Pattern of Shadows

by Judith Barrow

‘It’s not funny.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ Mary said, ‘I just didn’t think …’

  ‘Bit like you not using your head about Peter. The war might be over, just about, but we don’t know what’s going to happen and you can’t carry on like this. Anyway, you told me he’s married. He’ll go back home, once he’s released. Back to his wife.’

  Mary closed her eyes. ‘He might not. I’ve heard they’re allowing some to stay if they want. I just need to talk to him.’

  Ellen came out into the yard. ‘I’m going to have to move you two,’ she said. ‘I’m putting the sheets out.’ She unfurled the line off the hook on the wall and carried one end over to a large nail in the doorframe of the lavatory where she fastened it with a bulky knot. ‘Get me the prop, our Mary. I’ll need some help putting this lot out before you go to work or the sun will be off the yard. Mam’s no use. She’s sneaked out the front door. I think she’s gone up to Mr Brown’s.’

  ‘Oh Lord, not again.’

  ‘Still having trouble?’ Jean said. ‘I thought she’d stopped.’

  ‘She’s better than she was,’ Mary said. ‘It’s him, it started again as soon as he came home. Ellen being back has helped a bit, but Mr Brown’s a really bad influence on her.’ She put her arms around her friend and heaved her out of the kitchen chair they’d brought outside. ‘God, you’re a lump now. Are you sure it’s not twins?’

  ‘Cheeky beggar,’ Jean giggled then gasped and held her side. ‘There’s something going on in there today: feel.’

  Mary held her hand over Jean’s stomach; there was a rippling motion under her fingers. She laughed and caught Ellen watching, misery etched on her face.

  ‘Ellen.’ Ellen shook her head. ‘I’m all right.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Ellen.’ Jean stood still, waiting to get her balance. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’

  ‘It’s fine.’ Ellen set her lips and dumped the wash basket of wet clothes on the chair Jean had just left. A rhythmic thumping began and clouds of dust rose above the adjoining wall between the back yards. Ellen climbed on top of the dustbin and scowled at the woman beating a hearthrug on the washing line. ‘Mrs Jagger, you’ve done this for as long as I can remember. Every time we put our washing out you beat your bloody rugs. Why can’t you wash on a Monday like everybody else?’ There was a mumbled reply.

  ‘Well,’ Ellen declared, ‘carry on and you’ll find out what I’ll do about it. I’m not my mother and I won’t stand for it.’ She climbed down. ‘It’s taken me all morning to do that lot. I’m not letting the old cow muck it up again. Help me move the mangle out of the way, Mary, and then we can peg out.’

  ‘It’s heavy. We should leave it until Patrick comes back. He can shift it again. We can work round it. I’ll help to peg out the sheets in a minute.’

  ‘Right, thanks.’

  ‘I’ll get Jean inside first. I won’t be a minute.’

  ‘I’ve upset her,’ Jean murmured as she waddled across the yard.

  ‘It’s not difficult at the moment, between the baby and Mam.’ Mary stood behind Jean at the back door and guided her through.

  ‘Is there any way I can help?’

  ‘No, you’ve enough to think about. Get things sorted between you and Patrick. From what you said earlier he needs a good talking to. He should be looking after you at this time not being so irritable.’

  ‘He’s got a lot on his mind, at the moment between worrying about me and still having trouble in work with that bloke he had that fight with before.’

  ‘And he’s not told you what that was about?’

  ‘No, but he is one of those who opposed the strike so perhaps that’s it. And Patrick does feel bad about Tom, you know, about not going to see him before.’

  ‘I really don’t know what’s happening with Tom, I’m worried sick.’

  ‘You’re at it again, mithering about everybody else. Stop it. And we’re fine, Patrick and me, honest.’

  Mary shrugged as she helped Jean on to a chair by the table. ‘Hmm, if you say so, we certainly don’t need him going back to how he used to be.’

  ‘He’ll be better when the baby’s here.’ Jean wriggled about trying to get comfortable. ‘I’ll be glad when it’s all over.’

  ‘I’ll be glad when a lot of things are all over,’ Mary said.

  There was a loud knocking on the front door. As Mary went to answer it she found herself thinking yet again, What now?

  Chapter 59

  She closed the door and leant against it, pressing her knuckles to her mouth. The rushing noise filled her head and she was cold. The rose pattern on the hall wallpaper spun as she stared in front of her.

