by Annie Groves
All this took time. No one was earning any money and as the weather conditions continued to deteriorate, everyone had a sense that the whole country was in the grip of a catastrophe.
‘Some Valentine’s present,’ said Ga turning off the radio.
‘What’s that?’ Gwen was trying to dry the washing. She hung a clothes horse by the fire and she was busy turning things around. Staying damp for too long and there was a danger it would start to smell.
‘It’s now illegal to use electrical appliances,’ said Ga.
Gwen gasped. ‘They can’t do that can they?’
‘They can and they have,’ said Ga grimly. ‘I just heard it on the radio. Failure to comply can result in a £100 fine or two years imprisonment.’
‘For switching on an electric fire?’ Gwen gasped. ‘This place is getting more like a police state every day.’
Mandy was under the table playing with her dollies. She liked it under there. Sometimes the adults forgot she was there and talked about things she wouldn’t normally be allowed to hear. Of course, she didn’t always understand what they were talking about … a police state, for instance, what was that?
Pip was with her. He was lying with his head on his front paws. She’d put a dolly’s hat on his head and he swallowed against the ribbons under his chin.
‘He’s nice, that Frenchie,’ her mother mused.
Ga harrumphed. ‘If you say so.’
‘Come on, Ga,’ said Gwen. ‘You must admit he’s certainly got us all helping each other and that can’t be bad. Poor old Charlie Walker would have been a goner if he and Clifford hadn’t checked up on him. The poor man didn’t have a stick of food in the house.’
Mandy peeped through the fringes on the tablecloth and saw Ga’s mouth tightened. ‘It’s that Mavis Hampton I can’t stand. The way she bosses everybody about. What he sees in her, I’ll never know.’
‘He rents that workshop of his from Councillor Hampton,’ said her mother, ‘and he’s a very talented artist. I think the Frenchie is going places and she knows it.’
‘Changing the subject,’ said Ga, ‘have we got any more spuds out of the ground?’
Her mother shook her head. ‘The ground’s too hard. Shame really. Everyone is complaining about the supplies. Apparently, they had some in the greengrocer’s but they were all diseased and there was half a ton of dirt in the sack as well.’ Mandy watched as her mother wiped the condensation on the window with a dry cloth. ‘And there’s us with a field full of them and we can’t get them out!’
‘Never mind,’ said Ga, ‘once the thaw comes we’ll have a gold mine out there.’
‘But when is it coming?’ said her mother. ‘That’s what I want to know. It’s been like this since January.’
The two women stopped talking. In the distance they could hear a speaker van coming. ‘We’d better listen to what that says,’ said Ga. ‘It wouldn’t be able to go much further than the bottom of the lane. The council only clears the main roads.’
They reached for their coats and opened the back door. The sudden draught of cold air made Mandy lift the heavy tablecloth which hid her beneath the table, but she didn’t come out. Pip did. He seized the opportunity of freedom and pushed between the two women and bounded outside. Luckily for him, Mandy’s mother had the presence of mind to snatch the doll’s hat from his head as he went.
‘You are reminded that it is your duty to clear the front of your premises of snow,’ said a disembodied voice in the distance. ‘Please do not use any electricity for domestic purposes between the hours of nine and twelve and two to four. Failure to comply …’
‘I really don’t want to hear any more of that,’ said Mandy’s mother shutting the door. ‘At least Connie’s all right. They’ll be nice and warm in the hospital.’
‘It would be nice to hear from her,’ Ga grunted. ‘Surely it wouldn’t take five minutes to drop us a line?’
There was a pause and her mother sighed. ‘I wonder where Kenneth is. Don’t you ever want to know what happened to my boy?’
‘Now, now,’ said Ga firmly. ‘Don’t go upsetting yourself over him. He’s not worth it.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t keep saying that,’ said her mother. ‘I know he was a bit of a tearaway but what young lad isn’t? I never understood why he went off like that without so much as a by-your-leave.’
