For King and Country (41 page)

‘I suppose it’s time we were thinking about taking that pot off, Will. It must have been on six weeks.’

‘Aye, it’s been on all of that,’ he said.

‘I just wonder whether it’s healed properly.’

‘There’s only one way to find out, hinny.’

She grimaced, suddenly panic-stricken. And what are we going to do if the bones haven’t united, or if it’s gone the wrong way, she thought, and although she left the thought unspoken
they must both have read her mind.

‘We get a doctor in if you discover anything you can’t deal with’ Miss Brewster said. ‘Dr Campbell might be a good bet.’

‘He wouldn’t. He didn’t mind turning a blind eye as long as he could pretend he knew nothing, but he won’t let us involve him,’ she said. ‘I know he
won’t.’

‘In that case, I’ll call the man who attended my father, if necessary.’

‘Don’t bother your heads about a surgeon,’ said Will, ominously. ‘You won’t need a one. But this thing’s going soft anyway. It’ll crumble to bits before
long, so it might as well come off.’

‘We’ve got no plaster cutters,’ said Sally, grasping for any excuse for delay.

But Will was evidently keen to know the worst. ‘I’ve no doubt it’ll come off the same way it went on. Let’s get on with it. I’ll go and stand at the kitchen sink,
and soak it in plenty of water.’

‘Put some vinegar in it,’ said Sally, ‘it kills some germs, and it might help get it off quicker.’

The soaking took longer than anticipated, and it was over an hour later that Will stood unwinding the last of the plaster impregnated bandage over the draining board, while Sally stood at the
sink with her sleeves rolled up, scrubbing her fingernails again, after scrubbing her hands almost to the elbows, steeling herself to do battle with an enemy none the less deadly for being unseen.
She thought of those colonies of micro-organisms and shuddered. With everything prepared and ready she picked up a towel still hot from the iron and dried her hands while Will removed the last of
the bandage and the cotton wool padding.

‘Push that clean tea towel under your arm and use it as a sling till we get you to the table,’ she said, still fearful that the bone might not have united.

‘Let me,’ said Miss Brewster.

Will lifted his arm. ‘It feels all right,’ he said, striding to the table without the sling and taking a chair, leaving Miss Brewster holding the tea towel.

‘You can take it off now, Will, but be careful not to touch the wound,’

He nodded and took hold of a corner of the dressing, stained rust and yellow and green with discharge, and peeled it back, gingerly at first, and then with more confidence. Thanks to the soaking
it came away easily and he dropped it onto the newspaper lying open on the floor.

With her hands raised in front of her to avoid contamination, Sally leaned over the wound. Her heart gave a quick throb of relief at the sight of it: not a shred of decaying matter, not a streak
of pus, not a whiff of sepsis. There was a livid scar, certainly, but the flesh was beautifully clean, and healed. The muscle was somewhat wasted and the skin needing a thorough wash, but that was
all.

‘It’s healed. I can hardly believe it,’ she said, raising her eyes to his face.

Tears stood on his eyelashes, and his nose was reddening. ‘That’s it, then,’ he said. ‘A reprieve.’ He made a noise something between a sob and a snuffle, and Miss
Brewster passed him a handkerchief.

Some of the items laid out in readiness on the table, thank God, would not be needed, nor would the padded splints, the lint, the bandage or the BIPP. Just the tweezers and scissors, to get the
stitches out. ‘And if you knew the sacrifice I nearly had to make to get that paste,’ she murmured, thinking aloud just as Will blew his nose.

‘What?’ he asked, folding the handkerchief with his two hands.

‘Nothing. Hold still, while I take a swab, just in case.’ She ran the swab along the wound, collecting nothing, and then rubbed it on the agar plate.

‘Will you go to the party at the Cock, then?’ Will asked.

‘Of course. She’s asked Euphemia an’ all,’ Sally grinned.

‘I wish I was going,’ said Will. ‘I wish I was going to Australia, an’ all.’

‘I know you do, you’ve told us before,’ said Sally, ’but I’m glad you’re not going to the party. You’re not invited, anyway.’

‘We haven’t put ourselves to all this trouble to let you get caught when we’re nearly home and dry,’ said Miss Brewster. ‘You’ll stay here. The dogs will keep
you company.’

‘Thank you very much, I’m sure.’ Will looked disgruntled, and then he brightened. ‘Why, now that thing’s off, at least I’ll be able to get a proper
bath,’ he said.

Miss Brewster shook her head. ‘Not tonight. There’s a line of photographs drying in there, remember?’

