The Promise

by Michelle Vernal

  ‘I’d like that very much. Thank you, Mrs Downer.’

  An extra place was set, and Constance could have hugged her mother for eking out the spam hash so that Henry had an ample serving on his plate. She looked at him across the table noting the almost gingery glint of his stubble in the light. His face was strong and chiselled, but it was softened by the dusting of freckles across his nose and the dimples that appeared each time he smiled. He seemed to fill a void, space where Ted had once sat, making them laugh with his escapades. The sound of laughter shooed the sombre atmosphere that had lingered since her brother’s passing away as Henry told them a story about a naughty black bear who’d got the family’s trash can stuck on his head. The most they’d ever had to contend with was the odd fox! By the time they’d all cleaned their plates their bellies were both full and aching from laughing. And nobody cared in the slightest that it was bread and butter pudding again for afters.

  Henry joined her father for a snifter of sherry in the sitting room when the last of the pudding had been scraped from its bowl leaving the three women to clear the dinner things away.

  Ginny, wielding the tea towel, whispered in Constance’s ear before setting about wiping the plates dry that Connie had found herself a fine young man and that Evie would turn pea-green when she heard. Constance grinned back at her. She could tell by the way her mother was humming as she tackled the pan with the wire brush that it was a sentiment she shared too.

  ‘Connie, Henry’s off now,’ Arthur said, appearing in the kitchen a while later. It was her cue to walk him downstairs.

  Henry stepped past him. ‘Thank you so much for welcoming me into your home Mr and Mrs Downer, Ginny.’ He shook hands with Constance’s father once more and nodded toward the two women. ‘I’ll be sure to write to my mom as soon as I get back to camp and tell her I just ate the best meal I’ve had since I left home.’ Both Ginny and Eleanor preened. He turned his attention back to Constance’s father. ‘Before I go, sir, I was wondering if I could have your permission to take Constance out for a fish supper and a stroll along the waterfront this Friday night.’

  Arthur Downer looked at his daughter whose eyes were wide with silent pleading, and a smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. His wife and daughter-in-law too were waiting for his answer with bated breath. He knew there was a likelihood of being lynched with a tea towel and a wire brush were he to say no. ‘I think that would be fine Henry. You’ll call for her here of course.’

  ‘Of course sir. Six thirty on the dot.’

  ‘And home by nine.’

  Nine! Constance was outraged. That was ridiculously early. She caught her mother’s warning gaze and decided to keep her thoughts to herself.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Friday it is then.’

  Henry’s smile was wide. ‘Thanks again for your hospitality. It was real good to meet you all.

  Goodnight then.’

  ‘Goodnight, mind how you go.’

  Constance led the way down the stairs and out the back door. It had grown dark in the interim, and she wrapped her arms around herself to ward off the chill air as she stood on the empty Esplanade.

  ‘I’m really glad I met you, Constance.’ Henry’s face was earnest despite the dim light.

  She smiled shyly up at him. ‘Call me Connie, and I’ll see you on Friday then?’

  ‘Six thirty.’ He smiled and for a moment as he hesitated she thought he might lean down to kiss her goodnight, and she held her breath. Instead, he gave her one last wave, before crossing the deserted strip of road to follow the waterfront back to the camp.

  Constance waited until he had disappeared into the inky night before turning and heading back inside with a sprightliness to her step. She had no idea how she was supposed to survive five whole days before she saw him again.

  ͠

  The bus chugged to a halt seeming to almost sigh with relief as its grumbling engine stilled. Constance, who had chosen to sit down the back as was her custom, was holding on for grim death as she was bounced along the craterous roads. She liked to keep an eye on the trailer hooked onto the back carrying the gas bags. They were used for fuel, and although she knew it was an unreasonable fear, it was a real one to her mind, nonetheless that the trailer might dislodge itself. How would the driver know what had happened if she wasn’t there to call out?

