She was nursing as many days a week as she could, doing whatever was needed, but because Thomas refused to do anything, she was his nurse, too, which was a job in itself. The only things that saved her were the letters she received from Ellie. Scarlet hadn’t been able to visit her, not being able to leave Thomas for long and with every day so full to bursting with nursing and caring. But now that Germany had surrendered, it gave her hope that the war and all its atrocities would well and truly be over soon. Their elderly neighbour, Mr Grey, had had tears in his eyes when he’d told her, a smile on his face so wide that it alone had made Scarlet rush over to him. To hear the news, to know that no more innocent people would die at the hands of the Nazis – it took a weight from her shoulders.
She heard the post being pushed through the letter box. She ran into the hall, grabbed the single letter and hurried out to call to the postman.
‘Did you hear the news?’ she cried.
The kindly older man raised his hand in the air and waved to her. ‘Best news an old man could wish for!’ he called back.
‘Scarlet.’
She turned, a letter in her hand, wondering who was saying her name. The envelope dropped the moment her eyes fell upon James. He was standing in the street, in uniform, his eyes locked on hers. Scarlet froze; she couldn’t have moved if she’d wanted to. How was he here? Why was he here?
‘You’ve heard the news?’ he asked, as if they hadn’t just seen each other for the first time in months, since the day he’d been sent home from France.
‘James, I . . .’ She couldn’t stop staring at him. Tears prickled her eyes, made her wish she never had to see him again, the man that reminded her of what could have been. ‘It’s so good to see you again,’ she managed.
‘And you,’ he said, stepping forward and brushing a kiss to her cheek. ‘I’ve missed you.’
Scarlet wanted to cling on to him, to dig her nails into his jacket and hold him tight. She needed a touch, a kindness, some tenderness to balance out the pain that was in her home and her heart, but she fought to keep it all down, to not show how badly she was struggling.
‘I would have come sooner to see Thomas, but I was reposted almost the same time as he was sent home,’ James said.
Of course she knew all this, had listened to his mother talk about her other son when she’d been to visit. That he was in England still, that his duties had changed. Every time he was mentioned she’d silently tucked away every snippet of information into her memory to savour later.
‘Please, come in and see him,’ she said, hating how formal and stiff she sounded. ‘You’re always welcome to visit, and I’m sure he’ll be so happy to see you.’
James laughed. ‘Mother has made it more than clear to me that he’s not happy about anything.’
She nodded, not about to lie to the one person who’d surely see through any falseness.
‘How are you?’ he asked quietly as they walked inside, him slightly behind her. ‘Is Thomas at least treating you well?’
Scarlet forced a smile. ‘We’re doing the best we can,’ she dissembled.
‘Who are you talking to?’ Thomas yelled out.
‘Your brother is here!’ she called back, trying to sound happy. ‘James has called to see you.’
James moved past her, glancing back and smiling at her, so soft and kind, making every bit of strength within her threaten to shatter like glass.
‘Thomas! I hear the war didn’t treat you so well, my brother.’
‘Get out, J,’ Thomas snarled, turning his chair around to stare at his younger brother. ‘I don’t want to see your uniform or your legs or your smug face.’
James glanced at her again and she gave him a tight smile. It was all she could do.
‘Thomas, come on now. Is it so bad to have a visitor?’ James said. ‘It’s good to see you.’
Thomas glared at him from his seat as James walked over, closer to him. ‘You’ve got what you always wanted now. You win.’
‘I haven’t won anything,’ James said in a low voice. ‘You think I’ve won something? That it doesn’t kill me that my brother is in a wheelchair and my friends died? That I saw what I saw over there? Did what I did?’
Thomas had a look pass over his face, a sadness that made Scarlet wonder if James was going to be the breakthrough that he so sorely needed.
‘Darling, would you like me to get us something?’ Scarlet asked, refusing to look at James as she moved closer and slung an arm around Thomas, leaning low so that she was part of the conversation. ‘Tea perhaps?’
