by Lilian Harry
‘What for?’ she asked. ‘I haven’t done anything.’
‘You have,’ he said. ‘You’ve brought me to my senses. You’ve shown me the error of my ways. I shall have to spend quite a long time on my knees, praying for humility, after this.’ He grinned at her. ‘Don’t look so worried. In fact, if anything, you’re the answer to my prayer. I’ve been waiting for a sign and I think you may be it!’
Jeanie left the study, not at all sure that she liked being called an answer to a prayer, or a ‘sign’. But you had to make allowances, she told herself, when someone had suffered like the vicar and his wife had. Losing two sons, one after the other – it was bound to make them go funny for a bit.
Anyway, the main thing was that he didn’t mind her reading May’s letter and he didn’t mind her writing back. And he was even going to write again himself.
Jeanie felt a lot happier for knowing that.
Chapter Thirty
D-Day was declared on the day that Alison came out of hospital.
All through the previous night, aircraft had been roaring in and out of the airfield and everyone knew that it must have been the same all along the South of England – thousands of flights being made across the Channel to protect the ships and bomb the targets on the French coast. At the same time, the English beaches were crowded with ships and landing craft, taking the great Army which had been camped in streets and lanes for the past fortnight or more, to make this massive attack that was designed to crush the German forces at last. It would not be over in a week, nor even in months; yet everyone hoped that this was the beginning of the end of the war.
‘It’s as if they were never here,’ May said, fetching Alison in Bob Derry’s taxi. ‘All those Americans over at Bickham have gone – all the tents, everything. The children were up there right away, seeing what had been left behind. And they’ve been talking about it all morning on the wireless, saying that this is the biggest invasion there’s ever been. There’s been parachutists going in, and gliders, and all sorts.’
‘Gliders?’ Alison echoed in surprise, and May nodded.
‘Huge great things, big enough to carry tanks. Well, that’s what I’ve heard, anyway. I suppose it’s true,’ she added a little more doubtfully, ‘but you never know these days, do you, with all the propaganda and everything.’
It was not only France that had been invaded. The Americans, moving purposefully through Italy, had taken Rome, driving the Germans back from the city after months of strategic planning. It really looked as if the tide had turned.
‘It’s a shame Andrew can’t be here,’ May said as the taxi drew up at the door of the Knights’ cottage and she helped Alison out of the car. ‘It don’t seem right, coming home with your new baby and no husband to greet you.’
‘It can’t be helped.’ Alison paid Bob and he drove away while May opened the front door. She stepped into the hallway and drew in a sigh of thankfulness. ‘Oh, it’s so nice to be home. And I can’t wait to see Hughie again. It seems like months – Oh!’ She gave a little cry of joy as the door to the living room opened and the little boy peeped out. ‘Hughie! Goodness me, you’ve grown! Come and see your little sister.’
She held out the white-swathed bundle in her arms. Hughie looked suspicious and backed away, and Alison turned to May with a laugh. ‘Hold the baby for a minute, will you? I want to give my big son a big cuddle.’
May took the bundle and carried it carefully into the front room, where her mother was waiting impatiently to see the new arrival. A cradle had already been placed across two dining-chairs but May didn’t put the baby inside. Instead, she sat down on the sofa beside Mabel and together they gently parted the soft, lacy shawl and gazed down at the small face.
‘Oh, the dear of her,’ Mabel breathed. ‘What a little pretty. Look at that little face – just like a flower. And Caroline be such a lovely name, too. What did you say the others were?’
‘Morag, after Andrew’s granny,’ May said. ‘And Stephanie.’
‘Oh, that’s pretty too. Three names!’ she said to the baby. ‘Three nice names to choose from when you’m grown up. Who’s a lucky little girl, then?’
Alison bent to hug Hughie. ‘Are you pleased to see me again, then? Have you been a good boy for your Auntie Mabel and Uncle William? I bet you’ve had a nice time staying in the cottage. Tell me what you’ve been doing.’ But Hughie hid his face against her neck and refused to speak.
