by Lizzie Lane
‘I haven’t had a chance to change the bed,’ said Mary Anne as Michael swept her into their old bedroom. Lavender polish and a glass vase full of Michaelmas daisies helped overcome the residual stench of burned walls.
‘But I’ve managed to get some cream distemper for the walls,’ she explained, but her words were stifled with kisses. He peeled off her clothes as she rubbed her tear-stained cheek against his stubble. When had she started crying? She couldn’t recall. She didn’t care. Michael was home.
‘Why are you crying?’
‘Because you’re home.’
‘Perhaps I should go away again?’
‘No. Oh, no! It’s been so long,’ she said, driven to greater hunger by the smell of his body, the hard feel of his chest against hers.
Making love with Michael made it seem as though he’d never gone away. There was a musical symmetry to the way their bodies moved together, like playing a familiar tune on a long-lost violin. The notes were the same, finely tuned and echoing through their bodies and into their minds.
She arched her back when he kissed her breasts. She ran her hands over his arms, reacquainting herself with the shape and tone of his muscles. The union was swift and passionate, intense and yet sensitive, a prelude to more sustained lovemaking to come.
They lay tangled in the sheets afterwards, a fine sheen of sweat glistening on their naked bodies. He ran his hand over her shoulder, her ribs; the indentation of her waistline and the sweeping curve of her hip.
He kissed her forehead, her nose, her cheeks and her lips. He kissed each breast, ran his tongue down to her belly button and into her loins. He kissed the inside of each thigh before returning to the pillow where he lay, replete, gazing into her eyes.
‘I have missed you.’
She snuggled closer, still wiping tears of happiness from her eyes. ‘At times I thought I would never see you again.’
‘But you’ve received my letters?’
‘Yes. But they were so few. I received letters from your parents too. They said they were well and that you were well. The censor doesn’t allow much else.’
‘You have no need to worry about me,’ he said, cupping her face with one hand. ‘It was you we needed to worry about. This man – this George Ford – who is he?’
She shook her head, her hair soft and gold against the pillow. ‘I don’t know.’
‘No idea at all?’
She shook her head more vehemently. ‘Michael, I’ve wracked my brains. I don’t know who this man is. The police said he escaped from a military mental hospital, the sort where men go who’ve been affected by battle – shell shock and suchlike.’
‘I understand. I have heard how battle can change men for ever.’ He lay back on the pillow, one arm bent beneath his head, her head resting on his chest. ‘Harry is home too. You had a letter?’
‘Yes, I did, at the same time as yours. I was going to get everything nice for you, the walls painted and new flooring laid before you got here.’
He laughed. ‘I will paint the walls. Harry will help, I am sure.’
‘I can’t wait,’ she groaned.
‘And Lizzie? Have you heard from Lizzie?’
‘Yes. As you know, she’s been posted somewhere top secret so can’t write as often as she used to and can’t get any leave at all. She said it’s all very hush-hush. Goodness knows when I’ll see her again. She thinks Christmas. Patrick sees her sometimes and passes me a message – you know: “Don’t worry, Mum, I’m OK.” OK!’ She smiled. ‘Funny how that word – if it is even a word – has entered our language from the American movies!’ She laughed.
Michael laughed with her, but his thoughts were elsewhere. There were rumours that the Americans would enter the war before very long. Intercepted messages between Berlin and Tokyo were becoming more and more difficult to decode. Something top-secret was happening and it worried him. Lizzie worried him more. She couldn’t be telling the truth about her new job. Apart from sections like his, there was no limit as to how many letters she could write; the content was what was important. And no leave until Christmas, she had said, but Christmas was still three months away. He thought about mentioning this to his beloved Marianna, but thought better of it. She had been through enough. He was home, but only for a short while. They would make hay – and love – while the sun shone.
Harry was also home on leave. He came round, that night, bringing Edgar with him. The table was laid with bread, along with a little butter and jam given to Mary Anne by Edith.
‘I have a plum tree in my back garden,’ Edith had explained.
Mary Anne had been amazed. ‘Where did you get the sugar?’
