The Colours of Love

by Rita Bradshaw

  However, it wasn’t coming to terms with rationing or her job, or the fact that she missed Joy dreadfully each day, even though she knew her child was in good hands, that was the hardest thing. It was Mr McGuigan, Caleb’s father, and his stiff attitude to her and Joy that caused Esther to lie awake some nights, with Joy’s tiny body curled into hers, snug and warm. She could see that his father’s stance was winding Caleb up like a spring each morning, but at least when she collected Joy just before six o’clock each evening the menfolk hadn’t returned from work, and she always made sure she left immediately. But it didn’t bode well for family life in the future, and she knew, whatever Caleb said about it being only the two of them and Joy that mattered, that a rift with his father would grieve him deeply. Their life together would begin under a cloud.

  The other thing that kept her awake at night was Priscilla. She had received a letter a week after she had moved to Ripon Street; a tear-smudged, unhappy letter. Priscilla had written that she was temporarily back at the family home while she looked for a job of some kind – against her parents’ wishes, she’d added, as they thought the only job for a girl was marrying well. Kenny, she believed, had returned to Scarborough shortly after she and the other girls had left the farm, and was at present living with his parents while he awaited another (and hopefully final) operation on his damaged hands, to remove a mass of scar tissue and replace it with skin grafts that would be taken from the inside of his leg. And no, she’d said, she hadn’t asked Kenny about the future, or led their last conversation round to marriage. He clearly didn’t feel about her the way she felt about him, or he couldn’t have let her go without saying something.

  For the first time in their acquaintance Esther had been furious with her friend. She had sat down and written a letter reiterating all that she had said previously to Priscilla, and more besides, and she hadn’t minced her words. She had posted it immediately, without giving herself time to wonder if she was doing the right thing, and had regretted it ever since. She had been too hard on Priscilla, she’d told herself wretchedly, when days had gone by and she had heard nothing, but it was too late now to take back what she had written. Not that she believed she was wrong; she didn’t, but she should have couched it differently.

  But now it was the middle of May and at last the long northern winter had given up its icy grip – the snow of March and the vicious wind and hail of April giving way to a spring that seemed to have come overnight. At the farm Esther knew pink-and-white blossom would be loading the boughs of apple and cherry trees, and the scent of wild flowers would be competing with the less desirable smell of the pigsties and cow sheds. Here in the terraced streets of Monkwearmouth there wasn’t a tree to be seen, but the last two Sundays she and Caleb had taken Joy to Mowbray Park in Bishopwearmouth, where the beech trees were unfolding soft, silky leaves and the oaks were decked with dazzling green and gold. They had sat together holding hands and watching Joy play, and Esther had tried to ignore the covert (and sometimes not-so-covert) glances that had come their way. With the warm sunshine on her face and Caleb at her side, things like rationing and the daily struggle seemed shelved for an hour or so. But she knew it wasn’t only her who was finding their circumstances trying. Once the euphoria of victory had faded away, it had become clear how much the war had cost. Britain was utterly exhausted and the country needed to be rebuilt for peace. But there were bright glimmers up ahead, for those who searched for them. Work was plentiful for the men returning from active service, for one thing.

  ‘It needs to be,’ Caleb had said dourly, when Esther had said as much to him. ‘It’s “Thanks very much and now clear off – you’re on your own, chum.” A civilian suit, a hat, a shirt, two collars and a tie, a pair of shoes, socks and underpants, and two studs and a pair of cufflinks, all packed in a flat cardboard box, aren’t much to show for years up to your eyes in muck, sweat and bullets, in my opinion. Oh, and a mackintosh – I mustn’t forget that, must I? And some men scarred or crippled, or aged beyond their years. We’re the only country among the Allied nations who fought the war all the way through from 1939 to the end, but to hear some lassies talk, the GIs won it single-handed. And what about the poor devils who come home and find another man’s been sleeping with their missus? A suit don’t do it for them, does it?’

