A Fragile Peace

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Soon be over now.’

  Allie turned her eyes from the dark, gleaming water. ‘Do you think so? I can’t see them giving in without a fight.’

  The other girl shrugged. ‘Maybe. I reckon myself it’s all over bar the shouting. In Europe, anyway. Which reminds me – any news of your sister’s husband?’

  Allie shook her head.

  ‘Reckon he’s a gonner?’

  ‘Yes. Almost certainly.’

  Silence.

  Sue tried again. ‘How’s the job?’

  ‘OK.’

  Sue turned her head, eyes narrowed against a sudden gleam of sunshine. ‘Allie? Are you all right? I mean – I know you’re upset about Charlie, but we’ve known it was coming a long time…’

  ‘I’m pregnant.’ It was the first time she had actually spoken the words. They sounded even worse than she expected. Nausea stirred.

  ‘Good God!’

  Allie smiled crookedly. ‘Sorry. I just had to tell someone.’

  Sue was still staring at her as if she had been an apparition. ‘But – Allie – who? I mean—’

  Allie did not reply. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ she said, after a moment.

  ‘How far gone are you?’

  ‘A couple of months.’ She knew to the day. The night at the cottage had been the only time they had taken no precautions.

  ‘Does – the father – know?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But – you’ll tell him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But, Allie—’ Sue stopped.

  ‘No.’

  In the quiet a lark rose, singing.

  Sue sat, suddenly and hard, upon the crosspiece of the stile. ‘Does anyone else know?’

  ‘No one.’

  ‘And are you absolutely certain? About the pregnancy, I mean?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  Sue picked a dandelion clock, twisted it in her fingers and watched the delicate seed-heads float away. ‘Allie – if you want – I could get an address…’

  Allie stood quite still. She had known all along, in her heart, that this was her reason for telling Sue. Had known, and had hated herself for it.

  ‘A girl at Hornchurch got herself into trouble. She – got out of it.’ Sue was still apparently intent upon the dandelion. ‘I could get the address from her. She owes me a favour.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  The fair head jerked back. ‘You can’t be thinking of having it?’

  Tom’s child, and hers. Buzz’s child had died. Her fault? She did not know. Had never known. She said nothing.

  ‘Allie, love, look at me.’ Sue jumped up and caught her arm. ‘If you aren’t going to tell the guy, aren’t going to marry him?’ She paused, enquiringly. Allie shook her head.

  ‘— then how can you think of having it? What about your family? Your job? Your – your bloody life? The brave new world isn’t quite with us yet, you know.’

  ‘I just don’t know if I can kill it, that’s all.’ The ugly words were harsh.

  ‘You’ll have to. For your own sake.’

  Allie shook her head slowly. ‘No. Not for my sake. For his.’

  ‘The father’s?’

  ‘Yes. He wouldn’t want it. If I do it, I’ll do it for him.’

  ‘Christ.’ Sue looked at her in a kind of despairing wonder. ‘You love him.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Sue let out a small, explosive breath, shaking her head. ‘An’ I thought I was supposed to be the daft one.’ She slipped an arm through Allie’s and they turned to start walking back down the lane. ‘Come on, mustn’t keep poor old Charlie waiting.’

  They walked in silence, as the sun came and went through scudding cloud, dappling the countryside with fleeing shadows. As they approached the Jessups’ house, where neighbours gathered at the gate, Allie stopped for a moment, grasping Sue’s arm. ‘Sue?’

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘How long would it take – to get that address?’

  * * *

  The suburban road, despite the neglect and deprivation of wartime and the ugly gap where, like a row of clumsily pulled teeth, several houses were missing, gave a quite remarkable impression of prim respectability. Nervously Allie checked the address on the piece of paper she carried. What had she expected? A sleazy back street with shuttered windows and filth running in the gutters? She walked quickly, counting houses. Twenty-four, twenty-six, twenty-eight – there it was, a trim and tidy semi-detached with shiny tile path and polished brass doorknocker. It waited behind a clipped privet hedge, clean, neatly curtained windows looking out on the world like shiny, bland eyes. She stopped at the gate. This, surely, couldn’t be the place?

  The early September day was windy. A gust buffeted the street as she stood, uncertain, blowing her hair across her eyes and plastering her skirt to her bare legs. Number twenty-eight, Mortimer Street. This was Mortimer Street. And this, beyond doubt, was number twenty-eight. Her heart pounded sickly as she walked up the path. What was she doing here? What?

