by Annie Murray
‘No!’ Douglas shouted, his face flushing a deep red. ‘Don’t you dare. I’m not having you going down there behind my back.’
‘Don’t shout at me like that.’ I was furious with him for reacting like this. ‘It wouldn’t be behind your back, would it? I’ve just asked you.’
Without turning round again he said, ‘Well, the answer’s no.’
After a few moments he hobbled over and put his arms round me. ‘I’m sorry, darling. Don’t be angry – please.’
He wrote an immediate reply to them saying that we wouldn’t be coming. I felt angry, guilty about treating them in such a way. Eventually I dropped them a brief note myself, trying to sound as pleasant as I could, saying I was sorry for our lack of contact, but that I hoped to meet them in the near future. By return of post I received a strange note from Mrs Craven.
Dear Katherine,
I was most relieved to receive your letter. I suppose Douglas has stopped you coming to visit us, being the stubborn boy he is. He doesn’t find it easy to forgive, the poor darling. He won’t change, you know, they never do. If you can persuade him to let us meet you I should be very grateful of course. I’m sure you’ll look after him. I shall do all in my power to be at the wedding.
Best if you don’t mention to my husband that I’ve written.
Sincerely, Julia Craven.
Soon after she heard of my engagement, Ruth Harvey came to our house. She stood on the doorstep, her bag on her arm and an odd look on her face which reminded me of the day she had come to tell me Angus was missing. I showed her into the front room. She refused to sit down.
‘You’re marrying someone else.’
I hadn’t anticipated such directness. I nodded, not speaking.
‘Oh ye of little faith.’ Her voice was low, almost menacing. Her belief that Angus was not dead had reached the point of obsession. She was a thinner, stranger woman, hair now pepper-and-salt grey.
‘He’s dead. He’s not coming back,’ I said, pitying her. ‘It’s not that I don’t love him still. I shall always love him, Ruth. But we have to face up to it. We shan’t see him again, however much we still feel for him.’
‘We’ll see,’ she said, though I thought I heard the beginnings of resignation in her voice. Opening her handbag she drew out a white envelope and handed it to me. ‘You’d better have this.’
I stared at it for a few seconds, unable to give any meaning to it. I saw my name written carefully in blue ink and knew immediately that the writing was Angus’s. Frowning, I looked across at her.
‘He left it with me. That Christmas, when he was on embarkation leave. For me to give you if he – ’ she struggled for a second to steady her voice. ‘He said I was to give it to you at the right moment.’
Just managing to control myself, I said, ‘And if I was not now about to marry someone else, when exactly do you think the right moment might have been?’
She turned her face away from me and looked beyond, out to the garden. ‘I hoped I should never have to give it to you.’
It was all I could do to prevent myself running at her, tearing my nails across her face.
‘How dare you keep it from me?’ I shrieked at her. ‘How could you? How dare you decide when I could read it?’ I flailed my arms helplessly. ‘Give it to me!’
I went to take it but she held the letter clutched to her chest. ‘You gave up on him.’
‘And if you carry on like this you’ll be giving up on John and Mary. Now give it to me.’
‘Whatever’s going on?’ My mother’s shocked face appeared in the doorway.
I held my hand out, my eyes fixed on Ruth’s. Finally she laid the envelope in my palm. I pushed past Mummy, beyond thinking of anything, and ran to my room, shaking, bewildered at the violence I had felt towards Ruth. We who had been such a comfort to one another in the early days of Angus’s disappearance had grown sharply apart when I had moved forward, able to grieve, to find the beginnings of acceptance.
Before I opened the letter I let the tears come, months’ worth of grief still raw in me, compounded by my rage with Ruth. I even half suspected she had chosen this moment to give me the letter in order to blight my marriage to Douglas. What a comfort it could have been having this letter when I first knew I might not see Angus again. To have his voice through these words at a time when he still felt close and recent. I sat holding the envelope, weeping and shaking.
Only when I was spent did I open it. Seeing his writing on the paper brought a new ache. He had headed the letter Christmas 1940.
