by Maggie Ford
It was awful to watch him struggle for breath, nostrils dilated, lips blowing in and out with the effort, eyes turned to the ceiling, and that terrible fluid rattling.
‘Hang on, Billy!’
Running to the narrow kitchen, she poured boiling water from the kettle kept gently steaming for this emergency up to the air-hole of the inhaler, added a teaspoonful of friar’s balsam, averting her face from the pungent steam she had come to loathe.
A towel wrapped around the inhaler to keep the temperature up, she hurried back with it to Billy. It would ease him. She’d had all this with Dad, though never to this extent; his affliction stemming from natural causes, rather than the wilful warring of men, had never seemed so cruel, so heartless.
Slowly the steaming balsam took effect. The wheezing of Billy’s clogged lungs reducing, his breathing growing easier, Letty relaxed a little as he recovered enough to grin up at her, half in loving gratitude, half apologetic.
‘I’ll be – orright now. Yer can – take this – away.’
Busy with him, she didn’t hear Christopher come in.
‘Keep it by you in case you tighten up again,’ she instructed. ‘As soon as it begins to cool, call me and I’ll put some more hot water in it. Will you be all right for a moment? I’m in the middle of writing a letter.’
‘Didn’t mean – ter disturb yer, Let.’ His apology wrung her heart.
‘You didn’t disturb me, Billy. I was only putting pen to paper for something to do.’
‘Who’re yer writing to?’
‘Oh, just a business letter.’
‘Well …’ He smiled wanly at her. ‘You get back to it.’ She was reluctant to leave him. All the time she’d been tending him, half her mind had been on tearing the letter up, perhaps telephoning David instead. On the phone she could better argue her case, be more adamant, gauge his reaction easier.
She’d made up her mind as she reached the living-room door across the tiny hall. She opened it and immediately froze, all resolution swept from her.
Christopher stood in the centre of the room, a ten year old with the expression of one twice his age, dark eyes narrowed, young face twisted.
In his hand, creased and distorted where he’d screwed it furiously into a ball then opened it again to confront her with, was the letter she had left on the table.
Letty’s eyes were fixed on the letter. Heat flooded through her, exploded in a welter of fear-borne anger.
‘Christopher! Who gave you permission to … What’ve you been doing?’
‘Reading,’ he said expressionlessly.
‘You’ve no right to.’
‘It was open on the table. I couldn’t help seeing it.’
She stood petrified, wanting to snatch it from him, not daring to. It would only emphasise her guilt. Perhaps he didn’t truly understand the significance of it. He was only ten years old. She made herself smile. Her mouth felt stiff. She held out her hand, came forward.
‘It’s only a silly bit of writing, darling. I was making something up … out of boredom,’ she added quickly. ‘We can throw it away now. I’ve done with it.’
His expression hadn’t altered. ‘Who’s David?’ he demanded.
‘Just a name, darling.’
‘It’s somebody’s name. You wrote that you love him.’
‘A silly game I was having, that’s all. Something to do.’
‘Does Billy know? About your silly game, Mum?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Chris!’ she blustered, reaching out again for the letter. ‘Give it to me and we’ll throw it away.’
‘He is a real man, isn’t he?’ Chris sounded as though he was being strangled, his voice husky and tight. ‘You said you loved him lots of times in it. He’s someone you’ve met, isn’t he, Mum?’
‘He’s nothing of the sort.’
‘But you do know him – this David, don’t you? He’s not pretend.’
‘Chris …’ She reached out both hands to him, but he backed off.
‘Are you going to leave me and Billy?’
The plea was of sheer desolation. A boy confused for half his life by the subterfuge of adults was now being confronted by a new deceit that he seemed to imagine would touch him in the most cruel way: leaving him cast aside completely. She had to tell him. Had to explain.
‘It’s not what you think,’ she began. ‘Christopher, that letter – it was to your father. I was told he was killed in the war but he wasn’t. Last year I met him again and I still love him. I can’t help it. But I wouldn’t leave you and Billy. David’s married now, you see …’
Her voice faltered at the expression on his face, the anger turning to hatred, lips curling away from his white teeth in a snarl. But there were tears in his voice.