  She stood in the sheltered porch, looking sightlessly at the door with its Thirties pattern of stained glass in a neat and stylized country scene, making no attempt to touch the shining knocker. The agonies of the past days, her own irresolution, Sue’s utter and unshakable conviction had done nothing but confuse her more. In a nightmare of indecision it had seemed to her that nothing she might do would be right. To Sue’s despair she had left this, the final step, until the last minute: it was now, or never. Today, or nothing.

  She reached to the knocker. Stopped. Drew her hand back, and half-turned to hurry away.

  ‘Well, dearie, and what can I do for you?’ The door had opened as if by magic and a stout woman with hair meticulously crimped and shining like lacquered brass stood watching her, unsmiling.

  ‘I—’

  ‘Miss – Smith – isn’t it?’ The voice was flat and a little harsh, the cockney vowels overlaid and distorted by an acquired accent that fell uncomfortably somewhere between the BBC and Bethnal Green. The woman was wearing a clean, faded wrap-around pinafore. ‘I thought so. You’re late.’

  ‘I’m – sorry.’

  ‘Well, never mind. Come on in now.’ With an assumption of heartiness, the woman stepped back.

  Allie stood for a moment as if rooted to the spot. The woman watched her with faint suspicion. ‘Come on, dearie.’ The thin mouth smiled encouragement, the beginnings of wariness moved in the flat, unfriendly eyes. ‘Sooner we start, sooner it’ll be all over…’

  Allie allowed herself to be ushered through a dark hall that smelled of polish and into a small sitting room in which the beige-upholstered furniture was arranged with mathematical precision around the walls, cushions plumped and as undisturbed as if no one had ever dared – or would ever dare – to sit upon them, while a rug was placed precisely in the centre of the room, its fringes combed carefully and improbably straight, like the rays of an unnatural sun. The room was very cold.

  ‘You can wait here for a minute, dearie, while I go upstairs and get everything ready.’ The woman, however, made no attempt to leave, but stood, obviously waiting, watching Allie.

  ‘I – thank you.’ Allie’s head was thumping. She felt very sick.

  The woman did not move. She cleared her throat, delicately, held out a square, calloused hand, palm up.

  ‘Oh – I’m sorry – of course—’ Scarlet-faced, Allie scrabbled in her handbag, pulled out a rolled bundle of five-pound notes. As she did so, half the contents of her bag spilled themselves over the rose-patterned rug. She thrust the money at the woman who carefully unrolled it and began methodically to count the large, dog-eared white notes.

  ‘It’s all there.’

  ‘Of course it is, dearie. Just making sure.’

  Allie dropped to her knees and began gathering her fallen possessions. As she picked up her small gold powder compact, it fell open, and pale powder spilled messily onto the spotless rug. She heard the woman give a t
ut of impatient displeasure.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Miserably she rubbed at the powder, making the mess worse.

  ‘No, no! I’ll do it.’ Fussily the woman went to the fireplace, and picked up a small dustpan and brush. Allie sat dispiritedly back on her heels and watched as, with short, competent movements, the woman swept up the powder. Still tutting, she left the room, dustpan in hand. Allie wearily gathered the rest of her belongings and stuffed them haphazardly into her bag. Something rustled. She reached into the bag and pulled out a flimsy envelope that tore as it caught on the catch of the bag. Tom’s last letter. The writing jumped at her, immediately recognizable, neat and positive, the downstrokes strong. She clambered to her feet, stared at herself in the mirror that hung above the cold, empty fireplace. The windows rattled in the wind. She heard the woman’s footsteps, heavy upon the polished lino of the hall, listened as they passed the door and went on up the stairs. The floor boards above her head creaked. She shivered. The room was like an icebox, yet her face burned. In the mirror, she saw the hectic patches of colour on her cheekbones.

  Tom’s letter was still clutched, like a lifeline, in her hand. She looked at it. His writing brought him into the room – not the lover, warm, and wild, and well-remembered, but the dispassionate cool-eyed man who had so often forced her to see things as they were, rather than as she would have them. She had told Sue that she would kill the child for his sake. When had he ever expected anyone to do such a thing? How could she have made such a mistake? The decision was not his, it was hers. Inexorably hers. Buzz’s child had died; she had been too weak then, too shattered, too personally broken to know what it might have meant. This time she could have no such excuse. Unless simple cowardice could be called an excuse. What was she doing here?

