A Gathering Storm (51 page)

‘Didn’t you know I was coming?’ Bea asked again. ‘I thought they told you.’

‘There was a telegram, wasn’t there?’ Oenone asked her daughter. ‘Where is it?’

‘I thought
you
had it,’ Angie replied, her voice frosty. She said to Bea, ‘We knew you were coming back but not when.’

‘Where’s Tommy?’ Beatrice said. ‘I’m longing to see him.’

Oenone opened her mouth, but Angie cut in quickly: ‘I’m awfully sorry,’ she said. ‘I know you’ll be disappointed, but unfortunately he’s gone away with Nanny for a few days. He’d have loved to have seen you.’

For a moment Beatrice was speechless then she stuttered stupidly, ‘You mean, he’s not here?’

‘No.’ Angie gave a regretful smile. ‘It’s such a shame. He sometimes asks about Auntie Beatrice. I warn you, when he does see you he’ll want to know if you’ve brought a present for him. He’s a naughty boy like that.’

Beatrice licked her lips, which had gone dry. ‘Is that what you make him call me, Auntie Beatrice, not Mummy?’

‘I find it’s less confusing for him that way. You have been away for a long time, Bea. You haven’t seen him for any length of time for nearly two years. Two years! It’s not easy for a little boy.’

‘I think I need to sit down,’ Beatrice said, feeling suddenly weak with shock.

‘Of course, come into the drawing room. Mummy, would you ask Phoebe to bring tea in?’

When they’d sat down Beatrice asked, ‘Tell me again, where has Nanny taken him?’

‘Oh, just up to Truro to see some friends of hers. It gives me a bit of a break. There’s an awful lot to do here, as you can see. They left it in such a mess.’ Beatrice saw now the deprivations the room had suffered. The chandelier was broken and the wallpaper all scuffed. ‘So you’re back. Have you had an awful time? I expect you have. Your hair’s going grey and you look . . . so much older.’

‘Angie,’ her mother said, looking embarrassed.

‘I’m sorry,’ Angie said. Why did she keep glancing at the door? ‘It’s been simply dreadful for us. The doodlebugs were the absolute last straw – we couldn’t stand it in Sussex any more. I used to have nightmares that they were hanging over our cottage, about to drop. So when we heard the army had left Carlyon and it was empty we shot back down here. Daddy fixed it for us. Gerald’s away. His chance to be a hero finally. We think he’s in Paris.’

‘Rafe said he was in France.’ Rafe had been right – Gerald always managed to keep away from the front line.

The tea duly arrived, the trolley pushed by a maid even smaller and younger than Brown, and the wheels caught in the fringes of the rug. Mrs Wincanton went to help and for a while everyone was distracted.

Beatrice took her tea and a sandwich, which she crumbled on the saucer but did not eat. Her mind was only on one thing. ‘When will Nanny be back with Tommy?’ she asked. ‘Did you say they were to be gone a few days? Perhaps I should go to Truro and fetch him.’

‘Oh no, no. That would upset his routine. He was so looking forward to going.’

‘Oh, Angie, really . . .’ started her mother, but Angie gave her a cold look and she shut up.

Beatrice looked at Angie in surprise. ‘But he’ll want to see his mother, surely?’

‘He’d find it a bit of shock seeing you,’ Angie said. ‘He’s become rather used to me, now, the poor darling.’

‘Well, he’s going to have to get used to me, because of course I’ll be taking him home. I’m back now. I won’t be going away again. At least, I think not.’

At this, an expression of terrible anguish crossed Angie’s face. ‘Oh no, Beatrice, he’ll find that awfully disturbing. He loves it here. Do you remember how we played among the rockpools? Well, despite the dreaded barbed wire, we can still reach them at low tide, and he does have fun trying to catch the fish. You wouldn’t believe how clever he is, and the darling is not quite three.’

Again, she glanced at the door. And now Beatrice was sure that something was terribly wrong. Had something happened to Tommy? Something awful?

She tried to calm herself. Miss Atkins had said Tommy was well. Rafe had too. She remembered how Rafe had warned her that Angie had had a bad time, but she wasn’t prepared for her to seem so, well, downright peculiar. And Mrs Wincanton was staring into her tea as if her thoughts were winging far away. Beatrice asked her, ‘You heard the news about my mother, Mrs Wincanton?’

The woman’s eyes flew to hers and she saw pain and sympathy in them. ‘I forgot to say, Beatrice. We were so dreadfully sorry to hear. Such a lovely woman, your mother. Of course, we wrote to your father, didn’t we, Angie?’

