A Wartime Wife

by Lizzie Lane

  Then there was Daw; aching to get married, and even though she wouldn’t move that far away, it would leave another gap in Mary Anne’s life. Last of all there was Lizzie, as dutiful as her mother, but channelling that sense of giving to joining the Wrens, not to a husband and family. She didn’t doubt she would indeed join something.

  That left Stanley. Hopefully, the war would be over before he got called up. He was the only one left who truly needed her, and even then he harboured an independence she herself could only dream of.

  She looked at Michael, who had pulled up a chair and was watching her intently.

  ‘You lost a lot of blood.’

  She bit her lip, felt herself blushing again, and looked away from him. She didn’t want to know whether it was him who had put her to bed, but he guessed the reason for her blush and had seen the sideways look.

  His blush matched hers. ‘I told Mrs Westerman, the tailor’s wife next door, that you were my sister. She sorted you out and did the laundry.’

  He hung his head, his hands still clasped before him.

  ‘I will tell your family if you wish.’

  She sensed his nervousness, but also she was very aware of her own reluctance, and not just because she was planning a new future. Someone was looking after her and it filled her with a sense of wonder. She was looking at her life and her family from the outside and the view was certainly different than from within. There had seemed nothing else to live for; even the pawning and gardening were a means to an end, making sure her family were well fed and looked after.

  ‘Not yet,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘I need time to think.’ She looked into his face and caught him looking back at her. ‘Do you mind if I stay a while longer?’

  He blinked then shook his head. ‘No. No. Do you want to tell me what happened?’

  Initially, she wanted to say no, because that’s what she’d been saying all these years, denying the truth, hiding it beneath a veneer of ‘Happy Families’. On reflection she needed to talk about it in full, not just moan and groan about the trivial things like the women who supped tea and traded treasures for sixpences in her washhouse, but never did anything because their lives weren’t really that bad. They saw her as attractive for her age and being a bit better off financially than they were. They didn’t see the bruises; they didn’t cry her tears.

  ‘Yes.’ She looked at him almost impudently, surprising herself with her boldness. ‘I have to tell someone and it might as well be you.’

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  ‘I can’t think of a better Christmas present,’ Lizzie said with a giggle, much to Daw’s consternation, who couldn’t see what the fuss was all about.

  ‘It’s a chicken.’

  ‘No. It’s a capon,’ said Patrick, who had presented it to Lizzie on arrival.

  ‘And a sack of vegetables,’ said Lizzie who was suitably impressed. ‘No wonder your kitbag looked a bit bulky. It must have weighed a ton.’

  ‘I’m a big strong fellah,’ said Patrick, flexing his muscles.

  Lizzie laughed. ‘Oh. So now you’re Tarzan Kelly.’

  ‘That’s right. You should see me in a loincloth!’

  Daw was the only one who didn’t laugh. She was frowning at John, sending him silent signals that she wanted him to herself.

  Lizzie ignored her sister. They hadn’t been quite so close since their mother’s disappearance, mostly because Daw’s selfishness had become more apparent.

  Patrick’s comment had Lizzie blushing, and not just because of his jokiness. This was not the downtrodden Patrick Kelly that some in the street had looked down on because his mother was on the game.

  ‘And just to prove it, will you take a gander at this.’ He tapped the single stripe adorning his sleeve. ‘Corporal Kelly, Armourer First Class.’

  Stanley, whose spirits had been severely affected by his mother’s disappearance, was hanging on to every word Patrick uttered, and was totally mesmerised by their uniforms and tales of what they’d been up to.

  ‘What does that mean?’ he asked Patrick. ‘What’s an armourer?’

  ‘Someone who arms the plane. You know, makes sure it’s got a full load of weapons.’

  ‘To shoot down the Germans?’

  ‘That’s right. Shoot ’em all out of the sky when they come over here to drop their bombs.’

  A shivering Daw moved closer to John, who immediately put his arm around her.

