A Strong Hand to Hold

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A Strong Hand to Hold Page 35

by Anne Bennett


  She noticed her mother glaring at her and Geraldine beside her with her eyes full of sympathy. She turned away from them both and directed her gaze to the front of the church and put her energies into reaching it without falling into a heap on the floor.

  She made it, but all through the Requiem Mass, she felt her mother’s malevolent eyes boring into her back. Linda was aware of it too and wished she could put her arms around Jenny and protect her from further hurt. Peter wished he could do the same; all around her, people were crying, but she stayed dry-eyed throughout the service. Peter watched her and knew that inside she was dying and he was filled with respect for the girl he’d loved for years.

  The clods of earth landed on the coffin with a dull thud and as Jenny turned away from the grave, she came face to face with her mother. Linda saw the older woman’s eyes narrow and knew she was unmoved by the grief etched on her daughter’s white face, though Geraldine’s eyes were full of tears. Norah had a gloating look on her face as she hissed, ‘So your great plans have come to nothing. Well, don’t think you can come running to my door, because I’ll slam it in your face and take delight in doing so.’

  Linda heard gasps of shock from those who’d been near enough to hear what Norah had said. But she was neither shocked nor surprised. She was just blisteringly angry, and she turned to the old woman and spat out, ‘Get out of here! Come to pay your respects, my eye. You wouldn’t know respect if it leapt up and hit you on the nose. You’re a mean, malicious bugger and you always have been. So now you know.’

  Francesca, seeing Linda’s agitation, came forward, but Linda said, ‘See to Jenny. I’m all right.’ And she strode towards Peter standing well to the back of the group of mourners. ‘Get her out of here,’ she said to Peter quietly. ‘And now – before I do something to that vicious old bitch. I don’t know why you brought her here in the first place.’

  Peter had witnessed the scene at the graveside, and although he hadn’t heard the words, he’d seen the angry satisfaction in Norah’s eyes and the resulting fury in Linda’s. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said in a whisper. ‘I shouldn’t have.’

  ‘No, you bloody well shouldn’t,’ Linda raged. ‘That old crow has done her level best to destroy Jenny all her life. And,’ she added, ‘she’s doing a grand job today too.’

  Peter watched Jenny being helped into one of the funeral cars and a wave of pity washed over him, followed by one of guilt. He knew what a malicious creature Norah O’Leary was. He should have refused to take her. ‘I’ll see to it,’ he promised Linda.

  Linda gave a brief nod, but before she turned away, she looked towards Norah O’Leary and could have sworn Geraldine was having a go at her mother. The people passing in front of her cut off her line of vision, and she decided she must have been imagining it.

  Many hours later, after the funeral tea, when all the mourners had gone, Linda was in the kitchen making some supper when Francesca came in. Jenny had gone to bed, but Linda saw the woman glance around the kitchen as if making sure. ‘I think you’d better have this,’ she said to Linda. ‘I don’t want to upset Jenny.’

  Linda opened the package and found the other half of Jenny’s mizpah – Bob’s half – and her mouth dropped in surprise.

  ‘The farmer had it,’ Francesca said and her voice broke slightly as she went on, ‘the one who buried Roberto. He removed all his papers. He thought later when conditions in France had settled down, he could probably find out who the young airman was, and when he saw the mizpah around his neck, he removed that too. It came back with all his effects and I thought Jenny might like it, but she’s too upset now. You give it to her when you think the time is right.’

  Linda didn’t tell Francesca how Jenny had torn the other half of the mizpah from her neck just days before. Instead, she thanked her and embraced her, and wrapped the mizpah up in the same tissue as the other one that night before she climbed into bed.

  But sleep didn’t come, for Norah’s hate-filled words came back to her and she did wonder where she and Jenny were going to live now that the war was over. It had been all right temporarily lodging with the Masters while Bob waited for his demob, but Linda was sure Francesca wasn’t looking for permanent house guests. It was no good worrying Jenny about it; she had enough on her plate. It would be up to her to find somewhere for the two of them, and as soon as possible. But just before Linda drifted off to sleep, she wondered where she would find suitable accommodation in a city ravaged by war, where all the housing stock was in shorter supply than ever.

