Nancy gave up trying to eat and poured herself another cup of tea before pushing her plate to one side.
‘Don’t you want that?’ Ken reached for her plate after she shook her head, tipping the contents onto his own before continuing to shovel food into his mouth. It wasn’t until he had finished his meal that he said, ‘It’ll be all right, lass. Things have a way of working out if you let them.’
Nancy’s tone had a sharp edge to it now as she said, ‘By that do I take it you mean you want to do nothing?’
‘Don’t start, Nancy.’
‘I’m not “starting”. I just want to know where I stand, that’s all. I love you. I thought you loved me. Don’t – don’t you want us to be together? Properly, I mean.’
It was the last thing he had in mind. Regretting that he hadn’t ended the affair some time ago but not wanting a scene, Ken took a long deep breath. ‘Of course I love you but I’ve never pretended the whole hearth and home thing is for me, now have I? Bairns and everything that goes with them isn’t something I could take on, lass. I thought you understood that.’
‘I do, oh, I do.’ She could hear the eagerness in her voice and hated herself for it. ‘And I wouldn’t ask you to do that. It would be just the two of us, I promise.’
What the hell had he let himself in for? In the past there had been the odd tear or two from the women involved when he’d finished with them, but his sweet-talking had enabled him to go on his merry way with no hard feelings. Something told him it wasn’t going to be like that with Nancy. For a while now he’d felt somewhat stifled, but the sex had been the best he’d ever had and it had kept him coming back for more. Just the thought of some of the things they did made him as hard as a rock.
Moving his chair back slightly, he held out his arms. ‘Come here.’ Once she was sitting on his lap, he traced the full contours of her mouth with his finger before kissing her hard. He could afford to let her down lightly, cool things slowly, bit by bit. He didn’t want Nancy causing trouble for him and she could. Oh, aye, she could. She knew a sight too much about some of his more questionable deals for him to risk her shooting her mouth off to the dock police. Working as she did as a shipping clerk, she came into daily contact with quite a few folk he wouldn’t want to run foul of. A woman scorned and all that.
‘You know how I feel about you,’ he murmured in her ear before kissing her again and feeling her melt against him. ‘I’ve told you often enough, haven’t I? All I mean is that with the war and everything life’s uncertain enough as it is. Looking into the future does no one any good, but we can enjoy the time we have together here and now and that’s what counts. I adore you and we’re good together, perfect in fact.’
His hands were moving all over her now and he felt her begin to tremble and smiled to himself. Moving her so she was sitting astride him on his lap, he set about making love to her, knowing it would deflect more awkward questions, at least for tonight.
For a moment the back door opening barely registered on Nancy. For an endless moment she gazed at Gregory in the doorway, snow dusting his uniform, one arm in a sling and the other holding his kitbag, a patch covering his right eye and an angry red scar distorting the cheek beneath it. Then all hell broke loose.
It was ten o’clock. Ken had long since gone, nursing his bloody nose and minus two teeth. It hadn’t been a fight as such. After Gregory had hit Ken, Ken had grabbed frantically for his coat and cap and been away on his toes as Nancy had held on to Gregory with all her strength, begging him to stop as he had tried to throw her off and go after the other man.
She continued to cling on to his good arm for some moments after the kitchen door had slammed behind Ken, and then as Gregory went limp and sat down suddenly she took a step backwards, feeling sick and faint herself. For the life of her she couldn’t speak; not until his voice came rasping and shaking as he said, ‘Who is he?’ did she manage to pull herself together enough to form words through the whirling in her head.
‘He’s a friend from – from work.’
‘He’s a damn sight more than a friend.’ He turned his head to look at her. ‘How long has it been going on?’
‘Gregory, please—’
‘How long?’
‘Months.’
‘Do you love him?’
‘Don’t do this, let me get you a drink—’
‘I said, do you love him?’
He looked ghastly, grey and ill and so thin his face was almost skeletal, and it was this that made her unable to speak the truth. Instead she whispered, ‘Your eye? Is – is it serious?’
