We'll Meet Again

by Patricia Burns

  ‘Oh, Michael, Michael, Michael—that’s all you ever think of,’ Moira flared. ‘What about me? I’m the one who has to carry the baby for nine months, getting all fat and ugly and breathless and ruining my figure, and then I’m the one who has to look after it and feed it and clean up after it. Me, not you. It’s all very well for you to talk, but I’m the one who has to do all the hard work.’

  ‘But—I thought you wanted another child,’ Tom said, utterly baffled.

  ‘Well, you thought wrong, didn’t you?’ Moira retorted and walked out of the room.

  Tom was left reeling. He had known for some time that things weren’t too good between them. He had never suspected they were that bad. And then he remembered all the other little things, along with the frequency with which she turned away from him when he wanted to make love. A nasty little worm of suspicion started up in his mind and, once there, it was almost impossible to eradicate it.

  There was nobody whom he could turn to for advice. It wasn’t the sort of thing he could discuss with his friends or his father, and his mother and sister were bosom pals with the Butterworths. There was only one person he knew who had always listened with sympathy to everything he had to say, and that was Annie. Driving along the dreary trunk routes, or up over the breathtaking moorland roads, he would compose letters where he opened his heart to her. He never sent them, restricting himself to the friendly monthly newsletter that they had fallen into the habit of sending each other. But in his mind he told her just how much he had longed to hear from her when he had been in the prison camp, how shocked and desperately disappointed he had been to find her pregnant and waiting to marry the child’s father, how Moira had always been second best, how he’d tried to be a decent husband but seemed now to have failed.

  It wasn’t as good as really writing it all down and sending it to her. It certainly wasn’t as good as telling her face to face. But it helped. And he was grown up enough to know that, even if he did tell her, Annie couldn’t wave a magic wand over his situation. It was up to him to find a solution.

  Then, one evening early in February, he had a job driving a choir over to a church hall in a neighbouring town. The concert they performed in ended rather earlier than expected and Tom was home twenty minutes or so before he had told Moira he would be back. He was surprised when he opened the front door, to find the house silent. Moira generally liked to sit and watch the television in the evening, whatever the programme might be.

  ‘Hello?’ he called softly as he stood in the narrow hall.

  There was no reply.

  He opened the door to the front room and looked in. The light was on, but it was empty. He tried the dining room and the kitchen. He supposed she must be in the bathroom and in a mood, so she wasn’t answering him. He ran up the stairs two at a time and tapped on the bathroom door.

  ‘Hello—I’m back,’ he said, then stopped.

  Not only was there no reply, but there was no light showing under the door. The only answer was that Moira was unwell and had gone to bed early. He put on the landing light and carefully opened the bedroom door. She was not in there either.

  A terrible fear gripped his heart. Had she left and taken Michael with her? A weight seemed to be crushing his chest.

  ‘Not my son,’ he muttered out loud. ‘Not Michael.’

  Hardly knowing what to expect, he went into the back bedroom. In the dim light creeping in from the landing, he made out a dark shape in Michael’s bed. There was a sigh and a rustle of bedclothes as the child turned in his sleep. The rush of relief was so strong that he only just stopped himself from scooping his son from the bed and clutching him so close that he would never let him go. Instead, he stood and gazed down at the boy. As his eyes grew accustomed to the half light, he could make out the dark tufts of his hair, the sweep of his long lashes on his soft cheek, the baby roundness of his chin. He loved him so much that it hurt. Whatever happened, he realised, it didn’t matter just as long as he still had Michael.

  In the still of the house, he heard a rattle. It was the back door. Tom raised his head and listened as the door clicked to again.

  ‘Tom?’

  Anger coursed through his body. Moira had gone out and left Michael and anyone—anyone at all—could have come in and injured or abducted him. He crept out of the boy’s room and ran down the stairs and into the kitchen.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’ he demanded.

  Moira was holding her coat closed at her throat, but though her arm was across her chest, it did not quite disguise the swift rise and fall of her breathing. Her pupils were still dark and dilated from being out in the night.

