by Anne Bennett
The secretary claimed that she knew nothing of the reason, but Matthew knew that to be a lie. She knew most of what went on in that firm. In fact, she could keep the whole place running if his father was not there, and had often done just that, covering for the old man the mornings he had come in suffering so badly from the excesses of the night before that he was worse than useless for the first couple of hours.
When he saw the whiskey bottle and glasses set on the table Matthew knew that whatever it was all about was serious.
‘You’re starting early.’
‘Will you join me?’
Matthew’s eyes narrowed. His father’s voice was husky, as if…as if he had been crying, and though Matthew had put the brightness of his eyes down to the booze, he saw now that there were unshed tears lurking there. There was just the one reason that his father might be moved to tears. Matthew’s whole body began to tremble and suddenly a glass of whiskey seemed a very good idea.
He gave a nod to his father, who poured them both a stiff measure. Then Matthew sat in the chair opposite him and said, ‘It’s Paul, isn’t it?’
Jeff nodded.
‘Dead?’
Jeff shrugged. ‘Missing, presumed dead,’ he said. ‘Means the same thing.’
‘Oh Christ!’ Matthew said. ‘We had a few words when he came to tell Mother, you know, and I actually sneered at him; said he would be in no danger. He would be well away from the fighting.’
‘If I am honest, I thought the same,’ Jeff said. ‘I thanked God he wouldn’t be in the front line, but in the débâcle of Dunkirk, everyone there would be in danger. Lois’s husband, Chris, was injured too. It was Lois who came with the news just minutes ago.’
Matthew said nothing. He drank his whiskey and thought about his brother. He was shaken, but he didn’t know how much he would miss him. They seldom met and, when they did, they had little in common. As a child he had longed to love him—he would have been easy to love, and a wonderful older bother to admire and respect—but his mother’s blatant favouritism of Paul had driven away any love Matthew might have felt for him and replaced it with resentment. And yet he was sorry he was dead.
He said, ‘What happens now then?’
‘Well, I am away first to see Carmel, who has been rendered nearly senseless by this news. She was alone in the house except for the baby and her mind must have refused to take it. Anyway, I will see what’s what and then I must be off to tell your mother. It might be best if you were in the house then too.’
Matthew drained the whiskey and nodded as he stood up. ‘I’ll see to it,’ he said. ‘I’ll just finish what I was at and leave the foreman in charge.’ He looked straight at his father and said, ‘How do you think Mother is to take news like this?’
‘I stopped trying to estimate your mother’s reaction to things a long time ago,’ Jeff said with a sigh. ‘She doesn’t seem to operate under the same rules or social mores as the rest of society. She had cast Paul completely out of her life and that saddened me, for if your mother loved anyone better than herself it was that boy.’
‘Well, I know that,’ Matthew said bitterly. ‘Both you and I just had the leavings, didn’t we?’
‘We did, son,’ Jeff said. ‘And I often felt sorry for you.’
‘I survived,’ Matthew said lightly, though the hurt of rejection was still there behind his eyes. ‘But however we feel about Mother, I know one thing: this news will hit her for six.’
Jeff knew that too. But before he faced his wife he went to see his daughter-in-law, the other one who had been hit for six. Lois hadn’t returned by the time he arrived, but Ruby was relieved to see him.
‘Go on up, Mr Connolly,’ she said, adjusting the baby on her hip. ‘As soon as I have madam here settled, I’ll bring you a nice cup of tea.’
‘Don’t trouble yourself.’
‘It’s no trouble, honestly,’ Ruby said. ‘And maybe you can get Carmel to drink something. She plays up shocking with me at times. Lois can handle her better.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ he said, chucking Beth under the chin as he passed and was rewarded by a beaming smile, Surely the baby was the only one to smile so readily in that house of sadness.
Jeff was glad he saw Carmel first on his own, for the sight of her lying so still, her open eyes fixed on some point on the ceiling, shocked him so much he was sure it must have been apparent. However, he recovered himself and, sitting on the chair beside the bed, he took one of her hands in his.
‘Hello, Carmel,’ he said gently.
