To Have and to Hold (23 page)

Paul murmured agreement and Carmel said, ‘Do you think it will all calm down in the end?’

Paul sighed. ‘I would like to say yes, to reassure you everything will be fine…’

‘But it wouldn’t be true,’ Carmel said, ‘and I am no wean to be fobbed off. I need the truth. Do you think it will eventually come to war?’

Paul was silent so long that it was answer enough.

‘You do, don’t you?’

‘I think it may come to that, yes.’

‘When?’

‘Who knows that, pet? I’m not a world leader. They decide these things.’

‘But you think it is inevitable?’

‘Yes, in my heart of hearts I feel it is unavoidable. And when it comes, you know I will have to go. Everyone will have to do their bit.’

Carmel gave a sharp intake of breath, but she knew that already really. It was the type of man he was.

‘But let us get it in perspective,’ he went on ‘It won’t happen tomorrow, or the day after, and tonight I am sure I can think of something to take our mind off all this doom and gloom—for now, at least.’

Carmel submitted to Paul’s embrace eagerly enough, though her mind was elsewhere, and she lay awake long after his even breathing told her he was asleep.

In March the following year, Hitler and his armies goose-stepped unopposed into Austria and took over its government in a pact with them known as the Anschluss. Then he turned his attention to Sudetenland, an area of Czechoslovakia where there were many German-speaking people, and which he said felt more German than Czechoslovakian.

The only cheering news at this depressing time was that British unemployment had eased slightly, and there were fewer clusters of dejected men hanging around the street corners.

‘Why do you think that is?’ Carmel asked Paul one evening.

Paul shrugged. ‘Something to do with the new factories going up, I suppose.’

‘So why weren’t these factories erected earlier?’

‘Maybe the powers that be thought we had no need for them.’

‘Well, why do we need them now, all of a sudden?’

‘Because every week and month that passes we are one step nearer to war,’ Paul said. ‘I would like to take a bet that most, if not all, of the new factories are concerned in some way with making armaments.’

It was a chilling thought. Yet just a few short months later, Carmel knew that Paul was wrong. Mr Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier, France’s Prime Minister, had gone to Munich and seen Herr Hitler himself. Hitler signed a treaty of peace with both countries on the acquisition of Sudetenland. On 30 September, Chamberlain came back to Britain waving this piece of paper and declaring that there would be ‘peace for our time’.

Everyone appeared to breath a sigh of relief, although both Paul and Chris said Britain was crazy to trust the word of Hitler and they should use this lull in hostilities to prepare for what they imagined to be the biggest onslaught there had ever been. But Britain seemed to hover in an uneasy belief in peace.

On 15 March 1939, when Hitler made a triumphant entry into Prague, Paul said it was only to be expected and he didn’t think the man would be content until he had the whole of Europe under his jackboot.

‘There’s not much left of Europe, though, is there,’ Carmel said, ‘with Franco now in control in Spain and Mussolini in Italy?’

‘Well, I think he will go for Poland next,’ Chris said.

‘What about “peace in our time”?’ Lois asked.

‘Not worth the paper it was written on,’ Chris said, and Carmel, for the first time, faced the fact that war was inevitable.

It seemed too that the government had woken up. The following month the Territorial Army were mobilised, any serving abroad were brought back, and on 27 April there was an announcement that there was going to be conscription introduced for young men of twenty and twenty-one years of age to be brought into effect immediately.

That night, as they snuggled in bed, Paul drew Carmel close and said, ‘This is it, pet.’

‘But…what do you mean?’ she cried. ‘War hasn’t even been declared.’

‘It’s only a matter of time.’

‘Then why don’t you wait until you have to go?’

‘Because this way, I will have a choice,’ Paul said. ‘I want to join the Medical Corps of the Royal Warwickshires. You needn’t worry, I won’t even be in the firing line. Even if I am sent abroad you can imagine that their field hospitals will be some way from the battlefield, and they will be desperate for doctors now. Each of those conscripts will have to have a thorough examination to see if they are fit to be shot at. Chris is going too; we agreed to go together. In fact, at this moment he is probably telling Lois the same.’

