Blue Smoke

by Deborah Challinor

  ‘Why not?

  ‘Because … because she can’t be, that’s why.’ Tamar was horrified at the idea that this girl might genuinely love Liam and that he might love her back. She was just so unsuitable.

  Kepa brushed crumbs off his shirt, then thoughtfully eyed the woman he loved across the big kitchen table.

  ‘You, my dear, are becoming a snob.’

  Tamar, a piece of warm crust halfway to her mouth, stopped, aghast.

  ‘A snob! What do you mean, a snob?’

  ‘You are judging this woman when you do not even know her, and you are judging her based on your own expectations and standards.’

  ‘Rubbish! I’m looking out for my grandson!’

  Kepa smiled in the knowing way that irritated Tamar intensely. ‘Are you?’ he replied. ‘Who are you to say what is right for him?’

  ‘I’ve known him since he was three months old. I raised him, Kepa, you know that. And I know that a girl in high heels and a too-tight dress is not the right person for him. Liam needs a sensitive girl, someone who’s loyal, and decent and honest. This Evie is imminently unsuitable, doesn’t even appear to have had an education, and … and I just don’t trust her!’

  Kepa raised his eyebrows again. ‘I was unsuitable, I did not have a Pakeha education and you certainly did not trust me in the beginning, did you? But that has not stopped us enjoying what we have now.’

  ‘That’s different. And we are not married.’

  ‘Only because you will not accept my frequent proposals.’

  Tamar stared at the loaf moodily — Kepa was not reacting as she had expected.

  He said, ‘Did you talk to him about your concerns?’

  ‘No, I couldn’t really. They weren’t here long enough, and then they went back into town, at her insistence, I expect.’

  ‘If she really is a gold-digger as you say, surely she would have relished the opportunity to have a good look around the house?’

  ‘I think she’s too cunning for that. I think she knows she has Liam well and truly on the end of her hook, and that when she’s his wife she’ll have all the time in the world to wander around out here.’

  Kepa shook his head sadly. This was not amusing any more — Tamar was getting herself into a state, which would not be good for her health. He rose, moved around to her side of the table and stood behind her, gently and wordlessly massaging her tense shoulders. He noted that her hair, which smelled like lavender, was now almost entirely silver, with only a few faded streaks to remind him of the glorious colour it had been when they’d first met. He thought now that she was more beautiful than she had ever been.

  At the touch of his big hands, Tamar made a noise that was halfway between a sigh and a sob. ‘I just don’t want him to make a mistake, Kepa!’

  He bent and wrapped his arms around her, and she covered his hands with her own.

  ‘I know, darling, I know,’ he murmured, ‘but the fact is he is old enough to make a mistake, if that is what he chooses.’

  ‘But he doesn’t know what he’s doing!’

  ‘I think he does.’ Kepa’s words were blunt but his voice was gentle. ‘And is it not better that, if there should be a child, it should have two parents to raise and care for it?’

  ‘Well, we did quite well with Joseph, in the end, and we weren’t married.’

  ‘No, but do you think this girl would be able to do that?’

  ‘I’d have the child.’

  Kepa sat down then, and touched Tamar’s cheek softly. ‘You are too old now to be raising children, and you know it. Let him be. He is going away soon. Life changed very much during the last war, do you remember? And it will again during this one, I am sure of it. It may be for the best that he have this, if only for a few weeks before he goes. It may, as you say, turn out to be a grave mistake. But you cannot make his decisions for him, Tamar, you cannot stop him.’

  And in the end she didn’t.

  Liam and Evie were married a week later, just days before he left for Britain. The ceremony was modest, as weddings often were these days, and apart from Liam’s family was attended only by Evie’s sister and brother-in-law, and her parents, a mousy, pleasant, middle-aged couple from Palmerston North who looked rather grateful to be passing the responsibility of their daughter on to someone else.