‘A whole year you’ve known about my father? And you never told me, you kept him a secret from me …’
Suddenly he stopped, his gaze directed beyond her. Instinctively she swung round, the sounds of Billy’s distressed breathing reaching her as she saw him standing in the doorway, leaning heavily against the doorjamb.
Grey-faced, he stared back at her before he turned, using the wall for support as he staggered back to his room without a word, the door closing gently behind him.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Billy was coughing. Throwing Christopher a last appealing glance, Letty hurried to her husband’s aid.
His strength gone, he was kneeling beside the bed, collapsed across it. She quickly helped him get into it, propping the pillows behind him. Now wasn’t the time to start vindicating herself, but she tried.
‘Billy …’
Feebly, he waved towards the inhaler. Letty felt it. It had cooled. No use to him.
Grabbing it, she hurried to the kitchen, glimpsing Christopher where she’d left him, the letter still in his hand.
‘Billy’s not well!’ she snapped at him. ‘Go down to the office and phone the doctor.’ She saw him leap into action, anger for the moment driven out by fear.
There was no need for the doctor. Letty could cope. But she needed anchorage – someone to bring some stability to a world cast adrift. At least it would give her time to compose herself, explain things more rationally; time for others better to understand the circumstances.
The inhaler filled, she hurried back to Billy, folded his hands around it, brought the tube to his labouring mouth. He didn’t look at her as he breathed in the soothing fumes; didn’t look at her as, recovering, he finally laid the inhaler on the bedside cabinet.
‘Billy …’ she began again, but again he stopped her.
‘Not now,’ he said, his voice a whisper. Closing his eyes, thus avoiding any need to look at her, he lay back on the pillows.
Letty knew he would not open them until eventually she was obliged to leave him; knew too that behind the closed eyes his mind was going like a treadmill, rejecting what he’d heard, rejecting any explanation from her. There’d be little sleep for him that night. Little sleep for her either.
Going through the motions of a busy pre-Christmas week was almost unendurable, the longest week Letty could ever remember, even though there were only four working days in it, Christmas being Friday.
Billy lay immobile in his bed as though all the stuffing had been knocked out of him. Letty, awake half the night, the small cabinet between her bed and Billy’s feeling as wide as the Sahara, blamed herself for everything. There seemed nothing she could say to narrow the rift she had caused. Her mind churned endlessly, futilely, until exhaustion finally rescued her from her milling thoughts and she slept.
Billy’s parents came to share Christmas Day with them, and looked worried.
‘I’ve never seen him so bad,’ Mrs Beans said as between them they laid the table for the Christmas dinner. Billy would be having a little on a tray if he felt like eating at all, which didn’t seem likely. ‘He ought to have a doctor to him.’
‘He’s had a doctor,’ Letty told her. ‘He’s been here on and off this past week.’
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‘He ought to be in hospital,’ said Billy’s father, himself quite robust despite the heart condition.
‘The doctor says that too,’ Letty said. ‘If Billy’s not improved after Christmas, he’ll make arrangements for it.’
She had done her best this past week to persuade Billy that a spell in hospital would do him a power of good, but he had merely shaken his head, saying all he needed was to stay in bed. It was all he ever said. If she tried unloading her conscience on to him, he’d turn away, say he was tired, needed to sleep, the ready smile absent for once. It broke her heart.
Christopher avoided her like the plague; his school broken up for the holiday, he spent his spare time in his room or seeing this or that chum. Over Christmas he spoke hardly two words to Letty, ate his meals in silence, barely acknowledged the Meccano and Hornby train sets she’d got for him. He at least put on a brave cheerful face for Billy’s parents who saw nothing untoward, but several times Letty caught him staring in her direction and looked quickly away from what she saw in his face. His model behaviour was unnatural, the healthy naughtiness of a ten year old absent, and Letty could find nothing to say to him.
