A Wartime Family

by Lizzie Lane

  ‘Of course not,’ said Lizzie, shaking her head.

  Margot propped herself up that bit more. ‘Well, I’ve got something to tell you. Bessie’s had a miscarriage, poor thing, and lo and behold, the silly girl contacted her ex and suggested that they get back together.’

  ‘She’s willing to forgive him?’ Lizzie was a little surprised, but if Bessie cared for the chap that was her business.

  ‘She was indeed. Unfortunately his wife wasn’t.’

  ‘His wife?’

  ‘That’s right, my dear girl. Our Romeo had a wife that he forgot to mention. Not that I’m that surprised. A virile man can suffer severe memory loss when there’s no wife to rein him in.’

  ‘You make men sound like horses,’ said Lizzie as she began to unbutton her jacket.

  ‘Absolutely, darling,’ said Margot with a wry smile. ‘Stallions. They’re all stallions.’

  Lizzie felt Margot’s eyes following her around the room, but refrained from meeting her enquiring gaze. Her whole body was tingling in the aftermath of Guy’s lovemaking. Yes, he had a wife, but as he’d told her himself they’d married in haste at the outbreak of war and now they wanted a divorce.

  ‘Well, I say, that’s not army issue,’ said Margot once Lizzie was stripped down to her underwear. She was wearing a soft pink bra and French knickers that Peter had given her, taken from stock at his family’s haberdashers and ladies’ outfitters.

  They were far skimpier items than the army was ever likely to issue. She bent her head so that Margot wouldn’t see her blushing.

  ‘I brought them with me.’

  ‘They’re very delicate.’ Margot’s eyes continued to follow her with the kind of scrutiny usually reserved for only the best from Harrods. ‘Difficult, I should think, when you’re in a bit of a hurry.’

  Lizzie folded her blouse and put her jacket on a hanger. ‘Difficult? Why do you say that?’

  Pulling the bedclothes more closely around her, Margot began to settle back down. ‘Because you’ve put them on back to front.’

  Lizzie gasped and slumped down on the end of her bed.

  ‘Are you sure there’s nothing you’d like to tell me?’ asked Margot, peering at her from over the bedclothes.

  Lizzie groaned. ‘Oh, Margot!’

  Margot sat up, the bedclothes pulled up to her chin. ‘Come on. Tell me all about it.’

  Lizzie covered her face. ‘I’m a fool. I’m a bloody fool!’

  Margot didn’t contradict her but sat silently, waiting for her to explain. Margot was a good listener and knew when to keep mum.

  Their eyes met, not so much in mutual understanding, but as though they knew the time was ripe for secrets to be shared.

  ‘I think it was the way he looked at me over undrinkable cider that finally swayed me. And his voice, of course.’

  She held back on the more intimate details, like the way his voice dropped an octave lower when aroused, or the way he’d driven the car that day, one hand draped casually over the wheel.

  Margot eyed her silently.

  ‘Am I a fool?’ Lizzie asked her.

  Margot thought about it for a moment. ‘Yes,’ she said at last. ‘You are. But then, you’re not the first and you won’t be the last.’

  ‘Don’t ask me not to see him again.’

  ‘I won’t. You must please yourself.’

  ‘I will,’ said Lizzie with a firm thrust of her chin. ‘I love him and he says he’s getting a divorce.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Margot, tucking a strand of escaped hair back into her hairnet and snuggling back down.

  ‘You don’t sound as though you believe him.’

  ‘Of course I do, darling. And by the way, Patrick phoned.’

  ‘Patrick? What did you tell him?’

  ‘Exactly what you told me, that you’d gone away for the weekend with your brother.’

  The tingling that had lasted until she’d got into bed suddenly vanished. Whatever happened she had to keep Patrick away from Harry, at least until she’d had a chance to straighten things out.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Michael read the letter from his Marianna more closely and more often than he did the German transcripts he was expected to translate. His brows furrowed in a deep frown and the fact that he hadn’t heard the command to fall in brought him to the attention of Major Swinburn, Head of Section.

  Even when the major’s shadow fell over him, his thoughts were still in Bristol.

