by Lyn Andrews
He arrived punctually at six o’clock, and as her mother opened the front door Alice glanced at Mae. ‘I still don’t know what to say to him. To start with, what do I call him?’ she whispered.
‘Just be your usual self, Alice,’ Mae whispered back, giving her an encouraging smile.
As Maggie ushered him into the kitchen Alice was surprised. He wasn’t what she had imagined at all and it was something of a shock to realise that she resembled him, although his once dark curly hair was now grey.
‘Billy, this is your daughter Alice and this is Mae, John’s girl,’ Maggie announced rather formally.
To cover the sense of guilt and embarrassment that washed over him as he met the child he’d never before seen, Billy smiled and spoke first to Mae. ‘You’re the image of your mam, Mae. Sure, a bit taller perhaps, but anyone who knew Beth would have no doubts as to whose child you are and John must have been very proud of you.’
‘He was, Uncle Billy,’ Mae answered quietly, thinking how strange the name sounded on her tongue.
He didn’t miss the note of pain in her voice. ‘I’m sorry that he’s … gone. War is a terrible thing as I’m sure you know only too well.’ He turned to Alice at last. He’d spent the last few days and nights wondering what he could possibly say to her. ‘Alice, I’m very glad you agreed to see me. I would have understood if you’d felt you didn’t want to. I’m sorry for … everything, for not even knowing I had a daughter. I can see for myself that you’re a fine girl and I know from what your mam has told me that you’re a good nurse too.’
Alice felt the tears prick her eyes. He was just a quietly spoken, ageing man who’d lost his arm in the service of his country. ‘I … I think Mam has been exaggerating.’
‘Ah, not a bit of it, Alice. It’s brave of you both to go over there to nurse,’ Billy replied, relieved that she hadn’t greeted him with hostility or resentment.
‘Right, well, if you’ll all sit down I’ll get that pie out of the oven,’ Maggie instructed, feeling relieved herself that the atmosphere wasn’t nearly as tense as she’d anticipated.
During the meal Alice, Aunty Maggie and her new-found Uncle Billy all seemed to be watching what they said, Mae thought. She found him quiet, good-humoured and, when he spoke of his time in the Navy, quite knowledgeable. She’d told Maggie earlier that she thought it might be helpful if Alice could spend some time alone with him and Maggie had agreed. Mae helped her aunt to clear the dishes when the meal was over and then announced that she was going across to see how Jimmy was getting on.
‘I’ll pop over with you for a few minutes. I want to ask Agnes a favour,’ Maggie added, ignoring the searching look Alice gave her. ‘I won’t be long, Billy.’
As they left Billy smiled at Alice, who sat opposite him at the table. ‘They weren’t very subtle about that, were they?’
Alice shook her head. ‘I think it was Mae’s idea. I … I told her I wanted to see you and to ask you …’
‘Why I deserted you all,’ Billy finished for her.
Alice nodded, her hands clenched tightly in front of her, anxious to hear what he had to say and wishing now that Jimmy was with her for support.
Billy took a deep breath; he’d anticipated this. ‘It was a long time ago, Alice, and I was a different person then. I was not much older than Eddie is now and I felt that life wasn’t working out the way I wanted it to. I’d come from Belfast in the hope of a better life but I … I could get no steady work and we were always hard up. I was young, restless, craving adventure and excitement, but I was tied down with your mam and Eddie. I started to drink far too much and that only made my situation seem worse. Then when Beth died your mam told me she’d promised her she would bring Mae up too. I knew John would carry on going away to sea – he had little choice, it was a steady job – and I resented the fact that your mam had saddled me with John’s child. It added to my sense of … desperation.’
‘And … me? Did I add to it as well?’ Alice asked quietly, trying to imagine the person he had been all those years ago.
Billy nodded sadly. ‘I’ll speak plainly, Alice, there’s no use wrapping it up. I’m sorry to say that when I found out your mam was expecting again I felt I couldn’t take any more. I had to get away. I felt I was trapped in a tunnel and there was no light, no hope at the end of it. I’m sorry, girl, I was a fool, an eejit. I was selfish and irresponsible. I didn’t even know if your mam and Eddie and you would be all right. I thought of no one but myself and I have no excuses for that.’ He leaned forward and placed his hands gently over hers. ‘I’m so very, very sorry, Alice. I can’t undo the past but believe me, I feel that I’m the one who has lost the most by what I did. I don’t know my children and I can never regain those years.’
