by Maureen Lee
‘What’s the matter, Jess?’ Rita was suddenly wide awake and looked concerned.
‘Would you mind looking after Penny?’ Penny was already halfway upstairs, and Jessica desperately needed to be alone for a while.
‘Of course I wouldn’t, but Jess, what’s happened?’
‘Arthur’s been killed in North Africa, a place called Trigh Capuzzo, but Rita, I didn’t even know he was there!’
‘I’m so selfish,’ wept Jessica, as she sat in the office at the desk where Dennis Mott used to do his accounts. ‘I ruined his life. I killed him!’ Even as she wept, she knew she was being hypocritical. She hated people who pretended to be upset when someone they didn’t particularly care for had died. But she had cared for Arthur, she had loved him in her own rather offhand way. Their marriage had been a mistake right from the start; she was too strong and he was too weak. Nevertheless, she felt devastated at the idea he was no longer there. Deep down at the back of her mind, she’d always had the thought that she and Penny could return to Arthur if everything else fell apart.
Rita came into the office, put a large glass of whisky on the desk and departed without a word.
Jessica picked up the glass and recklessly drained the contents in one go. ‘Just when he was happy, just when he’d found the job he’d always wanted, I spoilt it all by leaving him in the lurch.’ She recalled the night she told him she was expecting Penny, that she’d had an affair. He’d been more angry than she thought he was capable of, yet he’d still forgiven her, and he’d been devoted to Penny from the very minute she was born; a real father couldn’t have loved his daughter more. ‘And at Christmas, he even suggested I did it again.’
The more Jessica thought about Arthur, the guiltier she felt, and with the guilt came self-loathing and disgust at the maudlin way in which she was behaving. She regretted drinking the whisky so quickly, because, on top of everything else, her head had begun to swim.
‘Oh, Arthur!’ She laid her swimming head in her arms and began to sob brokenly, and was too wrapped up in misery to notice someone had come into the workshop.
‘Are you okay?’
Jessica looked up. The last person in the world she felt like seeing at the moment was standing in the doorway of the office – Major Henningsen. He looked uncomfortable, as if he would have preferred to be several miles away.
‘I’m fine.’ Jessica sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve.
‘You don’t look it,’ he said stiffly. ‘Has something happened?’
‘Yes it has, as a matter of fact. I’ve just learnt my husband has been killed.’
His thin lips curled. ‘I thought you said you were separated?’
‘We were, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t love him in my own peculiar way. We were incompatible, that’s all.’ Jessica regarded him bitterly. ‘That’s something a person like you wouldn’t understand.’
‘What do you mean, a person like me?’ Perhaps it wasn’t surprising that he should look slightly hurt.
‘I meant someone who seems to have so little faith in human nature, who pre-judges everyone they meet and assumes they’re bad, and considers himself highly superior to the world in general.’ By now, the effects of the whisky had completely taken hold. She was conscious that her voice was slurred and she didn’t give a damn what she said.
Major Henningsen came into the office and eased his powerful frame into the chair on the other side of the desk. ‘Am I really so bad?’
Jessica nodded. ‘You’re worse! I saw the way your lip curled when I told you Arthur was dead. You immediately thought me a hypocrite. You’re incapable of appreciating that people can still go on loving each other after they’ve separated. Arthur was such a sweet man, so good.’ She began to cry again. ‘Oh, I am a hypocrite, I am. I was terribly cruel to him.’
‘You can’t stand weak people, can you? Particularly men.’
Jessica looked at him with red eyes. ‘Is it so obvious?’
‘It was obvious when I first met you. I’m not sure if I like strong women.’
‘I think you can take it for granted that you don’t. You clearly don’t like me – not that I care, because I don’t like you, either.’
‘Well, at least we know where we stand!’ He managed to crease his face into a smile. ‘Tell me about Arthur. What did he do before the war?’
‘You don’t have to pretend to be interested.’ She had a suspicion, though it went against everything she knew about him, that he was trying to be kind. ‘In fact, I’d sooner you went away. I’d like to be on my own, if you don’t mind. Oh, God!’ She clapped her hands against her forehead as her head threatened to float away from her body altogether and a feeling of nausea engulfed her.
