Keep the Home Fires Burning

by S Block

  ‘Clearly you did nothing of the sort,’ said Teresa. She had to regain control of the afternoon before everything was destroyed.

  ‘You feel the same as I do,’ said Annie. ‘I felt it.’

  ‘If you have the slightest regard for my husband you will go back, sit down, and behave.’

  Annie looked at Teresa for a few moments, and nodded her acquiescence.

  ‘If that’s what you want,’ she said.

  ‘It is,’ said Teresa firmly.

  Annie looked at Teresa for a few moments, examining her eyes for what was anger and what was fear, and then exited the kitchen.

  Teresa stood in the middle of the room and became aware that her heart was racing. She took long, slow breaths to calm herself as she always instructed the children to calm themselves after a fight or a scare, and listened as Annie made a gracious apology to Lucinda Buey, the Group Captain and to Nick. Teresa breathed a sigh of relief.

  Disaster averted. For now.

  The kitchen door opened and Nick popped his head round.

  ‘Everything all right?’ he whispered.

  ‘Why wouldn’t it be?’

  ‘How’s the chicken?’

  ‘Dead.’

  He smiled.

  ‘Well, that’s a start.’

  ‘And cooked to perfection.’

  ‘Perfect. All going swimmingly so far. Isn’t Annie a wonderful tonic?’

  Nick smiled at Teresa, and disappeared back to their guests.

  Teresa stood looking at the door.

  ‘Yes,’ she said miserably. ‘Wonderful.’

  She slowly licked her lips and the thrill of Annie’s kiss flooded back. Teresa closed her eyes to savour it all over again.

  If only Nick could make me feel like this. But he can’t. And never will . . .

  Chapter 45

  Erica stood outside the new surgery, trying to listen to the conversation on the other side of the door. At the old house this would have been an unthinkable breach of the doctor–patient confidentiality Will had always been fiercely protective of – even where Erica was concerned. Will’s failing health turned everything on its head. Rules and etiquette and all the mores that make society function only have force if the normal conditions of civilised life apply. Yet if someone has no expectation of significant future life due to terminal illness, consequences over time become meaningless. It is a cruel price to pay to become liberated from the daily civilities of ordinary life, but it is a liberation nevertheless. Will felt it keenly, and he wanted Erica and the girls to feel it too. Kate and Laura seemed to have little trouble falling in with the philosophy Will brought back from hospital. Perhaps it was the spirit of wartime, or merely their youth, but both wholeheartedly agreed with Will that his remaining time should not be stretched out thinly for as long as possible by keeping him preserved in a cocoon of bedsheets and blankets, to be visited and sat with for prescribed minutes each day as if he had already become his own headstone. Erica had more difficulty with the idea that Will should be as active as his health allowed; not as inactive as possible to string out his withering health for its own sake.

  Standing at his surgery door Erica wondered if it was because she and Will had spent so much time together, while he and the girls had spent so much less.

  For me, sitting in silence together is sufficient. But they want him to be their father to the last. Perhaps they’re right. Perhaps they’re braver than I am. They want to make the most of the time he has. I want it to go on indefinitely, and it can’t. I know it yet I refuse to acknowledge it. They have lives separate from Will. When he dies their lives will continue to unfold. But my life is his life. In his absence what am I?

  Under ordinary circumstances she knew Will wouldn’t suggest, let alone insist on, sitting in on Dr Rosen’s first surgeries, but normal rules no longer applied. Erica had told Will that Myra was a terrific diagnostician, and a fierce defender of scientific principle, but lacked the finesse Will’s patients had come to expect. She would not have blamed him if he’d responded with a shrug of his frail shoulders and said, ‘She will . . . have to . . . learn.’

  Instead, Will slowly explained to Dr Rosen that his patients were his legacy to his family – if looked after properly their patronage would maintain them in a comfortable standard of living for as long as Erica wished to run a surgery in Great Paxford. Myra too. He would show Myra how to look after his patients properly, ensuring a seamless transfer of care from him to her. Erica wasn’t sure it was a viable proposition.

