Primrose Square

by Anne Douglas

  ‘Sunny? Good God.’ The major bit his lip. ‘What the war can do to people . . . I can’t even recognize him from the man you describe.’

  ‘He played the piano, too. Anything and everything, all by ear. Now he says he hasn’t a tune in his head.’

  ‘Ah, Elinor, didn’t I tell you, we have a long way to go?’

  ‘You’re going to take me out?’ Barry asked later. ‘In the wheelchair? No thanks, I’m no’ parading myself in the streets, looking for sympathy. That’s no’ going to happen.’

  ‘Who says you’re looking for sympathy? You have to have fresh air – this is a way of getting it. And seeing other people.’

  ‘And letting them see me. No, no. It’s what some fellows like, I’ve heard. Everybody fawning and telling ’em they’re heroes.’ Barry shook his head. ‘No’ for me, Elinor. Forget it.’

  ‘It’s what Major Henderson wants,’ she said shortly. ‘No point in arguing. Next fine afternoon, we’re going.’

  He stared, his eyes narrowing. ‘Yes, ma’am! As you say, ma’am! Where do I report, then?’

  ‘There’s no need to make fun, Barry. I’m simply telling you what Major Henderson said.’

  ‘Ordered, you mean.’

  ‘It was more of a request – something to help you.’

  ‘All right.’ He shrugged. ‘If I have to, I have to. Next fine afternoon, we go.’

  ‘I think, once we set off, you’ll enjoy it. It’s nearly Christmas and the shops are all trying to be cheerful.’

  When he made no reply, she sighed. Talk about uphill work, she thought, then, remembering his situation, drew on her patience.

  ‘Are they letting you out for Christmas?’ she asked lightly. ‘They do their best to celebrate here, but a lot of patients try to go home for a couple of days.’

  ‘I suppose I could go to Bettina’s, if she’ll have me. She visited me in Musselburgh, but we’d nothing much to say. I told her no’ to bother coming to the Primrose.’

  ‘She might still want you for Christmas?’

  ‘Well, her Alfie’s still in the Navy, risking life and limb, and Georgie’s gone, so she thinks I shouldn’t be out of the battlefields.’

  ‘Oh, that’s a piece of nonsense, Barry! I’m sure she doesn’t think any such thing. When you’ve . . .’

  ‘Lost a leg? That’s no excuse in Bettina’s eyes.’ Barry gave a rare grin. ‘Och, I’m being a bit hard on her. I expect she’ll have me for Christmas dinner, if she’s having one. At least it’s the ground floor.’

  ‘Ground floor?’ Elinor repeated, then blushed. ‘Oh, sorry, I see what you mean.’

  ‘Aye, takes me a long time to climb the stair these days.’

  ‘How about we go down to the recreation room for a cup of tea?’

  ‘No need for you to come, Elinor, thanks all the same. I can manage your wee lift myself now.’

  And as he moved painfully away on his crutches, it seemed to her that Barry was already doing what he could to hang on to his independence. If only he also could master his depression and accept his injury, too – but, as the major said, to get him to do that looked like being a long job.

  Fifty-Five

  On the first afternoon Elinor took Barry out, the weather was chill and grey, but the Princes Street shops were filled with light and whatever could be found to sell to bring some cheer to the war-weary public. Certainly, the public was keen enough to go shopping and Elinor found it no easy task steering Barry’s wheelchair through the crowds.

  ‘Are you sure I’m no’ too heavy for you?’ Barry asked, trying to look pleasant as passers-by smiled at him, murmuring such remarks as ‘Well done, laddie!’ and ‘Brave fellow, then.’

  ‘No, no, I’m tall and strong,’ Elinor answered, rather regretting her words, as she knew he was the one who wanted to be tall and strong, but deciding it was best to carry on talking. ‘I’m afraid there’s an awful crowd out today, but Major Henderson thinks it’s good for you to mix with folk, you see.’

  ‘He might think that, but all I can see are legs,’ Barry returned. ‘Everybody’s got legs – what good does that do me?’

  ‘You’re supposed to be looking at the shops, or the Castle, or something to cheer you up. That’s the object.’

  ‘How about a cup of tea, then? It’s damned cold in the street and I’ve got a few bob spending money. I’ll treat you.’

