Blitz - Book 4 of the Poppy Chronicles

by Claire Rayner

‘Don’t say it,’ she said swiftly. ‘Please don’t. I – it wasn’t entirely my own fault. My half-sister – Chloe – she always manages to – ’

  ‘Ah, Chloe,’ he said thoughtfully and started mopping again and Robin sidestepped to get out of the way. ‘Poor soul.’

  Robin stared at him. ‘Poor soul?’ she echoed. ‘She’s about as pathetic as a shark!’

  ‘Oh, you’re wrong there! She’s had a bad time of it one way and another, you know – ’

  ‘I know a lot about Chloe!’ Robin said and began to feel angry again. How could he defend her when she’d told such a thumping lie, and made her, Robin, so miserable? ‘More than you possibly can – ’

  ‘I wouldn’t be so sure. Outsiders sometimes see a good deal more of what happens in families than the members of it do.’

  ‘Oh, I see!’ Robin was sardonic now. ‘She’s been telling you tall tales about how unkind everyone is to her and how Ma and David didn’t let her do this and that when she was younger and how they stopped her from spending her money and – ’

  ‘Were they? Unkind? I’d doubt that. From what I’ve seen of your mother.’ He was leaning on his mop again. ‘Certainly Chloe said nothing derogatory about them.’ He looked reflective then. ‘Unless it’s derogatory to say that her family are all stick-in-the-muds and boring and have no fun in them and so forth. But there. I’m the same sort, so I don’t think it’s a bad way to be. I dare say you know she thinks that – ’

  She stared at him. ‘Well, yes. She says it all the time. She said nothing else about us?’

  ‘Not a word. That’s why I’m so sorry for her.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Again she let the sardonic note sound.

  ‘Aye,’ he said with equanimity, ignoring her edginess. ‘A lonely creature when all’s said and done. Wants so much to be part of you all, and simply doesna’ know how to be. So all she can do is dig away at you and try to deal with her jealousy that way. As I said, poor soul.’

  Robin was silent. This was a version of her half-sister she had never seen before, but she had to admit that there was some sense in what he said. At family events of any kind Chloe was always rather on the outside looking in. They had tried to make her comfortable with them, of course they had. David alone was too generous a character to do otherwise, and Robin knew her mother had been trying for years to be closer to Chloe. But whatever they did there was always that air of remoteness about Chloe and over the years perhaps they had all rather stopped trying, had turned their backs on her –

  He was watching her closely and now he smiled. ‘You’re seeing what I mean,’ he said quietly.

  ‘I – perhaps.’ She straightened then. ‘Anyway, let’s leave Chloe out of it for the moment. Just let me say I’m sorry I got so upset. It was – it was just I believed her when she said – anyway you know what she said. Chick told me she’d talked to you. I have no right to get so bothered anyway. I mean, I should have realized she was lying to me and you didn’t – you hadn’t –’ She couldn’t stop it then, the hot blush that climbed her cheeks and made her forehead sweat and he smiled again.

  ‘It mattered to you that I hadna’ accepted her invitation to get into her bed?’

  ‘I’ve no right to care either way,’ she mumbled. ‘I mean, I shouldn’t have said anything – it was none of my – ’

  ‘I’m glad it mattered to you,’ he said and looking over her shoulder to see if they could be seen from the waiting hall, leaned across and drew the curtain, and then bent his head and kissed her mouth gently and without any urgency, but for all that, it made her hotter and pinker than ever. ‘Very glad,’ he repeated.

  ‘That’s all right then,’ she managed and put up both hands to wipe her face and found the notes she was still clutching in the way and giggled. ‘Then we’ll say no more about it? Just go on as we were and – well, get to know each other better?’ There were images in Robin’s head of herself and Hamish walking hand in hand along the streets, herself and Hamish at parties, herself learning to dance his special way – and her eyes glittered and her smile widened. She didn’t know it but she looked suddenly prettier than she ever had.

  ‘I’d like that. It won’t be so easy of course, but I’d like that.’

  ‘Won’t be so easy?’ There was a note in his voice that sent the pretty imaginings away in shreds. ‘Why not?’

  ‘There’ll be letters, of course. I hope you’ll write to me?’

