by Annie Groves
‘You’re a sensible man, Con. I knew that right off from when we met–a clever man, the kind of man who knows which side his bread’s buttered, I reckon. The way I see it is that if you and me go into partnership like I’ve just told you, then we both get to benefit. With me putting the word out in the right ears, you could easily be pulling in a hundred and twenty-five dollars a week instead of only twenty-five. Any man would be a fool to turn down that kind of money, and something tells me that you ain’t a fool, Con. So what do you say? Shall we shake on it partner?
What could he say, other than yes?
THIRTEEN
‘Well, I don’t know, Bella, you used to be such a pretty girl, and now look at you. You look positively gaunt. It’s very ageing, you know, to be thin. Young men don’t like it at all.’
Bella bore her mother’s unkind remarks in stoic silence as she finished drying the crockery and putting it away whilst her mother sat watching her from her kitchen chair.
‘It’s that place, of course. I never approved of you taking that job in the first place, and if you’d listened to me, like a dutiful daughter, you never would have done. If you’d gone to work for your father he wouldn’t have been driven to temptation by that … that hussy, and you wouldn’t be looking like you do.’
It was true that Bella had lost weight, and that the late May sunshine showed up the shadows under her eyes, but it wasn’t her work that was the cause, Bella acknowledged. The truth was that her work at the nursery and the responsibility that it carried was almost the only thing that kept her going. That, and Lena and the baby, of course. But they were part of their own little family now, and not her responsibility any more.
It was because of Jan that she looked the way she did, and that the pre-war yellow dress with its pattern of white daisies she was wearing, and which had fitted her perfectly last year, was now loose on her, and her face looked pinched and drawn. Because of Jan and because she loved him.
It was nearly a month since she had sent him away and there hadn’t been a minute, not a second during that time, when she hadn’t thought about him and longed for him, and hoped secretly that he would write to her, even though she had said he must not do so. But he hadn’t so much as sent her a single word.
She had told him not to, Bella reminded herself as she set off for work, having first prepared her mother’s lunch and seen to it that their neighbour would pop in to see her and that a fellow member of her WVS group would call round to take her with her to their afternoon meeting.
In reality Vi was perfectly capable of doing these things for herself, had she wanted to do so, but since she didn’t and preferred instead to cling to her self-pity and insist that she was too filled with despair to do anything, Bella had to organise her life for her.
Most of the trees were now in new leaf. Their differing shades of greens, broken here and there by the newly minted leaves of a copper beech, were a sight that should have lifted the heaviest of hearts, but stubbornly Bella’s refused to be uplifted. The distant glimpse of a man with dark hair, wearing an RAF uniform, lifted it, though, sending it so high that it felt as though it was almost in her throat until she was close enough to know that he wasn’t Jan.
Jan, Jan, Jan. Why couldn’t she behave like a mature woman and not some silly girl? Seeing the gap between some houses where a bomb had dropped in the early stages of the war, the site now cleared of the collapsed building and the ground overgrown with rough grass and weeds, Bella paused, remembering the baby girl who had been removed alive from the wreckage of her home. Bella had held her for a few minutes, the feel of her small body in her arms a painful reminder of the baby she herself had lost.
Well, now she had any number of babies to hold and to fill her life, Bella told herself robustly, since the nursery was filled with them, and of course she had Lena and Baby as well. What kind of example would it have set Lena if she, Bella, had gone rushing into Jan’s arms with his poor dead wife’s body barely cold? Not, of course, that Lena needed Bella to set her an example these days. After all, Lena herself was a happily married woman now.
The morning air had that May softness and warmth about it, small white clouds drifting lazily across a blue sky. There was birdsong in the air, and the laughter of children from the playground of a nearby school. Normal sounds of normal life, but life wasn’t normal and, as though to prove it, a fighter plane suddenly sped through the sky above her–from the Coastal Protection Squadron, based locally, Bella decided as she watched it head out to sea, leaving behind a vapour trail of white against the blue.
She’d left home a bit earlier than normal–more, Bella admitted ruefully, to escape from her mother than because she had any need to be at her desk early, and as she approached the nursery, mothers and sometimes grandmothers were arriving with their children. Several recognised her and stopped to talk to her,
‘Ever so well, little Roger’s doing, since he’s been coming here,’ one mother told Bella gratefully. ‘I must say that when we first learned that Mr Churchill was bringing out a law that would mean that we had to go to work, I was worried about leaving Roger, but he’s come on a treat.’
‘We can’t take all the credit, Mrs Hunter,’ Bella responded diplomatically. ‘The nurses tell me that they can always tell which little ones have a mother with the right attitude, because their babies are so much happier and more responsive.’
Roger’s mother’s chest swelled with pride, enabling Bella to excuse herself, but she didn’t get much further before she was stopped again. Not by a mother this time, but by a sister. Jan’s sister, Bettina.
‘Bettina,’ Bella began uncertainly.
But Jan’s sister stopped her, saying quickly and fiercely, ‘There’s something I have to tell you, and I can’t stay long. I have to get back to Mother and then go to work. It’s about Jan, Bella.’