  Tamar, for their sake and for Liam’s, made up her mind to be at least pleasant and polite to Evie, although she would certainly not be inviting the girl to stay at Kenmore while Liam was away, as she had when James had bought Lucy home on the eve of the last war. This one was not pregnant — she hoped — and had a job and therefore her own means, so there was really no need.

  She sat quietly against the wall of the small reception room the Joneses had hired for their daughter’s wedding breakfast, watching her family and wondering how Evie would ever fit in with them.

  Joseph and Erin had come, with Robert and Ana, who had left school now and had grown into a very pretty, dark-eyed girl. James and Lucy were here, too, with Kathleen, and so of course were Keely, Owen and Henry, marching about in his little suit with a mutinous expression on his face. Thomas and Catherine had sent a telegram from Dunedin expressing their regret at not being able to attend, but public transport was increasingly being redirected to the war effort, and everyone understood that it would have been impossible for them to get train and ferry passages at such short notice.

  The twins, Bonnie and Leila, had turned up too, dressed in the most modern of outfits with very smart little hats perched on their identically coiffed hair. They were not identical themselves, however — for which the Murdochs had always been eternally grateful: God only knew what extra mischief they might have caused had they looked exactly the same. Leila was still almost as blonde as she had been as a child, while Bonnie’s thick auburn hair had deepened only a shade. They were both very attractive girls, perhaps not classical beauties, but very pretty with slim, curvaceous figures, ready smiles and wicked senses of humour. Of the pair, Bonnie was possibly the more level-headed, but both were well known for their energy, gregariousness and sheer joie de vivre. They had been holy terrors as children, were only marginally better now and Tamar loved them dearly.

  After they had graduated, with not very flying colours, from Iona, they had come home to Kenmore and lounged around the house for almost a year deciding what they wanted to do with themselves. As female children of a wealthy farming family, they were not really expected to do anything except marry suitably and have babies, but neither of them was particularly keen on that idea. They were, they insisted, having too much fun being single. And it was true; they had both had suitors telephoning them constantly — which had greatly entertained their cousins listening on the Kenmore party line — or roaring up the long driveway in their jalopies, tooting horns and generally making nuisances of themselves. That had all been marvellous fun, until the novelty of not having to go to school any more had worn off and they had become bored.

  They decided they should get jobs. They didn’t want to be nurses or teachers — really the only two professions open to women of their social standing — and they couldn’t go on to university, like some of the Murdoch men, because they had not done anywhere near well enough at secondary school. So what was left? Shop assistants in town? Hardly. Hairdressing? Too common. The public service? Possibly. After several days of seriously debating their options, they drove into town to investigate the possibility of employment in a government office. They could both type and do basic shorthand — they’d taken these subjects as a lark at school — and there were certainly vacancies for young women with those skills, so clerical work it was. And it didn’t sound too difficult or demanding.

  Tamar thought they were being awfully cavalier and rather irresponsible in their attitudes towards working for a living, especially so soon after the Depression when many people were still trying to recover from the economic havoc, but she held her tongue, knowing that the girls would soon tire of having to get up at a reason
able hour every morning, turn up somewhere on a regular basis and put in an acceptable day’s work. Owen kept his mouth shut too, for more or less the same reason, but Keely had been too busy with Henry to notice what her girls had been up to, beyond asking Owen if he thought they would be safe.

  Then of course they’d had to move into town, as the return trip from Kenmore five days a week by car was just too gruelling and time-consuming, and any way petrol rationing put an end to that. Their mother and father had refused to buy them a house of their own, so they’d been forced to board with an elderly woman who, fortunately for Bonnie and Leila, was hard of hearing and retired to bed early, and was therefore unaware that her charming and beautifully behaved boarders were climbing out of their windows for night-time jaunts with the local ‘in’ crowd.