Under the table, Mandy held her breath as she heard her mother choke back a small sob. She knew she had a brother called Kenneth but she’d never seen him. Connie told her about him sometimes, about the games they’d played when Connie was young and the things he’d got up to. Her favourite story was the one when Kenneth and his friend pulled up all the For Sale notices in the village and stuck them in the vicarage garden. Apparently the vicar was furious. Connie showed her a picture of him once but this was the first time she’d ever heard her mother and Ga talking about him.
‘It was for the best,’ said Ga.
‘What was for the best?’ said Gwen rounding on her. ‘Did you see him go then? You never told me. Do you know more than you’re telling me?’
‘No, no of course not,’ said Ga. ‘What I mean is that the boy gave you nothing but grief all the time. Without a father’s hand, he was running wild.’
Mandy could hear her mother blowing her nose. ‘I suppose so. All the same, I wonder where he went, what sort of war he had and where he is now.’
‘Perhaps it’s just as well we don’t know,’ said Ga.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ her mother snapped.
‘Well,’ said Ga uncertainly, ‘he could have been injured or killed.’
Mandy heard her mother take in her breath. ‘No, no,’ she said pressing her hand on her chest. ‘If he was dead, I would know it.’
‘He could have been injured,’ Ga insisted.
‘I don’t want to think of him that way,’ said her mother.
They could hear Pip barking, and then Clifford called from the lane. ‘Gwennie love, come and give us a hand will you?’
‘Well, if you’ll take my advice,’ said Ga, as Mandy’s mother reached for her coat again, ‘you’ll forget all about him.’
‘I can never do that, Ga,’ said Gwen. ‘However old he is, he’s my child.’ And opening the door, she called, ‘What is it?’
Mandy went back to her tea party until she heard a rather odd scrabbling sound. She peeked again and saw Ga searching through her cavernous handbag. A second later, she took out some papers and looked at them. Then using the portable handle, she lifted the lid on the range and dropped them onto the fire. One fell to the floor and floated under the table. Mandy picked it up and put it into the dolly’s cradle.
‘It’s for the best,’ Ga whispered as bright red and yellow flame leapt above the hole and she slipped the lid back over it.
Connie put Ga’s letter back in the envelope and looked at the third. She expected it to come from home as well but the headed envelope told her it was from another hospital. The Royal Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead. Her stomach tightened. Had her mother been taken ill? No, it couldn’t be that. The postmark was even older than the one from Ga and she’d finished up by saying everyone was well. So who was in hospital?
The girl who had pushed past her on the stairs was back. ‘All right, luv?’
Connie nodded. ‘Did you contact your mother?’
‘Nah, her telephone line is down,’ she called. ‘But I got through to a neighbour and they’re all right.’ In the distance a door banged and it went quiet again.
Connie stood up. This wasn’t the best place to read bad news, if it was bad news. Shoving the unopened letter into her pocket, she made her way upstairs to her room.
Connie was halfway up the stairs when Sister Hayes burst through the door. ‘I need three nurses immediately,’ she called out. ‘There’s been a serious accident and we’re expecting a great many casualties.’
Connie turned round and ran down the stairs after her. Two other girls were coming in
to the nurses’ home.
‘What happened?’ Connie called.
‘An unexploded bomb has gone off,’ said Sister. ‘Quickly now, girls. Go straight to the main entrance.’
And as she flew out of the door, Connie could only imagine what horrors lay before her.
Twelve
Stan sensed something was wrong as soon as he came in through the front door. He turned sharply as he went to close the door as if someone was watching him but there was only the inky darkness of night. A cat ran across the path behind him and he jumped. Pull yourself together, he thought, and he slid the bolt across.
He’d spent the evening in the pub. He’d sat in the corner by the bar and drank alone. They refused to talk to him but they were whispering behind his back. Part of him was annoyed and the other part thought to hell with the lot of them. He knew they were upset about the inquest but he had no regrets. He swirled his glass and thought back to the events in the week before Christmas, or to be more exact, the day his wife died.
