by Maggie Ford
‘I want to.’ That she’d let him down she felt keenly. ‘I want to help.’
‘You’re putting yourself in a high place, aren’t you, Jenny, thinking you can do anything for me? I could tell you all of what’s inside me. I could tell you for a hundred years, you still wouldn’t know.’
‘I feel so useless.’
‘Then how the bloody hell do you think I feel?’ His voice had risen, bringing all heads turning in his direction. ‘You all think you know how people like me feel. Trotting out your damned platitudes. “It’s all behind you now – forget it – we’ll make it better – tell you some jokes – snap you out of it. It doesn’t matter that you wake up in a cold sweat, crying out for the friends who died while you stayed alive, feeling bloody guilty for surviving, feeling that you’d trodden on them to stay alive while they died. Why d’you keep crying for the girl whose picture you kept inside your head through all those years, who you thought was waiting for you to come back home, to find it was only a dream? You must get over it.” Well I can’t get over it. And all your bloody understanding, Jenny, isn’t going to help me get over it.’
He stopped as suddenly as he’d begun. Now he stood up, staring around him at the faces turned to him in stunned silence. His parents had come back in to gaze at him in alarm. For a moment he regarded them, then with all those in the day room watching him open-mouthed in the manner of people who feel unable to pinpoint any reason for odd behaviour, he strode from the room.
No one, not even his parents, moved, but Jenny was already on her way, hurrying after him. Thus when she caught him up they were alone. Just one other person could be seen in the corridor, a porter at the far end going about his business.
Taking Matthew by the arm she swung him round to face her and pulled him to her, gathered him in her arms. He came without protest, his head turned so that his cheek rested on her shoulder, allowing his face to bury itself in the hollow of her neck.
Cradling him, she could feel his body being shaken by quiet sobs. She heard herself crooning soft, half-formed words as a mother might do to a hurt child. ‘No, no, dear, no. It’s all right. It’s all right.’ Silly words to a grown man but they afforded the comfort of understanding and shared feelings.
But he was right. How could she share what went on in his mind? Who had any idea what it had really been like for men like him, only from what papers and newsreels showed? She had seen a Nazi concentration camp after its liberation and had been horrified. But by the time accounts of the experiences of the freed emaciated British lads had reached the papers, too much coverage had been devoted to those newsreels of Nazi atrocities for much more to be given to the horrors of Japanese prison camps. The inmates had been too far away. Also they’d been British and American and Australian, men who surely hadn’t succumbed to such barbaric treatment as had those Jews of the concentration camps, their skeletal corpses piled high in ditches for the public to see on cinema screens and the front pages of newspapers. No one saw the thousands of crosses lying deep in the jungle, too deep for photographers to penetrate with their cameras. Why bother? They had the groups of smiling if skeletal freed prisoners to snap. Brits, Yanks, Aussies, Kiwis, with bottles of beer in their hands given them by their rescuers, all doing thumbs-up for the cameraman as they held each other up on matchstick legs, bony arms around each other’s necks. They were all right. They weren’t lying in obvious piles of dead. They were coming back, all of them looking cheerful and victorious as though they’d won a war, and no one saw the horror that lay behind those smiles, the dead comrades who’d forever haunt their dreams. Jenny’s arms tightened about Matthew, imagining the pain for some like him whose wife or sweetheart hadn’t waited for them.
‘It’s all right,’ she murmured again, her face buried in his dark hair that smelled of him, spicy, and of shampoo. ‘Just let me be here for you.’
Suddenly she too was crying. ‘I love you, Matthew. You’re all the world to me. You’ve always been all the world to me. That’s why I’ve never got married. I hoped … I never gave up hope of you coming home. I kept it alive because I …’
She realised all at once what she had been saying. His body had grown calm and he lifted his head, his dark eyes still shining with moisture, looking into hers. Flustered, Jenny dropped her eyes from the gaze that seemed to bore into her. Then she heard his voice, hoarse from grieving for the woman that was his no longer, ‘Jenny, I didn’t know.’