  ‘Are you with us, Maurice?’

  Michael looked up and blinked.

  The major smiled like a snake with lockjaw. ‘Bad news from home, Maurice?’

  Michael slid the letter back into the envelope and the envelope back into his pocket as he got to his feet. ‘Just a personal matter, sir. I’m sorry.’

  The major rolled his shoulders and jerked his head forward until their noses almost touched. ‘You will be!’ he snarled. ‘Now salute, you Kraut bastard. Salute or I’ll have your stripes.’

  Michael didn’t want that to happen. Recognizing the quality of both his work and his leadership, he’d been awarded a corporal’s stripe a few months after arrival. He’d been complimented on his dedication to duty, sometimes working until late in the night to get a job done. A few of the others in his unit were also of German extraction, though none had got caught up in the tide of events in Germany as he had. Nowadays he felt ashamed for having loved uniforms so much; perhaps it would have been different if he’d confined his obsession to Boy Scout uniforms, but in Germany things weren’t like that. One uniform had led to another. Eventually he’d found out what that uniform had stood for.

  The major was not his favourite person and the major’s feelings were likewise. There was something about the major’s whispery-thin moustache, the light blondness of it, the mean amount of hair above an equally thin set of lips.

  The translation unit was attached to the Bletchley Park complex. Harry, who had always been good at crosswords, worked in the code-breaking department and they sometimes met in the canteen.

  Harry greeted him jovially, but his smile vanished once he noticed Michael’s grave expression and the letter clenched in his hand. Michael did not protest when Harry took the letter from his hand and read it.

  He shook his head and eyed Michael across the table. ‘She can’t be serious.’

  Michael shrugged. ‘Absence does not always make the heart grow fonder. Sometimes it breaks things apart.’

  ‘But to go back with my father?’

  ‘For the family’s sake, she says.’ Michael shrugged. ‘I suppose I can understand that.’ He hid his face in his hands. ‘Damn Hitler! Damn Churchill! Damn the bloody lot of them!’

  Harry glanced nervously around him. ‘Steady on, mate. You can damn Hitler all you like, but don’t let anyone hear you doing the same to Churchill. You’ll be hanging from a gallows before you know it.’ Harry laughed as though it were a huge joke.

  Michael couldn’t bring himself to laugh. ‘I have to see her,’ he said, his blue eyes meeting those of the son of the woman he loved.

  The laughing stopped. Harry eyed Michael thoughtfully. Her mother deserved this man and this man really did love his mother.

  ‘Can you get any leave?’ he asked, his expression serious now.

  He sighed heavily and shook his head. ‘There’s too much going on at the moment.’

  ‘I know,’ said Harry. ‘What with a war at sea and people sick with the flu. This winter was very cold.’

  The two men exchanged the same conspiratorial look; the Bletchley nod as some people called it. Each knew what was going on in radio chatter and coded messages, but only their own small part in it. Exchange of information between sections was not encouraged.

  ‘How about I write to our Lizzie and get her to visit?’

  ‘You would do that?’ Michael sounded surprised.

  ‘Why not? She can only say no, and I doubt she’d do that. She likes you. We both like you.’ Harry leaned forward. ‘Yo
u’re the best thing that ever happened to my mother. I don’t care about the details, only that she’s happy.’

  Michael managed a weak smile. ‘Thank you.’

  Harry and his mother understood each other better than most. Neither condemned the other for the way they were. Only his father had done that, but Michael was something different. Harry liked the man and could understand why his mother had fallen for him and left his father. His father was a different matter. There was no love lost between father and son and never would be.

  Harry had a feeling he knew what was coming.

  ‘If I can’t get leave and Lizzie won’t go to see her, I’m going AWOL.’

  Harry shook his head. ‘No. You’ll be in deep trouble.’

  ‘I have to do something.’

  ‘Look,’ said Harry, raising one hand in a halting gesture, ‘leave it to me. I’ve had letters too. There’s been some trouble at my place, but I can get things sorted out.’

