by Janet Tanner
Once Hope had been settled – something which took a little longer than usual as she seemed to sense something different in the air – they were able to leave for Bath. Driving through the city Barbara was shocked by the devastation the air raids had caused – beautiful churches reduced to piles of rubble and houses with only one wall left standing, chimney breasts exposed, torn wallpaper flapping forlornly. She remembered that Uncle Eddie Roberts had died in one of the houses and shivered. She hadn’t liked Uncle Eddie – she had been brought up to regard him with mistrust – but it was still unpleasant to imagine him lying dead beneath a hail of masonry, his clothes torn off him by the blast.
Her morbid thoughts were soon forgotten in the theatre, however, when the orchestra struck up, the smell of greasepaint wafted out into the auditorium and the curtain rose. The Desert Song was such a romantic show, the tunes were hauntingly beautiful and Barbara fell instantly and deeply in love with The Red Shadow. Marcus had bought her that rare treat, a box of chocolates, but they lay untouched on her lap as she was carried away, along with the heroine, into the desert.
When it was over, they ate in a small but exclusive restaurant close to the theatre and with the aura of romance still surrounding her Barbara was transported back to the days of their courtship when Marcus had seemed as glamorous to her as the Red Shadow himself. It was as if the traumas of their married life had never been and as she looked at his face, golden and handsome in the candlelight, something melted inside her.
‘Happy?’ he asked, leaning across to take her hand, and she nodded.
‘Very happy. It was a wonderful evening. I don’t want it to end.’
‘It’s not over yet,’ he said and the promise in his eyes made her heart lurch. Perhaps tonight was going to be one of those rare occasions when he made love to her without aggression to motivate him. Small tingles ran through her veins and she curled her fingers, round his. Suddenly she could not wait to be alone with him.
The dreamy sensation lasted whilst he paid the bill and as they walked back to the car, hand in hand, she felt she might be floating on air. Driving back through the city she hardly noticed the bomb scars and she relaxed against the soft leather seat humming the words of one of the songs from the show:
Blue heaven and you and I
And sand kissing a starlit sky,
The desert breeze whispers a lullaby
With only stars above you
To see I love you …
She hardly noticed a car overtaking them at high speed until Marcus swore.
‘Crazy idiot! What does he think he’s playing at?’
She opened her eyes to see tail lights disappearing around a bend in the road and smiled. Marcus liked to think of himself as a fast driver and hated to be overtaken. Then suddenly there was a screech of tyres followed almost immediately by a crash and a terrible tearing sound of metal on tarmac.
Her dreamy mood shattered. At once she was stone cold sober and trembling. Marcus was braking but they were now into the bend themselves and as the car shot to a stop so abruptly that she had to steady herself against the dashboard, the muted lights picked up the dark shape slewed across the road.
‘He lost it! Bloody fool – he lost it!’ Marcus’s voice was high-pitched. His foot was on the accelerator again and he was pulling the wheel to the right, passing the crashed car which lay on its roof. She thought he was going to pull in in front of it, then suddenly realised he was not going to stop.
‘Stop!’ she screamed at him. ‘Marcus – stop!’
He did not reply. He was past the crashed car, accelerating away.
‘Stop!’ she screamed again and reached over for the handbrake. The car lurched a little as it bit and as if her intervention had brought him to his senses he slowed, pulling into the side of the road.
‘We can’t just drive off!’ she cried. ‘That man must be hurt!’
Marcus sat silent and tense, holding onto the steering wheel.
‘Back up!’ she ordered.
He made no move, simply stared straight ahead like a man in a trance. She reached over to shake him and felt his arm rigid beneath her touch.
He was not going to do anything. She realised it with a mixture of horror and disbelief. Marcus the hero was going to leave a man in a crashed car, injured, maybe dying. And she could not be a party to it.
‘Wait here then,’ she said.
She got out of the car. Her legs were like jelly as she ran back up the road. It seemed she lived a hundred years in those few moments for she, too, was terrified at what she might find. But she knew she had to do whatever was necessary. She could not live with herself if she did not.
The car, a boxy Morris, was on its roof. Glass was scattered all over the road; it crunched beneath her feet. She could see the driver half in, half out of the windscreen. Her breath caught painfully.
The engine had cut out but the wheels were still spinning and steam gushed from the shattered radiator in a thick hissing cloud.
She wrenched at one of the doors. It was jammed. Panic stricken she ran around to the front of the car.
‘Are you all right?’
It was obviously a foolish question. The driver lay, blood streaming from his face and head, and he made no reply.
Her mind was chasing in frantic circles now. She had to get help, but how? They were miles out in the country. And she could expect no help from Marcus – he may have driven off without her for all she knew. She ran around to the other door, trying it, and to her immense relief it gave a little. She wrenched at it harder and it jarred open a fraction. She felt about inside. There was no way she could free the driver by her own efforts and she was not even sure she should try. She knew it was possible to cause worse injury by moving someone without medical knowledge. But if she could find something to make him more comfortable and perhaps stem the bleeding …
She found a cushion and a car rug, got them out and placed them under the driver’s head where it lay on the road, after knocking out some more of the sharp shards of shattered glass. What now? She was just trying to remember where the nearest telephone box was when she saw more lights coming along the road from Bath. She leaped up and ran into the road, waving her arms wildly. For a moment she thought that it, too, was going to pass by, then to her relief it slowed to a stop. She ran around to the driver’s side.
