A Wartime Wife

by Lizzie Lane

Balancing the tray in the crook of her arm, she opened the kitchen door and headed for the breakfast room.

  If the porridge was a little on the burned side, nobody mentioned it. Peter gave her a tight smile and wished her good morning as though they were nothing more than master and servant. Mother and son fell to silence. It struck her that whatever they’d been talking about was strictly confidential because she fancied the conversation resumed once she was out of earshot. When the service bell jangled, she presumed more tea was required and filled up a fresh pot.

  Mrs Selwyn’s face was upturned and smiling when she reentered the room, and might almost have looked handsome if the curtains behind her hadn’t coloured her complexion a sickly shade of pea green.

  ‘Lizzie. Peter and I are off to the railway station, so you may go as soon as you’ve washed the breakfast things.’

  Lizzie couldn’t contain her delight, but hid her puzzlement. Mrs Selwyn had seemed so brusque earlier.

  ‘My dear son will also be leaving us,’ she said, her pearl drop earrings bobbing around her cheeks as she turned to her son and patted his hand.

  Lizzie froze. ‘Leaving?’

  One thought above all others raced around her head. Why hadn’t he told her yesterday when he’d said again – or almost said – that he loved her?

  His eyes didn’t meet hers, but he smiled, reached for his cup and tapped it with his spoon. ‘Let’s have some more of that strong tea of yours. I might not be getting any for quite a while.’

  He exchanged a strange look with his mother, a look she couldn’t quite interpret.

  ‘He’s going to Canada,’ said his mother. ‘For training … for the sea. Yes. The sea.’

  Lizzie’s heart sank. There would be no more afternoons lying in the grass, staring up at the sky, no more stolen moments on the back seat of his car, no passionate words said in a rushed breath against her ear. He was going to Canada and then to sea. She couldn’t show her feelings, certainly not in front of his mother. Keeping them inside was like forcing a stopper into a bottle of shaken lemonade.

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ she said to Mrs Selwyn. ‘And the best of luck, Mister Peter.’

  It hurt when Peter thanked her for her good wishes without looking up from his food. Dazed, she washed the dishes, dried them, washed the tea towel and hung it above the warm hob to dry.

  Peter was going. ‘Well, of course he’s going,’ she muttered to herself. He was a man and men were needed in the army and on the sea. Her mood changed because it had to. She steeled herself to what was to happen. And what was it to her? What was she to him?

  She rubbed at her eyes and blew her nose in a clean tea towel, which she immediately flung into the laundry basket. She thought back to her first days in the Selwyn household. The armchairs, the sofas, the carpets and the highly polished furniture, so different than the serviceable and well-worn furnishings at home in Kent Street, would have overawed most girls from her background. Instead, it was Peter that had impressed her. He was like a god, clean and well spoken, never uttering a swear word or stinking of drink like most of the men in Kent Street. Did the afternoons in the grass and on the back seat of the car mean nothing to him?

  She wanted to cry, but something steelier took over. Her fingers were all thumbs as she buttoned up her coat. Mrs Selwyn had told her there was no need to come upstairs and say goodbye, but she couldn’t go yet. She wanted to see Peter alone before he left.

  Once she was ready to leave, she sat on a chair, glancing every so often up at the kitchen clock, promising herself that she would not leave until it had struck eleven o’clock, the hour when she had to leave.

  She told herself that Peter would come before then to say goodbye. She was sure of it, but as the minutes ticked away, so did her hope.

  The clock finally struck eleven and still he hadn’t come.

  She pulled open the coal-house door. Her bike rested against the wall. The air inside tasted gritty still and an oblong of light fell onto the black heap, making it glisten. Like stars, she thought. Small stars.

  The stars vanished as a shadow fell through the doorway, blanking out the light.

  ‘Were you going to go without saying goodbye?’

  Peter smelled of cologne, hair cream and clean clothes, not like her father who smelled of dust, and her brother who smelled of tobacco. He didn’t look like a haberdasher, a man in charge of selling ribbons, silks and Nottingham lace. Although his nose was straight and his chin receded slightly, he was broad shouldered as suited the merchant seaman he was setting out to be.

