Angel of the North (31 page)

‘Are you a relative?’

‘Just a friend,’ Marie replied, failing to add: to Jenny, but not to her mother. How she detested Hannah. If she had been anything like a mother, none of this would have happened.
Why couldn’t she have left Jenny with Trudie, if she couldn’t be bothered to take care of her properly?

‘Then I’m sorry, I can’t give you any information. We need to speak to her mother. I’ve asked the police to contact her.’

‘She’s that bad, then?’ Marie said. ‘Well, her mother got the message before I did, so she’s had as much time to get here as me.’ With that, she went to find
Alfie.

He looked unnaturally rosy under the mask that almost covered his face. His eyes were red and he looked so gone that her heart nearly stopped. Please, God, she prayed, don’t let our Alfie
die. I don’t think I’ll ever get over it if he dies. There’ll be a sore spot on my heart until the day I follow him.

He gave her a wan smile.

‘I think this is the first time you’ve ever kept still since you learned to crawl,’ she said softly.

‘My head aches,’ he whispered, ‘really bad, Marie. I think my brain’s trying to burst out. And my eyes are really sore.’

He was suffering, but she nearly wept with relief to find him conscious, and rational. ‘They’ll only let me stay a minute. Try to go to sleep when I’ve gone, and I’ll
come and see you tomorrow.’

‘Head hurts too much. Go and see Jenny.’

‘They won’t let me. I’m not a relative, and I can’t see her on the ward, so I can’t even sneak a minute with her.’

Of course they’d need to speak to Hannah, Marie thought, as she left the hospital. Jenny must be in an even worse state than Alfie, having been trapped in that awful hole
for longer. She probably hadn’t regained consciousness. And where the hell was Hannah? There should be no need for the hospital authorities to send the police to find her; she’d had the
news even before Marie herself. She’d had ample time to get to Park Street. It was barely a ten-minute walk from where she lived.

But thoughts of Hannah receded during the short walk past the bombed ruins of Clarendon Street, towards the Naval Hospital on Argyle Street. She was going to see Charles, to thank him for
rescuing Alfie and Jenny, and that was all she cared about. What might have happened to them, but for him, was something she didn’t dare to dwell on. Bursting with love and gratitude, and
even ready to overlook his affair with Hannah, she entered the heavy oak doors of the hospital, and after a few brief words with the porter she found Charles’s ward – and stopped in her
tracks.

There he sat, with an oxygen mask clamped to his face, and
she
was with him – her chair right beside his! The face of it! With her luxuriant auburn hair done in the latest style
she was dressed to the nines in black widow’s weeds so cunningly cut that they managed to disguise her pregnancy. She looked like a fashion plate. No trouble or expense seemed to have been
spared on this magnificent parade of her terrible grief. The outfit must have cost a packet, not to mention the clothing coupons. Marie’s first instinct was to turn and march out of the ward,
and then she stopped herself. She had a message to give.

She approached them, and gave it. ‘They want to see you at the Children’s Hospital, Hannah. Jenny’s there.’

‘Oh, she’s in safe hands, then, isn’t she?’ Hannah smiled. ‘She’s a disobedient child, that girl. I’ve told her a million times not to play on bomb
sites.’ Hannah’s eyes flickered over Marie’s unmade-up face and workaday clothes so pointedly that she was glad she’d remembered to take her apron off before dashing out of
the house.

She gave Hannah a sour look. ‘That girl, as you call her, is probably at death’s door, considering they’ve sent the police out to find you.’

‘They haven’t given me much chance then, have they? I’m going there now.’

‘You’ve had enough chance to get here, and it’s further away.’

‘Well, naturally, I came to thank Charles, and give him the news. In case you hadn’t. But this one will be a boy,’ she said, patting her bump. ‘I’m sure of it.
I’m carrying him different from the way I carried Jenny.’ She put a caressing hand on Charles’s shoulder and gave him a seductive smile. ‘Bye for now, Charles. See you
later, love.’

Marie watched her out of the ward, and then sat in the empty chair, still disgustingly warm from her. All the words of gratitude and thanks she’d meant to pour into Charles’s ear
were scorched to ashes by burning resentment.

‘She was quick off the mark. I bet she was putting the lipstick on before Danny had finished telling her.’

Charles lifted his mask. ‘She needn’t have bothered on my account. I certainly didn’t ask her to come, but I couldn’t stop her. I haven’t exchanged two words with
her. I have got a headache, though, in case you’re interested.’