He shoved her roughly, pushed at her so hard that she stumbled back, recoiling. James reached for her, catching her and quickly righting her.
‘Thomas!’ she scolded.
‘It’s one thing to feel sorry for yourself, and another thing entirely to take it out on your wife,’ James said, glaring at his brother.
‘She’s my wife, and I’ll treat her as I damn well please,’ Thomas said. ‘I think you’ve overstayed your welcome.’
Scarlet looked at James. She hated that he’d seen that. It had been hard enough for her adjusting to being a wife, being a personal nurse and emotional punching bag to the person who was supposed to love her and care for her, but this was too much. Going from society girl to nurse had been tough, but it was another thing entirely to return home and be in her own personal hell, to be trapped in a marriage. Her family liked to pretend everything was fine, her mother sympathetic but telling her to remain stoic no matter how hard things became.
‘What happened to you, Thomas? What made you like this?’ she heard James ask as she walked away.
‘Look at my damn legs!’ Thomas bellowed.
‘I’m talking about the way you spoke to your wife. The monster that you’ve turned into. Where is my brother?’ James demanded. Then he added, ‘Have you hurt her before?’
Scarlet walked straight out of the front door and stood, trembling as she tried to calm down. She didn’t want to see James again, and she desperately needed to get out of the house.
‘Scarlet, wait.’
She paused, took a deep breath before turning around and looking straight into James’s eyes. She’d been wrong. She couldn’t be happy to see him, she couldn’t have him close without wanting what she would never have.
‘I’m sorry. For the way he’s treating you, I’m so, so sorry.’
‘I need you to not come back here, James,’ she said, her voice wobbling as she tried to get the words out. ‘You’re only making things worse, for both of us.’
He opened his mouth to say something else but she couldn’t stay to listen. Tears flooded her eyes and she turned and ran, away from the one man she wished she didn’t ever have to part from.
The sun was shining and Scarlet turned her face up to it for a moment, enjoying the warmth on her skin. Her favourite thing when she wasn’t working was to get out into the fresh air, for even a few minutes, any excuse to leave the confines of her house, to linger in the garden and feel the sun or wind against her skin. And every time it reminded her of the day she’d heard James’s voice behind her, seen his face for the first time in months. She’d relived that moment every single day since.
With one last sigh, she reluctantly went back into the house. As she shut the door, she saw a letter poking out from the letter box that she hadn’t noticed before. She smiled to herself, wondering who it was from. She’d been hoping for a letter from Lucy to stop her worrying about her all the time, or a nice happy letter from Ellie to enjoy, but this one was in a hand she didn’t recognise. It was also addressed only to her. She frowned and quickly ripped it open. When she scanned to the end to see who it was from, her legs weakened beneath her. James. The letter was from James.
She had tried so hard not to think about him these past two weeks, not to imagine how different things could have been. Because if she did that, if she remembered how sweet and fun and exciting he was, every day with Thomas would be even more torturous that it already was.
Besides, she was still ashamed of what he’d seen that day, when Thomas had been so deliberately cruel.
Dear Scarlet,
I know I promised to leave you be if you ever married my brother, and although I’m pleased that he has returned, I can’t say I’m pleased to have to keep that promise. The unwavering belief you held that he was alive still amazes me, and after all that time I cannot believe it turned out you were right. My parents told me bits about what he is like now that he’s home, and how hard it must be on you caring for a man who no longer resembles the brother I once knew, but it wasn’t until I saw him for myself that I truly believed them. I should visit again, but I doubt I could stand in your home and play the role of loving brother if he dared to speak to you or touch you like that again. It breaks my own mother’s heart to see how distant and miserable Thomas is, and to see the husband he has become to such a loving, wonderful woman.
