‘Look,’ Grace said, ‘look, Ben. That’s happiness. Happiness for all of us.’ Ben smiled down at her, took her hand. ‘Give me a kiss,’ he said, ‘and then we’ll go and tell them all.’
And then the phone rang.
It was Clarissa who saw her first, standing frozen still in the drawing room, motionless, white, her face drawn and somehow very old. Something was clearly wrong, terribly, terribly wrong, and Clarissa had just begun to take it in, to move towards the house, when she saw her crumple up as if she had not an atom, a shred of strength within her, and fall to the floor, lie there, her fan of red-gold hair heavy around her face, her eyes closed.
‘What is it, Grace, what is it, whatever is it?’ cried Florence, flying in through the door ahead of the others. ‘Jack, quickly, call the doctor, something’s happened. Giles, get some water. Where’s Ben? Ben, come here, quickly, quickly.’
Grace moved then, struggled to sit up; Ben knelt behind her, his arms round her, supporting her. ‘What is it?’ he said. ‘Is it the—’
And ‘No,’ she said, ‘no, it’s not that. I’m all right.’
‘Who was it on the phone?’ he said. ‘Was that it? Who was it? Was it bad news?’
‘It was Charles,’ said Grace. ‘He’s alive.’
Chapter 31
Summer 1945
She lost the baby. They said it was the shock. She lay in the hospital, and she hardly noticed the physical pain, so terrible was her grief, as her baby, Ben’s baby, ebbed away from her, taking happiness with it.
Apart from anything else, she was frightened, terribly frightened at the thought of Charles’s coming back: a stranger, walking into her house, taking over her life, moving into her bed. In the first few terrible hours, when the strange tableau began to play, wild plans formed, established themselves, only to be rejected again, as plainly foolish, impracticable, wrong: that she would run away, just go, on her own, where no one could find her; that she would run away with Ben, Ben and the boys; that she would refuse to see Charles, tell him simply that she was leaving him; that she would go to see him, and tell him that she was leaving him. All this against a background of confusion, embarrassment, sympathy: no one knew quite what to do, what to say. Muriel, of course, was joyfully, wonder fully happy, and Clifford too, and she could understand that, could not find it in her heart to begrudge them; Florence more torn, shocked and concerned for Grace even in her pleasure at having her brother restored to her. Clarissa was simply shocked; she came to Grace where she sat, shaking, in her room, put her arms round her and held her for a long time, then said quietly, ‘I’ll do anything, anything at all that might help.’
Her parents were distraught with anxiety, embarrassment, at the same time oddly practical and thoughtful. ‘We’ll take the boys, dear, for as long as is necessary,’ said Betty as they left, half reluctant, half relieved, ‘and tell Ben he can come and stay whenever he likes.’
By three everyone had gone, taking silently awkward farewells. Grace came down, shakily, to an empty house, the only visible remaining traces of the party being the flowers. David and Daniel, bored, irritated by the fuss, not comprehending it, had finally gone fishing; Ben was sitting, staring out of the window.
‘Do you want to talk?’ he said, and there was in his voice, along with concern, sympathy, an odd impatience, almost an anger. She understood it, it was not at her, but at fate, life, that it could throw such a thing at him.
‘No,’ she said, ‘not yet. I – we can’t. Not yet. It’s too complicated.’
‘Tell me again,’ he said, ‘where he is.’
‘In an Allied base camp, somewhere in central Germany. They’re going to be flown home. In a couple of weeks or so apparently. I don’t know any more than that. Not at the moment. The man who phoned, someone from the War Office, don’t ask me who, said he’d keep in touch.’
‘But there’s no doubt about it?’ he said. ‘It’s not a mistake, not this time?’
‘I’m – I’m afraid not, no.’
‘You’re very calm,’ he said.
‘I know. It won’t last, I’m afraid.’
It didn’t; by suppertime she was hysterical, crying, clinging to him, begging him to take her away. And then suddenly, horribly, the pain started.
