A Wartime Wife

by Lizzie Lane

  Mary Anne pointed at a nail close to the ceiling and way out of her reach.

  ‘If you could hang it up there,’ she said to Michael. ‘A good airing over the steam will do it good.’

  Michael’s veiled smile echoed her own. ‘I think so too.’

  ‘I’ll poke my nose out and make sure they’re gone,’ said Mary Anne, jerking a thumb towards the back of her house.

  ‘I’ll keep you company, dear,’ said an effervescent Biddy to an alarmed Michael, her fingers fondling the sleeve of his jacket and her eyes glinting with more cunning than the fox hanging on the nail.

  ‘No doubt,’ said Mary Anne.

  She whispered at Michael on the way out, ‘I’ll have to leave you to look out for yourself.’

  She saw a glimmer of helplessness pass over his face before she left. Now who was the poor lamb?

  Before going to the front door, she pressed her ear against the door to the front parlour where Stanley was sleeping, but heard nothing. The familiar panic set in. Was he still breathing? Fear spurred her towards the bed. He was her beloved son, her youngest, and although she’d been assured that he was better, she wasn’t entirely trusting of anyone’s diagnosis but her own.

  ‘Stanley?’ she called softly, fearing that he’d overexerted himself. ‘Stanley?’

  She felt for his head and found only the pillow.

  ‘The little …’ She swore under her breath. The bed was empty.

  She’d have to go and look for him, but first she had to check that the workmen were gone for tea.

  The blue and red of the upper glazed half of the front door made patterns on the lino. Pretty, she thought and smiled because the red reminded her of Biddy’s cheeks – and how Michael’s might end up if Biddy had her way.

  Now, if she could just get him out of the house, she could search for Stanley before Henry came home. The November air was damp and bad for his chest and she had to stop him going out without telling her.

  ‘Enough to give anyone a heart attack,’ she said to herself.

  A heavy hammering at the door swiftly dispelled her thoughts and confirmed the worse. The patterns on the floor trembled, and so did Mary Anne. For the second time that day, she opened the front door, only this time it wasn’t inoffensive Biddy Young wanting to flog her fox fur. It was Henry and he was full to the brim with drink.

  ‘I’m collecting for the church,’ he said, his speech slurred and the brim of his hat nestling around his shoulders.

  Her heart lurched. ‘You’re early.’

  He grinned and spread his arms so that his hands rested on either side of the doorway. It made it seem he was holding the house up.

  ‘I wanted to come home and see me loving wife. I thought we could have a quiet ten minutes to ourselves before the tribe of bloody Israel get home from work.’ A sudden thought seemed to strike him. ‘Work? Work? They don’t bloody know the meaning of the word.’

  Pushing her to one side, he continued to mutter all the way along the passageway, then stopped by the stairs, the leer on his face and the glint in his eyes leaving her in no doubt of what he had in mind.

  ‘Time to perform yer wifely duties,’ he said, the leer spreading over his face in a series of deep furrows.

  Mary Anne winced as his beery breath wafted over her face. She thought of Biddy and Michael out in the washhouse. They had to be warned. She attempted to push past him. ‘I’ve got to hang out our Harry’s shirts.’

  His fingers dug into her shoulders and one shoe went flying off her foot as he spun her backwards, slamming her against the wall.

  ‘Damn Harry’s bloody shirts. Big nancy boy. That’s what he is. Likes to look nice but don’t want to fight for his country.’

  His face reminded her of the gargoyles high up on the cathedral.

  ‘Henry …’

  She liked neither his attention nor his insinuation about her beloved Harry, and tried to wriggle free, but he held her tight.

  ‘Get up them stairs.’

  She fought to control her expression as her thoughts turned to Michael being kept company by the overblown Biddy. Stiff with protest, she closed her eyes. Pray God Biddy doesn’t bring him through the house.

  She didn’t want to do this, but Henry must not discover that she was hiding a man in the washhouse. Adopting a smile and a smooth voice as though she really welcomed his amorous attention, she said, ‘How about you go on up and I bring you a cup of tea.’

