by Annie Murray
She walked along, struggling still to understand it for herself.
‘When you’re working there, they’re very strict about not getting close to patients, and if anything happens no one wants to talk about it. It’s the professional thing. The patients think we’re all angels and we have to behave as if nothing affects us.’
‘Sounds like the army,’ Reggie said. ‘Well, except for the angels bit. It’s more, you know, fighting men – made of stone.’
She looked at him. ‘Yes, I suppose so. I hadn’t thought of it like that. And you can’t go blarting all over the patients, can you? Or running about in a panic. That’s no help. But I don’t know how you’re supposed to . . . Anyway, there was Mr Palmer – he was a black man . . .’
She told him about Mr Palmer and Mr Stafford and finally Mr Alexander, that image she could not shake from her head of looking along the ward, seeing his body prone in the doorway. The body of a young, good-looking man who moments before had been walking along, getting better . . .
‘God,’ Reggie said.
‘One minute he’s talking to me about poetry and all sorts – the next . . .’
She stopped, shaking her head. ‘It’s . . . you feel you can’t control anything. It’s all slipping away and . . . and . . .’ She couldn’t say it, not to him – Whenever I love someone, something terrible happens.
‘Yeah,’ was all Reggie said. But he said it as if he had some idea what she was talking about.
She looked at him again. He smiled, shyly, then looked away.
‘How about we go and get a cup of tea?’ he said. ‘I could do with one, I don’t know about you.’
They had tea and scones in the Lickey Hills tea rooms just before they closed.
Once they got there, Melly felt wrung out and distant again, even though he had been kind and helped her. She couldn’t help it; she seemed to shut down inside. By the time they got back to Harborne she was wiped out and needing to sleep.
‘So – you’re at work tomorrow?’ he said as they drew up at the house.
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Shame.’ He helped her out of the car. A real gent, she thought later but at the time she was desperate to go and lie down. She hardly knew what she was saying.
‘It’s been really nice, Reggie, thanks. And I hope everything goes well for you when you get back to Worcester.’
‘Right – thanks.’ He seemed deflated. As if he was disappointed but trying not to show it. ‘Nice to see you, Melly.’
She waved him off from the front. Going into the house, she went straight up to her room. The rest of the family were watching telly. Canned laughter floated up the stairs. She lay straight down on her bed and fell asleep.
Forty-Eight
How long am I going to go on feeling like this? Melly thought as she walked home from work the next afternoon. I’m like an old lady.
A day in the sweet shop was not difficult but it still wore her out. Her feet ached. She could not clear her muzzy head. All she wanted was to go home and lie down.
As she was nearing the house, her heartbeat picked up speed at the sight of two people standing outside, talking. Tommy’s blue three-wheeler was parked and in front of it, the red sports car. By the three-wheeler was Tommy, leaning on his stick, talking to Reggie Morrison who was leaning on his. Like two old men, she thought sadly. But what was Reggie doing here again? She thought she had said a final goodbye to him yesterday.
Surely Reggie was not interested in her – especially after all her carry-on yesterday? She realized she still saw Reggie as someone much older, more superior than herself. But a little, remembered pulse of excitement began to beat in her again. Reggie . . . Reggie Morrison . . .
The two of them were bent over the Invacar, Tommy showing Reggie the controls. Melly was tempted to slip past into the house but they both looked up as she came along.
‘Reggie’s here!’ Tommy announced happily.
‘Yeah,’ Melly said. ‘I can see. All right, Reggie?’
She turned away but Reggie hurried after her.
‘Melly?’ He touched her arm to stop her. ‘I just came over to see if you . . . Well, if you was feeling better. You . . . We . . .’ He seemed flustered. In the afternoon light she saw a scattering of stubble in his chin, like salt. He spoke fast as if he was afraid she might reject him before he had finished.
‘We never said goodbye proper, like. And I wanted to see if Auntie’s any better and . . .’ He was almost gabbling. ‘Today – I was going to go over to Wally’s grave and I thought you might come with me and Mom and Dad said to bring you in to say hello – they haven’t seen you in ages.’