  But although their social lives flourished, performing typing and shorthand duties soon palled almost as quickly as had sitting around at Kenmore. And the twins suspected that their efforts were not being taken seriously by the senior members of their department — although they were often called in to take shorthand in the office of Mr Dimbly who, they decided, had an eye for a nice pair of legs — and certainly not by their younger female colleagues. In fact, their initial reception had been distinctly frosty, and had barely thawed since. Although they genuinely tried to make friends they were just too casual about everything, and perhaps, they were forced to admit, considered by some to be just a little too privileged to be doing that sort of work. They didn’t mind it themselves, apart from the fact that it was dull, but they were not stupid and were aware that others resented their presence. But, rather than throwing in the towel and going home to listen to their grandmother telling them I told you so, they’d decided to stick it out for a little longer just in case anything interesting developed.

  Nothing had, in the department, but then the war had been declared and almost immediately there were rumours about women being called up to do various types of work for the war effort — even men’s work! — so they had stayed on for a few months more until the rumours had become a little less ephemeral, then resigned and a week ago had returned to Kenmore to ‘wait for the call-up’.

  Tamar disapproved of their attitude towards this as well. In her opinion women were already ‘doing their bit’ by waving goodbye to sons, husbands and brothers, perhaps forever, but there was no telling Bonnie and Leila that. They were young and simply did not, or could not, understand.

  Tamar caught Bonnie’s eye, and crooked a gloved finger at her.

  Both girls came over, and sat down on either side of their grandmother.

  ‘What a very nice wedding,’ she said to them as diplomatically as she could. ‘Simple, but very pleasant.’

  Bonnie and Leila looked at each other and grimaced. They had not met Evie until today, and had been a little surprised, to say the least, by the woman their beloved cousin had chosen.

  ‘Her wedding outfit is, well, it’s quite unusual,’ Bonnie said.

  They all glanced over at Evie, who was holding Liam’s hand, chatting to her sister and laughing uproariously. Her pale pink suit was fitted at the waist with sleeves that puffed slightly at the shoulder, and her hat matched her white lace gloves. The ensemble itself was fairly harmless, apart from the fact that it was rather tight across her bottom, but Evie had brightened it up by adding an enormous red silk flower to the band of her hat, and was wearing high heels in the same startling shade. The whole effect was rather tropical, and not, in Tamar’s view, entirely suitable for a late winter wedding in Palmerston North. But that was certainly not something she was going to say out loud.

  Instead, she said, ‘A lot of brides haven’t been wearing the full white costume lately.’

  ‘But still,’ Leila said, ‘red silk flowers?’

  ‘That is unnecessary and unkind, Leila,’ Tamar responded somewhat hypocritically. ‘Do remember that not everyone is as privileged as you two.’

  Bonnie asked, ‘Does, er, does Liam love her?’

  ‘He certainly thinks he does,’ Tamar replied in a tone that suggested to both girls that they should not pursue the subject. Not with their grandmother, any way.

  Later, after they had all enjoyed a hearty wedding breakfast of cold chicken and ham, peas and potatoes, fruit salad and trifle and a small, iced, single-tier wedding cake, Bonnie and Leila asked Liam himself.

  He went pink, because it was a very personal question and these were his girl cousins, after all, but replied gamely, ‘Of course I do. She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.’

  The girls had their doubts, which they shared with a kind of fascinated dismay in their hotel room later that night. Evie seemed to be a very confident, worldly girl, and not at all the sort of wife they would have expected for their quiet, slightly naive cousin. He was twenty-four, granted, and not completely inexperienced when it came to the opposite sex — they knew because they’d heard Duncan teasing him about it some time ago — but still …

  ‘I hope he knows what he’s doing, that’s all I can say,’ said Bonnie as she hopped into one of the two single beds in their room.

  ‘Well, if he doesn’t, it’s too late now, isn’t it?’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  England, September 1940

  Duncan was in so much pain he could easily have chewed off his lower lip. That was, he thought, if he still had one — he wasn’t sure. His skin itched appallingly under the bandages swathing his head and hands, and he very much needed a pee.

  He turned his head slowly and said to his neighbour, ‘Pete? Get us a nurse, will you? I’m dying for a slash.’