  ‘Mary? Are you coming to help me with these sheets or not?’ Ellen called from the kitchen, impatience in her voice.

  Mary pulled the front door open again and gulped in air, hanging on to the doorframe. An old man shambled past, staring at her with curiosity.

  ‘Mary? What is it? Ellen touched her shoulder. She ducked under Mary’s arm to look at her. ‘Come on in.’ She helped Mary into the hall, pushing backwards with her foot to close the door. ‘Come and sit down.’ In the kitchen she lowered Mary on to a chair at the table and sat opposite her. ‘Is it Mam?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Patrick?’ Jean whispered.

  ‘It’s Tom.’

  Ellen put a hand to her mouth. ‘What? What’s happened?’

  Mary folded her arms across her waist. ‘He’s on hunger strike. He hasn’t eaten for nearly a fortnight. He’s ill,’ she said. ‘I knew it, I knew there was something wrong.’

  ‘Why?’ Ellen whispered.

  ‘Who was that at the door?’ Jean asked.

  ‘A constable, he didn’t say why, he just said they’d had a message at the station to come and tell us.’

  They stared at each other. Jean was the first to speak. ‘Is he in the prison hospital? Have they said you can see him?’

  ‘Yes! No!’ Mary swallowed, tears still threatening. ‘They took him to the hospital wing yesterday. After last time, when he escaped, they won’t take him to the civilian hospital. We’re still not allowed to visit.’ She tried to breathe slowly. ‘It’s like he has no rights. Just what the hell have they been doing to him?’ She stared at them. ‘That policeman, he was so matter of fact. He said that he’d just come to tell me that Mister Thomas Howarth, currently detained at His Majesty’s pleasure in Wormwood Scrubs, is on hunger strike. Just like that. He said it just like that.’ Her voice rose. ‘And then he said, “Has been on hunger strike for the last fourteen days.” For God’s sake. As though it wasn’t important.’

  ‘Try to stay calm, love.’ Jean placed her hands flat on the table and pushed herself up. ‘I’ll get home and tell Patrick.’ She stroked Mary’s hair. ‘He’ll know what to do.’

  ‘We could demand to see Tom,’ Ellen’s voice wobbled.

  ‘There’s no point,’ Mary said, ‘they’d not let us in.’ She’d stopped trembling. ‘I’ll walk back to your house with you,’ she said to Jean.

  ‘It’s only two streets away.’

  ‘I’ll see Jean home, Mary,’ Ellen said, blowing her nose. ‘I can do that.’

  ‘You should go in to work, Mary,’ Jean said. ‘Sort out that business you were talking about before.’

  ‘I couldn’t.’

  ‘I’ll finish putting the sheets out while you decide,’ Ellen said. ‘That still needs doing.’

  ‘Leave the mangle.’

  ‘It can stay where it is, it’s not important.’ Ellen hurried out.

  ‘There’s nothing you can do yet,’ Jean said. ‘Go to work.’

  ‘Patrick?’

  ‘I’ve said, I’ll tell Patrick. He’ll know what to do. He can tell Mam as well.’

  ‘Mam! Oh my God, Jean, you know what she’s like about Tom. This will be the final straw for her.’

  ‘Patrick and I will see to her.’ Jean said. ‘You go to work.’

  ‘I feel I should stay here … in case
there’s more news about Tom.’ Mary was torn. ‘We should be deciding what to do together. But I need to go into work as well. Find out …’

  ‘Look, Mary, I know I’ve been wasting my breath about this business with Peter. I don’t agree with it but I can see what you’re going through. So go and sort it if you can, but for God’s sake be careful. If there is any more news about Tom, I’ll send Patrick up to the Granville.’

  Mary stood up. ‘You’ll be all right?’

  ‘I’ll be fine.’

  ‘I’ll go and get my uniform on. I’m going to ask Matron what’s happening about Peter. I have to know.’

  Chapter 60

  Mary looked up every time the doors to the ward opened but there’d been no sign of Peter Schormann. When Matron came in to check the medicine supplies with Mary, she was brusque and unapproachable. As soon as they finished she strode through the ward doors. ‘Fill in your reports, Sister, and let me have them as soon as possible. I have a busy schedule before I leave this evening.’