  She felt a fluttering in her heart. ‘I don’t know what to say.’ She said it in a small voice as though she had no business saying it at all.

  He stepped onto the flagstone floor and, without a moment’s hesitation, they fell together.

  Above the gritty taste of coal, Lizzie smelled the seasonal dampness clinging to his clothes.

  ‘I had to wait for Mother to go to the bathroom before I could get out. I had to kiss you goodbye before I go.’

  She clamped her mouth to his, kissed him long and hard, then broke breathlessly away. ‘I feel like Mary Pickford saying goodbye to Douglas Fairbanks in a film, not like real life at all. I can’t believe you’re going. Why didn’t you tell me? Why so soon?’

  His arms squeezed her tightly to his chest. ‘It was sudden. Mother arranged it.’

  ‘But I thought …’

  She was going to say that even merchant seamen going abroad to Canada had to go through some form of call-up. His mother could hardly go there in his stead.

  ‘Don’t think,’ he said, pressing his mouth against hers.

  She felt like butter melting in the sun. She drank in his smell, the feel of his chin and cheeks. She wanted to remember his features, his feel and this moment for ever. Keeping her eyes open, she drank in the sight of his closed lids and the way his nostrils flared with each breath he took.

  ‘Elizabeth,’ he murmured against her ear as she fought for breath. ‘Has anyone ever kissed you like that before?’

  ‘No. You’re the first.’

  ‘The first to kiss you like that, or the first to kiss you?’

  He studied her face as he awaited her answer, his fingers stroking the nape of her neck in ticklish, delicious strokes.

  She thought about lying, boasting that he was not the only man in her life; she so badly wanted to hurt him just as his leaving was hurting her, but she couldn’t lie, not to him.

  ‘No one’s ever kissed me before – except my mother.’

  A slow smile crossed his face.

  ‘How delicious.’ His hand ran down her arm. ‘And no one’s ever held you this close in a dirty coal house before?’

  She shook her head. ‘No,’ she said, her voice now sounding so small that she could barely hear it herself.

  ‘Or done this?’

  She moaned as his hand closed over her breast. There was something daring about being this intimate so close to the house and his mother. And she couldn’t stop him; in fact she didn’t want to stop him. This was ecstasy and took her breath away. A tingle of pleasure spread out from her bosom and all over her body. A tinge of guilt came with it along with the chance that they might be discovered.

  She pulled his hands away from her breasts. ‘Peter, I don’t think you should do that.’

  He frowned. ‘Don’t you like it? I thought you did, or is that only in the back of the car or in the grass at Clancy’s Farm?’

  ‘Of course I like it.’

  ‘Then say so,’ he said, his hands going back inside her bodice. ‘Oh, Lizzie, I’m going to want to remember this. We’re going to be far apart, and who knows when or where we’ll see each other again – or if at all.’

  ‘Don’t say that!’

  He looked sad. ‘It’s the truth. Things are hotting up. Who knows where either of us will be a year from now.’

  ‘You’ll survive,’ Lizzie blurted. ‘You’ll come home.’

  ‘Damned right I will,’ he said
, his face brightening. ‘And when I do, will you be waiting for me?’

  Lizzie didn’t hesitate. ‘Of course I will. Anything you want.’

  He nodded gratefully. ‘Then can I ask you to look after Mother?’

  She lowered her eyelashes. It had occurred to her that without Peter around she might just as well get a better-paid job in a factory. His request had changed all that and she immediately felt guilty because she’d said she would do anything he wanted.

  ‘No … I mean yes … I mean … Oh, I don’t know what I mean, except …’

  ‘Except what?’

  ‘My legs are like jelly. I won’t be able to ride my bike.’

  She thought about the recruiting office and Patrick’s anxious face, Daw and John too.

  Peter laughed. ‘Surely I’m more important to you than a bicycle. I thought I was someone special to you.’ His fine lips that only a moment before had been pressed firmly on hers, now pouted alarmingly, as though she’d stabbed him with something sharper than words.

  Fearing she’d upset him, Lizzie’s response was instant and heartfelt. ‘You are, you are! I didn’t mean to …’

  ‘Never mind,’ he said, and kissed her again.

  ‘Of course I’ll stay and look after your mother.’