This was true. But why on earth did Reggie want her company when she was so miserable and drab? He must feel sorry for her, that was what it was. She shrugged.
‘All right. If you want.’ She kept her voice flat. ‘I could do with a cup of tea first, though. Come in and see Auntie. She’s a bit better.’
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Afterwards?’
‘Yeah. I said – yes.’ She heard her own sharpness again. She could not understand herself.
Tommy went to stow his car away. Reggie went up to see Gladys and after a quick cuppa with the family, they set out in the car again.
Melly told herself grumpily that whatever Reggie wanted it wasn’t her. It might just have been company of any kind. She sat back in the cramped car seat, telling herself that none of it mattered anyway.
‘Auntie’s not looking too good,’ Reggie remarked.
‘She’s got a bit of a chest,’ Melly said. ‘But she is better. You should’ve seen her the other night.’
‘She knows she can’t go back there, doesn’t she?’
‘Did she say that? Dad says she can’t – the place is in a right state.’ They swung towards town. Wally was buried the other side, in Witton cemetery. ‘She was going to have to get out sooner or later.’
‘Stubborn old bird she is. She doesn’t like being forced into it.’ He shook his head. ‘Funny, isn’t it – the old end. Mom and Dad always say there was nowhere like it, even though where they live now’s like a palace to that.’
‘Mo’s still going back to the Salutation, isn’t he? It’s not as if everyone was nice, though,’ Melly said. She couldn’t look at the shabby, broken-down yard through rose-tinted spectacles. ‘Lil was always nice – she’s still hanging on. But some of them . . .’
‘Old Jackman and his missis – miserable pair of sods. And d’you remember that lot at number four – the blonde?’
‘Irene Sutton. Oh, God,’ Melly said, laughing at the memory of her. ‘And poor little Evie. Auntie said she saw her – a while back – in town. Said she was ever so pretty.’
‘She always was sweet looking from what I remember.’
‘That terrible mother of hers . . .’
‘D’you want the roof down?’
‘Not if you want to hear yourself think,’ Melly said.
Reggie glanced at her. ‘No. All right then.’
‘Have you got any flowers?’
‘What for?’
‘Wally’s grave, of course.’
‘Oh – no. I never thought.’ He gave a laugh. ‘Never mind – he’d’ve called me a right cissy turning up with a bunch of flowers. Mom comes every week with some.’
Leaving the car, they walked amid the quiet stones to the grave of Walter James Morrison, the dates 1933–1954 telling the story of a life cut short far too young. There were already fresh yellow chrysanths on the grave in a stone vase. From the corner of her eye Melly saw Reggie lower his head for a moment, then look away. She wondered if he would cry; if he ever did cry.
She thought about Wally, a big, grown-up man to her, when she was young. Now she realized that when he died, he had been less than two years older than she was now. The thought tore at her heart. Hardly thinking, she reached for Reggie’s hand. He glanced at her, startled, then gripped hers back. They stood there for several minutes, the warmth of the
ir hands increasing in each other’s. His hand felt big, very solid. When they turned to leave, they let go.
‘I want to say I’m sorry, Reggie,’ she said. ‘That it happened and everything.’ No words seemed the right ones, but some had to do. She was glad she had been a nurse even for a little while. It taught you that you can at least say something. ‘It seems a bit late. And a bit . . . I mean, not much to say, that’s all. I never said it then – you were in hospital and everything.’
‘Thanks.’ They walked back towards the gates. Reggie shook his head. ‘It was the worst time I can remember. I wanted to die myself, I really did. But now – well, I don’t feel that any more.’
‘Good,’ she said, though this seemed even more inadequate than what she had said before. She felt as if she might weep again, but she swallowed the feeling away.
Their eyes met for a moment and they both smiled shyly. Reggie’s face, so familiar, so loved once, stirred something in her. A warmth spread through her, a gladness at being here with him.