Still looking down, she shrugged dismissively, no longer in command of herself, embarrassed by having her adoration revealed.
‘It’s a private thing,’ she managed to say. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘It does.’
He was looking down upon the crown of her still-bent head, she could feel it. ‘I don’t deserve you, Jenny. If only …’
She looked up as he broke off, but he was moving back from her, putting her from him. She took a deep, fortifying breath and gathered herself up. ‘I’m sorry I let you down, Matthew. I did try hard.’
‘I know.’
Footsteps hurrying along the corridor invaded the private moment. Voices broke in, at once irate and concerned. ‘Matthew! What on earth’s going on? What upset you? You’ll do yourself no good getting so upset. Jenny, what upset him?’ As though he couldn’t talk for himself.
Jenny looked at him and a mutual spark passed silently between them. He was aware now of her feelings, but he had to bow to the stronger obsession that drew him, and she accepted that he felt tenderness towards her, a caring love which couldn’t match that which was destroying him.
‘I have to do this myself,’ he said, mouthing the words so that only she heard them as his parents reached him. Wondering at the words he’d mouthed at her, she had a vision of a man walking knowingly to his doom. He would let Susan destroy him because he wanted her to and there was nothing anyone could do about it.
Chapter 27
‘When do you think you’ll be bringing Mattie to see me again?’
The last time he’d seen her had been August. It was now November. His daughter would be left with the woman who cleaned for his mother a couple of days a week with a few shillings extra to keep an eye on Mattie when they visited.
He’d liked to have said, ‘ordain to bring her’, his mother having the final say in things concerning him, even whether he saw his own daughter or not. Matthew felt bitterness run through him like a trickle of acid as his parents sat looking awkward and concerned. His mother frowned.
‘It’s too cold these days.’
‘It’s warm enough in here.’ Weak as the autumn sun filtering through the conservatory roof was, it was enough to warm up the place considerably apart from a constant draught from the obligatory ever-open top set of windows. Used to so-called healthy draughts, it felt warm enough to him, but his mother had another ready excuse up her sleeve.
‘During the summer, Matthew, she could play in the open, but with winter coming on, it’s boring for her cooped up inside. It would be for any child her age. She’d get on the other patients’ nerves. It’s not fair on them or her.’
And besides, he finished in silent sarcasm, a sanatorium’s no place for a child. True, it wasn’t, but he missed her; missed Susan; felt rebellious.
‘She’s my child.’ His and Susan’s, so like Susan, even at four. He’d feast his eyes on her, still filled with wonder at this his daughter, a surge of love for her twisting inside him so that he wanted to hug her to him. Of course as yet he dared not. TB was catching, not so much from him now, as because all patients came here to this out-of-quarantine visiting area. Visitors were safe at arm’s length, but Mattie had to be discouraged from approaching too near, for her own sake.
Not that she ever came that near to him. To her he was a stranger still, a man she had been told to call Daddy. As a child who had never known one and was still only four years old, she hadn’t any real idea what a daddy was meant to be. His father she called Grandad, his mother Grandma, and she had experienced the
feel of that, but him, he was Daddy in name only. How he longed to clasp her to him and show her what it meant. But if he did, she might ease away from him, his hug unfamiliar, maybe even a little alarming. And that was another reason why he did not try to embrace her.
The weak sun had disappeared without anyone seeing it go. A pale fog moving in from the estuary had begun licking cold white tongues against the glass, promising to rime the lawns outside with frost before morning. His father noticed it and looked at his watch.
‘Nearly four o’clock. We best be getting along, son. You’ll be coming home soon. By the New Year. They’re pleased with your progress. You’ll be with Mattie then, for all the hours you want.’
‘Do call her Matilda, dear,’ interjected his mother, but Matthew hardly heard her.
Five weeks and he’d be home, to do what he liked. And he knew exactly what he would do. But that he would save for later. Five more weeks cut off from outside contact, seeing only the other patients, their visitors, the staff, and occasionally Jenny when she could get time off from her work. He had no letters to read, except from Louise, who was married and in Canada now. There seemed little point in anyone else sending letters when they came each Sunday.