  The glitter vanished suddenly and she looked at him with her face puckered. ‘Where are you going that you’ll want letters?’

  He began to mop again, his head down over the bucket. ‘Wales.’

  ‘Wales – what’s in – I mean, you’re needed here!’

  ‘I’m needed more there.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Mining.’

  There was a long silence and then she said, stupefied, ‘Mining? Underground? In the pits?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said steadily and looked at her. ‘Underground, in the pits and the shafts. In the dark.’

  ‘But Hamish, you – I mean – how will you cope with –’ She could feel it all again with a great vividness; his shaking body beside her in that small place, the dampness and heat of him, his rushing pulse. If that had happened after just a few minutes in an enclosed space, how would he cope in a mine for a whole shift?

  ‘I’ll have to,’ he said. ‘It’s time I did a better job. I – call it a bit selfish if you like, but I canna take the jibes any longer. Every other man who walks in here or in the street sneers at me – calls me coward. I’ve worked all the hours God sends here, doing tough and foul work, but it seems to make no difference. So I’ll be away down the mines and there’ll be no question then.’

  She stood silent for a moment and then held out her hand. ‘I do congratulate you,’ she said. ‘You’re just about the bravest person I know. If anyone ever again calls you a coward, just let me know – ’

  He took her hand and held it tightly. ‘You couldn’t have said anything to please me more,’ he said gravely. ‘Thank you, Robin.’

  She went pink again. ‘I’ll miss you,’ she managed.

  ‘And I’ll surely miss you. But that’s wars for you. They kill all sorts of things and not just people, bad as that is.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Oh, yes.’ And somehow she managed not to get tearful. It wasn’t easy.

  The curtain rings clattered and they sprang apart almost guiltily, though they’d been doing no more than talking, and Robin said in a rather loud and oh-so-professional voice. ‘Well, if you’ve not seen it, then I’ll have to look somewhere else,’ and then lifted her still rather flushed face as Sister Priestland appeared.

  She looked from one to the other and for a moment it seemed she would offer some sort of rebuke, but then she stopped herself, and turned to Robin.

  ‘I’ve been looking for you, my dear. We’ve just had a couple of casualties in from an incident not far from here – ’

  ‘Oh!’ Robin said and tidied the notes in her hand. ‘I’ll get rid of these, then, Sister, and finish them later. Which cubicle do you want me to – ’

  Sister Priestland put out her hand to set it on her wrist and Robin stared down at it and then at Sister Priestland to find some clue to this remarkable behaviour, and the older woman said gently, ‘Now, at present there’s no need to worry too much about her, but I have to tell you your aunt is involved – ’

  ‘Aunt?’ Robin said stupidly and Hamish set down his mop and came to stand protectively behind her. ‘Aunt?’

  Sister looked down at the notes she had in her hand. ‘Mrs Braham,’ she said. ‘Your mother’s with her – she’s fine, not involved – just happened to visit, I gather, after the raid had – ’

  Robin waited for no more. She pushed past Sister and, breaking all the rules, ran out into the waiting hall to look around wildly and then run full tilt across it, almost pushing other people out of the way, to where her mother was standing beside the corner cubicle into which a trol
ley was just being taken. And even from the far side Robin could see on it the flash of crimson that was Jessie’s dress.

  This was, Poppy decided, the worst time of her life hitherto – or almost. Sometimes she tried to put it all into perspective by deliberately looking back over the years to her days in the horrors of Verdun, or the agonizing time when Bobby had been gassed and she’d had somehow to get him back to England and especially to the time of the flu epidemic when he and his sister Mabel had died, indeed to anything she could that would take her mind away from the here and now. But none of it worked. She just had to cope, somehow, a day at a time.

  That first night in Casualty at the London Hospital with Robin, white-faced, hovering to find out what was happening – because Sister Priestland was adamant that she mustn’t help Dr Landow since the patient was so close and beloved a relation – and waiting to hear the diagnosis, had been a painful exercise in patience. It was fortunate, Sam Landow had told her, that the number of raid-injured people had been low that night. They had time to deal with Jessie properly, and in consequence she spent long painful hours being prodded and checked, having a blood transfusion set up, for she had lost a lot from a wound in her left leg, and being X-rayed.

