Alone Beneath The Heaven

by Bradshaw, Rita

  What was it that young army chaplain had said, when he had visited the ward shortly after they had arrived back in England? Oh yes, ‘unforgiveness is a tool of the devil’. There he’d stood, fresh out of college and never having seen a day’s action in his life, and he’d dared to say that to the remains of what had been men in that ward. Ill and weak as he’d been, he didn’t know how he had kept his hands off the pious young fool.

  ‘Matron Cox’s replacement was just the opposite, though. Hatfield changed considerably once she was in charge.’

  ‘Ah yes, the good Matron Blair.’ Again Sarah’s voice brought him out of the shadows and he nodded slowly before adding, ‘I remember her as the original broom that swept clean. She caused quite a stir with some of the old fogeys on Hatfield’s committee.’

  What Sarah remembered, as she heard him speak the Matron’s name, was that she had been burningly jealous of the new Matron’s relationship with ‘her’ Dr Mallard. Matron Blair had been bright and attractive, and worse - in her childish eyes - very grown up. She could recall endless nights when she had lain awake staring into the darkness, Rebecca’s steady breathing in the next bed emphasizing she was the only person awake in the whole wide world, and her mind had played out the doctor and the matron’s wedding day. What a fiercely impassioned little thing she must have seemed.

  She gave a mental shake of her head at the forlorn little ghost from the past, and changed the subject.

  It was over two hours later, and in icy darkness, that Rodney’s car, looking somewhat incongruous in the maze of back-to-back dilapidated tenements in which Maggie and Florrie’s house was buried, drew up in a narrow street in the heart of Sunderland.

  In spite of the numbing coldness of the winter night, there were several young children, most without coats, taking it in turns to swing from a rope which one of the more adventurous had tied to the jutting iron arm of a lamp post, and their shrill voices were loud in the clear frosty air.

  ‘Sarah! Hey, it’s Sarah.’ One of the older boys came running up to the car when he saw Sarah alighting after Rodney had opened the door for her, the other children following a moment later. ‘You come back to see old Maggie, Sarah?’ he asked cheerily, wiping his runny nose with the back of a grubby hand.

  ‘Less of the “old Maggie”, Tim McNeil.’ Her voice was severe, but Sarah couldn’t stop herself smiling as she looked down at the dirty little face. ‘It’s Mrs McLevy to you.’

  ‘Maggie don’t mind, she’s all right, is Maggie.’ The sharp eyes, far older than their years, dissected Rodney as he stood at Sarah’s side, before the boy said, ‘Who’s the toff then, Sarah? He your fancy man or somethin’?’ as the other children tittered and giggled behind him.

  ‘Tim.’ It was a distinct warning, and Sarah wasn’t smiling any longer.

  ‘You’re not gonna leave that motor round ’ere, are you, mister?’ Tim turned his attention to Rodney, who was trying hard not to laugh, quite unabashed at Sarah’s rebuke. ‘They’d ’ave the drips from your nose round these parts.’ And with that friendly warning he returned to the lamp post, the other children following hot on his heels.

  Sarah smiled weakly at Rodney. ‘That was Tim McNeil.’

  ‘So I gathered.’ Rodney smiled back. ‘The lad will go far.’

  ‘You’ll come in for a minute and say hallo to Maggie? I know she’d love to see you again.’

  Rodney hesitated for a moment, and then, as Sarah’s smile widened and she said, ‘I’ll set the formidable Tim to guard the car if you’re worried,’ he laughed out loud before saying, ‘That won’t be necessary, but I have no wish to impose.’