  ‘You’ll have your work cut out. She’s the new breed. She’s all about the pathology not the person. She told me herself, if it hadn’t been for the war she would be holed up in a research lab, counting bacteria under a microscope.’

  Will had smiled.

  ‘She is . . . here now.’

  When Erica had told Myra about Will’s determination to sit in on her first week of surgeries and guide her through the foothills of general practice, the young doctor had been categorically opposed. It took an hour for her to understand why Will wanted to do it, and another hour to agree that it might be a worthwhile idea. If nothing else, it would show Will’s patients that he had faith in his young protégée, and therefore they should too.

  Despite the agreement of both parties, there was no guarantee the arrangement would work. Which is why Erica was standing outside the surgery with her ear to the door, hoping against hope that neither Will nor Myra would lose their temper in front of a patient and send them scuttling away to advise the village to take their ailments elsewhere. Ideally, she would have preferred the door to be just a little bit ajar. Hearing what was being said on the other side of a closed door was proving more difficult than she’d imagined. She knew that holding a glass to the door and her ear to the glass might be a more effective way of listening in, but it was also more shameful if caught. Her ear was hot against the door, as she managed to catch odd words and phrases. Will’s speech was harder to detect because his condition forced him to speak more quietly and less frequently and in shorter bursts. Also, Will was there in a more observatory capacity.

  I suppose I’m only really checking there are no outbursts of temper. I can’t afford to allow her to rub Will up the wrong way.

  Suddenly, a peal of laughter erupted from inside the surgery. Not only from the patient, Mr Quigley, but from Myra too. For the moment, everyone seemed to be getting on like a house on fire.

  Erica pressed her ear hard against the door to try to obtain a more accurate sense of what they were discussing. Indeed, she was concentrating so hard on what was being said on the other side that she failed to notice Spencer slip four letters through the letterbox, where they dropped silently onto the mat.

  If she had she would have seen that two were bills, and one an invitation for Will to attend an alumni dinner at his old college, which his condition would render impossible, even if he survived until then. And the fourth letter . . . the fourth had been delivered by mistake. It wasn’t addressed to either Erica or Will or Kate or Laura.

  Rather, the clear, masculine hand on the front of the envelope had simply addressed the letter to: Patricia Simms, c/o Great Paxford, Cheshire.

  Chapter 46

  Claire and Spencer stood silently holding hands at the French windows of the dining room, and looked down towards the bottom of the extensive garden, where Frances was sitting next to a revived and refreshed Noah, on the bench Peter had installed some years ago overlooking the pond.

  The sun sat low in the sky, sending dark fingers of shadow across the lawn.

  Both Claire and Spencer had felt the same when Noah had been sent to boarding school. Both had felt the same when he’d run away, and the same when he had been brought home by John Smith. Emotionally, it had been an exhausting few days for everyone. Claire had overheard Frances tell Mrs Collingborne that she was going to telephone the school’s headmaster to inform him that Noah was safe, and wouldn’t be returning. Yet she hadn’t overheard the call itself, and
doubt had started to creep into her mind as to whether Dr Nelms had persuaded Frances to change her mind.

  Down by the pond, Noah sat close to Frances on the bench, wrapped in a thick coat, cap and mittens.

  ‘Are you feeling better now?’ she asked.

  Noah nodded.

  ‘You must have been scared when you were out there all by yourself.’

  ‘Sometimes,’ he said matter-of-factly.

  ‘How did you cope with that?’

  ‘I just wanted to come back.’

  Frances felt a surge of affection rise in her chest.

  ‘Your father would have been very proud of you for getting all that way. And your mother, I’m sure,’ she added.

  Noah continued to look down into the water of the large pond.

  ‘Do you want to go back to the school, Noah? I’ve spoken to Dr Nelms and he would be delighted to see you return, and continue under his direct care. The boys who made fun of you have been punished, so that simply would not happen again.’

