Wartime Sweethearts (42 page)

She lifted her head and smiled at the thought of him and chanced to glimpse Gilda Jacobson, her glossy black hair tucked into a black snood, the brim of her hat tilted so that it hid her eyes but not her tear-stained cheekbones. Every so often she bowed her head, wiping her face with a lace-edged handkerchief.

Lace-edged! How luxurious. A lot of people were down to tearing up old pillowcases and sheets to make handkerchiefs. Or even underwear. So how come …?

Mary stopped singing and almost stopped breathing. She had to admit to herself that she was becoming too serious, too engrossed in war work. Almost as though the war will be lost if I don’t goad women into being frugal, she thought to herself.

Poor Gilda. She really had loved Charlie and Mary was quite certain he had loved her back. What did it matter if Gilda had been married before and had two children? Each day was there to be lived. Clearly she was devastated and must be feeling terribly alone. She wasn’t family. Neither was she from the village. Mary made herself a promise to speak to her after this was over, a sisterly talk assuring her that she had a place in the family, just as Charlie had had a place in her heart.

Ruby was thinking of Johnnie Smith. He was miles away yet she could hear his voice ringing in her ears, telling her not to be so bloody uptight, so bloody superior! He had been luckier than Charlie. He had survived, though never spoke of his time in Norway or the colonel he used to drive for. It was as if the whole episode was a closely guarded secret, one he had no intention of ever betraying.

Mary slid her arm through that of her father. She felt him tremble. She pressed his arm with her free hand – a small gesture of reassurance, to tell him she would miss her brother as much as he would, though instinctively she knew it couldn’t possibly be the same. It was a terrible thing to lose a child.

She looked up into her father’s sad face, hugged his arm and tried to smile bravely. His look was unreadable and there was no smile. He turned back to face the front.

Her gaze returned to Gilda. It struck her then that these were the two people, her father and Gilda, who had loved Charlie the most. Her eyes met those of her sister who stood on the other side of her father. On the other side of Ruby, Frances sobbed and clung on to her arm.

In her heart, Mary added other words to the prayers for Charlie. ‘Please God, bring Michael home.’

The congregation rose for one more hymn: ‘I Vow to Three My Country’. The vicar gave the blessing and then it was over.

‘Come on, Dad,’ whispered Mary, clinging steadfastly to her father’s arm as she glided sideways out of the pew. ‘Let’s get home. Don’t want that food going to waste. Not after all the effort put in by our …’ She’d been about to say, our boys in the merchant navy.

Charlie had been one of those boys whom the merchant navy had so depended on.

At first she didn’t think her father had noticed. His head was bowed, his shoulders stooped. It was as though he’d aged ten years in a matter of days.

They emerged from the subdued light of the church into a sombre day. The sky was marbled with clouds and the smell of rain was in the air.

The vicar, a tall gaunt man with a bald head and wire-rimmed glasses, shook Stan’s hand. ‘I’m terribly sorry, Mr Sweet. A great loss. A great loss indeed.’

He spoke softly and although the sentiments were no doubt sincere, they seemed rehearsed and probably were. The village had experienced many deaths over the years; even though Charlie had been young and a beloved son, what was one more?

‘No doubt there’ll be lots more before this war is over,’ her father murmured. ‘Just like the last. Just as bloody. Just as much a waste of bloody time!’

The vicar winced at his use of language. ‘I do hope not. I do hope there is a deeply moral purpose for all this carnage.’

‘Behopes,’ muttered her father, not sounding for a moment as though he believed it was so.

Mary eyed him warily, noting the rigid set of his jaw, the downturned corners of his mouth. On the outside his manner portrayed a reserved, polite individual brought up to accept his lot in life and put up with almost everything. Inside she knew his heart was breaking.

She slid her arm through his again. Ruby did the same on the other side. Frances clung to Ruby.

They walked back along the path. Stan shook his head. ‘You never expect to outlive your children,’ he said to her once they were out of earshot of the vicar. ‘Worse still is not having the remains to grieve over, just a line or two added to his mother’s headstone.’

‘Mr Sweet.’ Gilda Jacobson called from behind them, her heels clattering on the flagstone path.

Stan turned. The girls turned with him.