Reggie looked at her, seeing the tears in her eyes. He seemed moved. He looked down, then back at her. ‘Melly . . .’ he began. But he could not seem to finish. ‘Come on –’ he started walking again – ‘Mom and Dad want to see you.’
Even now, Melly was amazed by the house in Moseley. They swept into the elegant road of enormous, ornate Edwardian houses, set back from the road with front gardens. As they drew up she saw Mo straighten from where he was bending over a flower bed. He waved, a grin spreading across his face.
Melly beamed back at him, full of affection. Mo had always been in her life somewhere, like a good-natured rock. She remembered him saying, ‘They dain’t know what’d hit them in this street when we arrived. But I think they decided we don’t bite.’ It was certainly a posh street compared to what they were used to, and Mo and Dolly were immensely proud of their lovely house. They kept their garden neat and did their best to be neighbourly and respectable. Even though they did not mix naturally with their neighbours, they seemed to have settled in well enough.
‘Dolly – look who’s here!’ Mo called through the front door.
Dolly appeared looking lovely as ever in a navy frock, daubed with bright colours – red, green and yellow – with a full, swinging skirt. She wore her hair shoulder length, parted on the left and curled up at the ends. As usual she had a cigarette in her hand.
‘You look like a model!’ Melly said as Dolly flung her arms round her, wreathing her in smoke.
‘Hello, bab!’ Dolly squeezed her tight. ‘Ooh, it’s lovely to see you! Gladys’s told me all about how you’ve been getting on. She said you’d been poorly.’ Dolly stepped back and her brown eyes searched Melly’s face. ‘How’re you feeling, darlin’? You still look a bit pale and peaky to me.’
‘I’m all right,’ Melly said. ‘She’s the poorly one now.’
‘Poor old Glad.’ Dolly steered her, an arm round her shoulders, into the elegant, tiled hall and through into the back. Dolly and Mo still spent most of their time in the huge kitchen with its red quarry-tiled floor and a big table. It always felt cosy in there.
‘I’ve made nice beef stew and you, my girl, are staying to have some tea with us.’
‘She still cooks as though there’s an army of us living at home,’ Reggie said. ‘No wonder our Donna’s getting fat.’
‘Don’t talk so silly,’ Dolly said. ‘She’s not.’ She looked at them both, wide-eyed. ‘Did you go? Are my flowers . . . ?’
‘They still look nice, Mom,’ Reggie said.
‘Call your father in,’ she said. ‘It’s all ready – Mo’s picked some of the new spuds and they’re lovely. Bit of mint in them. Freddie’s out, Melly. There’s just Donna here.’
Donna Morrison was now fifteen and not far off leaving school. Melly had not seen her in a good while and when Donna walked into the room she actually gasped. Black-haired and brown-eyed like her mother, she had always been pretty but now she had developed into a stunner. Fat she definitely was not. She had a beautiful, curving figure.
‘Oh, Donna – you look lovely!’
Donna blushed. ‘Thanks,’ she said, shyly slipping on to a chair. They all sat round the table. ‘You all right, Melly?’
‘Yeah, ta.’
‘Mom said you’re not doing your nursing any more.’ Donna had a soft, husky voice. ‘Have you given it up?’ she asked.
Melly looked down, trying to think what to say. At home everyone just took it for granted that she was now going to keep working on the market and in some other job – any old thing. There would be no more nursing now. She hardly dared ask herself this question.
‘I don’t really know,’ she said, blushing.
Luckily they were interrupted by Dolly bossing them to pass things and telling Mo to go and scrub his nails. Melly sank into the comfort and familiarity of it all.
The kitchen was lovely, with light sloping through the big window and all Dolly’s pans on shelves and pots of herbs growing on the windowsill, a starched white cloth on the table. And everything was as it should be – Dolly ordering Mo about and him thriving on it. They were both so kind. They ate Dolly’s delicious cooking and chatted and reminisced and Melly slowly began to feel better, as if something was unknotting itself inside her and she was growing back into a whole person, instead of the drab, half-alive thing she had been all this time. She found she was laughing more easily and with Mo about, there was always laughing to be done.