  In her heart of hearts she knew damned well that unless she was there beside him, he’d be snoring once his boots were off and his head had hit the pillow.

  ‘No. I’ve got a better idea. How about I have you here,’ he muttered, his eyes bloodshot and yellow around the edges. ‘How about that then – that I take you up against the wall like the slut you really are. Eh?’

  His insults had no effect. He’d been hurling them at her for years. All she considered now was how best to take advantage of the situation. Her mind worked quickly. Here, she thought. Here would be quick and afterwards she could get out and warn Michael to stay put.

  Yes. I’ll play the tart if it gets you up them stairs when you’ve finished, she thought, her fixed smile barely hiding her disdain.

  ‘If that’s the way you want it,’ she said, eyeing her husband of some twenty-odd years like a dirty little whore, or at least how she imagined a prostitute would look when propositioning a man.

  ‘So let’s see how big a man you are,’ she said, hitching her skirt up above her stocking tops and rolling her knickers down to her knees. ‘Let’s see what the ale you’ve supped at the Red Cow has done for your performance.’

  Goading had the required response. His nostrils flared. His pupils turned densely black and little flicks of spittle flared from the corners of his mouth.

  She helped him undo his fly buttons, her stomach churning though she still smiled. The best thing Henry Randall had ever given her was her children. The acts of intercourse leading to their conception had left her feeling as though he were trying to take something from her and not give anything in return. There was no preamble, no kiss and no attempt to prepare her for his penetration. He did it like he always did, with loud grunts and swift thrusts that did nothing for her but was selfishly and entirely for his own satisfaction.

  For better or worse …

  She certainly knew which this was.

  Chin stubble grazed her cheek and she almost vomited the beer fumes she was forced to breathe and swallow.

  The walls were thin, the floorboards twisted with age, creaking beneath their weight. A faint echo of the sound came from the direction of the kitchen. She turned her head, saw only shadows.

  She closed her eyes. Let it be over swiftly.

  As is the way of men focused on their own goal, he reached his climax swiftly, breathing his satisfaction against her ear, the moisture from his mouth dampening her hair.

  ‘Now I’ll have that cup of tea,’ he said, buttoning his fly. She willed him to look at her so she could search his eyes for some emotion, some hint of what had once been there. He didn’t look. Without a further glance or a kind word, he turned his back on her and climbed the stairs.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Just minutes after Mary Anne left the washhouse, Biddy made her move.

  The legs of the stool screeched in protest as she dragged it closer to the pawnbroker without totally removing her considerable bulk.

  Before he could retreat he found his hand clasped in both of hers, big brown eyes gazing up at him from a moon-shaped face.

  ‘You’re a ’andsome bloke, Michael,’ she cooed, clasping his hand to her powdered cheek and leaving a peach-coloured smear on the cuff of his jacket.

  Words failed him. She mistook his lack of speech and action for admiration at best, arousal at worst.

  ‘I won’t charge,’ she said, as if that would make a difference, her round face like an upturned dinner plate.

  The back of his jacket scraped against the whitewashed walls a
s he felt for the door, his fingers taking on bits of moss and flakes of paint.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said, just stopping himself from giving a stiff bow. ‘I need to …’ He jerked a thumb towards the outside.

  ‘Pee,’ said Biddy.

  He nodded. ‘Yes. Pee.’

  Outside, he took great gulps of air. No matter his misfortune, he would still have lacked desire for a plump woman wearing too much make-up and smelling of bacon grease.

  The back gate swinging gently on its hinges beckoned him, though he felt churlish to leave without saying goodbye. Surely he owed Mary Anne something for saving him despite their differences? At first she’d seemed no different than any other housewife, living in a world of housework and general homemaking. And yet he couldn’t help admiring a woman who had done something to improve her lot even though the business threatened his own. It took intelligence; it also took inner strength.