‘Well, I’m sorry about that, and I’m sorry I was so slow getting here, as well. I’m obviously not as fast as her, in any sense of the word. Trust her to be first on the
scene to mop the fevered brow. Most mothers would have gone to their own child’s bedside before anybody else’s. What did she say?’

‘What do you think she said? I’ll give you three guesses.’

‘Oh, yes. She told me, didn’t she? She “came to thank Charles and give him the news”. Would the thanks be for saving Jenny’s life, or for putting her in the family
way? I suppose she told you she’s free to marry, as well, now her husband’s conveniently dead. So why don’t you get a move on and put up the banns? You might just manage to get
the ring on her finger before she goes into labour, if you’re quick enough.’

He looked at her as if she’d slapped him. ‘You certainly know how to put the boot in when somebody’s down, don’t you? You’re in a bigger rush than her. Don’t
we have to wait seven years before disposing of a man’s wife and chattels when he’s lost at sea? He might come back and claim them, after all.’

‘In wartime? When his ship went down with all hands, after being torpedoed? When his name’s going on the roll of honour of men who gave their lives for their country? I
shouldn’t think so,’ Marie said acidly. ‘Knowing her, I should think she could easily get a dispensation from any seven-year rule.’

Charles tore off his mask. ‘All right, then. You look me in the face and tell me you definitely don’t want me. Now. And I will, I’ll marry her. Just to please you.’

Marie looked him in the face – and couldn’t bring herself to tell him any such thing.

A staff nurse heard the argument, and came hurrying down the ward to her. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to go,’ she said. ‘You’re upsetting the patient.’

‘If she’s going, I’m going with her,’ Charles announced.

‘I wouldn’t advise it,’ the staff nurse told him, ‘and neither would the doctor. He might report you to your commanding officer.’

‘Bring me the discharge papers at once,’ Charles insisted. ‘I’ll sign on the dotted line.’

Marie was appalled. What was she doing, picking a quarrel with the man who’d just saved her brother’s life? ‘No, you won’t, unless you want your discharge papers from me
as well,’ she said. ‘You stay here, and do as the doctor tells you. I’ll come and see you tomorrow.’

‘Marie! I love you! You’re the only woman on earth I’m interested in,’ he called after her as she left the ward with tears of anger and frustration in her eyes. She
didn’t even turn round. On her way to the hospital she’d imagined a touching scene of tenderness and reconciliation. On the walk back she berated herself for allowing Hannah to goad her
into turning it into one of bitterness and recrimination. She felt wrong-footed and put in the wrong, when in reality it was he and Hannah who were in the wrong, not her. And what red-blooded woman
could have held it all in? Really and truly, though, who could have? Charles might have saved Alfie’s life, but he still had a lot to answer for. He couldn’t expect to wipe everything
else out because of that.

Marlborough Avenue was not much out of her way, and the temptation to see for herself the scene of so much injury to people close to her was too much to resist. The place was easy to find. It
had been roped off and a couple of UXB notices marked the spot. Had it not been so late she would have gone on from there to see the Elsworths, but that would have to wait until tomorrow. Danny
must have told them what had happened by now, in any case.

Although it was getting dark, before she returned to Aunt Edie’s she knocked on the door of the woman who lived opposite Hannah, and whom she’d met before, and asked her to get a
message to Trudie. She had a right to know what was happening to her granddaughter, and there was no guarantee she would find out from Hannah.

George got home just before blackout at half-past eleven, looking dead on his feet, with the news that some kids playing in the debris of that bombed house on Marlborough
Avenue had fallen into a camouflet, and were lucky to be alive.

‘Those kids were my brother and Jenny,’ Marie said, pouring two cups of weak and milkless tea.

‘Alfie? He should have been back in Dunswell.’

She handed him a cup. ‘Yeah, he should, but the little bugger decided he’d meet Danny Elsworth for a game of billiards before he went. There’s a scone there your mother left
for you before she gave in and went to bed.’

He took the scone and walked out of the kitchen and into the dining room.

Marie followed. ‘What is a camouflet?’

‘It’s when a bomb goes off underground without enough of an explosion to break the surface, so that instead of a crater you get a hole filled with gas and smoke. Sometimes the crust
will hold for weeks and stand walking on, sometimes it gives way at the first touch. I had an inkling it might have been Jenny, as soon as we got the news. I’ve warned her off what’s
left of your old house a few times. But I never reckoned on Alfie.’

