A Girl in Wartime (33 page)

Today, she tried again to tell Stephen how she felt, saying she was sure she'd collapse at the very altar if he insisted on keeping it as it was, but it wasn't so easy putting it as Ronnie had told her to.

In his flat she found herself fighting not to cry and this time it must have been the sheer desperation on her face, her halting words pleading for more time, that finally he conceded, her beseeching expression seeming to alarm and confuse him at the same time.

‘I do love you,' she whispered as he held her to him. ‘I love you more than anything in this world. But—'

‘But?' He cut through her words, his voice flat, alarming her such that she expected him to add, ‘It isn't working, is it?'

‘I
do
love you, darling,' she burst out. ‘So very, very much. It's just this wedding. I've not been well and it's too close. I shall never get better in that short time.' She looked up at him as he continued to hold her close. ‘Darling, all I'm asking is can we put it off for a little while longer – give me time to get better.'

How could she tell him about those torn faces, those phantom eyes that appeared each time she closed hers? Would he understand? As Ronnie had said, he'd never had to face the war, never knew what it could do to some people. She could imagine Stephen telling her that she must pull herself together and put it all behind her – as if it was as easy as that! And if she couldn't …

It had even started to affect their love making. The moment she closed her eyes as he fondled her, those faces would flash across her brain, making her unable to respond, leaving her to draw away and say she still wasn't feeling well enough. He'd ask what was wrong and had become annoyed as she made feeble excuses for her actions. He even asked if she still loved him. She'd say of course she did, with all her heart, just that not having felt all that well she still wasn't quite herself just now.

She was ruining everything they had. She felt as if she was going mad. Perhaps she was?

That night as he drew her to him, clasping her tightly, he whispered, ‘We can't go on like this,' and for a moment she was horrified; her worst fears, it seemed, were being realised. But seconds later, his arms had tightened about her and he asked, ‘Would it make you feel better, darling, if we did postpone the wedding to November – nearer your birthday, or maybe leave it until spring when the weather is better, whatever you feel more comfortable with.'

It was such a kind thought. Why then did she in her sensitive state feel that it more resembled a wish not to get married at all – maybe a wish to be free of her, this unbalanced woman?

Fighting a second of panic, she clung to him. ‘Oh, darling, let it be November. Let it be November! I'll feel so much better then and everything will be so different.'

She was on the verge of telling Stephen about her visions but would he understand? She needed to talk to Ronnie again. Going through it himself, he understood, could even help her in a way. She fervently hoped so as Stephen passionately kissed her, saying, ‘November, then, darling,' between kisses.

She could have clung to him so tightly that all her breath was gone out of her, knowing how lucky she was to have such a wonderful man.

So it was arranged. The wedding would be held in November, just before her birthday in December, when she'd be twenty. And it would give him more time to find another really nice house for them instead of this rush that he'd seemed to have been in with nothing completed. A house was still to be found, but it had shown how eager he was to marry her. She was more than a little surprised he'd given in so easily. But by November perhaps her strange visitations would have subsided, with Ronnie's help.

Ronnie had spoken words of wisdom, had said of himself when she spoke to him a week later, ‘You feel you can't move forward and it makes you depressed as if you've got nothink to live for. At least that's how I felt.'

He'd said ‘felt', speaking of it in past tense, and if he could move on, though still a long way from total recovery, then there was hope for her. He had even endorsed it by saying only the other day, ‘You know, Sis, I'm beginning to feel a lot better since I've bin talking to you.'

Yes, she had seen how one could let the sense of depression take hold. Ronnie had shown her by his own example that she wasn't to let it do that. And yes, she would go through with her wedding in November, become Stephen's wife, and live a happy and contented life.

Meantime she would go on having chats with Ronnie, taking courage from him enough to face her own demons, spending whatever few moments they could find, which wasn't often in a house full of people and she having to go to work. But few as their moments together were, it was helping both of them. He'd improved amazingly and Connie felt she was more a help to her brother and he to her than any doctor could have been, and that made her feel good.