  A month later, Linda was no further forward in the house-hunting. Jenny was much better, back at work and coping – at least on the surface. She was quieter and thinner than ever, but a lot better than she had been. The weather was balmy and warm despite the fact it was only early summer, and Linda was glad of it for as Maureen said, ‘Everything looks better when the sun shines on it.’

  Francesca told Linda she was in no hurry for them to move, but Linda knew Malcolm found their presence irksome, though nothing was ever said. Also, she knew Juliana was getting married after her demob and coming home to live for a while. ‘Just while they take stock,’ Francesca said. ‘And Paul must find work, of course.’

  Linda guessed that Francesca would like her daughter on hand, for a while. The family needed to be together again after their years of separation, and the tragedy of losing a son and brother in the closing days of a war that had dragged on for six long years. She knew that she and Jenny would be in the way. Every night sleep eluded her, as she wrestled with the problem.

  She’d neglected Charles shamefully during this time; although she’d seen him at the restaurant, she’d always resisted his offers to go out anywhere. She was beginning to feel guilty about it. Charles had been so very patient, so when he arrived one evening unannounced, she did at last agree to go out with him again.

  They went to a restaurant they’d been to before, but Linda’s appetite was poor and she was so preoccupied by her problems that even Charles, not the most astute of men, noticed. He watched her move the succulent roast beef around her plate and placed his hands over hers. ‘What is it?’ he said gently. ‘Are you still worried about Jenny?’

  ‘No,’ Linda said, and added, ‘I mean yes. To be honest, the thing that’s worrying me most is where we’re going to live now.’

  ‘What’s wrong with where you are?’

  ‘Oh Charles, we can’t stay there, not indefinitely,’ Linda said. ‘It was always meant to be a temporary arrangement. Anyway, I feel Francesca’s husband resents us. You can understand it. After all, he was away years and now he wants his wife to himself. Then their daughter is going to live there for a time after her marriage, so there will be even less room.’

  Charles rubbed Linda’s fingers with his own and said, ‘I could solve your problems for you, if you’d allow me to.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘You could marry me,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Marry you!’ Linda’s voice was high in surprise.

  ‘Surely you must realize how fond I am of you?’

  Did she? Linda thought. No, she didn’t. Charles’s love-making had never proceeded past holding her hand, or giving her cheek or lips a chaste kiss when he delivered her home. ‘I didn’t know you felt that way about me.’

  ‘What way?’ Charles said and added quickly, ‘I’m not into a silly romance here. I like you well enough to share my life with you. You’ll have a beautiful home that you’ll be mistress of, plenty of money, and nothing to do but spend it.’

  It wasn’t the proposal Linda had dreamed of, but it was a solution of sorts and the only solution she could think of.

  ‘Do you love him?’ Jenny asked, when Linda told her the news.

  ‘No,’ Linda admitted. ‘But I like him and that’s a start, isn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose,’ Jenny said. ‘But are you sure about this?’

  ‘I’m sure about the fact that we have to find somewhere to live and soon,’ Linda said. ‘I know Charles w
ill be kind to me and generous. What more do I want?’ But Linda knew well what she wanted. She knew what it was to love and feel passionate desire for a man, and how it felt to make love together. But Max was in the past and she didn’t believe she would feel the same about any man again, and yet she had her life before her. She had to forget her German lover.

  ‘You’re so young,’ Jenny said.

  ‘What’s the alternative?’ Linda asked and Jenny shook her head helplessly. She had no solution to offer, but she hated to see Linda sacrifice her life. And yet, wasn’t she being a little melodramatic about it? Charles was charming, rich and influential. Linda’s life with him would probably be satisfactory to both of them, even if it didn’t match the relationship she’d shared with Bob. Maybe, she thought bleakly, it’s better not to love someone so much.

  ‘Well, if that’s what you want Linda,’ she said, ‘you have my blessing.’

  The ring, a diamond cluster, was bought by Charles. Linda complained she could have got it cost price, working for a jeweller as she did, but Charles was affronted at the very idea. ‘It’s stupid,’ Linda said privately to Jenny. ‘Mr Tollit said he could have arranged it. It would be just as nice as the one Charles bought and at two-thirds the price.’