Gilda had a haughty tilt to her chin, which Mary interpreted as being an effort not to break down and howl at God for not looking after the man she’d loved, understandable seeing as he hadn’t looked after her first husband either.

‘I want to say something to you, Mr Sweet. I want to apologise, but also to make you understand …’

She sounded nervous and her tone was brittle. Ruby surmised it wouldn’t take much for her to break down and cry.

Stan Sweet frowned. ‘Apologise? What do you have to apologise about?’

Ruby eyed Gilda not without some hostility. Her brother had been a sucker for a pretty face. Regardless of her sad experiences, Ruby couldn’t get over the fact that Gilda was older than him and had children.

Gilda’s eyes fluttered, dark lashes brushing her pale cheeks. ‘You may not think so, but there has been gossip. Some people might think me flighty – I think that is what they say. Flighty, in that I chased Charlie, a man younger than myself. But it was not like that. My husband died because he printed pamphlets opposing a brutal regime. I fled with my children, coming a long way to escape prejudice. I never thought I would ever be happy again. I never thought I would love again.’ A pink haze appeared on Gilda’s high cheekbones. Stan stood silently between his daughters waiting for her to go on. ‘Charlie understood that,’ she said. ‘He made me laugh again. It had been a long time since I laughed.’

Stan Sweet stood like a rock in front of her. He cleared his throat, looked down at the ground then directly at her. ‘Young woman. Allow me. Before my son went away we had a little heart to heart about a lot of things … things fathers and sons don’t talk about too often. Loving somebody was one of them. I loved my wife Sarah. We were married for just a few years and then she was taken from me. I’ve missed her every day since. That’s what me and my boy were talking about. Love for a woman. As I said, men don’t often talk about that kind of stuff in case our mates thinks we’re all softies. I’m glad he was happy before … well … I’m glad he was looking forward to something and someone.’

To Mary’s surprise he placed an affectionate hand on Gilda’s shoulder. ‘I know what you went through, my girl. Charlie told me – about your husband being imprisoned and what you had to do in order to protect your children. I wish Charlie was still here to make you happy. I wish I could have seen him settled down and giving me grandchildren. But it didn’t happen and I’m sorry for that. In the meantime, all I can do is to share my grief with you. You’re welcome to call on me whenever you want to.’

Mrs Hicks had prepared the food at her house and had also attended the memorial service. The children had been left with Mrs Gates who had plenty of her own children for the two of them to play with.

Bettina was waiting there when they came back from the church. Mary sought her out.

As she took off her hat and coat, she asked if there had been any news from Michael, Bettina’s nephew.

‘Nothing, but the way telephones and telegrams are at the moment …’

She had been going to say that communications were overwhelmed what with the dire way the war was going – so many things going wrong, so many young men being killed, but she stopped herself. She didn’t want Mary fearing the worst.

‘Michael always was a good swimmer,’ she said cheerfully. ‘If he has gone down in the sea he’ll likely swim all the way home!’

‘I expect you’re right.’ Although Mary wasn’t fooled she pretended that she was. There was the distinct possibility that Michael’s plane had gone down on land, in which case it might have blown up on impact. If it had managed to land safely, he might very well have been captured and therefore likely to spend the rest of the war in a prisoner of war camp.

She picked up a plateful of sandwiches and one of her homemade Madeleines.

‘Shall I take these in?’

‘If you could please,’ Bettina replied. ‘Ooo! Madeleines! Michael’s favourite. He’ll be disappointed he’s missed these!’

Mary wasn’t sure that they were Michael’s favourite cakes, but she smiled anyway and said that he should have made sure he got here in time to eat them.

The sandwiches and cakes were well received. Mary’s jaw ached repeating the same responses to the oft-repeated condolences. Inside she wanted to scream that she’d prefer silence rather than platitudes, but it was unfair to call them that. People felt awkward. Not knowing what to say they stuck to the tried and tested.

‘Those look good.’

The speaker was Andrew Sinclair from the Ministry of Food. She’d had to stand him up on a BBC broadcast but on learning of the reason, he’d sworn then and there that he would be at the memorial service. She thought it sweet of him, though realised he wasn’t attending purely out of sympathy. He hadn’t known Charlie, but he did want to know her better. As she circulated around the room with more sandwiches and other cakes, she felt his eyes on her and couldn’t help blushing. Unlike Ruby she had never invited male attention, in fact, she’d always felt awkward when a man had shown interest in her, like a gauche adolescent rather than a grown woman.

