Keep the Home Fires Burning

by Anne Bennett

  Though the whole family tried hard with Sarah intially – particularly her very worried grandfather, who was terribly disturbed about her – in the end because of her lack of response most of them left her alone, which was what she really seemed to prefer.

  Peggy tried for longer than the others. She was getting letters from her brother all the time because Sarah refused to write to him or anyone else either.

  ‘Why won’t you just write him a little note?’ Peggy said, exasperated with Sarah’s attitude. ‘It would mean so much to him. He writes to you every week. Surely he deserves some consideration?’

  ‘He deserves to find someone else,’ Sarah snapped, though as she said the words she felt as if her heart was breaking. ‘Sam is no longer part of my world.’

  Well, thought Peggy, Sarah couldn’t have made it any more clear that she wanted nothing more to do with her brother. She thought he needed to know that so she wrote and told him, and received a heartbroken reply, but at least he stopped writing letters to Sarah that she didn’t even open.

  ‘What does she do with herself all day?’ Polly asked when more than a month had passed with no noticeable improvement.

  ‘She reads, or she plays patience,’ Marion said, ‘or she sits and stares into space. Seems to do a lot of that.’

  ‘God Almighty!’ Polly exclaimed. ‘No sign of her getting a job.’

  ‘Are you kidding, Pol? There’s no sign of her leaving her room except for meals.’

  ‘How are you managing?’

  ‘Well, there’s only the twins still at school. Bill sends a bit, and so does Richard, and of course I still have the money from Peggy and Violet. Oh, I will miss them when the war’s over.’

  ‘Will they go back home then?’

  ‘I expect so. They’ll more than likely have to leave the forge anyway because when the men come back they’ll probably want their old jobs back.’

  ‘And Peggy and Violet won’t be the only ones turfed out, either,’ Polly said. ‘There’s plenty won’t like that. Some of them have had money for the first time in their lives. Mind you, seems to me this war can go on for ages yet.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Well,’ Polly said, ‘we seem to be going two steps forward and one back. We see the Allies liberating French towns and stuff – I mean, they got to Paris just a few weeks ago – but no one seems to be able to stop these bloody unmanned devices coming over.’

  ‘Yes,’ Marion said. ‘The ones they’re firing now are called V2s, and Daddy said they’re worse that the V1s, those bloody doodlebugs that started in June. He showed me the report about them in the paper when he came to dinner last Sunday. Apparently these are proper rockets and can travel at over three thousand miles an hour.’

  ‘Get away!’

  ‘Honest, that’s what it said in the paper. And what’s more they’re completely silent.’

  ‘God Almighty! Just how scary is that?’

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you one thing for nothing,’ Marion said, ‘I wouldn’t live in London for a King’s ransom.’

  Everyone hoped that Christmas 1944 was going to be the last wartime Christmas they would have to endure, and it certainly seemed that way when just after the middle of January the Red Army regained Warsaw. It was also reported the Allies had reached the borders of Germany.

  On the last Saturday in February, Peggy got a letter from her mother. That wasn’t unusual and she opened it at the kitchen table after breakfast. Suddenly the colour drained from her face.

  ‘What is it?’ Marion cried, alarmed at the girl’s pallor.

  Peggy’s concerned eyes met Marion’s. ‘It’s Sam. He’s been injured.’

  Sarah, who usually sat in absolute silence, gave an involuntary gasp as a spasm of pain seemed to grip her stomach. No one noticed, for all their attention was on Peggy.

  ‘Oh, Peggy, that’s dreadful news,’ Marion said. ‘My poor dear girl.’

  ‘How badly is he hurt?’ Violet asked.

  Peggy shook her head. ‘Mom doesn’t know. She says from what she can make out it happened a few days ago and he’s been in a field hospital and now they’re shipping him home.’

  ‘His life can’t be in danger then,’ Marion said. ‘Take heart in that, my dear. Does your mother know where he’s being sent?’

  ‘That military hospital in Sutton Coldfield where he was before.’

  ‘When’s he arriving? Have they told you that?’