‘I think it would be better if you weren’t left on your own.’ He nodded towards the glass. ‘You’ve had too much to drink. The best thing for you to do is keep on talking. How long were you and Arthur married?’
Jessica thought hard. Her brain was so muzzy that Major Henningsen was beginning to look blurred. ‘Twenty-three years,’ she replied eventually.
‘You waited long enough to have Penny.’
‘So we did.’
‘Was that your decision or Arthur’s?’
‘Neither. It was fate who decided I should have Penny.’ Fate, Jack, Arthur. Fate, Jack … ‘I think I want to be sick!’
Major Henningsen jumped to his feet. ‘Where’s the bathroom?’
She presumed he meant the lavatory. ‘In the garden,’ she gulped, ‘but I’ll never get there in time.’
Jessica threw up directly outside the workshop, then sank, groaning, onto the grass. ‘What an idiot I was to drink it all at once!’ She felt embarrassed at making such a show of herself in front of the man she so thoroughly detested.
His hand was on her shoulder like a ton weight. ‘You should feel better now.’
‘Should I? I feel utterly wretched,’ Jess moaned.
‘Utterly?’
‘Please don’t joke. I really do.’
‘What you need is a strong cup of coffee.’
‘Jess!’ Rita appeared, closely followed by Penny. ‘I just looked out the window – are you all right?’
Major Henningsen stood up and snarled, ‘She needs coffee, black and strong.’
‘I’ll make some straight away.’ Rita scurried off.
‘Mummy,’ Penny cried plaintively. ‘Mummy, you failed over.’ Frightened, she tried to crawl onto Jessica’s knee.
‘I’m fine, sweetheart. I’ll get up in a minute.’ Although Jessica tried, she felt too dizzy to move.
‘Your mom’s okay, honey.’ Major Henningsen unexpectedly swung Penny up in his arms. ‘She’s just having a little sit down on the grass.’
Penny regarded him thoughtfully. She’d fortunately grown out of the habit of calling every man ‘Dada’. She hid her head in the khaki shoulder. ‘Don’t like you,’ she mumbled.
The major gave his rather cracked chuckle. ‘You’re in good company, honey. Your mom doesn’t like me, either.’
Rita arrived with a bottle of aspirin and the coffee, which was as thick as treacle and tasted disgusting. After Jessica had drunk it, Major Henningsen helped her upstairs and she fell asleep in Rita’s spare bedroom with a bucket handy in case she was sick again.
When she woke, it was six o’clock and, apart from a splitting headache, she felt much better. She refused Rita’s offer of a meal, because the idea of food was objectionable at the moment. She walked home briskly, and Penny, excited by the unusually fast pace, waved her arms in delight.
Kitty was working afternoons and wouldn’t arrive till late – if she arrived, that is. One night she hadn’t come home at all and Jessica suspected she’d gone straight from work into town and spent the night with her sergeant. Still, she’d been told she could come and go as she pleased – and she was almost twenty-eight and could be presumed to know what she was doing.
Penny had already had her tea with Rita. She clung to her mother pos
sessively, the events of that morning clearly still on her mind. ‘Don’t failed over again, Mummy.’
‘Don’t worry, love, I won’t.’ Jessica deliberately kept her up, waiting for Penny herself to announce that she felt tired and wanted to go to bed. When she did, Jessica sat beside the cot thinking about Arthur long after her daughter had gone to sleep.
At ten o’clock, she heard the King’s Arms let out and the raucous sound of laughter as the customers hung round on the corner of the street, unwilling to return home. A few minutes later, the back door opened and Jack Doyle let himself in. Jessica went downstairs, just as he shot the bolt in case Kitty came home.
‘Hallo, Jess.’
Jessica nodded. ‘Hello.’ He was such a big, masculine man compared to Arthur, she thought dispassionately, though just as sensitive. He immediately guessed from the expression on her face that there was something wrong. Before he could ask what, she said, ‘I got a telegram this morning. Arthur’s been killed.’