  He didn’t impart to Michael just how worried he was. Edgar had written explaining things. Harry was surprised. He hadn’t expected any disagreement from those he used to do business with. If he got a chance to go home, he’d sort out the lot of them – and not with kid gloves either. Hard fists were all the toe rags understood.

  He frowned as he walked back to the hut where he broke codes down into their intrinsic parts and built them back up again. Just as he got back to his desk, someone came to him saying he had a telephone call. He frowned. He didn’t know that many people with a telephone. He followed the young woman who had called him. She was engaged in similar work to himself.

  ‘In here,’ she said curtly. ‘And don’t be long.’

  He cradled the receiver until she’d closed the door. As he raised the phone to his ear, his gaze settled on a wall chart spotted with pin heads and pencilled lines.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Harry! It’s me!’

  It was Edgar and he sounded not so much excited as pleased with himself.

  ‘I’ve had a phone put in, Harry. I’ve missed you.’

  The advantage of being able to contact home much more quickly than by mail was not lost on Harry, but there were drawbacks.

  ‘Edgar, you can’t phone me here. They don’t like it, old son.’

  ‘I had to phone you, Harry. So many things have been happening, I thought you should know.’

  ‘So Ma told me in her letter.’

  ‘Someone’s out to get us.’

  Harry didn’t disagree with his statement, but he wouldn’t run scared. He was Harry Randall and had a reputation to maintain.

  ‘Put Mum on,’ he said.

  ‘She’s not here.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Gone!’

  Gone! He guessed where she’d gone but had to hear it said, just in case he was only surmising, just in case he told Michael the wrong news.

  ‘She was worried about the boy. She didn’t want him getting hurt,’ he explained.

  Feeling sick inside, Harry returned the receiver to its cradle. It was now imperative that someone go home to see what was going on, and if he couldn’t get Lizzie to go, then he’d have to go himself – with or without permission.

  He put in a request for compassionate leave, but to no avail.

  ‘No one can be spared,’ said the same gingery-haired major who hated Michael’s guts.

  Sensing there was menace behind the Signal Corps uniform, he was less aggressive with Harry, but he was also turned down.

  Sending letters was strictly controlled when there was a big job on. Permission had to be sought, so Harry did just that.

  ‘I need to send a letter or two. Do I have your permission for that?’

  The major paled before the insistence in Harry’s tone. He didn’t dare refuse him. ‘I should think so,’ he said.

  That night Harry wrote to Lizzie, stressing his concern about their mother. As an afterthought he also wrote to Patrick. One of them would go. He was sure of it.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  ‘Here. Have another.’

  Henry Randall eyed the old clock ticking away on the wall behind the bar. He licked his lips, tasting the residue of the last pint on his tongue. He’d had three pints already – or was it four?

  ‘I should be gettin’ on ’ome,’ he said, not too convincingly.

  The tall young chap beside him prodded the brim of his trilby with two fingers, sending it sitting further back on his head.

  Henry rubbed at his bleary eyes. Where had he seen this bloke before?

  ‘You’re too late, Henry. It’s already being poured.’

  Henry eyed the mahogany-brown beer dribbling like treacle from a polished brass spout. He licked his lips again. How long had it been since he’d drunk beer as only real men can drink; pint after pint after pint? He answered his own question. Since she had gone away to live with that German bloke.

  The man standing beside him noted his grimace and inwardly smiled. He had a lot in common with Henry Randall. Here was a man who found it difficult to forgive anyone anything – a bit like himself. He just needed a bit of coaxing to bring the violence to the surface.

  George Ford was good at altering his appearance – not with false beards or moustaches, just subtle differences like the addition of spectacles, the shaving of eyebrows and the application of chalk to add pallor to his complexion. With growing satisfaction, he watched as Henry reached a shaky hand across the bar. The hand faltered.

  ‘I shouldn’t,’ said Henry, folding his fingers back into his palm.

  ‘Of course you should!’ The man in the trench coat gave him a slap on the back. ‘Haven’t you been working hard all day? A working man deserves to enjoy himself once in a while. Anyone who says he shouldn’t deserves a good beating.’ In order to emphasize the point, he slammed his right fist into the palm of his left hand. ‘A quick jab in the ribs wouldn’t come amiss. Women should know their place. That’s what I say.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Henry, his face darkening as his mind recounted all the slights he’d endured. ‘You’re right. You’re too bloody right!’