  She’d said it, all thoughts about bettering herself and earning more money sacrificed for the sake of Peter Selwyn.

  You’re mad, she told herself, then relented. His eyes were looking down into hers and he couldn’t stop kissing her.

  Yes, she really did feel like melting butter.

  ‘I love you,’ she said, and ran her hands over his face, his shoulders, touching the neat cleft in the centre of his chin, brushing his hair back from his face and feeling the hardness in his groin which on this particular meeting would remain unsatisfied.

  ‘Lizzie,’ he said in that hushed voice that made her whole body feel as though it were turning to jelly. His fingers brushed her breast as he undid the top two buttons on her dress. It was mauve and provided by Mrs Selwyn for weekdays and was worn beneath a sparkling white apron. She had blue for the weekends. The two colours seemed to float before her like an early morning mist. ‘I’ll remember this,’ he said, bending his head and kissing her breast. ‘And I’ll remember this,’ he said, running his fingers up the inside of her thigh and beneath her knickers to the soft hair between.

  He could have taken her there. She would have given in willingly, but like a dream the magic was suddenly broken.

  ‘Peter! Peter! Where are you? The taxi is here.’

  At the sound of his mother’s voice, he broke away.

  Lizzie was left gasping, tears springing to her eyes.

  Peter’s attitude changed abruptly.

  ‘Make yourself decent,’ he said briskly, smoothing his own clothes and heading towards the door.

  He paused, his face shiny with sweat. ‘Shh,’ he said, his finger against his lips. ‘Mustn’t tell Mother our secret now, must we.’

  He winked and made a clicking sound from the corner of his mouth. Then he was gone and all she could see was the red-leafed creeper climbing the brick wall dividing this house from next door. The leaves were dripping with teardrops of rain, and Lizzie wiped one or two from her eyes.

  Mrs Selwyn was grim-faced.

  ‘She’s just a servant, Peter.’

  Peter grinned. ‘That doesn’t mean to say that I shouldn’t be kind.’

  ‘Just as you were to Ruth and to Hilary?’

  Peter shrugged himself into his overcoat and reached for his hat.

  ‘It was hardly my fault. They threw themselves at me. Goodness, Mother, I’m only just about holding Elizabeth off. The poor thing’s besotted with me – and she’s terribly sad that I’m going off to war, which is quite amusing really.’

  A look of alarm crossed his mother’s face. ‘You didn’t tell her the truth, did you?’

  He patted her cheek and looked down into her face. ‘Of course not.’

  If anyone had studied their features more closely, they would have seen the resemblance despite the difference in years. They both had the same hard glint in their eyes and the spoiled pout of someone who always expects to get their own way.

  Mrs Selwyn stroked her son’s hair. ‘As long as you’re safe, my darling.’

  Peter took hold of his mother’s hand and kissed it. ‘Don’t worry, Mother. The war will soon be over and I shall keep my head down until it is.’

  There was a smell in the air outside the recruiting office. Lizzie became aware of it the moment they became part of the excitable throng eddying like a freak wave around the open door. Although her thoughts were preoccupied with Peter, she couldn’t help being carried along by the crowds and the atmosphere of fearful excitement.

  Patrick saw the look on her face, presumed it was fear and dared to squeeze her hand – at least she thought he did. It was hard to gauge whose hand it was. Men determined to do their bit for their country pressed forwards, aided and abetted by screaming or fainting women. The world had gone mad.

  Patrick bristled with excitement. ‘Look at ’em, Lizzie. All these blokes not waiting to be called up but coming down here to enlist – it’s unbelievable.’

  ‘It is that all right,’ Lizzie answered, her voice and expression betraying the reservations she felt. ‘Don’t they realise they could be killed?’

  ‘We’re off to do our duty,’ Patrick replied, but Lizzie knew it was something more than that in his case. He was escaping from his past. Born illegitimate to a mother with the worst reputation in Bedminster, this was his chance to make something of himself.

  ‘You can’t blame Patrick for wanting to go, and you can’t help admiring John being so brave,’ she whispered to Daw.

  Pale and tearful, Daw clenched her lips and nodded. She didn’t want John to go, but on the other hand he was doing what was expected of him. She was proud of that.