He sank into a chair and groaned, ‘Oh, Jaysus, no! He was a fine man, Arthur Fleming. I didn’t know him all that long, but he became a good mate.’
She’d never told him his ‘good mate’ had realised Jack had made love to his wife, and couldn’t be bothered to say so now. ‘Under the circumstances, I’d prefer it if you didn’t come round again, Jack. I’d like to call it a day.’
‘But, Jess!’ He looked poleaxed. His big face collapsed as he stared at her, utterly bewildered. ‘But why now, Jess?’
Jessica was taken aback. She had assumed she meant as little to him as he did to her. ‘I’m not sure why. It just seems all wrong.’
‘It’s a bit late in the day for it to seem wrong,’ he argued desperately, ‘particularly with Arthur gone. For the first time, it would have been all right.’
Jessica did her best to explain. ‘I know I’m being unreasonable, but I feel very guilty and confused, I …’ She stopped, wishing he would leave because she wasn’t in the mood to try and sort out her muddled emotions just now. He would find it difficult, if impossible, to understand what it was to do with Arthur at this late stage. Though it wasn’t just Arthur: there was the garage, the strange feeling of discontent she’d had lately, the urge to change the course of her life. ‘But it’s only eight months since I last changed it,’ she thought. ‘I can’t go on moving here, there and everywhere every time I feel a bit unhappy. I’ve got to settle down some time, if only for Penny.’
Jack was frowning darkly at the fire. He bit his lip several times, as if there was something he wanted to say, but he couldn’t quite pluck up the nerve to say it. ‘Jess,’ he almost gasped, then stopped and bit his lip again. ‘Look, Jess, in a few months, once it seems proper like, we could get married!’
‘Don’t be silly, Jack.’ Jessica gave a tired laugh. ‘We’d make the most inappropriate married couple in the world.’
‘But … but I thought that was what you’d always wanted!’ His jaw dropped open in disbelief. Even tonight, he’d suspected her calling it off might be a come-on, a way of dragging a proposal out of him. He’d always thought he only had to ask and she’d agree to marry him like a shot.
‘It’s the last thing I’ve ever wanted.’ She realised she was being as cruel to Jack as she’d been to Arthur. ‘Of course, I’m immensely flattered,’ she said quickly, ‘but you and I would never get on together. Surely you realise that?’
‘I love you,’ he said simply. It came out more easily than expected.
Jessica smiled. ‘I loved you too once, a long, long time ago. I was about twelve and you were courting Mollie. But I grew out of it, and so will you, Jack. We’ve just had something rather special for a while, but at the same time rather superficial. Now’s the time to finish.’
He was too big a man to plead. ‘If that’s what you want,’ he said stiffly.
‘It is.’
‘Tara then, Jess.’ He left, unbowed and dignified, and returned to the house in Garnet Street where he’d lived ever since he’d married Mollie more than thirty years before. So, all that endless soul-searching had been a complete waste of time. Jess had never wanted to marry him after all! He knew he would feel a terrible void, an aching sense of loss whenever he thought about the redheaded woman who had created such havoc in his life, not to mention his little girl, Penny. At the same time, there was a feeling of relief that once again his remaining years stretched ahead of him with calm predictability. There might be a few bumps on the way, but otherwise the pattern wouldn’t change.
Major Henningsen telephoned Jessica the following afternoon. ‘How’s your head?’
‘Back to normal. Look, I must apologise for …’
He cut in. ‘Please don’t apologise for anything. Considering the circumstances, it was entirely understandable, but I suggest you stay clear of the liquor in future.’
‘Apart from the occasional glass of wine, I don’t usually drink,’ Jessica explained, rather surprised at this show of magnanimity. ‘I’m not used to whisky.’
There was a pause. ‘Did you mean all those things you said about me?’ he asked casually.
‘What things were they?’ Jessica’s memory of the previous day’s events was decidedly fuzzy.
‘Something about me having little faith in human nature. I pre-judge people and consider myself superior.’
Jessica thought hard. ‘Yes, I think I did.’
He made a humphing sound. ‘You’re no angel yourself.’
‘The thing is, I know it and you don’t,’ she said crisply.