  ‘Oh, go on with you.’ The words, and the flapping of her hand, were very northern, and he found himself thinking, as he locked the car and turned to join her where she was waiting for him on the pavement, that it was at these times, when he caught a glimpse of the child she had been, that he liked her the most. The new Sarah was a little disconcerting at times, and the directness that had been so enchanting in the child was more than a trifle challenging in the adult woman. But that was probably exactly what he needed, he admitted to himself soberly as he stood behind Sarah while she knocked at the door, looking down at her shining blond head that was a halo of gold in the dimly lit street. To be jerked out of the comfortable rut he had settled into the last few months? He hadn’t realized it but he had let his work become his security, hiding behind it, letting life pass him by while he had licked his wounds in his little bubble of isolation. He didn’t like the analogy but it was true. And it wouldn’t do. It wouldn’t do at all.

  He had no further time to reflect as the door opened and Maggie’s bulky shape stood silhouetted in the opening.

  ‘Thank goodness. Thank goodness you’re here, lass, I’ve been worried to death. I expected you hours ago.’ Maggie had enfolded Sarah into her arms as she’d spoken, and now, becoming aware for the first time of Rodney’s presence, she peered into the shadows as she said, ‘You got someone with you, lass?’

  ‘Hallo, Maggie.’

  ‘Saints alive! I don’t believe it.’

  ‘Well, I’m alive, but I’m no saint, Maggie.’

  ‘It’s Dr Mallard, as I live an’ breathe. Oh, lad, lad, come in, come in. You’re a sight for sore eyes.’

  The warmth of her greeting touched him, and when Sarah was almost thrust into the hall, and Maggie reached out both hands to grasp his, he felt a lump in his throat and a pricking at the back of his eyes that caused him to say, and over-heartily, ‘It’s been a long time, Maggie. A long time.’

  ‘It has that, lad, an’ with a war between an’ all. You come through then?’

  ‘Yes, I came through, Maggie.’

  He found himself drawn into a long narrow dark hall, and as he heard Sarah’s voice speaking to someone, Maggie said, ‘You know I live with Florrie now?’

  ‘So Sarah told me. I have to admit I was surprised at first.’

  ‘She’s been like an angel of mercy, lad, I tell you. No daughter could’ve bin better. Me legs aren’t too good, an’ me rheumatism gives me jip some days, but she never complains if I’m laid up in bed for a while, just gets on doin’ everythin’ an’ her with a manager’s job at the laundry too. She’s a good lass.’

  He raised his eyebrows, nodding slightly, as he said, ‘That’s good. I’m pleased for you, Maggie.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Oh, come on, lad, this is Maggie you’re talkin’ to. There was an edge to your voice, an’ war or no war, I know you. Say what’s on your mind an’ be done with it. It’ll be better out than in.’

  For the first time in months, years, he felt a bubble of something - which he recognized as the beginnings of the good old belly laughs he used to enjoy - welling up inside. She was a comic; without even recognizing the fact, she was a comic all right. Would that there were a few more Maggies in the world.

  He checked the impulse to laugh - he didn’t want to offend her - and instead tried to make his voice suitably humble as he said, ‘I’m sorry, Maggie.’ She had let go of his hands as she’d spoken, and now he reached out and took hers, looking down into her fat face criss-crossed with wrinkles, as he said quietly, ‘I think I must be getting cynical in my old age.’

  ‘Folks can change, lad. Oh aye, I’ve seen it, but in Florrie’s case it weren’t so much a change as gettin’ into the skin of the person she was meant to be. She’d been in the workhouse from a bairn an’ she’d been treated rough, no doubt about it, an’ it had soured the lass. But I tell you’ - she paused, and now her face was straight - ‘she loves them lasses, Sarah an’ Rebecca, like her own.’

  He nodded but said nothing more, and she stared at him for a moment longer, her gaze penetrating, before saying, her tone jocular now, ‘Come on in an’ have a hot bevy, lad, it’s enough to freeze you out there.’

  He followed her down the hall and into the second of two rooms to see Sarah crouching in front of a blazing coal fire, her h
ands held out to its warmth, and Florence Shawe, her tall angular body even thinner than he remembered, looking straight at him.

  ‘Good evening, Dr Mallard.’ She spoke as if she had seen him just the other day, her voice quiet and even, and he was immediately aware she was on her guard. The ugly face with its big hooked nose was expressionless but her eyes were wary. ‘Can I offer you a hot drink?’