‘So is Glad on the mend?’ Dolly asked, leaning towards her, elbows on the table. ‘I must get over there.’
‘She’s better, but she’s none too happy,’ Melly said.
‘Oh, she’ll come round,’ Dolly said. ‘Poor old Glad, she’s been hanging on to that old place long after she should’ve gone. It’s so run down and the neighbours aren’t . . .’
‘They aren’t what they used to be, is that what you’re saying, Doll?’ Mo laughed, topping up his glass of ale. ‘Not the class of person old Glad’s used to, eh?’
‘Well, they aren’t!’ Dolly laughed. ‘It’s not like it used to be in the old days. We had to pull together – especially during the war. But those cramped old bug-ridden wrecks of houses! She can find herself a much better place to rent over your way.’
It was a lovely, relaxed evening and when Melly said she ought to be getting back, Dolly hugged her again.
‘Now next time, I want to see you with more colour in your cheeks. And –’ she picked up a strand of Melly’s hair – ‘we’ll do summat about this. I can give it a cut for you – liven you up a bit, eh, bab?’
It was impossible to take offence at Dolly. ‘All right,’ Melly said, smiling. ‘If you like.’
Reggie drove her home. Things felt friendlier than yesterday as they parted.
‘Thanks, Reggie,’ she said, when he dropped her off. ‘I’ve had a lovely time. It was nice to see them.’
Reggie was quiet for a moment. He kept his hands on the steering wheel.
‘Tell you what,’ he said. He stared out through the windscreen. ‘Tomorrow’s my last night. Why don’t you come over again? Our mom’d love it. She can cut your hair and we could go out somewhere.’
Melly looked at him with a sense of wonder. She realized he was afraid to look at her, in case she said no. She had a moment of acute awareness of him next to her, every line of him, the man she had known for so long. Who would have thought she could have ended up here, sitting beside him.
‘Go on, say yes,’ he said softly. ‘After that I’ve got to go and I need to know . . .’ He hesitated. ‘Just say you’ll come.’ He turned to her. ‘Little Melly.’
She looked into his eyes, moved by the tenderness in his voice. She saw an earnestness that meant he was not playing with her. And how lovely it had been today with him. But she mustn’t expect anything more. She didn’t want to go through all that again. Tomorrow would be the last time and then he would be gone. He would forget about her.
‘All right then.’ She kep
t her voice light, protecting herself, pushing the car door open. ‘Ta, Reggie. See you tomorrow.’
Forty-Nine
By the time Reggie called at the house, Melly was pacing up and down in the kitchen, waiting jumpily for the knock at the door.
While her mind was sternly telling her one thing – Reggie would soon be gone and none of this meant anything – she had found herself dashing home from work to brush out her hair, tie it back in a swinging ponytail and put on her favourite clothes. Reggie had said something about going out and she wasn’t going in that dismal old grey work skirt!
It was a warm evening and she wore a cornflower blue cotton skirt and a white blouse with three-quarter length sleeves. She had a navy cardigan to go over the top. It was the first time in a long time she had paid any attention to her appearance.
In the mirror her face still looked pale and pinched, but it suited her having her hair back and she saw a light in her own eyes that had not been there before. She did not dare to ask herself why she was taking so much trouble, why she felt so excited.
‘Oh!’ Rachel said when she went downstairs. Melly was taken aback by how surprised and pleased she seemed. ‘You look better. Where’re you off to?’
‘Just going out with Reggie for a bit.’ Her face covered in blushes, she lowered her head, pretending to adjust her hair.
‘What – again?’ Rachel’s voice was full of meaning.
Melly flung her cardigan over her arm and hurried to the front door. As she stepped outside, Reggie’s car was roaring along the road towards her. She found a shy smile spreading over her face.
‘She’s deadly serious! She said to come, didn’t she?’
Reggie had announced that they were going over to Moseley so that his mom could wash and set Melly’s hair.
