‘Have you seen my mother?’
He nodded. ‘Mrs Larsen; she’s still unconscious. I remember her well, from the last time. Hardly healed from the first injuries, and now a broken ankle, dislocated shoulder, and a heart that needs careful watching. “Lucky” is not a word we’d apply to her, is it? But it might have been worse. She might recover with good nursing, but you won’t be fit to take it on. You need nursing yourself – your ribs and ears will be painful and you’ll feel very tired for quite a while. We’re sending your mother to Beverley. We’ll keep you here overnight. We should be able to discharge you tomorrow. I used to say “send you home”, in those happy days when we could take it for granted that people had homes.’
‘It’s gone,’ Marie croaked. ‘Flattened.’
There was an unnaturally sympathetic expression on Dr Steele’s face that Marie had rarely seen. ‘Better get the Red Cross lady to come and see you then, unless there’s a relative or neighbour you can go to,’ he said. ‘And come back and see me at once if you suspect anything wrong. At once, do you hear me?’
She heard him, but only just.
Chapter 15
When George came down the ward the following day Marie was sitting by her bed waiting for the ambulance, clutching a paper carrier bag containing her pyjamas. She saw him looking at the strange assortment of clothes she was wearing: an old cotton dress two sizes too big and a shrunken cardigan of yellow wool, whose sleeves ended half-way up her forearms. On her feet were a pair of old blue peep-toed sandals, also too large.
‘Red Cross,’ she explained. ‘They offered to find me somewhere to live as well.’
He gazed pointedly at her clothes. ‘Going by the rigout, I wonder what that would be like – probably somebody’s chicken-coop. But you’ve got somewhere to live while my mother’s got a house and a bed. She’s already told me you’re staying with us, and your mother as well, when she gets better. We haven’t been friends for donkey’s years for you to be sent to some homeless dumping ground when you’re in a fix.’
The donkey’s years friendship had been between their parents, to be precise. She and George had mostly gone their separate ways in recent years, but Marie let that pass. George was offering the olive branch after that business with Nancy, and she accepted it. He had more than earned the right to call himself her friend, but she wasn’t going to impose on his partially sighted mother.
‘No, George. I can’t put your mother to all that trouble. She’s not fit to be looking after invalids.’
‘Rubbish. She’s as strong as an ox.’
‘I’ll go to stay with my aunt and uncle in Dunswell,’ she said. ‘I feel bad enough having to bother anybody, but they’re family, so theirs is the first door I ought to be knocking on.’
‘Do they know you’ve been bombed out? You haven’t had time to let them know, have you?’
‘Not yet,’ she admitted.
‘Better hang on a bit, then, until they’re prepared. My mother’s already got the room ready for you,’ he insisted. ‘So you’re coming to us, all right? For now, at least. She’ll be upset if you go anywhere else.’
A nurse came to the bed. ‘Ambulance waiting for you, Marie. Have you got everything?’
Marie waved her bag. ‘All my worldly goods,’ she said. ‘They don’t half fill a carrier, now.’
‘Have you heard anything from Nancy?’ George asked that evening, while they were sitting at the table waiting for his mother to bring the food in. Much against her better judgement, Marie had let George talk her into staying with them. It was hard to resist someone she felt so deeply indebted to, and now she was confronted with the situation she would have given a great deal to avoid.
‘No.’
‘Neither have I. She’s made a right old fool of me, hasn’t she?’
Marie said nothing. There was nothing she could say, and even if there had been, she hadn’t the strength, after the torture of being jolted around in the ambulance for an hour on roads raised in some parts and pitted in others by bombing and patchy repairs.
‘I always knew she didn’t think as much about me as I did about her, but I’d never have believed she’d have done a trick like she has done,’ George went on.
‘I can hardly hear you, George. My ears ache like hell, and it’s painful to breathe,’ she almost wept, as his mother put the food on the table.
When Auntie Edie had asked her whether she liked herrings, Marie had said yes, imagining the skinned and boned dry fillets her father used to fry in butter, not this waterlogged object complete with head, tail, bones and skin that Aunt Edie now proudly lifted onto her plate. It gazed dull-eyed up at her, floating limp and lifeless in its pool of cooking water.
