The Sea Change (36 page)

I was not angry: I couldn’t make him
love me any more than Mama could make Freda act judiciously. She was as stubborn as an
ox at times. If she was truly bent on marrying Pete there would be no deterring her. I
buried my swollen eyes among the hems of our dresses – hers mingling with mine on the
rail.

‘Whatever you think of me,’ I
heard Freda’s voice at the door, ‘I didn’t accept him to spite
you.’

I shut the wardrobe as if I had been looking
for something inside it. I did not turn to face her.

‘If I thought you could be happy with
him,’ she continued, ‘if I thought there was even a chance of
it … then I promise you I would have refused him, no matter what.’

‘I should be the judge of my own
happiness, Freda, not you,’
I murmured, into the oak face of the
cupboard. Hearing her approaching steps, I backed away to the window.

‘There are things he hasn’t told
you.’

I felt suddenly as absent as her reflection
in the glass.
Please leave. I don’t want to hear any more.

‘What things?’ I asked, before I
knew where the words had come from.

‘Violet … I’m having a
baby.’ The words were barely audible. ‘Please don’t tell
Mama.’

I looked up to the window and saw my
sister’s wet face reflected in the glass. She seemed spectral, as if she were
disappearing.

‘Why else do you think I’d marry
him?’ She muffled her tears in her sleeve. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘It’s not possible –’ I
turned to face her. ‘You’ve been in London … all this
time.’

I stared at her belly, still flat. The news,
if true, must be fresh even to her.

‘I wish it were impossible. I wish
none of it had happened.’ She put her head into her hands.

‘Freda –’

‘Don’t pity
me … whatever you do. It’s my own fault.’

‘Tell me what happened.
Please?’

She paused, drew breath, as if to begin
explaining, then sank into a fresh silence. Finally, after some time, she spoke.

‘He came to London to see his mother.
You won’t know about her because he’s never spoken of her to anyone. Months
ago, unbeknown to you or any of us, she wrote, asking to see him. He’d wanted to
meet her for so long that he accepted at the drop of a hat and travelled to the
city.’ When she had finished explaining about the other child, she looked at me
with pleading eyes as if expecting me to respond, but I had so many questions there was
nothing useful to say. ‘Violet, you have to understand that he was hurt and alone
in a place he didn’t know
and the only person he could think to
contact was me. And so he made enquiries at the hospital …’

‘I don’t understand. Why
didn’t he tell me about her?’ I blurted, finally.

‘I don’t know, Vi. Maybe he was
embarrassed. We had everything – you and I – two parents who loved us dearly.’

I frowned. ‘But what happened? What
does his mother have to do with –’ My eyes settled for a second time on her
stomach.

Freda turned away from me. ‘He asked
to meet me after my shift … We only meant to have dinner together. But then it
was announced that the war had ended in Europe for good. The whole city was alive with
celebrations. There was dancing, which I thought would take his mind off his
mother … I missed you and Mama terribly and he reminded me so much of
home …’

The window-sill pressed into my back. I
imagined what it would feel like to push backwards through the glass and fall down into
the garden. There seemed nothing to exist for now. Just a hollow future, which loomed
like an impossible drop. ‘You could have had anyone, Freda. Any boy you liked. You
know you could.’

‘Please believe me. I never wanted it
to happen … not with him. Violet, I promise you it was an accident. It was a
lapse … a momentary lapse. He told me about the American on the night we won
the war, you see … and, for a split second, I hated you for letting Mama
forget Father. For looking on while she took off with that Yank.’ Her voice dimmed
until it was barely more than a rasp. ‘But, most of all, I couldn’t bear the
thought that you had moved on without me … When I left, I thought everything
would stay the same, that time would simply stop until I came back. It’s madness,
I know. But the evacuation and then the American – it was too much. I realized you were
living your lives without me. Without Father. I was as dead to you as he was. It broke
my heart to think of it … Pete was there, and I knew you loved him. I knew,
and still I danced with him and
took his hand and … I felt
as if everything had been taken from me. It was my way of taking something back. Just
for a night.’

I pushed my palms into the window-sill and
tried to steady myself.

Freda caught her breath, eyes full, lips
pressed into white. ‘I know how much you love him, Vi. But it would have been a
miserable existence. You belong here. Near Imber. With Father and Mama. Can you really
imagine yourself trailing around the country after him while he takes to the skies in a
plane?’

‘He never gave me the
chance.’

‘It would be intolerable.’

‘Please, stop speaking for me.’
I raised my eyes and glared at her. The movement was so sudden and my stare so direct
that she recoiled.

Freda began to flounder. ‘Pete says
you’re like a limpet – you’ll never let go of Imber. He couldn’t
understand your loyalty. It’s so unflinching … but I understand. I know
you better than he does –’

‘Isn’t it enough that you have
him?’ I interrupted, giving in to the quiver in my voice and turning back to the
window. ‘Isn’t that enough?’

My sister walked to the door without
speaking another word. Through the glass, I could trace the shadow of the bell on the
lawn – the place where I had stood and watched her cry only a few months ago. The rust
had encased its shape so thickly of late that it now resembled a rock more than a bell.
I imagined its inner skin – the untouched metal inside it, hidden from the rain and
wind. I saw it for a moment, impossible, at the top of Imber’s tower: gleaming and
pealing, as if new.