  ‘Thank you.’ He didn’t like to look about him, but he couldn’t hold Florrie’s eyes for much longer either, so he walked across to join Sarah in front of the fire, saying as he did so, ‘I’ve been too long in the south. I’d forgotten just how cold it can be in these parts.’

  ‘Put a drop of whisky in the doctor’s tea, Florrie lass,’ Maggie interjected. ‘You’re not a teetotaller, are you, lad?’

  ‘No.’ He smiled at Maggie as he turned to face the room again with his back to the fire. It was a pleasant room, he noted now, with something akin to surprise. Shabby but pleasant. Whether it was the long red drapes at the window, or the blaze of the fire, he didn’t know, but there was an atmosphere of peace and warmth, space even, which was unusual in such neighbourhoods as this one, where living space was at a premium.

  ‘I didn’t think you was. All the doctors I’ve ever known have liked a tipple.’ She spoke as if she had known hundreds, and again the urge to laugh was upon him, or at least, he thought it was the urge to laugh until the lump in his throat told him otherwise. ‘Anyway, sit yourself down, lad, an’ I’ll find a bit of somethin’ to go with that tea. We’ve been waitin’ on this one arrivin’ ’ - she inclined her head towards Sarah who had walked over and sat down on the leather couch as Maggie had been talking - ‘an’ me stomach’s thinkin’ me throat’s bin cut.’ So saying she bustled out of the room after Florrie, leaving Rodney and Sarah alone.

  Sarah sat quietly on the leather couch without speaking; she had a strange feeling on her that she couldn’t have explained to anyone, but it had to do with the unspoken question in Maggie’s eyes. Why hadn’t she told them it was the doctor who was driving her up? She should have, she knew that, he had been just as much a friend of Maggie’s years ago as he had hers, and it would have given Florrie a chance to prepare herself too, but somehow . . . somehow she just hadn’t been able to. She knew he had thought it odd too, when he had asked her earlier that day what time she had told Maggie to expect them, and she had answered she had told Maggie she wasn’t sure if she was travelling by train or with a friend, and to expect her any time. Why hadn’t she told them? She bit on her lip and lowered her head as the answer came. Because she had been frightened to voice it in case the verbalizing of it had prevented it from happening. But that was daft. She was daft.

  ‘I should have written and told them you were bringing me.’

  It was quiet, and there was a pause before Rodney said, ‘Oh, I think it was a nice surprise. At least I hope it was a nice surprise?’

  The note in his voice made her smile, as it was meant to, and when she said, ‘I think Maggie and Florrie thought it peculiar I didn’t mention it beforehand,’ she was more relaxed.

  ‘Well in my line of work it could easily not have happened. You wouldn’t believe how many cancelled engagements I add up in a month. One of the first things they warn you about at medical school is never to assume anything, whether it’s about a patient’s symptoms or when you might eat your next meal.’

  ‘It’s as bad as that?’ She smiled at the mocking hangdog expression on his face.

  ‘Worse.’

  ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘They really shouldn’t go to any trouble, you know.’ He gestured towards the open door through which voices were filtering from the kitchen at the end of the hall. ‘I’m sure Martin and Ruth will be able to rustle up a little supper for me.’

  ‘Where do your friends live?’

  ‘Kelton Park. Do you know it?’

  She had heard of it. Nob hill, as Maggie described the exclusive area on the outskirts of town. The small estate of new houses was only five years old, and most of the gardens had tennis courts and you could barely see your next door neighbour for the amount of landscaped ground between you. Kelton Park. Nothing could have emphasized the difference between them more.

  She shook her head in answer to his question, before saying, ‘Not personally, no, but I’m sure it’s very nice.’

