His kindness was too much and Gracie began to cry in earnest while Adam held her tight, cradling her in his arms, patting her gently, kissing her soft hair and making endearing, comforting noises. It was in this stance that Rose discovered them. She chose that moment to woke into the shed and, seeing Gracie in Adam’s embrace, stood stock still for a moment before slipping out again, unobserved.
Following this distressing conversation with Adam, Gracie felt the need for air and took a walk down the lane. The hedgerows were filled with fruit, rose hips and blackberries, elderflower and sloes, their sweet, fruity scents lingering in the air after a recent shower of rain. Irma would be bullying them into a jamming session soon, as if they didn’t have enough to do already. Gracie smiled. Irritating as Irma was, she certainly believed in doing her bit for the war effort. On top of all her work with the salvage, the WVS and the WI, she was now helping Madge three days a week in her little shop. An amazing woman.
Normally, Gracie would have asked Lou to walk with her but her erstwhile friend was clearly avoiding her. She’d never felt so alone in all her life. Utterly abandoned by her friends. She wondered if they were having a meeting, trying to decide whether to tell the authorities about her transgression. If they did, then Karl would probably be moved to another camp. Sorry as she would be to lose him, Gracie realised that such a move might be no bad thing. It might at least spare him from getting involved in this crazy escape plan of Erich’s.
Oh, why did there have to be a war? Why must their respective countries be so at odds? Why couldn’t they have met at some other time, one of peace. Yet she’d read in the paper of women who had been married to Germans for years, living quite happily and peaceably here in England and were now incarcerated in a camp on the Isle of Man, simply because of their nationality. War surely didn’t make every German into an enemy just because of Hitler and his Nazis, did it?
She knew well enough what would happen if their love was ever discovered? Karl would appear before a tribunal or court martial. He would be moved to another camp where he would be kept under close confinement for a very long time, perhaps even separated from fellow prisoners. It would be awful for him. And she had seen already the attitude that she could expect, even from her best friends.
Could they ever hope for a normal future together? Surely everything must change soon when the war ended, but what then? Gracie understood perfectly well that if she married a German she would automatically lose her British nationality. They might not even be allowed to stay in this country. In loving Karl she risked everything. In the end though, even allowing for any lingering recriminations following the end of a bitter world war, the government couldn’t keep them apart for ever, and then she would indeed risk anything, everything to be with him.
Gracie was so engrossed with her hopes and fears that she didn’t hear the stealthy footsteps behind her, the soft breathing, or the swish of the rope. Only when it swung around her, bringing her down, did she realise and cry out. Far too late.
‘What the hell...?’ She lay winded in the ditch, desperately trying to free herself from the strands of rope Rose was swiftly lashing around her arms and legs. ‘What are you doing? Rose, this is madness. Have you taken leave of your senses?’
And then the other girl produced a pair of scissors. They were Irma’s. Large and shiny, they were the ones she used for cutting up old coats and skirts to make patchwork blankets and clippy rugs.
‘There’s no need to cut the dratted rope. Just untie it for God’s sake. What is this? Some sort of game?’ She could feel a cold panic tightening her chest.
Rose’s eyes glittered with menace. ‘I never play games. I’m always deadly serious. Don’t think you can snatch Adam away from me. I won’t allow you to, nasty little cow. He’s mine. I want him. I need him!’
‘You can have him. I don’t want him.’
‘Don’t lie. I saw you canoodling in the shed.’
‘I wasn’t, he was only...’
‘Shut up!’ She yanked on the rope, making Gracie yelp as the cords cut into her flesh. ‘Don’t think you can win him over with your pretty looks and your soft pale hair.’ Then she lunged at Gracie, and, grasping a lock of her hair she chopped it off, quite close to the crown. ‘Never leave a stump. Isn’t that what Alf says? Cut as close to the root as possible.’
Gracie screamed, though this far from the house she held little hope of anyone hearing her. She struggled frantically to free herself but the more she resisted, the tighter the rope bit into her wrists and legs, and the more terrified she became that the scissors might slip and cut more than her hair. And all the while Rose laughed.