He didn’t answer, staring at her until she had to turn away. Walking to the cupboard she took out a bottle of whisky and poured a good measure into two glasses, offering him one. When he didn’t take it, she put it down on the table in front of him and then drank hers straight down. The neat alcohol burned its way into her stomach and helped the trembling deep inside.
‘Since when have you taken to drinking whisky?’ he said grimly.
Again she didn’t answer this, saying instead, ‘Drink it, it’ll help.’
‘It’ll take more than whisky to do that.’ Nevertheless he swallowed the contents of the glass in two gulps.
‘Greg, I’m so so—’
‘Don’t say you’re sorry, Nancy.’
The tone was one he had never used to her before and for a moment a sense of loss pierced her through. She had always known he adored her, worshipped her even, but that was gone for ever. She had fallen off her pedestal good and proper.
Her voice low, she said, ‘Well, I am whether you believe it or not. I – I didn’t want to hurt you. I’ve never wanted to do that. It just happened.’
He swore as he stood up, pushing back the chair with the backs of his knees. ‘Don’t give me that. Things like this don’t just happen – it’s a series of steps involving choices. You’re a grown woman, not a bit of a lass who doesn’t know her own mind.’
She stared at him. He was right. Of course he was right.
‘I’m going to ask you again and I want the truth. Do you love him?’
She felt she was drowning in shame and guilt. He looked so ill, a broken man, and he didn’t deserve this. He had thought he was coming home to a wife who loved him, to normality, to his family. But, bad as she felt, it wasn’t enough for her to lie for him. She couldn’t live without Ken; she would sacrifice anything or anyone to be with him, and nothing else mattered. She had known this day would come eventually, she just hadn’t expected it to be so hard.
‘Yes.’ It was a whisper.
‘And him?’
‘He loves me. We – want to be together.’
When she had imagined telling Gregory about Ken she had pictured a hundred different scenarios. Knowing how much he loved her, she had expected rage and fury, that he would be incensed and perhaps even violent before pleading with her, begging her not to leave him, promising her the earth if she would stay. Much as he loved the children, she’d known his feeling for her was a thing apart, all consuming, that she was as necessary to him as the air he breathed. Hadn’t he told her so every night in the depths of their bed and not just in the act of physical love? Many nights he would just hold her close, whispering endearments in the darkness, words he would never have expressed in the day. But that was the way with lots of tough working men like Gregory, northern men who weren’t given to fancy words and such. That was what made Ken so special, so thrilling, so intoxicating.
Now, as she waited for Gregory’s wrath to fall on her head, she was aware of a slight feeling of bewilderment mixed in with all the raging emotions. His face was stony cold and likewise his voice when he said, ‘Then there’s nothing more to be said. I suggest you go to him.’
In all her imaginings she had never expected this. As her mouth fell slightly open in shock, she stammered, ‘What, now?’
He closed his eyes for a split second, his voice losing the iron control for a moment and shaking as he said, ‘Aye, now.’
‘But Gregory, you’re ill—’
As her hand reached out to him his voice was a bark: ‘Don’t touch me, Nancy. I won’t be responsible for my actions if you touch me. Just get out and go to him if that’s what you want. Pack what you need and clear off.’
‘You don’t mean that.’
‘The hell I don’t. You think I’d want you after what I’ve seen? You’ve made your decision. It was made the first time you opened your legs for him.’
The crudery was so unlike him that again she recoiled in shock. She had thought she knew him inside out but this was a stranger. She stared stupidly at him as he walked across to where she had placed the bottle of whisky, picking it up and bringing it back to the table where he sat down and poured himself a glass, filling it to the brim.
Utterly at a loss, she whispered, ‘We’ll need to talk at some point, about the bairns and everything.’