This Saturday morning while Dolly and their mother were out shopping, Dad on his Saturday coal round, Ronnie had leaned forward, taken both her hands in his, and, in a remarkably steady voice, had said, ‘I know 'ow it is with you, Sis. It takes one miserable sod to know another, as they say. We can be miserable sods together and maybe in time we'll cure each other.' He took a deep breath. ‘Dolly's done a lot fer me – knows 'ow things are – but I need something more, and doctors ain't the answer, not fer me anyway. Me 'elping you is helping me. Bit selfish, eh?'

All that long speech without one stammer. Ronnie had a cheeky grin she hadn't seen since before he'd volunteered when war broke out.

That Monday she went into work after having had two good nights of sleep, amazingly, and only once assaulted by flashes of those anguished eyes, after which, while considering the need to get up, sit by the window, she'd fallen into a dreamless sleep without knowing it. She couldn't bless Ronnie enough.

Everything seemed to be speeding up, Connie and Stephen's wedding day seeming to be racing towards them. Connie felt ready for it this time and could hardly wait. Stephen had found a house for them in Victoria Park Road, a wonderful large house, he told her – though he didn't want her to see it until they were married – with a lovely, low-walled front garden and flowering trees, though bare this time of year, the rear of the house overlooking the park itself. The two of them would have lots of room to spare, it being all theirs, with no one tripping over each other's feet as in her parents' home.

As October passed she was beginning to feel that the devils in her head had begun spiriting themselves away; only now and again one would plant itself on her eyelids as she closed them but it was nothing like it had been and she was beginning to feel she could deal with them as any normal person might. In fact, she felt she could look forward to a normal life again.

There was only one fly in the ointment: air raids had begun to be stepped up and Connie prayed that nothing would drop on their new home or any of her families' homes for that matter. Squadrons of German aeroplanes now flew overhead and London was being bombed indiscriminately, especially in the East End, leaving Connie to add to her prayers that there'd be no raid on the day of her wedding. She couldn't begin to say how relieved she was to have left work – no more of those traumatic visits to sketch the faces of devastated victims. She didn't think the paper missed her. The idea finally was dropped; the paper's readers had lost interest in her sketches of distraught people. Nor did she care any more. In a month's time she'd be married and the paper would have lost her anyway.

November 1917

It was now the day before Connie's wedding and where had the time gone? Preparations were stepping up, excitement was mounting; Connie had no time to think of the past. All she wanted was to lie in Stephen's arms, be made love to and not have to worry about rules.

Albert had come home on leave in time to see her be married. He looked worn out, hollow-cheeked, dull-eyed. She who'd caught and sketched many such expressions knew now what he had been going through, and felt for him that he would have to return to the front line when his leave was up. She was already praying for his safety.

George hadn't come home. Maybe he thought it best not to try to wangle leave for his youngest sister's wedding and risk spoiling her day knowing how he might be received by his father, whom he was well aware still held a grudge.

Others missing from the wedding would be Elsie's Harry and Lillian's Jim, who were both in France. She was deeply concerned for them all, her sisters without their husbands, their boys growing up, their dads not seeing it. Elsie took it all in her stride, stoically, soldiering on as it were, but Lillian was forever lamenting her husband's absence until Mum lost patience with her and told her to pull herself together: she was doing no one, much less herself and little James, any good.

But it was lovely Albert being back, even though he and Edie were living at her parents' home, married but with no place of their own. There was no chance with the war going on and he overseas. Connie smiled as she got into bed. Tomorrow she would be married and able to start a family too – as soon as possible.

Mum crept in just after she'd laid down. ‘Make sure you get a good night's sleep, love,' she whispered. ‘You've got to be nice and fresh for the morning.' Bending, she kissed her on forehead. ‘Don't let excitement keep you awake. I'll be needin' to wake you up early tomorrow mornin'.'

Connie nodded, her mother dropping yet another a tender kiss on her forehead before creeping out of the room as if she was already asleep and fearing to wake her, turning at the door to whisper, ‘Night-night, love.'