‘Help yourself to bread and marg,’ Aunt Edie smiled.
Marie helped herself, and picked at the fish, searching for some part of the watery flesh that she could force down without gagging.
‘I was just telling Marie, I’d never have believed Nancy would do a trick like she has,’ George said.
‘Nobody would. She’s a bad un, that lass, and she’ll come to a bad end,’ Aunt Edie said. ‘Think yourself lucky she showed herself in her true colours before you got married. You might have been saddled with her for life. You’ve had a lucky escape, George. You used to be a friend of hers, didn’t you, Marie?’
Used to be? Marie thought. She and Nancy were still friends, as far as she knew.
‘No appetite, Marie?’ George asked.
She shook her head. ‘Not really. Sorry.’
‘Pass it here then,’ he said, taking her plate and sliding the contents onto his own. ‘Waste not, want not.’
Aunt Edie forgave the snub to her cooking, and lavished sympathy on her. ‘Not surprising, after what you’ve been through. And your poor mam, first injured in that hit on the shelter, and your dad killed, and now this. Now they’ve smashed her home to bits as well as putting her in hospital, bloody Germans. All her poor bits of furniture, fit for nothing but firewood.’
‘It’s that man again!’ said George.
‘That man again! I know what I’d do with that man. I’d Hitler him. I’d Hitler him where it hurts.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Mother,’ he laughed. ‘By the way, Marie, I managed to salvage a bit of stuff from your house – mostly the stuff that was in the garden shed. Your dad’s gardening tools. The only thing I got from the house was the last he used to mend our shoes on. I saw a pile of plates that looked perfect, but when I tried to lift them up they fell through my hands, in smithereens.’
His mother smiled fondly at him. ‘I’m not ridiculous,’ she said, and turned to Marie. ‘Cup of tea, then, love?’
What an uncanny sensation of travelling back in time Marie had on entering the bedroom. Nothing seemed to have changed in the twelve years or so since she last stood on that very spot. Everything was familiar to her from her childhood days, when she and George were sent to play upstairs while downstairs their parents played whist for halfpennies if they were flush, or matches if they were hard up. The same curtains and lamp, the same cast-iron bedstead stood there, with the same beautiful thick eiderdown covered in a silky gold material. She put her carrier bag down on a rickety old dining chair lavished with polish, which had been there as long as she could remember, and undressed slowly and painfully, hanging her charity clothes over the chair back. Pyjamas on, Marie eased herself between sheets that were snow white and beautifully ironed, wondering how Aunt Edie, with her poor eyesight, managed to keep it all so clean. The bed might have been comfortable had she not been tormented by her cracked ribs, multiple bruises and jangling nerves. As it was, she could find no ease anywhere.
It was still light outside, and through the open window the faint smell of explosives drifted in on the breeze. Marie lay still and silent, her thoughts in turmoil. The main worry was her mother. Would she survive, and where would they live if she did? Where was the house that they would be able to afford? They couldn’t stay with neighbours for ever;
even the most easy-going people get sick of permanent visitors. Alfie would have to be told, but Pam, well, no urgency there. Pam could wait. For all Pam cared, it hardly mattered when she found out, if at all. And Chas, what would he say? Marie prayed the night would pass without another visit from the Luftwaffe. If the sirens went, she couldn’t go and crouch in a stinking public shelter with forty or fifty other people pressing against her, she just could not. She couldn’t stay in the house either, not after the night before last. Utter ruin surrounded her on every side. There was not one aspect of her life that she could rest her thoughts on without a rising panic – except for Alfie. She closed her eyes and tried to breathe without jarring painful ribs, praying the bombers would stay away, and thanking God that Alfie was all right.
Chapter 16
The following morning George poked his head round the bedroom door, dressed and ready for work. ‘I’ve been knocking, but you can’t have heard,’ he shouted. ‘Then I thought I’d just see whether you were still asleep. I’ve brought you a cup of tea.’