Alice nodded slowly. He had been brutally honest with her. ‘Why did you never try to get in touch?’
Billy sighed heavily; he’d known she would ask this too. ‘By the time I came to my senses I was in the Navy, I had been for many years and it had become my … home. I didn’t feel as if I belonged to a family. I didn’t know if any of you would want to hear from me or wish me to come back into your lives after so long an absence and then …’
‘Jutland,’ Alice said flatly.
Billy nodded. ‘Jutland. It changed everything.’
‘What happened to you?’ she asked. ‘Don’t be afraid to tell me, I’m used to seeing what guns and shells do to men.’
‘I was in charge of the for’ard gun battery on HMS Indefatigable. She took a direct hit and the explosion blew me off my feet and hurled me against the shattered bulkhead. A piece of jagged iron plating ripped through my arm and I really don’t remember much after that but I realised that all my lads on that battery had been killed. It all happened so quickly. There was thick black smoke everywhere, more explosions and then I was in the water. I can still remember the shock as that freezing cold water closed over me, but they said in the hospital that it was probably the intense cold that saved me from bleeding to death. Somehow I managed to grab hold of a piece of wreckage and hang on until I was picked up, but I lost the arm. It was too badly mangled to save. But I was lucky, I survived. Hundreds didn’t.’
Alice thought of all the hideous wounds she’d seen. ‘I was with Jimmy Mercer, my young man, when they put him under to take off his leg. He’d been so long getting to hospital that gangrene had set in. He was terrified even though he was in terrible pain but he was one of the lucky ones too. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve stood and held the instruments for amputation, picked shrapnel and fragments of cloth from wounds, seen mangled, shredded limbs, awful stomach and chest wounds, and have closed dying eyes.’
His hands tightened on hers. ‘Things no girl of your age should ever have had to do or see, Alice.’
‘I never told Mam just how … bad things were or how atrocious the conditions the lads had to contend with. The Somme was really terrible, like a nightmare. We worked until we were ready to drop but we couldn’t cope, there were just too many wounded men coming in. That’s when Jimmy lost his leg and Eddie was wounded too, but despite that he carried Jimmy on his back all the way to the clearing station. He saved his life. But Jimmy’s brother Harry and his mate were killed.’
Billy couldn’t speak; there was a lump in his throat and his memories of Indefatigable and the battle and the pain he’d suffered faded before the overwhelming pride and admiration he now felt for his son and daughter.
‘I … I couldn’t tell Mam things like that, she’d get upset and worried.’ Alice managed a wry smile. ‘And she’d put her foot down and not let either of us girls go back. Both Mae and I are too young to be officially out there but we had to do something to help.’
Billy understood. ‘I’m glad you felt you could tell me, Alice. You’re very brave – all three of you.’
‘Do you want to come … home?’ she asked bluntly to hide her emotions.
‘I do, if your mam can find it in her heart to take me back. I want to get to k
now my family. Would you be agreeable, Alice?’
Slowly she nodded. ‘I think so, but it’s Mam’s decision. I know Jimmy and I will get married one day and so, please God, will Mae – but I have to tell you that Eddie isn’t going to like it. He’s very bitter.’
‘That’s only to be expected and it’s no more than I deserve,’ Billy said with resignation.
Alice smiled. ‘But he might come round, given time. No one knows when the war will end and he won’t get leave until it does.’
‘Unless he gets shipped home again.’
‘No, I don’t think there will be a third time. He’s with a supply unit now, he’s behind the front lines.’
‘Sure, that must be a relief to your mam. She’s been through so much over the years, Alice. I can only try and make up for all the pain and hardship I’ve caused her: I sincerely mean that.’
Alice smiled at him again. ‘I know you do … Da.’
Billy now felt the tears prick his eyes. ‘I never thought I’d hear you say that, Alice.’
‘I wondered myself if I’d ever say it,’ she replied, thinking that when she’d first met him she’d had no intention of calling him Da or Dad, but now she felt that there was the beginning of a bond between them. A bond forged by their experiences of war and suffering.
