Forbidden Places

by Penny Vincenzi

  Her face was absolutely impassive; it was a practised impassivity, Grace thought; she had worn the expression many times before.

  ‘Well,’ said Charles finally, ‘perhaps if she phones again, Sister, you could ask her for it. So that we can thank her. And now, perhaps – well, we’re all very tired, I wonder if there is any point in staying, or if we should get on to my father’s flat in Baker Street. Perhaps you would advise us—’

  ‘I really think you should get some rest,’ said the sister. ‘I don’t think there is any immediate danger now, Mr Bennett is mercifully a very strong man, but of course if there is a change we will telephone you immediately. You can come back in the morning, see Mr Mackie, he is the cardiologist who is looking after Mr Bennett. We should have a little more news by then.’

  Her voice was very firm; she clearly had no intention of allowing a distraught family to be cluttering her corridors, even if they were expensive, privately paid-for ones.

  ‘Yes,’ said Muriel. ‘Yes, we should do that. If you’re quite sure.’ She seemed rather dazed suddenly, smaller and frailer.

  ‘Quite sure,’ said Sister. ‘Now do finish your tea and then I will arrange for someone to see you out.’

  As they passed the room, the door was opened and the nurse who had greeted them came out and shut it again. In that brief moment Grace looked in and saw Clifford lying quite flat on the bed, on his back. A drip was attached to his arm. She shuddered. He had looked, to her, quite horribly dead.

  They got Muriel to bed, Grace made her a whisky with hot milk, took it in to her. She was lying in the bed, staring at the ceiling, but she did seem more relaxed.

  Grace set the milk down by the bedside, bent over, patted her hand. ‘You must try not to worry,’ she said, ‘I’m sure he’ll be all right.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Muriel. ‘I suppose he might.’ There was a silence, then she said, clearly with an effort, ‘Thank you for coming, Grace. I appreciate it.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Grace.

  Muriel’s patent misery touched and surprised her; she had not observed between her mother-in-law and Clifford anything more than the most basic courtesy and very little else, especially on Muriel’s part. Grace supposed this was where marriage led, even a less than perfect one: to a state of underlying affection and a dependency that when threatened was extremely frightening. She hoped that hers would have a little more substance to it than that.

  She had never been to the Baker Street flat; it was rather grand, heavily Victorian, furnished rather as she imagined a gentleman’s club would be, with a lot of mahogany and leather. If Clifford had been taken ill there, whoever had been with him had cleared up very efficiently; there was no trace at all of any human activity, the beds were freshly made up, the place immaculately tidy.

  Charles showed Grace the second bedroom, asked her to make some tea while he phoned Florence. ‘She’ll meet us at the hospital in the morning,’ he said. ‘She sounded very upset. Poor Florence. She’s had a bad year.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Grace, ‘terribly bad.’

  Charles looked at her sharply. ‘That didn’t sound entirely sympathetic,’ he said. ‘I know you don’t like Florence, Grace, but I wish you’d try and make a little more effort –’

  ‘I do like Florence,’ said Grace wearily. ‘If anyone doesn’t like anyone, it’s Florence not liking me. Oh, Charles, let’s not start squabbling. I’m so tired and so sad. Your father looked terrible. Poor old darling.’

  And to her great surprise she burst into tears.

  Charles sat down beside her, put his arms round her. ‘Darling, don’t cry. I’m sorry. You’ve been so marvellous. I was so glad you came in the end, it was right. Mother seems very – calm though now.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Grace, ‘yes, she does. Charles, who do you think Mary Saunders is?’

  ‘Oh, I told you, a client,’ said Charles easily. ‘I’ll track her down in the morning. Thank her.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Grace, ‘yes, of course. That must be right.’

  She didn’t say what she had actually been wondering, all the way to London: that the mysterious Mrs Mary Saunders might mean more to Clifford Bennett than perhaps a client would. She had a shrewd idea that that was something which had been frightening Muriel as well.

  Chapter 7

  Autumn 1939

  Linda Lucas stood at the gates to the platform, desperately trying to control the hot tears, feeling as if her heart was being wrenched out of her, but managing to smile, wave her handkerchief to the two skinny little figures being swallowed up rapidly in the crowd. The taller of them turned, his small face taut in his effort not to cry, his dark eyes, enormous with misery, looking frantically for her. Linda jumped up and down, so that he could see her.