  ‘Price doesn’t bother him though, does it?’

  ‘Apparently not. But I still think it’s mad.’

  Charles said he didn’t want Linda working after they were married. It wasn’t fitting for his wife, and there was no need for it. He was quite adamant about it.

  ‘But what would I do all day if I didn’t work?’ Linda asked him.

  Charles wasn’t sure, but his mother had never seemed bored. ‘You could plan the menus with Bessie,’ he said. ‘Discuss the household tasks with Amy, or perhaps visit people.’

  ‘I visit my family and friends at weekends.’

  ‘I don’t mean those sort of people, my dear,’ Charles said chidingly. ‘I mean friends of mine – formal visits – and I’m sure they’ll come calling on you. Then of course, there’s shopping.’

  ‘For what? There’s hardly anything in the shops. Anyway, shopping’s not much fun on your own.’

  ‘I’m sure Amy Sallenger would go with you,’ Charles said. ‘She always accompanied Mother.’

  Linda, forthright as ever, said exactly what was in her mind. ‘I’m sorry, Charles, but it sounds terribly dreary, talking to Bessie about meals I know little about, when she’s been cooking them for years. She’d resent my interference.’

  ‘She would not,’ Charles said emphatically. ‘Bessie always has my best interests at heart.’

  ‘But not mine,’ Linda said. ‘And Amy knows how to run the house far better than me who hasn’t a clue. I’d do well to let them both get on with it by themselves. As for visiting people I don’t know and might actively dislike, I’m not keen on that at all, and I only shop if I need something. I’ve got out of the habit of shopping somehow.’ She saw Charles was displeased and she was sorry for him. It was, after all, the way he’d been brought up. Surely she could agree, at least for a little while, and see how it went? She put a hand on his arm and said, ‘All right, Charles, if that’s how you want it. Anyway, I’ll probably have plenty to do when the babies start arriving.’

  She didn’t see the expression of horror flit across Charles’s face. To get off the subject quickly, for he definitely didn’t want children cluttering up his life, and had no intention of having anything to do with the messy business of creating them, he put his arms around Linda and said, ‘Thank you, darling, I knew you’d see it my way in the end.’ Linda smiled and gave him a kiss on the cheek and thought how easy he was to please.

  The wedding was planned for mid-September. ‘Before the real cold weather comes,’ as Charles put it. The honeymoon was a bit more difficult, with practically the whole world recovering from war. ‘Maybe we’ll just have a week now?’ Charles suggested. ‘And then have a month in Europe later, perhaps on the anniversary of our wedding. What d’you say?’

  Linda was flabbergasted, but no more than her family. ‘God, girl, me and Bert had a couple of days in Blackpool and I was made up,’ Beattie said. ‘Thought I was the bee’s knees, I did.’

  Maureen had had no honeymoon at all, and the war and finances had put a damper on Peggy’s few days, and though all three were envious, they were pleased for Linda. Linda, true to her roots and her background, had taken Charles to meet them all as soon as the engagement was official. Charles was fond of Linda in his fashion, and wishing to please her, he went out of his way to charm them all, even the awful old woman Beattie. After they were married, he’d make sure she saw much less of them; they were not the sort of people he’d wish his wife to associate with, But that was for the future.

  Norah, when the news reached her, was incensed. ‘A dirty little trollop,’ she called her.

  Geraldine was finding it a strain, living with her mother. She’d forgotten the tantrums she used to have. And as for what she had said to poor Jenny at the cemetery – well, it was despicable!

  ‘Mother, calm yourself,’ she said sharply.

  But Norah couldn’t be calm. How had the brazen hussy dragged herself from the gutter to become engaged to a gentleman such as Charles Haversham, while she, the daughter of gentry, was only able to marry a common working man? Her screams of rage frightened the children and could be heard clearly halfway down the street.