‘She was walking in front of you?’ the coroner had asked.
He’d looked down at the floor. ‘Yes.’ He had thought it best to say as little as possible. The less people knew, the better.
‘What happened then?’
He shrugged. ‘She suddenly rushed out into the road.’
‘Have you any idea why?’
‘No.’ There had been a murmur in the court room but he’d kept his head down. Let them think what they bloody well wanted to. There was no proof.
‘You see, I can’t understand what made her run out like that,’ said the coroner. ‘Surely she must have seen the bus coming? The previous witness said that he thought her action was part of a joke. He thought that you and your wife could have been indulging in some kind of horseplay when she fell. You, on the other hand, say it was deliberate.’
Stan had raised his head and looked the silly old fool right in the eye. ‘That’s right, it was deliberate. She meant to do it.’
The whole place erupted as her relatives shouted down from the back of the room. ‘Liar!’ ‘Bastard.’
The coroner struggled to make himself heard over the din. ‘Any more disruptions like that and I shall have no other alternative than to have you all forcibly ejected from this room.’
Stan knew perfectly well why they were upset. They were Catholics. She couldn’t be buried in consecrated ground and there would be no Mass said in her memory if the verdict was suicide. He didn’t believe in all that mumbo-jumbo, but they did. She did too and she was planning to tell the whole world about him. That wasn’t right. A wife should never betray her husband. He did his best not to let them take the kid away from him but now that the grandparents had got hold of her, they were fighting tooth and nail to keep her. Never mind, he would have his revenge.
The coroner had been very thorough in his summing up and it had been music to his ears when he finally said, ‘It had been suggested that what happened could have been caused by laughing and joking, but her husband’s testimony flies in the face of that. There is no reason to believe that the deceased had intended to take her life, but I can only draw my conclusions on the circumstantial evidence.’ There had been a howl of protest from the seats at the back when the verdict was announced. ‘Suicide while mentally unbalanced.’
The police had advised Stan to stay within the court until the family had gone. They were baying for blood. Perhaps he should move again. They’d never let him forget. They’d already poisoned half the town against him.
*
Connie was sent to the medical ward so that the more trained staff could be in Accident and Emergency. In the event, there were few casualties because the weather had kept most people in their homes. Connie had finally come off duty at ten past midnight. She was dog tired and hardly able to put one foot in front of the other. Sister Curtis had given both her and the other two nurses extra off duty but it didn’t amount to much.
‘You can come back on duty at twelve noon tomorrow,’ she told them. ‘I’ll clear it with the day staff. You can have a bit of a lie-in.’
They were grateful of course, but it would have been better if they’d had the whole day off. If she had, she might have risked going home.
Connie got undressed without putting on the light and crawled into bed, careful not to wake Betty who was snoring nicely. As soon as she hit the pillow she went out like a light and only woke up at 10.15 a.m. Starving hungry, she was too late for breakfast and too early for lunch.
Betty had tidied the room and Connie’s laundry box was gone. Good old Betty, she thought. She’d have to have the same sheets for another week but at least her uniforms had been sent to the laundry. It was only then that she remembered the letters. Connie searched everywhere, hoping against hope that Betty had looked in the pockets and taken them out, but she couldn’t find them anywhere. Why, oh why hadn’t she opened that third letter? Connie had tried to take a sneaky look on the ward a couple of times, but Sister had spotted her and made sure she had something else to do.
One look out of the window told her that the snow was as bad as ever but she had to find Betty and ask her if she’d put them somewhere safe. If Betty hadn’t found them, they would have gone to the laundry and that didn’t bear thinking about. Connie decided if she couldn’t find the letter, she would have to ring the Frenchie after all. Perhaps there had been some sort of emergency at home and someone had ended up in hospital. What other explanation was there? She looked at her watch. She had exactly one hour to do all that and get back on duty.
