by Maggie Ford
‘It must have been a false alarm,’ Letty told her, in control of herself. ‘Nothing happened. It was so quiet. You heard nothing?’
‘It doesn’t mean a thing!’ Lucy screeched. ‘We’re at war – anything could happen. We could be killed when we’re not looking!’
It took a while to soothe her, Jack audible in the background on the same quest, his quiet voice on the phone he’d wrested off Lucy deep with reassurance, talking to David long after Letty had gone back upstairs.
Chris left two weeks later, stopping off on the way to say goodbye to Eileen and go on from there to Cramwell in Lincolnshire. David and Letty waved him off, watching him carrying his suitcase, his back ramrod straight, his face full of anticipation.
Wiping away the tears that had been held back until he was out of sight, Letty went back inside to gather up the morning mail and open the gallery. Life had to go on. They couldn’t stop because a son was off to war.
Not that there’d be much trade this morning – people much too occupied thinking of themselves, hiding away their own treasures, to bother about buying more. In the office while David went on upstairs she sorted listlessly through the bills, invoices, brochures, and a few letters. She stopped at the envelope with Garen, Polder & Stanway, Solicitors stamped across the top. Excitement gripped her. At last! She let the rest of the mail fall back on to the desk.
‘David! I think it’s come! This must be it!’
Without waiting for his reply, she raced up the stairs, burst into the sitting room where she knew he’d be, perhaps pouring himself a drink before leaving to pop into his office later or to the store.
He was sitting in the armchair. No, sprawling. His face, screwed up in pain, was a pasty grey, and perspiring. Groaning softly, eyes closed, he was rubbing one hand along his chest and shoulder, head limp against the chairback.
The envelope fell from Letty’s hand as she rushed forward.
‘Oh, God, David! What is it? What’s the matter?’
‘It’s terrible, the pain …’
‘Where?’
‘Everywhere.’
She hesitated no longer but threw herself at the phone and was dialling the exchange before she had even steadied herself. Frantic at the delay she waited to be put through to the hospital. And all the time she could hear David groaning. The sound went right through her.
It seemed wrong, the sun shining so brilliantly outside the green-curtained waiting room. It was hard to sit in one place for any length of time. Her mind a turmoil, Letty sat first on one chair, then another, went to the window to stare out, to the door in the hope of someone, anyone, coming to tell her what was happening.
She’d telephoned Lucy who had squealed as though it were her own husband stricken. She said she’d get Jack to phone back, blubbered a lot of sympathetic nonsense into the phone and rang off – most likely to indulge in a good cry. Jack had phoned back within ten minute from his print works just off Lea Bridge Road in Walthamstow, a large and thriving firm now.
‘I’ll be over straight away,’ he’d said. ‘You need someone with you.’ That was all. She’d returned to the waiting room feeling easier.
She knew she could depend on him. As tall and skinny as ever he’d been when she’d first known him, though now with a noticeable stoop, she would never have believed in those days he could become a rock for her sister to anchor her high-strung emotions to. And now Letty too needed him at this moment, such a floundering ship she had become. But he hadn’t arrived yet and she quaked with fear as she waited.
She had tried to telephone Chris at Eileen’s but had missed him by quarter of an hour. By that time the ambulance had come and they’d got David into the hospital. And what with talking to the sister, and finally being installed here in this dingy green-painted waiting room, she had missed her son who was now somewhere between here and Lincolnshire. She had got in touch with the station he was destined for and left a message for him. Now she could only wait, hope they’d send him back on compassionate grounds.
Jack arrived just after eleven, strode in to catch her as she leapt up to throw herself at him in the relief of having someone to share her vigil. It was a few moments before she became aware of Lucy standing behind him, full bosom heaving, face as distraught as Letty guessed her own must be.
Letty freed herself from Jack as Lucy came forward to clasp her in an emotional hug. Letty was not certain who was comforting who, her sister in a flood of tears.
‘What an awful thing to happen! Oh, God, Letty, how you must be feeling!’