  ‘Bye-bye, David. Be a good boy. Look after Daniel. We’ll see you soon.’

  He couldn’t hear her, but he could see her, and see her smiling; it clearly cheered him. She was glad she had worn her nice coat, bothered with her hair; boys liked to be proud of their mothers, even when they were only five and three. And wanted to be like their dads.

  ‘I won’t cry,’ little Daniel had said, sitting on his father’s knee at breakfast that morning, ‘cos you wouldn’t cry, would you, Dad? Only girls cry.’

  ‘Usually, yes,’ said Ben Lucas, his own dark eyes, so like his small son’s, tender, thoughtful as he looked at him, ‘but mind you, girls can teach us a thing or two about being brave.’

  ‘Course they can’t,’ said David. ‘Anyway, I bet you never cry, Dad.’

  ‘I have cried,’ said Ben. ‘I cried when my own dad died. Nothing to be ashamed of in crying. Not when it really matters. Now I’ve got to go. You enjoy the country, and we’ll see you at Christmas.’

  ‘Sounds a long time off,’ said David, pushing aside his plate of uneaten toast.

  ‘Not really. It’ll go very fast. You’ll have a great time. And have a lot to tell us. Bye, Daniel. Give me a kiss. You too, David.’

  He had gone rather quickly, blowing his nose loudly as he went. His mother, who shared the small house in Acton, looked after him with only faintly disguised pride. ‘Soft he is,’ she said, ‘always has been.’

  It was Ben’s softness, his gentleness that had made Linda fall in love with him in the first place. If you’d told her beforehand that she’d have abandoned Colin Banks at the dance that night, she’d have laughed out loud. She’d been angling for Colin for weeks, Colin who all the girls fancied; he had a motorbike, and slicked-back fair hair and a swaggering walk and he was a very good, rather flashy dancer. If you were on the dance floor with him everyone tended to watch you. Anyway, that night he’d finally asked Linda, and she was feeling really excited and happy, especially since during the slow number (as his hands moved expertly up and down her back, a bit lower on each trip downwards) he’d asked her what she was doing the next night, and then she was sitting waiting for him to bring her a drink, wondering if she had time to go and powder her nose, she didn’t really want to risk not being there when he got back, when she saw a long tall shadow in front of her and heard a voice saying, ‘Would you like to dance?’ and looked up into a pair of intensely dark, almost black eyes, set rather deeply beneath some very thick eyebrows, looking at her in a mixture of nervousness and acute determination. She was just about to say no, that she was waiting for someone to come back, while absorbing the fact that he had a really lovely smile, very wide and warm, with especially nice white straight teeth, when she saw that Colin was chatting rather too busily to a girl at the bar, and was actually doing that thing of lighting two cigarettes at once and then handing the girl one. Linda certainly wasn’t going to sit here looking silly while that went on, so she stood up, smiled again at the owner of the dark eyes, and said yes, that would be lovely.

  ‘Good,’ he said, sounding rather touchingly surprised. ‘Ben Lucas is the name.’

  ‘Hallo, Ben Lucas,’ said Linda, taking his large bony hand and following him onto the floor. She hop
ed Colin had noticed; but he hadn’t seemed to. ‘I’m Linda.’

  Ben Lucas was rather difficult to dance with since he was at least twelve inches taller than she was, and she found herself pressed rather closely into his chest, since it was a waltz and the floor was very crowded. Suddenly she felt a hand on her shoulder and heard Colin’s voice saying loudly, above the music, ‘I thought you were supposed to be with me.’

  Which annoyed Linda quite a lot. In the first place, it just wasn’t what you did in the middle of a dance, unless it was an Excuse Me, and in the second, if he hadn’t been gone so long she would indeed still have been with him, both of which points she made, quite loudly and firmly herself, and the people near to them stopped dancing to listen. Her partner was clearly embarrassed and told Colin he was very sorry; whereupon Colin told him he’d better show it, and quickly, or he’d make him sorrier, and greatly to her own surprise Linda told Colin to go and take a long walk off a short plank and stalked off the floor. She went and sat in the ladies for a bit, mentally kicking herself, and when she came out Colin was draped all over the girl at the bar. Linda sighed and was fumbling in her bag for a cigarette when she heard Ben Lucas’s voice.