Gradually a picture emerged of how the whole ghastly mistake had happened. Charles had not escaped alone; he had been with another officer when he got away from the convoy, and it had been the other officer, a Lieutenant-Colonel Barlowe, who had been shot and wounded and subsequently died. Details were still hazy, but it was clearly where the confusion over identities had arisen. Charles, totally unaware of what had officially happened to him, had made his way slowly and tortuously across southern France, but had finally been shot and captured in Vichy France, spent weeks in a German-controlled hospital and was then taken back into Germany by the retreating army to a long series of prison camps. He had written, tried to make contact, but no letters had been getting through. It was only with the arrival of the Allies in northern Germany that he had been taken to a transit camp and managed to get word home. He was now at an Allied air base, waiting to be flown to England. He had had a bad, a terrible time; Grace knew without any doubt at all that she must be there when he got home. That much at least she owed him.
She went home from hospital after a few days, pale and fragile, struggling to be brave. She had not only Charles but Ben and the boys to worry about; she couldn’t allow herself to go under. She found the boys very hard to cope with: baffled by events, uneasy about their own future (despite reassurances from both her and Ben), they were noisy, restless, demanding. Ben had had to return to Tidworth, in itself a strange relief, so she was alone with them; after a few days she accepted Florence’s offer to have them.
‘They’ll be all right here, Jeannette can feed them and they know Clifford so well—’
‘What about your mother?’
‘I’ll deal with her,’ said Florence.
And so she was alone, alone with her fear and her dread, trying not to think, to plan, to feel: just waiting.
Then he phoned; he was in Kent, in Lympne, flown there by a British bomber.
‘Grace?’ he said, ‘Grace, darling, hallo, it’s me, Charles.’
‘Hallo,’ she said. Her own voice was very faint, faltering, she had trouble projecting any sound at all. She stood there in the hall, gripping the phone tightly, trying to remain calm.
‘Darling, are you all right?’
And ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I’m fine. Thank you. How about you?’
‘Oh, you know, Pretty good really.’
There was a silence. What an extraordinary conversation, she thought, to be having; to be having with a ghost. The ghost of a man she had been married to, who she had thought dead, whom she had betrayed. It was very hard; any sense of reality deserted her.
‘I thought you were dead,’ she said. ‘We all did.’
‘Yes. Yes, I know that now. I’m sorry. So very sorry.’
Another silence. ‘When will you be home?’ she said.
‘Tomorrow, I think. God, it seems so unreal. I can get a train to London and then down to Salisbury. Perhaps a taxi—’
‘I’ll meet you,’ she said.
‘How?’
‘In the car,’ she said, surprised he should ask; then remembered he didn’t even know she could drive. So many changes; how could they begin to accommodate them?
‘Darling, how clever. Right. I’ll phone you when I get to London, shall I?’
‘Yes. Yes, do.’
‘I’m so longing to see you,’ he said.
His train would be in Salisbury by four, he said. She got ready to go and meet him, brushing her hair, putting on her most respectable dress, making up her face so that it looked just a little less blanched, feeling violently sick.
The train was late of course. She sat in the car park, remembering, remembering all the times she had been there with Ben: the day he had gone away, after Linda had died, and he h
ad stood there holding her, for the very first time; the time he had come to stay after leaving hospital, the Christmas he had told her he loved her. Memories flooded her, and she sat there, eyes tightly closed, forcing them back, crushing them. She went and bought a Picture Post, sat reading about the events of the past few weeks, the fall of Berlin, Hitler’s death, the total capitulation of the German Army, and it was all meaningless, a jumble of letters and words, adding up to nothing at all. She heard the train come in; heard the steam, the scream of brakes; heard doors opening, slamming, tried desperately to compose herself; then got out of the car, went to the barrier, terrified even of seeing him.