  You owe her nothing, said the cynical voice that had steered his life before coming to England.

  He paused. The luxurious honey-coloured hair and the intelligence that he’d seen burning in her eyes swayed his judgement.

  Turning on his heels but walking backwards, he looked up at the back of the terraced house thinking to glimpse her at the window and wave goodbye. There was no sign of movement, the windows reflecting nothing but sky, factory chimneys and a flock of circling pigeons.

  The back door was open. He paused and eyed it thoughtfully, careful that his footfall should be as gentle as his presence. Of course he could ask Biddy to relay his thanks.

  Biddy no doubt presumed he had gone outside to relieve himself. She’d be expecting him to come back. He shivered. Going back into the washhouse was not an option. He imagined her preparing herself for his return, her buttons undone and her bosoms ballooning like proved bread over the top of her underwear.

  If he were wise he would leave right now. An old-fashioned sense of honour pricked his conscience. Mary Anne deserved a polite goodbye. He was a foreigner and, despite his hostile attitude, she had stepped in to save him being beaten, possibly marched off to a police station, and who knows what horrors that might hold. Hopefully she wouldn’t come looking for him, but what if she did?

  Quietly, he crept past the washhouse and the sound of humming. A full watering can lay against the corner of the building. In a desperate attempt to add authenticity to his excuse for leaving the washhouse, he nudged it over with the toe of his boot. A shower of water tinkled against a zinc bath. The humming from within paused, interspersed by a light giggle before resuming again. Michael headed for the open door.

  Old habits of creeping around a silent house where prayer and contemplation lay as thick as dust motes stood him in good stead. He passed through a small room where root vegetables freshly picked from the garden lay with earth and leaf mould clinging to their roots.

  The kitchen smelled of good things, was neat and clean, the table covered with a blue and white gingham tablecloth.

  He heard noises that he presumed to be something cooking, but noticed the gas stove was not lit and neither was there anything to either side of the glowing hearth.

  A curtain hung at the door between the kitchen and a passageway. It was tied back at the halfway mark with a length of green cord.

  He still heard the noises, like a runner’s deep breathing, or the hot breath of cattle in winter stalls.

  Beyond the curtain … he saw them.

  Her eyes were closed. The man who pumped at her like a dog on heat could not know that her lips were compressed into a tight line, that her fists were clenched and her whole demeanour was of a woman submitting to torture, not responding to love.

  For a moment he could not move. An overwhelming urge to charge at the coupling was swiftly overcome once he realised that the man must be her husband. There was no passion, no love. She was not protesting, merely enduring what had to be, because that was her duty. Such a waste, he thought. She is reacting as though her passion has been dead for years, and yet she could be so much more …

  Thinking of how she could be with the right man made his face hot. He imagined how it could be, shuddering at the beauty he saw in his mind.

  It wasn’t until he had regained the fresh air that he realised the extent of his own arousal. In a normal man it would have been an agony bordering on ecstasy. In him it was painful; ecstasy had been forfeited the day he had mutilated the physical badge that had singled him out as a Jew.

  ‘We are Lutherans. Joseph is not.’

  That was what his mother had said when he had asked her about Joseph Rosenburg, who had come to visit them from England.

  His mother had never been one for elaborating on information. Even when amongst other women at the endless church gatherings, she never, ever, conveyed any additional gossip. Her companions gossiped; she merely listened, nodding where necessary and offering no comment except to question the truth and implications of what they said.

  Joseph Rosenburg was a square-shouldered man with more hair on his face than on his head. His beard was black whereas his pate shone like a full moon on a dark night.

  His warm, sweaty palms had engulfed Michael’s hand like a whale swallowing a minnow.

  ‘You look like your father,’ he’d said.

  ‘Do I?’

  Michael could not argue with him. He had never even seen a photograph of his father. Following her husband’s early death, his mother had moved in with relatives in Holland where she had met and married the pastor. Eventually they’d moved to Germany. Her new husband had resented her clinging on to old memories – photographs had remained in England.