‘He’m a bit overwhelmed by it all,’ Mabel Prettyjohn observed comfortably as Alison brought him into the room. ‘He’ll come round soon enough. And how be you, Alison? You’m looking well.’
‘I’m fine. I could have come home a week ago, but they won’t let you put your foot to the floor for a fortnight. I’m sure it’s not necessary.’ She saw the cradle. ‘Oh! Look at that! It’s beautiful.’ She touched the carved wood. ‘Wherever did it come from?’
‘’Tis our family cradle,’ Mabel said proudly. ‘Been in the family this past eighty years or more. It were made for my father when he were born and us’ve used it for every babby since. We got it out while you were in the hospital and William’s dad polished it up a bit and brought it round last night. You don’t have to use it, mind,’ she added quickly. ‘Not if you don’t want to. You might want summat a bit better than an old cottage cradle.’
‘I can’t think of anything better,’ Alison declared, stroking the rich dark oak. ‘It’s lovely. I was just going to put her in a drawer until she was big enough for a proper cot. Oh, look – it rocks, too. She’ll sleep like a – well, like a baby, in that.’ She turned to take her daughter back from May, and laid her amongst the soft blankets. ‘There. She didn’t even open her eyes. Thank you very much.’
Mabel got to her feet. ‘I’ll make a cup of tea, shall I? The kettle’s on. And then I’m going to go home and see to things there, but May can stop with you for a while. She’ll sleep here as well for a few more nights if you want her to.’
Alison shook her head. ‘I’ll be all right. And perhaps now they’ve started the Invasion, Andrew will be allowed to come home again. I’m longing for him to see Caroline.’
‘’Tis a crying shame he couldn’t come in to see you at the hospital,’ Mabel said, taking another peep at the baby before going out to the kitchen. ‘Him being only a mile or two away, and all. But there, we’ve all had a lot to put up with in this war.’ She cast a quick look at May and bit her lip. ‘I’m sorry, flower, I didn’t mean to remind you.’
‘It’s all right, Mother. I don’t forget Ben anyway. He’s in my mind all the time. It’s a relief to hear someone else talk about it now and then.’ As her mother left the room, followed by Hughie, she said to Alison, ‘People are frightened to talk about things like that, you know. They say they don’t like to upset you, as if you’re not upset anyway, but what they really mean is that they don’t want to see you being upset. They’d rather it was all pushed away, out of sight. I want to talk about Ben. I want to be upset, in a funny sort of way. Or perhaps I just want to be allowed to be upset. I can’t forget him that easy, and I don’t want other people to either, but maybe that’s selfish of me.’
‘I don’t think it is,’ Alison said. ‘I think you have a right to feel whatever you like. There hasn’t been any news at all?’
‘Not as far as I know,’ May said sadly. ‘But then, they wouldn’t tell me, would they? It’s his parents they’d write to. And all I’ve had from them is a note from his dad, saying thank you for what I wrote. As if I were a stranger.’ Her voice held a touch of bitterness. ‘We loved each other, Ben and me. We were engaged. But there, I suppose with his mother the way she was, I can’t expect anything more. I just wish I knew what it was they thought was so bad about me, that’s all.’
‘Oh, May—’ Alison began, but at that moment Mabel came back into the room with cups and saucers on a tin tray, followed by Hughie carefully bearing a plate of biscuits, and there was a little flurry of activity as they found somewhere to put their cup
s and persuaded Hughie that the baby didn’t want a biscuit.
‘She’s too small yet. She just drinks milk. But later on, when she’s bigger, she’ll be able to play with you,’ Alison told him. ‘You’ll have some lovely times together.’
‘She’s not having my bricks,’ he said. ‘She can have that purple donkey Auntie Mabel knitted me. I don’t like it any more.’
‘Well, that’s generous,’ Alison said as they all laughed. ‘I expect she’ll like it better than bricks, anyway.’
