‘Nor me, Matron, in the normal way of things,’ Lois said, tears glistening in her own eyes. ‘But…oh God, Matron, I have never seen Carmel like this.’
‘What do you wish to do?’
‘I must stay with her for now,’ Lois said. ‘For if anything happens to her then I would never forgive myself.’
The matron knew she had to release Lois to help her friend and so she said, ‘Shall we say a week’s leave for now, just to see how things go?’
‘Oh, thank you, Matron.’
‘Not at all,’ the matron said. ‘After all, I know the girl too, don’t forget. When she is more herself, say I was asking after her.’
Lois was impressed by the matron’s understanding, but as she looked at Carmel’s prone form later, she did wonder if she would ever be able to pass on the matron’s message. The only signs that Carmel was alive was the shallow sound of her breathing and her eyes, which were wide open and fixed on the ceiling.
Lois sat by the bed, eased the locket from Carmel’s hand and laid it on the table beside the bed before covering that hand with her own, glad that Ruby said she would take care of the baby while Lois tried to break through to her friend.
‘Look at me, Carmel,’ Lois commanded, and when there was no response, Lois gave her hand a little shake and said sharply, ‘I know you can hear me, so stop this and look at me.’
Carmel wanted to say that was almost too much effort but it took more effort to talk, and perhaps if she turned her head to look at Lois, she would then leave her alone. When Lois looked into Carmel’s eyes fixed on hers, she was shaken by the level of pain she saw reflected in them. It was like looking into two pools of sorrow, and Lois knew Carmel wouldn’t feel better until she had released the tears lurking behind them, which were making her eyes glisten.
‘You really can’t go on like this, Carmel,’ she said quite sharply, sensing that Carmel needed to be shocked out of this trance-like state. There was no response and so she went on, ‘Do you think Paul would like you to go on like this?’
Carmel gasped at the sound of Paul’s name and, encouraged, Lois went on, ‘I am sure he would be impressed at you lying in bed, neglecting your child,
leaving her in the care of a neighbour and you not seeming to care whether she lives or dies.’
This time, Lois saw tears trickle from under Carmel’s eyelids and slide down her cheeks, but she didn’t let on she had seen. Instead she got to her feet, saying as she did so, ‘Right I am away to fetch up some broth, and this is me you are dealing with, not Ruby, so we will have no nonsense from you. This time you will eat it!’
Carmel did eat it. She refused the bread and Lois didn’t insist, but she drained the broth with a little persuasion and bullying, though she still didn’t speak. But it was a start, and Ruby was delighted. It was that evening, as Lois sat feeding the baby, that she realised probably no one had been informed of Paul’s death, for Carmel had been in no state to do so and Ruby wouldn’t think to do it.
She would write to Carmel’s family in Ireland that night after she had got the baby to bed, she decided. Her uncle would have to wait until the morning. She knew from what Paul and Jeff himself had said that he spent most evenings at his club and she could hardly trail him there. Women were not allowed in these bastions for men, anyway. Lois would have to tell her own family too and she knew she would have to call on the goodness of Ruby again in the morning while she undertook the unpleasant task of breaking the news of Paul’s death to those closest to her.
When Lois told her Uncle Jeff about the telegram, she thought for a minute he was going to pass out. The colour drained totally from his face and he had to feel for his chair. Then he flopped into it as if his legs wouldn’t hold him up any more.
‘Uncle Jeff, are you all right?’ Lois cried. ‘Oh, what stupid things we say. I am so sorry. There is no way I know to soften news like this.’
‘I’m all right, my dear,’ Jeff said. He looked far from it. He appeared breathless, gasping for air, his voice was husky and his eyes unnaturally bright. ‘If you would look in the filing cabinet there,’ he said to Lois, ‘top drawer, there is a bottle and a couple of glasses.’
Lois brought the whiskey and laid it on the table. ‘You will join me, my dear?’
‘No, thank you, Uncle,’ Lois said for it was far too early in the morning for her, but she didn’t begrudge her uncle taking comfort where he could. Jeff poured himself a good measure and downed it in one swallow. Lois was glad to see the colour return to his face and he seemed more in control of himself as he leaned towards her and said, ‘Tell me everything you know.’