Carmel hadn’t been aware of Jeff entering the room. In fact she was aware of little. It was as if life just went on around her and she was outside of it. She turned her head and when she saw the sorrow etched so deeply on Jeff’s face, which she knew must be mirrored on her own, she gave a sigh and said so softly it was little above a whisper, ‘Oh God, Jeff, what am I to do?’
‘Bear it, my dear,’ Jeff said. ‘There is no other option.’
‘I can’t,’ Carmel said. ‘Really I can’t, the pain is too great.’
‘Oh, my dear, dear girl…’
The sympathy in Jeff’s voice was Carmel’s undoing. She felt the tears that had threatened to fall for days begin to seep between her eyelashes and trickle down her cheeks and then this turned into a torrent and then a flood, and what Jeff originally saw as a good sign began to alarm him.
He glanced to the door, but there was no help from that quarter and in the end, he dropped Carmel’s hand and, sitting up on the bed beside her, he put his arms about her shuddering body and held her against him while he stroked her hair with his other hand. ‘Hush now,’ he urged. ‘You will make yourself ill if you go on like this.’
Carmel snuggled into the tweed of his jacket. She smelled tobacco and a whiff of whiskey, but it wasn’t unpleasant; it was familiar. The heart-rending sobs eventually changed to hiccuping gulps.
Ruby, coming in with the tray of tea, was pleased that Carmel had cried at last. ‘It was what she needed,’ she told Jeff later as he was about to go. ‘It was as if everything was knotted up tight inside her and I think she needed your arms around her too. Having a stiff upper lip is all very well, but really it isn’t much comfort when all is said and done and that is what you both needed if you ask me—a bit of comfort.’
Ruby was a very wise woman, Jeff thought. A little later, facing his wife across the room, he wished, whatever their differences, that he could gather Emma into his arms and they could comfort one another on the death of their son. However, he was unable to offer comfort because Emma looked at him coldly although her face was ravaged with wretchedness and heartache. Her voice when she spoke was strange and Jeff knew that it was sheer iron will that was keeping tears at bay.
But what she said in clipped tones was, ‘I don’t see why you think this should interest me.’
‘Emma, for God’s sake. He was our son.’
‘He ceased to be my son when he married that little trollop.’
‘She is no trollop,’ Jeff said firmly. ‘And you also have the dearest, cutest little granddaughter, if you could just bring yourself to see her. She is, after all, part of Paul.’
‘And part of the woman he married,’ Emma said stiffly. ‘I want nothing to do with her. And now leave me, if you will. I want to be on my own.’
Jeff thought if he lived to be a hundred he would never understand his wife. But he also knew there was nothing to be gained by staying. He turned on his heel and went to find Matthew, who had returned home as he requested. Jeff had the urge to make a large hole in the brandy bottle and knew that for that day, at least, he would value Matthew’s company.
CHAPTER TWENTY
While Jeff was talking to his wife, there was a surprising visitor to 17 York Road. Lois opened the door with the baby in her arms, and her mouth dropped open with shock.
‘Matron!’
‘Yes, don’t look so shocked,’ the matron said. ‘I am here to see Carmel. Is this the baby?’ She extended her
hand for the child to grasp. Her face had softened and her voice was gentler with the child. Lois remembered someone saying how kind Matron was with the children in hospital and how they all loved her. ‘It is just a pity,’ said the girl who told her this, who was still recovering from a roasting Matron had given her, ‘that her kindness doesn’t extend to probationary nurses.’
‘Yes, this is Elizabeth Eve,’ Lois told her. ‘She is called Beth for short.’
‘And is Carmel still in bed?’
Lois nodded. ‘There has been a breakthrough of sorts. No one had been informed, you see, and when I went and told Paul’s father today, he came straight round. I wasn’t here. I had gone on to tell my parents, but Ruby, the neighbour I mentioned, was, and she said Carmel started talking to Uncle Jeff. She could hear the murmur of voices, you know—Carmel hadn’t spoken either since she got the telegram—and then, when Ruby went in, Carmel was crying so brokenheartedly Jeff had his arms around her. She needed those tears.’