The rebuilding has begun: it is time to
plant what the wave uprooted. Stones are gathered; timber arrives; walls gain roofs and
roofs gain walls. And out of the debris, the stirrings of a city are born.

The activity around me has shifted from an
exodus to a homecoming. For the first time in days, people are not running but
resettling. They scan each other’s faces for something familiar – something solid
that is not brick or stone to which they can cling. I look for Alice among them. But she
isn’t there.

There was a brief time when a return to
Imber had seemed as possible and daunting as rebuilding this town. Imber’s
villagers had started to gather again, and word spread that if we could prove the
existence of a military pledge before the war, we would be permitted to return home. For
years I had lived for our homecoming. But to return to it in ruins, when I carried with
me so many ruins of my own, seemed impossible.

Freda and Pete did not talk of their
marriage in front of me. I learnt from Annie that they intended to marry in Wiltshire
before leaving for Leconfield. Annie had married her fiancé only a few weeks before and
was due to move north soon. Freda had asked her for advice on ceremonies and Annie had
sent a telegram to warn me of their plans.

As for Pete, he avoided the house as much as
he could; we had not spoken since Freda announced their engagement. But I could do
little to avoid our encounter one morning in September when I was struck down with a
headache and could not go into town with Mama as planned. Thinking I would be out, Freda
brought Pete back to the house with her. I heard them
open and close
the front door and seat themselves in the living room just as I was boiling water to
make tea. Neither of them realized that I was in the kitchen. Through the door, I could
just see Pete, pulling Freda onto his knee in the armchair. This closeness took the
breath out of my lungs. They were due to be married; they were allowed to touch. And yet
I had convinced myself it was for entirely practical reasons: the pregnancy, the raising
of their child. I watched his hand on her hip, his fingers taking hold of some of the
material in her skirt. I heard her laughing. And I saw, with a slow intake of breath,
how easily they had taken to each other. Freda might not have wanted a baby, but she had
wanted Pete – and a feeling that was once momentary was now rooting. I could see it in
her movements – the way she fitted easily onto his lap, and stayed there.

I tried to busy myself noiselessly in the
kitchen but it was with hesitancy that I began to catch fragments of their
conversation.

‘Yes, but the letter from the War
Office
implies
that we are to be allowed back after the war. That must count
for something.’

‘I’m telling you not to put too
much weight on it.’ Pete sighed. ‘It certainly isn’t going to happen
overnight.’

‘Mr Madigan as good as confirmed what
I’d been thinking all along,’ Freda said, ‘that a verbal pledge,
backed up indirectly by the evacuation letter, was made to us at the time of the
eviction. The War Office must stand by their promise, and I’ll be sure to hold
them to it. They’ll let us use the church, you mark my words. And then, later,
Violet and Mama can move home.’

‘Freda. Please.’ Pete looked to
check the door to the hall was shut. He failed to see me in the kitchen. ‘The
church is in a bad way. And if Violet ever found out …’

The sound of my name on his lips, which used
to stir me, now felt alarming. My heart raced.

‘You’re forgetting it was my
home too. Our home,’ Freda interjected.

‘I only thought – we’ve hurt her
enough already.’

Freda went quiet. Or, at least, I did not
hear her response. I moved closer to the kitchen door.

‘Neither of us wanted this.’ She
laid a hand on her stomach and stood up from his lap. ‘Ever since the accident, I
knew I’d come back after the war and marry in Imber … with Father there.
Violet knows it’s what he would have wanted. Nothing has worked out the way we
planned. The very least I can do is give my father the wedding he always hoped
he’d see. At home. In St Giles’s.’

‘You haven’t seen …’
Pete ventured, his voice trailing off. I bent into the door. ‘The place is in
ruins … and what will we do for a vicar?’

‘I’ve spoken to the vicar at
Bratton. He was a colleague of Father’s.’

Just then the water boiled. I had completely
forgotten about it. I saw Pete look up and, afraid he had heard something, I rushed to
quell the sound. I turned – kettle in hand – to see him staring at me from the kitchen
door, Freda just behind him.

‘I want to be there,’ I
murmured, before I even realized what I was saying. ‘I want to come to the
wedding.’

I looked up at Pete, whose eyes seemed to
fidget under my gaze, not knowing where to direct themselves.

‘Violet … what are you doing
in here?’ asked my sister.

‘I – I don’t know. I had a
headache.’

‘Violet,’ began Pete, ‘I
don’t know how much you heard –’

‘I heard you.’

‘It’s highly unlikely that
they’ll let us marry there …’

‘If they do,’ I began, ‘I
would like to be there, if you’ll have me. Freda’s right.’ I paused,
waiting for my voice to regain its steadiness. ‘Father always said he wanted to
see at least one of us married in Imber.’

‘Don’t do this to yourself,
Vi,’ said Pete. ‘We’ll go somewhere else. Somewhere north where you
don’t have to know about it.’

‘You’ll need witnesses, and
it’ll be a chance for me to say goodbye,’ I explained, with increasing
resolve.

‘To Imber?’ intervened Pete. He
seemed afraid of what I might be implying.

‘To lots of things, my sister for
one.’ I glanced at Freda. ‘I won’t be seeing much of either of you
once you’re settled in Yorkshire, after all.’

Freda pursed her lips. She seemed on the
edge of tears.

‘What do you say, Freda?’ Pete
muttered, over his shoulder. She nodded her assent at the hallway floor.