  ‘This weekend, by all accounts,’ Peggy said. ‘I must go home directly. My mother needs me at home just now. You must give my excuses, Vi.’

  ‘I will,’ Violet said. ‘Don’t worry about that. It’s the right time to go, for the work isn’t as frantic as it once was and, anyroad, you must have holidays due?’

  ‘I’d say so,’ Peggy said with a wry smile. ‘Seeing that neither you nor I ever took much time off. She turned to Marion. ‘I’m sorry. You do see …?’

  Marion covered Peggy’s agitated hands with her own and said gently, ‘You have nothing to be sorry for, and of course I understand that your mother needs you at home for a while. The only thing I’m sorry for is that that fine young man has been injured again. I’m sure we all feel that.’

  ‘Oh, not half,’ said Magda.

  Missie nodded emphatically before saying, ‘We’ll help you pack, if you like.’

  Although Peggy sent a letter to say that she had arrived safely and that her mother was glad to see her, she didn’t write again, and Marion worried that the news was bad. She knew Violet and even Magda and Missie felt the same because she saw it in their eyes, but they never spoke of it.

  The next time Marion heard from Peggy was the following Friday morning when she sent a telegram to say that she would be arriving that afternoon. Marion had been alarmed initially at the sight of the telegram, but though she was pleased that Peggy was coming back she felt apprehensive about what she might have to say about Sam.

  When Peggy arrived at the door with a case in one hand and a large bag in the other, Marion plainly saw the lines of tension scoring her face, which was as white as lint, and her eyes were very shiny as if she had been crying. She felt her heart turn over in pity as she drew Peggy inside, putting the baggage down in the hall and helping her off with her coat as if she were a child.

  ‘Leave your things where they are for now,’ she advised. ‘Come into the living room and get warm. It’s a dreadful day.’ And then she gave a wry smile and said, ‘Brass monkey weather, as Bill would say, although it’s March.’

  It was when they were sitting either side of the range that Sarah sidled into the room and though she sat a little way from them, it was strange that she was there at all. Normally, of her own choice, she stayed in the room she shared with the twins. She seemed to want to be outside the family circle, and anything they did or said didn’t appear to affect her at all.

  Peggy gave a sudden shiver and Marion leaned forward, gave the fire a good poke and put on some more nuggets of coal.

  ‘I’m not cold,’ Peggy said, ‘not that sort of cold, anyway.’

  ‘Well, I always think a good fire is cheery in these dismal days.’

  Peggy sighed. ‘Oh, Marion, it would take more than a fire to make me cheery.’

  ‘Do you want to talk about your brother, Peggy, or will it be too much for you?’

  ‘No, I’ll tell you,’ Peggy said. ‘It’s obvious that you will want to know. He’s been blinded in an explosion.’

  Sarah jerked in the chair. ‘Blind?’ she cried. ‘Did you say blind?’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  Suddenly Sarah felt her heart turn over in pity for Sam and those lovely eyes that lit up when he smiled or laughed. She was at first surprised she even cared, for she had thought her emotions shrivelled up, but this news had shattered through that veneer of indifference.

  Marion and Peggy were both aware of the change in Sarah, and then Peggy looked her full in the face and said, ‘Mom and I have been every day to
visit him. I even broke my journey to see him this morning before I came back here. The hospital gave me special permission to do that. But though he is always pleased when either of us visits, the person he really wants there is you.’

  Marion saw that Sarah was flustered and disbelieving.

  ‘No, no. I’m sure you’re wrong.’

  ‘I’m not wrong,’ Peggy insisted. ‘One person I do know is my brother, and I know he loves you dearly. It broke him apart when you refused to write to him, and without a word of explanation.’

  ‘But surely you wrote? You told him why that was?’

  ‘I tried,’ Peggy said, ‘but it was difficult, because I hadn’t seen you either. But I’ll tell you what: I’ve seen some dreadful sights over the last few days when I have been visiting Sam, and most of them young and all getting on the best way they can. Sam was caught in an explosion as you were, and under the bandages he’s horribly scarred too, though like you, they said the scarring will heal to a certain extent. But your eyes were saved, his were not. You’re not the only casualty of this war, Sarah.’

