The love of my life. The phrase stayed with Abby long after she had left Winnie. That was what James was, the love of her life, and unless this war finished pretty quickly, he was going to be sent into danger and there was nothing she could do about it except light candles and pray for him. She hoped God wouldn’t hold it against her that it didn’t seem enough. She crossed herself and made up her mind to have a special Mass said just for him, even though it cost a bit.
But she had to remain positive and believe everything was going to work out. Some people were saying the war would be over before it had really begun, and although she wasn’t too sure about this herself, she wanted to believe it. It couldn’t possibly go on as long as the First World War anyway, everyone was saying that.
James home with her in time for Easter was what she’d wish for on New Year’s Eve this year. If she wished hard enough it just might come true.
Rationing began in the second week of January and this, combined with frost and heavy snow followed by a bitterly cold February which ruined the farmers’ crops of winter wheat, and had even the hardy northerners only venturing outside when necessity demanded it, all added to the frustrations of the ‘phoney’ war. Thick white lines were painted on kerbs and lamp posts but still cars continued to crash in the blackout, and the wardens who enforced the restrictions were roundly disliked. Ivor, who had volunteered to patrol an area encompassing Rose Street and several around it, was bitterly vocal in his objections to this unfairness, and when the Daily Express began a campaign against what it called the ‘darts and playing cards army’, he threatened to call it a day.
‘I’ve a good mind to chuck it all in,’ he said to Audrey after one particular incident when a neighbour had threatened to stick his torch up a certain part of Ivor’s anatomy where the sun didn’t shine. ‘If there had been any air raids we’d all be public heroes. As it is we’re called wasters and slackers.’
He stamped over to the range, throwing himself down in the dilapidated armchair in front of the fire and proceeding to unlace his boots before the lack of response from his wife registered. ‘What’s the matter?’ He glanced at Audrey who was sitting at the kitchen table with a pile of mending in front of her. ‘You bad or something?’
Audrey raised her head. ‘Don and Len have had their papers,’ she said flatly.
Ivor’s hands stilled and he sat staring at her for a moment, one boot on and one boot off. His two eldest called up? His guts twisted. And Bruce’s twentieth was in a few weeks’ time. The blighters could nail him too.
He rose swiftly and went to his wife, taking Audrey’s hands and drawing her gently to her feet. She put her head on his chest and began to cry as his arms went tightly round her. ‘Lass, you knew it was coming,’ he murmured into her hair. ‘Two million or more they said in January and there’ll be more after this lot an’ all.’
‘I know.’ She clung to him a minute or so more before sniffing and wiping her face with her pinny. ‘Go and put your slippers on, your feet are soaked through, and I’ve a plate of stew and dumplings in the oven.’ Ivor had gone on duty straight from the shipyard that night and had missed the evening meal.
He didn’t immediately do what she said. Instead he reached out his hand and cupped her chin, lifting her swimming eyes to his as he said, ‘I love you, lass, and there’s not a better wife and mother in the whole of the country. I mean that. I’m a very lucky man.’ From the minute they’d been married she’d devoted herself to him and then the bairns, that’s what crucified him at times like this when the enormity of how he’d let her down with that she-devil next door swept over him anew. By, if ever a man had been a damn fool, he had.
Audrey let herself rest against the solid bulk of him for one more moment before she pulled away, pushing him towards the armchair again as she went to see to his dinner. She mustn’t tell him that, terrified as she was for her sons, it was the fear that they might extend the call-up for military service to a wider age band that had really gripped her. But Ivor was nearly forty-eight; surely that made him safe from conscription. It had to, she’d go mad otherwise.
Ivor had changed into dry socks and his slippers by the time Audrey brought two plates to the table. He didn’t comment on the fact that his wife hadn’t eaten her own meal with the lads and her father but had waited for him because it was something she’d always done, but again he felt the heat of burning coals on his head.
‘You told your da about Don and Len?’ he asked as he finished washing his hands in the scullery and walked through to the kitchen.
Audrey shook her head. ‘I didn’t know whether to or not, what with him being so poorly lately. What do you think?’
‘He’s going to have to know sooner or later, lass.’ Ivor paused. ‘Do you want me to tell him?’
‘Would you?’ said Audrey, her relief evident.
‘Aye, once I’ve had me tea. I’ll take him a cuppa and break it gently like.’
Silas was aware there was something wrong with his younger daughter and he had been worrying about it all day. Twice he’d asked her if she was all right and twice she’d said yes, but he knew there was something seriously amiss and his mind had immediately flown to his suspicions about Ivor and Nora. He had whittled his way through a hundred or so different scenarios through the long hours and by the time his son-in-law went in to him the old man was feeling exhausted.
Ivor’s first words confirmed that he looked like he felt. ‘You need one of your pills, Da?’
‘I’ve had one of me pills.’ He was irritable. ‘They don’t do much good.’
Ivor passed him the cup of tea without comment before sitting down on the hard-backed chair at the side of the bed. ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’
‘Oh aye?’
‘Don and Len have been called up.’