The intimate conversation ended as Maggie and Mae came into the room but Maggie was relieved to see that they seemed to be getting on well. It was a hopeful sign, she thought, although she still hadn’t reached a decision about Billy coming back to live with her.
When he’d gone, having been invited for supper again before the girls returned to France, Mae looked questioningly at her cousin. ‘Well, did you ask him?’
‘I did and I think I can understand how he felt … then, but it’s still hard to accept that he just walked out and never really thought about us for years. That hurts, but maybe in time I’ll be able to forget, he’s so different now.’ Alice was struggling to put her feelings into words. ‘If … if he weren’t my father and I’d met him for the first time tonight I would think he was a really nice man.’
‘But because he is your father you don’t think he’s nice?’ Mae asked.
‘No, I did like him and I think he really is sorry and wants to try to make it up to Mam and me and our Eddie, but I think what I’m trying to say is that what he did all those years ago wasn’t nice.’
‘It certainly wasn’t,’ Mae agreed.
‘But I could talk to him, Mae, about the war, the way I can’t talk to Mam. He told me what happened to him at Jutland, how he lost his arm and is lucky to be alive and that’s what made him want to come home, want to get to know us, and I hope Mam gives him another chance.’
Mae smiled at her. ‘If she does then I’d say you are lucky, Alice. Oh, I know the circumstances are very different but I wish I’d been able to get to know my mother and I wish Da had survived.’
Alice bit her lip. She supposed that despite everything she was fortunate to be given this chance to get to know her father. ‘I know, Mae, and I’m glad he’s coming again before we have to leave.’
‘Will you go and see Eddie when you get back?’ Mae asked.
Alice frowned. ‘I don’t know. He was really mad with me and I think he’s being very unfair. I’ll have a talk to Lizzie about it, see what she thinks.’
‘Did you tell your da how Eddie feels?’
‘I did. There was no use trying to hide it. I think I’ll discuss it all with Jimmy, he’s more detached from it all and one day he’ll be part of this family, as will Pip.’
Mae looked unhappy. ‘I hope there will be a letter tomorrow, Alice. His letters have always been so regular.’
‘Don’t forget they have further to come now, Mae,’ Alice reminded her, although she desperately hoped that nothing awful had happened to Pip Middlehurst whilst they’d been away. If there was no letter this week Mae would be frantic to get back to find out why.
To everyone’s relief there was a letter from Pip in the afternoon post the following day but the news it contained wasn’t what Mae wanted to hear.
‘What’s wrong?’ Alice demanded, seeing the expression on Mae’s face change from profound relief to fear.
‘He’s being sent to the front next week. Oh, Alice, it’s what I dreaded.’
‘I know, but you knew he would be sent sooner or later. They all have to go,’ Alice reminded her gently.
‘I’d just hoped it would be later – much later, perhaps when the next American troops arrived, but they’re going to join the Canadians.’
‘Try not to worry too much, Mae. He’s not a fool, he won’t go doing anything … rash.’
Mae nodded but she’d seen so much of the aftermath and consequences of battle that Alice’s words didn’t do much to allay her fears. Bullets and shells didn’t discriminate between the rash and the cautious.
‘I just want to get back now, Alice. At least if I’m there and anything … happens to him, I can get to Passchendaele Ridge – well, close enough anyway.’
Alice could understand that but she herself had no wish to rush back. She was reluctant to leave Jimmy and her mam, especially as Maggie had indicated that she still wasn’t sure what to do about Billy.
‘I just wish she would make up her mind one way or the other, Jimmy,’ she confided the night before they were due to leave.
Jimmy looked perturbed. He didn’t want Alice to go back but knew she must, but this business of her mam and Billy McEvoy was confusing and unsettling her and she’d fallen out with her brother over it. ‘Don’t go getting too upset about it, Alice. How did they seem to be getting on when he came yesterday?’
‘Fine. I thought she was a lot happier than when he came for supper last time.’
‘Probably because she wasn’t so worried about how you and he would get on,’ Jimmy deduced aloud. ‘Was it any easier for you?’
‘Yes, of course, and I said I’d write to him when I get time. He can’t write back because he says all he can manage with his left hand is his signature but he said he’d ask Mam to include any news he has. I’d just feel easier in my mind, Jimmy, if I knew where we all stand.’