  ‘You didn’t have to do that,’ he said.

  ‘I know that,’ she said shortly, illogically irritated with him as well as with herself. ‘I don’t do things cos I have to.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ he said, smiling at her, the same lovely smile, ‘that’s really nice.’

  ‘What is?’ she said, more irritated still. ‘You got a light?’

  ‘No, sorry, I don’t smoke. I’ll get you one though.’

  ‘Don’t bother. I’ll find my girlfriend.’

  ‘Please don’t,’ he said, ‘it’s the least I can do.’ And he was gone, leaving her more irritated than ever, while able to notice at the same time that although he wasn’t exactly good-looking, there was something quite sexy about him.

  He came back with a box of matches and lit her cigarette. ‘You OK then?’ he said.

  ‘Yes of course I am. Why shouldn’t I be?’

  He shrugged. ‘Don’t know. Can I get you a drink?’

  ‘Yeah,’ she said, thinking she might as well make the most of him, ‘yeah, port and lemon, please.’

  ‘Right. Don’t go off dancing with anyone else now, will you?’ He smiled at her, and she smiled reluctantly back.

  ‘Course not. I’m not that sort of girl.’

  When he got back they found a table and Linda sat trying not to look at Colin Banks, draped now over another girl. Ben asked her where she lived and what she did. She quite liked that; most men weren’t interested in anything more than your name, and not even that really, just how quickly they could get you outside the hall, or onto the dance floor during a slow number. ‘Shepherd’s Bush,’ she said, ‘with my dad. And I work at the Coop. What about you?’

  ‘Acton,’ he said, ‘and I work for an insurance company. As a clerk. I hate it,’ he added.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘no work’s much fun, is it?’

  ‘Maybe not. I don’t know. I wanted to do something that might’ve been fun.’

  ‘What was that then?’

  ‘I wanted to be a teacher.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, surprised. He was obviously brainy. ‘Well, why didn’t you?’

  ‘Because I had to leave school. My father’s an invalid. Got TB. I have to keep him and my mum.’ He sounded very cheerful about it, not at all resentful. She liked that.

  ‘My mum’s dead,’ she said, surprised to hear herself telling him. ‘She died when I was born.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said and it sounded as if he meant it, ‘but it must be nice for your dad, to have you with him.’

  ‘Not really. He doesn’t like me much. Blames me, I s’pose.’ Now why did she tell him that? She never told anyone, not till she knew them quite well. It was just that he was so easy to talk to. More like a girl, in a funny way.

  ‘I’m sure that’s not true.’

  ‘Yeah, I think it is,’ she said soberly. ‘And he drinks too much.’

  ‘Bit of a worry for you then?’

  ‘A bit, yes,’ she said.

  There was a silence, then: ‘Your friend’s coming over,’ he said, and he was, Colin Banks, cigarette in the corner of his mouth, the smoke curling up past his narrowed eyes, grinning at her confidently; obviously the other girl had gone off with someone else.

  He held out his hand to Linda. ‘Dance?’ he said.

  She hesitated just for a moment, longing to accept, thrilled that even after the rejection he was prepared to try again. She looked at Ben Lucas, staring into his drink rather intently, felt a pang of guilt, then thought he really wasn’t her type at all, however nice he might be, was about to stand up when Ben said, with his sweet smile, ‘You go on, don’t mind me, I’ve got to go anyway.’ And that did it really: that he liked her enough to be so thoughtful, to make it easy for her, and she turned and said to Colin, who was looking at Ben with a mixture of contempt and impatience, ‘No, I’m sorry, I’m tired. Maybe next week, OK?’

  Colin didn’t even answer, just turned away from her, and Ben said, ‘Well, if you’re really tired, maybe I could see you home.’ And he went on the bus with her, and walked her right to her door even though it was completely the wrong direction for him, and didn’t even try to get a kiss from her in return.

  But he did say he’d like to see her again; and on that occasion, sitting in the pictures, he did kiss her and with surprising expertise, and she found herself not only liking it, but responding with enormous enthusiasm.