‘That is precious little,’ Lois said. ‘I got word that Chris was injured first and that he was in hospital in Ramsgate and I set off to see him. He was in theatre when I arrived and, though I did see him for a few minutes later, he was too groggy to make any sense. I didn’t know then about Paul, you see. Anyway, when they said Chris was going to be fine and that he was being transferred to a hospital in Birmingham later, I left because I was worried about leaving Carmel on her own. We all knew then about the rout of Dunkirk and because of Chris I knew the Royal Warwickshires had been involved but when I left she hadn’t heard a word of how or where Paul was.’
‘So she was on her own when she heard?’
Lois nodded. ‘Ruby found Carmel slumped in a faint in the hall, the telegram still in her hand, saying Paul
was missing, presumed dead. She could barely open the door, she told me. She helped her to bed and she has been there ever since.’
‘Ever since!’ Jeff exclaimed, ‘Why? When was this?’
‘Three days ago. I came home only yesterday. Poor Ruby had too much to do looking after Carmel and Beth to think of informing anyone.’
Jeff nodded. ‘I understand perfectly,’ he said. ‘She looked after the important things and that is all you can expect—more in fact than you can expect. You have a neighbour in a million there.’
‘Don’t I know it,’ Lois said fervently. ‘Without her I’m not sure what Carmel would have done. Will you go along and see her? She has always thought a great deal of you.’
‘It’s a mutual thing,’ Jeff said. ‘It will be no hardship for me to see her and, rest assured, you will have my constant support. Don’t hesitate to call on me for anything.’
‘Thank you, Uncle Jeff,’ Lois said. ‘What about Aunt Emma?’ She had trouble saying the name without a curl to her lip when she remembered the way she had treated Paul.
She was mightily relieved when Jeff said, ‘Don’t worry about your aunt, my dear. Leave her to me.’
Lois hoped her sigh of relief wasn’t audible as she said, ‘Will you be all right? I have to go and tell my parents, and Ruby is once more holding the fort so I must get back as soon as I can.’
‘Don’t worry about me,’ Jeff said. ‘You already have enough on your plate. And I will be along to see Carmel as soon as I can manage it.’
He barely waited until the door closed behind his niece before buzzing his secretary. ‘Find Matthew, would you, and ask him to spare me a few minutes?’
If the secretary was surprised there was no hint of it in her voice. ‘Certainly, sir.’
Jeff poured another large glass of whiskey, which he again swallowed in one gulp. Then he leaned back in his chair and let the tears flow unchecked from his eyes as he grieved for the loss of his elder son, his favourite, if he was honest. He hadn’t cried since he was five years old and his father had told him that if he wanted to grow up to be a big man, he hadn’t to cry like a baby. As he wanted his father’s approval above all else in the world, Jeff had adhered strictly to his rules and hadn’t even shed a tear when the old man died.
But that day he cried for Paul, though he resisted the desire to wrap his arms around himself and howl like a wounded animal, for he ached so much inside it was as if Paul’s death had carved a hole in his heart.
However, by the time he heard the sound of Matthew’s voice as he accompanied the secretary to her office, he was calmer and he wiped the last of the tears from his cheeks and composed himself to tell Matthew of his brother’s death.
Working in a different section, Matthew hadn’t seen Lois arrive. When Jeff’s secretary had found him and told him his father would like to see him, Matthew had been examining his conscience. Though they worked in the same firm, they seldom met on a regular basis and he knew there had to be some reason that he had been summoned to ‘The Presence’ like a naughty schoolboy, but he
couldn’t think of anything that he had done particularly bad—certainly nothing his father would think he had a right to interfere with.
The secretary claimed that she knew nothing of the reason, but Matthew knew that to be a lie. She knew most of what went on in that firm. In fact, she could keep the whole place running if his father was not there, and had often done just that, covering for the old man the mornings he had come in suffering so badly from the excesses of the night before that he was worse than useless for the first couple of hours.
When he saw the whiskey bottle and glasses set on the table Matthew knew that whatever it was all about was serious.
‘You’re starting early.’
‘Will you join me?’
Matthew’s eyes narrowed. His father’s voice was husky, as if…as if he had been crying, and though Matthew had put the brightness of his eyes down to the booze, he saw now that there were unshed tears lurking there. There was just the one reason that his father might be moved to tears. Matthew’s whole body began to tremble and suddenly a glass of whiskey seemed a very good idea.