  This had happened to a school friend of Caleb’s, who had ended up in court for grievous bodily harm after he’d given his rival a good pasting.

  ‘That’s what people think about me,’ Esther had said soberly. ‘Or that I call myself “Mrs” when really I’m not married.’

  ‘No, they don’t, of course they don’t,’ Caleb had protested, knowing he had put his foot in it.

  But they did, Esther thought now, as she remembered that conversation as she walked home from work on a soft May evening. Children were playing their games in the streets while housewives chattered on their front steps, the smell of dinner cooking wafting through open doors, and it seemed as if all was right with the world. But her world would never be right until she was free of the past, once and for all. She had gone to see a solicitor in Fawcett Street in Bishopwearmouth, shortly after she and Joy had settled in at Ripon Street. She had kept a portion of the nest egg she’d painstakingly saved for this very purpose.

  Mr Hopper of Hopper & Sons had been polite, but she had detected a coolness in his manner as she had left that hadn’t been apparent when she had entered his establishment. But then, she couldn’t blame him. Mindful of Monty’s threat to claim his rights, where Joy was concerned, she had told Mr Hopper that her husband was not the father of her child. When he had quietly enquired who was, she had steeled herself to lie convincingly. ‘A black GI. He knows nothing about the baby. My decision.’

  ‘And so your daughter exhibits proof of this in her . . . er . . . her physical appearance?’

  ‘Unmistakably.’

  The solicitor had promised to set the wheels in motion, after he had asked her a host of personal questions, noting down her answers with an expensive-looking pen on a sheaf of papers in front of him. But he had asked her twice if, in view of the fact that her husband did not want a divorce and had offered to bring the child up as his, she was sure about what she was doing.

  Quite sure, she had told him on the second time of asking. She would not countenance her daughter being shipped off to a remote boarding school somewhere and hidden away, which would surely be the case if her husband had his way.

  Mr Hopper had made no comment. She had sensed the man’s sympathies were all with Monty and had had to restrain herself from getting up and walking out. Mr Hopper was indicative of his profession, and she doubted another solicitor would be any different. As she had left the office, he had warned her that if her husband proved obstructive to the divorce going through, it would be far from plain sailing and possibly expensive.

  Esther paused at the corner of Bright Street, looking up into the sky above the rows of terraced houses. Cotton-wool clouds were sailing in an expanse of blue, and a couple of seagulls wheeled in the air currents, giving their haunting cry. For a moment she longed to go back in time to when she was a young innocent on the verge of womanhood, and life was safe and secure and straightforward. And then she shook the brief melancholy away.

  She wouldn’t change anything, she told herself fiercely. If things had been different, she wouldn’t have her precious baby girl; she wouldn’t have met Caleb – dear, dear Caleb – or Priscilla and Kenny and the others. And then, as though her last thought had conjured her friend up, she heard her name being called and saw Priscilla running along the pavement towards her.

  Esther found herself hugged to within an inch of her life as Priscilla murmured incoherently, but she managed to make out, ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you, darling’ through Priscilla’s tears, before she eventually loosened her grip.

  ‘So?’ Esther smiled at her friend. ‘Do I take it you and Kenny have finally made the big decision?’

  Priscilla held out her left
hand, where on her third finger a pretty little engagement ring twinkled.

  ‘We’ve come to tell you in person; Kenny’s waiting inside with Caleb’s mother but I wanted to see you by myself first.’

  ‘Oh, Cilla!’

  ‘Your letter did it; especially the bit where you said what did I have to lose but a smidgen of pride, whereas Kenny had lost so much, and he deserved to have someone love him like I loved him. So, I plucked up my courage and went to see him, and . . . well, everything was all right.’ Priscilla found that moment too precious and intimate to share, even with Esther.