  ‘I—had a headache,’ she said.

  ‘A headache?’ Tom repeated. ‘You went out and left our son all alone because you had a headache? Anything could have happened. A murderer could have got in. At the very least he could have woken up and found nobody here. How could you? Call yourself a mother and you go out and leave him!’

  Moira’s face hardened. ‘For heaven’s sake! I had a headache and I went out for five minutes to get some fresh air. Five minutes! I checked before I went and he was fast asleep. And is he fast asleep now?’

  ‘That’s beside the point,’ Tom said.

  ‘No, it isn’t. I went out for five minutes and there’s no harm done, so what’s all the fuss about? Anyone would think I’d committed a major crime.’

  Tom stared at her, trying to see past her hot denial, trying to read what was going on in her head. For he did not believe her.

  ‘If you’ve only been out for five minutes, how come I didn’t see you as I came down the road?’ he demanded.

  “I—went to the corner and back. The bottom corner,’ Moira said.

  He noticed the slight hesitation. She was lying—he was sure she was lying—but he couldn’t see how to prove it.

  ‘You shouldn’t have gone out at all,’ he persisted.

  ‘All right. So I shouldn’t have gone out. I won’t do it again. Happy now?’ Moira demanded.

  ‘No,’ Tom said.

  ‘Well, tough luck,’ she said and pushed past him.

  He heard her hang her coat up in the hall, then go into the front room. There was a click as the television was switched on, then a pause while it warmed up and finally burst into life. A plummy BBC accent filled the silent anger of the house.

  Tom stood staring out at the darkness that was the back garden.

  She had not gone away and taken Michael with her, that was the main thing. But something here was terribly wrong. Though caution told him that it might be better not to find out, still he had to know just what was going on.

  He took to coming home when she wasn’t expecting him, or saying he was going to be out on a driving job, then at the last minute telling her it had been changed or cancelled, but though he never caught her out, he seemed to see a challenge in her smile as he came in each time. In front of their friends and their family, they both carried on as if nothing was amiss. They even kept the pretence going in front of each other. They were both playing a game and neither of them was admitting it. Tom wondered how much longer it could go on. Maybe if they pretended for long enough, then it really would be all right again. Maybe this was just what people called a bad patch.

  The first Saturday of March, a fishing club booked a trip to Lowestoft to try their hands at sea fishing. It was to be a long day, starting at the crack of dawn, in order to give them a decent amount of time out on the boats. The prospect of going to the East Anglian coast made Tom’s mouth go dry and his heart beat faster. He checked the distances on the map. It was quite a long way further south to Wittlesham. It would make for a big distance altogether in one day. But it was worth it. If he could just see Annie once more, he reasoned, he might be able to put everything into perspective. Talking to her face to face was so much better than a letter. He wouldn’t warn her. He’d just turn up and see if she was pleased to see him. If she wasn’t—but he didn’t put that possibility into words.
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  The day started badly, with driving rain. The fishermen grumbled as they got on board, as if he had personally arranged the weather. The standing water on the roads meant that he did not make good time and had to cut down on tea stops. Again the fishermen grumbled. It was still raining when they arrived, but not so hard now. The fishermen cheered up reluctantly and milled about getting their gear organised. Tom could hardly wait to throw them all out of his coach. Then he headed south.

  Through clearing showers he drove down the A12 through pretty Suffolk villages and market towns, his spirits rising with each one passed. Why hadn’t he done this before? he wondered. It was so simple. Just to see her, talk to her, would make everything brighter. It wasn’t too much to ask, and it wasn’t as if he was expecting anything other than her friendship, so he wasn’t cheating on Moira in any way. He began to sing. Ipswich was clogged with traffic. So was Colchester. He crawled along the narrow, crowded streets, grinding his teeth with impatience. Eastwards, and now he was getting close. Wittlesham featured on the signposts. He caught sight of a distant gleam of the sea across flat fields. Then there was the town sign. Welcome to Wittlesham—pearl of the Essex coast. Tom cheered out loud.