There were a lot of people on the platform, many of them soldiers. She couldn’t see him: a wild hope that he wasn’t there, that she was to be granted at the very least a reprieve, filled her. And then she saw him: not unrecognizable, as so many people had predicted, not even almost so, but terribly changed nonetheless, thin, gauntly, hideously thin, limping, his face pallid, a different shape, the cheekbones higher in their new prominence, the jaw sharper, harder, his eyes somehow lighter. He saw her and smiled, waved, took off his hat; his hair was darker, very short. He had a deep scar right down the side of his face, running from his forehead to his jaw. She forced herself to smile back, to wave; and then he was beside her, had set down his bag, put his arms round her, hugged her very tightly.
‘I can’t believe you’re here,’ he said, and there were tears in his voice. ‘I can’t believe I’m really home.’
She drove back very carefully; she didn’t want him worrying about his car, criticizing her driving.
‘You drive quite well,’ he said, his voice surprised. ‘When did you start?’
‘Oh – ages ago,’ said Grace quickly.
‘It all looks so lovely here,’ he said. ‘I’d forgotten how beautiful England was. I’d really forgotten.’
‘Where exactly have you been?’
‘Darling, what a question. Where haven’t I been! You don’t want to hear about that now.’
‘Yes I do. Of course I do. How can I begin to understand otherwise, if you don’t—’
‘Grace, you can’t begin to understand in any case,’ he said shortly.
‘Oh.’
‘Sorry. Didn’t mean to snap. But it’s so hard to – well, anyway, a large number of godforsaken places, most recently in France, in the Ardennes and then in Germany.’
She looked at him sharply, but he was staring blankly ahead of him.
‘Was it – very bad? Or don’t you want to talk about it?’
‘I don’t want to talk about it. Not yet, anyway. And it was pretty bad, yes. The hospital was OK.’
‘Your – your limp. Was that where you were shot?’
‘Yes,’ he said briefly.
‘And the scar on your face?’
‘Yes. Darling, I said I didn’t want to talk about it.’
‘Sorry.’
As they reached Thorpe Magna, he said, ‘How’s my mother?’
She had been surprised he hadn’t asked before. ‘She’s fine. Very well. Your father’s back there at the Priory with her.’
‘Good Lord. She took him back. How extraordinarily generous. Well, that’s one thing I don’t have to worry about.’
‘What?’
‘Confronting him.’
‘Oh, I see. No. They said they’d love to see you later, but if you were tired, tomorrow perhaps—’
‘Yes of course. Well, I’ll see. What about Florence? And Robert?’
She felt an intense shock at the realization of how much he didn’t know. ‘Robert’s dead, Charles.’
‘Good Lord. How terrible. Poor Florence.’
‘Yes,’ she said. She didn’t feel able to embark on explanations, on anything.
They drove on; her terror increased. Suddenly he said, ‘Those – those boys aren’t at home, are they? You’ve got rid of them?’
‘No,’ she said, ‘no, they’re not there.’
‘Well done. I was a bit anxious. About finding them there.’
‘They’re at the Priory actually,’ she said. She couldn’t help it, it should have waited, but she was so angry, so outraged on their behalf, her boys, her beloved boys; and he had to know.
‘What on earth are they doing there?’
‘They have to be somewhere, Charles. They don’t have any other home.’
‘They’ll have to be found one,’ he said shortly, and was silent again. And then they were there, pulling into the drive; and he sat back, looked out at the house in silence. Then he got out, walked up to the front door, and she unlocked it and he walked in, through into the hall, the kitchen, the drawing room, exploring it, invading it, reclaiming it, her house, her refuge. And then he turned to her and smiled, said, ‘It looks marvellous, darling. You’ve cared for it beautifully. Well done.’
Grace managed to smile back and to put the kettle on, and then she fled upstairs, into the bathroom, and sat on the edge of the bath for a long time, fists clenched, composing herself; when she went down again, he was out in the garden, wandering around.