  ‘There’s a nice little place off George Street,’ Elinor told him, glad herself to think of being out of the cold. ‘Should be quieter there, too.’

  It was remarkable how much better they both felt in a comforting warm atmosphere, with hot tea and mince pies before them and pleasant people around, all legs hidden beneath tables.

  ‘Oh, this is nice,’ Elinor murmured, pouring Barry more tea. ‘There are still some things to enjoy, aren’t there?’

  His eyes were resting on her face, rather flushed from the cold, her eyes very bright, and he gave for once a genuine smile.

  ‘Aye, it’s some time since I had a mince pie, I’ll agree.’

  ‘I made some mince pies once, for the Christmas party our course had. They were pretty good, too.’

  ‘Your tutor fellow enjoy them?’

  Elinor looked down. ‘He did, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘What happened to him, then? Let me guess, he’s an officer somewhere?’

  ‘In the King’s Own Scottish Borderers. Fought in plenty of battles.’

  ‘You don’t need to tell me. I’ve nothing against officers, except the ones who do the planning. This fellow been wounded?’

  ‘Had a bullet in his knee, I believe.’

  ‘And he’s all right? Lucky devil.’ Barry finished the last crumb of his mince pie. ‘You keep in touch?’

  ‘No’ really. He’s found someone else now. A lady ambulance driver.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I know the sort.’

  ‘They do a very good job, Barry.’

  ‘Sure they do. Everybody does a good job. Never seem to get anywhere, that’s the trouble.’

  ‘Mind if I ask you, but how did you get on with the major?’ Elinor said after a pause. ‘I mean, for your first session?’

  ‘Och, it was just what I expected. Questions and answers and all very nice and friendly. He seems a good chap, but he’s never going to get my leg back.’

  ‘The main thing is to be very honest, they say, tell the doctors everything, no’ what you think they want to hear.’

  ‘I told him something that made him jump.’ Barry took out a packet of Woodbines. ‘Can we smoke in here?’

  ‘Most people are. I don’t. What did you tell him, Barry?’

  ‘Said when I was looking at the sea at Musselburgh on my first day out after the op, for two pins, I’d have thrown myself in.’

  ‘Barry, you didn’t mean it!’ Elinor had turned pale. ‘You would never do that!’

  ‘Sure I would,’ Barry answered carelessly, lighting a cigarette. ‘Still might. Why not, if my whole life has changed? I’m just waiting to see how things go.’

  ‘You never told them at Musselburgh?’

  ‘No, but they might have guessed. I’m described as depressed, eh? And I’m here.’

  ‘Major Henderson will never let you do such a terrible thing!’ Elinor cried and, leaning across the table, took Barry’s hand. ‘And neither will I!’

  His eyes flashed with pleasurable fire and for a moment she saw again the old Barry, the cheerful, devil-may-care fellow she’d fallen in love with. Though no longer in love, she was deeply compassionate for him, determined to pull him back from the brink of despair, to make him see that life was still worth living. As quickly as it had appeared, the old image faded, yet there was still something of it there, some sign of a spirit that might give him the courage to go on.

  ‘Why, Elinor,’ he said quietly, ‘you’re quite a tonic, eh? I think it should be you doing the major’s job.’

  ‘I want to do what I can to help. Listen, if you get your artificial leg, you’ll be
able to lead a life the same as anyone else. No’ kicking a football, but doing plenty of other things, learning new skills and all such as that. Why throw everything away, Barry? Promise me you never will.’

  He took his hand from hers, drew on his cigarette.

  ‘Maybe later. Will that do?’

  ‘Have I made you feel any better?’

  ‘You have. This is the best afternoon I’ve had since I don’t know when.’

  ‘I’m glad. Maybe we’d better go back now.’

  ‘I’ll get the bill. Now that’s something I can do, eh?’

  They returned through the darkening streets, where the shoppers were still jostling outside the lighted shops, turned at Maule’s Corner and arrived back at the Primrose.

  ‘Easy does it,’ said a patient who had also been out for a walk. ‘Let me help you up the ramp, eh?’

  ‘Thanks, that’s very kind,’ Elinor told him, as the young soldier helped her to pull Barry’s wheelchair up the ramp on the front steps.

  ‘Any time.’