Mrs Prettyjohn drank her tea and then said she must go. She had her menfolk’s dinner to prepare, and after that she was going down to Buckland to the Women’s Institute meeting. There might be fighting going on all over the world, but life at home still had to continue, and the WI was an important part of it.
‘You don’t have to stay all day,’ Alison said to May. ‘I mean, I’d like you to, of course, but I’ll be quite all right on my own if you’ve got other things to do. You’ve already given up a morning’s work to be here.’
‘I don’t mind that. There wasn’t much for me to do anyway.’ May hesitated, then said, ‘As a matter of fact, there’s something I want to talk to you about. It’s about Ben.’ She paused again. ‘Well, it’s about his mother and father, really. I was wondering if I ought to go and see them.’
‘Go and see them?’ Alison repeated. ‘But why? Do you think it’s a good idea?’
‘I don’t know. That’s what I want to talk to you about. I mean, you know that sort of people better than me. Do you think they’ve taken against me because I’m just an ordinary girl? D’you think they think I’m a gold-digger or something? I’d just like to let them see it’s not true – not for myself, but for them. It must be awful for them if they think that Ben – well, that he wasn’t really happy that last day. I’d like them to know I really did – do – love him. I thought it might help. But I don’t really know – it might make everything worse.’ She stopped and looked at Alison with anxious brown eyes. ‘What do you think?’
Alison felt helpless. ‘I don’t know, May. I really don’t know. It might not even be you – his mother was already ill, wasn’t she? She was upset over his brother being killed. It seems to me as if she can’t cope with anything just at the moment, and if you turned up unexpectedly …’
‘It would make everything worse,’ May finished quietly. ‘Yes, I can see it might. But leaving it like this, it just seems so wrong. It’s not finished. And I can’t seem to settle until it is. I feel as if I ought to meet them, just so that we can sort of know each other a bit. I mean, I know they wouldn’t want to go on knowing me – without Ben, there’d be no point. But it seems wrong that we should never even see each other. I feel I ought to do it. For Ben.’ She fell silent for a moment, then added in a low voice, ‘It’s the only thing I can do for him, now.’
At last, Alison was left alone. The afternoon had been a busy one, firstly with Caroline needing her feed immediately after lunch, then with a succession of neighbours popping in to see her. Alison had been surprised by the interest shown. She’d spoken to them all at different times, as she’d walked along the road with Hughie, but hadn’t dreamed so many were interested enough to make a special visit. By the time May left, just before tea, she felt quite exhausted and hoped that nobody else would come.
‘There,’ she said to Hughie, shutting the door after the last visitor had left. ‘Wasn’t that nice! And hasn’t your little sister been good? She hasn’t cried at all yet.’
‘She hasn’t done anything,’ Hughie observed. ‘Only sleep. And she had her milk.’ He cast a curious glance at his mother. Alison had been slightly shocked by May’s suggestion that he should see Caroline having her feed, and it had certainly appeared to surprise him, but on consideration she thought the country girl was probably right. It was a natural thing, not to be hidden away as if it were a matter for shame, and in any case it would be difficult to manage without Hughie ever seeing what was happening. After the first day or two, May had said, he would take it for granted. He’d seen that litter of kittens up at the farm feeding from their mother, after all. There really wasn’t any difference.
‘Except that I don’t have six of them,’ Alison had said with a laugh. ‘Thank goodness!’
It was nearly time now for Caroline’s next feed. She made Hughie a drink of orange juice first and put two biscuits on a plate for him before settling him down with his Rupert book. Then she drew the curtains and switched on the wireless.
The six o’clock news was just beginning as she unbuttoned her blouse. As she took Caroline in her arms and put her to her breast, Alison heard the measured tones of the BBC announcer tell how D-Day had begun and the invasion of France was now under way.
Where was Andrew in all this, she wondered as the baby suckled and Hughie murmured the story of Rupert Bear’s adventures to himself. Had he been flying all night, all day? And Stefan too, and the rest of the squadron – how were they faring? It seemed so strange, so wrong, to be within a few minutes’ walk of the airfield and yet know nothing of what was happening there. I might as well have stayed in Lincolnshire, she thought suddenly. At least I’d have had my parents there. Friends are all very well – and the Prettyjohns have been wonderful friends to me – but it’s family you really need at times like this. And a tear dropped from her eye on to the baby’s face, making her jump and lose the nipple from her mouth.