Nothing could have been more welcome. Marie was parched. ‘Come in,’ she said, pulling the quilt up to her neck. ‘Thanks for this, George, but you shouldn’t have. I don’t want to make you late for work.’
‘I won’t be late. I bring Mam her cuppa every morning before I set off. It’s no trouble to make an extra one. I’ll tell you what,’ he said, looking at the pathetic rags Marie had hung on the chair, ‘you’re about Nancy’s size. I’ll go round to her mother and ask if she’s left any decent clothes. She can offset them against some of the money she owes me.’
‘No, thanks. I don’t want Nancy’s clothes.’
‘No, I should think you don’t,’ he said, his expression grim. ‘I should think you wouldn’t be seen dead in them.’
That wasn’t what she’d meant. Nancy’s clothes were Nancy’s clothes, and Marie still regarded her as a friend, even if a selfish and thoughtless friend. She had no intention of taking any of her things, but she was in no condition to think of a tactful way of explaining that to George.
‘He thought the world of her, you know. She was everything to him. He said if he hadn’t had me to think about, he’d have done away with himself,’ Aunt Edie told Marie, later that day. ‘He’s talked about nothing else since he found out. He said: “Just think, Mam. There must have been times when she was with me and thinking about him. Kissing me, even, knowing all the time that she intended going off with him, and saying nothing about it, just stringing me along.” Well, he’s right, isn’t he? You don’t just up and off with somebody unless there’s been plenty between you beforehand. And for her to pinch all his savings into the bargain, well, it knocked the stuffing out of him.’
‘I’m certain he blames me as well,’ Marie said, ‘because she’s my friend. But I had nothing to do with it. I couldn’t stop her telling me that actor was sweet-talking her, but I gave her no encouragement, and she certainly never said she intended running off with him.’
Aunt Edie smiled. ‘He’s been thinking everybody’s against him, laughing at him behind his back, poor lad, so I’ll tell him that. He’ll be glad to know.’
He knows; I’ve already told him, Marie thought, but her chest hurt too much and she was too weary of it all to repeat it. But there was something she really had to say.
‘It’s real good of you to take me in, but me being here, it’s all George’s doing. All the money we had was in the house. If it’s not under the rubble it’s been burned, or some looter has made off with it. I can’t pay my way, and I’m making extra work for you and I shan’t be able to pull my weight with the work for weeks. I don’t want to be a nuisance. You shouldn’t have to be bothered with it. I’ll go and stay with Uncle Alfred and Auntie Dot as soon as I can get Mr Elsworth to take me.’
‘Be bothered with it?’ Aunt Edie exclaimed. ‘You can put that idea right out of your head. It’s not a bother, it’s a pleasure to be able to help old friends! This was your second home when you and George were little; you used to run in and out of here as easy as your own house. Your mam’s coming here as well, if she pulls through.’
‘I’m worried sick about her,’ Marie said, ‘especially after the last episode. Especially after Dr Steele saying she’s got a weak heart, as well as everything else.’
‘Well, we’ll do everything we can. We’re all in this together. Don’t you worry about me, I might not be able to see very well, but I can get round my own house all right, and cooking for three people’s not much more trouble than cooking for two. You’ll be able to peel veg. You can do that sitting at the table, if you feel up to it. And rub a bit of pastry up, or a few scones. And you’ll soon get another ration card.’
‘There’s the washing. Not that I’ve got much to wash.’
‘You won’t make much. And anyway, they’ve got mobile laundries on the go now, I’ve heard. I don’t know how they work, but you could maybe get your stuff done at one of them. And it seems to have perked George up a bit, having you here. Gives him something else to think about.’
A warning bell rang in Marie’s brain, muted, but insistent.
‘You look done in,’ Aunt Edie said. ‘Why don’t you go upstairs and have a lie-down? Maybe have a sleep?’
‘If only I could.’
