Amy had been ashamed to confess to herself that she’d felt deep relief at Perce’s death. Since living in the town again she had felt menaced by her cousin’s proximity, and as she confided in Gertie one day shortly before Perce’s accident, strange things kept happening, strange, frightening things. A window smashed by persons unknown, a dark silhouette standing in the garden one night when she had gone to shut the curtains, the bell rung in the early hours but no one at the door, foul rubbish including a dead rat tipped in the front garden and, more scary than anything else, the odd phone call when all she could hear was heavy breathing. These had all stopped when Perce had died.
Gertie slipped over to Amy now, her swollen stomach bearing evidence that her third child was expected soon. She put her arm through Amy’s, saying, ‘Bear up, kiddo. It’s nearly over.’
Amy nodded. ‘It’s such a lovely day. I keep thinking he would have been looking out over the garden and watching the birds.’When they had bought the small detached bungalow on the outskirts of Bishopwearmouth, Amy had immediately had the two double bedrooms knocked into one large room. It bordered the garden and by doubling its size enabled their room to be both bedroom and sitting room. Charles’s bed had been positioned by the large French doors Amy had had installed, which gave her husband a wonderful view of the bungalow’s extensive grounds. If the weather was clement the doors had always been open, but even on the coldest days Charles had been able to look out at the goings-on of the birds he loved.
‘How are you feeling really?’ Gertie asked with the privilege of an old friend. Although they only saw each other a few times a year, the two were still close and talked on the telephone often.
‘Odd, I suppose.’ Amy looked out through the bungalow’s large window to where quite a few of the assembled guests were standing talking and drinking in the warm June sunshine. ‘All of a sudden I’ve got time on my hands after having every minute of the last years accounted for. I keep thinking Charles’s medication is due or that I’ve got to turn him; oh, a hundred things.’
Bruce had joined them as Amy had been speaking and now he said, ‘That’s perfectly natural and it will fade in a little while as you pick up a different sort of life.’ He was privately of the opinion that due to Charles’s complete dependence on his wife, Amy had taken the role of a mother without realising it, which would increase her sense of loss now. There was no doubt she’d felt tender affection and compassion for Charles, and Charles had worshipped the ground she walked on. Bruce hadn’t expected Charles to keep to his promise to lay off the drink but even if he had longed for one he hadn’t mentioned it and had remained sober. Bruce had had the unworthy thought at first that Charles might try and bribe the nurse or persuade a friend to bring a bottle in but Charles had proved him wrong, and Bruce was very glad of it.
He looked into the face of the cousin he loved and admired. She was still beautiful, outstandingly so, but she looked every one of her thirty-four years. The sorrow she rarely spoke of, that of her inability to have a child of her own, combined with the hard physical work of latter years had given her beauty a very mature air. There were more than a few flecks of silver vying with the golden tints in the still thick, rich brown hair, and even when she was smiling the deep blue eyes carried a wealth of sadness.
‘Have you any plans?’ he asked. ‘What you’re going to do with yourself now?’
Amy shrugged. ‘There’s all the clearing out to do. Charles’s medication would fill a small room all by itself. And I might take a short holiday in a few weeks. Pamela’s offered me the use of their villa in Margate anytime I want it.’
‘Who’s taking my name in vain?’ Pamela appeared at Amy’s shoulder, her arm tucked through that of a tall, white-haired man. She had married the RAF CO from the base she had been stationed at during the war four years ago, and the two appeared blissfully happy. Her husband had a country estate as well as the villa in Margate but the two were rarely at either residence, preferring to spend most of their time travelling round Europe. Her husband was almost double Pamela’s age but it didn’t appear to concern either of them. Sadly, Nell hadn’t been so lucky.The plucky northern lass had been killed when a Stirling had crashed on take-off at the airfield she’d been assigned to, landing in a hangar where Nell and some other WAAFs had been working. Nell had been trying to drag one of her friends clear when the bombload had exploded.
With Pamela’s arrival the group talked of inconsequentials until Amy left them to circulate among the friends and family who had come back to the bungalow after the funeral. In the six days since Charles had died in her arms, she had kept busy organising the service and then this reception, putting on a spread which belied the fact England was still firmly in the grip of food rationing. She had cleaned and baked, weeded the garden and cut the lawns until everything was pristine and gleaming, but now it would soon be over and she would be left on her own.
Even as she stood talking to the priest who had taken the service, her mind was moving on a different plain altogether. What would Father Collins say if she told him she had longed for this day lots of times over the last years? Not for Charles to be dead, no, not that, but for her to be able to have some freedom. Freedom to go for a walk if she felt like it, to have a bath without keeping one ear cocked for Charles’s bell, to sleep all night without having to set the alarm every two hours to turn Charles in his bed, just . . . freedom. From care, from responsibility, from worry. She had been ashamed of herself for thinking this way but every so often the feeling had risen up in her.
But now? Now she dreaded everyone going and panic was making her heart beat a tattoo under the calm exterior she was presenting to the world. Which was silly, ridiculous. Sooner or later she had to face the fact that Nick was somewhere in the world living, loving, laughing without her. She couldn’t use the punishing regime she’d inflicted on herself for the last years to duck reality any more.