  ‘I should know, should I not? I am your uncle.’

  They spoke of old times and relatives over a dining table of cold meats, garden vegetables, butter, and cheeses, brown, white and seeded bread.

  Michael’s eyes popped out of his head. ‘So much food,’ he’d said, patiently containing his glee until his stepfather had offered grace.

  ‘Praise be to God,’ his uncle had added.

  Michael noticed his uncle did not eat any of the ham, which was quite the best meat on the table.

  ‘You do a good spread,’ Uncle Joseph had said.

  ‘I do my best,’ his mother had replied.

  ‘Not easy in these times,’ added his stepfather. ‘I fear for the future. These bands of brigands, strutting about in their uniforms—’

  ‘Hush!’

  Michael had sensed there was plenty more his parents and their visitor wished to discuss, but not within his earshot.

  Once the meal was finished and coffee served, Michael was dismissed, but he lingered, intrigued to hear more.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Uncle Joseph. ‘A young man has better things to do than listen to his elders discuss times long past.’

  ‘I don’t mind staying,’ Michael had said, curious to hear what this stranger had to say.

  His stepfather had insisted. ‘No. You go. We have serious matters to discuss that you will not understand. Go to your room.’

  He had looked to his mother for help. Eyes downcast, she did not acknowledge him but continued to sip her coffee.

  Simmering with rebellion, he did as he was told, his fists clenched at his side, his jaw set. But he didn’t just leave the room, he left the house, marching down the path to the gate and the road beyond, where he could hear the sound of bugles and drums and knew his friends were marching by and that they were all wearing uniforms.

  Pink-faced with annoyance and the warmth of the August day, he had made an instant decision, slammed the gate behind him and joined in the march.

  He knew the boys from school; some of them even attended his stepfather’s Sunday school but they were no longer in the Scouts. Their switch of allegiance had provoked condemnation from the pulpit. Pastor Deller had not been happy that they could come to church one day and wear the uniform of the Hitler Youth the next. ‘Man cannot serve two masters,’ he’d said in his sermon.

  He’d had a visit
from someone shortly following that and a large bruise had appeared beneath his right eye. His mother had been upset, but no word of what had happened came to Michael’s youthful ears.

  The young adolescents grinned as he stepped out beside them.

  ‘Hey, Michael. Won’t your father whip you for marching with us?’

  ‘He is not my father,’ he’d snapped defiantly, wishing he had their crisp uniform. He dreamed of smart uniforms, of marching with boys who would be friends, craving their acceptance and comradeship.

  He fell into step, arms swinging enthusiastically to the marching beat, heart soaring because he was suddenly one of them – only he did not know then exactly what they were and what they stood for.

  It was as if they knew where they were going and exactly what the world had to offer. They had not been sheltered from it as he had been.

  Chest expanded, shoulders back, he kept step, proud to be associated with these boys from whom he had once felt so isolated. In the past they’d hurt his feelings; now his eyes brimmed with tears of happiness. The smell of the pine trees, the wildflowers girdling their trunks, was more pungent than ever before and through it all the sound of strong, marching feet, was like thunder rolling unstoppable across the earth. It would later prove true that the whole country was on the march.

  The heat haze that had hung some distance ahead of them dissolved along with the road, running into the rough shingle bordering the Gros See, a lake surrounded by pine trees. Ripples of coolness tinkled against boulders and reeds trembled in the waterborne breeze as if they were singing in welcome.

  The lieutenant, a pink-skinned young man, his hair sleek and pale as swan’s down, gave the order to relax. If he noticed Michael, he didn’t say anything. One more member was all to the good.

  Boys who had once avoided the loner – the boy who wasn’t allowed to mix with them – offered him bites of their lunch: sausage, strong cheese, apple cake and fresh bread. He could have cried with delight.

  ‘Why did you join us today?’ asked Johan, a boy he remembered from school as being very amiable – that was in the days before his stepfather had insisted on educating him at home.