‘They’re both in the Children’s Hospital now.’

He gave a grim nod. ‘Well, they’re lucky. Fall into one of them and you stand a good chance of being gassed. They’re generally full of carbon monoxide. The bomb disposal lads
will be there tomorrow, then there’ll be another job for the council, filling the hole in and making everything safe.’

‘Did you know it was Charles Elsworth that got them out?’

‘No, I didn’t. I didn’t even know he was at home.’

‘He’d written to tell me, but Aunt Edie put the letter on the mantelpiece, and forgot to mention it.’

His eyebrows twitched upwards, and he gave a wry smile. ‘Forgot? Aye, I’ll believe that. There are fairies at the bottom of our garden, as well. It’s pretty obvious our mothers
are plotting to get us fixed up with each other.’

‘It hadn’t escaped me. No offence to you, George, but the snag is, I still love Charles. I only realized how much when I went to see him in the hospital, and told him he’d
better marry Hannah. He said if I could look him in the eye and tell him I didn’t want him, he would. So I just stood there with my mouth open, and I couldn’t say a word.’

‘He called your bluff, then. But don’t you believe it. I’d bet everything I’ve got left that he wouldn’t have gone through with marrying Hannah, even if you had
given him the boot. Only a lunatic would pick her as a life partner and the mother of his children.’

‘It looks as if she’s going to be the mother of one of his children, at least.’

‘Oh, yes, I should have remembered that before I opened my mouth. Trust me to put both my size nines in it.’

‘I’m absolutely churned up about it all, George.’

He gave her a look of the purest sympathy. ‘I pity you then, because I’ve got past that stage – well past it – and the proof is that we’ve tracked the actor down to
Scarborough, and if Nancy won’t prosecute him, I’ll prosecute her. I’ll show her up in court. I’ll crush her, for what she did to me. How’s that for a cure for what
ailed me?’

‘Pretty convincing,’ she said, slightly repelled by his vindictiveness, and by his pride in it.

‘Well, don’t despair. I was once as smitten as you are, and Nancy cured me in the end, just by being her devious, self-centred, deceitful little self. Fair dos, though, Charles
risked a whiff of gas to get your brother and Jenny out of a hole. He deserves credit for that. But he’s an arrogant, selfish bugger at bottom, and when it finally dawns on you, the churning
up will stop, and you’ll realize what a lucky escape you’ve had.’

‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘I hope to God the sirens don’t go tonight. That would just put the tin lid on it all.’

‘Wouldn’t it just,’ said George.

‘Don’t let yourself get carried away with gratitude, will you?’ Charles said, as they walked together in Pearson Park the following afternoon, after a visit
to the Children’s Hospital to see Alfie. ‘I’ve moved heaven and earth to get a few days’ leave, and risked life and limb to rescue your delightful younger brother and his
little pal, and you’ve hardly got a civil word for me
.
’

‘I am grateful to you. If Alfie had died . . . well, I don’t want to think about it. I’ve already said I’m grateful, and if that were all you’d been doing,
I’d have a million civil words for you. But it’s not.’

‘Oh, her again. Well, I’m sorry, Marie. I’m really sorry. I’ve said I’m sorry a dozen times, and I mean it, but she absolutely threw herself at me. What man turns
it down?’

Her eyes narrowed, and her lips pursed. ‘We were courting,’ she reminded him.

‘We weren’t engaged.’

‘No, we certainly weren’t engaged. My friends were beginning to think I’d die an old maid. You were never keen to get engaged at all, as I remember.’

‘I was keen. I just wasn’t keen on rushing it,’ he said. ‘Because I knew once I was engaged, it would have to finish with her. And I did. I told her she’d have to
find another husband substitute before I gave you the ring.’

‘That must have been a wrench,’ she said, with a sarcastic little toss of her head.

Charles’s expression was wide-eyed, open and candid. ‘It was, to be honest. It’s a big hold over a man. If somebody’s dishing it up on a plate for him, he can hardly help
himself.’

‘You
can’t, obviously,’ she said, and a vision of their last parting on the station platform rose before her, when she’d thought him so tender and romantic. Now
she knew him for the calculating, double-dealing swine he really was. He might have been grappling with Hannah that very morning, for all she knew. ‘No wonder you waited till the last bloody
minute, though, hey?’ she said, and her disgust must have shown on her face.