by Irene Carr
Katy climbed up to the road, stood on its edge and looked left and right. She could see some two or three hundred yards through the mist and rain and there was no lorry. She could not believe that the driver had not seen the Dennis; they had passed within feet of each other and she remembered his face, eyes staring into hers. His obvious fear gave her the answer. He had seen her go over the edge, recognised he was to blame and fled from the scene.-Katy shook her head in rage and started to walk back to the nearest village. A half-hour later she reported the accident to the village policeman and an hour after that she was on a bus meandering back to Sunderland.
Two weeks later, no one else had admitted being involved in the crash and the police could find no evidence to point to anyone. Katy sat at the kitchen table in the evening when Beatrice was in bed and asleep, and faced the facts. She had tried desperately hard to keep her promise to Matt and the business in being, but the loss of all the men and all but one of the lorries, petrol shortages and cost of maintenance — Matt was not there to service and repair the Dennis — all had whittled away the firm’s money. And then there was Fleur’s allowance.
The Dennis had been purchased six years before and was second-hand then. The insurance for it would not buy another lorry worth running, even if she could find one in wartime. Without the Dennis there was no business. But for Matt’s insistence on buying the freehold of the yard, flat and office, there would be nothing left to show for seven years of work and the one hundred and fifty pounds she had originally invested in the firm. A small amount of capital would remain after all outstanding bills had been paid, about fifty pounds, but she would not touch that. She and Matt would share that; he had to have something to come back to.
It was not the first time she had sat and pondered thus but she was reluctant to make the final decision. Matt had asked, ‘Will you be able to carry on?’ And Katy had answered, ‘We’ll cope.’ Now she felt she had failed him, though God knew she had tried.
She heard the first tap at the door of the office below but did not run to open it, wondering who it might be at that time of night. The second knock was firmer and now she rose from her chair, ran down the stairs and looked out of the office window. She could see the man only by the diffused light from the room upstairs and just in profile but she knew him and opened the door.
Charles Ashleigh said, ‘Hello, Katy.’
Chapter Twenty
MONKWEARMOUTH. OCTOBER 1917.
Charles Ashleigh was older, of course, still tall and lean but heavier in the shoulders. He raised a hand to his cap in salute and there were the three gold rings of a commander on his cuff and a block of medal ribbons on his broad chest made a subdued splash of colour against the navy blue of his jacket. He said, ‘Hello, Katy.’
‘Hello.’ It came out shakily, incredulous, and she held on to the doorpost for support. After all these years —Charles Ashleigh! Katy realised she was staring at him, a hand to her open mouth. ‘I’m sorry. Will you come in?’
Upstairs in the kitchen she sat him in the other armchair, the one she always thought of as Matt’s chair. Now, in the gaslight, she could see that Charles was bronzed, burned by the sun, and there were streaks of silver in his butter-coloured hair. She knew he was only thirty-one or two but also that the war aged men — and women for that matter. But, for all that, he was a handsome — she corrected herself — very handsome man. He looked at her across the fire and asked, ‘Am I welcome?’
Katy wondered why he asked. Of course you are.’ And explained, ‘I know it was your father’s idea to have you sent to China and I’m sure your mother drove him to it.’ And when he stared she told him the whole story, how she had seen the letter from his father’s friend in the Admiralty, how she had left Ashleigh’s and eventually Newcastle.
Charles sighed, ‘I concluded something like that had happened, but not for a very long time. I wrote from China, again and again, but you never replied.’
‘I had no letter, ever.’ Katy thought a moment, then asked, ‘You wrote to the address where I was living when you left, I suppose?’ And when he nodded she said, ‘And as I’ve told you, I moved — and I think my landlady would not forward your letters. I expect she burned them.’ She did not say that Mrs Connelly regarded her as a harlot because of her affair with Charles.
He said, ‘I guessed as much. When I came home from China I had three months’ leave before joining my next ship in the Med. I spent the time looking for you. I even put an advertisement in the personal columns of the papers but there was no reply. Then mother persuaded father to rent a house in London for the Season and you know what goes on there.’
Katy contradicted him: ‘No, I don’t.’