‘We seem to know exactly where your Eddie stands on the matter,’ Jimmy reminded her. He could see Eddie’s point; he wasn’t at all sure how he’d feel if the father who’d deserted him as a baby suddenly turned up again.
‘Well, I’m not going to go and see our Eddie and tell him that I got on well with our da and that I think I can forgive and forget, and that I hope Mam gives him a second chance. I’m going to have a chat with Lizzie first to see what she says about it.’
Jimmy nodded his agreement. He’d never met this Lizzie and it was so long since he’d seen Eddie that he didn’t know if he’d changed much, but he was glad his best mate had met someone special. ‘You think she can talk him round?’
Alice shrugged. ‘If anyone can, it’s Lizzie. Oh, Jimmy, I just wish there was some end to this war in sight. Haven’t enough lads been killed and wounded? What have either side gained in three years? A few miles of useless mud and towns and villages in utter ruins! And now Mae is worried sick that something will happen to Pip and if – God forbid – it does, it will destroy her.’
‘I don’t know when it will all end, Alice. I don’t know why they go on fighting. Do any of us know now exactly what we’re fighting for?’ Jimmy said sombrely. ‘But it will have to finish one day and there will be peace again.’
‘Let’s hope that we’re all still here to enjoy it, Jimmy.’
Jimmy put his arms around her. ‘I will be, Alice, luv. One day you’ll come home to me and we’ll get married.’
‘Oh, I wish I didn’t have to go, Jimmy, I really do, but there will be lads who need to be cared for.’
‘I know, and I hope you and Eddie can sort things out. You shouldn’t be arguing – not at a time like this.’
Alice kissed him. ‘Maybe everything can be worked out, once Mam’s made up her mind. I’d better g
et back now; we’ve an early start in the morning. It won’t be until after Christmas that we’ll get leave again, I’m afraid.’
‘Maybe it will be over by then,’ Jimmy said with far more optimism than he felt.
‘That’s what we’ve said for the past three years,’ Alice replied.
Even though they were both cold and tired after the journey Alice decided she would take the bull by the horns and discuss the matter with Lizzie straight away. Clasping a mug of hot tea between her cold hands she sat down on the edge of the bed beside her friend while Mae started to unpack.
‘So, how did it go, Alice? Did you see your father?’ Lizzie asked.
‘Yes, and I liked him, Lizzie. I didn’t really know how I’d feel when I saw him but I found I could talk to him. I felt I could ask him anything and I did, and he answered all my questions honestly. He tried his best to explain. Of course, I really don’t know or can’t imagine what he was like when he was a young man, although he tried to tell me, but now he’s quiet and thoughtful and I think he’s still fond of Mam.’
‘And is she going to take him back?’ Lizzie probed, watching Alice’s expression closely. She had something she had to tell her friend and she was not very happy about it.
Alice shrugged. ‘I just don’t know. She seems to be having trouble making up her mind.’
‘You certainly can’t blame her for that, Alice. It’s a big decision, a real leap of faith, trust and hope that this time it won’t end in tears.’
‘Has our Eddie said anything more about it?’ Alice asked tentatively.
‘He’s said a great deal, I can tell you. But I’m afraid it’s not what you want to hear, Alice.’
Alice sipped her tea and grimaced at the taste. ‘He’s still angry about it then?’
‘He is. I’ve tried hard to put your point of view over but he’s adamant. He wants nothing to do with him and he says he can’t for the life of him understand your attitude or your mam’s. He keeps saying you should both have more self-respect, more pride and dignity than to let someone who treated you so badly just walk back into your lives.’ Lizzie sighed and took a sip of her drink. ‘He doesn’t believe Billy’s sorry for what he did, he’s convinced that the real reason why he now wants to come home is because he’s lost his arm and been invalided out of the Navy. He just wants someone to look after him. I’ve tried to point out that all your lives have changed because of the war, that maybe it really is the time to forgive but … Well, I’m not going to go harping on about it, Alice, it won’t do any good and I don’t want to drive a wedge between us. I care about him too much. I know he’s got his faults but he’s been through a lot. I’m really sorry, Alice.’