  He touched his cap and ran ahead, but as she and Barry progressed through the hall to the lift, she saw with a sinking heart that a shutter had come down once more over Barry’s face. Needing another man to help him had brought it home to him, it seemed, that he was in a wheelchair, and for a moment she thought that all her efforts to cheer him had been wasted, that he was back to what he had been. In the lift, however, his expression lightened and he smiled.

  ‘Elinor, that was grand,’ he said quietly. ‘When can we go out again?’

  Fifty-Six

  Another wartime Christmas arrived. That year, Elinor was on duty with Brenda at the Primrose over the holiday, but didn’t mind. The atmosphere was relaxed and they enjoyed giving those patients who couldn’t spend the day away as good a time as possible. These did not include Barry who had, after all, been invited by Bettina for Christmas dinner, along with her Alfie who had managed to come home on leave from his ship.

  ‘That’s put her in a sweeter mood,’ Barry informed Elinor. ‘Doesn’t mind me being out of the war now Alfie’s home for a bit.’

  ‘You just do your best to enjoy the day,’ Elinor told him, ‘and don’t make Bettina out to be worse than she is.’

  ‘You’re too nice, that’s your trouble,’ he said with a smile, but was pleased when Bettina herself splashed out on a taxi to collect him and expressed herself delighted with his present of a bottle of scent, chosen on his behalf by Elinor.

  ‘You really seem to get on well with our Barry,’ Brenda remarked, after Elinor had waved him off. ‘You sure he’s not getting too keen?’

  ‘On me? No, that’s out of the question.’

  ‘Why? Patients do get attached to medical staff, it’s well known.’

  ‘Doctors, maybe, but I’m no doctor.’ Elinor hesitated. ‘Thing is, I haven’t told you this before – was too embarrassed – but he’s the one.’

  ‘The one?’

  ‘The one I went out with and it all came to nothing.’

  ‘Elinor!’ Brenda’s eyes widened. ‘How awkward for you, having him here!’

  ‘I thought it would be, but it’s been fine. I felt bitter at the time we split up because he didn’t want me, but that’s all in the past. Now I feel so sorry for him, I just want to help him.’

  ‘Oh, well, that’s all right, then. But take care he doesn’t see something that’s not there.’

  ‘All he wants is to be as he was before. I honestly don’t think he’s interested in me at all.’

  Hessie, though, when Elinor saw her at Hogmanay, wasn’t so sure about that.

  ‘I bet he is falling for you, Elinor, when you do so much for him. Canna blame him, eh? Though I blamed him plenty after the way he treated you. Now, I suppose, we’ve to forgive and forget. Poor laddie, eh?’

  ‘Ma, you’re like everybody else, thinking Barry’s sweet on me, but it just isn’t true. He showed me pretty clearly what he wanted when we split up and it wasn’t me.’

  ‘Aye, but things are different now, eh?’

  Hessie began setting out her one bottle of port and the remains of her Christmas cake, in preparation for the visit of Mrs Elder, the dressmaker, who was coming round to see the New Year in with her young daughter, Sally.

  ‘But you be careful, eh?’ she went on. ‘It’d no’ be a bed o’ roses, married to a fellow who’s lost a leg and is feeling blue all the time. You make it clear, you’re no’ getting involved.’

  ‘Oh, Ma,’ Elinor sighed. ‘There’ll be no marriage, I can promise you.’

  ‘Here they come,’ was all her mother said, as the visitors arrived. ‘Open the damper of the range, Elinor, let’s get a bit of warmth.’

  And it was pleasant, sitting together, waiting for the clock to strike twelve and usher in 1917, but Elinor did wonder if things weren’t a little boring for seventeen-year-old Sally. Shouldn’t she have been out at the Tron Kirk with friends? It was the traditional place to see in the New Year, after all.

  ‘Och, no!’ her mother cried. ‘She’s far too young for that. I’d never have a minute’s peace if she was out in the town for Hogmanay.’

  ‘Plenty of lassies my age go to the Tron,’ Sally, dark-haired and pretty, said sulkily, but it was plain she knew she’d get nowhere with her mother, who was still looking worried, and said no more.

  ‘Shall I put the drinks out now, to be ready?’ Hessie asked. ‘There’s lemonade for Sally, if she doesn’t like port, and we might as well cut the cake.’

