The Promise (46 page)

But why didn’t he tell her he’d met Jimmy back in 1916?

Was it because if he’d admitted it that evening he came to the hospital, it might have stopped her from going off for the night with him? It almost certainly would have done as it would have made an image of Jimmy spring into her mind.

Yet for whatever reason he chose to keep quiet about that meeting, it was so honourable of him to rescue his rival. Was he tempted fleetingly to let him die? If he was, it made his actions even more admirable.

Her insides began to churn alarmingly. She couldn’t remember if she’d ever told Jimmy that the surname of her rescuer in Paris was Carrera. But Noah definitely knew it and if he was to call here and Jimmy told him about this, he would recognize it immediately and wonder why she hadn’t spoken up; after all, that was the natural reaction for anyone, unless they were hiding something.

She turned her face into the pillow as images of Etienne kept jumping into her mind. It had been hard enough to try to erase thoughts of him all these long months, and now she knew Jimmy, Mog and Garth would be talking about this for weeks to come. How should she react? Should she go downstairs now and say she’d just remembered that Etienne’s surname was Carrera?

But she knew she couldn’t do it. Not yet. Just saying his name out loud would surely bring tears to her eyes. She had to hold it inside her.

That evening Jimmy seemed much brighter after getting the letter from his old friend. He even suggested lighting the fire up in the living room, when normally he stayed in the kitchen until about eight then went to bed.

‘We could have a game of chess or do a jigsaw together,’ he suggested.

Belle thought it somewhat ironic that she’d tried to get him to do just that on so many nights without success, yet on the one night she really wanted to be alone, he had a change of heart. But she went upstairs and lit the fire anyway; it was after all a step forward.

‘It was good to hear from Bin and all the news of everyone,’ he said once they were both up there. The bar downstairs was quiet, and with the curtains drawn and the fire blazing the living room was a warm and comfortable retreat. ‘I’m going to write back. Though I haven’t got much to tell the lads.’

‘They’ll just be happy to hear you’re well,’ Belle said. ‘You can tell them things you’ve read in the papers. Or remind them of funny things you shared.’

He sat back in his chair by the fire looking thoughtful. ‘I hated it out there,’ he said at length. ‘In a quiet five minutes I used to close my eyes and imagine being here, just like this.’

‘But now you are here you wish you were back there?’ she asked.

He managed a smile. ‘Not quite. I just wish I was whole again. Working behind the bar, going for walks with you, not feeling so hopeless. But I do miss my mates out there.’

In the past she would have moved over to him and given him a hug if he was sad. But she had found to her cost that any demonstration of affection made him prickly.

‘Tell me about some of them,’ she suggested.

‘There was one we used to call “Gannet” because he would finish up any food you didn’t eat. He was a laugh, always scavenging around; somehow he always managed to get drink, some eggs, a chicken or a rabbit. He worked a stall in a market with his dad in the East End before the war, I suppose he learned the art there. Only eighteen but a great lad.’

Belle smiled. It was good to hear him talking the way he used to before he was wounded.

‘Then there was “Father”; we called him that not because he was old, but because you found yourself confessing things to him. I said once that he ought to become a priest, but he said he liked women too much.’

‘What sort of things did you have to confess?’

Jimmy shrugged. ‘Being scared before going over the top; that I often wonder about my father.’

‘Do you?’ Belle exclaimed in surprise. ‘You’ve never, ever mentioned thinking about him to me.’

‘I never used to, not till I got out there. I suppose it was to do with meeting so many different kinds of men who often talked about their fathers. I always believed that he was rotten to the core because he walked out on Ma, but maybe there’s another side to that story.’

‘Have you asked Garth about him?’

‘No. He’d take Ma’s side, and there isn’t anyone else to ask.’

‘I often wonder about my father too. But as Annie doesn’t even keep in touch with me, she’s hardly likely to want to talk about him. I wish Mog knew.’

Jimmy smiled at her. ‘He’d be a good, kind man, and creative too. You don’t get any of that from your mother.’

Belle’s eyes prickled at the compliment, but she didn’t think she deserved such praise. All at once she felt she had to partially unburden herself about his rescuer.

‘The man who saved you, you said his name was Carrera. Well, that was Etienne’s name,’ she said.

‘What! The man who took you to America?’

