A Strong Hand to Hold

by Anne Bennett

  ‘I know,’ Geraldine said. And she did know, but it was hard after a lifetime’s obedience and deference to her mother, to stand up for herself. She watched the doctor go up the stairs and a sudden memory flashed into her mind that she hadn’t thought about in years.

  It was the word ‘America’ that did it, and she remembered the dashing Eamonn Flaherty who’d wanted to take her there once. She refused him because her mother had wanted her to, and had married Dan Driscoll for the same reason. She’d been contented enough with Dan and she loved her children, but in the early years of her marriage she’d often wondered what her life would have been like if she’d followed her heart.

  Now her sister had the chance to go, although her reasons were different, for Jenny was going to try and rebuild her shattered life. Good luck to her, thought Geraldine. I think it’s about time I took charge of mine.

  In the bedroom Peter looked with some dislike at Norah O’Leary, who’d taken to her bed, leaving Geraldine to deal with the child she’d injured and her hysterical brother. One day, he thought, she’d probably collapse from a seizure brought on by her own bad temper. Even now, her blood pressure was dangerously high. Norah made no attempt to talk to Peter and he was glad of it. He’d sent for an ambulance for Rosemarie, hoping it was just concussion she was suffering from. He was disgusted by Norah’s actions.

  Norah wasn’t one whit sorry for what she’d done, for she thought Rosemarie had deserved to be chastised. She reminded her of Jenny as a young girl, and she wondered how her compliant, beautiful daughter had given birth to such a child. And after the doctor had gone, Geraldine had looked at her in a way she never had before, and said coldly that she was never to lay a hand on her children again. Really, it was not to be borne.

  Peter didn’t know what had happened between Geraldine and her mother, and he never told Jenny and Linda what had happened to Rosemarie. He was just glad they were both out of the way.

  He continued to support them, glad that Jenny appeared to need him after Bob’s untimely death. He’d felt sorry for Linda too after her cancelled wedding plans, not that he’d have wanted her to marry the man. Haversham had made his skin crawl.

  Linda was not heartbroken, but she was bored, for after she’d told Charles it would be better for them to part, she’d given in her notice at Packington Hall. Flora had been furious with her at first but the manager made it obvious that if she hadn’t, she’d have been given the sack. Charles Haversham was rich and influential and the restaurant couldn’t risk making an enemy of him.

  Peter often wondered if Linda had received any more letters from the POW, but felt sure she’d have mentioned it if she had. He didn’t ask Jenny because they’d had a blistering row after the first letter arrived; Jenny had admitted to steaming it open, and then throwing it away, not even letting the girl see it. Jenny had claimed she’d been protecting her from herself. ‘She’s naive,’ she’d said.

  ‘She’s not that naive,’ Peter protested. ‘And I think you should have let her see the letter and decide for herself whether or not to answer it.’

  ‘Don’t you think she owes me something, after all I’ve done for her?’ Jenny had asked.

  ‘No, I bloody well don’t!’ Peter had thundered. ‘Is that the reason you went back into that bombed house, to have Linda in thrall to you for the rest of her life?’

  The anger in Peter’s voice had reduced Jenny to tears, which melted his rage. He pulled her into his arms where she’d clung to him and wept. Peter longed to kiss her trembling lips, but instead he said gently, ‘You gave Linda her life in a way. Now you must let her live it as she sees fit.’

  Jenny said nothing but, though she knew Peter had a point, when the next letter came from Max Schulz, she wouldn’t take a chance. She opened it, read it and burned it. They came regularly, and in the end she stopped reading them and burned them unread. But since the New Year, there had only been a couple and by the middle of February, she realized there had been none for weeks. She assumed the German had got fed up when he received no answers. She was glad she hadn’t mentioned the matter to Linda and upset her for nothing. There was no place for an ex-prisoner-of-war in their plans for the future.