Nor did Jenny write. What would she write about? Work, her life, his health, hers? She knew better than to resort to all that rubbish. His heart lifted at the thought of her. Since that unexpected episode a few Saturdays ago he hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind, the way she had folded her arms around him, drawn him to her, the way she’d whispered her love for him; seemingly it had burst out of her.
And him? Something had stirred in him, but the image of Susan had immediately made him push Jenny away. To feel anything like that for her would destroy the love he nurtured for Susan and he couldn’t bear that. It felt like being caught up in the strangling tendrils of a vine but not wanting them ever to fall away. Yet other than the unlikely hope of any visit from Susan, he found himself waiting for Jenny’s visits more than anyone else’s. But she wasn’t visiting so often as before. She had embarrassed herself too much that day. He wanted to see her to tell her she had no need to feel bad, that he understood. But when she did finally arrive, alone, the first Sunday in December, he said nothing, seeing his planned comment as a platitude, an insult to her feelings.
He was reading Louise’s letter when she came in. Louise sounded full of her life in Canada, making it seem romantic and exciting. She and her husband were so much in love with each other. He was miserably comparing his wrecked marriage to her successful one, wishing she didn’t have to be so full of it. She was promising to come over to see him when they could get the money together for the flight. She’d gone out there by sea, but swore she would never set sail on the sea again; she would use one of the new airlines opened up since the war. However they had started a family, ‘at last’, and she didn’t think it the right thing to do in her condition. She would make it next year once the baby was born, if they could still afford it. ‘You know how much money a baby takes.’
No, he didn’t know. He hadn’t been there when Mattie was a baby. He had just screwed up that letter in a fit of suppressed hate, against whom he wasn’t sure, perhaps circumstances, perhaps himself, when Jenny came in. Thus he was not exactly in any receptive mood to see her.
Sensing it, Jenny sat awkward and self-conscious. ‘I hear you’ll be coming home soon,’ she said for want of something better to say.
She had been to see him only once since her outrageous performance in the corridor, when his parents had caught her in the act of cuddling him. Not that they mattered. Mrs Ward had appeared highly approving. But she had felt a fool, them seeing her holding their son, a married man, to her bosom.
‘When I come home,’ Jenny became aware of a mordant edge to his tone, ‘I might finally be allowed to think for myself.’
‘Don’t you do that now?’ Immediately she saw the inanity of the remark. Here, everyone thought for him, he was powerless to do what he wanted. She knew what was in his mind. Once home he would go and find Susan with no one to stop him, probably taking her daughter with him, confronting Susan with her duties as wife and mother. It would be a disaster. Jenny could see it a mile off, the selfish, spoiled, wilful bitch throwing his pleading back in his face. And where would that leave him? Didn’t he realise the harm he’d be doing himself? She wanted to tell him, warn him, but it would sound presumptuous, could even wreck their friendship, certainly any hope she fostered of anything more than that. Again she squirmed at the way she had held him to her, murmured her stupid words of love. How he had looked at her then, his eyes dark and deep. Recalling it now, had his look been one of understanding and mutual affection, or merely fear and rejection?
It was the best Christmas Susan felt she had ever spent. Just her, Geoffrey and little Trevor. She wondered how Emma Crawley was. She hadn’t come nigh or by since leaving. She and Geoffrey’s boys were living with her sister not far away, but she might as well have been in Timbuctoo. Geoffrey never spoke about her, though now and again he would go and pay a visit for the boys’ sake. It annoyed Susan a bit, but she shrank from complaining, a little superstitious that if she did, she might lose him.
From Matthew’s parents there had been no sound, other than letters from their solicitor to hers. Nothing as yet was moving regarding the divorce, with Matthew playing at delaying tactics all the time. She would have gone to tell him how useless these were, that nothing would induce her to go back to him now, but her solicitor had discouraged it, urging her to leave it all in his hands. But he was taking such a bloody long time about it. Still, he was right, no point rocking the boat. Matthew was well out of the way in that sanatorium near Southend.