  There was a small painted sign on the road now, pointing down the track to the chalets: To Silver Sands Holiday Park. The track itself had not improved. Tom bounced down it with scant regard for the coach’s suspension. A few potholes were not going to slow him down now that his goal was in sight.

  He pulled up by the sea wall and leaned on the steering wheel, staring. Even though he’d known that the chalet had been washed away in the floods, still it was a shock to find it gone. All that was left of Silver Sands as he knew it was the shape of the boundary. Instead of the pretty wooden chalet and the big unkempt garden there was a neatly mown space with five caravans placed about it like the spokes of a wheel, a brick building that looked like a toilet and a play area. So this was the project that Annie wrote about with such enthusiasm. In the grey winter light, it all looked pretty dismal. It was difficult to imagine people enjoying holidays here.

  With a jolt, Tom realised what was missing from the scene—Annie herself. Too late, he saw that he should have gone straight to the farmhouse but, now that he was here, he felt he just had to go to the top of the sea wall. For old times’ sake.

  He stood with his back to the land and the damp wind in his face and gazed along to where a raw new section marked the place where the water had broken through. So much had changed since last he had been here. Then he scanned slowly round, taking in the gleam of light in the mudbanks, the snaking creeks amongst the saltmarsh, the far grey of the horizon. That was still the same. It was as wild and open as he had imagined it when he’d been cooped up in the Stalag, and the sky was just as huge. The smell was the same too—salt and seaweed and rotting crustaceans. He breathed in deeply, taking it right down to the bottom of his lungs, feeling it invigorate his sluggish blood. Overhead, seagulls arced and, in the distance, faint but still piercing, he could hear the haunting cry of the curlew.

  ‘Hello.’

  He spun round, catching his breath.

  ‘Annie!’

  There she was, at the bottom of the sea wall, looking up at him. Her round face was framed by a blue woolly hat and her fair curls escaped round the edges. His heart seemed to turn right over. And then he scrambled and slithered down the steep grass slope of the wall to stop in front of her. His hands reached for hers and they stood, smiling and smiling into each other’s eyes.

  ‘Are you my daddy?’

  With a start, Tom realised that there was somebody else there. A boy of about seven or eight was standing at Annie’s side, staring up at him with unnerving intensity.

  Annie flushed with embarrassment and put a hand on the boy’s shoulder.

  ‘Bobby! I’m sorry, Tom, he doesn’t understand—this is my son, Bobby,’ Annie explained, flustered. ‘Bobby, you mustn’t—this isn’t—this is my old friend Mr Featherstone.’

  The boy looked down, disappointment written all over him.

  ‘I wish I was your daddy,’ Tom said with total honesty. ‘But I’m not. I have a son of my own at home. His name is Michael.’

  The boy sighed. He scraped at a stone amongst the grass with the toe of his Wellington boot. ‘My daddy’s got a son of his own in America. That’s why he can’t marry my mum.’

  Tom ached for him and for Annie. He squatted down so that Bobby was now taller than he was.

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘And it must be pretty rotten for you. But just remember that you have got the very best mam in the world.’

  Bobby glared at him for a moment. Then he looked up at Annie and a smile broke on his pinched little face. He slid his mittened hand into hers.

  ‘Yes, I have,’ he said. Then he broke away and picked up the bike that lay against the slope of the sea wall. ‘Look!’ he said, his voice overflowing with pride. ‘I’ve got a bike. It’s all mine. My mum gave it to me for my birthday.’

  ‘It’s a very fine bike,’ Tom told him. ‘How fast can you go on it?’

  ‘Super-fast! Look—’

  Bobby swung a leg over the crossbar and pushed off. Soon he was pedalling round the caravans yelling, ‘Look at me!’

  ‘You must be a good dad,’ Annie said, watching her son.

  ‘I hope so,’ Tom said. ‘It must be hard for you, on your own. But you’re doing a grand job. He’s a fine boy.’

  ‘I think so, but then I would, wouldn’t I?’ Still watching Bobby, she asked, ‘Why did you come?’