Edith had winked far too wickedly for a woman of her age. ‘It’s a secret.’
Mary Anne was proud of her white tablecloth. She’d got it back in September 1939, just after war broke out. Mrs Riley, the woman who’d pledged it back then, was dead now. Even the laundry room from where she’d run her pawn-broking business was gone, destroyed in a single night by a single bomb. The tablecloth had also survived the bombing of Michael’s pawn shop. It was as white as ever, having been taken to the shelter each time there was an air raid.
‘Fruit cake!’ cried Edgar, holding a large tin above his head. ‘I made it myself.’
Stanley was first in the queue.
‘Where did you get the sugar and the eggs?’ asked Mary Anne, her eyes wide with amazement.
Edgar tapped the side of his nose. ‘Harry told me this was to be a celebration, and I duly obliged with a celebratory cake.’
Mary Anne noted the yellowish remains of a bruise on Edgar’s cheek. ‘That George Ford certainly knows how to knock a man out, doesn’t he?’
‘So who is he?’ Harry asked his mother.
‘We don’t know. The police told me he was released from a military mental hospital. That’s all we know about him.’
Stanley shoved his plate forward. ‘A big slice, please.’
Laughing and talking, Mary Anne cut the cake into large portions.
‘Is your other daughter coming round with the little one?’ asked Edgar.
Mary Anne shook her head and hid her feelings. ‘No. She has fire-watching duty.’ The truth was that Daw did not approve of Harry’s relationship with Edgar, which she deemed ‘unnatural’. Her mother had not tried to persuade her.
The fruit cake was moist and accompanied with bread and margarine, baked apple slices and treacle. Mary Anne kept a quarter of the cake for the following day and with Stanley’s help took the dishes down to the kitchen.
While they were gone the three men started talking.
Michael lay back in his favourite leather chair, his eyes half closed. ‘So this nutcase – why did he do it?’
Harry was sitting with his elbows resting on his knees. He was frowning and staring at the old black range. Edgar was inspecting a child’s winter coat Mary Anne had fashioned from an old car blanket.
Realizing he wasn’t going to get an answer, Michael got up from his chair. ‘I will go and help Marianna.’
‘That was rude,’ said Edgar.
‘No it wasn’t. I just didn’t want to hurt him.’
Edgar raised his fine, ginger eyebrows. ‘Hurt him? In what way?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Don’t give me that, Harry. If it’s nothing, then you wouldn’t have that troubled expression. Tell me.’
Harry took a deep breath. ‘I’ve been making enquiries. I couldn’t say anything in front of Michael because I didn’t want to upset his feelings, but I think that George Ford is my half-brother. My mother’s sweetheart was killed in the trenches but he’d left her pregnant. The child was given away and she was forced to marry my father.’
‘So you think he sees himself as the victim of a terrible injustice and is taking it out on your family?’
‘Something like that.’
‘So why don’t you ask your mother about it?’
With a swift flick of his wrists, the blanket coat
was neatly folded and placed back on the pile.
‘I don’t know if I’ve got the nerve. It’s personal.’
‘It happened. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.’
Harry jerked up and glared at him. ‘I’m not ashamed!’
‘You’re embarrassed. Your mother won’t be. You’ll see. Ask her, then we’ll see if I’m right.’
Michael chose that moment to reappear. ‘Stanley has just nipped out to play cowboys and Indians in the street. Marianna insists I go find him and get him back.’
‘Do you want me to go with you?’
Michael smiled. ‘No need. He will no doubt be with the other rapscallions shooting at each other on a bombsite.’
Harry waited a minute or two after Michael had left before getting to his feet. ‘Alright,’ he said to Edgar. ‘I’m off to wipe dishes – and ask a certain embarrassing question.’
‘You’ll cope,’ said Edgar with a toss of his head.
Harry glanced back at him before leaving. Edgar had picked up a pair of scissors and an uncut blanket. No doubt by the time he got back another jacket ready for sewing would have joined the others in the pile.