  ‘That’s unfair,’ Sarah cried. ‘I never said I was.’

  ‘You behave as if you were.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ Sarah protested. ‘I know other people suffered too.’

  ‘But you don’t care about them?’

  Sarah couldn’t answer that because she hadn’t cared about other people, not until now, and so she was silent.

  When Peggy said, ‘Come with me tomorrow to visit Sam?’ she gave a gasp of surprise, for it was the last thing that she had been expecting.

  Marion was aware that she was holding her breath as Sarah shook her head. ‘I can’t. You don’t know what you’re asking.’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘You can’t possibly know how I’m feeling inside.’

  ‘I know how Sam is feeling.’

  ‘Does he ask for me?’

  Peggy shook her head. ‘No, not now. When you said you no longer wanted him in your life I wrote and told him what you had said because I thought he needed to know, so he thinks that you want nothing more to do with him.’

  Sarah’s heart gave a lurch and the longing to see Sam again almost engulfed her. And then she stiffened and pulled the shutter up again, and the chill was back in her voice as she said, ‘I am really sorry for Sam, but still the answer must be no.’

  ‘Why do you feel you can’t come?’

  ‘You know why.’

  ‘No I don’t,’ Peggy said. ‘What I do know, though, is that Sam loved you and probably still does. He told me himself that he carried the photos you sent him around in his breast pocket.’

  ‘Yeah, but that was the old me,’ Sarah said, angry that she had been so badgered. ‘I bet Sam wouldn’t have been so keen on seeing this one.’ And with a flourish she pulled the dressings off.

  The two women stared at her. Neither had ever seen Sarah’s face completely exposed since the operations on it, and though Marion had to admit that there were marks, her skin had bedded in as the doctor had said and was all one colour, and she knew it would get even better yet. At least Sarah would be able to conceal much with cosmetics. All in all, she didn’t look half as bad as Marion had expected.

  ‘Why have you been hiding yourself away for months?’ Peggy said in genuine puzzlement. ‘Your face isn’t that bad, and as for Sam, he can’t see you anyroad. Come and see him, Sarah?’

  Sarah shook her head and put her hands over her eyes. Peggy glanced across at Marion, who gave a small shrug as if there was nothing to be done, but Peggy was made of sterner stuff and she was fighting for her brother’s happiness.

  ‘D’you know who you remind me of?’ she asked, and without waiting for a reply she went on, ‘Your grandmother, who rolled the injustices of her life into a canker of resentment that she carried with her always.’

  Sarah gasped. The thought that she could ever be the slightest bit like her grandmother filled her with dismay, and yet she had to admit that there was a nub of truth in what Peggy said.

  She had hugged her disfigurement to herself and shut everyone else out, not just because she feared their reaction, but because of the feeling of dejection within herself. Now she was forced to acknowledge that Sam might be feeling much the same way about his lack of sight. So she said to Peggy almost grudgingly, ‘All right. I will go with you to see Sam tomorrow if it will make you happy.’

  Marion looked absolutely stunned that Sarah had agreed. She realised that the whole family had pandered to Sarah and, almost without being aware of it, made allowances for her behaviour as they had for her grandmother. How wise Peggy was to recognise that.

  The twins and Violet were delighted to see Peggy back when they arrived home that evening, though not at all pleased when she told them what had happened to Sam. But they were also very interested in seeing what Sarah’s face looked like, for once Sarah had removed the dressings in a fit of pique against Peggy, she decided to leave them off to see the reaction of the others.

  However, Marion had done such a good job in telling them how scarred she would be, and in a way Sarah had compounded this by keeping her face semi-protected with dressings, that they imagined that her face would look far worse than it actually did. Magda and Missie lost no time in telling her this.