  However, for a time, it looked as if those plans would come to nothing. Most of the ships trawling the Atlantic route were either still troopships, or hadn’t yet been refitted for civvy street. Desperate to get Linda over in time for the audition, they booked a cabin on the Queen Mary for Saturday, 30 March. This ship was operating between Southampton and New York primarily to transport British wives to American servicemen, but it also carried ordinary passengers. Southampton was the devil of a long way to travel from Birmingham, but, as Linda said, when you’re already going thousands of miles to another continent, what did a couple of hundred miles further matter? Anyway, there was no other way to reach New York, so they had to put up with it and Linda wrote to Louis Bradshaw giving him details of when they would both arrive.

  Peter was plunged into gloom again; he hadn’t been sure they were serious. When Jenny and Linda had first mentioned going to America he’d thought it was a dream that would never become reality. Now it was fact, and the girl he’d loved for years would be thousands of miles away. But maybe that was better by far than seeing her regularly and not being able to admit how he felt about her.

  Linda was glad she would not be there during the last week to witness Peter’s distress, for the following morning she was travelling to her aunt’s new house in Basingstoke. The small house she had been evacuated to in 1939 had been attacked by a doodlebug in 1944, and eventually she’d been re-housed with her family in a four-bedroomed council house in the same town.

  Linda had kept up a correspondence with her Aunt Lily since the accident, because she knew her mother would have liked her to do so. Aunt Lily was delighted to get her news, and when she wrote and told her of her plans to travel to New York, she replied immediately, inviting her to come and stay with them for a few days beforehand so they could get to know one another better.

  I never thought I’d be happy away from ‘the Smoke’ and it took some getting used to, I can tell you, but I got to like the place. My Sid settled in and got a job straight away and now with the three eldest working too, we’re in clover. And the house is lovely, Linda. I don’t know I’m born with all this space and a proper bathroom, and we’d all love to see you. You could catch a train from here to Southampton in time to meet your Jenny the day before you sail.

  Linda really wanted to see her aunt, for she was a true blood relative, her mother’s oldest sister, and she’d also like to meet Lily’s husband and sons, her cousins, for nice and friendly though Jenny’s family were, they were not her own.

  And so it was arranged. Linda was to travel to Basingstoke the following morning after the party Maureen had planned to wish them all Godspeed. A week later, she would meet up with Jenny at the Metropole Hotel in Southampton. ‘Might as well splash out for once in our lives,’ Jenny had said. ‘Then, after a good night’s sleep and a decent breakfast, we’ll take a taxi to the docks.’

  ‘Let’s hope the crossing is smooth so that the breakfasts stay in our stomachs long enough to do us some good,’ Linda had said, looking with horror at the price list in the information pack Jenny had sent for. ‘Otherwise, I’d think it an awful waste of money.’

  They’d both been horrified to find that even to travel third class on the Queen Mary cost fifty-nine pounds. Louis Bradshaw had wanted to pay for their tickets, but Jenny had said that, although it was quite all right for him to send the cost of Linda’s fare, she couldn’t possibly ask him to fund hers too. But she didn’t see how she’d manage to raise that amount of money. She had some saved; she’d been putting something aside for her bottom drawer. Linda had a little more, but it would leave them dangerously low on funds and Jenny was worried about going so far with so little money.

  Salvation came in the shape of Francesca Masters who presented Jenny with a gift of £300. Jenny was ag
hast and loath to accept it, but Francesca explained that her son would have come into this money on his wedding anyway under the terms of his grandfather’s will. But as soon as Jenny had become engaged to Bob, he had made a will gifting the money to her if anything happened to him. The will had only recently come to light, however, for the man he’d entrusted it to had also died in action. The Masters family had all agreed that Bob’s wishes should be adhered to.

  Jenny was astounded by the family’s generosity, and enormously grateful. Never had she had so much money before! Now nothing could stop her and Linda and their future was assured.

  Both girls were all set to enjoy the party Maureen O’Leary had put on for them that evening. However, when the house was packed with friends, neighbours and family, Linda was sorry that she hadn’t asked Sarah Phelps. She hadn’t seen her since Peter had driven her away from the farm in disgrace the previous summer.