She didn’t wish him ill, didn’t hate him or loathe him. Just the illness made her shudder to think how he must be, handsome looks all gone, in their place a gaunt individual who coughed and spat blood and lay pale and vapid – she’d seen it portrayed in films, the victim wasting away, dying in the arms of a lover. She’d always hated hospitals. Even setting foot in one as a visitor made her feel sick and shaky. Having Mattie in one had been bad enough. Thank God she’d had little Trevor at home.
None of these thoughts did she impart to Geoffrey. Why spoil things? Christmas passed like a dream; they’d had a wonderful time indulging in all the goodies he’d brought home. Nineteen forty-seven waited two days off and rationing was becoming less harsh even though the winter was already proving one of the severest they’d known since the one at the beginning of the war. But settled before a bright fire whose rising heat stirred the now-dusty Christmas trimmings, Susan’s whole world was lit up and life couldn’t be sweeter. Matthew was just a memory, at least until the divorce came through. After the New Year the solicitors might get their silly fingers out and get things moving.
But she wouldn’t think about that. She’d just think about her and Geoffrey. Little Trevor was safe asleep in bed, she and Geoffrey had the evening all to themselves. Already in a slinky black nightdress, her dressing gown open to reveal her at her best behind the lace and satin, she was beginning to feel worked up by the way he was looking at her over his glass of whisky. Both their minds were focusing on the same thing. Her insides crawled deliriously as she thought how she intended to make him really happy tonight. In fact they might not even wait to get to bed. She came over, put an enticing arm about his neck, easing herself into his lap.
He grinned at her, and, the whisky glass still in one hand, fondled her breasts with the other, easing them from their flimsy lacy covering. That he kept the glass in his hand while doing so added a certain masterful casualness, heightening her senses even more to see how far this would go before he was compelled to put down the glass. Her dressing gown fell from her shoulders, the straps of the satin nightdress also slipped from her shoulders, letting the garment slither to her waist. Geoffrey’s free hand was beneath the material, fingers manipulating firmly, teasing her desire with uncontrollable force. She moaned. When would h
e put down that damned glass? What was she – his bondmaid to do what he liked with, arousing her until she screamed? Already urgency was rising faster than she could ever remember. She cried out to him, sobbed for him to put down the glass, for God’s sake, she could take no more of this. And yet how wonderful it was – this awakening without him even entering her. What a man she had.
She was hardly aware of the glass finally being put on the sideboard, of him easing her down on the hard lino, but only of his weight on her.
From somewhere came a pounding, like iron being bashed against wood. A voice raised outside in the street came dimly to her. She heard Geoffrey swear, felt his weight ease, became suddenly aware that the street door seemed in danger of being broken down.
‘What is it?’ Angry, she lifted her head that a moment ago had seemed to be spinning, now completely still and filled only with disappointed anger at this untimely disruption.
The voice in the street was demanding entry, the street door rattling on its lock and hinges with a resumption of the pounding it was taking. All sorts of thoughts raced through Susan’s mind. Fire? Trevor fallen out of the window? A drunk? The police – what would they want, bashing on the street door? She thought of Matthew – perhaps he was dead, her husband, and they were here, to inform her. Geoffrey was on his feet, frantically buttoning his fly. Still sitting on the floor, she was equally frantically dragging on her nightdress, gathering her dressing gown about her. Even so, she hissed to him, full of fear of the unknown: ‘Don’t answer it.’
‘I’ve got to. Someone might be in trouble.’
‘It’s not our business, Geoff.’ But she was thinking again of little Trevor upstairs. Was he all right? And then she too was on her feet, trying to find her slippers as Geoffrey, now respectable, made for the hallway.
She heard him open the door, waited to hear a policeman’s voice. What had he to tell them? What she heard made her clutch at her throat. All these many years since she had heard that voice, its deep timbre, yet she recognised it instantly. ‘Where is she?’ it demanded.