Scarlet, I need you to know that I love you. Not a day has passed since I left you in France that I haven’t thought about you, and if you ever tire of my brother’s loathsome behaviour, if it becomes worse or you can no longer stand to put up with his treatment of you, then I want you to know that my home is your home. If ever you walk through my door, well, I want you to know that my feelings about you haven’t wavered.
The war changes all of us. I will never be the same again after what I’ve seen; I’m sure you feel the same. But surely, after all we’ve suffered, we deserve happiness as a reward for living? I’m writing to you from my garden, and I can imagine you here with me, picking flowers and smiling, bringing brightness and happiness to everyone and everything around you. Don’t spend your life worrying about what others think, or trying to do what is best, if it is slowly draining the life from you. You deserve more.
If this letter finds you happy and content, if you truly love my brother and want to endure it all with him, then toss it away or burn it and never think of me again. But if not, then my address is on the envelope. No one will think less of you for walking away from such an intolerable situation.
With all my love,
James
Scarlet stared at his name long after she finished reading his words. James was asking her to go to him. He wanted her with him. Two weeks to the day that Germany had surrendered, he was asking her to surrender her own marriage. To walk away from the vows she’d made to Thomas.
She quickly folded the paper and placed it in her pocket. She slowly glanced behind her, having the most awful feeling that Thomas could be watching. He was in the front room, he could have seen her, but he didn’t seem very interested in anything she did so she knew it was unlikely.
He couldn’t seriously believe that she would go? Walk out on Thomas, leave him alone and leave their marriage? It wasn’t that she hadn’t thought about it; it was something she dreamt about every night as she struggled to fall asleep. Worse, she sometimes imagined what it would be like if she woke up and he was gone. She squeezed her eyes shut, hating herself for her thoughts. One morning, when he’d not spoken to her for days, had refused to even acknowledge her when she’d made him dinner, she’d wished he would die. And that thought returned more and more when he slapped her, shoved her, spat at her.
But Thomas was her husband, and her life was what it was. She would ignore the letter from James, pretend she’d never read it, and soldier on. Thomas needed her, and she hadn’t searched for him for so long to give up on him now. What she had to do was believe that this was a stage that would pass, that he’d slowly come to terms with what had happened and let her back in.
Scarlet gathered herself together, pushed all thoughts of James aside, and placed a smile back on her face. She walked into the kitchen, determined to make lunch and perhaps take Thomas out into the sunshine, read to him.
‘Thomas, darling, I’m going to get lunch,’ she called out, doing her best to sound bright.
If she didn’t pretend to be happy, then she’d only end up as miserable as her husband.
‘Mary! It’s so good to see you again.’ Scarlet took the small case from her mother-in-law and embraced her with one arm. What she wanted to do was collapse into a heap at her feet and beg her to take care of her son for the rest of the day, but instead she kept her smile fixed and stood back, gesturing down the hall.
Her own parents had been to visit several times, as had her sister, but they’d found it hard to talk to Thomas, his discontent so obvious, and in the past month she’d only received letters. She’d naively imagined that her mother would frequently come from their house in the country to stay, but it hadn’t happened. Her parents’ favourite saying of ‘chin up’ kept ringing through her mind; she wished they knew what it meant to truly keep her chin up around her husband. She doubted they understood this any more than the horrors of what she’d seen and experienced abroad, imagining their daughter well fed and working ladies’ hours.
‘How has he been?’
Scarlet looked at Thomas’s mother, certain she would be able to see straight through her if she lied.
‘Well, you know, he’s . . .’ She didn’t know what to say, couldn’t even conjure a lie. There was nothing for her to say unless she wanted to break his mother’s heart.
‘Scarlet, why don’t you go for a walk? It’s a lovely sunny day out there and I’m sure you could do with a break and some fresh air.’
Mary was so kind, she always had been, and she truly did seem to understand how hard things had been. Often Scarlet wondered if James had ever said anything, if he’d let slip how he felt, but his mother had never mentioned it and neither had she. Scarlet gave her a grateful smile, not trusting her voice, and touched her arm before turning and reaching for her coat. She opened the door and gratefully breathed in a burst of air.