  ‘Kill the Hun,’ one old man shouted. He was wearing a spiked German helmet from the Great War and his cheeks were as red as his jacket.

  Despite the crush, Lizzie felt herself growing cold. If killing had a smell, then that’s what she smelled now.

  She glanced across at Daw and saw that John’s arm was wound tightly around her shoulder as though he were trying to keep her from falling. Suddenly she felt lonely even though she was in the midst of a crowd. Daw had John, but although she tried to kid herself that she had Peter, he wasn’t here was he, but off to Canada.

  As the queue surged forwards, she was pushed into the gutter, her hat knocked sideways. Patrick grabbed her before she fell.

  ‘Steady on there, Lizzie.’

  John shouted at them both. ‘Get back across the road, the pair of you. Patrick and me’ll get over to you once we’ve signed up.’

  He pushed Daw towards her and somehow, Lizzie didn’t know how, Patrick swapped places with her so that he and John went forwards together.

  Trams, cabs and tradesmen’s carts and lorries pushed their way through the crowds along with a few double-decker buses. Crossing the road was only possible once they’d passed, the crowd dispersing long enough for them to get through.

  ‘Look,’ said Daw once they’d gained the other side.

  Lizzie admired the stone glinting on Daw’s finger.

  ‘He bought it for me last week and kept it a secret until he’d had a word with Dad. Fancy him keeping it secret from me. He reckons Mum already knows, but she ain’t said nothing to me.’ Her expression changed from anxiety to excitement in a matter of minutes.

  ‘We’re engaged, Lizzie. We’re going to get married before he goes. I don’t think Dad will say no, do you? I mean, does Dad ever say no to anything we want to do?’

  ‘’Course not. Dad’s a big softy. He’ll give in. He always does.’

  Frightening moments stayed in Daw’s mind. ‘He wasn’t too pleased with our Harry.’

  ‘Ah!’ said Lizzie, also surprised at their father’s anger. They’d never seen him angry before
, only drunk, and even then, he was always jovial. Nevertheless, she did her best to reassure her sister.

  ‘That was different, Daw. Our dad loved the army and always did his duty for his country. He can’t believe that anyone else wouldn’t be keen too, just like he was. Our Harry surprised him. Men like to think their sons are as brave as they were. Anyway, you’re nearly twenty-one so it won’t matter much if he did say no. Leave it to Mum, she’ll bring him round.’

  She felt like adding that John was not twenty-one yet either and that he was old enough to get killed so why should there be a problem. Who was to say when the time was right?

  It was half an hour before Patrick and John returned. Lizzie tried to read their expressions. Patrick looked exuberant. No surprise really. He was off on the biggest adventure of his life. Nothing could be worse than the childhood he’d endured, neglected by his mother and shunned by those who should know better.

  John’s face was a different matter. He looked stunned, almost miserable, as if he’d only just realised exactly what he’d done.

  The air was humid, the bleak clouds of a gathering storm pressing uncomfortably down on them.

  ‘Daw,’ he said, the narrow gap between them somehow seeming a mile wide. ‘I can’t marry you. There’s no time. We have to go home, gather our personal belongings and report to Temple Meads Station. We’re being sent for training.’

  Daw’s pink cheeks paled. ‘You’re in the army already?’

  He shook his head. ‘No. The air force, just like I said I would.’

  Head thudding onto his shoulder, Daw burst into tears. He held her tight, his face against her hair, his expression as heavy as the gathering storm. ‘I’ll be going away for training. They haven’t said where. It’s top secret.’

  Lizzie felt her stomach heave. Daw had told her that John had only asked her that morning when he’d given her the ring.

  Daw finally raised her head. ‘So what do we do now?’ She laughed, a nervous, alien sound hiding an underlying sob.

  ‘We do as we’re ordered,’ said Patrick, who had stood patiently and quietly, watching the loving couple with a mix of embarrassment and envy. ‘We’ve got no choice.’ He looked at Lizzie and smiled ruefully. ‘I’ve joined the air force too. I don’t know whether I’ll be doing any flying, but they want ground staff too. They’re sending us away for training right away. It was that or the merchant navy. Freddie Hill’s joining that.’