  With a sudden movement she grabbed for the bag she had left lying on the floor and flew to the door. The brassy-haired woman was coming down the stairs – she reached the last step as Allie came into the hall, and stood, stolidly, between Allie and the front door.

  ‘Something up, dearie?’ Her voice was deceptively pleasant, her expression hard.

  ‘I’ve – changed my mind.’

  ‘Have you now?’ The too-bright head shook, sadly. ‘Oh, no, dearie, that won’t do. We can’t have that, can we? Not after all the trouble – here—’ She brought her hand from behind her back. In it was an opened bottle of gin, three-quarters full. As she stepped forward Allie smelt it, revoltingly sweet, on her breath. ‘Have a swig of this. Works wonders, it does. All part of the service, like. Most – young ladies – get a fit of the heebie-jeebies at the last minute. Nothing to worry about, dearie. Happens all the time. Come on, now, lovie, knock it back like a good girl. Be over an’ done with in no time, I promise you.’

  ‘No!’ Violently Allie swept the bottle away from her, knocking it from the woman’s hand. It fell against the wall where, although it did not break, it lay leaking its contents onto the polished floor.

  ‘Silly cow!’ The woman leapt for it, snatching it up. ‘Stupid little bitch! What the ’ell d’you think you’re playin’ at, comin’ ’ere, wastin’ my time – what’s your bloody game, eh? Look at this mess! Just look at it!’

  Allie cowered from her rage. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry – I’ll pay for the gin – here—’ She pulled a couple of pounds from her purse and almost threw them at the woman, who grabbed them from her and then, putting her hand in the pocket of her pinafore, drew out the bundle of notes that Allie had given her earlier. ‘An’ what about this eh? Expectin’ it back, are we, dearie?’ The words were venomous.

  ‘I – no. Keep it.’ Allie sidled along the wall, trying to get past the other woman. ‘I don’t want it.’

  Her antagonist stood her ground for a moment, and for a split second, Allie feared actual physical attack. Then the woman stepped back, smiling unpleasantly. ‘Well, now, aren’t we the lucky one? A hundred quid an’ she “don’t want it”.’ She pushed the money back into her pocket. ‘Get out, you silly little cow. Just get out. An’ don’t bring your troubles to me again, understand?’ She grabbed Allie’s arm as Allie tried to slip past her, grinned in her face as Allie recoiled from the gin fumes. ‘An’ no tricks, you. You keep your bloody mouth shut, you ’ear? You got nothin’ on me. Nothin’.’ She let go of Allie’s arm, straightened her pinafore. ‘Respectable war widder, I am.’ She patted the pocket that held the money. ‘You just try an’ prove different.’

  Allie was at the door. With a wrench spurred by desperation, she pulled it open, hearing the hateful laughter behind her.

  ‘…come ter think of it, dearie, I could do with a few more like you. Easiest bloody ’undred I ever earned…’

  Then she was out, and free and running in the clean, cold wind. She felt as if she had been let out of prison, as if the past, awful weeks of vacillation, the dreadful decision to which she had finally come, had been an illness from which she had miraculously recovered. She would not – could not, for the moment – think of the future, of the almost insurmountable problems that lay ahead. For now, she simply thanked God for the flash of clarity that had shown her her own responsibility. If Tom did not want the baby – and she knew that more than probably he would not – then so be it. For now, she was happy. She knew her decision had been the right one, shuddered at the thought of what she might have done while – what was the phrase? - while the balance of her mind had been disturbed. Wasn’t that what they said about suicides? And wasn’t the thing she had been contemplating – had so nearly done – a kind of suicide? Her baby – part of her – might now, through her fault, be dead. But it was not. It was living. Growing. Incredibly she found herself humming beneath her breath as she swung from the open platform of the bus onto the pavement, wind-scoured dust, leaves and pieces of paper swirling about her legs. No one could change her mind now. The decision was taken.

  She did not notice the small red motorbike parked at the kerb outside Rampton Court. Not until, running lightly, she was half-way up the curving stairs did she glance up to see the lad in a dark blue uniform, the bright yellow envelope in one hand, the other reaching importantly to press the doorbell of Libby’s flat.

  Her heart stopped. ‘Wait!’

  He paused, turned in surprise, waited for her as she raced up the last few steps.

  He glanced down at the telegram. ‘You Mrs Maybury?’