  Mary hurried after her. ‘Matron, there is one thing. Doctor Schormann.’

  ‘Is none of your business, Sister.’ Matron whirled around, glaring. ‘Now, those reports?’

  Mary persisted. ‘I only wanted to know.’ Matron’s eyebrows almost disappeared under her cap but Mary continued. ‘I was simply concerned as I was the one who reported it.’

  ‘Lest we forget,’ Matron said sarcastically, ‘it is none of our business what occurs within the prisoners’ camp, Sister Howarth. However, if only to let me get on with my work, and for you to get on with yours …’ She glanced towards one of the nurses who trundled past them with a trolley full of bedpans and moved closer to Mary. ‘The Commandant informed me that four prisoners were arrested and the matter will be dealt with in due course.’

  She frowned as Mary said. ‘It was just that I hadn’t seen Doctor Schormann.’

  ‘You are here to do your job, Sister. Not to ask impertinent questions. But since you persist. The Commandant suggested I put you on different shift to Doctor Schormann for the time being and, unless it is impossible to manage, that is what I intend doing.’ She turned on her heel and left.

  Mary bit her lip. There was nothing she could do except keep a lookout for Peter. All she wanted to know was that he was safe.

  After her shift, Mary made herself a cup of tea in the staff room and waited by the window overlooking the compound. She’d seen the Commandant going towards his office, followed closely by a group of soldiers but nothing else. Still no Peter. Matron appeared at the door and looked pointedly at her watch and then at Mary; she’d no choice but to leave.

  Before going into work she’d telephoned Wormwood Scrubs from the Post Office to request a visiting ticket and was refused. Now she called at Jean’s to see if Patrick had been more successful, but the house was empty and when she got home neither Mam nor Ellen was there.

  She threw her cape over the back of her mother’s chair, sat at the kitchen table and began to write. After a few minutes she heard a burst of laughter from the alleyway. Mrs Jagger was holding court as usual. Her pen hovering over the half-written letter to Tom, Mary looked out into the yard and wondered whose reputation was being destroyed tonight. She got up and banged the door shut. Back at the table she started writing again. When she finished she sat back and sighed. It was the best she could do; somehow letters were never enough. She’d learned that over these last years.

  Dear Tom

  The police have been to the house and told me what you’re doing. You have to start eating again. They won’t let me come to see you until you do. I think I know why you feel you have to punish yourself but refusing food is not the answer. Sooner or later they will force you to eat and that will be worse.

  It will be another two weeks before I’m allowed to visit and only then if you’ve started eating again. You have been through so much and your imprisonment must, MUST, end soon. I want you home. I need you to be here. So much is going wrong and I feel so alone. If not for yourself, do this for me Tom. Please.

  Yours, Mary

  She put her pen down, rested her head on her arms on top of the table and wept.

  Chapter 61

  She woke to a touch on her cheek.

  ‘Mary?’ Ellen sat on the chair next to her. ‘We’ve got some news.’

  ‘Tom?’ Mary sat up, twisting her neck from side to side. She rubbed her face. Her skin felt rough and dry. ‘Is he all right? What’s happened?’

  ‘It’s not Tom.’

  Mary looked round. Patrick was standing behind her, grinning. ‘Jean’s had the baby, a little girl.’

  ‘That’s where we’ve been, at the hospital.’ Mary turned to her right. Her mother was perched on the edge of her chair, a glass in her hand, her face flushed. ‘Then we celebrated in The Crown.’

  ‘So I see,’ Mary said. ‘I’ve been writing to Tom.’

  Patrick shuffled from one foot to the other. ‘I was going to ring the Scrubs, but then Jean started and all hell broke loose.’

  ‘I’ll bet it did.’ Mary stood up and hugged him, ‘Congratulations. Jean’s all right?’ He tensed in her arms. ‘Everything is OK?’

  ‘Yeah. Great!’ He ran his palm over his face. ‘Great.’

  ‘Well, congratulations again. A little girl, eh? What are you going to call her?’

  ‘Jacqueline.’ He laughed. ‘She’s beautiful. And Jean says for you to be sure to go and see her tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh, I will, try to keep me away.’

  ‘I think I’ll get to bed.’ Ellen leaned over and kissed Patrick and he hugged her. ‘Well done our kid,’ she said. ‘See you upstairs?’ She smiled at Mary but her eyes were sad.