‘I’d rather remember him as the man who helped Noah find me in Paris,’ she said.

Jimmy was silent for a moment but he was looking at her intently.

‘That day in Verdun, he asked if I was just called Red in the army, that was after he’d heard me called Little Red Reilly. Looking back, that’s an odd thing to ask; no one usually cares what your real name is. He even asked what I worked at before the war. I told him I was Jimmy back home, and about the pub; I told him about you losing the baby and mentioned your name. So if it was the same man, why didn’t he tell me who he was?’

‘Maybe he didn’t make the connection till later,’ Belle suggested. ‘But if he had, perhaps he thought it best not to bring up the past because you were with other men. I told him quite a lot about you while we were on the way to America, and of course two years later he knew from Noah that you’d searched everywhere for me.’

‘So he saved me for you?’

‘I doubt he looked on it like that. It’s more likely he just remembered you from the day at Verdun and couldn’t bear to leave you there helpless.’

Jimmy made a sort of agitated whistling noise. Belle didn’t know what to say now; when she looked at him she could almost hear his brain ticking over, assimilating all the strands of the situation.

‘He felt he owed me my life? Why? I’d done nothing for him. He risked being put on a charge for stopping for me. I doubt if his CO would consider rescuing a Tommy any kind of priority when there were dozens of French wounded all around there. So you have to be the reason for it. He loved you!’

Belle’s stomach turned over. She wished now she hadn’t said anything. Jimmy was a thinker; he’d dwell on this, turn it this way and that, and he’d want answers to anything he couldn’t work out.

‘You know very well that he always felt very bad about taking me to New Orleans,’ she said. ‘That is exactly why he came to Paris to help find me. I’d say that was proof he cared about me, but there was nothing else between us. I’ve never been so glad to see anyone as when he broke the door down where I was being held. But after, I couldn’t wait to get back to England to see you and Mog.’

‘Funny that you said so little about him on your return,’ he said, his voice tinged with suspicion. ‘I mean, a man saves your life yet you don’t want to keep in touch with him?’

‘Of course I would’ve liked to, but I thought it would be hurtful to you. Oh Jimmy, don’t make this into something it’s not. I’d been through several kinds of hell back then, I was home, safe again, I wanted to forget it all and start again.’

He reached for his crutch and heaved himself out of the chair. ‘I think I’ll go to bed now,’ he said.

‘That’s right, stir up something then back off to brood,’ she thought, but couldn’t bring herself to say aloud. That was what he always did, and she felt she couldn’t stand much more of it as it was like walking on eggshells.

‘I wish I could have my old Jimmy back,’ she said sadly. ‘You can’t imagine how much I miss him.’

He leaned on his crutch looking down at her, his mouth curled into a sneer. ‘How can you expect me to be the same when half of my body is missing? You aren’t the same Belle I married either. What excuse do you have for that?’

He turned then and hopped away across the room. Belle could only watch him go, her heart even heavier.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Belle hesitated at the open door of Dr Towle’s consulting room. He was sitting at his desk writing up some notes and for a second she felt she couldn’t go through with it.

But he looked up and smiled. ‘Come in, Mrs Reilly, I don’t bite,’ he said.

The doctor had something of a reputation in the village as a ladies’ man. As Belle knew him for his kindness when she had lost her baby and the sympathy he had shown Jimmy when he first arrived home, she thought this reputation was unwarranted. But he was undeniably easy on the eye. Tall, well built, with a ready smile, good teeth and a twinkle in his dark eyes. His dark hair was tinged with grey, the only clear indication he was over forty, and she thought it was very sad that stupid people misconstrued his understanding of women’s problems.

She sat down at his desk very aware that once she’d voiced her problem with Jimmy she could never retract her words.

‘You look tired and pale,’ he said, his deep brown voice soothing and sympathetic. ‘Are you unwell? Or is this visit about your husband?’

‘Yes, it’s about Mr Reilly,’ she said, hanging her head. ‘I’m at my wits’ end, doctor. He’s so sullen, so …’ She stopped, overcome by tears she couldn’t hold back. ‘I’m sorry,’ she managed to say as she fished in her pocket for a handkerchief.

It was near the end of July and the weather had been so hot for the last two weeks that it had been impossible to sleep well at night and it was hard to raise the energy to do even the simplest of tasks during the day. But she could have coped with the heat, food going off before it was even cooked, the dust that seemed to coat everything, if only Jimmy would rise out of his black moods.

