by Anne Bennett
Paul was stunned. He searched the recess of his mind and could remember the two girls, especially Jane, and he shivered when he thought it could have been Carmel. All that time in the labour camp he had told himself that at least Carmel was as safe as anyone could be in war. There had been no bombing of civilians in British cities before he had sailed out with the BEF and he had been ignorant of what was happening to his own country. But when he had arrived in Britain and then went on to Birmingham he had seen the ravaged destruction, almost obliteration of vast areas.
‘I had no idea,’ he said. ‘Why didn’t she say?’
‘Maybe you have never given her chance,’ Chris said. ‘When do you talk to her, other than to bark orders at her? She had a virtual collapse after she received the telegram. She was so bad that Lois took time off to care for her and then I told her, in all good faith, that I had seen you killed. I saw the last vestige of hope that she had been clinging to that you were alive somewhere leave her face that day,’ Chris went on sadly. ‘To her you were dead and gone, finished, done, and she had to face life without you, knowing she had to go on for Beth’s sake.’
‘I sort of forgot about her,’ Paul admitted.
‘Beth?’
‘Yeah,’ Paul said. ‘It was as if she wasn’t a real person. Carmel wrote and told me when she was born and we were in the middle of it then, if you remember, casualties coming in thick and fast. You know as well as I do that after March it was hard to get letters through and by April impossible, so it was as if Beth didn’t exist, wasn’t a person at all. And then I came back and she was definitely a person and a person that doesn’t like me one bit.’
‘Now why should she?’ Chris said heatedly. ‘You tore her from the only father she has ever known and instead of trying to understand what she was going through, trying to help her, you set out to bully her. Think about it, Paul. We spent six years fighting a war against the bully boys of Europe and you come home and practise these tactics on your own wife and child.’
‘You don’t understand,’ Paul said. ‘All right, I am ashamed and should never have behaved as I did—as I do—but when I came home and saw that Terry Martin…’
‘Oh, yes, let’s talk about Terry Martin,’ Chris said, ‘who was an honest and decent fellow, by all accounts—and a brave one into the bargain. Carmel didn’t go looking for another to put in your place. It actually was the last thing on her mind and Terry Martin has a tragic story of his own that you might like to hear…
While Chris was talking to Paul, the room was being cleared for dancing. Jeff had taken Alison up on the floor and Matthew sidled up to Carmel. He saw the nervousness in her eyes as he did so and he said, ‘Don’t get all flustered, Carmel. I have come to apologise.’
‘Apologise?’
‘Yes, apologise,’ Matthew said. ‘For the times I embarrassed you or was just downright nasty, and that one time I virtually attacked you. I have no defence, not even that I was drunk, because I always knew what I was doing. It was jealousy, plain and simple, and I just want you to know that you have nothing to fear from me any more.’
‘Thank you, Matthew,’ Carmel said. ‘I would like it if we could be friends and I think that Alison is a lovely girl.’
Matthew grinned and said, ‘She is and you are too, and generous not to hold a grudge over the way I treated you.’
‘Life is too short to bear grudges.’
‘That is what I learned in the army amongst all the blood and guts and gore—that life too is infinitely precious and yet can be snuffed out in a minute—and I promised myself that if I survived that, I wouldn’t always be blaming the fact that my mother didn’t love me for the way I was, that a person has to take responsibility for their own actions when they are adult. I get on better with the old man these days as well.’
‘I am glad. Jeff is a lovely person, Matthew.’
‘Yeah, funny how you and he hit it off from the first,’ Matthew said. ‘If he tried to defend you at all, Mother used to go wild.’
‘Your mother…’
‘My mother was so eaten up with bitterness that it turned her brain and ate away at her mind just as the cancer ate away at her body,’ Matthew said. ‘Her love for Paul, I know now, was total and absolute only when he did things she approved of. He was cast aside the first time he stood up to her.’
‘I know.’
‘What I mean is, it didn’t have to be you. In my mother’s head she had a blueprint for Paul. She must have been shaken when he decided he didn’t want to go into the business and the plans needed rearranging a bit, but anytime he would have gone against her, the situation would have been the same because Paul was all she had, all she wanted. She had successfully cast me out and she never had any time for Dad. Anyway,’ he went on, ‘she would turn in her grave just now, because we are selling the mausoleum.’
‘Are you? I thought you would inherit that along with the business.’
‘I don’t want it,’ Matthew said. ‘Neither does Alison and neither of us wants servants. In the army I mixed with all types and some of them, most of them, the salt of the earth and the ones you had to trust with your life. What gives me the right in civvy street to lord it over such people? Anyway, Alison was in the Land Army during the war and what she wants is a house in the countryside, just outside Sutton Coldfield with a bit of land that she can grow vegetables in.’
‘Sounds lovely,’ Carmel said. ‘But what about the servants you have? What will happen to them?’
‘They will be pensioned off, which should have been done years ago. Dad is seeing to all that.’
‘And has your father plans?’ Carmel said. ‘Where will he live?’
Matthew looked at Carmel with a sardonic grin on his face as he said, ‘I am surprised that he hasn’t told you. He is buying a house in Letterkenny.’