‘. . . in heaven.’
‘I’m sorry?’ She stared into the young earnest face of Father Collins. She hadn’t heard a word he had said.
‘I said it must be a great comfort to you to know that Charles is now receiving his reward in heaven for the pain and discomfort he bore so bravely on this mortal plain.’
‘Yes, of course.’ He was nice, Father Collins, but she could no more confide in him than fly to the moon.
‘What do you intend to do now?’
Why was everyone asking her what she intended to do? How could she answer that? Charles hadn’t been gone two minutes. And then she forced the irritation down to the place where she had kept other unacceptable emotions for the last eight years and smiled at the young priest. ‘I’m not sure.’
‘Of course, of course. Early days, early days.’
Early days.Yes, it was early days but then again eight years had passed. ‘Excuse me, Father.’ She left him without another word and made her way back to Bruce and Gertie who were now standing apart from the rest of the crowd. ‘I need to ask you.’ She was looking straight into Bruce’s face and she saw something which led her to believe he had been waiting for this. ‘I need to ask you about Nick. How he is. Where he is. If he’s happy.’
Bruce glanced at Gertie. Just a fleeting glance but enough to cause Amy to say, ‘He isn’t . . .’
‘No, no, he’s alive and kicking.’
Then he was with someone. Ecstatically happy. Married with a quiverful of little Johnsons. She swallowed hard. ‘I suppose he’s married.’
‘No, he isn’t married. There’s been one or two long-term relationships but he’s never . . . No, he isn’t married.’
‘Happily living in sin, knowing Nick.’The flippancy didn’t fool any of them.
‘He’s not with anyone at the moment, Amy.’
Then what had made Bruce look at Gertie like that? Amy abandoned the last of her pride. ‘He doesn’t want you to talk about him to me. Is that it?’
Bruce hesitated.The brief millisecond was aeons long.‘Not for the reason you ar
e probably thinking.’
There could only be one reason. And she deserved it. She knew she deserved it and she had no right to think it could be any different. It wasn’t until this moment that she realised how the possibility of seeing Nick again, of there being some slight chance for them had sustained her through the last eight years. Embarrassment, humiliation and a consuming sense of pain made her voice clipped when she said, ‘It’s all right, Bruce. I won’t mention him again. Let’s forget it, shall we, and—’
‘He was burned, Amy. Horribly burned. Disfigured.’
She stared at him, hearing the words, conscious of the people milling about in the background and Gertie’s troubled face, but unable to take it in straightaway. After some moments she managed to whisper, ‘When?’
‘Just after you’d split. Well, the next day actually. He was eventually put under the care of Mr McIndoe.You’ve heard of him?’
‘No.’
‘He’s the best consultant plastic surgeon in the world, let alone the Royal Air Force. He did great things, Nick’s still able to use his hands to some extent.’
She felt the world begin to spin and it was only Gertie’s quick thinking that provided the chair for her to sink into. And it was Gertie who said, ‘He didn’t want you to feel sorry for him, Amy. Like you felt for Charles, I suppose. He said you had made your choice and he didn’t want it complicated by him. He swore Bruce to secrecy, me too, and although we didn’t agree with him we couldn’t do anything else.You know Nick, he’s fiercely proud and independent.’
On my darling. My love. Disfigured. Burned. And I didn’t know. All this time and I didn’t know.
‘He’s not too bad now, Amy. Well, not really. But you know Nick. Always full of confidence and self-assurance.’
No doubt Gertie thought she was helping but she was making it worse. The Nick she’d known wasn’t like that at all. He’d been as vulnerable as the next man. As Charles. Had she made the wrong decision? Amy physically squirmed in her chair. Because of some misguided sense of right and wrong, had she made the wrong decision?
She must have spoken out loud although she wasn’t aware of it because Gertie said softly, ‘I don’t think so, dear. Nick’s a survivor, you know that, but Charles wasn’t made that way. You gave him eight years of happiness in a life that had known very little, and you did what you thought was right, regardless of what you really wanted. I don’t think you can say that was wrong.’
‘Where . . . where is he?’
There was a pause and then Bruce said, ‘He works for the British Aircraft Corporation selling airliners. He loves it.’
‘Does he ever ask after me?’
‘Every time we speak.’
Nick. Oh, Nick. ‘I have to talk to him. No, I have to go and see him.’ It was the only way Nick would believe his injuries didn’t matter a jot, if she proved it to him, face to face.
‘He won’t agree to that, Amy.’ Bruce was clearly finding this difficult. ‘He abhors pity.’
‘Pity?’ Amy glared at the man who, next to Nick, meant more to her than anyone else on earth. ‘Who said anything about pity? I’m not a child, Bruce. I know what people with bad burns can look like. There’s Joy Garfield up the road, she had her face taken off by a doodlebug. And then George Benson—’
‘OK, OK.’ Bruce held up his hands in surrender. ‘It’s just that I know he wants you to remember him as he was.’