‘I’m sure he was touched. I haven’t seen him yet. I was going to go after I’d seen Tommy.’

Angie perked up a little at this and said brightly, ‘Well, you can go straight away, can’t you, since Tommy isn’t here. I expect you’ll stay at The Rowans a day or two and maybe come down another time.’

Beatrice stared. ‘I will stay with my father, yes, but I’m not going to go back to London without Tommy.’

Angie was starting to look quite agitated now. She put down her tea and it slopped onto the saucer. ‘Damn.’

‘Don’t swear, dear,’ Mrs Wincanton said to her daughter. ‘I think you’d better explain properly to Beatrice.’

‘Explain what?’ Beatrice said. She was beginning to feel more and more that she was in Wonderland with Alice, and it was a dark and painful place.

Angie covered her face with her hands and said, ‘I can’t.’

Beatrice stood up and almost shouted. ‘What’s happened? What have you done with my son?’

‘Nothing’s happened to Tommy,’ Oenone said immediately. ‘It’s just we thought you weren’t coming back. You were gone so long, Beatrice. They . . . well, they had prepared us for the worst, those people. They sounded certain. We had to make arrangements, do what was best for Tommy. And Angie – well, you can see how she is. Losing her baby again . . .’

‘Don’t, Mummy,’ Angie said, putting her hands over her ears.

‘Beatrice,’ Mrs Wincanton went on, ‘having Tommy has been marvellous. It’s kept us all steady through these terrible times. First there was Ed, then with Gerald gone – and, no I mean it, Angie – Tommy’s helped you so much.’

‘I’m very glad,’ Beatrice started to say, ‘but now, as you can see, I’m back and—’

Oenone Wincanton talked on. ‘I think you have to realize that it’s in Tommy’s best interests to stay with us.’

‘No,’ Beatrice breathed. ‘He’s my child.’

‘Then why did you go off and leave him?’ Angie’s eyes were dangerous pools of blue.

‘Because I had to. You don’t think I wanted to, do you?’

‘The fact remains that you went. And that was very hard on him. He’s had to adapt. We are his family now and you can’t take him away.’

Beatrice could hardly believe that she was hearing this.

‘Angie,’ she said, ‘please don’t think that I’m not grateful for everything you’ve done. I am. All the time I was in prison I knew I didn’t have to worry about Tommy because he was safe with you. I shall always remember that. But he’s my child and I want him with me. Gerald will come back and you’ll have your own children, I’m sure.’

‘I won’t, Bea, but that’s not the point. Think of your son. He’ll be distraught. It’ll be like him going to a stranger.’

‘How can you say that?’ She could barely speak, her throat felt so tight. ‘I’m his mother.’

‘You remember how angry he was when you went away for just a few weeks? How can you expect a small boy to cope for so long without you? Bea, accept it, he won’t remember you.’

‘And that’s why you let him call you Mummy?’

There was a silence, then Angie said, ‘Of course. It’s only kind. A baby needs a mother. And a father.’

‘That’s a low comment.’

‘But it’s true, isn’t it? You should have given him up as soon as you had him. It would have been kinder in the long run.’

‘Angie, you supported me back then. You took me in, and the baby. I tell you, I’ll always thank you for that.’

‘And now you must think of Tommy. You must leave him with us.’

‘No, Angie. This thing is all about you, not Tommy.’

‘It is not. How dare you suggest—’

‘I’m sorry about your babies. It makes me dreadfully sad. But you can’t have mine instead.’

‘You are missing the point. I’m thinking about Tommy.
You
are thinking about
you
. If you wanted to be his mother, you shouldn’t have left him.’

‘Angie, I went to do my bit in this war. For Tommy.’

‘No woman with a child should be expected to do what you did – and you could have said no. You could have, Beatrice. Your job was to stand by your child. Your plan now, I suppose, was to take him and for the same thing to happen again. You’d leave him with someone else in order to go off somewhere and work.’

‘I don’t know what I’ll do yet, I haven’t had time to think – but money has to come from somewhere, yes.’

Just then, a door slammed, and a moment later came the sound of voices: a woman’s and the light, high voice of a child. Angie and Beatrice rose to their feet at the same moment.

There was a knock, and the door of the living room opened. A little boy ran in, followed a moment later by Nanny. The boy had a cap of straight dark hair, and his pale skin was flushed with a healthy glow. ‘Tommy,’ Beatrice breathed, and put out her arms. Tommy glanced at her in alarm, and instead ran to Angie, who swung him up to sit astride her hip. ‘Mummy,’ he said to Angie, ‘we did go on a train!’