Now Carmel understood the look that had passed between the men as they had listened to the announcement earlier and, gentle though Paul’s voice was, Carmel heard the steel in it and knew he had already made his mind up. She could rant and rave, for all the good it would do. He had told her what he intended to do
months before and now she must let him go and face life without her beloved Paul. The only consolation was that he would be safe, or as safe as anyone could be in a war, but she knew also that their lives might never be the same again.

Carmel and Lois decided that they would throw a party for the boys who would be leaving to join their regiments on Sunday, 14 May. The party was planned for the day before.

Carmel told Paul he had to tell his mother what he had done. Jeff was immensely proud of the decision his son had made and told him so. However, Jeff knew that Emma would hardly view it in the same light and agreed with Carmel that Paul had to see her and tell her face to face.

Matthew couldn’t understand what had made him join up in the first place.

‘I’d be conscripted eventually anyway,’ Paul had said. ‘Then I might have had no choice of where I was put or anything.’

‘Couldn’t you have claimed exemption as a medical man?’

‘I don’t know. I didn’t try.’

‘Well, I will,’ Matthew declared. ‘They will have to drag me away kicking and screaming. As the manager of an engineering factory, I’ll probably be able to claim exemption.’

‘What about Dad?’

‘What about him?’ Matthew said. ‘By the time he arrives in the morning, he is usually in no fit state for anything much. Even if you don’t live at home you must
be aware of how much he is drinking. He virtually lives at the club, though I don’t blame him totally. The situation at home is bloody awful most of the time and I am out of it too, as much as I can be.’

Paul knew his brother spoke the truth. Whenever he met his father at his club, he had been aware how much he was putting away, though when he came to see them at the house, he was much more sober. Paul felt sorry for his father for he had told him things, once the beer had loosened his tongue, that he probably never would have told him sober. Paul thought he had had one hell of a life, one way or another.

‘You’re mad anyway to leave that pretty little wife of yours,’ Matthew went on, bringing Paul’s thoughts back to the present. ‘I should think there will be plenty of offers to warm her bed at night once you are out of the way.’

Paul smiled. ‘It isn’t all about sex, Matthew. Carmel understands that I must do this.’

‘Well, you go and do your bit, Paul,’ Matthew sneered. ‘I will employ my energies to staying out of the armed forces. It will be all right for you, safe in a field hospital miles far from enemy lines. I have no wish to end my life on the end of a German bayonet.’

Paul shrugged. ‘You must do as you see fit.’

When the little maid of all work told Emma that Paul wanted to see her, her heart leaped with hope. When she had lost Paul to that little trollop, she felt as if her heart had been torn to shreds. None could take his place, certainly not his younger brother, whose presence in the house was an irritant rather than a comfort.

She even tried not to see her husband. It wasn’t hard, for he was seldom in, even for meals, which suited both of them. In fact, evening after evening she had sat in isolated splendour in the dining room and eaten the meal the cook had prepared and then sat alone in the sitting room. She seldom met friends, for she often imagined them sneering at her. For years she had expounded the virtues of Paul and the marvellous future ahead of him, which Paul had thrown back in her face, and now she felt she was a laughing stock.

The exemption to this was Millicent Chisholm and her daughter Melissa. Emma and Millicent had planned for years that Melissa and Paul would marry. They had been together since babyhood with their mothers looking on fondly. It would have been so suitable, and Melissa had been more than willing. So had Paul been before that conniving little nurse had enticed him away. Emma couldn’t bring herself to believe they could ever be happy together. How could they be when they were from two entirely different worlds?

Now Paul had come to see her and he’d come alone. Emma was convinced Paul had come to tell her he could no longer live with Carmel Duffy, that he had married her only as a stab of defiance against his mother and he realised he had made a mistake.

It was unfortunate that there was no divorce in the Catholic Church, but surely to God, one error of judgement shouldn’t be allowed to blight a person’s life for ever. Maybe they could get an annulment. Money could buy most things, Emma knew. They might have to pay dearly but, no matter, the money would be found to gain Paul’s release.

However, the Paul that stood before his mother a little later didn’t look at all like a man who was going to admit to some
faux pas
in his personal life. She had spent a lifetime studying the son she had loved so much, but she had seldom seem him look like he did that day.

