In fact, her mother was very quiet for the rest of the day rather than ranting and raving as she was apt to do when annoyed. The two of them didn’t exchange more than half a dozen words, which was fine by Abby, and when she said goodnight to her mother who was sitting staring blankly at the glow of the fire in the kitchen range, she received no more than a cursory nod of acknowledgement in response.
Wilbert was staying overnight with a pal, and Abby lay awake for some time expecting to hear her mother come up. The feeling she’d experienced in the train station of sympathy for her mother was on her again and it was unsettling, that and the ever constant concern for James. She tossed and turned for some time and was just thinking about going downstairs to see if her mother was all right and to get a drink of water, when sleep overcame her.
Nora sat in the kitchen until the clock chimed midnight. She had known all day, ever since the conversation with Ivor in the train station, exactly what she was going to do. After checking Abby was fast asleep she brought her nightie and dressing gown down to the kitchen where she had water boiling on the range. It took her some time to fill the tin bath which she’d brought in from the scullery and placed in front of the warm range, but she did not hurry over it. There was no need. In fact the later the better for what she proposed to do.
Once the bath was ready she stripped off her clothes and stepped into the warm water. She had a bar of scented soap which had been a Christmas present from Wilbert and which she had been keeping for a special occasion. Now she lathered herself all over, luxuriating in the unfamiliar smell of the rich soft perfume. After some minutes she took the pins out of her hair and washed that too, lying in the water until it began to get cool, whereupon she climbed out and dried herself before padding through to the scullery and filling a jug with cold water. She brought this to the bath and, bending over, rinsed her hair free from the last of the suds.
Her skin smelt like apple blossom and peaches, and she held her arm to her nose for a moment, taking deep breaths, before pulling on her nightie. Then she sat drying her hair with a big rough towel until it was only faintly damp, its shine brought out by the washing.
Half past one. As the clock chimed the half hour Nora stood up, pulling on her dressing gown and sliding her feet into her slippers. Very quietly she let herself out of the back door and walked round to her sister’s scullery, trying the handle of the door gently. It was locked. Audrey had always had a thing about locking the doors although most folk round these parts didn’t bother. Nora reached up and felt for the loose brick at the side of the door. She removed the brick and her fingers closed over hard metal. The spare key.
Still without making a sound she opened the back door and slipped inside, closing it carefully behind her. Her heart was pounding now, and she flitted through the kitchen, into the hall and up the stairs like an ethereal spirit in the pitch blackness.
She could hear snoring from the lads’ room but there had been no sound from her father’s room. Snores were coming from the room Ivor and Audrey shared too. Good. He was asleep. She opened the door which creaked loudly and caused her to freeze, but no voice met her ears and the snores continued unabated.
When she climbed into bed beside him she was completely naked. She snuggled into his back, wrapping her body round him and kissing and licking the back of his neck. She wanted him so badly it consumed her. She knew when they made love again he would admit it was her he loved. He stayed with Audrey out of duty, she knew that, but the time for duty was past. They were at war, anything could happen. They had to make the most of every minute now. He had to run away with her. It was the only way.
‘Mmmm.’ He groaned as he began to surface out of sleep, and she slid her arms round him to hold his penis. It was already erect and she stroked and smoothed the hot silkiness, sure of her power over him now she was here, pressing herself against his back so he could feel her breasts. He murmured her sister’s name as he turned to face her in the darkness, but when she whispered, ‘It’s me, darling, Nora,’ he froze.
The next moment his hands caught hers and his voice was a furious hiss as he said, ‘What the hell? I don’t believe this. What are you doing here? You’ve actually come here in the middle of the night? Are you insane, woman?’
‘For you, yes.’ He was still holding her wrists but she arched her body against him in the darkness. ‘I love you, Ivor, and you love me, you know you do. We’re meant to be together.’
‘Don’t move. Do you hear me? Don’t move a muscle or so help me I’ll throttle you.’ He flung her from him as he swung his legs out of bed, and the next moment she was sitting blinking against the light. He was standing with his hand still on the switch, staring at her. ‘Get out of here before I do for you. For you to come here, here.’ His voice was low but she couldn’t mistake the ferocity in it. ‘You’re mad, you know that, don’t you? Stark staring mad.’
‘Ivor, please. Please listen to me.’
‘Listen to you? You come here, into my home, and you say listen to you? I could kill you, Nora.’
‘Kill me then.’ She knelt up, letting her breasts swing, their fullness tipped by hard peaks. ‘But only after we’ve made love. Kill me then.’
‘You really don’t get it, do you?’ He grabbed his dressing gown, pulled it on and yanked the belt tight before walking over to where she was watching him, her hair cascading about her shoulders. ‘You disgust me, Nora. You’ve disgusted me for years. Just looking at you makes me feel sick to the pit of my stomach.’
The colour had drained from her face but she didn’t move or make any effort to cover herself.