  Linda neither knew nor cared for Norah’s opinion and went on blithely planning her wedding. Peggy’s mother offered to make the dress, but material was the problem until Charles brought out one of his mother’s ball gowns from the wardrobe. Peggy’s mother sat fingering the glorious material and said she’d adapt it to make Linda a beautiful bride. Linda was hesitant to accept Charles’s offer at first. She’d always instinctively refused to have anything to do with Charles’s mother’s clothes. But in the end, common sense and Peggy’s mother prevailed, and reluctantly she agreed. Charles was ecstatic. He remembered his mother wearing the ivory silk dress trimmed with lace with the layers and layers of soft underskirts, the top layer caught up at intervals and fastened with rosebuds of peach and blue to match those decorating the modest neckline.

  ‘Oh it’s beautiful,’ Linda exclaimed, remembering for a moment the Shirley Temple dress given to her by Beattie’s niece Vicky, which she’d worn at the hospital concert. Never had she had such a beautiful dress since, but still she shook her head. ‘I couldn’t wear it Charles, not as it is, anyway.’

  ‘And why not?’

  ‘Don’t you think it will look a bit silly wearing a dress like this for a register office wedding?’ she asked. ‘I’d be overdressed, to say the least.’

  ‘Nonsense.’

  But the family agreed with Linda although Peggy said she was sure she could make something more suitable using the material.

  Linda found she couldn’t get terribly excited about her wedding day. In her heart of hearts she knew she was using Charles. She didn’t love him and he’d never said he loved her either; in fact, he’d used few terms of endearment. She didn’t know what he was getting out of it, but she was marrying him for convenience, basically to get a good home for her and Jenny, and in a way she felt bad about it.

  But she could confide in no one and certainly not in Jenny. She hardly ever mentioned anything to her about Charles, sure she was probably upset enough seeing Linda planning a wedding that by rights should have been her own, but neither of them discussed it at all.

  In mid-July, Sam Phelps brought a letter for Linda. ‘It’s been around a bit,’ he said as she looked at it, puzzled. ‘It went first to Whittington Barracks, addressed as you can see to “The Little Nightingale” and “The Brummagem Beauties”. Eventually, after kicking around the office, someone gave it in to Bill Fletcher, but he couldn’t find you. Went to the old address and the new people said they didn’t know where you’d gone, so he brought it to me.’

  Linda, who’d been tearing open the envelope as Sam spoke cri
ed, ‘It’s from Lieutenant Louis Bradshaw!’

  ‘Who’s he when he’s at home?’

  ‘He was just one of the American boys at the camp,’ she said. ‘He works in broadcasting in New York and said I’d be a sensation over there. He wanted me to go over for an audition after the war.’

  ‘What’s he say in the letter?’

  ‘Much of the same,’ Linda said. ‘Says he hasn’t forgotten me and he’ll sort something out as soon as he gets back home.’ She flashed her ring at Sam and said, ‘That letter has come too late. My dear husband-to-be says I must give up the job I have now, so I don’t think he’d be mad keen on me nipping over to the States.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘It was a dream, that’s all, and not one I really believed in,’ Linda said quietly.

  ‘Oh,’ Sam said. He seemed strangely ill at ease.

  ‘What’s up?’ Linda asked.

  ‘Nothing much. Just someone else is going home tomorrow afternoon and he’d like to say goodbye.’

  ‘Max?’ Linda said. She’d assumed he’d gone ages ago. She shook her head. ‘I don’t think that would be a good idea, do you?’

  ‘Look, Linda,’ Sam said. ‘The man’s gone on you. He was never the same after you stopped coming over.’ He held up a hand to still Linda’s protests as she was about to interrupt. ‘I know there’s no future in it as much as you do, but Max refuses to accept that. Come and see him, convince him it’s over. Show him your ring and say goodbye, that’s all I’m suggesting.’

  Linda could see the logic of it. Surely when Max saw her engagement ring, he’d know finally that whatever had been between them was dead – dead and buried. She smiled at Sam and said, ‘OK then. It’s a good job tomorrow is Saturday. I don’t think my boss would take kindly to my having time off to say goodbye to a German POW, do you?’

  The farm was dusty now rather than muddy, but hens still pecked at the ground relentlessly and she had the same welcome from the children; their arms and legs were bare and a brownish colour from the sun, while their faces were pink and Charlie’s freckles more prominent than ever.

 

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