  Three weeks later he told her he loved her, and she knew without even thinking about it (having never experienced anything remotely similar in the whole of her nineteen years) that she loved him too and told him so. And a year and a half later they were married.

  ‘I know he’s different,’ she told all her friends, who were surprised, shocked even, at the match, at the sheer unsuitability of the flighty, flirty Linda settling down with this quiet, shy, not even good-looking creature. ‘Different and lovely. I want to be with him. All the time. And I’m not in the family way,’ she added firmly, seeing the unspoken question in several pairs of eyes. ‘He hasn’t even tried it.’

  But when he did try it, it was wonderful: almost straight away and beyond her wildest imaginings.

  Life wasn’t easy for them; Linda’s father died and they had to live with Ben’s parents, in their extremely small house, and his father succumbed to the TB and died after the first year, leaving her alone with his mother a lot of the time, a perversely difficult, hugely demanding old woman, critical, jealously hostile to Linda. She was physically tiny, only four foot eleven, with a small, sharp face, an oddly harsh voice and an unshakable conviction that she was in the right one hundred per cent of the time; initially Linda loathed her and fought with her vociferously, much to Ben’s distress. It was only when Linda found Mrs Lucas alone one night in the front room, reading a letter her husband had written to her in the hospital just before he died, thanking her for everything, that they began an uneasy friendship.

  Mrs Lucas had begun literally to wail with grief and Linda rather tentatively put an arm round her and Mrs Lucas had clung to her for hours; Ben had found them, uncomfortably asleep together, on the lumpy old sofa. The friendship had been greatly increased as Mrs Lucas held Linda’s hand and soothed her for twenty-four long hours while she endured with considerable stoicism David’s traumatic birth (he was over nine pounds, a breech, and the midwife didn’t believe in pain relief), and was finally cemented eighteen months after that when she actually delivered Daniel; he had slithered out onto the living-room floor while they waited for what seemed like an eternity for Ben to get back with the doctor.

  ‘You always were dopey,’ she had said briskly as he rushed in, wild-eyed, with the news that the doctor was on another call but wouldn’t be long. ‘Just pull yourself together and go and get me some towels and that, and stop looking so daft. A
nyone would think you’d had the bloody baby yourself.’

  After that they still sparred constantly; but there was a rock-solid fondness between them that was unshakable.

  Linda could never satisfactorily explain to anybody why she loved Ben so much, or why they were so happy; no two people could have been more different. He was quiet where she was noisy, thoughtful where she was impulsive, serious where she was flippant. Linda’s idea of a good time was a roomful of people, Ben’s a quiet time alone with her. To Ben music meant what Linda called the classics, and very boring too; to her it was Glenn Miller, crooners, anything she could dance to. Ben’s ultimate ambition was still to be a teacher, Linda’s to have their own house with a spare toilet and to go away for a family holiday. But together they adored the boys, endured Ben’s mother, and truly admired one another. This simple fact overrode the considerable problems they had to live with – financial difficulties, claustrophobic living conditions, and frequently conflicting desires – and made them seem of little real importance. As a marriage, it worked most wonderfully.

  And now they were being separated from each other, and from the boys, and it was all extremely painful.

  ‘Stop crying,’ said David. ‘Stop it, Daniel, or the lady’ll be up and she’ll get cross again.’

  ‘Can’t,’ said Daniel. ‘I want Mum. I want my mum.’

  ‘Well you can’t have Mum. She’s back in London. Where it’s dangerous, getting bombed,’ he added. This was clearly meant to cheer Daniel up. It failed; a loud wail went up.

  ‘Shut up,’ said David. ‘She’s coming.’

  She was; there were footsteps on the ladder-like stair to the attic and the lady’s face appeared; worn, irritable, flushed with the exertion.

  ‘What’s this noise about? I said you were to go to sleep.’

  ‘Yes, miss. Sorry, miss. My brother’s a bit homesick, miss.’

  ‘Yes, well, it wouldn’t do him any good to be at home. Would it? With the bombs. You’re lucky to be here. Now be quiet, both of you. Or I’ll have to get my husband up to see to you.’