She did write to David on Boxing Day, after her in-laws had gone home – a terse, uncompromising letter, explaining that Billy’s illness would prevent her from seeing him for some time. Would he please bear with her until she next contacted him?
Love for him still burned inside her, a desperate longing love, but there was no way she could have put it into words just then. It would have been best for them all if she could have terminated their association right now, but she knew that would have been an impossible condition; so better not to see him for a while – in itself a penitent’s scourge.
It was four days before Billy said anything directly to her. Giving him his medicines, she tried another attempt at reconciliation, making her tone cheerful as though nothing was at all wrong.
‘My, you take this stuff without turning a hair. It smells vile.’
He was looking unsmilingly at her. Something inside her seemed to break, like a twig snapping, only it was soundless. All at once there were tears flowing and words pouring out.
‘Billy … I can’t stand this! You not looking at me. Chris all sullen. I know what you overheard and I’ve got to explain. Please let me explain. Please!’
On her knees beside him like one seeking absolution, she let out her misery in a torrent. She hadn’t wanted to deceive him, hadn’t intended to hurt him. What else she said she had little idea beyond trying to convince herself as well as him that it had been out of her control, that she loved Billy, would always love him.
He was talking to her, his tone low and despondent. ‘I ain’t blamin’ yer, Let. I ain’t much of a catch.’
‘Oh, Billy … don’t!’ It was rubbing salt into her wounds.
‘I just feel – let down,’ he went on. ‘For Chris especially. It’s ’is father, Let. If yer’d just told ’im. Yer should ’ave, yer know.’
‘I wanted to, Billy,’ she mumbled against the coverlet. ‘But he’d have told you. You’d have been so hurt. I didn’t want to hurt you.’
‘Yer think – findin’ out this way ain’t ’urt me? I’ve always known yer – never loved me, not really …’
‘No!’ She looked up, face tearstained. ‘That’s not true. I did … I do love you.’
He gave a wry grin but said nothing, and seeing the truth, Letty bent her head again to the coverlet.
‘Oh, Billy.’ No point in trying to convince him of a love that would never compare to that which she bore for David. Billy’s voice was low.
‘A few months, Let. Stay wiv me – a few months. Give me that. I’ll try not ter – prolong it.’
Letty looked up in terror. ‘What’re you saying?’ But she already guessed. He was smiling at her, the old smile.
‘I’m tired, Let.’
She remained kneeling beside him as he turned away wearily, his breathing laboured. On impulse she placed a tender kiss against the tousled confusion of his hair, her tears falling upon it.
‘I love you, Billy,’ she whispered hoarsely, and getting up, left the room, leaving, she hoped, to sleep.
1926 came in with torrential rain, though to hear revellers along Oxford Street yelling Happy New Year to one another, blowing their party whistles and singing, no one would have guessed it was coming down in stair rods. Partygoers caroused outside the flat, soaked to the skin, beads and feathers dripping cascades, furs drenched, shoes and stockings waterlogged, the brims of men’s boaters and homburgs making waterfalls down their coat collars. Most were too drunk to care.
Curtains drawn, the gas fire turned full on, Letty kept an anxious vigil over Billy.
Since yesterday he’d complained of pain upon breathing and this morning had developed a fever that had become steadily worse as the day wore on. Doctor Cavarolli had urged getting him to hospital, but Billy had put up a fight.
Doctor Cavarolli had puffed out his fat cheeks, fiddled with his stethoscope and said he couldn’t force Billy, but to keep him as warm as possible, keep an eye on him, and inform the surgery if there was any change.
There had been a change about midnight and now, at three o’clock, revellers and drunks dispersed and London at last quiet, Letty was in two minds whether to get Doctor Cavarolli out at this time of the morning in such weather.
But by four-thirty when Billy began to toss and turn, his breathing becoming rapid and shallow, she knew it was a hospital job – out of her hands.
Outside rain lashed the bedroom window. Torrential rain and floods were reported all over Europe. It sounded as if they had all arrived in London in one go. But Letty was past caring about the doctor’s discomfort.