  ‘No. She’s my sister. I live with her. Please – let me take it.’

  The boy looked doubtful.

  ‘Please. Look.’ Allie slipped her key into the lock and opened the door. ‘There, you see? I do live here. I might have opened the door. You’d have given it to me then, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘We-ell…’

  ‘Please. My sister’s husband has been missing for over a year. This may be news. It may be – I’m afraid it’s very likely to be – bad news. I’d rather give it to her myself.’

  ‘All right.’ He capitulated, handed the envelope to her. ‘Hope it isn’t as bad as you think.’ And he turned and clattered down the stairs.

  ‘Yes. Thank you.’ She stared at the envelope.

  ‘Allie? That you? I thought you weren’t due back till tomorrow?’

  ‘I wasn’t. Change of plans.’ Allie’s voice sounded strained in her own ears. She shut the door.

  ‘Have you heard? They’re saying Italy’s surrendered!’ And in the same breath, ‘Who was that I heard you talking to?’ Libby had come into the hall, stood stock-still, her voice dying in her throat as Allie turned, the telegram in her hand. ‘Is that for you?’

  ‘No. For you.’ Allie held out the yellow envelope. Her sister stared at it as if it had been a snake. She made no move to take it. ‘Libby?’ Allie bit her lip. Her own heart was pounding, sickly. ‘You have to open it, love.’

  Libby still did not move. Allie stepped forward and pushed the envelope into her hand. ‘Libby, open it,’ she whispered.

  After a long moment’s stillness, long white fingers, usually so neat and deft, fumbled with th
e envelope, tearing at it awkwardly. The yellow envelope, still unopened, fluttered to the floor at Allie’s feet. Libby put her trembling hands to her face.

  ‘I can’t. Open it for me. Please, Allie, I can’t.’

  Allie dropped to one knee and feverishly ripped open the envelope, pulling out the scrap of paper it held. She stood up and held it out to her sister, who took a step backward, shaking her head. She did not even look at it. Her eyes were fixed with fearful intensity on Allie’s face. ‘Read it for me.’

  Allie smoothed the telegram with her fingers. The faint, printed letters jumbled and blurred, then cleared into words. Wonderful words. She lifted a shining, smiling face, held out the scrap of cheap paper. ‘Read it yourself.’

  Libby grabbed it. There was a long, long silence. Then the fair head lifted, the lovely, pale face streaked with tears. ‘I told you,’’ Libby said. ‘I told you he wasn’t dead. And now he’s free. Free!’ She suddenly shrieked the word and threw herself, sobbing as if her heart were breaking, into her sister’s arms. ‘And he’s coming home! Allie – Allie – Edward’s coming home!’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Edward’s homecoming was, for Libby, ecstatic. The months that followed, however, were far from that. No one – not even the ever-optimistic Libby – had been naïve enough to expect him to return completely unscathed; but neither had anyone been prepared for how drastic, how totally devastating the change in him might be. It was not simply – nor even predominantly – his physical state that dismayed them all, though to be sure the first sight of his skeletal figure, the fair hair thinned and lifeless, the yellow skin stretched over bones sharp enough, it seemed, to pierce it, came as a great shock even to those already prepared for it. It was the mental and psychological changes in him that were the most savage and that were the reasons for the extended leave that they all knew would end in demobilization.

  He was, for the most part, morose and silent, his temper hair-triggered and violent. He could not stand to be with people; abruptly, in the middle of a conversation, he would leave, locking himself into the bedroom for silent hours at a time. Crowds terrified him. He refused to speak in detail of what had happened to him; Libby gleaned only that he had been captured by the Japanese when Malaya had fallen, had spent five nightmare months in a prison camp, had been beaten, starved, worked almost to death until, in desperation, he and three companions had broken out. The seemingly endless months in the jungle that had followed, Libby could not bring him to talk about; she only knew that somehow, miraculously, he – the only survivor of the four – had stumbled at last, more dead than alive and purely by chance, into a guerrilla camp a few miles from Kuala Lumpur. It had been weeks before they had been able to get him out – one escaped prisoner, however sick, came very low in the priorities of an irregular commando group working behind enemy lines against a foe whose methods of warfare and reprisal owed nothing to the Geneva Convention. They had not even been able to communicate his name, since Edward had refused to give it, one of the symptoms of his mental disturbance being a paranoid distrust of every human being with whom he came into contact.