She saw Ruby talking to Fred Mortimer, an old friend of her father’s. Of her father she could see no sign.

After acknowledging Fred, she asked Ruby where their father had got to. Ruby looked around the room, didn’t see him and shook her head.

‘He wasn’t feeling very sociable. Perhaps he’s gone home. I think somebody should go and see where he’s got to.’

It was obvious to Mary that Ruby was as worried as she was.

‘Never mind,’ she said before Ruby could put down the plate of fruit cake she was passing round. ‘I’ll go.’

Court Road seemed desolate, West Street even more so. A light drizzle began to fall which did nothing to brighten the day. A cloud of steam rose over the hump-backed bridge that crossed the railway line. The train to Gloucester was pulling out, no doubt packed with people wanting to change for London or other places where there were army barracks and other places where they had to go.

The hinges on the back gate were in need of oiling. Usually her father attended to the hinges on a regular basis, but hadn’t done since before Charlie had been posted as missing, presumed dead. On lifting the latch and pushing the gate open, the hinges groaned as though in pain.

She was passing the old brick privy, its mossy stones mostly devoid of mortar, when she spotted flashes of white. Miriam’s notes were still embedded in the gaps between the bricks. She pulled both of them out, unfolded them and read them again. One of them fluttered from her grasp. Just before she was about to pick it up she heard the creak of the back gate.

‘Mary! I’ve been looking for you. What’s that?’

Quick on her feet, Frances picked up one of the notes before Mary did, unfolding it before reading it through.

‘It’s a prayer,’ she said hesitantly.

‘Yes,’ said Mary. ‘It is.’

‘“To Mother Earth, the goddess of the forest.” One of the kids in the forest did that, wrote a prayer for the Earth Mother.’

Mary, who had thought the prayer was to the Virgin Mary, was taken aback.

‘The Earth Mother?’

‘Yes,’ said Frances. ‘You write a little note – a prayer for her help – then stick it into a hole in the tree. Or between rocks.’

‘Or bricks,’ murmured Mary. ‘Were you looking for me?’

Frances shook her head. ‘No. I went to the orchard.’

‘In your Sunday best?’

Frances shrugged. ‘Sorry.’

Mary sighed. ‘Never mind.’ She quickly looked at the dark-coloured dress Frances wore. ‘No damage done by the looks of it.’

‘There was nobody else in the orchard. Only me,’ Frances said solemnly, her eyes downcast. ‘Nobody to talk to, except Mrs Jacobson. She couldn’t stop though. She said she had a train to catch.’

The steam! The train to London.

Mary groaned. She’d so wanted to talk to Gilda in order to help ease her pain. Now she was gone.

‘Did she say where she was going?’ Mary asked her.

‘I’ve told you. London.’

‘That’s not good enough. London is a very big place!’

Frances pouted and looked as though she might burst into tears. ‘It’s not my fault!’

‘Oh, no.’ Mary raised a hand to her forehead and closed her eyes. If only she’d said something earlier. She hadn’t foreseen Gilda leaving so abruptly.

If Frances hadn’t mentioned Gilda leaving, Mary might have dwelled on Miriam’s prayer to Mother Earth not working, for Charlie was dead. As it was, Gilda’s leaving affected her more deeply.

She looked up at the home she’d known forever without really seeing it. She was suddenly aware of movement in the window of the room that had once been her brother’s.

‘Go back to Mrs Hicks’s and tell Ruby that I’ve found our father.’

Frances looked for a moment as though she was going to refuse, but seeing the look on Mary’s face set off without saying a word.

Her father was sitting on Charlie’s bed. At his feet was the old tin box in which Charlie had kept his childhood toys. For years he’d been urged to get rid of them, that some youngster in the village would appreciate the train set, the number one Meccano set and the tin crane with a handle that worked by clockwork. Charlie had just smiled and told them he might want them for his own son one day.

‘Dad?’ Mary sat down beside him on the bed.

He was holding a clockwork toy car, a bright yellow one with black wheels and brass headlights. ‘He wouldn’t get rid of any of this, would he? Said he would pass it on to his son.’ Suddenly he began to sob.