Dear Katie,
I’m sitting on my bunk writing this, only just able to see as the sky is so heavy with rain outside, and I must admit to feeling as weighed down myself by what I have to say to you.
I suppose like anyone writing a letter such as this I am praying above all that you will never come to read it. The thought of you having to do so is unbearable but I know I must write. I can’t assume that I shall come through all this unscathed. Unlike some of the other chaps I don’t have a supreme confidence that I am indestructible.
All I know is that with every fibre of my being I want to stay alive. I love life, and above all my darling, I love you. I am only thankful that I shall not be leaving you widowed, perhaps with our young children to bring up alone and unsupported. That would be an enormous sadness and shame to me. Sometimes I dream of our having a family together, but not now – not in the middle of all this. When I am low I think of your smile and the feel of you close to me. I want to live and live, and to be back sharing this life with you.
All I can say is that you are everything to me, and I shall love you and remember your touch through life or death. But if it comes to it that you are left alone, Katie, please don’t feel you mustn’t love anyone else or allow them to feel for you. You are so lovable, and above all I want to think that you will be happy. You must take whatever life can give you with my blessing.
I’ll end this by saying ‘until we meet again’ in whatever way that is possible. Pray God that it is in life.
Goodbye, my dearest love. Yours always, Angus.
I lay on my bed for a very long time with his letter pressed to my body, while calmer, quieter tears moved down my cheeks like a benediction.
Two days later, my mother told me that Ruth Harvey had agreed to hold a memorial service for Angus.
Douglas and I were married by Mr Hughes in January 1946. I would not have felt right dolling myself up in a long white dress, and in any case I’ve never been the frilly type, so instead I chose a cream suit which was smart and flattering, if not ethereal and virginal. My mother approved. I’m not sure Douglas did. I think he would have loved a white angel on his arm.
The evening before the wedding there was a stream of people through the house. Olivia, who was of course to be my bridesmaid, came to try on her dress for the last time. It was made of a vivid blue shantung, in a straight, elegant style which suited her. But I couldn’t help noticing the painful boniness of her back as she undressed, facing the mirror. Her face looked washed-out and strained and there were dark shadows under her eyes.
She was excited, nervous, and barely stopped talking. ‘I so terribly want to get everything just right for you.’ She chattered on, looking at herself in the long mirror. She had on a pair of high, slim-heeled court shoes in cream, and twisted herself this way and that on the balls of her feet as I sat watching from the bed. ‘This is so exciting, Katie, and Douglas is an absolute love. It’s got to be a perfect day. Nothing else will do for you.’
I smiled at her extravagance, happy to see her so animated. ‘Livy – it’s wonderful to have you around again.’ I stood up and went to kiss her. ‘Thanks for being such a brick.’
Peter Harvey came to see me. I found it very difficult to communicate with Ruth, despite the service for Angus which had been held just before Christmas. But Peter had been kinder and more resigned from the beginning.
He held both my hands and kissed me. ‘We shall be at the se
rvice, but I wanted to see you properly while you’ve got the chance to talk. The actual day is such a bustle. Now, now,’ he said, seeing my eyes filling. ‘You deserve a bit of happiness. Ruth wishes you well really, you know. It’s just taken her a long time to come to terms with it all.’
I kissed his worn face. ‘It’s all right. I understand. You do know if I still thought there was a chance of Angus coming home, that I’d never – ’
‘Oh, now – that’s no way to go into your marriage.’ He gave his chesty laugh. ‘You’re marrying Douglas. You be happy, girl. That’s an order!’
Mummy helped me with my simple preparations for the wedding dutifully, but without obvious enthusiasm. She had shown more vivacity when, shortly after coming home, William announced he was going to abandon Oxford and embark on a career in banking. She felt it would stand him in far better stead. Clearly he had no desire to return home, and had taken off to London acclaimed by Mummy as being very clever and sensible. I had thought Mummy and I had grown marginally closer during the war years, but as soon as William arrived home I had sensed the distance growing between us again.
‘You always did prefer him to me, didn’t you?’ I said to her sadly, the night before the wedding.