When there was no immediate reaction from his father-in-law, Ivor waited for a few moments before saying, ‘Called up to war. You know what I mean?’
‘Course I know what you mean. I ain’t lost me marbles yet whatever you might think, and I knew there was something wrong with Audrey today. A blind man would have seen it.’
‘Right.’ Ivor stared at his wife’s father and his tone was slightly aggrieved when he said, ‘Well, that’s what she’s upset about. We’re both upset.’
Silas’s small round eyes were tight on his son-in-law’s face. ‘I’m sorry for the lads,’ he said quietly, ‘but I thought it might be something else.’
‘Something else?’ Ivor’s brow wrinkled.
‘Shut the door.’
It was a command and issued in such a way to cause Ivor’s mouth to tighten but he did as Silas demanded, shutting the front room door and then coming to the side of the bed again - but this time he did not sit down. ‘Well?’
‘Like your brother, I’m not long for the top.’ And as his son-in-law went to object, Silas waved his hand irritably. ‘I’m not daft, man, and it’s not that I want to talk about, but because things are speeding up I need to ask you something.’ He looked at Ivor long and hard. ‘The other one. You’re not still messing around with her?’
Ivor was struck dumb.
‘I don’t want to know what went on, lad. I just need to be sure it’s finished with and that you’ve got your head screwed on straight now before I go.’
The blood had drained from Ivor’s face. As if in a trance he sank down onto the seat beside the old man’s bed. His father-in-law had given him the biggest shock of his life and for a moment his brain felt scrambled. His hands hung limply between his knees and it was a full thirty seconds before he could say, ‘How long have you known?’
‘Does it matter?’ And then as his son-in-law slowly raised his head, Silas said, ‘Oh, I don’t know. Years perhaps.’ His mouth twisted. ‘Ever since you an’ Audrey took me in, I suppose, or shortly after. You notice things more when your world stops.’
‘Why . . . why didn’t you say anything before?’
‘For one thing I wasn’t completely
sure until a few moments ago.’ And then Silas wagged his head. ‘No, that’s not the truth of it. Basically I’ve always been a believer in never coming between a man and his wife; you’re liable to put your oar in and get it in the neck from both sides. An’ I don’t want to interfere now, lad, not in that sense. But Audrey . . . Well, me lass has always been a mite special, like the little ’un, Abby, and I think I’m asking for me mind to be put at rest.’
‘It can be.’ Ivor stared at the man he had liked and respected from the first day of meeting him. ‘I was a fool, Silas, but you know that. But Nora . . .’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t explain it. It was like she put a spell on me. But there’s been nowt the last umpteen years.’ He refused to acknowledge the brief interlude in the privy which had been over almost before it had begun. ‘And there’ll be nowt in the future, I swear it.’
‘That’s all I wanted to know.’ No. No, it wasn’t. His voice rasping, Silas said, ‘How could you look the side she was on, man, when you had someone like our Audrey at home? I tell you straight, I don’t understand you.’
‘I don’t understand myself.’ Ivor felt sick to his stomach.
Silas stared at the younger man for a moment or two more. What was done was done, and Ivor had been like a son to him, he couldn’t deny that. Taking him in, and never in word or deed making him feel like a burden. And then he spoke the thing which had given him many a sleepless night. ‘What’ll you do if the other one tells her? And she’s capable of it; don’t underestimate Nora, Ivor. There’s a nasty streak in her that’s got worse over the years.’
‘She won’t say nowt.’
‘How can you be sure?’
‘It’s been donkey’s years since we - you know. Nora would’ve said something before if she was going to. And I’d deny it anyway, I’ve told her that. If she said anything, I’d deny it and take Audrey and move if I had to, lock, stock and barrel. I’ve made it clear I want nowt to do with her again.’
Silas hitched himself up on his pillows, his wince of pain ignored by both of them. ‘You do that, lad - deny it, I mean, if it ever came to it because I tell you one thing, our Audrey’s not the type to turn a blind eye an’ pretend it don’t matter. There’s only ever been you for her from the day she set eyes on you, that’s the way she is. Like her mam, God rest her soul.’
‘I know.’
The two men looked at each other and they didn’t speak again before Ivor left the room, but once he was alone again Silas lay staring at the stained ceiling which appeared to have the muzzy outline of a horse’s head among other things. So Ivor had been the one to end it. He chewed on his lower lip, his rheumy gaze moving to what could have passed for an open umbrella where the brown discolouration was particularly severe. Nora wouldn’t have liked being cast aside, that was for sure. ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’ was true enough in his experience, but doubly so where his eldest was concerned. From a bairn Nora had been like old Nick himself when she was thwarted, and she’d grown into a cold, calculating woman who had determinedly set out to take her own sister’s husband, by the sound of it. By, what a dog’s ear of a mess.
As a fusillade of hail hit the window with enough force to rattle it, Silas shuddered. But the chill was from within rather than without. Forget old Hitler’s bombs, there was one ticking within the heart of this family that would blow them all to kingdom come sooner or later. It was just a matter of time.