  She could have claimed she was busy, and in a way it was true: Jenny had needed a lot of support after Bob’s death, certainly in the beginning; then there was her own marriage to arrange, and at first she was still singing in the evenings and working full-time. But, really, she was embarrassed to meet Sarah and the more time that passed, the harder it was to turn up at the farm casually and uninvited one weekend.

  Still, Linda thought, she should have asked Sarah to the party, or at least written and told her about going to America. She might have done, had she not received a letter from her two weeks before.

  Haven’t seen you in ages. Hope Christmas was good for you and things are OK generally. Please get in touch soon. I have news about Max.

  Max! It was a bolt from the blue and a most unwelcome bolt at that. She’d taken a long time to get over Max, but now she was getting on with making a new life for herself. She wanted no reminder of a wartime romance to mess anything up. She’d accepted the fact she’d never see him again, and she had no intention of sailing to America upset and unsettled because of any news Sarah Phelps wanted to tell her about Max Schulz.

  Jenny was quite concerned about her sister at the party that night. She thought she looked unwell and there were lines of strain on her face that had never been there before. However, Geraldine assured Jenny she was fine. It was Jenny and Linda’s night and there was no way she was going to spoil it with grim tales of her life. She’d made the decision to stand up for herself and her children the day her mother had smacked Rosemarie, but she was finding that arguing with and defying her mother was harder work than she had ever imagined.

  She caught Peter Sanders’ eye across the room and smiled at him. She liked the doctor; he had no illusions about her mother and could be very helpful when she was at the end of her tether. Peter didn’t return her smile and Geraldine realized he wasn’t looking at her, but at Jenny – and looking at her as if … Well, as if he was gone on her. Jenny seemed unaware of it and Geraldine wondered why no one had put her wise.

  Gerry had noticed Peter’s preoccupation with his niece, too, and had watched him morosely knocking back the beer all night. He followed him into the kitchen as he headed for yet another refill. ‘Tell her how you feel man,’ he advised, watching Peter fill his tankard to the brim.

  ‘Tell who?’

  ‘Jenny! God, man, I’m not blind!’

  ‘Jenny appears to be – at least where I’m concerned.’

  ‘Well, that’s women for you,’ Gerry said. ‘But tell her. If you let her go without telling her, you’ll regret it.’

  ‘She doesn’t want me. She doesn’t see me that way.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I just do,’ Peter said, knowing his heart would break when Jenny walked out of his life forever.

  ‘I’ll tell her for you.’

  ‘No you bloody won’t,’ Peter said. ‘She has to realize it herself.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Tonight?’ Peter asked, and waved his glass in Gerry’s direction. ‘Tonight, I’m going to get very drunk.’

  Gerry gave a sigh and left Peter to get on with it, wondering how Jenny could not see what was in front of her.

  Every time Jenny thought of the party the following day she was upset and troubled. She’d been enjoying herself until almost the end of the night, when she’d stepped into the garden for a breath of air. The room had been stuffy and full of smoke and eventually the weepy remembrances of her gran and Beattie had succeeded in making her feel very emotional.

  She’d noticed Peter at the party and thought him in a mood, for he’d barely spoken to her and had taken himself out into the kitchen where he’d stayed most of the evening. So she was surprised when he stepped into the garden after her, but pleased too because she’d known him for years now and welcomed the chance to have a few words alone. ‘Hello, Jenny O’Leary,’ Peter said and Jenny realized that he was quite drunk.

  Never ever had she seen him in that state before, or anywhere near it. But, she told herself, it was the man’s own time and a party, after all. ‘Hello, Peter.’

  ‘Will you miss us all then, all your wonderful friends?’

  ‘Of course I will.’

  ‘You have lots of friends, don’t you, Jenny O’Leary?’ he asked. ‘I’m a friend, am I not?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said again, and added, ‘an old and valued friend.’

  ‘An old and valued friend,’ Peter repeated and gave a laugh. ‘And what would you say, Jenny, if I said I had no wish to be your friend, however old and valued?’