  ‘She didn’t believe them, though,’ Marion told her sister the following day when Sarah had set off for the hospital with Peggy. ‘Not until Magda ran to fetch the mirror. I saw such a change come over her when she looked in it. God, Polly, it would have brought tears to your eyes. She was touching her whole face, you know, as if she couldn’t believe it. I mean, she is changed and there are scars, of course, but she’s nothing like the hideous monster that she once thought she resembled. Last night it was like I was seeing little flashes of the old Sarah.’

  ‘Thank God!’ Polly said fervently. ‘And you say Peggy has bullied her into going to see Sam?’

  ‘Well, if I’m honest I think Sam and his tragic blindness was the lure,’ Marion said. ‘But it was what Peggy said to her in the end that decided her, I think. She told her that she reminded her of Mammy.’

  ‘Oh, I bet that didn’t go down too well.’

  Marion grinned. ‘It didn’t. But she had a point. We were so wary of upsetting Sarah that we let her do as she pleased. Doesn’t that sound horribly familiar?’

  ‘Shows you how easy it is to do, though,’ Polly said, ‘until it becomes a habit.’

  ‘Violet cut Sarah’s hair after we’d eaten,’ Marion said, ‘and made a good job of it too.’

  ‘Well, it had to be done, being all different lengths.’

  ‘I know, but she refused to go to the hairdresser and have it done properly, and wouldn’t let any of us do it either. But now she looks a very modern miss with her shorn locks, and the hat I loaned her suits her better with short hair.’

  ‘What hat’s that?’

  ‘The one with the small brim and the veil that you can wear over the face if you wish,’ Marion said. ‘She has the option to do that when she’s on the train if she feels self-conscious. Anyroad, the girls freshened it up with steam from the kettle and a soft brush, and then put a new ribbon on it and it looked quite fetching when she set out with Peggy a little while ago.’

  ‘Well, let’s hope she can be some sort of comfort to that fine young brother of Peggy’s, for to lose your sight must be a dreadful thing.’

  ‘It must,’ Marion said. ‘I don’t think I could bear it.’

  ‘Nor I,’ said Polly.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Sarah never forgot her first sight of Sam that day. She was alone because Peggy said she had to see the doctor, but though she had warned her that Sam had been peppered with shrapnel for the second time in his life, and was heavily bandaged, she was still shocked to see his head swathed like hers had been. She knew how uncomfortable it was to be so encased and, full of sympathy, she crossed the room as quietly as she could, smiling at the three others who shared the room, and sat on
the chair by Sam’s bed.

  Although she had been quiet, Sam heard her and he tipped his head to one side and spoke stiffly because of the confines of the bandages. ‘That you, Peg?’

  ‘No,’ Sarah said. ‘Hello, Sam.’

  ‘Almighty Christ!’ Sam exclaimed in great agitation. ‘Is that you? Sarah?’

  ‘Yes, Sam. It’s me.’

  ‘But what are you doing here?’

  ‘Visiting you, of course.’

  ‘But I thought …’ Sam began and stopped. ‘You do know I’m blind?’

  ‘Of course I know. Peggy told us.’

  ‘Is that why you’re here, to pity me?’

  ‘Of course not. What sort of person do you think I am?’

  ‘I don’t know what sort of person you are,’ Sam said. ‘I thought I did. I thought that we knew nearly everything about one another, but then you suddenly stopped writing to me. I sent a letter every week.’

  ‘There were lots of reasons,’ Sarah said. ‘I couldn’t write to anyone at first because I was flat on my back for weeks.’

  ‘I understood that,’ Sam said. ‘The nurse that wrote that first letter for you telling me what had happened explained that. But afterwards? Peggy wrote and told me that you didn’t want me in your life any more. She told me that you said those very words, and I have never known Peggy lie. You broke my heart, Sarah.’

  ‘I nearly broke mine saying those words,’ Sarah said. ‘And Peggy told the truth because I did say them.’

  ‘But why?’ Sam said perplexed. ‘I wanted to support you. I know it was only through letters, but that was all I could do at the time. To cut me off the way you did, and not even to try and explain why …? I couldn’t understand it. I would never had said that the girl I had been writing to for some time had a cruel bone in her body, but that was cruel, Sarah.’