‘How bad is he?’ Jack asked, although she’d already told him over the phone. ‘Have you heard anything?’
‘No,’ she said tightly. ‘He’s still in a special ward. No one’s been near me, except to give me a cup of tea.’
She gazed at the cup sitting on the window sill where she’d left it half drunk, too distressed to finish it, the contents cold, the milk congealing. ‘And they couldn’t tell me anything.’
They waited a further half an hour that seemed like half a year, Lucy persistently sighing, Letty sitting rigidly in one place now, and Jack pacing the floor without a pause. It was good to have them with her, despite Lucy’s sighing and Jack’s pacing.
Jack stopped suddenly. ‘I’m going to find out what’s going on,’ he announced.
As if on cue the door opened. A white-coated man with greying hair stood there, announced himself to be Mr Baron’s doctor. As the two women leapt from their seats, he glanced from one to the other.
‘Which of you is Mrs Baron?’
Letty stepped forward. No point going into explanations.
‘Is he all right?’
The doctor smiled gently at her – to Letty not a good sign. Doctors either smiled briskly or gently, depending on whether their news was good or bad, and this smile conveyed nothing but ill omen.
‘I’d like a word with you, if I may. If you would like to come with me, Mrs Baron?’
Letty steeled herself, wanting to say she’d rather have someone with her, but Lucy would be an encumbrance. She didn’t want floods of tears when the news was broken to her. She didn’t want Jack’s firm arm about her either, when she stood ashen-faced, blank-eyed, as the news was broken to her, gently or otherwise. She wanted David’s arm. But David would never hold her again, she knew that now.
Wordlessly she followed behind the white coat, was shown into a small room a few yards down the corridor. In it was a desk, quite bare but for a single forgotten pencil; by the wall three green metal filing cabinets, a waste paper basket and two chairs. The room was painted green and cream like the one she’d left, the curtains the same washed out green all over printed pattern which she gathered must be endemic to the whole hospital, knew she would never forget this room. Whatever in the future she would think of today, this scene would leap to mind as starkly as it now presented itself.
‘Sit down please, Mrs Baron.’
Letty sat, an automaton now. She wouldn’t cry. She knew that. She had never cried at death. Perhaps it would have been better if she had – more bearable.
The doctor seated himself on the table, one leg on the floor to support him, the other dangling; folded one hand over the other on his tilted lap. His stethoscope hung just a few inches from Letty’s eyes. The grave face looked down at her from a height.
‘I’m afraid your husband has had a rather hefty heart attack,’ he began carefully. ‘We have done everything we could, and I’m glad to say that he is now out of danger … For the time being,’ he added hurriedly as an expression of unadulterated relief passed across Letty’s face and she half rose from her chair.
‘I say for the time being, Mrs Baron,’ he went on as she sank back. ‘An attack such as your husband has had could recur at any time. One can never say how long that interval might be. It could be hours, days, weeks, months. Even years. No one can predict …’
What he was saying seemed to be coming from a distance through a thick haze. Letty felt worse than if
she had received the news she’d conditioned herself so firmly to expect. His voice echoed hollowly as though he was talking into a bucket. Meaningless sounds whirling in a noisy vortex that seemed to be forming inside her skull. And she was falling, plunging downward …
She came awake lying on a hard bed, tried to lift her head to look around.
‘It’s all right,’ came a soft friendly Irish brogue. ‘You just fainted. You’re in a side ward,’ it went on, obliterating the need for Letty to ask more. ‘You just give yourself a minute to come round fully now, then you can sit up.’
Looking towards the voice, Letty saw the round young face above the blue-striped uniform and white apron, cheeks rosy and shiny, as though they’d been washed with soap that she’d forgotten to rinse off properly. Black hair showed glossy beneath the stiff nurse’s cap and her eyes were as blue as a summer sky.
She smiled a sweet and ready smile as after a moment Letty sat up slowly. ‘That’s it, just take it carefully now. You’ll be as right as rain in a second or two.’