When she found Betty, she was full of apologies. ‘What a stupid clown I am,’ she said, looking around to make sure Sister hadn’t seen her creeping outside the ward doors. ‘I should have gone through your pockets but I never gave it a thought. The letters must still be there. Were they very personal?’
‘It’s not that,’ Connie said. ‘Where do they take the laundry boxes?’
‘Oh, they’ll be long gone now,’ said Betty. ‘The laundry is round the back of the hospital. You could try and see if they’ll let you look for your things, I suppose.’
Connie groaned. If she went there right now, she’d probably have to get permission in triplicate before they would even let her in. She hadn’t a hope of managing all that before her shift began.
‘I’m really sorry,’ said Betty.
‘It’s not your fault,’ said Connie. ‘I don’t know why I didn’t just go to the toilet and read them. Everybody seemed to be in such a flap what with the bombing and all I didn’t want anyone to think I was skiving.’
The ward door burst open almost knocking them over. ‘What do you think you are doing out here, nurse?’ said an angry voice. ‘This is no time for a mothers’ meeting.’
Betty hurried back into the ward with a, ‘No, Sister, sorry Sister …’
*
Stan had been jumpy, opening doors cautiously and looking around the rooms before he went in. The fire was almost out in the sitting room. He threw on another log and poked the embers back into life. Reaching for the whisky bottle, he’d poured himself a stiff drink and flopped down in the chair. He must have slept soundly and only woke when he heard a sound in the hallway. His heart began to thump wildly in his chest. He got up and opened the sitting room door. A vivid tongue of flame leapt to the ceiling and a rush of hot air came towards him. He felt it burn his skin. He made a dash towards the kitchen and the back door but he couldn’t open it. The handle was wedged in some way. The flames were coming towards him. He couldn’t stay here. He glanced wildly at the stairs but even if he could make it, it would be the height of stupidity to go up. He had to get out. He made his way back to the sitting room and immediately slammed the door, took off his coat and threw it across the doorway. Somewhere inside his head he remembered someone saying that fire feeds on oxygen. Cut off the supply and it would be contained. He’d obviously fed the fire as he opened the door but he could stop the steady draught of air under the door adding more fuel. He ran to the wi
ndow and tried to open it but someone had nailed it shut. It was only then that he realised that his only way of escape was cut off. His hands hurt but he managed to grab a chair and smash the window. He laid cushions over the jagged edges and hauled himself coughing and gasping for air, into the garden.
The eight minutes it took the fire brigade to get to him seemed like a lifetime. He’d lain in the garden listening to the small explosions beyond the window as his beautiful home burned.
The firemen did what they could but he had lost everything. The hallway was a shell and elsewhere the walls were streaked and the carpets sodden. The smoke damage was everywhere. Everything stank and the whole house was grimy, smudged and blackened.
Of course the police asked a lot of questions. It was clear that someone had tried to murder him, but he was in a difficult position. He didn’t want them probing too deeply. Who knows what they’d find out? He’d move away. Back to his mother’s or something.
‘You’d better get that face seen to,’ someone said.
That’s when he’d looked down at his hands. They were burned. The skin hanging from his fingers as if he’d been peeled like an apple. Now that he thought about it, his face was beginning to throb. ‘It’s off to hospital with you,’ said a voice and all at once, the ground rushed up to meet him as he fainted clean away.
*
Belvedere Nurseries wasn’t on the telephone but Clifford had made an arrangement with the Frenchie, the only person in the area with a telephone, that if there was an exceptional emergency, Connie could ring the workshop and he would pass on the message. Connie hurried to the public telephone box. There had been talk of the GPO putting a phone box inside the nurses’ home but so far it was only talk. The call box was on the main road but at least someone had cleared the footpaths of snow and thrown salt down to prevent it from re-freezing.