The sight of his mother washing the dishes moved Harry. Her soft auburn-gold hair shone like a girl’s as it fell across her face. Unlike some women in their forties, she still had a waistline, high breasts and a trim bottom. He wondered what she would say if she knew what he was thinking. He smiled. She’d be pleased, he was sure of it.
She turned her head as she realized he was standing there. ‘Harry! You didn’t need to come down. I’ve almost finished.’
He leaned on the draining board and folded his arms. ‘I was thinking about this George Ford character. Was he very old?’
‘No.’ She shook her head and stopped wiping a plate as she thought about it. ‘I think he was probably just a little older than you.’
‘But you don’t know him?’
‘No.’
Harry prided himself on being able to hold his own in any kind of company. He’d never felt nervous in his life, but he did now. He shifted his weight from one hip to the other as he sought the right words – if there were ever any right words for something like this.
‘You wouldn’t have known him years ago? As a child, perhaps?’
His mother gave him one of her sidelong searching looks, the one that begs the question, ‘What have you been up to?’
‘No,’ she said, looking puzzled, almost hurt.
This is the time to take the plunge, Harry decided. Taking her hands in his, he looked deep into her eyes. ‘Mum, could he have been the baby you gave away all those years ago?’
His lovely, respectable mother suddenly appeared very small, very feminine and very pale.
‘No,’ she said, her voice not much more than a sigh. ‘No.’
He knew she was telling the truth and told Edgar so later.
Stanley came dashing back up the stairs before Michael did. Michael was frowning when he got back. He looked up to the landing as the door to Stanley’s bedroom slammed shut.
‘I think that boy is up to something.’
‘He’s a boy. Of course he is,’ said Harry.
‘It was such an obvious solution,’ Harry muttered to Edgar as they drove back to their flat. ‘Too obvious, perhaps, though I would have thought she might have considered it a possibility. After all, he would have changed his name and his looks would have changed after all this time.’
‘Or there could be a more obvious reason why she knew for sure that George Ford was not the child she gave away.’
Harry slowed the car to allow a man and woman to cross the road. Edgar was a wonderful person, but he could sometimes act a bit superior. You had to draw the conversation out of him.
‘Alright, Edgar, I know you’re dying to tell me. Why is my mother so sure that George Ford is not the baby she gave away?’
‘Simple,’ said Edgar. ‘Both male and female did he create …’
‘A girl?’ Harry’s jaw dropped as Edgar stated the obvious.
‘A girl.’
‘But I was sure …’
‘And even if your mother did refer to her firstborn as a boy – which of course you’re not sure about – do remember that people like to cover their tracks …’
Chapter Thirty-Four
‘I knew you’d look after her, Mother, so I brought her straight over.’
Mary Anne was about to say that she did have work to do, that a pile of garments for mending and alteration were waiting on the table. But one look at darling Mathilda and harsh words about being put upon and taken for granted melted away.
‘John’s coming home. I’m going down to the station to meet him.’
‘I’ll take you for a walk,’ Mary Anne said to the smiling child once Daw had trotted off to please herself.
The weather was turning colder, coal was becoming scarcer and the advent of Christmas was causing headaches. There was nothing to buy in the shops and everyone was looking to ‘make do and mend’ or pass on Christmas presents from years before. Old fur coats were being made into teddy bears, velvet evening gowns into golliwogs and old underwear into dolls’ clothes. Bits of wood were being carved into wooden trains and cars for the boys. Women dreamed of silk stockings, though there was precious little hope of them coming into the Red Cross shop.
Mary Anne pushed her little granddaughter all the way along East Street and up Redcliffe Hill. The old faggot and pea shop on Redcliffe Hill was doing what it could with minimal ingredients, but vegetable stew was more readily available than meaty faggots.
The elegant lamp posts hung dull and unlit and the church spire was silent; no bells would be rung until the war was over. Like many others, Mary Anne wondered when that day would come.
By mid-afternoon the light was beginning to fade. Shops that would normally be blazing with light now pulled down their shutters. The blackout was total, the streets murky and miserable.