She had taken to wearing little pince-nez for reading and close work, and she peered up at me over them, fingers still busy stitching the hem of her dress.
‘It’s not a matter of preference,’ she said, apparently scandalized by the idea.
‘What then?’ I was feeling emotional, and in need of support and reassurance.
She stopped sewing for a moment, the needle poised. ‘Boys are so much easier somehow. Their lives are more direct. And William’s always been so clever. Not that you’re not,’ she said unexpectedly, shooting a glance at me. ‘It’s just that normally, with boys, their lives go in a straighter line. The war’s made a difference to that, of course. But I knew I shouldn’t have to watch William grow up, get an education and then throw himself away on a man.’
I gasped. I knew she had found aspects of her marriage frustrating, however good a man Daddy had been. I’d had no idea her thoughts were so bleak.
‘Health Visitors can still work when they’re married,’ I ventured. ‘They started allowing it during the war.’
Mummy looked severely at me. ‘You think you’ve got all the answers, don’t you? Well, you just wait. It’s never how you think. You’ll find you’re expecting and you’ll have all that on your plate. And who d’you think’ll be doing all the work and worrying about the children and the house? It won’t be Douglas, take that from me, whether you’re in a job or out of it. Once you’re married it’s curtains to any ideas you might have for yourself.’
Accompanied by these cheering words I faced my wedding day.
Olivia looked stunning the next day in her dress of rich blue. She was well made up so her face wore a healthier colour. I had chosen roses for our bouquets as I loved their scent of summer and childhood – mine yellow, Olivia’s white. They were hard to come by and expensive because of the time of year.
‘Good luck, darling,’ Livy whispered, smoothing the shoulders of my dress before I stepped into the church on William’s arm. How I missed Daddy then! And I found my legs shaking unexpectedly. But I was collected enough to be able to take in whose faces were turned to watch me arrive. My mother in sky blue with white flowers on her hat, peering anxiously along the aisle at me; Lisa holding Daisy up to get a better view, the little girl’s hair scraped up into tiny bunches, and Don’s freckled face beside them. Just as I was taking in how smart Douglas looked waiting at the front of the church, I noticed the couple standing opposite Mummy, and realized with a shock that they must be Douglas’s parents.
I had felt very uneasy in the weeks before the wedding about the fact that we hadn’t been down to visit them, partly because it seemed so odd but also because I was afraid of offending them and of their having a bad opinion of me. Now, though, I felt a new sense of foreboding. If the sight of Douglas’s parents was so strange and puzzling, what did this say about how much I knew of Douglas and where he came from?
His description of his mother as a plaster saint could not have been more inaccurate. I assumed this had been his ironic sense of humour. Julia Craven was a small, very curvaceous woman, dressed today in a suit of shimmering candyfloss-coloured silk. Her hair was a more vivid blond than Douglas’s, and I could see from where he had inherited his eyes, his full lips and high cheekbones. She was extraordinary rather than beautiful. As I passed her, her gaze fixed frankly on me. I noticed a pungently perfumed smell.
The incongruity of her husband beside her almost made me turn my head to stare back at them. He towered over her, hugely tall and bony with wide, stooped shoulders giving him the look of a bird of prey. He fitted the part of a crusty schoolmaster: the chalky-skinned, lined face, heavy spectacles, the dull tweed suit. His mouth had a bitter slant to it and I felt immediately that I should find him hard to like.
We were married standing as it was difficult for Douglas to kneel. For the first hymn we had chosen ‘My Song is Love Unknown’. Singing the beautiful melody I tried to calm my mind. The sight of Douglas’s people had really thrown me. I panicked, suddenly breathless, and had to stop singing. I was glad to be facing the front so that no one except Mr Hughes could see my face as my mind raced through a whole assortment of questions.
Who was this man beside me, and what did I really feel for him? Were those feelings strong enough to bind myself to him for the rest of my life?