  As she busied herself pouring drinks and slicing the cake, she sighed a little.

  ‘This is when you think of the missing ones, eh? Walt always liked his dram at Hogmanay.’

  And other times, thought Elinor.

  ‘My Keith was the same,’ Freda remarked. ‘And then there’s your Corrie, Hessie. Shame he couldn’t have got more leave.’

  ‘Is that him there?’ Sally asked, studying a photo of Corrie on the shelf over the range. Wearing his uniform, he’d been taken against the mysterious background of a battleship – the photographer’s choice – and was looking very young and rather startled. ‘Isn’t he handsome?’

  ‘He is,’ Hessie said fondly. ‘You’ll have to meet him when he next comes home.’

  ‘I’d like to,’ Sally cried with such enthusiasm that her mother and Hessie exchanged glances. ‘Be sure to tell me when he comes.’

  ‘You could write to him, you know,’ Elinor suggested. ‘Soldiers love getting letters.’

  ‘I don’t know him, though.’

  ‘You could be what they call a pen friend. A lot of women write to the soldiers that way.’

  ‘I’m better at sewing than writing,’ Sally admitted, with a giggle. ‘But I could have a go. Will you tell me where to write?’

  ‘I’ll find the address for you now.’

  ‘No, wait,’ ordered Hessie. ‘Look at the clock. Nearly twelve. Get ready, everybody!’

  All four rose, glasses in hand, their eyes on the hands of the old mantel clock, and as the hands moved to twelve and the clock began to strike, Hessie cried, ‘To 1917! Happy New Year! May it bring peace to us all.’ Her voice trembling a little, she added, ‘And bring the laddies safely home.’

  ‘To 1917,’ the others echoed, drinking the toast. ‘Happy New Year!’

  They exchanged hugs and kisses and shed a few tears, as Corrie looked gravely on from his photograph. With them in spirit, his mother and sister said, from wherever he was, at the beginning of another year of war.

  Fifty-Seven

  After all that had been said about Barry’s possible feelings for her, Elinor felt a certain diffidence about seeing him again after New Year, but all was well. She could detect no change in his preoccupation with his own situation, and though she did sometimes find his eyes resting on her, she decided she’d been right and everyone else wrong over his attachment to her.

  Which meant their little outings could continue with no worries, except perhaps for the winter weather, which w
as bitterly cold, sometimes wet, sometimes snowy, but not usually bad enough to keep them in.

  ‘Thank God,’ Barry commented, as they set out one February afternoon, muffled to the eyebrows. ‘I couldn’t stand being indoors any longer. First, there’s old Henderson, jawing away, then that nurse giving me exercises, bending me around till I feel like swearing in her ear. When am I going to get away, then, Elinor? When’s the sentence up?’

  ‘Depends how soon you get better.’

  He twisted round in his wheelchair to look at her.

  ‘They canna do anything for me. I’m never going to get better.’

  ‘Oh, Barry, don’t say that! I hate to hear you talk like that, after all we’re trying to do.’

  She had been pushing him along the paths in the Princes Street gardens, but was beginning to feel numb with the cold and afraid that it was too cold for Barry, having to sit in his chair. Better go back.

  ‘No!’ cried Barry. ‘No’ yet, Elinor. We usually have tea, eh? I canna face going back just yet.’

  ‘It’s just so cold . . .’

  ‘We’ll get warm in the café. Come on, if you want to help me, this is the way.’

  She gave in, turning his wheelchair to return to Princes Street, crossing over and moving into George Street, the wind all the time cutting through their clothes, turning their noses red and their hands white, until they reached the haven of the café.

  ‘They know us here now,’ Barry remarked, as the waitress smiled and took their order. ‘Wonder who they think we are? Brother and sister? No, we look too different. A couple of lovers?’

  Elinor’s head jerked up, but he only grinned.

  ‘No, I expect they realize, you’re my nurse and I’m your patient.’

  ‘Did you mean it?’ she asked, putting her hands to her face, which was gradually becoming less cold. ‘When you said you’d never get better?’

  He made no reply, only stirred the tea she gave him.

  ‘Like one of these buns?’ she asked.

  ‘Please.’

  Still he said nothing, until she’d set the buttered bun on his plate, when he leaned forward and fixed her with his intense gaze.