She waited another moment and then walked into the hall and climbed the stairs to the bedroom. There she stood looking around her in a daze. After a full minute she went to the big mahogany wardrobe and pulled an old battered suitcase off the top of it. Placing it on the bed she opened it and again stood staring blankly before beginning to pack some of her clothes and bits and pieces. A couple of nights before, Ken had lain with her in this bed and after they had made love he’d had her in a fit of the giggles as he’d told her about a funny incident down at the docks. No one could make her laugh the way Ken could.
She shook herself. Now she felt as though she would never laugh again.
After she had snapped the suitcase shut, she stood hugging herself round the middle for a few moments. Her heart was pounding against her ribs and she felt sick with the swiftness of how her life had changed in the last few minutes, but there was an element of relief there too which added to her guilt about Gregory. She had known this had to happen one day, hadn’t she, if Gregory came back from the war? And now he had. It settled things. Even to herself she couldn’t admit that what had happened downstairs had forced Ken’s hand regarding her. Ken wanted them to be together, she told herself for the umpteenth time since meeting him. He just found it hard to say so.
As though flinging something off, she grabbed the suitcase. She couldn’t be glad the war had occurred, not with all the horror and suffering, but it had created a chance for her that would never have happened otherwise. Her life had been mapped out into old age, a life of routine and respectability – housewife, mother, grandmother, a life lived in the stifling cage that was her marriage. Now nothing would be the same as it had been before, not just for her but for everyone. The war had changed things and not before time. No, not before time.
The thought carried her down the stairs and into the hall where she put on her hat and coat. She stood hesitating. No one ever used the front door. Practically the only time it was opened was if the priest or the doctor called, but she couldn’t face walking into the kitchen again. Gregory had told her to go and so she was going, she told herself with a touch of defiance. Then she recalled the look on his face when he had first entered the kitchen, the smile that had lit his countenance only to change into a spasm of what she could only describe to herself as horror, and the defiance melted and she wanted to weep. For a moment, just a split second, she wavered. Then her back straightened. If she went into the kitchen, if she went to Gregory to try and comfort him, it would only delay the inevitable. It was less cruel to go now.
She didn’t let herself think any more. Opening the front door she stepped over the drift of snow that had been banked against it and which collapsed in a soft pile on the old cork mat. Ken had a room in a lodging house in East Cross Street close to the docks and it was a fair walk in weather like this. She’d better get on with it.
Lifting up her head, she breathed deeply of the icy air starry with snowflakes, gripped the suitcase more firmly, and began to walk.
Gregory heard the front door shut but he didn’t move from his seat at the kitchen table. After a few moments he refilled his empty glass for the third time and drank deeply, aware that he was well on the way to being pie-eyed. Pie-eyed. He smiled grimly. The blast that had mangled his right arm, breaking bones and stripping skin and flesh, had also taken his eye and disfigured his face, but he had fared better than his closest friends. He was alive.
He got up and walked into Nancy’s front room – he always thought of it in those terms, it was practically a holy of holies and woe betide anyone who entered it without permission. He found it strange, in view of what he had come home to, that everything looked exactly the same. The stiff three-piece suite in dark jade green, the small table with the aspidistra set in the centre of the window and the staid wooden clock ticking the time away on the mantelpiece, all as it had been when he had gone off to war. His life had exploded into a thousand pieces and yet this room continued to be a mausoleum to Nancy’s idea of respectability.
Respectability . . . The word mocked him as he parted the lace curtains to peer out, but he could see nothing but the driving snow. She’d gone. To him. To her fancy man. All the time he’d been wallowing in blood and guts, she’d been having it away with some bloke. When his hand came out and swiped the aspidistra to the floor it was without conscious thought, the crash of the fancy pot and the earth and leaves and jagged pieces barely registering. He was back in Tobruk, in the disastrous offensive in which half of the British tanks fighting Rommel were destroyed in a single day.