‘Love to the loveless shown that they might lovely be,’ they sang behind me. The words pierced me. Was it pity after all that I felt for Douglas? A powerful combination of pity and desire? What about the kind of love I had felt for Angus, a steadiness between friendship and passion. That knowledge that I could not conceive of the future spent without him. Yet this was precisely what I had been forced to face up to. And now I was giving that future to Douglas.
It’s too late now, I said in my thoughts. Please forgive me, Angus.
‘Are you all right?’ Mr Hughes whispered. I saw Douglas glance anxiously at me.
‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘Thank you.’
I began singing again: ‘Here might I stay and sing, no story so divine . . .’
Yet suddenly I had an ominous feeling that ours was not a marriage made in heaven.
Chapter 20
After our reception at a modest hotel, we travelled by train to Malvern, having decided that mid-January was no time to head for the coast. I had changed into a new wool dress in a soft mulberry colour and packed warm clothes, imagining wind sweeping the pointed hills and log fires in the hotel. The railway carriage still had its wartime feel of dinginess and lack of attention, and stank of stale smoke. My seat cover was torn and the floor was dirty. By late afternoon a fine rain had begun to fall, obscuring the first, uplifting sight of the Malvern Hills and leaving outside little to see but a grey murk.
Instead of the new relaxation into certainty I had expected once the nerves of the ceremony were over and the marriage an irrevocable thing, I found my mind jittering around, alive with troubling images.
My mother’s ambivalent expression as I finally said goodbye to her: was that simply a mother’s mixed feelings at her daughter’s wedding? Or was she thinking of her own marriage, or of my father’s death, his absence at this occasion? I knew she would never explain such a commotion of feelings to me, but I felt a perplexed need to understand.
When I managed to banish these thoughts from my mind, Olivia slid into it instead. Trotting out after William in the vivid blue shantung dress from a side corridor of the hotel, he walking with urgent speed, slipping between other guests as if trying to throw her off. She wore a tense, fixed smile. There was the exaggerated way she embraced Douglas, throwing her body close against his until he protested, ‘Steady on, old girl – I’m not as firm on my feet as I might be, you know.’ Even when standing still, performing in ordinary conversation, I notice
d the way she held her body in the close-fitting dress. She looked posed, self-conscious, like someone fearful of being startled by a camera at any time.
From her, my mind flitted to Douglas’s parents. Having no alternative, he had introduced them to Mummy and me as we arrived at the reception on the Hagley Road. Mummy, I have to say, rose to the occasion and was charming, conveying just the right balance of warmth, welcome and regret at their not having made each other’s acquaintance before. In a quiet moment afterwards she murmured to me, with a subtle nod in the Cravens’ direction, ‘What a very odd couple. I hope you know what you’re letting yourself in for.’
When I met her properly, Douglas’s cameo of his mother as a ‘plaster saint’ did not seem quite so wild after all. Close up, the age difference between the two of them was hugely evident. Bernard Craven must have been at least twenty years his wife’s senior. His hair, once presumably black like his eyebrows, was storm-cloud grey, his face lined, eyes deep-set behind the thick glasses and his manner unapproachable.
I shook his hand, saying, ‘I’m so glad to meet you at last,’ and received in reply a nod and a slightly absent-minded ‘How do you do,’ like an acquaintance in a baker’s shop, while his wife watched him with wide eyes as if willing him to expand on it.
Seeing her face close up, I realized it was at odds with the over-bright, predatory-looking clothes she was wearing. She had, like Douglas, a sensuous face, but there was more sweetness to it, and she looked as young for her years as her husband appeared old for his.
‘Katie, my dear – ’ She reached up to kiss me. Her skin was flawless. I had expected a heavy, brassy voice, but instead it was small and hesitant. She kept glancing anxiously at her husband as if inviting his permission to open her mouth.
‘We’re so delighted. We’ve worried so about Douglas – we have, darling.’ She took his arm playfully and kissed him, standing on tiptoe. Douglas, who up until now had been smiling and affable with all the other guests, was now blushing and obviously uncomfortable, but didn’t resist her kiss. ‘He’s such a naughty boy about keeping in touch, but we’re terribly proud of him. And we’re so happy to be here and meet you – aren’t we, Bernard?’