‘Hmm. I wonder if you’re right.’
‘You could always ask your wife.’ She felt curious to know if there was a woman on earth crazy enough to have taken him on. It was hard to imagine him with a family.
‘I would need paranormal powers to do that. My wife died eighteen years ago.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said quickly.
‘It’s a bit late for sympathy, but thanks,’ he barked.
‘Do you have any children?’
‘One son, Peter, nineteen. He’s in the army and has just been despatched to Australia, of all places.’ For the very first time, there was a soft edge to his normally tough, terse voice. ‘Anyway,’ he continued brusquely, ‘the reason I came to see you yesterday is we’re having a concert, a big one this time, open to all ranks. It’s being held in the main hangar of the base in Burtonwood on June seventh and we’d like you to sing. The star turn is a top comedian flying over especially from the States, so you’d only be part of the supporting bill.’
‘I think I could stand that,’ said Jessica.
Rita Mott crept in and out of the workshop all day and spoke to Jessica only in a whisper.
‘For goodness’ sake, Rita,’ Jessica exploded eventually. ‘Stop acting as if I’m an invalid or something. I’ve completely recovered. I’m fine.’
‘You can’t have got over losing Arthur so quickly, surely?’
‘You’re forgetting I’d already left Arthur. Even so, I’m very upset he’s gone, but I can’t cry for ever, can I?’
‘You’re ever so brave, Jess,’ Rita whispered.
‘I’m not. My father used to say I was as hard as nails – and I am. Do please stop whispering, Rita, I can hardly hear you.’
‘Have you told Penny yet?’ Rita asked in a normal voice.
‘No, and I shan’t. I shall probably tell her when she’s older and more able to understand.’
Rita furrowed her brow. ‘I wonder how I’d feel if Den was killed?’
‘Try not to think about it,’ Jessica advised. ‘Where is Den now, by the way?’
‘I’m not sure. Last time he wrote, he was still in that funny place in India. I haven’t had a letter lately.’ She looked at Jess, still frowning. ‘Yesterday, when you were asleep, I wondered if I should give up on me parties for a while. Imagine if I got a telegram to say Den was dead! I’d feel terrible if I thought I’d been enjoying meself at the same time as he was killed.’
Nowadays, Rit
a’s friends consisted of black Yanks from the storage depot in Marsh Lane, along with a couple of women who’d become regulars. According to Rita, the blacks were true gentlemen and far preferable to the whites.
‘I shouldn’t bother,’ Jessica said carelessly, her mind by now on what she would wear for the concert in Burtonwood. Apart from which, Rita’s hypocrisy seemed even worse than her own. ‘You’ve had so many parties, Rita. What will a few more matter?’
Which, considering what was to happen later, was the worst possible advice Jessica could have given.
On Sunday, Jessica filled the van with the remainder of her petrol ration, and, leaving Penny with the Reillys, drove up to the Lake District to collect Arthur’s things. She took her set of keys in case the museum hadn’t appointed a new curator when Arthur left and the place was unoccupied. After ringing the bell on the side door several times, she noticed a small card attached to the main entrance which said, MUSEUM CLOSED INDEFINITELY, so let herself in.
It was rather eerie walking through the ground and first floors full of glass cases containing ancient relics which had survived civilisations several thousands of years old, as well as numerous broken, but priceless, statues which were missing several vital parts. Her footsteps sounded exceptionally loud on the mosaictiled floor. At one point, she froze, hearing matching footsteps from above and thinking there was someone coming down to meet her, but all was silent and she realised the sound was merely an echo.
The large flat was dusty, but as neat as a pin. Arthur had always been a tidy person and had put everything away before he left. Jessica quickly sorted through his papers, most of which were concerned with the museum’s affairs. One of these days, she must write to the trustees and tell them Arthur was dead. They might be expecting him to take up the job of curator again once the war was over. She packed his clothes: the smart suits and silk shirts which he used to wear when he was a businessman in Calderstones, the old trousers and rough tweed jacket he’d gladly turned to when they’d moved to Bootle and he’d got a job, much to her disgust, as a lorry driver. He’d always loved driving.