He staggered back into the kitchen but it was no good, the genie was out of the bottle. He was in hell. They were all in hell, and facing a major strategist who was the hero of the German army. The Desert War, where the battleground was large, featureless wastes of rock and sand, had its own character and its own rules, and made unique demands on the men who fought it. Rommel had understood that so why hadn’t the British generals, damn them? They’d been overstretched and unprepared for the speed and ferocity of Rommel’s highly trained and mobile fighting force that had been perfectly suited to war in the desert. And the German panzers and huge 88-millimetre anti-tank guns; it’d been lambs to the slaughter. Frank Robson, his pal from schooldays, had been blown to smithereens in front of him along with countless others, their blood soaking into the sand and body parts cascading down like grotesque lumps of raw meat.
He sank down on a chair, running his hand across his face which was pouring with sweat.
Joe McGuigan, Adam Harley, Tim Mallard – all gone. And the noise, the deafening noise. It numbed the brain and turned you into a mindless automaton.
Reaching for the bottle he didn’t bother to pour the liquid into a glass, glugging it down as though it was water, wanting only to deaden the images in his mind. He didn’t understand why every single one of the men he had trained with and become close friends with should have died and he should have been spared, even more so now he had come home to no wife, no bairns, nothing. Adam’s wife had twin boys, two years old, but now they’d never know their da; and Tim Mallard had been the baby in their group, just eighteen years old. When he’d first come round in the field hospital it had been Tim he’d remembered; one moment he’d been there in front of him and the next his head had gone, his body in the sand pumping blood. He’d screamed and yelled about Tim apparently – one of the nurses had told him – begging them to find his head so he could be whole again. They’d stuck needles in him then, soft voices telling him it would be all right and he must sleep and get well. Well . . . He shook his befuddled head. What signified well? The fact that he could walk and talk and act normal? Because that was all it was, acting.
The bottle was empty and he slumped in the chair, too exhausted and too drunk to move. Nancy had left him. He ground his teeth. She had been the only reason for him to keep trying, to keep living. Oh, he loved the bairns, of course he did, but Nancy . . . From the first moment he had set eyes on her he had loved her – it had been as swift and final as that. And when she had agreed to marry him he had known he loved her more than she loved him,
but that hadn’t mattered. There was always one person in a marriage who loved their partner more, that’s what he’d told himself, and more often than not it was the man. A woman was taken up with homemaking, bairns – that was natural.
The whisky had done its job – he could feel himself sinking into oblivion and he didn’t fight it. He was finished, he knew he was finished now. It just remained for him to decide how the end would come, that was all.
By the time Nancy reached the house in East Cross Street she was wet and cold and the suitcase seemed to weigh a ton. The pavements were lethal and twice she had nearly gone full length on patches of ice hidden under the fresh layer of snow that was falling. There were few folk about, the snow was keeping all but the hardiest indoors, and she had felt very small and very alone as she had plodded along in the dark night.
She had been to the house where Ken rented a room twice in the time they had been seeing each other. It was a two-up, two-down terrace and he occupied the front room, two of his pals from the docks having a room each upstairs. Ken had told her the landlord owned quite a bit of property in the East End, some of it used for legitimate purposes and some not. She’d raised her eyebrows enquiringly and he’d grinned: ‘Brothels, gambling dens, that sort of thing.’
Her shock must have showed and Ken had laughed out loud. ‘Skelton’s all right, lass. He started from nowt, just a snotty-nosed urchin with his backside hanging out, and he’s made it big by being canny. He’s a good bloke as long as you don’t cross him. Believe me, his rent collector never has any trouble.’
The conversation had troubled her, more because of Ken’s admiration of the man than what he had disclosed about Skelton. Eventually, though, she’d brushed it aside. Ken dabbled on the wrong side of the law but that was all, she’d told herself. He wasn’t a proper criminal, not like Skelton.
She had to knock twice before the door opened, and then it wasn’t Ken standing in the hallway but Edwin, one of the men from upstairs. He stared at her in surprise, his gaze going to the suitcase, and Nancy said quickly, ‘I need to see Ken.’
Beneath a Frosty Moon Page 11