  So many strange sights had become the norm these past years, like seeing the little ones carrying their gas masks to school with the same nonchalance as if it were a lunch box. Off they’d trot of a morning, straps slung over their shoulder for convenience to carry those hideous, alien masks housed inside the brown boxes. Or, the sight of the planes flying low overhead and the ships decorating the Solent. Then there was this evening, she thought, thanking the driver and stepping down onto the pavement; it was not the norm. In fact, it was decidedly, deliciously different because she was stepping out with Henry Johnson! It was as though Mother Nature had decided to wave her wand over the day too with it being gorgeous for this time of year. The unseasonal early spring heat promised to linger well into the evening.

  Constance felt as if she’d been holding her breath since Monday night willing the days away for Friday. Then and only then would she be able to exhale. All week she’d felt as though, one sharp prod and she’d combust with the pent-up nervous excitement fizzing around inside her like bubbles in lemonade. How she’d wished she could click her fingers to make time speed up but here, at last, it was Friday evening!

  She clipped her way home from the bus stop nodding good evening to the familiar faces but having no wish to stop and chat. She was in a hurry, and she picked up her pace as she neared Pier View. As she ran up the stairs, she heard her mother and Ginny chatting in the kitchen, and she paused popping her head around the door. They were sitting with a cup of tea each between them and once she’d said hello she raced on up to her room. The whiff of boiling cabbage nipped at her heels, and she hoped she wouldn’t smell of it when Henry called.

  Constance clambered out of her overalls and threw her slip on over her head before whipping off her turban. To her relief, she saw the pin curls she’d set her hair in the night before had held up well. Her best dress was laid out on the bed. It had been Evelyn’s, but she’d grown out of it and knowing how much Constance loved the rose-pink colour, her mother had remodeled it for her birthday. Ginny had placed her white cardigan, the one she knew Constance coveted next to it, and she felt a surge of gratitude toward her mother and sister-in-law.

  She slipped the dress over the top of her head, and as she smoothed her hair back into place, she wondered whether hers and Henry’s conversation would be as easy as it had been on Monday. Perhaps it would it be stilted and awkward with the expectation of having made an arrangement? Oh stop it, Constance Downer, she said to herself in the mirror, wondering if she should risk a slick of the lipstick she’d pinched off Evelyn. She heard her mother’s voice call for her. Best not, she decided venturing back downstairs.

  ‘You look pretty as a picture, Connie,’ her mother exclaimed, before gesturing to Ginny. ‘Go on then.’

  Constance looked from one to the other wondering why they both looked so pleased with themselves. Ginny looked up at her. ‘I’m having Ted’s baby—isn’t that wonderful!’

  Constance’s eyes widened, she hadn’t expected that. ‘But how?’ slipped out of her mouth and she flushed as the two women looked at one another and laughed. ‘I mean—’

  ‘It’s all right. I know what you mean. I must have fallen just before Ted left. I thought it was grief making me sick and then it dawned on me my courses hadn’t come on in ages either. I paid a visit to the doctor, and he confirmed it. The baby’s due early August.’ Ginny’s eyes were bright for the first time since she’d opened that awful telegram.

  ‘A summer baby.’ Constance breathed, still stunned by the news but gathering herself enough to give her sister-in-law a hug and kiss on the cheek. ‘Ginny, that’s wonderful. I’m so very happy for
you. Mummy, you’re going to be a grandmother!’ She scooted around the table to where her mother was sitting looking as pleased as punch and squeezed her shoulder. ‘It’s wonderful!’ she reiterated.

  Arthur who’d shut the shop for the day appeared in the kitchen. He looked at his wife who was smiling but crying at the same time and at his daughter and daughter-in-law both of whom had silly grins plastered to their faces with bewilderment. Daddy, Constance thought a minute later seemed to stand a little straighter at the news he was to be a grandfather. A shiver coursed through her and she saw that her skin had gone goosy. She rubbed at the fair hairs on her arm that were standing on end beneath the soft wool of Ginny’s cardigan, not liking the sudden sense of foreboding that had assailed her. She shook it away. This baby of Ginny and Ted’s had offered them all a way to move forward toward a happier future.

  ‘Well, I think this calls for a glass of something special, don’t you mother?’ Arthur rubbed his hands together, and Constance looked over at her mum who’d gotten up from the table and was already bent down retrieving the sherry bottle from the cabinet.