Mum had done a lovely spread for the wedding breakfast, as far as her and everyone else's bits of ration and a few hoarded extras could contribute.

Excitement thrilling deep in her stomach, Connie drifted off into sleep. It seemed like just seconds later that she was jerked awake to the shrill blowing of police whistles warning of yet another air raid. The police warning was hardly needed. Planes could already be heard piercing the hitherto quiet night air, their engines roaring above the East End.

Connie shot upright in bed as the house suddenly shook as if hit by some giant fist, the crash of an explosion almost instantaneous. Leaping out of bed, she ran for the bedroom door, met her parents coming out of theirs, and ran with them downstairs.

Ronnie and Dolly's door was wide open as if flung by some invisible hand, and Connie saw Dolly clutching little Violet to her. Ronnie was sitting on the edge of their bed, desperately searching for his crutches. A strange smell was filling the house – a dusty, burning smell.

Dad was now at the street door, still in his combinations. People were running by in all sorts of nightwear, the street full of cloying smoke. It was impossible to see more than two yards in any direction.

‘What 'appened?' he was yelling. ‘Where did it come down?'

Someone running by was shouting over his shoulder as he ran: ‘Over the road – 'ouse over the road bin 'it. Down the street a bit.'

Mum was at the door, dragging Connie's father's outdoor coat from its peg to throw over his shoulders. ‘Best go and see whose 'ouse it is,' she cried, but he was already off, pushing his arms into the sleeves of the coat as he went.

Left standing there, fingers to her lips in horror, the rest of the family gathered behind her, Connie heard her mother whisper, ‘Oh Gawd, we know everyone in this street.'

Dolly was on the front doorstep. ‘Our windowpanes is broken,' she said. ‘Blackout curtains might be torn. Hope Ron ain't put our gas lamp on.'

A flicker of annoyance rippled through Connie. Ronnie may be an invalid but he wasn't a fool. But her annoyance was only momentary; people were now running everywhere.

‘Someone ought to see what your father's doing,' her mother was saying, her voice shaking. ‘In case he's in any danger.'

Why she leapt to the call, Connie didn't know, but grabbing her own winter coat from its hook, she found herself running down the street after her father. What she thought she could do she'd no idea but the struck tenement was only a few doors down the street to hers and already she had a sick feeling.

The once nice house had been wrecked, its upper storey collapsed, rubble strewn from one side of the street to the other. The house opposite had lost all its windows. But already Connie felt a cold grip around her heart. It was Doris Copeland's house, her friend she'd been to school with. They'd often go out of an evening, would spend evenings in her house or she in hers, still friends even after she'd met Stephen. Doris was herself going steady with a boy.

Two people lay in the road and neighbours were covering them with coats. Other people stood around helplessly. Who were those covered by coats?

‘Mrs Copeland,' she was told. ‘Didn't stand a chance – and her poor daughter too.' Connie felt a wave of faintness pass across her brain. ‘And 'er old man away fightin' in France,' the woman was going on. ‘What's he goin' to do when they give 'im the news? He ain't got no one else, the poor bugger. That's if he lives long enough out there. Poor things – it's cruel!'

Connie hardly heard her. She wanted to sink to the ground, give way to tears. Instead, she looked at the woman, seeing in those faded eyes the hollow look of despair for the bereaved man, and she knew that if she had been ordered to sketch them she would have cried out, ‘NO! No – no – no!'

Turning away, she ran blindly back along the rubble-strewn street to collapse into her mother's arms.

‘It's Doris,' she sobbed. ‘Her and her mum – dead! Oh, Mum … oh, Mum …'

With no strength left in her she felt herself helped into the dust-laden back parlour, carefully assisted to sit in her father's wooden armchair. In shock and grief she closed her eyes. Seconds later they shot open, behind the lids the despairing eyes of one so full of sorrow for her neighbour and the daughter that they seemed to pierce right through her eyelids to her brain.