He blinked at that but then said slowly, ‘No, of course, you wouldn’t — I’m sorry. Well, it’s a marriage market. Mothers give balls for their daughters in the hope they will make a good marriage. By that they mean to a man with plenty of money and hopefully a title as well. I met my wife there.’ He was meeting Katy’s gaze directly. ‘I hadn’t seen or heard from you for six or seven years. I hadn’t forgotten you, still loved you, but — Eleanor was there. She was good to me, good for me. I think I was good to her, and love came. Can you understand that?’
That the prolonged absence of one lover could make room for another? Katy could, only too well. ‘Yes, I can understand.’
Charles said, ‘She gave me two sons. She died just over a year ago.’
Katy said softly, ‘Oh, Charles, I’m sorry.’
He fell silent for a minute then glanced up at the clock on the mantelpiece and rose to his feet. ‘It’s late. I only came because I got off the train just a half-hour ago. I should have waited, I suppose, but I couldn’t. I wanted to see you now, just to be sure you were really here. I have a lot to say but not tonight. I’m staying at the Palace. Will you have dinner with me tomorrow night? I understand they have a band for dancing.’ He waited, unsure.
Dinner and dancing! Katy felt like Cinderella. She wondered if she should, but then thought that she had worked and worried too long, was worrying still. ‘For old times’ sake? Yes, I will.’
His face broke into a smile, teeth showing white against his tan. ‘I’ll call for you in a cab.’
Katy was sorry to see him go, briefly to lose this excitement which had come into her life, but at least she had gained a breathing space, time to think. She thought for a long time that night because sleep was slow to come, and all through the following day. She arranged with Annie to care for Beatrice that night and worked on her wardrobe. She dressed with care in the lilac silk evening gown she had bought in the long ago days of peace. When she was ready, Beatrice stared open-mouthed and said, ‘Ooh! You’re beautiful!’
Annie agreed, ‘She’s right. And you enjoy yourself with this old friend of yours. You’ve earned it.’
Katy found herself blushing and turned away.
Charles arrived on time and handed her into the horse-drawn cab — there were few motor taxis now because of the petrol restrictions. He escorted her into the restaurant of the Palace and across the dance floor to one of the best tables and Katy could see heads turning as she passed, the eyes of the men on her.
Charles said as they were seated, ‘You’ve caused something of a sensation.’
Katy laughed, ‘More likely because of you, the grand naval officer. You have gone up in the world.’
He shrugged, ‘I’m expecting my captaincy soon, assured of it, in fact. The war makes for rapid promotion and I’ve been very lucky. But when it’s over I’ll leave the Navy. Both my parents are dead. Tomlinson — you’ll remember him?’ Katy did remember the young manager very clearly, and nodded. Charles went on, ‘I’m sorry to say he was killed early in the war.’
Katy whispered, ‘Oh! What a shame! He had a young wife and children.’
‘Yes,’ Charles agreed. ‘He was a good man in every way. We’re paying them a pension, of course, but it can’t make up for his loss.’
They were bot
h silent for a moment, their thoughts in the past, then Charles stirred and continued, ‘Now Ashleigh’s is being run by an older man. He’s a very good manager making a great deal of money for us, but he’s coming up to retirement. I feel I should take over, now my father has gone.’
Katy agreed. ‘I think you would do it very well.’ She meant it, was sure Charles would run the business competently, but she said it absently. Louise was never far from her thoughts, though she tried not to worry at a situation she could not affect, and now she wondered if she should tell Charles about the kidnapping of her daughter. The temptation was there, to pour out her tale of grief and misery, but then she decided it was not his problem, it would not be fair to him.
And now Charles said, ‘I think I’m being too serious.’ He cocked his head on one side, listening. Then he smiled at Katy, ‘This is a foxtrot, isn’t it? Would you like to dance it?’
Katy would, and stepped up and into his arms. He danced well though stiffly at first, but after a minute he shifted his hold on her and drew her close. Katy found that Annie’s verdict when teaching her had been correct; she was a natural dancer. As they circled the floor, Katy saw Dawkins, with his patent leather hair, sitting in the band and playing his clarinet. He recognised her, took the instrument out of his mouth and gaped at her. Katy stared back and after a moment his eyes fell. She told herself to forget him and Fleur and found it easy.