Letty half expected to find herself in a hospital gown, but she was fully dressed, her handbag on a chair beside her, her hat laid neatly on top.
Her thoughts, however, were with David. ‘Do you know how Mr Baron is?’ she asked. It seemed odd asking that question; a moment ago she had never expected to ask ever again. And then the impact of what she had expected to face hit her. She gazed imploringly into the girl’s face, expecting her to shake her head, the doctor’s words just a dream. The nurse gazed back, her blue eyes twinkling, and Letty knew it wasn’t a dream. In that second all her pent up feelings surfaced and she was suddenly engulfed by a fit of weeping such as she could not remember happening in years, not even when Billy had died. It took over completely as, lying against the young nurse’s soft shoulder, the girl holding her to her, murmuring, ‘There, there … A good cry’ll do you good,’ she let it wash over her.
Lucy and Jack left about four o’clock. Letty stayed on, holding David’s hand as he dozed. She had vowed, not to leave him until forced by hospital rules to do so, and then was determined to argue against them with all her might.
She had a terrible superstition that were she to leave, something dreadful would happen to David; that so long as she stayed here at his bedside, all would be well. A superstition she knew was quite ridiculous but which she couldn’t shake off.
There had been a message for her that Chris was being sent back for a short period to be with his father before returning to Lincolnshire. She would wait until he arrived.
She had left David for a minute or two earlier on to telephone Madge Baron from the public phone box outside. Her heart had been in her mouth at forsaking him for even this short time. Why she had even bothered she did not know, though Madge did at least confirm that the envelope David had received had indeed been the decree absolute of the divorce. Madge’s reply to Letty’s urgent message about David’s heart attack was that she had no intention of tearing off to any hospital to see an ex-husband.
‘No business of mine, darling,’ she sighed offhandedly. ‘He’s your problem now.’ And she had hung up, leaving Letty utterly appalled at such cold-heartedness.
Guilty at having left him, she ran all the way back to David to find him still sleeping. She calmed herself and vowed to sit for as long as it took for him to wake up and see her, praying as the hours ticked by that he would wake up, that he would live and not have another attack.
Letty gazed at David as he smiled at her from his pillow. He was recovering well, she thought. What Doctor Harper had said, couldn’t have been right. And yet, deep in her heart, she knew it was; that she must make the most of what she had. Only she hoped it would be for years, not months or weeks. She prayed for that, taking in David’s face, storing its picture in her mind so it would never fade.
He had the letter from the solicitors and she watched him open it, take out the document and the covering letter, scan them briefly.
And then he smiled at her, his dark eyes deep with his love for her. But only for a moment. Within seconds they clouded.
‘Doctor Harper’s spoken to you?’ he asked.
She nodded, not knowing how to answer. He answered for her.
‘He told you what could happen?’
Again she nodded as he went on sombrely now, not looking at her.
‘I love you, Letitia. Always remember that I love you. Don’t ever stop thinking that. But knowing what we know, I couldn’t in all fairness ask you to marry me now. It’d break my heart knowing I’ll leave you a widow …’
In Letty’s body every nerve, every fibre, jumped at once, like a pain. Her voice trembling, she spoke urgently.
‘I want you to listen, David. This country’s at war and thousands of couples are rushing off to get married. None of them knows if they will ever see each other again and they’ve probably only known each other a year or two. I’ve known you nearly all my life. We’ve been lovers for more than half that time. I’m lucky to have had what I’ve had, and if I marry you and am widowed next week, I shall still count myself the most fortunate of women in having been loved by you. I’ve had more love than anyone could ever have wished for. So I shall marry you, David, and no more talk of …’
She couldn’t say it, could only lean towards him and feel his arms close around her, feel their pressure against her conveying that he was in full agreement with her.
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First published as Stolen Years in 1994 by Judy Piatkus (Publishers) Ltd
This edition published in 2013 by Ebury Press, an imprint of Ebury Publishing
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Copyright © 1994 Maggie Ford
Maggie Ford has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental
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