He gave a nod to his father, who poured them both a stiff measure. Then Matthew sat in the chair opposite him and said, ‘It’s Paul, isn’t it?’
Jeff nodded.
‘Dead?’
Jeff shrugged. ‘Missing, presumed dead,’ he said. ‘Means the same thing.’
‘Oh Christ!’ Matthew said. ‘We had a few words when he came to tell Mother, you know, and I actually
sneered at him; said he would be in no danger. He would be well away from the fighting.’
‘If I am honest, I thought the same,’ Jeff said. ‘I thanked God he wouldn’t be in the front line, but in the débâcle of Dunkirk, everyone there would be in danger. Lois’s husband, Chris, was injured too. It was Lois who came with the news just minutes ago.’
Matthew said nothing. He drank his whiskey and thought about his brother. He was shaken, but he didn’t know how much he would miss him. They seldom met and, when they did, they had little in common. As a child he had longed to love him—he would have been easy to love, and a wonderful older bother to admire and respect—but his mother’s blatant favouritism of Paul had driven away any love Matthew might have felt for him and replaced it with resentment. And yet he was sorry he was dead.
He said, ‘What happens now then?’
‘Well, I am away first to see Carmel, who has been rendered nearly senseless by this news. She was alone in the house except for the baby and her mind must have refused to take it. Anyway, I will see what’s what and then I must be off to tell your mother. It might be best if you were in the house then too.’
Matthew drained the whiskey and nodded as he stood up. ‘I’ll see to it,’ he said. ‘I’ll just finish what I was at and leave the foreman in charge.’ He looked straight at his father and said, ‘How do you think Mother is to take news like this?’
‘I stopped trying to estimate your mother’s reaction to things a long time ago,’ Jeff said with a sigh. ‘She doesn’t seem to operate under the same rules or social
mores as the rest of society. She had cast Paul completely out of her life and that saddened me, for if your mother loved anyone better than herself it was that boy.’
‘Well, I know that,’ Matthew said bitterly. ‘Both you and I just had the leavings, didn’t we?’
‘We did, son,’ Jeff said. ‘And I often felt sorry for you.’
‘I survived,’ Matthew said lightly, though the hurt of rejection was still there behind his eyes. ‘But however we feel about Mother, I know one thing: this news will hit her for six.’
Jeff knew that too. But before he faced his wife he went to see his daughter-in-law, the other one who had been hit for six. Lois hadn’t returned by the time he arrived, but Ruby was relieved to see him.
‘Go on up, Mr Connolly,’ she said, adjusting the baby on her hip. ‘As soon as I have madam here settled, I’ll bring you a nice cup of tea.’
‘Don’t trouble yourself.’
‘It’s no trouble, honestly,’ Ruby said. ‘And maybe you can get Carmel to drink something. She plays up shocking with me at times. Lois can handle her better.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ he said, chucking Beth under the chin as he passed and was rewarded by a beaming smile, Surely the baby was the only one to smile so readily in that house of sadness.
Jeff was glad he saw Carmel first on his own, for the sight of her lying so still, her open eyes fixed on some point on the ceiling, shocked him so much he was sure it must have been apparent. However, he recovered himself and, sitting on the chair beside the bed, he took one of her hands in his.
‘Hello, Carmel,’ he said gently.
Carmel hadn’t been aware of Jeff entering the room. In fact she was aware of little. It was as if life just went on around her and she was outside of it. She turned her head and when she saw the sorrow etched so deeply on Jeff’s face, which she knew must be mirrored on her own, she gave a sigh and said so softly it was little above a whisper, ‘Oh God, Jeff, what am I to do?’
‘Bear it, my dear,’ Jeff said. ‘There is no other option.’
‘I can’t,’ Carmel said. ‘Really I can’t, the pain is too great.’
‘Oh, my dear, dear girl…’
The sympathy in Jeff’s voice was Carmel’s undoing. She felt the tears that had threatened to fall for days begin to seep between her eyelashes and trickle down her cheeks and then this turned into a torrent and then a flood, and what Jeff originally saw as a good sign began to alarm him.
He glanced to the door, but there was no help from that quarter and in the end, he dropped Carmel’s hand and, sitting up on the bed beside her, he put his arms about her shuddering body and held her against him while he stroked her hair with his other hand. ‘Hush now,’ he urged. ‘You will make yourself ill if you go on like this.’