  And when at last she had been taken up to a ward and settled to an exhausted drugged sleep, Sam sat down with Poppy and Robin and talked to them.

  ‘I’m not sure what to tell you first,’ he said. ‘I think I must be sensible and start with the worst news. About Mr Braham – ’

  Poppy had stiffened. ‘I saw his face,’ she said huskily. ‘It was – I can’t tell you how – he’s so very good-looking, you see. It’ll be a blow and – ’

  ‘No,’ Sam had said gently and put out both hands to take one of Poppy’s cold ones in his. ‘It won’t be a blow to him, I’m afraid. It’s more a blow to you. He died, my dear. I’m so sorry. He was dead by the time we received him.’

  There was a long silence and then Poppy’s face crumpled and she began to weep, a great storm of tears that flooded her face and twisted her mouth in an ugly grimace and Robin reached out and held her until the storm had passed and she was just sobbing, a little spasmodically, and hiccupping.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she managed at last. ‘I’m truly sorry – ’

  ‘You needn’t apologize,’ Sam said and at last let go of her hand, for he had held her all through her paroxysms. ‘Grief is natural enough and – ’

  ‘Grief?’ she said hoarsely. ‘How can it be grief? I hated him. He was the most – I loathed him. Have for years. But Jessie – my Jessie – she’ll be devastated. I can’t tell her and I have to because no one else can and she’ll – oh, God –’ And she closed her eyes tightly, willing herself not to weep again.

  ‘That does make it more painful, then,’ Sam said. ‘I know. In the weeks to come, maybe we can talk about it? It might help – ’

  She had managed a watery little grimace at that. ‘Robin told me that you were interested in psychiatry – ’

  ‘In helping people with emotional pain,’ he said. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ll think about it –’ Poppy had straightened then and put up her hands to wipe her face. ‘Tell me about Jessie. She’s – oh, God, I have to say it, she’s the only one I really care about.’

  ‘She’ll live,’ Sam said very positively. ‘You hear that? Her life is in no danger.’

  Poppy swallowed hard and closed her eyes. ‘That’s something to be –’ And then shook her head. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘But there is a problem.’

  ‘What sort of problem? One you can’t deal with? Does she need an operation or – ’

  He shook his head. ‘I’m afraid it’s not as easy as that. As far as I can tell – and I’m not a neurologist, you understand – she has an injury at the level of lumbar – let’s say just that she’s broken her back. The bones will heal well enough, but the nerve supply – ’

  There was a silence and then Poppy said carefully, ‘She’s going to be paralysed.’

  ‘I think so,’ Sam looked at her and shook his head. ‘But don’t just believe me. We can get her transferred to a country hospital – there’s one of the London specialist nerve hospitals with a branch in Hertfordshire, well away from the bombing, and they do excellent work there. I’ll try tomorrow to arrange her transfer. There they can do a full appraisal and start whatever treatment might help. I think at this stage, though, the wisest thing to do is expect her to be wheelchair-bound for the rest of her life. But her life need not be shortened by that. She’s a strong lady for all her years – ’

  ‘Seventy-five,’ Poppy had said clearly. ‘I never thought of her as old, but I suppose she is.’

  ‘Yes. Getting old anyway. But she could have five more years of happiness, as long as she has good care – ’

  ‘Five years,’ Poppy had whispered. ‘It sounds so little.’

  ‘I could be wrong! I’m only guessing. If she’s got a good family history of long-living people and if she’s happy she could live to be ninety! The important thing though is to help her accept her condition if it is in fact irremediable. If she fights it, then –’ He had shrugged. ‘Well, it might make her ill.’

  Robin had spoken then for the first time and she was never to know how the words came to her. But they made Poppy laugh and look, just for a moment, hopeful.

  ‘Oh, she’ll love it! She’ll run circles round everyone and boss them about and make everyone jump when she speaks to them – oh, Ma, can’t you just see it?’

  And Sam had looked approvingly at her and sent them both to get something to eat and drink, determined, he said, not to have any more members of the family in need of loving care.

  But that had just been the start of it. Over the next two weeks Poppy needed all the strength she had, and then half as much again.