  Noah stayed silent.

  Is he scared to say what he wants for fear of upsetting me? His face is so small under that cap.

  ‘What do you want to do, Noah?’

  Noah looked into the large pond, his eyes following a large water boatman skidding across the surface, careful not to break the delicate tension beneath its feet.

  He’s thinking. He’s trying to think what would be the right thing to say to me. Don’t rush him. Let him think it through. If he decides he wants to return to the school, so be it. It’s his choice.

  Noah slowly turned to Frances and looked up into her face.

  ‘What do you want?’ he asked.

  Frances looked down at him, completely taken by surprise.

  What do I want?

  ‘What do I want?’ she asked.

  Noah nodded, waiting for her to answer.

  Tell him the truth. Always tell children the truth, isn’t that what they say?

  ‘I want you to stay,’ she said. ‘I want you to go to school in the village so you can be with me and Claire and Spencer every day. Because I want . . .’ She faltered, wanting to frame her next words carefully so that Noah was in no doubt; but not wanting to bully him with her own feelings.

  ‘I thought about this a great deal while you were away. You need a mother, Noah. And if you would like that then I would very much like to be your mother. And for you to be, well, my son.’

  Noah continued to look into her face, scrutinising every pore and wrinkle.

  ‘That’s what I want too,’ he said, as matter-of-factly as before.

  He leaned his head into her arm, which she lifted to wrap around his small frame, pulling him into her.

  Frances sat in silence, so happy she couldn’t speak.

  Claire and Spencer stood at the French windows in silence. Tears streamed down their faces, over their cheeks and into their broad smiles. The telephone started to ring in the hall. Claire kissed Spencer and slipped out of the room to answer it.

  Spencer continued to watch the distant figures of Frances and Noah on the bench. Not moving. Content in each other’s company. It made him yearn for a child of his own. Preferably a son, though he wouldn’t object to a daughter.

  ‘It’s Noah’s grandfather . . .’ The alarm in Claire’s voice made Spencer turn sharply.

  ‘He wants to speak to Mrs Barden immediately. He said it just like that. Immediately.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘He asked if I was the maid, and when I said I was he said to have Noah packed and ready to leave by nightfall.’

  ‘He said what?’ Spencer could hardly believe his ears.

  ‘He’s coming to take Noah back, Spencer!’

  Spencer opened the French window and held it open.

  ‘Go and get Mrs Barden.’

  Claire ran through the door and over the patio, across the lawn and down to the pond. Spencer watched his young wife take Frances away from Noah and repeat what she had just told him.

  Frances turned and looked towards the house, then started to stride up the lawn looking every inch a woman about to go on the warpath.

  Frances swept past Spencer, glancing at the young man. ‘Packed and ready to leave by nightfall? We shall see about that . . .’

  Chapter 47

  Pat sat alone in the telephone exchange towards the end of a long shift by herself, reading over her latest Mass Observation report, in which she described two recent developments with Bob.

  The first was that his literary agent in London had wired to say that his new novel about the evacuation at Dunkirk was selling very well indeed following its serialisation in The Times, and he would soon be receiving a handsome royalty cheque. Money always made Bob easier to be around. It took the edge off his self-loathing and it gave him the opportunity to play the big ‘I am’ to a wider audience than simply Pat and Joyce Cameron. Though recently it had seemed Joyce should be audience enough; her having become his number one fan now that Bob was getting some more recognition.

  On the back of the news, Bob had ventured into the pub on several occasions to bask in the veneration in which some in the village held a man who made a living out of doing nothing all day but type and stare out of a window.

  If they actually read his work, and saw for themselves how poor his writing is, they wouldn’t fall over themselves to buy him drinks. If they actually read how weak he is at characterisation, resorting time and time again to cliché and stereotype. The plucky Brits! The cowardly French! The sadistic Nazis! The intrepid small boats ‘plucking’ our boys from the jaws of death! All hail the great literary lion of Great Paxford!