Back at their table again, Katy asked one of the questions which had come out of her thinking: ‘How did you find me?’
Charles grinned, more at ease now. ‘I employed a detective agency. They found your father. I didn’t know anything about him, of course.’
‘And he told them where I was?’ Katy said drily, ‘He wasn’t so helpful as a rule.’
Charles looked embarrassed. ‘I understand they paid for the information.’
‘That sounds like him.’ Katy hoped the money had done her father some good but doubted it. Also that Ursula had never mentioned this, so Barney Merrick had pocketed the money and told no one.
They dined and danced, talked and laughed. It was late in the evening when Charles became serious and said, ‘I should never have let them part us but I just didn’t know what was going on. I should have told them to keep out of my life, left the Navy and made a life for us elsewhere, maybe in Africa.’
Katy touched his hand, ‘It wasn’t your fault any more than it was mine. Don’t blame yourself. You were young.’
‘So were you. All through the years I kept thinking how young you were and how I’d failed you.’
‘You didn’t fail me. We both suffered from the way of the world.’ Katy stood up: ‘Now, shall we dance this one?’
And this time she held him close, trying to console him in his sorrow and for the lost years of his grieving. He held tight to her and she knew he could feel her body against his through the thinness of her dress.
They drifted through the rest of the evening on a tide of remembered love. At one point Katy saw Fleur seated at a table with a party of young officers. She stared at Katy and Charles with a mixture of rage and disbelief; they were far and away the most handsome couple in the room. Katy looked through her and forgot her, only noticed some time later that she had gone. Fleur had stormed home, jealous.
Charles escorted Katy back to the flat, handing her into the cab. In its sheltering darkness, as the horse clip-clopped along, the good man at her side put his arm around her and she rested against him. But when he lowered his head to kiss her she whispered, ‘No, Charles, please.’ Because she knew what was coming next and there would be an awful temptation. She would be able to live in the Ashleighs’ big house, with his money to buy her whatever she wanted, and servants at her beck and call. He would do everything he could to make her happy and it would be a marvellous life.
The cab wheeled into the yard and halted outside the flat. Charles handed her down and walked her to her door. He stopped there with a hand on her arm and looked down into her face. He said, ‘I know you’re not married. The detective agency told me that. If you had been married then I wouldn’t have come here. But there is someone else, isn’t there?’
‘No.’ Because she thought there wasn’t. She would be wishing for the moon if she hoped . . .
Charles nodded slowly. ‘I didn’t know what I had all those years ago. And I haven’t got you now. There’s someone else.’
With him looking into her eyes Katy faced it and admitted it to herself. She said, ‘Yes, there is.’ She had known that long ago, when Fleur had come upon her and Matt laughing in the garage in those days before the war, three years ago. In all that time she had told no one, never put it into words, kept that secret locked in her breast. Until now. ‘I’m sorry, Charles.’
He said heavily, ‘And this is goodbye, then.’
‘Yes.’ She would not lead him on to no purpose. ‘I’ll never forget you, Katy.’
He started to turn away but now she reached up to take his head in her hands, pull it down and kiss him on the lips. ‘I won’t forget you, Charles.’
He climbed into the cab then and Katy watched him driven out of the yard and out of her life. She mounted the stairs to the flat and found a sleepy Annie sitting by the fire. Katy asked, ‘Will you take on Beatrice, Annie, please? I have to go away.’
Chapter Twenty-One
LONDON. FEBRUARY 1918.
The drivers were told when a hospital train loaded with wounded was due to come in from Flanders. This was the fourth such train Katy had attended with her ambulance on this tour, which had started in the evening. Now it was close to morning and she had been on duty for nearly ten hours. She was both hungry and thirsty, but when the shattered men arrived they had to be cared for. She was a member of the Women’s Legion and attached to the London Ambulance Column.