‘Bit neglected,’ he said, ‘but not too bad. What on earth’s been going on on the lawn down there? Looks like a ploughed field.’
‘It’s the boys. It’s where they play football.’
He didn’t say anything.
Charlotte came waddling out, hugely pregnant. ‘Good Lord,’ he said, ‘you’ve had her mated. Whose stud dog did you use?’
‘Um – the farm collie, I think,’ said Grace, smiling, hoping he would smile back. He didn’t.
‘Darling, really! Well, we could drown most of them, I suppose. Just keep a couple so she doesn’t get milk fever. Better have her spayed, Grace, if you can’t be bothered to do it properly. What on earth’s that?’
‘That’s Puppy. From an earlier marriage.’
‘Dear oh dear,’ he said, trying this time to smile, ‘I can see things have got a bit out of hand.’
‘Just a bit,’ she said.
She made supper early; the atmosphere was increasingly strained. There was so much to say, so little that could be said. She talked as brightly as she could about her work with the Land Army, about Florence and the WVS, about Clarissa and Jack, but he was distracted, clearly not interested. His only real concern appeared to be with Robert, when and how he had been killed, what Florence would do. She couldn’t bring herself to tell him about Giles, the territory seemed too dangerous. He was also delighted about his mother, said several times how good of her to have taken Clifford back. ‘I suppose it was just an aberration with this other woman,’ he said. ‘It happens of course.’
‘Yes,’ said Grace.
He wasn’t even interested in Jack, Jack and his injuries, his plans for the future. Just Robert and Muriel: the two people least worthy of his concern.
And then it was bedtime. She had thought endlessly about what she ought to do, what she could do. The doctor at the hospital had forbidden what he called intimacy for at least a month; how did you explain, though, to a husband who had been away for four years that you had just had a miscarriage, couldn’t sleep with him? In the end, she decided to endure it. What-ever happened to her didn’t seem to matter very much. She climbed into bed beside him, her body clenched with dread, looking at him rather uncertainly; he leant down and kissed her, quite gently, and said, ‘Oh Grace darling, it’s been so long.’ And then he turned out the light and started to kiss her properly. In that dreadful, mechanical, well-rehearsed way she remembered so well.
She decided to count. It never took very long: by the time she got to five hundred, she thought, it would be over. Besides, he was her husband, she had loved and wanted him once – or had at least thought she did – perhaps she could again. She lay there, feeling his hands on her, in her, probing her, feeling him harden, wanting her, trying to concentrate on her counting, on breathing deeply, on wiping her mind clear of Ben, and she couldn’t do it; it was like rape, it was like Robert all over again. She f
elt a scream rising in her throat, knew it was going to surface if he didn’t stop, if she didn’t make him stop. Suddenly, sharply, she pulled away from him, sat up, hugging her knees, mumbling something about not being ready. He switched the light on, and his face was harsh, his eyes angry.
‘Darling,’ he said, bringing the endearment out with an obvious effort, ‘darling, please! Surely I deserve more of a welcome than that!’
And ‘Charles,’ she said, and was shocked to hear herself saying it, she had meant to wait, to wait a while longer, ‘Charles, there’s something I have to tell you.’
She told him very briefly, in a few sentences; there seemed little need, rather the reverse, to elaborate. He stared at her, his face white, drawn, listening in absolute silence; when she had finished, he got out of bed, pulled on his dressing gown and went downstairs. She waited a while, then followed him. He was sitting in the drawing room, had lit a cigarette; he didn’t look at her as she came in.
‘Look,’ she said tentatively, ‘we should talk. There’s—’
‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ he said, ‘not now. Just leave me alone, please.’
She left him.
She woke up very early, feeling cold, surprised she had slept at all; she got up and went to find him. He was in the spare room, fast asleep, several cigarettes in the ashtray by his bed, and an empty glass. She left him, went downstairs, tidied the house, fed the dogs and Flossie.
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