As winter passed and the first signs of spring began to show themselves, it could be said that only Silas was living in trepidation.
At the end of February Abby had heard from James that he was part of the British Expeditionary Force sent to the Franco-Belgian border where they had built pill-boxes and dug trenches but not encountered so much as a whiff of a German. From panicking at first, by April Abby’s feelings reflected those of the whole British population who had decided the Germans had no intention of attacking France or England. The brave lads of the RAF were dropping millions of leaflets over Germany every week informing the populace of the wickedness of their Führer, at the same time ensuring that no damage occurred to German citizens’ private property in case it upset them.
‘The Germans aren’t stupid,’ Wilbert insisted several times a day to anyone who would listen. ‘They’ll realise they can’t possibly win this war and rid themselves of Hitler.’ James would be home for the best of the summer, he assured Abby more than once. He could guarantee it. Her father said much the same thing on one of his brief sojourns home at the beginning of April, and in the meantime Abby lived for the postman calling and slept with James’s letters under her pillow.
Then, on 10 May, the same day Chamberlain left office and Winston Churhill was asked to form a government by the King, it became clear the days of the ‘phoney war’ were gone for ever. Germany invaded Holland, Belgium and France with breathtaking swiftness, outmanoeuvring the Allies at every turn.
For days afterwards Abby devoured every single piece of news she could find in the newspapers and on the radio, but none of it boded well. And, more frighteningly still, the letterbox had ceased to rattle every other morning.
At the end of May the attempt began to evacuate the British army and as many French soldiers as possible from the trap into which they’d been lured by the Germans. Over a thousand boats took part, varying in size from a Royal Navy anti-aircraft cruiser down to dinghies which were sailed across the Channel to the beach at Dunkirk by their owners from a hundred tiny slips along the south coast and along the reaches of the Thames.
‘James will be one of them who comes home, lass,’ Winnie said comfortingly, when reports of the pleasure boats, river ferries and fishing smacks full of weary and battered soldiers made news. ‘Don’t you fret. He’s a canny lad.’
Winnie was only trying to be nice, Abby knew that, but she found herself biting her tongue to prevent the sharp reply which had sprung to mind. What did being a canny lad have to do with anything? Did guns and tanks and the bombers of the Luftwaffe take into account that someone was a canny lad? Her Aunty Audrey was shrinking before their eyes with worry for Don and Len who had been sent to France just a couple of weeks before the invasion, and there was barely a family round here who didn’t have someone they were waiting news of. They were all canny lads, the lot of them.
By 5 June the last soldier to be rescued in Operation Dynamo was back on British soil, every man with a story to tell, according to the newspapers. A day or two later Abby returned from the office to find Nora waiting for her in the kitchen. ‘Audrey’s heard today that Don and Len are all right,’ her mother said before she’d barely stepped into the room. ‘And Mrs Riley and Bertha Longhurst have both heard from their husbands. Seems they’re letting folk know immediately if the men are safe. There’s been telegrams galore apparently.’
Abby stared into her mother’s eyes. Very quietly she said, ‘What are you saying, Mam?’
‘Saying? Nowt.’ Nora tossed her head and reached for the teacup in front of her. ‘Dr Benson was going to let you know if they heard owt, wasn’t he?’
Abby did not answer her mother but as they stared at each other in silence she was aware of a terrible emptiness creeping over her. The fears she had tried to keep under lock and key since the invasion of France were causing her heart to race and her hands to sweat, but she didn’t intend to give her mother the satisfaction of seeing her crumple. She felt a sudden darting pain in the scar at her temple and funnily enough it acted like a shot of adrenalin, enabling her to say quite coolly, ‘Where’s Clara?’
‘Upstairs, and before you ask, you needn’t call her down to dinner ’cos she’s not having any. I had a load of cheek from that little madam the minute she came in from school and I’m not having her turn out as lippy as you. All right?’
Clara giving their mother cheek? Never, never in a hundred years.
Abby turned and went straight upstairs to the room she shared with her sister. The small girl was huddled on the bed, weeping copiously. Abby took he
r into her arms.
‘She . . . she said . . .’ Clara hung on to her and Abby’s mouth tightened when she saw the raised weals on the child’s legs. ‘She said James isn’t coming back. He is, isn’t he, Abby? She’s lying, isn’t she?’
‘Oh, Clara.’ Abby hugged her sister to her.
‘She was smiling when she said it. She doesn’t want him to come back. She was all long-faced in front of Mrs Riley and Mrs Longhurst when they were talking about it when I came in from school, but the minute they’d gone she started laughing. Horrible laughing. And then she said the rides in James’s car were over and . . . and I shouted at her. James is coming back, isn’t he?’
‘I don’t know, hinny,’ said Abby dully, lifting her feet onto the bed and settling back, still with her sister cradled in her arms. ‘We’ll just have to wait and see.’
They said nothing more after that, Clara’s sobs reducing to sniffs and splutters before dying away completely. Abby heard Wilbert come in from work and the sound of voices from the kitchen but she didn’t rouse herself; a leaden heaviness blanketed her mind and body.
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