by Maggie Ford
He looked so taken aback, she could have cried. But there was no altering what she had said. ‘I really can’t, Ronald.’
‘Why not?’ For a moment he looked stupid, then he relaxed a little, even grinned. ‘Come on, darling. It is a bit frightening I expect, saying yes. But it’ll be all right. Let’s just sit here quietly for a while. Let you get used to the idea. I shouldn’t have sprung it on you like that. But we don’t have to get married immediately. A few weeks, a couple of months perhaps.’
‘But there’s my mother. She doesn’t know.’
‘Neither do my parents. We’ll tell them as soon as possible. I’ll write to mine and you write to your mother, warn them … no, not warn them, tell them. Oh, Jenny, I’ve dreamed of this day – me giving you a ring and you accepting. We’ll be …’
‘I haven’t accepted yet, Ronald.’
‘What?’
‘I haven’t accepted. You put the ring on my finger, then you grabbed me and cuddled me.’
‘You let me put it on. You let me cuddle you.’
‘I wasn’t thinking. You took me by surprise. It all happened too quickly for me to say anything.’
Comprehension was creeping not so much into his expression, which in the dark she could not properly see, but into his voice, the stiffening of his posture. ‘You mean, you don’t want me? You don’t want to marry me?’ His consternation mounted as Jenny remained silent, unable to trust her voice. ‘But we get on so well.’
‘I know.’ She had to say something. ‘I just don’t … I don’t know.’
‘You don’t love me enough to marry me.’
‘Oh, Ronald.’ What was she trying to appeal to? He got up, took her hand and gently pulled her to her feet.
‘We should be getting back to the hospital. I’m on call tonight.’
‘What about the ring?’ It was as though they were discussing work.
‘Keep it for now. See how you feel as time goes on. I suppose I did jump the gun a bit. But I do love you.’
‘I know you do.’ How could he stay so calm? Another man would be ranting and raving at her now, for letting him down, making a fool of him.
‘Don’t you love me at all?’ was all he said.
Her heart went out to him. How could she say to him, ‘I like you’? How could she insult him like that? In a way she did love him. If only that other face didn’t persist in floating before her eyes. Ronald made her feel good when he was around, feel wanted, feel important. His touch did excite. But when he wasn’t there, she didn’t think about him at all, had never found herself yearning for the time to come for them to meet. So did she love him or not? It seemed she didn’t, yet when she saw him her heart leaped with the pleasure of seeing him. They got on well together, never quarrelled. They could chat until the cows came home. She felt easy with him in a way she had never done with Matthew Ward. But Matthew, though claimed, still haunted her.
‘You took me by surprise,’ she said miserably for an answer as they began making their way out of the darkened park whose gates stood open all night so people could gain access at a moment’s notice to the air-raid shelters built there. ‘Don’t be annoyed.’
‘I’m not annoyed.’ No, he wasn’t annoyed, just deeply hurt.
‘I need time to get used to it. I will keep the ring for a while. And I will think about it, Ronald. I promise.’
After all, she must. Theirs would be a stable marriage, she knew that by just knowing him. She would be a fool not to say yes in the end.
‘Good girl,’ he breathed, his confidence returning, and gave her a thank-you peck on the cheek as they walked on through the darkened streets.
Bombay had hit the troops newly arrived from the sedate, restrained British Isles, most never having set foot on any foreign soil before, not even France, like a bomb. It was an exotic disturbing place, full of disquiet and unheaval. Fine buildings rubbed shoulders with such squalor as Matthew could never have imagined and made him at first feel sickened. But slowly, confronted by its sights and sounds, its unfamiliar aromas and an atmosphere so indigenous that it seemed there could be no other city in the world like this, his eyes became blinded to all but the worst of sights, and all his prayers were those of gratitude that their final destination had been here and nowhere else.
Amid speculation they had pulled in to Gibraltar, spent a day on the Rock while U-boats reported to be lurking outside the Med were being dealt with by the Royal Navy. They hardly had time to see anything Gib had to offer before the ship sailed onward, not into the Mediterranean as had been expected but south, down the coast of Africa, pausing at Cape Town, then round into the Indian Ocean where they finally disembarked at Bombay.