About Jan? Although neither of them had spoken openly about things, Bella knew from the light hints that had been dropped by Bettina after Jan had first revealed to Bella his love for her, that Jan’s mother and sister were aware of the situation and were grateful to her for the moral stance she had taken. The fact that they had wanted her to know about Magda’s death had confirmed Bella’s feelings in this regard.
‘I can’t see him, Bettina, no matter how much I might want to. It wouldn’t be right and one day he’ll think that himself. The last thing I want is for him to end up despising me like he did before, and …’ Perhaps she shouldn’t speak so openly, but it was impossible for her not to do so, Bella knew, given how she felt.
‘Bella!’ There was a desperate urgency and pain in Bettina’s voice that suspended her own. ‘Jan’s been posted as “missing in action, believed dead".’
‘No, no …’ Bella was shaking Bettina’s arm. ‘Tell me that isn’t true?’ she begged her.
‘Because of the Baedeker raids from the Luftwaffe, 307 Squadron’s been on night coastal protection duty. Jan had already intercepted and shot down one of the attackers over the Channel and then he started to pursue another. One of the other pilots in the squadron saw him. He told me all this when Mother and I went down … Well, Jan’s CO wanted to tell us in person. Pieter was a friend of Jan’s; they were both in the same squadron in Poland. He told us that he saw two German fighters go up on either side of Jan just after he’d shot down his own target. Pieter said that Jan didn’t stand a chance, although he tried hard to shake them off.’
‘He could have bailed out, into the Channel.’ Bella’s own voice was wild with despair and a refusal to accept what she was being told.
Bettina shook her head. ‘No. Pieter said that Jan was already over the French coast. No, Bella, I’m afraid he’s gone. I must get back. As you can imagine, Mother is … dreadfully upset.’
‘Yes, yes, of course …’
‘Here.’ Bettina held out an envelope to her. ‘Jan asked me to give you this if he ever … when I knew that he wouldn’t be coming back.’
Bella’s hand shook as she took the
letter from him.
‘You’re sure that there’s no chance? No hope that—’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, Bettina.’
They were in one another’s arms, two women who had at the beginning of their relationship shared a dislike for one another, united now in their grief for the man they had both loved.
‘I sent him away,’ Bella wept. ‘It was for his own sake.’
‘You did the right thing. Your love guarded his honour, Bella. It was the right thing to do.’
‘No,’ Bella denied. ‘If I hadn’t then now I would have known … we would have shared … there might even have been the promise of a child.’
They looked at one another in mutual understanding, knowing that the war had changed them for ever.
‘I must go,’ Bettina repeated, adding as she released Bella, ‘Don’t forget us, please, Bella. Come and see us. It is what Jan would have wanted.’
Bella nodded.
She couldn’t go to her office now, but she must, she had to. She looked towards the nursery, and then at the envelope containing Jan’s letter to her. Such a mundane thing, a letter, and yet so very important when it was all that she would ever have of the man she loved.
She wanted to go somewhere where she could be alone to read it, to hide away somewhere and feel that when she read it that he was there with her, but where was there? Not her mother’s house, which never felt like a proper home in the way her own house had for those few short months during which she had shared it with Lena. It would have to be her office, although reading personal correspondence in working hours was against the rules she had set for herself. Bella looked back down the way she had just walked. She could retrace her steps and read Jan’s letter in the privacy of the overgrown garden of the bombed-out house where she had held the baby who miraculously had survived so much devastation. There she would be alone with the letter, but she had a duty here at the nursery, and if she should be needed …
Bella walked towards the nursery.
‘My, you’re early this morning, Miss Bella,’ Mary, who helped Cook, smiled. ‘I’ll bring you in a cup of tea as usual, shall I?’
‘No, thank you, Mary, not this morning. At least not just yet. I had a second cup with my mother before setting out,’ Bella fibbed.
Once in her office she closed the door and then removed her white gloves and unpinned her straw hat with its trimming of white daisies before sitting down at her desk and starting to open the letter, only to stop and lift the envelope to her nose, closing her eyes as she tried to find Jan’s scent on it–that special unique mix of cigarettes, soap, Brycreem and, most of all, Jan himself, but it wasn’t there.
Her fingers shook as she went back to opening the letter, the paperknife slipping from them and clattering onto her desk. Her hear thudding, she picked it up and tried again.
There were three sheets of paper inside the envelope, both sides filled with strong masculine writing in black ink. Tears blurred her eyes. Fiercely she blinked them away and concentrated on Jan’s writing.
Bella, my dearest heart, my darling, my true love now and for always, should you receive this letter it will be because I am no longer here on this earth with you to say these words in person. Not on this earth, Bella, but never doubt that I shall be with you always, loving you and watching over you.
You sent me away and I was resentful and angry, where you were forgiving and loving. I was foolish where you were wise. I was selfish where you were compassionate. I was wrong where you were right.