  ‘Do you think they will?’ she asked in a quavering voice.

  ‘If Hitler has his way they will. They’ve taken enough of Europe, but I don’t think it’ll ever be enough for them.’

  Animated by their conversation, Stanley stood up on a chair so he could better speak directly into Patrick’s face. ‘I know where Mr Hitler lives,’ he said, his eyes shining.

  ‘Is that right?’

  Lizzie winked at Patrick.

  ‘Lives down East Street and runs a pawnbroker’s,’ she said, barely able to contain her amusement.

  Patrick nodded at Stanley, who didn’t notice that his sister was poking fun. ‘And there was me thought his sideline was house painting. But there, I ain’t always right.’

  ‘Yes. Mr Hitler lives there. Ollie Young said so.’

  ‘Then it must be true, young Stanley.’ Hiding his smile, he turned to Lizzie. ‘Talking about the Youngs, how’s Mrs Young’s boy doing in the army?’

  ‘Posted somewhere abroad, from what we can gather. We haven’t seen much of Biddy since Mum …’

  Up until that moment, everyone had avoided mentioning what had happened. They fell to silence. Patrick and John looked the most awkward despite their smart blue uniforms.

  ‘I was sorry to hear about it,’ said Patrick at the same time as holding his cup out for more tea. ‘There’s no news, I take it.’

  Lizzie shook her head and pulled at the tea cosy, supposedly trying to make it fit the pot better, but really doing it because she didn’t want to admit defeat. If she did that she would crumble altogether.

  ‘That’s why Dad’s tea’s drying up on the stove,’ she said, indicating the boiling saucepan and the plate of food on top, covered with a saucepan lid. ‘He goes out looking for her, though God knows he can’t see much with all the lights out.’

  ‘I told him he’s likely to get knocked down by a bus,’ said Daw, ‘but he won’t listen.’

  Stanley snarled like an angry cat as he climbed down the chair. ‘I hope he does get knocked down! I hope he gets killed!’

  Daw condemned him. ‘Stanley! He’s your father!’

  Lizzie couldn’t forget that it was Stanley who had warned her, and she’d done? Nothing!

  She rubbed his hair. ‘Come on, Stanley. Time for bed. Don’t want to tire yerself out, do you?’

  Stanley’s eyes were fixed on Patrick. ‘Will you be here tomorrow?’

  Lizzie recognised the hero worship.

  Patrick thrust his hands in the deep pockets of his uniform, stretched his legs out in front of him and nodded. ‘Unless the whole of the German Luftwaffe threatens to invade tonight, I will certainly be here tomorrow.’

  ‘Great,’ said Stanley. ‘I’ll see you then.’

  ‘At reveille.’

  ‘Reveille?’

  ‘First light.’

  ‘Right,’ said John, rubbing his hands together and glancing at each of them in turn. ‘Who’s for a foursome for the pictures?’

  ‘I thought you’d never ask,’ trilled an excited Daw.

  ‘I’m up for that,’ said Patrick, rising from the table.

  Lizzie shook her head. ‘Count me out. I’ll wait until Dad gets home. He’s useless with hot plates and pots of tea.’

  Patrick cleared his throat, holding his hat in front of him, passing it from left to right hand and back again.

  ‘I could … um … keep you company, if you like.’

  There was a grim intensity to his face, as though he’d stopped breathing while awaiting her answer.

  ‘I suppose you could
.’

  ‘We’re going to see the new Joan Crawford,’ said Daw, poking her head around door before leaving. ‘We’ll let you know what it’s like.’

  ‘That would be great,’ said Patrick. Turning back to Lizzie, he said. ‘Then p’raps we can see it tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lizzie, intending to wipe the smile from Daw’s face. ‘Our Daw can wait in for Dad tomorrow night. It’s time she took her turn.’

  The look Daw threw her was pure venom, but Lizzie didn’t care. Never, until this war and the events connected with it, had she ever felt so annoyed with her sister.