‘Oh, yes, indeed,’ Catherine said knowledgeably. ‘A person must cry before the healing process can really begin.’
She spoke as if she not only knew, but had experienced those things herself. And yet why wouldn’t she? Lois thought. She must have been young once and probably had her moments.
‘Is this Ruby with Carmel now?’ Catherine asked.
‘No,’ said Lois. ‘She has gone to make her husband a bite to eat and,’ she added with the ghost of a smile, ‘probably try and convince the poor man that she hasn’t moved in here on a permanent basis.’
‘So, could I see Carmel?’
‘Of course,’ Lois said. ‘I will take you up now.’
Carmel was just as shocked as Lois had been at the sight of Matron in the doorway, and even more alarmed when Lois said, ‘I will leave you to it, if that’s all right?’
‘That’s fine,’ Catherine said, and she sat on the chair by the bed. ‘You are probably wondering why I have come to see you.’
Carmel gave a brief nod.
‘Because I know just how you feel. Don’t widen your eyes in such disbelief. My lover was killed in the First War. His name was Len Bishop and we were engaged and due to marry on his next leave. I was twenty-three and a nurse, but I was longing to be married and have a home and family of my own. But Len too was shipped to France and didn’t return. I had just turned twenty-four when he died in 1915.’
Carmel’s eyes were sympathetic, but Catherine continued, ‘I don’t broadcast this and I hope I won’t have to ask you to be circumspect now. I don’t want it to be bandied around the hospital, although you can tell Lois, if you wish.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I did just as you did, as you are doing,’ the matron said. ‘I retired to my bed. I felt my life was over. I wanted to die to be with Len. In the end, my distracted parents sent for the doctor. That man had the bedside manner of an alligator, which was probably good for me. He said that wallowing in grief would serve no purpose other than to worry those around me.’
‘War is so dreadfully cruel.’
‘It is,’ Catheine agreed, ‘and remember the war that Len died in was “the war to end all wars”. I was quite resentful and envious of you and Lois the time you asked if you could nurse after marriage. I thought nothing could get in the way of your dreams. Even with Germany rumbling away, I never thought it would amount to anything and certainly not war.’
‘Few wanted to believe it,’ Carmel said.
‘Well, it is here now,’ Catherine said firmly, ‘and, maybe even more than in the last one, it will be women that keep this country afloat. The luxury of lying in bed and letting the world go on around you is no attitude to have in wartime. If you don’t want your man to have died in vain, this is a war we have to win and at the moment we have our backs to the wall.’
The matron looked at the sad eyes of Carmel and her voice was gentler as she went on, ‘I know it’s hard, my dear. Once Len was gone I knew I would never marry. He had been the one love of my life and I threw myself into nursing. You, my dear, have a child. I often wished…of course it could never be. Even engaged couples in those days did not indulge in such things and I would have been disgraced, I know, but it would have been nice to think that Len had left a piece of himself behind.
‘The doctor said Len had been doing his duty and I owed it to his memory to get out of bed and do something useful with the rest of my life. Paul too had been doing his duty and you owe it to him to get up and care for your child. Isn’t it what Paul would have expected of you?’
Carmel knew it was exactly what he would expect. She knew she would always miss him, but lying in bed thinking of him constantly would not bring him back, and meanwhile her baby was suffering.
Matron Turner left soon afterwards and Carmel called Lois and said she wanted to get up. Lois was delighted and Carmel was glad of her help for, once out of bed, she felt incredibly weak and the room listed dreadfully. But she persevered and made the stairs, then sat thankfully in the armchair and told Lois all that had transpired in the bedroom and what had given her the impetus to get up in the first place.
‘She’s right about the baby,’ Lois said. ‘Beth has been missing you. Both Ruby and I have noticed it, but I am so incredibly sorry for you, for me too, all of us, for Paul was such a very special person.’