Aunt Edie gave her a thoughtful look. ‘Tell you what,’ she said. ‘My husband used to keep a bottle of rum under the bed and have a swig at that when his wound was bothering him. They started him on it in the army, when they used to get them half soused before sending them over the top, and he drank it for the rest of his life. There’s a bottle left, never been touched since he died, and how many years ago is that, now? Lucky it keeps. I’ll make you a cup of tea and slosh some in it, see if that does you any good.’
‘I’ll give it a try,’ said Marie. ‘I’d try anything, for an hour’s sleep.’
She must have slept, because it was late afternoon when she walked ever so carefully downstairs. George had just come through the door, home from work. His mother was there to greet him.
‘I’ve just let Marie’s young man’s mam and dad in. You’ve got some visitors, Marie.’
Mr Elsworth jumped to his feet as she entered the front room, and taking her hands in his, began to speak.
She looked at him, straining to hear, trying to read his lips, and failing. ‘Pardon?’ she said.
Mrs Elsworth spoke up. ‘It’s the explosion, Leonard. She’s deafened because of the explosion. Come and sit down beside me, Marie.’
Marie sat down.
‘We went to spend a couple of days with my sister in Malton,’ Mrs Elsworth explained. ‘We came back today to see that the house two doors down from us had been bombed flat, so as soon as we’d had something to eat, we came to see if you and your mother were all right. We’ve seen your house, or what’s left of it. The neighbours told us you were here, so we’ve come to offer you a home. It’s what Charles would expect, and it’s what we want. You’re more than welcome to stay as long as you like, and your mother, as well.’
George looked steadily into Mrs Elsworth’s face. ‘We’ve arranged for her to stay here,’ he said. ‘My mother’s known her since she was a baby. Marie and I were just about brought up together. Our fathers went through the last war together. We’ve been friends all our lives. My mother’s only too pleased to be able to look after her.’
The Elsworths gave Marie querying looks, and she looked back, groping for the right words to contradict George without seeming ungrateful for everything he’d done for her.
‘Has Marie anything to say about it?’ Mr Elsworth asked, after a long pause.
Nothing came to mind. Everything George had said was the perfect truth, and her brain was too dulled to find words to explain. ‘I thought it would be too much for Aunt Edie, looking after me, but she says not,’ she finally said.
Mrs Elsworth nodded. ‘Aunt Edie’s blind, isn’t she?’ Surely it would be easier for her if you came to us?’
‘My moth
er’s not blind,’ George said. ‘She’s partially sighted. It’s a different thing altogether.’
‘But surely, even from a financial point of view—’
George’s resentment showed on his face. ‘Well, we’re obviously not as well off as you, but we can certainly manage to help our friends.’
‘We must all do as much as we can to help our friends,’ Mrs Elsworth said carefully. ‘Clothing’s going on ration, and you must have lost most of your things in the raid, Marie.’
‘I’ve got a pair of pyjamas of my own, and a dress and cardigan and some underwear I got from the Red Cross.’
‘I know someone who works in the Relief Office. I’ll get him to fetch me all the forms you need to apply for assistance,’ George said. ‘You don’t want to have to go down there yourself if you can help it. They’re always packed out with people. You’d be waiting for hours, and you’re in no fit state, Marie, so I’ll bring the forms, and I’ll help you fill them in.’
‘Thanks, George,’ Marie said. ‘I went down there a couple of times after Dad died, to see if I could claim anything for my mother, and I waited for hours to get the right form. But then they wanted copies of my dad’s death certificate, and a doctor’s certificate for my mam’s injuries, and with having to make arrangements for the funeral and going to Bourne to see Pam and Alfie, and then Alfie going missing, and what with work and everything, I had too much else to think about, so I missed the boat. We’ve been living on what I earned, mainly, and eking it out with Dad’s savings.’
‘Don’t worry. I’ll see about getting them. And I’ll help you to fill them out, the sooner the better. These things take ages.’
‘Well, you seem to be in good hands, Marie,’ Mr Elsworth said, when they parted at the door. ‘We’ll send a telegram to Charles, to let him know what’s happened, and we’ll ring the people in Bourne if you like – that’s if they don’t already know, of course. If there’s anything else we can do, let us know.’
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