  The man lounging on the bed next to him, dressed in an odd assortment of casual clothing, obliged by ringing his bell repeatedly, holding the handle between his teeth and shaking his head vigorously. A minute later the sound of a nurse’s shoes came squeaking down the linoleum floor of the ward.

  Peter Nash was a flight sergeant with Bomber Command who’d passed out at altitude through lack of oxygen without his gloves on, and had been severely frostbitten. Last week, as a final resort, his fingers had been amputated, although he still had his thumbs — which meant he would still, eventually, be able to grip things.

  ‘Pete, what can I do for you?’ said the nurse cheerfully, as if she were a shop girl behind a counter.

  Her name was Claire Pearsall and she loved working at Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead, although she had to admit that caring for her charges in Ward Three was sometimes emotionally very demanding. The ‘Boss’, though, Doctor Archibald McIndoe, was a truly gifted plastic surgeon and an outstanding and refreshingly informal man. His ability to give back to his patients their faces, their hands and limbs, and therefore their self-esteem, was extraordinary, and they and his staff alike revered him.

  ‘Duncan wants a wee,’ Pete said.

  ‘Then what’s wrong with ringing your own bell, Duncan?’ she chided gently.

  She had a voice that was low and pleasant, but her laugh was boisterously loud, and she laughed often. Like her colleagues, she had been personally chosen by Doctor McIndoe for her looks and her cheerful nature, as well as her nursing skills. He had a policy of employing only nurses he considered capable of communicating with his patients, regardless of their deformities and scars, and of relating to them as the young, virile men they still were, in spite of their injuries. As for the girls being attractive, McIndoe believed it was good for his men to have pretty faces to look at, and that it helped them with their confidence.

  Claire Pearsall was aware that most of her patients were at least half in love with her, and she and her colleagues, also objects of affection if not lust, used that knowledge shamelessly to get the men to do the things they disliked, such as exercising their shattered bodies, and to jolly them out of succumbing to bouts of black depression, an all too common occurrence.

  But Duncan knew only Nurse Pearsall’s voice, and what a delightfully rich, seductive voice it was. His eyes had been bandaged since he’d arri
ved at East Grinstead, and the Boss had not yet decreed that it was time to remove the gauze, preferring to give the ruined skin and muscle the best chance of recovery. And although no one had said anything, Duncan also suspected that Doctor McIndoe was giving him an opportunity to come to terms with the possibility that he might be permanently blind.

  So over the month he had been in hospital, he’d become very familiar with his ward mates and the ward itself, although he had never seen either. He could put a name to every voice now, and knew in which part of the big room each man’s bed was located. He was not very clear, however, about the injuries of his fellow patients, because most of them did not speak in detail about what had happened to them. There were frequent references to being ‘fried’, and comments such as, ‘Stop your moaning, you’ve only been singed’ and ‘Buck up, you were bloody ugly before any way’, but no one ever seemed to refer to their injuries directly. Perhaps such a cavalier attitude helped them come to terms with the awful damage their bodies had suffered. But they all seemed to be very decent chaps, mostly from the RAF and injured during the Battle of Britain which, thank God, seemed to be easing off now.

  He also knew intimately the daily routine that had become central to his existence. The ward was a very noisy place — except when someone was very badly off, and then everyone would tiptoe around until the man came right — and at times seemed nothing less than chaotic. Patients and nurses referred to each other by their Christian names — except for the Boss, who was always addressed to his face as ‘sir’. The radio played all day and there was a piano the chaps thumped away on regularly, people talked loudly and laughed uproariously and seemed to come and go whenever they felt like it, and ever since Duncan had arrived someone had been teaching themselves to type, clacking away for hours at a time. There was a keg of beer permanently on tap for the patients, and he knew that groups of the chaps — the mobile and the semi-mobile — would frequently go out to the Whitehall, a pub in town, sometimes just to let their hair down, and sometimes to meet up with nurses or the local girls. Already, two patients had become engaged to their nurses, even though one of McIndoe’s rules — not always adhered to — was that the men were not to touch them.