by Maggie Ford
She looked up suddenly to find Connie on her own, making a pot of tea.
‘I’ve got to go to him!’ Her raised voice so startled Connie that she nearly spilled the boiling water she was pouring into the teapot.
‘I’ve got to go to him,’ she repeated. ‘I need to be with him.’
Connie put the kettle back on the hob. ‘How can you think of sailing all that way alone? He’ll be home soon. Then you can be with him.’
‘I can’t wait that long. That captain said he was still very ill. How must he be feeling? A prison camp and then some vile hospital, his foot amputated, I dread to think what he must be going through. He’s all alone out there. We’ve been parted for so long and I mean to go and be with him there, help him feel better, help him come back home. I have to go, and I intend to.’
‘Eveline, dear.’ Connie’s voice seemed to float towards her. ‘You are not making sense. You are too upset by what you’ve heard to think straight.’
She glared up at Connie. ‘I know what I have to do. You’ll look after Helena for me while I’m gone?’
‘Don’t be silly, Eveline. It’s a sea voyage. Everyone says the Bay of Biscay can be treacherous. You could be so seasick. You can’t put yourself through that. Wait for him to come home.’
Eveline leapt up. ‘I can’t do that. I know he needs me. If I’m with him he’ll get well quicker. I have to be there. You of all people should know how I feel. We’ve been close friends, you and me, and we both know what it’s like to have our husbands taken from us. You’ve a new husband to look forward to. I thought I had no one. But now mine is alive. He’ll be coming home and I’m going out there to make sure he gets my help to do just that.’
Connie looked at her long and hard, further argument on the edge of her tongue. But then she closed her mouth and nodded sombrely.
‘You have to do what you feel is right,’ she said in a low voice. ‘But it is such a long way for a woman to go.’
‘A woman?’ Eveline echoed. ‘Women have been through worse. There were nurses who went out to the front line itself to find and take care of the wounded. There were women volunteers driving ambulances through all that shellfire to get the stricken to hospital tents. There were women who learned to drive buses and, like you and me, who dealt with heavy machinery and handled dangerous explosives. Some lost their lives. Before the war we were suffragettes. I went to prison and defied those who tried to force-feed me. And my ordeal wasn’t half that of some. We marched and we fought for the right for women like me to have a say in what we do. And no one can stop me going off to be with my husband to help keep his spirits up and bring him back home. Once I have him home I shall spend every moment of my time nursing him back to health. With what you’ve offered to do for me he can set up in business. We will begin to live again.’
She finally paused, her tirade exhausted while Connie stood silent, at last convinced that nothing was going to shake her friend from her purpose.
‘I’ll have Helena while you’re away,’ she said slowly. ‘I’ll explain to her what her mother is doing and that she is going to get her daddy back.’
Eveline lifted her chin, tears already drying. ‘I must write immediately to say I’ll be there waiting for him.’
She looked searchingly at Connie. ‘I could never have done this but for your help, insisting on giving me a portion of what you’ll inherit. I’m so deeply grateful, Connie.’
It was Connie’s turn to look Eveline in the eye. ‘How could you ever have thought I wouldn’t after all we’ve been through together? You’d have done the same for me.’
Eveline dropped her gaze and gave a small laugh. ‘It’s still all due to you that I can afford to do this, and I’m grateful.’ Again she lifted her chin. ‘I’ll have to start packing straight away. I don’t want to get to Gibraltar to find I’ve missed him and he’s already on his way home. Talk about ships that pass!’ She gave another laugh. ‘That mustn’t happen, must it?’ She suddenly looked so confident and resolute that to Connie it was like seeing a different woman from a few minutes ago and she made towards her, arms outstretched.
Eveline met her halfway, the two standing in the centre of the tiny kitchen in a tight embrace; friends, one soon to be married, one soon to be reunited with the man she’d thought she had lost.
Finally breaking away, Connie glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘Good Lord! The girls will be home from school soon, looking for something to eat. We’d better get started on their lunch.’
‘Yes, we’d better,’ agreed Eveline, straightening her rumpled skirt and searching for an apron to wear.
There was a lot to do – a lot of things to do.
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First published as Give Me Tomorrow in 2006 by
Piatkus Books
This edition published in 2014 by Ebury Press, an imprint of Ebury Publishing
A Random House Group Company
Copyright © 2006 Maggie Ford
Maggie Ford has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental
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