She was just approaching the Red Cross shop and about to cross over the road to the alley when someone waved at her.
‘Mary Anne! You’ve got a visitor.’
She strained her neck, hoping it was Lizzie arrived home unexpectedly and looking for her. She’d said nothing in the single letter she’d received about coming home, and it had been so long. Patrick had written to say he’d seen Lizzie and that Mary Anne was not to worry, but that wasn’t the same as seeing her in the flesh.
‘This way,’ called Edith, still waving.
‘I can’t leave Mathilda here,’ said Mary Anne, as the anxiety of losing her months before still gave her nightmares.
‘Bring her in, dear,’ said Gertrude, her broad face peering over Edith’s head.
The two women helped her manhandle the pram. There was something urgent and excitable about the two middle-aged women as they bundled Mary Anne and the pram through the door. Something was going on.
‘Close that door and pull down the shutter, Edith. Hurry up.’
Edith did as ordered. The shutter rattled into place. The other shutters were already drawn halfway down the windows. The sound of a switch being clicked was instantly followed by the meagre light of a 25-watt bulb.
‘This lady wishes to see you, Mrs Randall,’ said Gertrude. She deferred to the lady mentioned with a sweep of her arm, almost as though she were royalty.
The other occupant of the shop was sitting on a bentwood chair, one stockinged leg crossed elegantly over the other. She was wearing a flattish black hat with a half face veil speckled with sequins. Her shoulders shifted inside a glossy mink coat. Gloved fingers drew a fine ebony cigarette holder from a blood-red mouth.
Mary Anne almost curtsied. She may not be royalty, but this woman certainly wasn’t from Bedminster.
At first the woman’s eyes settled on the baby. ‘She’s lovely. What’s her name?’
‘Mathilda. She’s my granddaughter.’
The woman gave her a long, enquiring stare. Mary Anne squirmed. Who was she? What did
she want?
Turning away from Mary Anne and the baby, she cast her glance sideways at the other two. ‘I’m sorry to be such a bore, but do you think we could have some privacy?’ Her voice was commanding, but disarming. She had the air of someone who knew how to give orders without people taking offence. She knew how to get the best out of people.
She hasn’t come across Gertrude Palmer before, thought Mary Anne, and almost said so out loud.
To her great surprise, Gertrude locked the front door. ‘You stay here and have your little chat,’ she said in the most ingratiating tone Mary Anne had ever heard her use. ‘Edith and I will trot out to the kitchen and make ourselves a cup of tea. Would you like one?’
‘Not for the moment,’ said the elegant woman. ‘Perhaps later.’ The confident expression and the air of self-assurance melted like snow. The true colour of the woman’s complexion seemed to seep through the expensive make-up. She tilted her head back so she was looking up into Mary Anne’s face. For a while she seemed to study her features, almost as if she were seeking something familiar. ‘Perhaps you should sit down,’ she said, indicating the old stool to the side of the counter.
Perplexed as to her visitor’s identity, Mary Anne dragged the stool across the floor, scratching the linoleum as she went. But she wasn’t looking at the floor; she was studying the woman’s features just as intently as the woman had studied hers. Inside she trembled. One look at the woman and she knew – she just knew.
But Mary Anne showed no outward sign of guessing her visitor’s identity. She stayed calm as she made herself comfortable. ‘What did you want to see me about?’
The woman stubbed out her cigarette in a glass ashtray. Even that was a sign that Gertrude had been impressed. She usually only handed out tin ones for everyday use.
The woman hesitated. ‘My name is Elizabeth Ford. I’m George Ford’s wife.’
Setting aside her initial guess at the woman’s identity, Mary Anne sat deadly still. Had she heard right? That wasn’t at all what she’d expected the woman to say.
‘You’re George Ford’s wife?’
‘Yes, I am. The police came to call and told me what had happened. We’ve been searching for George for some time now. He had a breakdown after Dunkirk. He hasn’t been the same since. It’s almost as though what was positive before his ordeal has now become negative, and vice versa. Poor George.’ She said it softly, her eyes gazing down at the floor.
