrilled and baffled in equal measure. She felt dizzy and important. Was he planning a scholarship for her?

“I’m, I’m afraid—” He looked down for a moment.

My father is dead, Anna thought with a thump. My father is dead in the desert.

He looked up.

“Your mother has died in an air raid on London—”

My mother has died. My mother.

Anna was so shocked by the surprise that she felt sharply winded, as if her lungs had been punctured.

“Oh,” she said. Her face opened wide. Mr Ashton looked up at her, his eyes serious and gentle – but it was as if she was seeing him through windows of thick uneven glass.

“Oh no,” she said, and began to shake, clenched hands, clenched knees, and her body rattling.

“I’m sorry,” He said, “I’m so sorry.”

She did not
feel
as if her mother was dead. She was immune to the meaning of his words. The news passed through her, and she simply obeyed a blank reflex not to collapse, not to let any tears spill over, just to be brave.

“How do you know?” she asked.

“What?”

“How do you know she is dead?”

He hesitated.

“They found her papers.”

“Where?” She needed to know, wanted a picture, details.

“She was – buried under a building which collapsed. Probably on her way home from work one night.”

“Do you think it hurt?”

“Oh no, I’m sure not – she would have died at once with no pain.”

Anna stood there shivering, hardly taking in the information. Mr Ashton, at least, was sitting down. But her whole face and body felt as exposed as a naked cliff face. She did not know what to do, or say, or where to put her hands or her eyes. She felt a smile creeping over her face, and had a terrible fear that she would laugh.

She shuddered instead. Mr Ashton held out a handkerchief – a large white handkerchief with ironed creases – and she pressed this to her face. She sank down in a chair, cupping her face in the handkerchief to stop Mr Ashton from seeing that she was giggling, not crying. She felt him come closer until he reached out to her shoulder. At the touch of his hand, her strange hilarity welled into tears, and she found herself sobbing rhythmically into the handkerchief.

For some minutes they stayed there together in silence. He kept his hand firmly on her shoulder until her tears subsided, but her face remained buried in his handkerchief.

What do you say to a girl who has just lost her mother? He could barely muster a word.