Although Carmel forced herself to get up every morning and took on the total care of Beth, she felt numb and almost as if she were hollow inside. Nothing seemed to fill the gaping hole in her entire being and nothing helped or eased the pain lodged in her heart—not the letters of condolence and Mass cards arriving from Ireland, nor her mother writing to say that the family kneeled every night to say the rosary for the repose of Paul’s soul.
Father Robertson came to see her. The man wasn’t a very sympathetic person, but even he felt sorry for Carmel and knew that it would take her some time to get over such a tragic loss. He said he would remember her in his prayers and suggested a commemorative Mass, held both to celebrate Paul’s life and mourn his death. Carmel was glad of Jeff’s support there, for the Mass affected her greatly.
She was alone in the house and tidying up one day when she came upon the newspapers Lois had left out for salvage. She sat down and read what had been happening since Dunkirk when she had retired to her bed. Soon she realised that when Matron had spoken about Britain having its back to the wall, she had told the truth.
Nearly three hundred and fifty thousand Allied soldiers had been rescued from Dunkirk, which the paper acknowledged was an amazing feat. However, they had to leave behind them guns, ammunition and vehicles. Hitler, feeling sure Britain was finished, was massing his troops across the Channel, bent on invasion.
Carmel, like most others in the country, faced the possibility of defeat for the first time. If that happened she would feel that Paul had given his life in vain. A call had gone out for more Local Defence Volunteers and George Hancock was among the thirty thousand men in Birmingham alone who had rushed to join up. All civilians were urged to get involved and there were calls out to learn first aid, apply to be ARP wardens, or at the very least learn to operate stirrup pumps in the event of incendiary attacks.
Yet as Carmel pushed the baby out on those balmy summer days, it was sometimes hard to believe that there was a war on at all, apart, that was, from the notices appearing on hoardings. Travel was discouraged and one poster enquired, ‘Is Your Journey Really Necessary?’ Others reminded you that ‘Careless Talk Costs Lives’ and to, ‘Be Vigilant! The Enemy Is Near’.
Lois had told Carmel that the road signs that had been removed and railway signs painted over to inhibit any potential invader, and people were also advised to disable cars not in use, to lock up or immobilise bicycles and hide maps.
Children evacuated to the south coast were being moved north to what were considered safer locations. Many children had already been taken home by their parents when the threatened bombing raids didn’t materialise and more took them home now.
/>
Ruby said she didn’t blame them. ‘If invasion comes,’ she said, ‘isn’t it better for families to be together?’
Carmel supposed it was, but she had a horror of jackbooted Nazis marching down the streets of her adopted city, putting her life and that of her baby at risk.
‘I worry about mine, for all they are big enough and ugly enough to look out for themselves,’ Ruby went on. Carmel knew she had reason to worry. Ruby’s two sons, Bertie and Henry, had received their call-up papers and her son-in-law, Donald, was expecting his any day, as the battle began in the air.
The Germans began pounding the southern ports and attacking shipping prior to invasion, and Lois was very glad Chris had been moved, as Ramsgate was getting almost nightly raids. The hospital he had been sent to now was a new one, called the Queen Elizabeth, which had been built to replace the old Queen’s. As many of the old Queen’s staff had been transferred to the new hospital, Chris was well known there. That, together with the fact that he was a Dunkirk veteran, meant they could not do enough for him.
‘He’ll expect me to run around after him the same way when I get him home,’ Lois grumbled, but she knew she wouldn’t care a jot about that. Chris was alive and would be well again, and she knew how lucky she was.
So did Carmel. She still cried for the numbing loss of Paul some nights muffling the sounds in a pillow lest she disturb Lois. Sometimes, though she knew it was totally against the rules, she would take the baby into bed and they would sleep together.
Chris never spoke of Dunkirk and the first time Lois had asked him, his eyes had filled with tears so she was careful never to mention it again. This was what she told Carmel when she asked if he knew what had happened to Paul.
The day Chris came home, Carmel tried not to be selfish and begrudge Lois her happiness. But it did give her a pang when he walked through the door looking so hale and hearty.
He seemed happy to be back and he was totally charmed by the baby, but behind his eyes there was definite sadness. Lois asked about it when they were alone while Carmel was putting the baby to bed.