The concert room at the Cock Inn was bursting at the seams, with guests spilling out into the best room. Sally pushed her way in to see her sister Emma’s husband sitting
at the piano bashing out ragtime tunes, competing with the buzz of conversation from hordes of Arthur and Kath’s relatives, and friends from school, pit and army.

‘Sally!’

‘Heavens, Elinor! I never expected to see you here.’

‘Never expected to see me! Why, man, the party’s about us, as much as your Arthur and Kath.’

‘Us?’

A young man approached and put a possessive arm round Elinor, who smiled up at him.

Much taken aback, Sally said, ‘Hello Frank!’

‘You know each other, then?’ Elinor looked as surprised as Sally.

‘S’right,’ said Frank, looking Sally in the face and drawing Elinor closer to him.

‘Have you known each other long?’

‘Long enough to fall head over heels in love, haven’t we, Frank?’

‘S’right,’ said Frank, with a meaningful look at Sally.

‘Frank’s been stopping with his aunt and uncle since the year turned. They live next door to us.’

‘You’ve known each other nearly a month then.’ Sally said.

‘A month’s long enough, when you’re in love,’ Elinor said. ‘Frank’s taking me to Australia with him to meet his mam and dad. Then we’re getting
married.’

‘S’right,’ said Frank, with a nod in Sally’s direction.

‘Good heavens, that’s fast work,’ Sally said. Then recollecting herself added, ‘Congratulations!’

‘Thank you. We’re all off together: us, and your Arthur and Kath. I’ll be glad to get out of that laundry. Have you seen Mrs Burdett? She’s leaving Annsdale an’
all. Going to Stafford, so Ginny asked her to the party, an’ all. She’s in the best room with her father and your mother and another old woman that your Ginny knows.’

‘Miss Brewster,’ Frank chipped in.

‘No, I haven’t seen her, but I’ll go and have a word before I go.’

‘And have you not got a man yet, Sally?’

‘No, I haven’t,’ Sally admitted.

‘What a shame,’ said Elinor. ‘You’ll end up an old maid if you don’t look sharp!’

Sally spread her hands and shrugged, half expecting Frank to say, ‘S’right!’ He didn’t, but was that a look of scorn she saw on his face as he led Elinor away? It was.
Her lips twitched.

It was evident a woman only got one chance with Frank.

‘Mrs Burdett’s getting tired, Arthur,’ Sally said, an hour later, ‘and Ginny says they’re staying here tonight, her and her dad. Will you give us
a bit hand to get her upstairs, like?’

‘Will I carry her up, you mean? Aye, I will. Have you seen Frank?’

‘I had a few words with him earlier.’

‘By, but you’re too slow to catch a cold, our Sal,’ Arthur frowned. ‘It should have been you coming to Australia with us, not her.’

Sally shook her head. ‘No. It would have been a bit too sudden for me, Arthur. Engaged and off to the other side of the world before you’ve known somebody a month!’

He jerked his head in Elinor’s direction. ‘Not for her though; she’s quick enough off the mark.’

‘She’s starting to look a bit merry, an’ all. I don’t envy her, though. When it comes to marriage, look before you leap’s my motto.’

He put his pint down to follow her to Mrs Burdett. ‘He’s all right, I tell you. You didn’t need to look, I’d looked for you, and now you might never get the chance to
leap. You’ve missed the boat, Sally man, in more ways than one.’

‘And I took the plate into the laboratory, to grow what they call a culture, you know, but it didn’t grow a thing,’ Sally told Mrs Burdett after Arthur had
gone, and she was helping her to wash in Ginny’s bathroom. ‘All the infection’s gone, and the bone’s well knit. He’ll be as good as new. He’ll be able to use his
arm as well as ever he could.’

‘Tell Dad,’ she said. ‘He’ll make a good photographer.’

Her speech sounded better, Sally thought, and she seemed to be gaining more control over her affected limbs. Bed was now the furthest thing from her mind, the good news had roused her, and she
wanted to hear Sally repeat it to her father. Miss Brewster was sitting in Ginny’s drawing room with him and had already told him, but when Sally helped Mrs Burdett in to join them she
repeated the story again to please her, and then left them all, chatting amicably about Will’s prospects in the photography shop.

Her mother spotted her as soon as she landed downstairs. ‘They’ve no clean glasses,’ she called. ‘Go and fetch all the empty ones in, and let’s get them washed,
will you, Sally?’

Sally took a tray and went into the concert room, quieter now and with its lighting romantically subdued. Jimmy sat at the piano playing the ‘Destiny Waltz’, and a few couples were
shuffling round the floor, Arthur and Kath and Elinor and Frank among them. The non-dancers sat in little groups at the few tables around the edge of the room.