‘There’s been an accident,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I think the driver is badly hurt. Please – oh please – can you help?’
There were two servicemen in the car and they immediately took control. The driver executed a neat three-point turn to drive back to Bath in search of assistance, the passenger got out and approached the crashed vehicle with Barbara.
‘Cor – bit of a mess, ain’t it?’ he commented. ‘Were you in it?’
‘No, I – we – came upon it.’ She was unwilling to draw attention to the fact that her husband had done nothing to help.
They stayed with the injured driver until help arrived, some ten minutes later, in the shape of an auxiliary ambulance. He had begun to come around a little, making moaning sounds, and Barbara was glad of the soldier’s company. Then, as the injured man was being loaded into the ambulance, a police car arrived, bell clanging.
Barbara gave her name and address to the policeman and told him all she knew of what had happened.
‘Where’s your husband now then?’ the policeman asked, looking puzzled.
‘Further up the road, in the car – or he was,’ Barbara said, feeling ashamed, and added quickly: ‘His nerves were shot to pieces after something that happened to him in France.’
‘Oh, I see. You can get home then can you?’ the policeman asked.
‘Yes – so long as he’s still there …’
He was, still sitting exactly as she had left him. She got into the passenger seat. Her knees were trembling and she was glad to sit down.
‘That’s it then. He’s been taken away by ambulance,’ she said matter-of-factly.
&nbs
p; Marcus did not reply and made no attempt to start the car.
‘Marcus!’ she said sharply. ‘We can go home now.’
He remained immobile.
‘For heaven’s sake do something!’ she snapped. ‘Don’t just sit there!’
His breath came out on a shuddering sob.
‘Well, there you are then,’ he said. ‘Now you know.’
Barbara was too shocked herself to play guessing games.
‘What do you mean? What do I know?’
‘What I’m like. What I’m made of. The man you married.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake! What are you talking about?’
‘A hero. You thought you married a bloody hero. Now you know the truth.’
‘Oh Marcus!’ She leaned across and touched his hand. It felt cold. The magic of the evening was shattered now and she knew it had been a vain hope that he had put his guilt and inadequacy behind him. It was rooted too deep. Well, she would just have to go on trying to help him as she had promised she would. In some ways he was as much her baby as Hope. ‘You are a hero. Everyone knows that,’ she said gently.
‘No!’ He was crying, tears running down his face.
‘Don’t be silly. You were decorated for heroism.’
‘I wouldn’t have been if they’d known the truth. I’m not only a coward. I’m a bloody liar as well.’
She froze. There was something in his tone which made it impossible for her to utter further platitudes.
‘It wasn’t the way I said it was,’ he went on, speaking slowly now and deliberately, as if the words came from deep inside him. ‘You really want to know what happened that day when we were ambushed? I ran away. That’s why I survived. I ran away and left my men to die. I left them. That’s why I’m alive and they’re dead. I deserted them, Barbara.’
‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘Marcus, you don’t know what you’re saying.’
‘Oh yes I do. Why do you think it haunts me like it does? I’m no hero, Barbara. You’ve seen what happens to me when the crunch comes. Look at me!’
His hand, stretched on the steering wheel, was taut and shaking. She looked at his face, drawn and white in the light of the moon, and knew without a shadow of doubt that he was telling the truth.
Afterwards, Barbara knew that it was in that moment that any feeling she had left for him died. Not in the bedroom when he had beaten and abused her. Not when he had failed to take her in love and instead had taken her by force. She had still felt sympathy for him then and been able to make excuses for him. But now the last shreds of the charade had been stripped away and there was nothing left between her and the naked truth. Marcus the golden boy did not exist. He never existed, perhaps.
For a moment she sat with her hand on his. The full implications of his revelation had not yet had time to be absorbed but the shock of them had made her suddenly very calm.
‘Well, we can’t stay here all night,’ she said and her tone was still matter-of-fact. ‘Are you going to drive or do you want me to?’
‘Yes – will you …?’
‘Move over then,’ she said.
The world seemed to have collapsed around her. She went on automatically with the everyday tasks of caring for Hope exactly as before but she could think of nothing but Marcus’s anguished confession. Over and over again it played itself over in her mind and she kept seeing his face, white and strained, and his shaking hands. Fragments of past conversations came to her, too, and she slotted them into place in the overall picture. So many things made sense now that she knew his terrible secret. She could understand the ghosts that haunted him, knew why his self-disgust ran so deep, even pity him in a way. But any respect that had remained for him had died along with the remnants of love and Barbara felt more alone and frightened than she had ever felt in her life.