Emma rose to her feet as Paul entered the room. She looked into his deep blue eyes and saw the challenge in them. She wasn’t going to let him know that he was forgiven for upsetting her until she heard what he had to say and so she said in clipped tones, ‘You wished to see me?’ And then added before he could speak, ‘Shall we take a seat and I am sure Mary won’t mind making us some tea?’

‘I’ll stand, if you don’t mind, Mother,’ Paul said. ‘This won’t take long.’

‘That sounds rather ominous.’

‘That depends how you view it,’ Paul said. ‘The fact is, I have enlisted.’

It was the last thing Emma expected him to say. Now she understood the proud stance. Her dreams came crashing down around her head and her heart was pierced with the thought that her son was going to be in the carnage that everyone knew was coming. She was filled with sudden fear for him. She bent her head so that he couldn’t see the anguish in her eyes as she reminded herself that once more he had shamed her. He was a doctor and didn’t need to go anywhere. People said there would be air raids, planes dropping things from the sky, people hurt, maimed and killed, so why had he to go and enlist like some common nobody?

So the look she turned on Paul was as cold as ice,
her eyes like pieces of granite in a face screwed up with anger and disappointment.

‘Why should I wish to know what you do?’ she snapped. ‘You threw away the values of this home long ago and then compounded the error by marrying that common little guttersnipe. From that moment you ceased to be a son of mine.’

Common little guttersnipe.
The words burned in Paul’s mind. ‘How dare you call Carmel such names? What gives you that right? Do you know, I am glad that I am no longer a son of yours for I am ashamed that you were ever my mother.’

‘There is nothing further I wish to say to you,’ Emma said bitterly and added sneeringly, ‘Go back to the vulgar strumpet you married and the slum you call home. You deserve them both.’

Paul held his mother’s vindictive eyes. He had the urge to put his hands around her neck and squeeze tight. In fact, the urge to hurt the woman he now hated was so strong that he knew he had to get away quickly and stay away. He turned from her without a word.

Only when she heard the front door slam behind Paul did Emma allow herself to weep.

Paul gave Carmel an edited version of how his mother had received the news of his enlisting, but he told his father the lot later that same evening at the party.

‘I wanted to hurt her,’ he said. ‘That’s what I can’t get over. I’ve never wanted to hurt another human being in my life and she is my mother.’

‘I’m as easygoing a man as you are likely to get,’ Jeff said, ‘and the damned woman gets me the same way.
Why d’you think I spend all my leisure hours in the club and make sure I don’t return home still she’s in the Land of Nod and all I am good for is falling into my bed? Take my advice, son, drink enough tonight to forget your mother and enjoy the party.’

Paul took his father’s words to heart and when Carmel noticed him knocking back the booze she wasn’t all that concerned, knowing it might be all the alcohol he would get for a long time. The house was packed with friends from both hospitals and their partners if they had any, like Jane’s fiancé, Peter Meadows, and Dan Smiley, his best friend, with whom Sylvia was going steady. Even Matthew had brought a girl with him, Carmel was glad to see. Then there were Jeff and James, and the Hancocks from next door, and Chris’s parents, whom Carmel hadn’t seen since the wedding.

It was a wonderful party but at the back of everyone’s mind was the reason for it and all were determined to make it a memorable one for Paul and Chris. Carmel knew that Paul was looking for another memory to take with him, for she had seen it lurking in his eyes for the last hour or so and it had set the excitement mounting in her too.

Barely had the door closed on the last guest than Paul was tugging at her.

‘Leave all the clearing up till tomorrow,’ he said urgently. ‘Let’s go up.’

Paul was so drunk he had trouble mounting the stairs and Carmel found she was none too steady either. She was a very moderate drinker, as a rule, but had drunk far more than was customary that night.

Lois had told her not to worry. ‘What can happen to
you?’ she asked. ‘You are in your own house so no harm can come to you and there is no work to get up for. Sometimes, Carmel, it does you good to let your hair down.’

And so Carmel had let it down good and proper, and was more than happy to fall on the bed beside Paul. Neither of them had any desire to sleep, though, and Paul’s hands were all over her body, tearing at her clothes. Carmel helped him, knowing she was almost fully aroused already and wouldn’t be able to wait long.