‘Why, what do you think to our Elinor? Leaving us all, and going all that way, on her own?’ Elinor’s mother asked her as she picked up the empty glasses.

‘She’s a brave girl,’ said Sally.

‘She is, but I wish she wasn’t going,’ Elinor’s mother said.

‘Why, she’s under age, isn’t she? You could refuse to let her, if you wanted,’ Sally said.

‘Aye, but her dad says if Frank’s willing to marry her, let her get off.’

‘Aye,’ said Elinor’s father with some satisfaction. ‘Let’s get her off our hands, while we’ve got the chance.’

‘Don’t be so nasty,’ his wife said.

‘Am I hell nasty. She’s nineteen year old! She’s a grown woman.’

At that moment Elinor separated herself from Frank and proclaimed, ‘I don’t know a soul in Australia! I must have been barmy, to think about going all that way with somebody I hardly
know!’

Her father’s face fell. Sally looked towards Frank, anticipating, ‘S’right!’ but what he said was: ‘What about the ticket?’

‘Why, what about it?’ Elinor demanded. ‘I’m not going all the way across the world just because of a bloody ticket. To hell with the ticket!’

All the couples on the floor turned to look, the dancing came to a halt, and Jimmy stopped playing.

Arthur’s wife broke the silence. ‘And I’m not going either, come to think,’ she burst out. ‘I never wanted to go in the first place.’

‘You’d better,’ Arthur threatened. ‘Because I’m going, and you can do what the bloody hell you like about it.’

Kath’s mother jumped to her feet, arm raised. ‘Don’t you speak to my daughter like that,’ she warned, wagging her forefinger in his face. A couple of her brothers came to
stand threateningly beside their mother, but Kath’s father got up to restrain his wife.

‘You keep your nose out. Don’t interfere.’

Kath put her hands on her hips, and glared at Arthur. ‘Go, then!’

‘I fully intend,’ he assured her, and despite Kath’s brothers he thrust his face right into Mrs Leigh’s and added, ‘and I’ll speak how I like to my own wife,
you old witch. I’ll be bloody glad to get to Australia. I’d go a lot bloody further to be out of your road.’

Kath’s mother recoiled. ‘Did you hear that? Are you going to stand there and let him talk to me like that?’ she turned on her husband and sons.

Sally didn’t wait for the reply, but sidled out of the concert room with her tray, before the fight started. She put the glasses down behind the bar, where Ginny was filling a clean one
for Martin, and her mother was washing a few more.

Sally picked up the glass cloth to start drying them. ‘Fancy going to Australia, Mam?’ she murmured. ‘Sounds as if there might be two tickets going begging. Elinor and our Kath
reckon they’re stopping here.’

Her mother looked up in consternation. ‘What? Not going? After Arthur’s got the tickets? There’ll be hell to pay if she won’t.’

Ginny handed a customer his change. ‘I heard the rumpus,’ she said. ‘I was just going to see what was up, but it’s gone quiet again.’

‘I’d keep well out of the way, Ginny, man. Like Kath’s dad said, don’t interfere. Elinor’s dad looks about as mad as our Arthur, though. He thought he’d got
her married off,’ Sally said, vigorously polishing the glasses. ‘I’m going upstairs to have a look at Mrs Burdett when I get these done. Make sure she’s all right,
like.’

When Sally returned to the concert room Elinor and Frank were among the few couples shuffling round the floor, as were her parents. Kath was nowhere to be seen, and Arthur was
sitting with his beer, glowering across two tables at Kath’s mother. Jimmy was playing a soothing waltz, soft and slow.

She took a seat by the piano. ‘Where’s Kath?’

‘Gone off in a huff to get the bairns,’ Jimmy said. ‘She could have left them at our house with Em, but she’s that way out. Arthur’s told her he’s going to
Australia come hell or high water, so she can please herself what she does, and he’s told her mam and dad that if she doesn’t go, they’d better be prepared to keep her and the
bairns, because that’ll be the end of it as far as he’s concerned.’

‘He cannot do that,’ Sally said. ‘He cannot just leave them.’

Jimmy shrugged. ‘It looks as if he will.’

‘There’s going to be two wasted tickets then, as well as the bairns’.’

‘Maybes only one. Frank’s doing his best to talk Elinor round.’

Sally grimaced. ‘I’ve no doubt her dad’s hoping he’ll succeed,’ she said, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t, hoping that Christopher Maxfield’s
passport was still valid, and that all could be accomplished soon, before she lost the nerve and the will.