Carmel just stared at him. ‘You are joking?’
‘No, I’m not,’ Matthew said. ‘Ask him yourself.’
The dance was over and Jeff approaching the table. Carmel said, ‘Are you buying a house in Letterkenny?’
Jeff’s amused eyes slid across to his son. ‘Matthew has told you, then?’
‘So you are?’
‘Yes, it’s time to hang up my hat,’ Jeff said and added, ‘I’m tired and now my son has finished conquering Europe, I thought it about time he did an honest day’s work for once.’
‘Cheek!’ Matthew said in mock indignation as Carmel persisted, ‘But why retire to Letterkenny?’
‘Why not, my dear?’ Jeff said, and then as Carmel seemed too nonplussed to reply, went on, ‘We never recognise the value of the place we grow up in and Letterkenny suits me fine. I want out of the city, out of the rat race, but I know I would be bored to tears in a village. Letterkenny is a thriving little town, surrounded by beautiful countryside, and if I should buy a yacht, as I am hoping to do, it is on the edge of Lough Swilly. It’s just the perfect place.’
‘Does Mammy know you are moving there?’
‘I should think so,’ Jeff said. ‘She helped me find the house.’
‘Oh,’ Carmel said, slightly hurt that her mother had not told her.
‘No, don’t be holding that against her,’ Jeff said. ‘I told her to say nothing until it was finalised.’
‘And now it is?’
‘Yes. I will be staying on for a few months until Matthew is back in the swing of it again and then it is Letterkenny here I come,’ said Jeff. ‘Now that your curiosity has been satisfied, perhaps you can do me the honour of having this dance with me?’
Paul stood at the entrance to the bar and watched his wife dance with his father, noting that she was as lovely and slender as she had been the day he married her. He knew that he loved her just as deeply as he ever had and he could weep to think that they would not have much time together, for the bloody thing growing inside him would get him in the end. And how did he want to be remembered by his family—as a moody and angry malcontent that they were glad to see the back of?
<
br /> Once he had said to Carmel’s father that he would be ashamed to have his wife and children so frightened of him, and now look at him: almost as bad. He was ashamed and knew it had to stop. As for Terry Martin, Paul had been shaken by the tale Chris had told him and the way Carmel and he had met, and he knew that the man had suffered enough. No wonder he had loved Beth so much, and Paul now saw that he had no right to separate Terry from his son. That had just been too cruel. The point was, he didn’t know where he was now, but he would get on to his solicitor to see if the man could be found. But for now he had to try to repair the damage with his wife and child, and try to act as a proper father to Terry’s son too for the time he had left. He owed the man that much.
He put down his empty glass and walked across to the table and asked Carmel if she would like to dance.
She danced with Paul a lot after that, but was not aware of the fact that Paul only did the slow, more sedate dances with her. He knew he couldn’t have managed anything more lively, because as the night wore on his breathing got worse and worse, though he managed to hide this.
Jeff had paid for everyone to have rooms in the hotel for the night. When Carmel saw the lines of strain on Paul’s face, she suggested they seek their rooms and he agreed thankfully. Carmel had sensed a softening within Paul since he had spoken to Chris and she had responded to it as she did to kindness. So when he put his arms around her as she sat on the chair before the dressing table, she leaned against him with a sigh.
‘You are a very beautiful woman, Carmel,’ he said. ‘Once I told you I would love you till the breath leaves my body, and that is still true.’
Carmel wasn’t sure that she loved Paul now, though she knew she had once. However, she knew it was what he wanted her to say, but she couldn’t bring herself to utter those words as if they meant nothing and so she was silent.
And into the silence, Paul asked, ‘Did you love Terry?’
‘Please, Paul…’
‘It’s not a trick question so I can start getting angry and shout at you,’ Paul said, ‘and I have a reason for asking. Chris enlightened me about a lot of things this evening—about what you were doing in the war and how you met Terry, and I just wondered if you did actually love him, or just felt sorry for him.’
Carmel swung around in the chair, stood up and, taking Paul’s hand, led him to the bed. There, sitting together, she took his face in her hands and said, ‘Paul, I loved you heart, body and soul, and I wanted to die when I thought you had. When you have loved like that, you don’t settle for second-best.’
‘So you loved him?’
Carmel did not trust herself to speak and just nodded.
‘And now?’ Paul persisted.
Carmel swallowed the lump in her throat, lifted her head and said, ‘Now I am married to you and this is my place and I will never leave you. Tonight I had a glimpse of the old Paul, the one I fell in love with.’
‘Could you…do you think it is possible that…you could ever love that Paul again?’
‘I don’t know,’ Carmel said honestly and then across her face flitted the ghost of the impish grin he had loved so much as she said, ‘But I do intend to have a damned good try.’
Over the next three weeks, Paul deteriorated physically at an alarming rate and he tried to hide this from Carmel for he was making great strides with her emotionally. Jeff saw it, though, and Chris, who had treated cancer patients, asked him outright one day if he had cancer.
‘How did you know?’
Chris shrugged. ‘I know you too well, man. What treatment have they offered?’