Time and again he had asked her questions about Etienne, usually to blame the man for rescuing him, but sometimes with suspicion that there had been something between them in Paris. At least she wasn’t guilty on that count, but he also fired questions about her time at the hospital, what the male drivers and stretcher bearers were like. He was like a dog with a bone, going to it again and again, to the point when she felt like screaming. There had been moments when she was sorely tempted to walk out of the door and never come back. It was only the thought of what that would do to Mog that stopped her.

The doctor leaned forward, putting his forearms on his desk. ‘I have observed that this appears to be one of the many troubling side effects for wounded men once they come home. Even if they hated every moment of it over there, there was purpose to each day, and now they have none. You and many other wives learned to cope alone while your husbands were away. However much you missed them and wanted them back, it must be very hard to adjust to their return when they are no longer the strong, capable man you said goodbye to.’

Belle nodded and dabbed at her eyes.

‘I’ve had many a devoted wife in here confiding how much attention her husband demands, how critical of her he is, and some say they no longer show them any appreciation. Is this what you are finding?’

Belle took a deep breath. If other women could confide in him, so could she. ‘Yes. He’s a different man now. Everyone liked Jimmy before this, he cared about people, he was generous with his time and affection. Just a lovely man. But that’s all gone now. He is so bitter, so difficult.’

‘It will get better, Mrs Reilly,’ he said.

‘Will it?’ she asked bleakly. ‘He’s barely been out the door since he got home. He won’t persevere with his artificial leg. He doesn’t talk to me. He looks at me sometimes as if he hates me. He’s wearing me down to the point I want to run away from him.’

‘And how is he with Mr and Mrs Franklin?’

‘Not as nasty as he is to me, but there are times when they despair too. I won’t run away of course, I couldn’t possibly be that unfair to Mr and Mrs Franklin. But it is affecting us all, and I don’t know which way to turn.’

‘In what way is he nasty to you? Has he hit you?’

‘Oh no, he wouldn’t do that,’ Belle said quickly, even though he had moved to do it on several occasions, and she’d jumped nimbly away. ‘But he brings up things about my past, he’s suspicious of me. There is no joy in him any more, not about anything.’

Dr Towle raised one dark eyebrow questioningly.

‘That doesn’t happen,’ she said, guessing that was what he wanted to know about, but wouldn’t have risked embarrassing her by asking. ‘He rejects any kind of affection from me.’

‘Could that be because he is afraid of you having a baby? I did tell him after you had the miscarriage that it wouldn’t be advisable.’

‘You did?’ Belle exclaimed. ‘He never told me.’

She was stunned by this news and she began to cry again. ‘Do you mean I can never have a baby?’

‘I am so sorry, Mrs Reilly, I assumed your husband told you this once you recovered. I didn’t say you couldn’t have another child, only that I felt there was a risk of miscarrying again.’

Belle sniffed back her tears. ‘Well, it’s not likely to happen anyway the way things are,’ she said.

One of her greatest hopes for the future had been a baby. She’d thought that would be the one thing which would buck Jimmy up. She had thought too it would blot out all memory of Etienne, and a baby would bring joy into Mog and Garth’s life too. Now that had been denied her as well.

‘It could be that he’s not just frightened for you, but also fears that he could not support a child,’ the doctor said gently. ‘Men are very sensitive about such things.’

‘If he persevered with the leg he could run the bar,’ Belle said. ‘But he seems to enjoy wallowing in misery. I want to shout at him and point out that other wounded soldiers are forced to beg on the streets to put food on the table. But he doesn’t appear to be aware how fortunate he is to have a roof over his head and people who love him.’

The doctor nodded in sympathy. ‘It is only recently that doctors and psychiatrists have begun to recognize the effects this war is having on soldiers’ mental health,’ he said. ‘There wasn’t the constant bombardment of heavy guns in previous wars, nor such prolonged fighting. Most men died of injuries like Mr Reilly’s. All of us in the medical profession are aware now that in this war it isn’t only the physical injuries we need to treat, but the mental ones too. Sadly at present there is no medicine to help; all we can recommend is rest, peace and quiet, and hope that talking to our patients will eventually dispel the hideous images in their heads.’