‘He was a very good boy,’ Nanny said. ‘Oh, hello, Miss Beatrice. Nice to see you safe home. I expect you’ve had some adventures. Now, I’ll just go and see about his tea.’

‘You went on a train, my love?’ Angie cooed. Her face, when she turned to Bea, was full of motherly pride.

Beatrice tried to make a sound, but nothing came and she held out her hands wordlessly to Tommy. Tommy studied her for a moment, without any sign of recognition, then nuzzled Angie’s shoulder.

Beatrice turned to Oenone, who was sitting calmly, arms folded around her knees. ‘Help me,’ she implored.

Oenone shrugged. ‘There’s nothing I can do.’

‘He’s my child,’ she appealed to both of them, but they just looked at her without speaking.

She gazed hungrily at Tommy, who was peeping at her round his hand. She smiled and put out her arms. ‘Tommy, darling, come and sit with me.’

But he shook his head urgently and cuddled into Angie’s arms.

‘I bought you a present,’ Beatrice said. She’d found it in a shop in Marseille, in the days when she was waiting to take ship. She placed the cube box on the table and unhooked the catch. The puppet shot out and lolled on his spring, his clown’s face grinning crazily. Tommy’s eyes widened with fear and he screamed.

‘My God, Beatrice, get rid of it!’ Angie shrieked.

Beatrice seized the Jack and stuffed it into the box. Her hands were shaking. ‘What on earth’s the matter?’ she whispered.

‘He saw a clown at a children’s party,’ Oenone Wincanton said in a weary voice. ‘For some reason it frightened him. Tommy can be a nervous little boy sometimes.’

‘Oh, Tommy, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know,’ Beatrice said, horrified. How could she have known? She went to sit by Angie and stroked his hot silky head as he sobbed into Angie’s shoulder. Minutes passed and he was calmer, but still he would not go to her. And now she did not know what to do. She sensed that Angie and Oenone were waiting politely for her to go, but she did not want to leave the house without Tommy. Yet she could hardly snatch him out of Angie’s arms. There would be uproar.

In the end, she saw that discretion would be the better part of valour and gathered up her things. The jack-in-a-box she slipped back into her case.

‘I haven’t seen my father yet,’ she said. ‘I expect I shall stay with him tonight, it’s only fair.’

‘Of course,’ Oenone said, rising and putting out her hand. ‘The poor man. Please convey our best wishes.’

Beatrice saw with a terrible clarity that they’d made no attempt to see him, which meant that Tommy wouldn’t have visited his maternal grandfather, who only lived down the road. Now she hardly registered Oenone’s handshake at all.

‘Let me give Tommy to Nanny,’ Angie said. ‘His tea will be ready, I expect.’ She allowed Beatrice to kiss the back of Tommy’s head, then left the room with him.

And now she and Oenone were alone. Oenone went to the mantelpiece, picked up an invitation card that was propped up there, pretended to study it, and put it down again. Then she turned to Beatrice and said in a low voice, ‘We’re so glad that you’re home safe, you know.’

‘Thank you. And I’m so grateful for all you’ve done for Tommy, you and Angie – and Nanny, of course. He looks so big and fine.’

‘He is a dear little boy,’ Oenone said. ‘Angie’s had a terrible time and after the last . . . disappointment, the doctor told her it might be dangerous for her to – well, try again. It was rather a blow.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Beatrice said, trying not to think of her own bad time, all the awful things that she’d been through. Oenone spoke as though the war wasn’t happening, as though her family was all that mattered. Of course, they’d lost Ed, she must remember that and feel sympathy. ‘She’ll miss Tommy when I take him. I can see that.’

Oenone took a pack of cigarettes out of her cardigan pocket and lit one. The seconds ticked past. Finally, she glanced at the door, then said, ‘Which is why you must leave Tommy with her, Beatrice. It would be the best thing for all of us, surely you can see that?’

‘No,’ Beatrice said, her voice rising to a squeak.
‘No.’

‘Think about it for a few days. That’s all we ask. I’m sure Angie would be happy for you to come and see Tommy. But there’s something I have to tell you.’ She balanced the cigarette on the mantelpiece and bent to explore the wooden carving, her finger stroking the little bee that still crouched, half-hidden, amongst the cherry-wood flowers.

Beatrice, seeing the bee, felt as though everything that had happened to her throughout her life was coming at her together in a great engulfing wave. She’d tried hard to struggle against this family, but she’d needed them, too, wanted them too much. She didn’t wish to hear whatever it was Oenone was about to tell her.