These are things I wanted to say to you in person when I thanked you for your strength and your love on my behalf, but I have written this letter in case this war deprives me of the opportunity to do so. I would not want you to be left thinking that you loved a man who was too much of a fool to recognise how much he owed you. You were right to say that I was asking for too much too soon, right too to remind me that I was lacking in respect–even if my marriage was no marriage at all. What I have shared and known with you was a thousand times more what a true marriage of hearts and minds should be. To me, my Bella, you are my other half, the person who completes me, the perfection in every way that wipes out my own imperfection. We have had so little time together, and yet a thousand lifetimes could not make me love you more, and that love will be with you for ever.
However, I do not want you to grieve for me or spend your life mourning me. Your fulfilment, your happiness, the sound of your laughter, the children who will bring you that laughter, these are what I wish for you and I want you to promise me when the time is right you will welcome into your life the man who will provide you with them. When you say your prayers at night, and you speak to me in your heart, I will be there to listen and I shall want to hear you say that you will not close your heart to your own future happiness because of me.
Think instead of what you would want for me if our positions were reversed and this letter had been written from you to me.
My dearest and only love–for that is what you will always be–know that my last and my first thoughts as death takes me will be of you, the last image seen by my dying eyes as I conjured your memory to me will be yours, and your arms, and your kiss my last earthly touch.
My darling, forgive me.
Your Jan
When she had finished reading it, Bella pressed the letter to her trembling lips and wept. It should have comforted her that Jan had understood why she had sent him away–one day maybe it would–but right now she would have sacrificed every bit of comfort she had derived from his letter for Jan himself to be alive, even if that had meant that he no longer loved her.
It was so cruel that he should have died. He had so much to give to other people, such gifts and strengths. When this war was finally over the country would need men like Jan. Why must it be that the brave and the good should die whilst men like her father and her brother were allowed to live?
‘Are you planning to go to Hampstead to see your parents this weekend, Katie, only if you aren’t I thought the two of us might do something together, seeing as the weather is so nice–perhaps go to Richmond on a pleasure boat, and then maybe the cinema in the evening?’
‘What a lovely idea. And, no, I’m not going to Hampstead,’ Katie told Gina.
‘Good. I’ll make some enquiries about what pleasure boats are running.’
The two girls exchanged warm smiles.
‘I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have as a pal than you, Katie,’ Gina told her. ‘I bumped into one of the girls I was at school with the other day. She’s married now and living in the country, not really doing any kind of war work at all, and talking to her made me realise how little we now have in common. Not like you and I.’
‘It’s the war,’ Katie agreed knowledgeably. ‘It’s changed things so much. If it hadn’t happened and we’d met I’d have heard you speaking and decided you were too posh to want to know me, without even thinking about what you might be like as a person. Before the war, we all knew our place and we stuck to it, but now the war has put so many of us into a different place and with different people that we have to get on with. We all have to pull together, and out of that friendships are being made that never would have before. It’s divided us all in a different kind of way–those of us who get stuck in and get on with things, and those who try to cling to the old ways.’
‘Well said, Katie, and we’re all the better for that,’ Gina applauded Katie’s speech. ‘I’m glad to see that you’re putting the hurt that chap of yours caused you behind you as well. Good for you. You’ve got such a kind heart, Katie, and I’m not surprised that the powers that be have promoted you. Now the other girls can turn to you for advice on whether or not they need to refer letters they have concerns about to their table leaders. You have a natural ability to draw people to you that makes them feel comfortable confiding in you.’
Katie blushed a little. ‘I am pleased with my promotion. I just hope that I do a good job.’
‘You will,�
�� Gina assured her confidently.
They had the discussion about the coming weekend in the canteen over lunch. When they got back to their desks, to find their head of table waiting for them, they exchanged silent looks.
‘It’s nothing to worry about,’ she told them both promptly. ‘It’s just that you’ve had a pair of visitors, male, and in uniform and with official permission to call and see you. If you go to reception you’ll find them waiting there for you.’
‘Who?’
‘Who?’
When they both spoke at once, they exchanged another look.
‘I can’t tell you any more, because I don’t have that information. All I do know is that they have official authority to speak to you, so if I were you I’d look lively and go and see them.’
‘Who on earth can it be, do you suppose?’ Gina asked Katie as they hurried to obey their superior.
‘And why do they want to see us?’ Katie’s question was more anxious and less curious than Gina’s, but then Katie had not forgotten the disquiet and discomfort she had felt over the whole issue of her Liverpool colleague and friend’s insistence on getting too pally with the young Irishmen they had met at the Grafton Dance Hall. Katie wasn’t aware now of having done anything ‘wrong’ that might be damaging to national security, but she still felt worried.
However, when they reached the reception area and she saw exactly who was waiting for them, looking so very smart in their naval uniforms and attracting admiring glances from the women toing and froing through the reception area, her anxiety vanished.
‘It’s those naval men from Bath,’ she whispered unnecessarily to Gina. ‘Captain Towers and Lieutenant Spencer.’
Although he had the more junior ranking, it was the lieutenant who stepped forward to greet them and to explain the purpose of their visit.
‘The Royal Navy is so grateful to you for saving my life, my services to them being, of course, ir-replaceable,’ he paused with a mischievous look in his eyes, ‘that they have sent us here to pass on their thanks in person via a dinner date at—’