When she was done and fronds of pale blonde hair lay scattered in the grass all about, Rose untied the rope and dragged it from Gracie’s inert body. ‘There’ll be no danger of anyone loving you now, not looking like that,’ she sneered. ‘Not now you resemble a porcupine.’ Shoving the scissors back into her dungaree pockets, she strolled away, still chuckling.
Gracie made no attempt to move. She simply lay in the ditch and sobbed.
How long Gracie lay there she couldn’t rightly say but eventually she got shakily to her feet, brushed the grass and mud from her clothes and ran her hands over her hair. All she could feel were bristles, standing stiffly out at odd angles all over her head. She couldn’t begin to imagine how horrible it must look. She supposed she should be grateful that Rose had only vented her wrath by cutting her hair and nothing worse. As she climbed up the sides of the ditch, she fell to her knees on the stony path, her legs giving way beneath her. Even when she finally managed to get to her feet, she felt so weak and shaky, Gracie wondered if she could even walk. Somehow she managed it, stumbling along the lane towards Beech Tree Cottage, blinded by tears.
When she walked into the kitchen she found Lou and Irma making the evening meal. Gracie saw the flicker of shock in both their eyes but Lou said not a word, simply stood unmoving, staring at her with that same mournful, condemning expression in her eyes. It was Irma who flew to Gracie’s side, asking who on earth had done such a terrible thing.
Mindful of the fact that this could be but the beginning of recriminations against her, Gracie simply shook her head, brushed the older woman aside and went up to her room. If her friends had no wish to speak to her, then she wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of asking for their sympathy.
Rose and Adam were married, without delay, in the parish church. It was a short, practical ceremony and Rose knew that she looked beguilingly sweet and young in a blue velveteen frock which almost exactly matched her eyes. Afterwards they all went over to the Parish Rooms for sandwiches and cakes, naturally provided by her new mother-in-law and ably assisted by her friend Madge,. Rose even chose Madge’s two elder daughters, Rachel and Sarah, to be bridesmaids rather than any of the squad, thereby avoiding having to include Gracie.
The only real disappointment was that there wasn’t going to be a honeymoon. Adam was even against the idea of a couple of nights at the Eagle’s Head because he couldn’t leave the farm, he explained. Not that Rose minded too much. She’d got what she wanted, a husband, and father for her child, but the wedding was a low key affair with more tea drunk than wine. Nobody felt much like celebrating, partly because of Gordon still being missing, and also because of these recent revelations which, so far, Rose had allowed to go no further than their own immediate circle. Nor would she, unless she had any further trouble from Gracie. For instance, if she ever revealed the identity of her attacker, or attempted to win Adam back, then her agreed silence would end. Rose knew how to stand up for herself, oh dear me yes.
Rose watched with interest as Lou began to dance with Luc, resting her cheek forlornly against his. She looked so sad, not her usual laughing, lively self. But for how long? Rose wondered. She’d always been loyal to her beloved Gordon, but could that loyalty withstand the pressure of not knowing what had happened to him, or would Luc’s charms win her over in the end and she’d forgot all about him. How f
ickle people were.
Rose felt supremely pleased with herself, for hadn’t she learned to be equally mercenary? Just like her fickle parents who’d left her without protection, like bullying Eddie. Just like Agnes. What need had she for champagne or an expensive honeymoon, or even the good wishes of her friends? She felt drunk with power.
She had, however, forgotten one thing. In all her careful planning and scheming, she’d allowed herself to be too easily diverted by the problem of Gracie and had given no further thought to Irma. When Rose and Adam returned to Beech Tree Cottage after the celebrations, it became startlingly clear that her new mother-in-law considered it still to be her home too, new wife or no. What’s more, Gracie still occupied the same room with Lou, though as there was no longer any sound of happy chatter coming from it, Rose doubted this situation would continue for much longer. One or both of them would soon move out, as relations between the two girls was dire.