  When she had reached Kenny’s parents’ house in a little back street in a less-than-salubrious part of Scarborough, she had stood outside on the pavement, unable to move for a minute or two, her heart pounding fit to jump out of her chest. And it was something else Esther had said that encouraged her: if she didn’t go and see Kenny and ask the question, she would wonder for the rest of her life what he really felt about her. ‘Every day,’ Esther had written, ‘you’ll wonder what he is doing and who he’s with, if he’s sad or happy, laughing or depressed, and at special times – Christmas and so on – you’ll know he’s out there somewhere, living a life that doesn’t hold you in it.’

  And so Priscilla had knocked on the door and it had been Kenny himself who had opened it, staring at her as though she was an apparition. All her carefully rehearsed words had gone out of the window at seeing his dear, scarred and (some would say) grotesque face again. He had closed his eyes and then opened them again, as though checking she was real and not a figment of his imagination. And it was then that she had said, ‘I couldn’t stay away. I have to tell you’ – her breath had caught in a sob – ‘I have to tell you how I feel.’

  Kenny had pulled her into the narrow dark hall, still without speaking, and shut the door, and his voice had held a painful, level tone as he’d said, ‘Come into the kitchen. Everyone’s out, and it’s warmer in there.’

  She had followed him down the hall and, once in the kitchen, had held out her hand, but he hadn’t taken it, nor had he touched her. His face drained of colour – apart from vivid red patches from the last skin grafts, so that it resembled a patchwork quilt of different textures – he had said grimly, ‘You shouldn’t have come here, Priscilla. We said our goodbyes in Yorkshire.’

  It was only the look in his eyes when he had first seen her standing outside that had given her the courage to go on. She had drawn in a long breath and let it out on a soundless sigh and now, as she looked at him, her gaze was steady and her voice soft, but firm. ‘Yes, I should have come. I should have come weeks ago, but I was too frightened that you might not love me like I love you: in a forever way. But now, not knowing if there is a chance for me has become unbearable.’

  ‘A chance for you?’ He had been incredulous. ‘You must know how I feel, Priscilla, but look at me. Look at me. You are young and beautiful, and you’ve your whole life in front of you. You could have any man you want—’

  ‘I want you.’

  ‘No, you are grateful to me for saving you from that fiend Peter Crosse, and I suspect you feel sorry for me too. But pity and compassion and gratefulness are not enough for a marriage. I’m never going to look better than I look now, not much anyway, and my hands’ – he held them out in front of him – ‘they’re all but useless. That’s the truth of it. Every morning you would wake up and look at the gargoyle next to you . . . ’

  ‘Don’t say that. I hate it when you say that.’

  ‘And every night you would feel these hands fumbling over your flesh and try not to cringe. I can just about feed myself again, if my meat is cut up for me and everything is bite-sized, that is. Dressing myself takes an age and—’

  ‘I love you, Kenny. I love every inch of your poor face, and to me it’s the most precious face in the world. And your hands’ – before he could stop her, she had taken them in hers and now she raised first one and then the other to her lips, kissing them gently, before she went on – ‘are a witness to your courage and sacrifice, my darling. Don’t you understand what I see when I look at you? I see a giant among men, a truly noble human being who is dealing with what life has dished out, despite its unfairness.’

  ‘You don’t understand what you would be taking on.’

  ‘I’m not a stupid woman, Kenny. A dizzy one at times perhaps, but not stupid.’

  He looked into her face and said from deep in his throat, ‘I can’t let you do this. You’ll regret it one day; resent that you could have flown high like a bird, and instead you are held bound by someone who has clipped your wings.’

  There was a light dawning in her face, a brightness in her eyes that had been missing since the last time she had seen him. ‘Without you I have no wings at all, my darling. Don’t you see? I’ve been wretched, without hope, and that’s a terrible place to be.’

  ‘I know.’

  It was a whisper, but it was enough. She leaned against him, her arms about his neck, and as he murmured the words of love she had ached to hear, his arms crushed her to him in an agony of need that spoke more than words. Time stood still, the world faded away and the little shabby kitchen became heaven on earth.