‘And then we continue living the next forty or fifty years apart? Oh, I’m not saying he’ll want me after all this time.’ Amy stared at Bruce and Gertie, her eyes swimming with tears. ‘But it’ll be up to him. All I can do is go to him and say I’m his if he wants me. I have always been his, that’s never changed for me.’
A large fat lady with a black squashed tomato of a hat waddled up and spoke a few words of condolence to Amy. Amy had no idea who the woman was. Probably the wife of one of Charles’s old business colleagues.
When the lady had gone, Bruce said, ‘All right, Amy. It will probably be the end of a beautiful friendship when Nick finds out I’ve given you his address, but all right.’
‘Thank you.’ Amy smiled her relief. ‘You do see I have to try, don’t you?’
Bruce’s grin included both women and it was rueful. ‘You being you, I do see that.’
‘And it must be a surprise.’
‘Shouldn’t that be phrased shock?’
‘Shock, surprise, whatever.’ Amy looked steadily at them both. ‘He must not know I’m coming. If I don’t give him the chance to refuse to see me it’s a fait accompli.’
‘Now she’s talking French at me . . .’
Chapter 26
Bruce called Amy the day after the funeral to say he had found out Nick was out of the country on business for a couple of weeks and his secretary couldn’t be specific as to when he was expected back. But he’d ring and let her know when he had news. OK?
It wasn’t really OK but after a maudlin hour or two Amy pulled herself together. She wasn’t going to sit and twiddle her thumbs, she had masses to do and she had better get on with it. She hadn’t slept a wink the night before and at some time during the tossing and turning and making herself endless cups of tea, she had decided to sell the bungalow forthwith. A stage of her life had definitely ended and she needed to slam the door on it.
A couple of days after Charles passed away, his solicitor had called to see her. Mr Callendar had asked him to do this at the appropriate time, he informed her gravely, and he had promised he would. He needed to tell her that as well as the bungalow and the car she’d purchased some years before, after learning to drive, there was a tidy sum in the bank. He wouldn’t want her to run away with the idea she was a rich woman, but there was certainly enough for her to live frugally for the rest of her life.
Amy thought back to this conversation now and she knew there was no way she could spend her days going to the bridge club and having little rides in the car and growing old with a couple of cats for company. Whatever happened with Nick. If things worked out between them, and she hardly dared hope they would, then her future would be with him. If not, then she would find a job working with children, perhaps even as a live-in matron at a children’s home or something. Whatever, she would live.
The next few days saw Amy sorting through a mountain of paperwork, a little of which it was necessary to keep but most of which she burned.Then came clothes. Charles’s things she gave away. Most of her own she packed, apart from a few items for daily wear. Charles’s books and personal mementoes and such she put into two large crates which she sent to Edward; she kept nothing for herself. She had her memories both good and bad, and they were the only things she wanted to take with her into the future.
Amy found herself staring intently at the miniature of her mother often during this time which was one of tears and sadness as well as burning hope for the future. The original had been lost along with everything else when the German plane had destroyed the house in Ryhope. Bess’s calm lovely face was the one permanent, unchanging anchor in a world that had gone topsy-turvy again, and Amy slept with it by her bed each night.
The first people who came to look at the bungalow fell in love with it immediately and offered the full price without prevarication, expressing an interest in most of the furniture when Amy said it was also for sale.They were a young couple, a sweet, unworldly pair who were due to get married at the end of the summer. Amy liked them very much and when the young woman went into raptures over the number of birds in the garden, she knew they were the right ones for the place.
Bruce rang one night in the middle of July to say Nick was back, just as Amy was ironing the curtains she had washed that morning. Every curtain in the bungalow had been taken down and laundered, every carpet cleaned, every rug beaten to within an inch of its life, every work surface scrubbed and every item of furniture polished to gleaming perfection. The physical exertion had helped to keep her mind off the possible outcome of seeing Nick, at least in the daylight hou
rs. The nights were a different kettle of fish; the gremlins came out in full force then. But in all her whirling doubts and fears, one thing remained constant. She had to try.
‘He’s just clinched quite a big deal apparently,’ Bruce said, ‘so he’s taking a couple of days off to relax at home.’ Home was a cottage in Sussex, according to Bruce, and this had surprised Amy. She had imagined Nick would have settled for an impersonal bachelor flat, something of that nature. ‘Look, Amy, are you sure you’ve thought this through?’
‘Positive.’
‘No doubts?’
About going to see Nick? Not one. About the outcome? Myriad. ‘Bruce, this is something I have to do however it turns out.’
There was a short pause. ‘You’ve got to prepare yourself for the fact he has changed, and I’m not talking about the burns now. There’s an edge to him somehow, a cynicism, a “I don’t care what the hell you’re thinking” attitude that goes more than skin deep. It’s not that he has any trouble attracting the opposite sex -’ Bruce stopped abruptly, then said sheepishly, ‘Sorry, but he doesn’t, so it’s not that. It’s not bravado.’
The Rainbow Years Page 36