‘He’s in the front room as usual,’ she called out. ‘I won’t be long.’
Scarlet shut the door behind her, hurrying out into the open and stumbling down her front steps. She was failing as a wife. There was no other word for what was happening in her home other than to call it failing. All the months she’d dreamt of finding Thomas, remembering the soft touch of his lips to hers that night so long ago as they sat in the shelter during a bombing raid, how dashing he’d been. She’d dreamt of a wedding surrounded by their family, children filling the halls of their home with laughter, happiness once the war had ended. She doubted now that they’d even be able to have children, given that Thomas wouldn’t see a doctor and made no effort to do his exercises to even try to learn to walk again. They hadn’t even been able to consummate their marriage.
She dug her fingernails into her palms. The entire war was so close to being over, and yet her marriage was on the brink of its own kind of collapse.
She couldn’t do it. The weight of her own admission hit her, forced her to stop. Her breath was rapid, her chest rising and falling heavily. She couldn’t stand another day in that house with that man. She’d promised to love and obey a man who was a stranger to her, so far removed from the Thomas she’d been promised to. Was James right? After all they’d done, all they’d survived, didn’t they deserve to make a decision based on happiness? But what kind of woman would she be if she walked out on her crippled husband?
Scarlet forced herself to keep moving, to walk as if she wasn’t dying inside. She didn’t want to alert anyone to the fact that something was wrong, and standing on the roadside or collapsing to her knees wasn’t exactly normal behaviour. She walked a few more steps before turning around and going back the way she’d come. She was going to try harder, she would make this work. She needed to stop thinking about James and the letter that seemed to burn a constant hole in her pocket.
She walked back into her house, closing the door and hanging up her coat again. She’d only taken a few steps down the hall when the smash of glass made her jump. Scarlet ran into the front room, worried something had happened to Thomas, only to find his mother standing there, glass smashed around her, and Thomas glaring at her. She’d obviously walked in on
an argument with his mother, the only other person in the world who cared about him enough to be a constant presence in his life.
‘Mary? Is everything all right here?’ Scarlet asked in a low voice.
‘Get her out of my house!’ Thomas bellowed.
Scarlet took a step towards Mary, worried for her. But she received a tight smile in response. ‘I was telling my son that he might want to be more grateful to his attentive, caring wife,’ Mary said. ‘I’ll clean this up.’
Thomas stared at Scarlet. ‘Don’t just stand there,’ he muttered.
‘No,’ Scarlet said, shaking her head. ‘You don’t get to sit there and bark orders at me as if I’m no more than your servant. I will do anything for you, Thomas, and yet you’ll do nothing for yourself, and certainly nothing for me. A kind word wouldn’t go amiss every once in a while.’
‘You dare say that to me when I’m stuck in this chair?’ he said coldly.
‘Your legs would be getting stronger if you’d let me help you with your exercises, but instead you sit there and refuse to so much as speak to me,’ Scarlet said, terrified of how quickly the words were flying from her mouth, words she’d kept locked away for so many weeks and months. ‘I am still hoping that the Thomas I know is in there will come back, that this will have all been a bad dream. I don’t want us to be like this,’ she pleaded.
He was quiet, his gaze focused on something outside.
‘Thomas!’ she demanded. ‘Don’t ignore me. We are talking about this now whether you like it or not.’
She marched over to him, stopped in front of him.
‘Thomas, please!’ she insisted.
He lunged at her from his seat, swung his closed fist at her face so fast she barely managed to turn as his knuckles crashed into her cheek, the full force of his punch sending her flying backwards. She hit the window, her head smashing against the window pane so hard she wondered how it hadn’t shattered.
‘Thomas!’ she heard his mother scream.
‘Get out of my house,’ he yelled, slumped forward, half out of his chair. ‘Get out!’
Wives of War Page 28