‘I’ll live the rest of my life and eternity too regretting I ever so much as laid a finger on you. Is that plain enough for you? Now get out.’
She stared at him a moment more before slowly sliding off the bed. She walked across to where her nightie and dressing gown were lying on the floor. She picked them up and pulled the nightie over her head before she faced him again. She hadn’t said a word.
‘Get out,’ he said again.
‘You think you’re such a big man.’ Her voice was as quiet as his had been but full of enmity, her face burning with humiliation and rage. ‘But you’re nowt, a big bag of wind.’
‘Aye, that’s right, that’s what I am. Now you’ve had your say, get out.’
‘You’ll live to regret this, Ivor Hammond. I’ll see you rot in hell, you see if I don’t.’
‘No doubt I’ll be in good company.’
Nora stared at him. For the first time she knew it was really over. He’d chosen Audrey. He’d chosen Audrey over her. She had humiliated herself for nothing.
Along with the rising tide of fury there was a pain as though she’d been disembowelled. For a moment she considered screaming to bring the lads running. How would he explain her presence in his bedroom then?
But no, she cautioned herself in the next moment. She must think this through. If Raymond threw her out, where would she go now that Ivor didn’t want her?
She walked past him, making her way down the dark stairs and out of the house. She heard him lock the door again as she reached the end of the backyard and the sound of bolts sliding at the top and the bottom. Her lip curled. Thought she’d return at some point, did he? She’d rather slit her own throat. She continued into her own house, her progress hindered by the scalding salt tears washing her face.
Chapter Eight
To Abby’s delight, Clara was home again before Christmas. An excessively wet October and November which had made staying indoors a necessity had added to the strain for both evacuees and those billeting them, and as no bombs had fallen and the newspapers talked scathingly of the ‘bore war’, people concluded the danger had been grossly overstated.
True, the war was inconvenient and even dangerous for those in the forces, but as Christmas approached, the conflict had not impinged much on the life of the average civilian, except for the dramatic increase in accidents on the roads due to the blackout restrictions
.
And so Audrey went off again in the second week of December, returning with an ecstatic pair of children who declared the country was boring, boring, boring! There were no fish and chip shops and no hot pie shops, no picture houses or parks, no port with great big ships and no Winter Garden with plants and birds and a pond full of goldfish. ‘There are just cows,’ Clara reported solemnly to Abby when she was home again. ‘And sheep. Lots and lots of sheep. And muck.’ She wrinkled her nose and rested her chin on Milly, the doll Abby had bought her.
‘Oh dear.’ Abby hugged her sister to her, her eyes brimming with laughter. ‘I don’t think it was all that bad, Clara. It looked all right to me.’ She and Wilbert had made use of the special ‘Visit to Evacuees’ cheap day returns at the end of October and gone to see Clara and Jed at the farm where they had been billeted, but the short visit had only made her miss the child more. The house had seemed horribly empty without Clara. Of course it didn’t help that since the Sunday when her sister had gone, their mother had been even worse than ever. She’d hardly spoken to anyone, even Wilbert, and had taken to slamming doors in their faces and refusing to be civil. The evenings had seemed to stretch into eternity. Abby had spent an increasing amount of time closeted with her grandfather in her aunt’s front room, reading to the old man and playing cards and telling him stories about her day, but it was her outings with Winnie which had kept her sane - that and the joy of James’s letters. Oh, James’s letters . . . He wrote nearly every day, wonderful outpourings of love interspersed with reports of training camp which he kept amusing in the main. And the best thing of all was that he’d be home for Christmas - only a four-day leave, but it was better, a thousand times better, than nothing.
Blizzards and snow made the days leading up to Christmas anxious ones for Abby, even though James assured her in his letters that he would walk the whole way home, and through six-foot drifts too, if it meant seeing her. But then it was Christmas Eve and she was standing on the platform in Central Station again, but this time with her face aglow and her heart bursting. He jumped from the train before it had stopped, striding towards her with his blue eyes sparkling and then they were in each other’s arms, murmuring incoherent words of love.
Even her mother’s refusal to have a Christmas tree or any decorations in the house didn’t dim the wonder of this particular Christmas for Abby. She had bought lots of presents for Clara and after wrapping them in gaily coloured paper put them in a bulging pillowcase at the end of her sister’s bed, and the two of them opened them together on Christmas Day. But most of Christmas Day and Boxing Day were spent at James’s house, and his parents - unusually tactful - made sure the young couple were left alone as much as possible.
But all too soon they were once again on the platform in Central Station. It had never looked bleaker to Abby, and this time she couldn’t prevent the tears from falling.
‘Hey.’ James’s voice was soft as he dried her eyes with his handkerchief before taking her face in his hands. ‘It won’t be long and I’ll be home on leave again with a bit of luck.’
Luck. He’d need luck if he was sent abroad now that his training was over.
‘You know the brooch I gave you for Christmas?’ he whispered, his thumbs stroking the silky skin of her neck. ‘Well, that wasn’t your real Christmas present.’