  So it was when Henry rang the bell twenty minutes later, he was greeted at the top of the stairs by a very jolly Mr Downer who’d pushed the boat out by downing two tots in a short space of time. Not so jolly, however, that he forgot to remind Henry of Constance’s nine o’clock curfew! Constance pushed past her father eager to be off and not wanting to give him the opportunity to invite Henry up to share in a celebratory tot. She wanted him all to herself.

  Chapter 16

  Henry complimented her on how pretty she looked in her dress and then, they danced around each other on the street outside Pier View House, two birds of paradise performing a difficult ritual of courtship. It was as Constance had feared—the easy banter from Monday now felt forced. They were like strangers once more. Henry shifted his weight awkwardly from foot to foot, asking how her week had been. Of course, she couldn’t tell him that she’d been like a duck out of water all week. So, instead, as they set off, she relayed Ginny’s happy news. Henry, she saw glancing up at him, looked genuinely delighted.

  ‘That’s wonderful,’ he said, stopping to smile down at her, and she liked the ways his eyes crinkled at the corners. The grand façade of the Royal Kent Hotel loomed large behind them as she smiled back.

  ‘Isn’t it just. Some happiness to come out of so much sadness.’

  They walked a little further, and the silence was no longer awkward. The tension between them had dissipated and vanished like the last dregs of sea fog on a sunny day.

  ‘Shall we cross and walk along the seawall?’ Henry asked, pausing to roll and light a cigarette.

  ‘That would be nice; low tide’s my favourite. I like watching the sandpipers and geese look for their dinner in the wet sand.’

  ‘I love to watch the great blue herons.’ He exhaled a plume of smoke. ‘Although they’re more grey than blue. They’re like streaks of silver catching their supper in the water.’

  ‘At Stanley Park,’ Constance said recalling their conversation at the folly on Monday night.

  ‘Yeah at Stanley Park,’ Henry echoed pleased she’d remembered.

  ‘When I was younger I used to go crabbing and cockling with Ted and my sister, Evelyn—she’s only a year older than me, but you’d think it was five years given the superior way behaves. Evie’s in the Land Girls at Norris Castle Farm.’ Henry looked amused as Constance chattered on. ‘The three of us nearly got caught out by the tide once. We were so busy digging and filling our buckets that we never saw the water coming back in; it was so fast like a giant arm sweeping up the beach. I got pulled under, but Ted picked me up and dragged me back up to the shore. We got a right telling off from mum for not keeping an eye out when we got home, and I could taste sand in my mouth for days after.’

  ‘That would have been frightening,’ Henry said, grinding his cigarette out before holding his arm out. Constance linked hers through his and let him steer her across the road.

  ‘It was, but the lure of mummy’s cockle fritters and crab meat pasties were too strong to stay away for long.’

  Henry grinned. ‘I can’t say I’ve tried a cockle fritter, but my mom makes a mean crab chowder.’ He glanced up at the sky; they had an hour or so before the light would fade by his reckoning. ‘The days will be getting longer soon, which has to be a good thing. You’re not cold are you?’

  ‘No, I’m fine thank you. It’s been such a glorious day.’ Constance wouldn’t have cared if it was sub-zero temperatures, she thought, feeling the friction of his coarse shirt sleeve rubbing against the wool of her cardigan, so long as she was with him. She talked on about her workday life, and as she told him about mouthy Myrtle’s tussle for top dog in the world of riveting, he threw his head back and laughed. She felt inordinately proud that she was the one responsible for his mirth.

  ‘I’m performing in a show at Darlinghurst House next Wednesday night,’ she confided as the folly came into view. She explained how she’d been roped into it and was very nervous about the whole thing, especially given she was expected to sing a solo.

  ‘I’d like to come and hear you.’

  ‘That would make me more nervous Henry! When do you think you’ll be back at Puckpool?’

  ‘I’m already there, I moved back to camp on Wednesday afternoon, and I’ve been put on light duties in the interim.’

  She noticed him grimace. ‘Is your leg still very painful?’