How could she live like this? How could she continue to share her bed and her life with a man for whom she could feel nothing but scorn and a little pity? So long as he had been a hero to her there had at least been something to hang onto – the hope that in time he would be able to put tragedy behind him and become once again a man to be admired. But his revelations had put an end to that once and for all. To outsiders it might appear that he had the world at his feet; Barbara now knew those feet were made of clay. There was nothing, nothing at all for her to cling to, no single peg for a dream and nothing but her own stubbornness and dogged determination to keep her going.
If only I could talk to someone about it, it wouldn’t seem so bad, she thought. But there was no one. Sir Ralph and Lady Erica were remote from her, they had never shared confidences and in any case Barbara knew that if they learned the truth it would be disastrous. The knowledge that their son was a coward and a liar, responsible for the death of his men, might not actually destroy them but it would certainly destroy the somewhat tenuous relationship which existed between them. No, she could not confide in the Spindlers. If Marcus chose to tell them at some time that was between him and his parents. It was not for her to do it.
Sometimes when the knowledge weighed on her so heavily that she did not think she could bear it alone, Barbara wondered if she could talk to Amy or even Charlotte. But she could not bring herself to do it. It was as if Marcus’s failings had diminished her in some way, she felt. She was ashamed of him, yet even now reluctant to admit that her marriage was a disaster.
I was so determined to show Huw I could forget him that I fooled myself over Marcus, she thought, and the longing for Huw overwhelmed her. He had always been the one to whom she could turn, the one to whom she had confided her hopes and dreams and fears. But Huw was far away. And even if he were here now she did not think she could bring herself to tell him. So Barbara kept her own counsel, determined that no one should know of the darkness inside her heart.
But Amy knew. She looked at her daughter, missed the sparkle in her eyes, and knew that something was very much amiss in her life.
‘She’s not happy, I know she’s not,’ she said to Ralph.
Ralph, engrossed in sorting out the details of a timber deal with the government for the building of prefabricated houses, barely glanced up.
‘She seems the same as always to me.’
‘I suppose to you she would,’ Amy said stiffly. ‘She has always been very good at putting up a front. But I’m her mother and I know.’
Ralph put down his pen and reached for the cup of coffee at his elbow.
‘Don’t start interfering, Amy. You’ll get no thanks for it. She’s married now and if there are any problems between her and her husband it’s for them to sort out.’
‘I know that,’ Amy said irritably. She felt helpless and it was not a feeling she liked. ‘But I can’t bear to think of her being unhappy, Ralph. She’s so isolated, living with those Spindlers. They’re queer people. Him all bluster and her – well, she’s strange. She has peculiar eyes, Ralph.’
‘Only you, Amy, could think your daughter is unhappy because you don’t like her mother-in-law’s eyes.’
‘Don’t be so silly!’ she snapped. She and Ralph rarely quarrelled but there were times when she felt like hitting him.
The subject was dropped but Amy continued to worry about Barbara and when she came to visit on Sunday afternoon and they were alone together Amy decided to take the bull by the horns.
‘Is everything all right, Babs?’ she asked.
They were in the kitchen, warming their toes by the fire. Hope was asleep in her pram in the hall, Maureen had been invited to a friend’s house for tea, and Ralph had retired to his study with the Sunday papers.
The moment the question was asked she saw the wary look creep into Barbara’s face.
‘Of course it is, Mum. What makes you ask?’
Amy hesitated. ‘I’m not sure, Babs. Except that I probably know you better than anyone else and I know when you’re hiding something. Everything is all right between you and Marcus, is it?’
‘Fine.’ But there was no mistaking the brittleness of her
tone.
‘Babs, I don’t want to pry,’ Amy persisted. ‘But if you ever do feel you want to talk – well, you know where I am.’
‘Yes. Thanks Mum.’ She was silent for a moment, staring into the fire, and Amy saw her swallow hard. There was something. She knew it. She waited, watching Barbara try to control herself. At first she thought she would manage it – there was so much of herself in Barbara, so much stubborn pride. But the suppressed emotion was too strong. The muscles of Barbara’s face tightened, her eyes squeezed shut and still the tears came rolling down her cheeks in silent rivers.
Amy went to her going down on her knees in front of her and taking her hands.
‘Babs, darling, tell me – please.’
Barbara’s head was bowed, the firelight made the tears shine on her cheeks. ‘There’s nothing you can do. Nothing anyone can do.’
‘But tell me, at least tell me. Is there something wrong with Hope?’
‘Oh no, nothing like that.’
‘Then what?’
‘Oh Mum …’ And suddenly it was pouring out, stumbled words becoming a steady flow. Amy listened in shocked silence. Whatever she had expected it was not this.
‘Oh darling, I don’t know what to say!’ she said when at last Barbara faltered into silence.
‘You see?’ Barbara raised her chin, looking at her mother through her tears with a hint of her old defiance. ‘I told you there was nothing you could do. All that has happened is that now you’re worried too.’
‘But I’m so glad I know! Oh Babs, why did I ever agree to you marrying him? I knew it was a mistake. I knew it!’
‘Oh, don’t start that now please!’ Barbara was on the verge of tears again. ‘The last thing I want is you saying I told you so.’
‘I know but … Babs, you can’t go on like this! You made a mistake. You can’t go on paying for it all your life.’
‘What else am I to do?’