In the pleasant warmth of an Indian November, Matthew sat on his bed writing letters home to say where he had landed up and thought of the chill sleet of England, and of the commission he’d narrowly missed by being too complacent and seeking it too late. Now he saw it as providential that he had not done so. Had he got a commission, who was to say he might not have ended up on some field of battle instead of here. It was providence. He should have known. He had always been pretty lucky in nearly everything.
Leaving her house, Jenny saw Matthew’s wife emerge from hers. They caught sight of each other at the same time; she saw the girl hesitate and almost draw back as though about to hurry back indoors. But Jenny wasn’t to be avoided. She turned in her direction, her steps rapid. ‘Hi, there!’
She had been aching for weeks to have a chat with her, telling herself it was of no consequence to her if she didn’t, yet feeling a compulsion to look over to the Wards’ house every time she came home. She’d told herself she was only coming home at every opportunity for her mother’s sake, yet a tiny voice inside her kept repeating the true reason for her visits. That tiny voice was telling her now of the truth behind the avid eagerness with which she called out, ‘Hi, there!’
The girl smiled, nodded briefly, but the ice was broken.
In seconds Jenny was at her side. ‘Haven’t seen much of you since we were introduced.’ She was talking like some schoolgirl, far too fast, far too exuberant.
Susan shook her head rather solemnly. ‘I haven’t been out a lot.’
‘Well, I only get home at odd times. That’s a nurse’s life for you.’ She laughed.
‘You’re a nurse?’
‘Didn’t Matthew mention it?’
‘No, he didn’t.’
They had begun to walk towards the main road, Jenny hiding her disappointment that Matthew hadn’t thought of her even enough to mention her job to his wife. But then, he wouldn’t, would he?
‘Where are you off to, then?’ she asked and saw the girl shrug.
‘I don’t know really. I just had to get out for a walk somewhere. I was going to the park, but it don’t matter much where I go.’
She sounded so down. Jenny took a quick guess at what must have driven the girl out. She herself wouldn’t relish being closeted with Mrs Ward for days on end. Her own mother with her constant small complaints of loneliness was enough to endure, but Jenny reckoned Mrs Ward could knock spots off Mumsy for driving a person away.
‘It’s a bit chilly for walking,’ she observed as she fell in beside her. A thin fog was threatening to thicken. It clung with cold fingers around cheeks and lips and penetrated the shoulders of the heaviest coat. In mid November, elsewhere on the Continent, flurries of dry snow probably covered everything in glorious pristine white – she still felt a thrill at new fresh snow for all its inconvenience – but here it only got damp and any snow that might fall would soon melt on this seawashed island. Yet she’d rather have all the peasouper fogs unconquered England could dish out than the dazzling whiteness of an occupied Europe. Nineteen forty-two waited just six weeks away – how much longer would this war go on and when would Matthew come home again?
‘Have you heard from Matthew?’
Susan appeared to brighten up. ‘We had his first letters in the week. Airmail. One for me and o
ne for his parents. From India, Bombay.’
A vast surge of relief poured over Jenny. Far far away from any fighting. Thank God, oh, thank God.
‘That’s good,’ she said evenly. ‘I bet you’re glad.’
Susan nodded. ‘I wish he was here instead. I wanted to tell him my news to his face, not in a letter. It won’t be the same written in a letter. Oh, if only he’d been able to stay here a few weeks longer, I could’ve told him to his face and seen it all light up. I’m going to have a baby.’
‘Oh, I’m so glad for you.’ It was even more of an effort to keep her voice steady. Marriage, now cemented by a forthcoming baby. ‘You must be very thrilled.’
Susan didn’t look thrilled. ‘I would be if it wasn’t for her, his mother. She’s really pleased of course. But she’s started making plans for it already, telling me what I should do and what I shouldn’t do. I really feel like I’m in a prison.’