  ‘It’s not too bad, and the doc said exercise is good for it.’

  ‘You will tell me, won’t you, if it’s hurting you?’

  ‘I will.’ His smile made her heart flutter in a manner she was not used to.

  ‘So I’ve learned something else about you, Constance Downer.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘You can sing.’

  ‘You haven’t heard me yet,’ she muttered. ‘I’m dreading it, getting up in front of all those soldiers and the nursing staff—it makes me feel ill just thinking about it.’

  ‘That’s not true you know.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I have heard you sing.’ He began humming the tune from the Wizard of Oz they’d sung on Monday night, and Constance giggled.

  ‘That doesn’t count.’

  ‘You’ll be great, and I’ll be there rooting for you.’

  ‘Just so long as you don’t catcall.’

  Henry grinned at her, and she could see in his cheeky look what he would have looked like as a young boy getting up to childish mischief. She watched as he placed his thumb and middle finger in his mouth and gave a shrill wolf whistle. ‘Like that you mean?’

  She elbowed him. ‘You wouldn’t dare! The matron would have you out on your ear!’

  ‘You’re not wrong there.’

  As they reached the folly, the rocky outcrop they’d been following gave way to an uninterrupted stretch of sand, Constance had a sudden yearning to feel the sand between her toes. ‘Shall we walk along the foreshore?’ she asked, indicating the steps leading down to the beach. The water was a long ways off and would be so for a good bit yet.

  ‘Sure.’

  Constance sat down on the same bench where she’d been sitting when she first laid eyes on Henry and slipped her shoes off. The air was biting on her bare feet, and she twiddled her toes while she waited for Henry to ball his socks. He stuffed them inside his boots, and placed his boots under the bench saying, ‘They’ll be all right there for a bit.’ Constance did the same with hers and followed him down the steps to the beach. She looked at his straight back and broad shoulders, and as he turned to hold his arm out for her once more she felt a shock, almost electrical in its intensity somewhere deep down in her belly at the thought of those strong arms wrapped around her.

  They left their footprints in the soft sand as they strolled along. She pointed out the different birds, and they watched a tussle between a seagull and a gannet over a dead fish lying in a shallow pool. The seagull won, winging its way o
ff into the deepening sky victoriously.

  ‘Tell me more about your family, Henry.’

  ‘Well, my sister Nancy’s not long turned twelve, and she’s quite the tomboy. She won’t be seen dead in a dress unless she’s going to church, and only then because she has to. Mom shakes her head over her especially when she comes home with rips in her pants from climbing trees or riding her bike too fast. I think mom worries she runs a little wild what with dad not being around anymore to keep her in check. I mean I do my best, but I think she should enjoy being a kid while she can.’

  Constance nodded her agreement thinking of all the fun she’d had clambering around the folly as a child, and she had the scars to prove it! ‘What was your father like? Do you take after him or your mother?’

  ‘My dad, that’s where I get my red hair. My mom’s a blue-eyed blonde and lucky for Nancy she got mom’s looks.’ He lifted his hat and dipped his head to show her his crop.

  ‘It’s more gold than red,’ Constance said resisting the urge to run her fingers over his head. She knew from doing the same to Ted when he got his first buzz cut that it would feel like velvet.

  ‘He dropped dead when I was fifteen; his heart just stopped one day when he was at work.’

  ‘Gosh, that must have been awful.’

  ‘It was. My mom fell apart for a while, and I had to step up, you know, help take care of Nancy. She was only seven and a real daddy’s girl. It hit her hard—it hit us all hard, but we muddled through. It’s true you know, and you might not believe me now but where your brother’s concerned time does heal. You never stop missing the person, but one day you wake up and realize them not being here anymore wasn’t the first thing you thought about when you opened your eyes. It stops being so raw and becomes this throbbing pain that slowly turns into a dull ache and then it stops hurting physically, but the scar’s always there to remind you.’

  ‘I hope so,’ Constance said her eyes smarting as she thought of her brother. It was hard to believe and sad to think that one day Ted’s death wouldn’t sting like an open wound.