‘It’s all right, sweetheart. I’m sorry – there, that’s better.’ The baby began to suck again. I’m being sorry for myself, Alison thought. That won’t help anyone.
All the same, she felt suddenly very lonely, in the cottage by herself apart from two small children. For the past fortnight, she had been in the company of a dozen or so other women, as well as the nurses and visitors who came in during the evenings, and before that she had had either Andrew, Stefan or the other pilots dropping in. Now, suddenly, there was no other adult than herself and for a moment or two she was panic-stricken.
Then she pulled herself together. Nothing’s any different from before Caroline was born, she told herself sternly. In fact, it’s better, because I’m not pregnant any more. I’m strong, fit and well, and full of energy. I’ve got my lovely baby girl and my sturdy little boy, and as soon as this horrible war’s over and Andrew can be at home with us all we’ll be a proper family, living a proper life. An ordinary life.
Caroline had finished feeding. The news was over and a music programme had begun. Alison buttoned up her blouse again and fetched a clean nappy from the pile on top of the dresser. She changed the baby, laid her in her cradle and put the used nappy in a bucket in the kitchen.
‘You’ve been a very good boy,’ she told Hughie, lifting him on to her knee. ‘We’ll just sit here for a while together before you have your bath, and you can tell me all about what you did when you stayed with Auntie May. Did you have a nice time?’
He nodded and leaned against her, sliding his thumb into his mouth. He seemed to have overcome his suspicion of the baby, she realised with relief, and cuddled him against her, filled with a surge of love for him. I missed him so much when I was in the hospital, she thought. I’m never going to leave him again. I’m not going to leave either of them.
The room was very quiet. For the first time that day, there was no roar of aircraft. If only she could hear Andrew’s footsteps coming down the road, she thought longingly. If only she could hear the gate click as he opened it, and his key in the lock of the front door.
But there was no sound of footsteps. All that could be heard through the open window was the twilight song of the birds.
The days following D-Day were just as busy at the airfield, with both bomber and fighter pilots working round the clock, coming off duty only to eat and sleep while the mechanics worked on the aircraft to get them ready to fly again. The men lost all count of the days and seemed to live in a haze where flying was the only reality and they felt awake and alive only when they were in the air.
A
ndrew, however, could not forget that he had a wife and two children less than a mile away, and that he had not even seen his baby yet.
‘It’s a bloody farce,’ he said to Stefan as they ate their dinner one night. ‘I could walk there and be back in half an hour. I know the boss says it’d be a bad example to the other blokes, but every last one of them would understand. D’you realise, that baby’s nearly three weeks old now and I don’t even know what she looks like. And what makes it worse is that you’ve seen her.’
‘I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, I’m not blaming you. It’s just the way things happen.’ Andrew threw down his knife and fork. ‘I can’t eat any more of this. I’m going outside. A walk round the airfield might cool me down a bit.’
He pushed back his chair and strode out of the room. The other pilots looked up and then glanced at Stefan.
‘He’s upset,’ Stefan said awkwardly, and Robin Fairbanks nodded.
‘Don’t blame him, either. But it’s not good – he’s walking on a knife-edge at the moment, and you know what that means. He could crack up – he wouldn’t be the first. Or he could have an accident.’
Stefan looked grim. ‘It’s so stupid. All he needs is half an hour with his family.’
‘I know, but he’ll get it soon.’ Robin cleared his plate. ‘This pace won’t keep up for ever. We’ll get some leave soon, we’re bound to, and then he’ll be able to go home. At least he can go home – there’s plenty of chaps here who won’t be able to. Look at Jock, for instance. He lives right up in the north of Scotland. Hasn’t been home since last Christmas and probably won’t get there till next Christmas.’