The same as Matthew had felt; his mother’s over-eagerness to guide and help had only been instrumental in sending him away from her. She felt suddenly sad for Mrs Ward, only able to express love by managing the lives of those around her, succeeding only in driving them away with their misguided conception of her actions. Even Louise, with that time she had secretly applied for the Wrens. She had confided in Jenny. ‘I never told Mummy at that time until I was quite sure I would be accepted,’ she’d said. ‘But honestly, Jenny, she can be quite suffocating at times.’ Exactly as Matthew had felt, and now Susan.
‘I don’t know how long I’ll be able to stand it,’ Susan was saying. She had begun to screw up beneath her winter coat, the damp cold eating into her small frame. ‘She watches me all the time. Everything I eat, everything I do. I was sick first thing yesterday morning. That confirmed it but she carted me off to the doctor to be sure. I hate doctors. I hate the smell of their waiting rooms, and ill people all round the room.’
She seemed bent on unburdening herself to someone. ‘I was sick again this morning and she said I should stay in bed. She kept coming in every half-hour to see how I was. I don’t want to stay in bed. She said I wasn’t to go out, I’d catch cold, but I came out just the same. I know it’ll annoy her. She’ll be all stiff and starched with me when I get back, like I was a kid, or something. I wish Matthew was here. He’d stick up for me.’
She was beginning to shiver. She seemed so small; a waif. ‘Perhaps some evenings when I’m home,’ Jenny offered readily, ‘if you want to come over to us for a chat, you’re welcome. It’ll get you out of that house.’
She felt she had never seen anyone look so grateful. ‘Could I?’
‘Of course.’ Also Susan would keep her abreast of news of Matthew, though Jenny didn’t admit to it even to herself, for all the tiny voice inside did.
The following ten days saw Jenny on nights, taking over from a girl who had gone down sick. Sleeping most of the day, she was unable to honour the invitation to Susan. But she had managed to get Christmas off. Ronald, still waiting for her answer, had asked to take her home to see his parents, but it seemed only right to think of her mother first on this, the one special family holiday of the year. On top of that it was a time when Mumsy would be thinking of Daddy, who had died just one month before the festive season, for all the years were stretching on.
She hadn’t told her mother about Ronald yet. The first thing she’d do would be to start fretting about the impending loss of her daughter, as if Jenny would forsake her entirely. Maybe all mothers felt that way but most wouldn’t make a meal of it. Not that Mumsy meant to drag on her, but Jenny found herself dreading the day when she must tell her.
That she would marry Ronald was in no doubt. He was kind and considerate and steady, and she did love him – not in the silly way she’d felt for Matthew – still did, she was ashamed to realise, constantly telling herself off about this idiotic wishing for something that couldn’t be – but in a comfortable way which common sense told her would last and last.
It did seem a shame to keep fobbing him off so. Perhaps she would tell him her decision when the spring came and the spirits rose with the climbing of the sun. These days she had no deep feeling for love or anything approaching it. The weather stayed too cold for strolling in parks, so they went to the Natural History Museum, had tea in its restaurant, talking of this and that. He held her hand and gazed at the ring she’d begun to wear when with him, capitulating at last. He spoke of marriage, their future together, again broached the subject of her coming home with him to see his parents, if not Christmas Day, then Boxing Day.
‘I know it sounds churlish,’ she told him. ‘But my mother’s all alone. I couldn’t dream of leaving her as soon as Christmas is over. She’s made a Christmas pudding too. Saved up her dried fruit coupons all year for the thing. She’d be left to eat the rest all by herself on Boxing Day. They don’t keep, you know, not like they used to before the war.’
For some reason he thought that funny. His laughter annoyed her for yet some other unaccountable reason.
‘I just couldn’t leave her,’ she stated huffily. The pudding had been just an excuse. It wasn’t funny, at least not all that much. Even less, again for some unknown reason, when she remembered that there would come a time when he would insist on naming the wedding day. Why did her insides crawl with reluctance at that thought? Later as she melted into his arms, she wondered why she had felt so reluctant. This was what she wanted, or what common sense told her she must want. Security, friendship, someone to be with, all of those things. And of course love. She did love Ronald, she told herself severely.