Hurrying down to the office, she lifted the phone off its hook and put it to her ear. A crackling like rustling paper made her stare at it angrily. Rain was interfering with the wires. Furiously she depressed the receiver. No response at all.
Letty ran back upstairs, grabbed coat and brolly and rammed a hat over her ears, going to shake Christopher awake before she left.
‘Phone’s out of order!’ she called. ‘I’m going for the doctor!’
Head down, umbrella held firm against a driving wind that had got up in the last hour or so, the waterlogged pavement splashing water into her shoes, she cast about futilely for a taxi as she ran towards Great Titchfield Street where Dr Cavarolli lived.
It was no great distance, usually she would not have needed a taxi, but in this weather, the umbrella was turned inside out twice, forcing her to struggle with it. By the time she reached the surgery, her expensive coat and hat bedraggled, she looked more like a vagrant than a successful owner of an art gallery as she staggered, panting, up the four steps and rang frantically at the doorbell.
She pressed it several times. It seemed a lifetime before the door opened, the light in the hall flickering on, and a woman in a pink dressing gown stood looking askance at her.
‘My husband’s ill!’ Letty gasped. ‘The telephone’s not working. I had to run all the way …’
She wasn’t making sense. The woman stepped back.
‘Come inside out of the rain,’ she instructed briskly, leading her into the waiting room and switching on the light. ‘Wait here, Mrs …?’
‘Beans – Letitia Beans. My husband’s William Beans, Dr Cavarolli’s patient. It’s his chest. It sounds awful. I’m sure it’s pneumonia …’
‘Wait here, Mrs Beans. I’ll wake the doctor.’
The door reopened admitting the portly figure of Billy’s doctor, dressed and ready in outdoor clothes, clutching his medical bag, a morning stubble on his chin. Letty made towards him in a welter of relief.
‘Oh, you must come. I tried to phone you but the phone was …’
‘Was out of order,’ he finished gently. ‘My wife told me. We’ll take my car. But first I will telephone the Middlesex Hospital from here. Fortunately mine is working.’
‘He won’t go into
hospital.’
‘He has no choice,’ came the reply. The doctor had already turned from her to the telephone on the desk, and was speaking to someone on the other end.
Chris sat by Billy in the white-painted ward, seven beds spaced out along either side. His mother was with Billy’s parents in the sister’s office, discussing him.
For two long weeks the hospital had fought Billy’s pneumonia, this third week announcing they were winning through. Except that Billy looked as if he’d been buried alive and dug up again so he hadn’t really won, it seemed to Chris.
The hospital doctor had had a long talk with Chris’s mother. He didn’t know what about except that she’d listened with bent head, had wiped tears from her eyes with a handkerchief and had given the doctor a brave smile.
Full of fear, Chris would have liked to ask her what had been said but couldn’t bring himself to speak to her even now, after all that had happened with Billy being ill. In his mind she’d been the cause of it all. He wanted to cry with rage at her.
‘Are you all right, Billy?’ he whispered, gazing intently at the pallid face before him, propped up on pillows.
Billy nodded. His colourless lips shaped a travesty of a grin. His breathing sounded awful, sort of rattling. Chris touched his hand as it rested on the harsh white bedcover, felt the fingers close over his in response.
‘You’re going to get better now, aren’t you, Billy?’
The thought that he might die terrified Chris beyond description. Billy was his shield against the father he had never seen; whom he disliked without ever having seen him. All he prayed for now was for Billy to live for years and years to keep the faceless man at bay – the man his mother had written to. The words she’d written had made him feel strangely uncomfortable, sort of embarrassed, though he wasn’t sure why.
‘You won’t die, will you, Billy?’
His fingers tightened a fraction. ‘Yer mustn’t be frightened.’
‘But I am frightened. If anything happened to you, Billy, I don’t know what I’d do. That man Mum wrote to – my father. He don’t care about me or he’d have asked to see me. If Mum went off with him and he didn’t want me, I’d be left all on my own. Oh, Billy, don’t die. Promise!’