  ‘I take it, from your face, that Kenny convinced you he loved you.’

  Priscilla came back to the present, to find Esther grinning at her. Blushing hotly now, she murmured, in true Cilla fashion, ‘And how!’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘We’re getting married next week. Special licence. Kenny wants Caleb to be his best man, and of course there is no one on earth but you and Joy that I want there. I know you work Monday to Saturday, but we’ve found a perfectly delightful vicar who will marry us on a Sunday. Kenny’s family are coming, but mine’ – she wrinkled her nose – ‘have disowned me. Marrying a common working man is the last straw, according to Mother. If I’d known they’d react like that, I’d have found a common working man years ago and saved myself a lot of bother.’

  Esther grinned. Priscilla was back on form, and it was so good to see her.

  Arm-in-arm, they walked down Bright Street, Priscilla chattering away nineteen to the dozen. They were going to start married life living at Kenny’s parents’ home, but that wouldn’t be for long, she confided, because she’d already got a job as a sewing machinist at a nearby factory and the money was good, even if the work was monotonous. But with government agencies setting the pace, jobs for women were opening up as never before, and she didn’t intend to stay at the factory forever. For the time being, though, they would save every penny they could to furnish a small one-bedroomed flat somewhere, so they could rent their own place. With clothes, petrol and food on ration, there was precious little to spend any money on anyway. Once Kenny had had the operation on his hands, they’d see how he was and what sort of work he could do, because he was determined he wasn’t going to sit at home all day. Priscilla stopped talking as they reached the house and hugged Esther tightly again. ‘I can never thank you enough. You know that, don’t you? I wouldn’t have gone to see him, if it wasn’t for you, and my cowardice would have ruined both our lives.’

  ‘Not cowardice.’ Esther touched her friend’s cheek briefly. ‘You were just deeply in love, and that makes you vulnerable.’ As she knew only too well; and she wasn’t thinking about the past and Monty. Caleb had an attractiveness – a magnetism – that was nothing to do with looks, and all to do with a maleness that drew women’s interest like bees to a honey pot. She had seen the way girls looked at him: those bright, eager young things with a modern outlook and no baggage that she had imagined him dating in the past; and although she trusted him, it frightened her. The damage that had been done when Monty had cast her aside surfaced now and again in moments of self-doubt and panic, and try as she might, she couldn’t quite overcome them. It didn’t help that Mr Hopper had emphasized that, with nearly 50,000 service divorces still outstanding in the courts, even uncontested divorces were taking their time, let alone ones that one partner – as in the c
ase of Monty – might object to.

  ‘Come on, come and see Kenny.’ Priscilla pushed open the door she had left on the latch and pulled her into the house. ‘He wants to give you a big hug too.’ Then she stopped dead in the hall and hugged Esther for the third time. ‘I’m getting married next week,’ she said, with a note of wonder in her voice. ‘The war is over and I’m getting married, and I’m going to give Kenny a wedding night that will put a smile on his face for a week!’

  Oh yes, Priscilla was definitely her old self.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Priscilla’s wedding day went like a dream. The weather smiled on the happy couple, and the bride looked beautiful in a silk two-piece suit with a vertical scalloped edge to the front-buttoned top and a central pleat to the skirt. It was a suit Priscilla had had before war broke out, but with some modification it fitted her perfectly; and as she had only worn it once before, for a cousin’s wedding, and the colour was a soft ivory, it looked every inch a bride’s ensemble. A small bunch of pink rosebuds just below her shoulder, and a spectacular pink hat with a huge brim turned up and folded into a sail-like shape above her hair, which she had recently had cut short and curled, completed the outfit, but it was her beaming smile all day that everyone remembered. Kenny was like a dog with two tails and, as he turned to look at Priscilla as she walked up the aisle on the arm of his father, the look on his face brought a sea of handkerchiefs fluttering into play.