But Rose hadn’t bargained on sharing her new marital abode with anyone, least of all Irma. For the moment she must make the best of it, for the sake of her unborn child whose very existence she still secretly nursed below her heart. But if Rose had learned one thing in life, it was that nothing stayed the same for long. Things would change. It was only a matter of time.
Rose gazed upon her new husband in despair. ‘Why won’t you come to bed? What’s wrong? Why won’t you sleep with me?’
‘I didn’t say I wouldn’t sleep with you. I said I can’t sleep in that bed. It’s too soft and there are too many blankets.’
‘But it’s a lovely bed. Big and wide with lots of pillows and a feather mattress. Gorgeous! It was very thoughtful of Irma to give it up for us.’ Even if she is only sleeping next door, in the box room Adam had previously occupied, Rose thought.
She’d been aware that Adam was a shy, quiet man, but this was utterly ridiculous. ‘Come on Adam lad,’ she teased, using the word as a term of endearment as it often was locally, particularly by Irma, thinking to please him. To her horror he stiffened, shrank away from the hand she reached out to him. She would have to tell him about the pregnancy eventually, of course, but not until she felt it safe to do so, when he could be fooled into thinking the baby she carried was his. Not for a moment had Rose imagined there would be any problem with this plan. Now she faced a huge obstacle. She first had to persuade her husband to make love to her, and since he refused to even get into bed, this was proving to be strangely problematic.
Feeling thoroughly wretched, she lost patience and tossed the pillow and Irma’s best pink eiderdown onto the floor. ‘Sleep on the floor then. See if I care.’ It wasn’t an auspicious start to their marriage, but then life seemed to be full of disappointments and Rose was quite incapable now of understanding any problem beyond her own. Losing Josh had been painful but even if she didn’t exactly love Adam, in the last few weeks she’d found herself growing quite fond of him. She certainly wasn’t averse to a bit of a cuddle, or to them living a perfectly normal married life together as man and wife. What on earth could be putting him off? He thought her a virgin after all, ripe for the taking and had seemed keen enough before they were wed. So what was his problem?
Annoyingly, he seemed to be taking her at her word, tucking the pillow under his head and wrapping the eiderdown around himself. He’d even lit up a cigarette and was just lying there, drawing hard on it; staring up at the ceiling with an expression of complete misery on his face.
Rose nibbled on her lip, biting back tears of frustration. She couldn’t let this go on. She must do something. Losing patience with him wouldn’t help one bit. She decided on a different tack. Reaching down to where he lay stretched out on the bedside rug, she tickled the end of his nose with the ribbon of her new nightie. ‘It’s not much fun up here by myself. Why don’t you at least start off in the bed. See how you go on. How can we - you know - do it long distance.’
Adam gazed up at her, looking a bit sheepish but he made no move to join her. How could he? He didn’t seem able to get it out of his mind that this was his mother’s bed. Not only had she slept in it with his father in years gone by, but Adam himself had cuddled up to her in its vast softness when some childish ailment or bad dream had kept him awake. Making love in it, even to his adorable Rose, didn’t seem quite - struggling for the correct word, he came up with an old fashioned one - quite seemly.
‘Don’t you love me any more?’ The words came out on a hiccup of misery, illustrating Rose’s utter wretchedness and, finally moved by the tears in her sea blue eyes, Adam put out the cigarette and climbed into bed beside her.
Rose snuggled up to him, delighted that he had finally succumbed to her charms. ‘I thought for a minute I was going to spend my wedding night all by myself.’ A thought came to her. ‘I suppose you have had some experience. I mean, you have - done it before? That isn’t why you...’
‘Course I have. What do you take me for? I’m no young boy, or naive fool. It’s just that it’s been a long time, Rose, and this bed is... ‘ It was no good, he couldn’t explain how difficult it was to make love to his lovely new wife in his mother’s bed. It was too daft for words. It would make him look effeminate, a real weed, a mother’s boy. ‘I wouldn’t want to disappoint you.’
‘Oh, shut up, you talk too much. Let’s start off with a bit of a cuddle and see what happens, eh?’