  All sorts of answers flashed through Tom’s head. The only honest one was—because he needed to see her. Instead he said, ‘I was coming as far as Lowestoft and it seemed like a good chance to look you up.’

  Which, even as he said it, sounded lame and bland.

  ‘Ah,’ Annie said, carefully neutral. ‘It’s quite a way from Lowestoft.’

  ‘Yes, well—’

  He hesitated. He knew he should stick to being bluff and friendly. That was the safe path. That was the loyal path. Loyal to Moira.

  ‘I thought it would be nice to meet up again,’ he said. ‘Letters aren’t quite the same, are they?’

  ‘They’re not,’ Annie agreed. ‘It was just such a surprise to see you, that’s all.’

  ‘A good surprise, I hope?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Very good. I often think of you when I’m here. At first, when I saw you standing on the sea wall just where we first met, I thought I was seeing things. That’s why I thought there might be some—some reason why you came.’

  Moira loomed between them—silent, invisible, but a presence nonetheless. Tom saw with sudden clarity just how feeble it would sound if he voiced his reason out loud. His wife might be up to something, but he didn’t know what, so he had come running to Annie for—what? He hardly knew.

  ‘Does there have to be a reason? You’ve told me so much about Bobby and the caravans and all the rest, I wanted to see it for myself.’

  ‘Oh—well—’ Disappointment showed in her face, hastily masked.

  Tom reached out a hand, was just about to tell her how much he missed her, when she took a step away.

  ‘You’d better come and look round, then. There’s not much to see at this time of year, but I’ve lots of plans for the future …’

  She led him round the site, showing where she intended to fit more vans in, then waved an arm at the next field, at present part of the farm, and told him all about what she would like to do if she had the money.

  ‘Just think what a lot I could do on just one field, let alone expanding into any of the others. If I can get this going, I’ll let the rest of the farmland and just concentrate on Silver Sands—’

  Listening to her, Tom was amazed at how much she had changed. The downtrodden young girl had been transformed into a confident businesswoman.

  ‘It all sounds very exciting,’ he said. ‘And you’re doing it all by yourself—I really admire that. I always knew you were someone speci
al, Annie.’

  She shrugged. ‘Yes, well—I don’t know about that—’ She busied herself with speaking to Bobby.

  When the boy went off again to play on the swings, Tom leaned on the fence and looked across the fields to the farmhouse.

  ‘The floods changed everything, didn’t they? Now you haven’t got that father of yours making your life a misery, you’re a new person.’

  Annie was silent. For a moment Tom wondered whether she had heard him. She was gripping the fence as if she might fall down if she did not hang on to it, and her face had gone deathly pale.

  ‘Annie? What is it? What’s—?’

  ‘I killed him,’ she said, in such a low voice that he only just caught her words.

  ‘What?’ he said. ‘You don’t mean—? I thought he was drowned.’

  ‘He was, but—I could have saved him. I was holding on to a tree and he was being swept past and he called out to me … He begged me, begged me to help him … but I didn’t and then … then he was washed away and I tried to reach him but it was too late—’

  She stopped, her voice rising in a sob. Tom reached out and took her shoulders, turning her round to face him. There were tears standing in her eyes.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said, trying to think, trying to imagine how it had been. ‘It was dark, right? And he was being swept past you? It must all have happened very fast—you could have been swept away too—you might not have been strong enough to hold the both of you.’

  ‘I know—I know—but I didn’t try. I should have tried.’

  To Tom’s mind, Walter had only got what he’d deserved.

  ‘If you had’ve tried, you could’ve been drowned, and Bobby would have been an orphan. You’re not to blame, Annie. It was the work of a moment, and you had to save yourself. Think of how it would be for Bobby if he was alone in the world except for your mam.’

  ‘I know, but—I can’t get it out of my head, Tom. It keeps coming back to me, and there’s no one—You’re the only person I’ve ever told—’

  ‘Oh, Annie—’

  He drew her to him and held her as she wept on his shoulder. All the old feelings of tenderness came sweeping back—that need he had to protect her from Walter. He had thought that she was free of the man, but now it seemed the old bastard was haunting her still.