  They continued to talk until Maggie and Florrie bustled in with plates laden with sandwiches and cake, and when Sarah saw the small sandwiches were cut wafer-thin, and that there were fancy doilies under the food, she wanted to kiss the pair of them and tell them not to worry. She loved these two rooms, and she loved them, and if Rodney couldn’t accept them all for who and what they were, then that was his misfortune. Almost in the same moment Sarah berated herself for her hypocrisy. She did want him to see her as being able to fit into his world, and that was probably what Maggie and Florrie had sensed.

  But that wasn’t wrong, was it? To want to improve yourself was natural enough, surely, and a healthy ambition, as long as it was done in the right way and for the right reasons?

  As though it were yesterday, a passage from the Bible which Matron Cox had drummed into them every evening after dinner when they were obliged to kneel for a Bible reading and prayers before going up to the dormitories and retiring for the night, came into her mind. ‘Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.’ The Matron had insisted it was God’s word to humble and admonish them to work diligently and without reward, but it had depressed Sarah more than she could ever express, because she had known then, young as she was, that she wanted to make something of herself.

  But perhaps the Matron had been right? No, no of course she hadn’t been, she reproached herself immediately. And she didn’t believe God thought so either. He wasn’t up there waiting to beat you over the head with a big stick and laughing when it all went wrong, whatever interpretation Matron Cox had chosen to put on that particular verse.

  She had dreams, and she wasn’t ashamed of them. She didn’t want to remain in service all her life, and she did want her own home and a family with the man she loved and who loved her. And the other dream, the one that had been with her for as long as she could remember, she would make that happen too. She would find her mother, however painful the result of her quest might be.

  Rodney left shortly after nine o’clock, and the three women watched the beautiful car drive away down the dark deserted street with very different feelings.

  Florrie’s thoughts were less than charitable, on the whole. She knew Dr Mallard didn’t like her. Oh, he’d been polite enough, smiling and saying all the right things, but she could sense how he felt and she just hoped he wasn’t going to make a habit of calling in if he was up visiting these friends of his again. He made her feel . . . uncomfortable. She wasn’t proud of her part in the events which had led him into Sarah’s life; she’d give the world to undo the hurt she’d caused her bonny lass at that time, but Sarah bore her no grudge and that was the main thing.

  Florrie’s thin lips compressed and her big nose flared as the car turned the corner with a cheerful honk of its horn. It was all right for him; it was all right for most men if it came to that. Oh, it was a man’s world all right, there was no getting away from it.

  Maggie, on the other hand, gazed down the street after the car with a feeling of excitement mingling with faint apprehension. Fancy her lass and the doctor meeting up like that - it was fate, that’s what it was. And he had no side to him, he never had had, unlike most of his class, but . . . Her brow furrowed. He was one of the top nobs when all was said and done.

  Times were changing mind you, oh aye, she knew that. Look at Katie Taggart taking up with Colonel Smythe’s son, and hardly a raised eyebrow, but still . . . The feeling of unease increased. If she wasn’t much mistaken, his attitude towards the lass was more paternal than a
nything. And that wouldn’t matter - no, it’d be just fine if Sarah thought of him in the same way. But if she did . . . Maggie sucked in her bottom lip as her eyes narrowed at the disappearing car. If she did, why hadn’t Sarah told them he was bringing her home? And why was she . . . skittish?

  Oh, she was probably running away with herself here. Florrie always said she had to have something to worry about before she was happy, but she knew her lass, that was the thing, and although Sarah might not be aware of it herself she was definitely skittish. And she hadn’t seen her like that before.

  Sarah watched the car until it turned the corner, and then she touched Maggie’s arm lightly. ‘Come on in, you two, you’ll catch your deaths out here.’

  It had been strange coming home in such style, she thought to herself as the three of them turned to enter the house. Strange, but very nice. And Rodney was nice, oh, he was. Different to how she remembered, more serious and reserved perhaps, but then that was the war no doubt. You couldn’t go through something like that and come out just the same. But she was glad she had been able to travel up with him, and the last hour or so, when he’d sat and chatted with Maggie and she had been able to watch his face as he had talked, had made him more . . . familiar again.