  Henry had been taken aback the day Mary Anne had appeared on the doorstep with a few belongings and Stanley at her side. They’d stared at each other for what seemed like minutes but must have only been seconds before one of them spoke.

  Taking a deep breath, Mary Anne had asked if she could come in. ‘But only if you want me to,’ she’d said. ‘Your son and I have nowhere else to go.’

  Henry’s legs had turned to jelly. This was the day he had dreamed about, and here she was, standing on the doorstep asking to come back.

  Biddy was out. He’d had the house to himself and suggested they go upstairs into his own rooms. One room was set out like a parlour, and he used the biggest of the other rooms to sleep in, with the box room for storage – not that he had that much to store.

  Stanley shuffled his feet impatiently, his eyes darting back to the front door and the street beyond. Boys were playing marbles and swinging from rope tied to the crossbar of a lamp post. Others were playing cricket and all of them were having fun. His face was a picture of happiness when his mother told him to go outside and play.

  ‘Your father and I have things to discuss.’

  Their discussion had been stilted but it was agreed that they would try again. He’d asked her whether she’d told the pawnbroker – Michael, she corrected him – that she was going back to her husband. She’d nodded. He’d wanted to reach out and smooth away the tightness of her jaw, but he stopped himself. He’d not wanted to appear too affectionate, too willing to let bygones be bygones. And why should he? Wasn’t he the innocent party, the legal spouse left in the lurch?

  Their first few days together had proved just as stilted as their conversation. He’d been disappointed. He’d wanted it to be so much more; he’d especially wanted them to sleep together again, but she’d refused.

  ‘Not yet,’ she’d said in that soft voice of hers. ‘I’ll sleep on the
sofa for now.’

  ‘Not yet,’ he muttered in the pub now as his glass was refilled. ‘Not yet, she says! But a man has needs. A man has rights. She’s me wife after all. She’s me wife,’ he repeated.

  The man at his side expressed sympathy. ‘Quite right, Henry. Love, honour and obey; that’s what a woman’s supposed to do. And if she doesn’t obey, you have to deal with it. It’s hard, but it’s the truth. It has to be done.’

  ‘That bike’s too big fer you,’ shouted one of the gang of boys who hung around the bottom of Aiken Street. ‘And it’s a girl’s bike!’

  ‘Better than none at all,’ Stanley shouted back at them.

  Wobbling but cycling gamely onwards, Stanley headed for number seventeen feeling excited, confused, but also a little nervous. His mother would want to know what was in the carrier bag dangling from the handlebars. That in turn would lead to questions about where he’d been and who he’d been with.

  ‘Just say I’m a friend,’ said the man with the khaki eyes. ‘And call me Joe. Now remember our plan.’

  Stanley’s blood surged with excitement. Of course he’d remember the plan. He couldn’t join the local gang if she discovered what Joe had given him.

  Mary Anne wiped her hands on her apron and narrowed her eyes. The brown paper carrier bag hanging from the handlebars was making Stanley wobble more than usual. There was something disconcerting about his demeanour, though she couldn’t put her finger on what it was. She’d start with the carrier bag.

  ‘What’s that?’ she asked as he came to a rubber-scorching halt.

  Usually he would have grinned and opened the bag, keen to share his good fortune, but he was strangely reticent. ‘Nothing for you,’ he said, far too cheekily for Mary Anne’s liking. She grabbed his shoulder as he attempted to push past her.

  ‘Not so fast, young man.’

  ‘Let me go.’ He wriggled and screwed up his face.

  ‘Stanley, you are not going inside this door until you show me.’

  The ill-tempered frown remained as he begrudgingly took the carrier bag from the handlebars and opened it.

  Mary Anne peered inside. She didn’t know what she’d expected to be in the bag but it certainly wasn’t a pair of roller skates. The sight of them confused her. ‘They look like yours.’