  With the slamming of the front door and the softer closing of Stanley’s door, the house fell silent.

  Patrick helped with the dishes.

  Lizzie felt rather than saw his frequent sideways glances.

  At last, he said, ‘Thanks for writing to me.’

  ‘Thank you. I enjoyed your letters.’

  She decided not to tell him that writing to him was by way of substitution. Peter had written only one letter from Canada and that to his mother. It still seemed strange, but writing to Patrick had been by way of compensation, and yet she’d miss his letters if he stopped writing.

  ‘Would you really come to the pictures with me tomorrow night?’

  ‘Why not?’

  Why not indeed. She needed cheering up. Working in a domestic environment all day and then coming home to another one, she was beginning to feel like a full-time skivvy. It came to her that her mother must have felt the same way, demands being made on her all the time.

  ‘You haven’t said how your Harry’s getting on.’

  Lizzie tucked in her upper lip. She’d promised not to tell anyone that Harry was leaving the minute his mother was found and, what was more, he seemed totally convinced that she would be found.

  ‘Dad got angry with him because he refused to enlist.’

  ‘He hasn’t received any call-up papers?’

  Lizzie shook her head. ‘No.’

  Patrick fell to silence. She noticed he was frowning when she passed him a plate to wipe dry.

  ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘I thought everyone in our age group was being called up. Seems strange they’ve overlooked Harry.’

  ‘He said he’ll go when he gets his papers, but so far …’

  She fancied she sounded defensive, but it wasn’t just to protect her brother. She also felt she was protecting herself, or rather her own suspicions. No one knew where Harry spent his evenings or who he spent them with. Away from home and work, he had a secret life, one they were not privilege to.

  ‘He’s still at the cigarette factory,’ she said, but didn’t add ‘though not for much longer’. Harry had confided in her. He was biding his time, trusting in the best news possible about his mother, whereas Lizzie was preparing herself for the worse.

  She passed him the basting tin in which she’d just roasted five pigs’ tails. ‘You must come here for Christmas Day dinner.’

  He beamed. ‘That’s nice of you.’

  She smiled back at him. ‘Not at all. I was afraid Tarzan might whip away his capon if I didn’t invite him round.’

  ‘Now there’s a thought! Anything you need for the great day?’

  ‘Holly and mistletoe.’

  She wondered afterwards what had possessed her to say that, but answered her own question.

  To cheer us all up. To make us believe that life goes on, and Mum wouldn’t want us to be unhappy.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  It seemed strange and totally selfish not being at home for Christmas, but also the world outside seemed stranger since war was declared. Mary Anne felt as though a book had fallen open at exactly the right page and she couldn’t put it down. Looking back, living with Henry had been like being stuck in a quicksand with the tide rolling in. No matter how much she struggled to get to the shore, the waves kept washing over her, growing ever higher with the years.

  They ate a Christmas dinner of forcemeat and vegetables followed by an apple strudel in front of the fire, all prepared by Michael. Madam Butterfly sang plaintively for her Lieutenant Pinkerton in the background. Neither spoke for a while, each cloistered with their thoughts.

  ‘You are thinking of your family,’ Michael said suddenly.

  ‘And you are thinking of yours.’

  Michael was silent. He’d felt privileged that she had told him so much about hers and by doing so he had felt part of her life. He had only hinted at his own.

  ‘Are they still alive?’

  Her question sent a jolt like electricity through his brain.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

  It began to snow just after Christmas, flakes blowing with a bitter wind from an overcast sky.

  Mary Anne, recovered now, watched them falling and wondered if her children were watching them too, perhaps also Henry.

  Distanced from him, she no longer saw him in quite the same light as she had all these years. No longer a figure of fear, she now felt quite sorry for him. Her parents had wanted her married, and once Edward’s child had been adopted and she was presentable again, they’d encouraged Henry to court her. Ordinarily, he would have been shown the door; they had been worlds apart. She had been well educated, and he had come straight from the army having served in Palestine and Egypt, then the dreaded trenches of Ypres, the Somme and Cambrai. Barely literate but good-looking, he had fallen in love with her. At first she’d felt protective towards him, and in the early days had attempted to teach him to read. Once he’d found out about Edward’s child, his attitude had changed.