When Paul didn’t answer, but looked steadily at his friend, Chris burst out, ‘Jesus, Paul, they must be trying something.’
‘There’s no point.’
Tears stood out in Chris’s eyes at the thought that very soon, he was to lose his best and oldest friend. He thought that he had seen him killed in France and then, like a blessed bloody miracle, he wasn’t dead, he had survived. And now this. What a bloody, shitty life it was.
‘I struggled to stay alive in the labour camp to get back to Carmel,’ Paul said. ‘Many times I was so tired and in that much pain I wanted to sink to the ground, where a bullet would have finished me off. It would have been quick and clean and I wouldn’t have come back to disrupt so many lives and make everyone so unhappy.’
‘You weren’t to know any of this, mate,’ Chris said brokenly. ‘All of us can be as wise as Solomon with hindsight. Oh God, I can hardly cope with this. To have you back for such a short time and then lose you all over again. Who else knows?’
‘No one else.’
‘Why in God’s name not?’
‘I don’t want to be pitied, and patronised.’
‘Who said you would be?’ Chris said. ‘But your family at least need to know.’
‘Not Carmel.’
‘Definitely Carmel.’
‘No,’ Paul said. ‘I want her to love me as she used to, not feel sorry for me.’
‘Do you love Carmel, Paul?’
‘What kind of damn fool question is that?’
‘Well, do you?’
‘Course I bloody do.’
‘Well, you sure as hell don’t understand her,’ Chris said. ‘You must tell her.’
Chris took Lois to the pictures the following evening to give Paul and Carmel the house to themselves. Paul only waited until the children were in bed before putting his arm around Carmel and telling her what the doctor had really said to him. For a long time afterwards she just stared at him in shocked silence. She wanted to scream at him that these things were not true and what was he doing, telling her such things, but she didn’t do this, because she really studied Paul’s face and knew she was looking at a dying man. She had not seen this before because she hadn’t looked, or maybe hadn’t wanted to see, and she put her arms around Paul and they cried together.
Even when the tears were spent, Carmel felt such sorrow, such deep, deep sadness. She was just beginning to get to know this man again, come to love him for himself. Oh God, it was so cruel, so very, very cruel. She leaned across and kissed Paul gently on the lips.
‘You once asked me if I could love you again,’ Carmel said. ‘I know now. This is not to be mixed up with pity or compassion. I know what both of those emotions are like, but this is love and it is for one man, my husband, Paul.’
Paul fell against her with a groan. ‘Will you come to bed?’ he said humbly. ‘I can’t make love to you as I would want, but I would love to just hold you.’
‘Then you shall,’ Carmel said and stood up, pulling Paul to his feet. Hand in hand they mounted the stairs.
Jeff and Matthew reacted with anger when they first heard the news the following day, for as Paul said, no one really knew how long a person had and he thought they needed to know. Jeff was all bluster to cover his distress, talking about second opinions and treatment abroad, until it was prevailed on him that it was too late for any of that and that all the money and influence in the world would not save his son this time. He cried then in grief-stricken helplessness as he had when Lois had brought him news of the telegram.
Matthew has never seen his father cry so openly, not these gulping sobs of anguish that were causing tears to prickle behind his own eyes.
‘What’s it all about anyway?’ he asked Carmel later. ‘I mean, why was Paul’s life saved on the battlefield only for him to develop this thing eating away at him?’
Carmel shook her head helplessly. There were no answers.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Gradually the tragic news of Paul filtered through the neighbourhood and people called to offer support or extend their sympathies for them all. Ruby, George, Jeff and Matthew, often with Alison, were regular visitors. Paul and Carmel were at one with each other and Paul was working to really get to know Terry’s son and his own daughter, and possibly spend some quality time with them before he became too sick. Sam was easy, for he would love indiscriminately anyone who gave him attentio
n. Beth had no yardstick to measure Paul by, however; she couldn’t remember a time when he had been nice, only when he had been horrid, and was much harder to win over at first, but she took the pattern from her mother and in the end she began to thaw towards him.
The day that she climbed on his knee, wound her arms around his neck and said, ‘I love you, Daddy,’ he felt as though his heart would burst from unadulterated joy and love for this child.
He had the urge to put his head in his hands and cry his eyes out that he would not live to see her grow up. He controlled himself with effort and gave Beth a squeeze, for all it hurt his chest, and said brokenly, ‘And I love you too.’
Over a fortnight later, a Saturday, Beth asked Paul if he would push her on the swing. Carmel didn’t want him to. The March wind was fierce and his cough and breathing had got much worse, but Paul’s relationship with Beth was too fragile and tenuous to start refusing to do things with her and he said he would be fine. He would wrap up.
They hadn’t been in the garden long, however, when Beth’s screams sliced through the air. Carmel reached the garden first to see Paul in a heap on the ground, his face chalk white and scarlet blood pumping in a stream through his blue-tinged lips. She was rooted to the spot, her hands covering her mouth as Chris burst past her.
‘Almighty Christ!’ he exclaimed, running to his prone friend. He checked that he was still breathing before lifting Paul in his arms, for there was no weight to him now, and carrying him inside.