  Mary stroked her arm. ‘Night Ellen.’

  ‘Mam? Night.’ Ellen pushed her way through the curtain at the bottom of the stairs.

  Winifred waved her glass at her. ‘Night, love.’ Eyes half closed she nodded her head slowly until her chin rested on her chest.

  ‘I’d better get off.’ Patrick yawned and stood up.

  ‘Yes, see you and my niece tomorrow.’ Mary smiled and gave him another hug.

  ‘You’ll be all right?’ He moved away from her, nodding in their mother’s direction. Winifred was softly snoring.

  ‘Yeah, she’s not been too bad lately,’ Mary said. ‘I think Jacqueline will buck her up no end.’ She paused. ‘I’m sorry, Patrick, but I will need to talk to you about our Tom as soon as possible. I’m really worried. We have to do something, though God knows what.’

  ‘I know.’ He didn’t look at her.

  Mary stood up, rubbing her eyes. ‘You get off now. See you tomorrow?’ She waited for him to answer. When he didn’t she turned to her mother and hoisted her to her feet. ‘Come on, Mam,’ she said, ‘I think you’ve done enough celebrating for today.’

  Chapter 62

  ‘Did you hear what they did to those four Nazis?’ Staff Nurse Lewis folded the white gauze into bandage width and began rolling it up.

  Mary had her back to her. She paused for a moment then added soda to the water in the sterilizer. ‘No, what happened?’ she said casually. She could feel Hilda Lewis watching her.

  ‘Rumour has it they’d been threatening our Doctor Schormann.’ She came and stood next to Mary.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes. Something to do with that newspaper the Commandant lets them have.’ She snorted. ‘An article the Doctor wrote.’ Mary made sure the instruments were covered in the sterilizer and put the lid on, pressing it firmly into place. She moved away but the room was so small, when she turned the woman was right behind her.

  ‘Major Taylor had them arrested in full view of all the other POWs, apparently, and put in the cells.’ The nurse stared into Mary’s eyes. ‘Doctor Schormann was with them in his capacity as Lagerführer. But of course he was also the supposed victim.’ Mary tried not to react but she saw the gleam of triumph in the woman’s face. ‘The Major interviewed them but they refused to speak, so then he se
nt the Doctor back to his barracks and the guards were told to take the Nazis out to the thirty yard range. The next thing everyone knew there were four shots and those Nazis weren’t seen again.’

  ‘They shot them?’ Mary was shocked.

  ‘That’s the thing; they didn’t really. They locked them in the guardroom and then, during the night, they were transferred to another camp. The Commandant did it to put the fear of God into the rest of the SS. They think those men were shot.’

  ‘How do you know this, Staff?’

  ‘Bernard Quarmby told me when I came in this afternoon.’

  ‘Sister Watkins told me you were late for duty. Is that why? You were gossiping at the Main Gate?’

  ‘Not at all.’ The woman bristled. ‘There were problems with the bus. Anyway, I’ve made the time up now so I’ll be going.’

  ‘After you’ve away put the gauze bandages, please Staff.’

  The Staff Nurse did as she was told and stomped out of the room. Mary smiled but she was already well aware she had a dangerous enemy in Hilda Lewis.

  Chapter 63

  Peter stood at the top of the steps outside the entrance of the hospital finishing his cigarette before going in. Mary and the nurses on her shift passed him on their way out of the camp.

  ‘Goodnight Doctor, busy in there tonight.’

  ‘Lovely evening isn’t it?’

  ‘Glad to get some fresh air.’

  Peter clicked his heels. ‘Ja. Gutenacht.’

  ‘I’ll catch you up,’ Mary called to the others. ‘I’ve forgotten something.’ She ran back up the steps and into the corridor. Peeping through the ward windows, she saw the night shift staff at the far end. Matron had already left the hospital for the day. She walked quickly back to the entrance and stood in the shadows behind him. ‘Peter?’

  ‘I was asked to come over to look at a patient in Ward Two,’ he said.

  ‘We haven’t spoken properly for days. Don’t turn around,’ she said as he made a sudden movement. ‘Are you all right?’ She saw him shake his head. ‘Are you angry with me for telling the Commandant about those Nazis?’