Katy drove the Ford up from the Embankment, through the tunnel, and emerged into Charing Cross Station. There she braked behind another ambulance, a queue of them stretching ahead of her onto the platform. They were seen as silhouettes in the half-dark of the blackout now enforced because of the air raids on the city. A pall of smoke smelling of soot hung around her, and mixed with that the sickly sweet, acrid stench of poison gas and gangrene; the hospital train had arrived. She could see it now, as the line of vehicles edged forward, the panting locomotive at its head breathing steam, a red cross painted on the side of each carriage. Katy got down from the cab for a moment to stretch her legs as the queue was briefly halted. She wore her Army pattern greatcoat over her neat brown jacket and skirt, the soft brown felt hat tipped slightly rakishly on one side. She breathed in the tainted air and shuddered in anticipation, bracing herself. This was her life now.
Katy had walked to the Labour Exchange and joined the Women’s Legion the day after she parted from Charles Ashleigh. She yearned for Louise but could not go to Germany to search for her until peace came, and that seemed far distant in 1917. She had signed on for a year or the duration of the war. Annie had agreed, needed no persuasion, to care for Beatrice but Katy had found it hard to part from them when the time came. She had written to Matt, telling him how the business had finished — and why. She had wished him well and told him she was going where women were needed to drive, but she did not know where. She sent it to the only address she had, the one he had sent her when he went abroad early in 1915. She could not ask Fleur for his more recent address, knew she would receive a poisonous tirade of accusations — and no address. Katy did not know how long the letter would take to reach Matt. She had never heard from him. She did write to Fleur, a short note in businesslike terms, advising her that Ballard’s had ceased trading but there was money in the firm’s account to pay her allowance up to the end of February, when it would finish.
The line of ambulances was moving again and Katy jumped up into the cab of the Ford to keep her place in it. She drove out onto the platform and halted. A crocodile of men bearing stretchers was heading towards her with a nurse in the lead. Katy saw it was Sybil Nort
hcote, a Fany — First Aid Nursing Yeomanry. She trotted up to Katy, a small, slight girl, her fluffy blonde hair escaping from her cap, her grey eyes wide with nervousness. Sybil had travelled with Katy several times before, and once already this day. She said, ‘I say, Katy, I’ve got one serious chap and I have to come with you, but I have two other ambulances to watch out for.’
Katy got down from the Ford: ‘So we’ll bring up the rear.’ That was standard procedure when one nurse had to tend the inmates of more than one ambulance: she would ride in the last with the most seriously injured. If any of the other wounded needed her assistance their ambulance stopped and waited until she came up.
Sybil said, ‘Oh, thanks.’ Then with a quick, relieved smile, ‘I like being with you.’ She was barely nineteen, a veteran with a year’s service, but glad of the company of the older Katy.
‘Here y’are, miss.’ That came from the first stretcher bearers with their burden. There were four bunks in each ambulance and the stretchers slid into them on rollers. The bunks were filled with rapid efficiency. As the bearers did their work, Sybil had a moment to spare to whisper, ‘They’re all from field hospitals. We’re going to be busy.’
The field hospitals were always emptied before an attack. When the attack went in, the cases on the ambulance trains were not only from field or base hospitals. Many of the wounded came straight from the battlefield, still in their muddied and blood-soaked clothing. Katy had that hollow feeling inside again. At times like these she pictured Matt on a stretcher like these men. Or worse.
The bunks were full and so were the other two ambulances in their party. Sybil said, ‘The Commandant said this was the last train. We’re stood down after this run.’ And then: ‘I’m starving. And there won’t be anything at my hostel at this time of night.’ Nor would there be at Katy’s. Worse still, because of food shortages at this stage of the war, they would not find a cafe able to serve them anything but a slice of toast. Sybil climbed into the back of Katy’s Ford and perched on the little seat behind the driver, but by the head of the seriously injured soldier and looking out of the rear. The backs of the ambulances were all open, draughty and chill. Katy checked that the stretchers were lashed in so that they could not slide out, then she cranked the Ford and drove out of the station, following the other two. And now, prompted by her fear for Matt, she feared for Louise. Was her daughter starving in Germany?