  Where was that child now? she wondered, as she watched the snowflakes fall.

  A knock sounded at the bedroom door. Mary Anne smiled warmly. Michael was a courteous man, knocking at the bedroom door of his own house. So different to Henry, she thought, not a violent bone in his body.

  ‘I have made some soup,’ he said, and looked proud to have achieved it. ‘There is not much meat in it, but plenty of vegetables and the bread is fresh.’

  She nodded. ‘That would be nice. I’ll be right down.’

  He nodded too and smiled. She fancied he had more colour in his face than when she’d first arrived and he did not hunch his shoulders so much as he had done when they’d first met, as though he were trying to disguise his height – or himself – trying not to be noticed.

  The smell of the soup mixed with that of burning coals and the all-pervasive beeswax. Doors and windows were shut tight against the cold, the old-fashioned wooden shutters drawn, and the shop shut for the weekend. Michael had decided not to open up after Saturday lunch once he saw that few other people did either.

  ‘Shall we have Schubert?’ he asked, his palms gingerly curved around the outside edge of the record.

  She nodded. ‘Yes. Shall I pour the tea?’

  ‘Just a minute …’

  Bending his head and steadying his hand, he placed the needle onto the record. Once the first notes sounded, he was at her side, bending over her, cutting bread and pouring tea.

  ‘You spoil me,’ she said. ‘In fact you make me feel like a child again. That was the last time anyone spoiled me, I’m afraid.’

  The clocks now ticked together like a small orchestra all hitting the same notes but at different time sequences. She presumed he’d wound them up some time after her arrival.

  ‘I am glad to have you here. I think you know that.’

  She looked up from the very good soup. His smile was so like that of Edward. So were his eyes, his mouth, his hair …

  She fought to drag her gaze away from him and back to her soup.

  ‘Are you almost finished clearing the cupboards?’

  ‘Just one more,’ he said, finally sitting down at the table once he’d poked at the fire thereby releasing a shower of sparks from the bed of glowing coals.

  ‘Just one more. I do not think there is anything of value there, just family papers.’

  �
��You may find a treasure even amongst them.’

  ‘I doubt it, just dusty old sales receipts and bills for the plumbing when it was first put indoors.’

  Mary Anne smiled. ‘We could do with a plumber now,’ she said, referring to the incessant dripping of the kitchen tap.

  Michael shook his head. ‘No. We need a better one than him. That tap is no good and needs fixing properly. I think I will do it.’

  It was something she had noticed about Michael just days after she’d arrived; he preferred to mend things for himself, and that included his own clothes. He even ironed them himself although she had offered to do them for him.

  ‘No. I must look after myself. When you are gone …’

  It was rarely he referred to the time when she would leave, his eyes lowering at the thought of it; his dark lashes like smears of charcoal against his skin.

  ‘When you are gone, I will have to look after myself.’

  Mary Anne put down her spoon. ‘That’s what I want to speak to you about.’

  His eyes met hers.

  Resting her elbows on the table, she clasped her hands in front of her chin.

  ‘I think Thomas Routledge’s idea about having him serve out in the shop was a good one. You need someone to help you.’

  Michael’s jaw dropped.

  She smiled. ‘I didn’t mean that you should employ him. I think I should do it.’

  At first she mistook his silence and his frozen expression as disapproval.

  A huge gasp escaped his mouth, relief lighting his face. ‘That is wonderful.’

  ‘It is?’

  He nodded vehemently and took hold of her hands. ‘Truly wonderful. Truly wonderful that you will be staying here.’

  Both looked down at their clasped hands, then back up into each other’s face.

  ‘I am very pleased,’ he said.