He certainly seemed eager to love her; tenderly kissing her, stroking her silky soft skin, caressing her firm young breasts. But nothing did happen. Rose made a valiant attempt, forcibly pushing the excitement of Josh’s love making from her mind and concentrating entirely upon Adam. And if his striped pyjamas didn’t excite her quite as much as Josh’s sexy white shorts, what of it? They could still ‘do the business’ couldn’t they? She nibbled his ear, ran her fingers through his hair, stroked his neck, unbuttoned the flannelette jacket and helped him to take off her nightie. But she might as well have been lying there in three layers of woollen combinations for all the good it did. She could actually feel his body trembling from head to foot, and it wasn’t with passion.
‘Don’t be shy. Relax, it’ll be fine.’ Rose pulled his hand to her breast, gently nibbled at his mouth, easing it open with her tongue. He groaned, deep in his throat and, sensing a shudder of excitement ripple through him, she felt a wild surge of exultation that he was about to go the distance. ‘Ooh, that’s nice,’ she said, meaning to encourage him. ‘Now we’re getting somewhere.’ But a little investigation proved they weren’t getting anywhere at all. Limp as a wet lettuce, Rose thought, her heart plummeting into new depths of depression. Then as if he couldn’t bear for her to witness his failure, he suddenly jerked away from her, left the bed, and quitted the room altogether.
Rose stayed where she was, blinking back hurt tears of surprise and bitter disappointment. Why did it always have to go wrong for her?
It was two weeks later and Rose was deeply afraid. How could she tell Adam about the baby when they still hadn’t consummated their marriage? She was at her wits’ end to know how to deal with the matter. Nor dare she seek help from her friends, all of whom seemed to think they were a perfect couple, happily married and enjoying a protracted honeymoon. Rose continued to work with the squad in the forest, needing still to be a part of the group. Relations between the girls remained the same with Gracie being cold shouldered, cut off entirely from their friendship and treated as if she were some sort of pariah. She’d said nothing about the attack on her hair but went everywhere with a bandana scarf tied around her head beneath the wide brimmed hat she’d taken to wearing in place of the green beret. Irritatingly, it looked quite dashing.
Rose’s days of philandering with officers and socialising in the Eagle’s Head was very much a thing of the past. She and Adam rarely went out of an evening. More often than not they spent it sitting around the wireless, an unlikely trio; Adam, herself, and Irma. There were moments when Rose felt as if she were back in Wales, with Agnes and Maurice Sullivan; a frightening thought. At least Ir
ma liked ITMA, and Tommy Handley was one of her favourites. And of course, there was no threat of an assault of any kind. Even her own husband never touched her.
Nor was Rose called upon to do chores. Irma wouldn’t allow her to do a stroke of work in the house. She continued to do all the cleaning, even to tidying up their bedroom which made Rose feel as if the most intimate moments of their marriage were being picked over; their privacy invaded, checked out and criticised. It meant that every morning before dashing off to the woods on her bicycle she must remember to remove the pillow and eiderdown from the floor where Adam still slept, and return them to the bed. She dreaded to think what her mother-in-law’s reaction would be if she ever learned the truth about what went on between these four walls. O rather what didn’t.
In every way Irma was in control. Adam conceded entirely to his mother’s resolve that life continue entirely as usual. She sewed on his buttons, told him when to visit the barber; washed and ironed his shirts, polished his shoes, set the tin bath on its mat each Friday evening for him, filled it with hot water, and probably scrubbed his back for all Rose knew. It seemed ironic to Rose, who’d once complained of having too much housework, that she now felt useless, of no value at all.
Perhaps because of all this worry and stress, she’d had a small bleed on her night-dress the other night. For a moment Rose thought she was about to lose Josh’s baby and had felt a surge of fear and disappointment. If she lost his precious baby as well as him, what would she have left? Nothing. Josh would be gone from her life completely.
Chapter Twenty-Four
‘It’s on!’
‘What’s on?’ Gracie gazed into Karl’s face, noting how pale and drawn he looked even as she recognised the glitter of excitement in his pale eyes, and realised with a terrible sinking of her heart what he was referring to. The escape, of course.
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