‘It wasn’t?’ She stared at him in surprise, one hand involuntarily touching the gold brooch pinned on her lapel.
‘No. I saved it till now, for this moment.’ He let go of her, stepped back a pace and then went down on one knee. Out of the breast pocket of his uniform he drew a tiny hinged leather box. ‘Will you marry me, Abby? Soon? I’d planned to ask you once I was fully qualified and in a position to give you everything you’d ever dreamed of, but now all that doesn’t seem so important.’
She stared at him, taking the box with trembling hands and opening it to find the most exquisite ruby and diamond engagement ring nestling in a bed of velvet. ‘Oh James, it’s beautiful, beautiful, and yes, I’ll marry you,’ she whispered. He rose to his feet and kissed her mouth, her eyes, her brow as their bodies endeavoured to merge. They were oblivious to the smiles and nods of other passengers waiting on the platform who had witnessed the proposal, until a voice at their elbow said, ‘An’ I’ll be your bridesmaid, all right, as long as you don’t want me in pink satin. I’d look like a blancmange in pink satin.’
‘Winnie!’ As James released her, Abby stared into the face of her friend. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Same as you, seeing someone off.’ Winnie inclined her head to a thin lanky individual who was standing some distance away, looking extremely embarrassed. Winnie had been seeing this lad for a few weeks. ‘He’s just got called up. I saw you as soon as we came but you seemed a bit ... busy.’ She grinned at them both, quite unabashed. ‘Congratulations,’ she added, before giggling, ‘I take it you did say yes?’
‘Course she said yes.’ James smiled. ‘You don’t think she’s hard-hearted enough to send me away with a broken heart, do you? Now you’ve said your congratulations, and I dare say you’re a sure bet for the bridesmaid bit, how about you leave us alone to say goodbye properly?’
‘Here?’ Winnie pulled a face. ‘You’re going to say goodbye properly here? And I thought I was a brazen huzzy.’
They were laughing as she moved off after a lewd wink. Then James reached for the box and slipped the ring onto the third finger of Abby’s left hand. ‘I love you, Abby. There’ll never be anyone but you all my life. Tell me you feel the same. Say it.’
‘There’ll never be anyone but you.’ She touched his face, her hand trembling. ‘Never. Oh James, I don’t want you to go.’
They were still entwined when the train came but then in minutes he was gone. Winnie joined Abby, slipping her arm through hers. ‘Come on, lass. Don’t take on. Look, how about we go for a coffee and cream cake at Binns, my treat? We can talk weddings and bridesmaids if you like.’
‘Oh you.’ Through her tears Abby was laughing. Then she held up her hand, the finger with the ring on it feeling heavy and strangely alien.
‘Isn’t it the most beautiful ring you’ve ever seen?’ she said huskily.
‘It’s a corker, lass, and no mistake. You’ve got a good ’un with your James, I have to say that, and there’s not too many of ’em around from what I can make out. You’re a lucky girl.’
She knew she was. Abby wiped her eyes and blew her nose before settling her hat more firmly on her head. She was so, so lucky, and in spite of the fact that she didn’t know if she believed in the rigmarole which seemed to accompany every procedure in the Church, she’d go and light a candle for James every single night if it wasn’t for Father Finlay. She couldn’t stand the lectures he’d undoubtedly give her; and he’d be wanting to know the ins and outs of when they were going to get married and everything else if she knew anything about it. But she would go to confession and Communion tonight and pray for James, but maybe at St Peter’s with Father McGuigan.
‘So, coming for a coffee then?’ Winnie asked as they began to walk.
‘I can’t. I promised I’d get straight back to work once I’d seen James off,’ Abby said apologetically, pulling a face.
‘Later then. I could meet you out of work if you like.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry, lass, but I need to get home. You know how Mam is.’ She didn’t add that it was less the fact that her mother might throw a tantrum if she was late, more the thought of leaving Clara alone with their mother for a minute longer than she had to which made her want to get home as soon as she could. She knew full well that from the minute her sister got back from school their mother made the child’s life a misery, and now Clara was at home all day for the Christmas holidays, Abby didn’t like to think about what went on. As Winnie’s face fell, she added, ‘There’s nothing to stop us going to the pictures after tea though if you want.’ She could make sure Clara was settled in bed before she left the house.
‘Aye, all
right.’ Winnie was all smiles again. ‘With you just having got engaged and me just having given another bloke the old heave-ho due to this blessed war, I think we could both do with a night out.’
‘This one wasn’t worth waiting for either then?’
‘Who, Bernard?’ Winnie shook her head. ‘He was a long way from being the love of me life, lass. Too besotted with football for one thing. I’m sure if I was small and round and made of leather he’d have declared undying love from day one, but as it was . . .’ She shrugged, grinning. ‘I’m keeping me eyes peeled again.’
Always I'Ll Remember Page 10