  Pat thought it underhand of Bob not to tell Joyce about the forthcoming royalty cheque, in case she decided to increase the rent they currently paid to lodge in her house.

  It’s not as if we’re paying the going rate as things stand. She shouldn’t be subsidising us simply because she’s cock-a-hoop about having a published author under her roof. I don’t like this feeling that we’re cheating an old woman. But what can I do? Bob holds the purse strings.

  The second recent development had occurred in bed a few nights ago. Pat had been lying still, trying to get to sleep as quickly as possible, when Bob came in from the bathroom, closed the door, and told her that he had read one of Marek’s letters before destroying it.

  ‘I thought I had his number, and I did,’ he’d said. ‘I wasn’t joking when I told you he was probably writing to ask for money. That’s exactly why he wrote.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ Pat had said, rolling onto her side, turning her back on him.

  ‘Think about it . . .’

  She felt the mattress distort under his weight as he got into bed.

  ‘Look at you and look at him. I mean . . . physically. He’s a strapping bloke. Approaching middle age, yes, but handsome. Seasoned. And a soldier. Women fall over themselves for that. I’ve seen it. A man like that could have almost any unmarried woman he wants, so why would he settle for a short, plain, married woman like you?’

  Pat lay in the semi-darkness trying to ignore Bob’s words. But she couldn’t. Bob’s unique gift was to know exactly how to provoke Pat. After many years at it, he was the world’s expert.

  ‘Perhaps he didn’t see it as “settling”,’ Pat said, mounting a defence. ‘Perhaps – and I know you’ll find this difficult to believe – but perhaps, in his eyes, I was precisely the sort of woman he’s attracted to.’

  Bob’s snort of derision served as his answer.

  ‘I read the letter. You didn’t. He hooked you, and then he came for what you had. Personally, while stationed at the castle. And then, now he’s out of the area, financially. Clever.’

  ‘How is that clever when I have no money to give him?’

  ‘Compared to what he has, he must think you have something to come after. Clever.’

  ‘You keep saying “clever” as if it means something. What’s so clever?’

  ‘That he targets someone
like you. Someone flattered by his attentions. Pathetically flattered, and pathetically grateful. You assume I’m saying this to rub your nose in a mess of your own making but that’s not the case. You’re my wife, Patricia, yes? Always have been, always will be. It pains me to see you in thrall to a man like that.’

  Pat sat in the exchange and turned Bob’s words over and over in her mind. She didn’t believe he had read any of Marek’s letters. She was convinced he’d made it up after he’d seen how hurt she looked when he’d suggested Marek was probably only writing to ask for cash.

  Typical Bob consolidation. First stick in the knife. Second, twist it. Third . . . enjoy the result.

  Pat didn’t believe it. And yet . . . what if it was true? Could it be possible that Bob had read one of Marek’s letters? It hardly seemed likely.

  Bob is feeling good in himself at the moment. Like this he sometimes reverts to how he used to be with me, if only for a brief period.

  There was a sudden tap at the window that caused Pat to look up and almost jump back in her chair. Erica Campbell was looking at her, holding something up in her hand.

  An envelope.

  Pat blinked, scarcely believing what she was looking at.

  She took the headphones from her head and all but threw them onto the desk, crossed to the door of the exchange and flung it open as Erica came round.

  ‘I was on my way to Brindsley’s and on the off-chance thought you might be on duty. I thought I’d look in through the window as I didn’t want to disturb you, if you were busy. I hope I didn’t frighten you?’

  Pat shook her head.

  ‘I was just surprised.’ She looked at the envelope in Erica’s hand. ‘Is that what I hope it is?’

  Pat was trying to keep her excitement in check but it was almost impossible. Erica offered the envelope to her former neighbour. Pat looked at it for a moment with a sense of wonderment.

  ‘It came mid-morning.’

  How can a few pieces of paper have such an effect on me? Far, far more than anything Bob has written.