  There was, first, the matter of telling Jessie of Bernie’s death. She had tried to convince herself it would be better to wait until Jessie was transferred to the specialist neurological hospital and was a little stronger, better able to take it in, but she knew she was really protecting herself, not Jessie. Soon she’d ask anyway – and she went up to the ward where Jessie was at the London on the next day to tell her.

  Walking down the long expanse of polished wood, between the serried rows of beds, each bearing a face that watched her mutely as she went by, was agony. They’d put Jessie at the far end, and every step that brought Poppy nearer made her pulse rate rise by a couple of beats. By the time she got to her, it was racing.

  Jessie was lying flat on her back with a pair of metal hoops linked with a dish of weights holding her head still and stretching her neck. ‘It’s a device to stop any further damage being done to her spinal cord,’ Sister had explained before allowing Poppy to go in. ‘She has traction on her legs too, especially the left one because there was a break there and a major soft tissue injury which is now in plaster. She’s had that repaired and it shouldn’t be too bad afterwards. Not that she’ll ever walk again, you understand –’ Sister had been as clinical as the smell of carbolic which surrounded her and Poppy had looked at the bleak blue eyes that looked at her with calm common sense but little warmth and longed to have Sam Landow with her. A good man, Sam, and she liked him a lot. And thought, just for one mad moment, of the way he had looked at Robin, and then forgot it. It was Jessie who mattered most, now, not Robin.

  Jessie had swivelled her eyes sideways as Poppy came up and as soon as she saw her, managed a smile.

  ‘Poppela,’ she croaked. ‘Is it good to see you! Tell me all about it. Everything. I can’t remember properly. It’s just like it never happened. I keep trying to remember and they say forget it, but how can I? I was sitting there having a bit of supper with Bernie and the next thing I know is I’m here lying like some beetle turned on its back. Can’t move – where’s Bernie, Poppy? I know he makes you mad, but dolly, if I’m hurt you can’t mind him coming – ’

  ‘Jessie,’ Poppy said and took her hand tightly, and Jessie move
d her eyes and looked up into hers, and Poppy stared down at her. And in that moment Jessie knew. Poppy saw the truth come into her eyes and then a look of horror.

  ‘What is it, Poppy? Tell me,’ the thick voice said and Poppy did.

  ‘It was instant, Jessie. He didn’t know, they swear that to me. Just as you didn’t know you’d been hit, didn’t hear the bomb, neither did he – ’

  Jessie was staring at the ceiling, her face as rigid as though it had been carved out of mahogany.

  ‘I – his face had been injured, darling. If he’d lived he would have been scarred. Dreadfully. He wouldn’t have wanted to live like that – ’

  ‘A judgement,’ Jessie said. ‘A judgement.’

  ‘Darling? What did you say?’ For Jessie’s voice was very low and Poppy had to bend to hear her.

  ‘A judgement. He wouldn’t move it, you see. Said you were – said he wouldn’t move it. Came to put in new invisible locks so you wouldn’t know he had anything, and so couldn’t get it out – a judgement. If he hadn’t been doing it, he wouldn’t have been there. A judgement –’ And she closed her eyes and in a suddenly loud voice began to chant. ‘Yiskadal, Yiskadach, Shamai Raboh balmah nov’ and then went on and on, in Hebrew, and Poppy thought – that’s the prayer for the dead. She’s praying for her dead child – and closed her eyes, needing to make some response.

  The curtains parted and Sister came in, and Poppy opened her eyes to glare at her, for the woman had her mouth open to protest at the noise Jessie was making, but Poppy hissed, ‘I’ve had to tell her her son was killed. She’s praying for him –’ And Sister looked at her and then at Jessie’s closed eyes and moving lips and then crisply nodded and went away. A good woman after all, Poppy thought. A good woman.

  They talked a long time after that, Poppy and Jessie, of the old days of Bernie’s childhood sins. ‘A lobbas,’ Jessie said fondly and wept again and Poppy bit her lip and tried, very hard she tried, to think good of the dead. But it wasn’t easy.

  After that, there was so much to organize, to deal with and to plan that she had hardly any time to think about anything, and certainly not of her own feelings. There was the matter of Bernie’s funeral, first, and that was difficult with so few rabbis around and the cemeteries sadly depleted of gravediggers, but that was managed, somehow; and then there was the even more painful matter of what to do about the business.