Monday came again, one more week nearer to Christmas. Jenny was working, swotting for her second state examination as she had been doing these past months while Ronald worked and studied towards becoming a GP. She had been nearly two years doing practical work on the wards. A couple of years had to pass yet before she could add SRN after her name, though perhaps in wartime it might come quicker. But would she ever get it, now that she appeared to be Ronald’s fiancée?
She was just going on the ward when a nurse came hurrying towards her. ‘Telephone call for you, love. Better cut short whoever it is or you’ll make yourself late.’
‘Did they say who it is?’ Jenny called as she made her way to the old-fashioned phone fastened to the wall down the passage. Her heart had begun to beat. It could only be bad news. Her mother? She had been all right when she’d left home an hour ago.
‘Didn’t say,’ came back the answer, but Jenny was already there, her ear to the earpiece.
‘Hello? Hello.’
A girl’s frantic voice assailed her ears. ‘Jenny – oh, thank God it’s you. I tried to get you before you left. But you’d already gone. I had to talk to someone.’
‘Who is it?’ Jenny interrupted the tirade, not recognising the voice.
‘Susan, across the road. I must speak to you. There’s no one else.’
‘Susan, what’s the matter?’ She felt just a little peeved being made late by Susan’s trivial need to phone her. Nothing at all to do with her mother.
‘Haven’t you heard the news on the wireless?’ The girl’s voice still held a note of panic. ‘Japan’s just declared war on America, and us. They’ve bombed a base belonging to America, called Pearl Harbor, in the Pacific. Matthew’s out there in India. I’m so worried.’
Jenny’s mind flitted over past world atlases of her childhood, the Indian continent marked in pink, Siam and similar countries further east in yellow, then pink again for Malaya, Borneo, Australia. The Pacific, light blue, dwarfed all else. Where Pearl Harbor was she had no idea but it belonged to the USA and was probably somewhere in the Hawaiian islands. Far away from India. Matthew was safe.
‘Susan, if war breaks out there, do you know how far away from it Matthew will be? A good couple of thousand miles at least. If he was still stationed here in England he’d be nearer to a war zone. So there’s nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.’
The voice at the other end had calmed a little
. ‘I’ve sent off an airmail letter to him to tell him about the baby. He’ll get it in a day or two. I know he’ll be thrilled. You are sure about him being safe in India?’
‘I couldn’t be surer,’ Jenny said, smiling into the mouthpiece. She was going to be late. ‘I must go, Susan. I’m at work. See you soon.’
She replaced the receiver and hurried off. She wouldn’t be able to listen to the wireless until she came off duty. Perhaps by then there might be a bit more about this new war so far away. But one thing was certain. Matthew, soon to be a father, was indeed safe and it was best not to let her mind keep dwelling on him.
Chapter 14
Among other things, some of the garrison were staging a panto for Christmas and requests had gone out for anyone with talent wanting to join the chorus to come forward. All the acting roles had of course long since gone to those who’d been stationed there some time.
‘Go on, Matt,’ Bob urged, hearing about it. ‘You’ve not got a bad voice. How about giving your tonsils an airing?’
Matthew had his pencil poised over a blank air letter. Seventh of December already and he needed to write to Susan again. He was waiting for one from her. It should come any moment but in the meantime …
He looked up, gave a small explosive chuckle of self-derision. ‘One sound from me and I’d be given the about-turn.’
‘Don’t be daft. It’s not half bad, your voice. Now, me, I’d turn lemons sour. Go on, have a go.’
Again Matthew chuckled, but the idea was tempting. He was bored. Life here was one round of ticking over, being given jobs just to kill time and keep men occupied: in the soporific air of old colonial India they painted flagstaffs, whitewashed stones around brigade HQ, cleaned windows, swept paths, spit-and-polished equipment, attended parades and spent the hotter parts of the day in cool schoolrooms, the strong sunlight thwarted by fretted shutters, the still air stirred by squeaking, slowly revolving fans. With time to laze in the shade, seek somewhere to booze away an evening, what at first seemed delightful had quickly palled.