  Jenny was lost for words. ‘Well, I’d … It would be …’

  ‘What would you say, Jenny, if I said that I set out to get drunk tonight, because I wanted to tell you something I could never tell you sober?’ Jenny didn’t answer. She just stared at him and Peter went on, ‘I might never have the courage to say this again.’ He took one of Jenny’s hands and looked into her eyes and said, ‘Jenny, I love you with all my heart. I think I’ve loved you since you came out of that hellhole of a tunnel. You were encrusted with filth, dripping with blood and your clothes hung in tatters around you. You went for me like a tiger, you remember?’

  Oh, she remembered. For years she’d had nightmares about being buried alive from her experiences in that tunnel. But what was alarming her was what Peter had said about loving her.

  She nodded her head, ‘I remember.’

  ‘Well, from that day, that moment, I’ve loved you and over the years it’s got worse. I know you loved Bob and I tried not to mind. I knew Bob would have made you happy. And now that Bob is dead, you are making a new life for yourself. I don’t blame you, but I didn’t want you to go before I told you that I love you – and probably always will.’

  Before Jenny was able to say a word, Peter dropped her hand and put his arms around her, pulled her towards him and kissed her.

  Jenny was astounded by the kiss. How in God’s name had she been so blind to this good, kind and thoughtful man? The kiss wasn’t the kiss of an old and valued friend. Peter gently parted Jenny’s lips and she responded to him, giving a little moan of pleasure; desire she thought extinguished forever at Bob’s death, rose in her again.

  Abruptly, Peter released her and lurched back into the house and Jenny staggered back against the wall while tears streamed from her eyes and coursed down her cheeks. When eventually she was composed enough to go back into the house, it was to find him gone. ‘I think he had a skinful on him and that’s the truth,’ Maureen had said.

  Jenny knew that better than anyone, but she also knew he’d meant every word he’d said. Her gran was fond of saying, ‘What’s in the heart sober, comes out drunk,’ and she knew that that was true.

  The next day, Peter called round and apologized to Jenny if he’d said or done anything embarrassing. ‘I’d drunk more than normal,’ he said. ‘And I’m afraid I remember very little about it all.’

  Jenny looked into his eyes and knew he was lying; he could remember every word, but she assured him he’d said nothing offensive.

  ‘Oh Pe
ggy, Gran – what am I to do?’ she cried later that same night, when she’d fled to them for advice.

  ‘God Jenny, the man is eating his heart out for you,’ Peggy said. ‘Do you love him?’

  Did she love him? She’d loved Bob. Could you love more than one person? She’d never thought of love except as between one friend and another in connection with Peter Sanders. But when he’d kissed her the previous night … ‘I think I do,’ she said.

  ‘Then, tell him how you feel.’

  ‘I’m going to America in five days,’ Jenny said. ‘How can I? It would be best if Peter forgets all about me.’

  ‘You should talk to the man at least,’ Maureen advised. ‘Surely you owe him that much?’

  Jenny shook her head sorrowfully. ‘No, Gran,’ she said. ‘What good would it do?’

  Maureen shook her head, certain Jenny was making a mistake, but recognizing that her mind was made up.

  ‘She’s answered none of your letters?’ Sarah Phelps asked the tall German striding agitatedly around her kitchen. ‘It’s not like her, not Linda.’

  She hadn’t answered Sarah’s letter either, but it wouldn’t help to say that. ‘And you say you wrote often?’

  ‘I wrote every fortnight or so, until six weeks ago,’ Max said, sitting down at last. ‘I tell her how bad things are there, and how long everything takes. For some time I have little money and I am fed by the Red Cross. But always I find money for a stamp and I beg the paper and envelope.

  ‘In the end I wrote to my uncle in America and he sent me some money – American dollars, they are prized in Germany, and in time I may get compensation for my farm. I took a labouring job while I wait for permission to join my uncle in America where he has a job for me in the factory he owns. For now he says I will lodge with him, but soon I will move to my own place. No one will care there that I’m a German. They have already many nationalities in New York.’

  ‘I believe so,’ Sam said. ‘I should say it’s the place to go, right enough.’

  ‘But without Linda my life is meaningless,’ Max said. ‘I told her I would write until she told me she was married and then I would stop. But she never wrote back once and now you say she never got married.’