The Hearts That Hold

by Rosie Clarke

  ‘Emma …’ I glanced up as Pam came to the door of the sitting room. She looked at me apologetically. ‘I’m sorry to trouble you – but these flowers arrived for you. I thought you might like to see them before I put them in water.’

  Pam was one of my closest friends these days. She was some years older than me, a quiet, pleasant woman who had come to live with us after her husband was killed during the war. I relied on her for so much. She lived as a part of the family, and did anything that needed doing, usually without being asked. I knew she helped Mrs Rowan with the house quite a lot, saving the housekeeper all kinds of small tasks, and she was always there to lend a hand with the children or act as an unofficial secretary for me.

  She was carrying a large and very beautiful bouquet of lilies and roses. They had clearly come from an expensive store and were slightly ostentatious.

  ‘There’s a card here,’ she said, offering the flowers for me to smell their perfume.

  ‘Thank you.’ I took the card and looked at the message. The flowers were to thank me for my help in selecting an order, which had apparently been successful, and had come from one of the regular customers at the showroom. He owned a large department store in London, and was a wealthy man. He had been showing a lot of interest in me recently, though he was well aware that I was married. ‘Put them in water if you will, Pam. I’ll write a thank you note to Philip later.’

  ‘Don’t put him off, Emma,’ Sol said with a grin as Pam carried the flowers away with her. ‘Philip Matthews is one of our best customers. His order gives us a lot of prestige in the trade. We don’t want to lose him.’

  ‘I don’t know why he keeps sending flowers,’ I said and sighed. ‘That’s the third time this year. He must know I’m married. I’ve spoken to him about Jon many times.’

  ‘You’re far too attractive,’ Sol said, a hint of amusement in his voice. He had aged a little since Margaret’s death, but although almost fifty now was still very attractive himself, with smoky grey eyes and wiry hair that had gone a kind of rusty colour with grey streaks at the temples. It made him look worldly, a man of experience who turned heads wherever he went. ‘You can’t blame a man like Matthews for trying in the circumstances. You don’t look or sound married, Emma.’

  I said nothing, but in my heart I acknowledged the truth of what Sol was saying. My marriage had been in name only for a long time. Jon and I had slept in the same bed on a few occasions, but there had been nothing but kisses and a loving embrace between us. As far as I knew, Jon still believed that his inability to be a proper husband to me was temporary and would change once we were living together as man and wife.

  I knew it was unlikely. His doctor had made it clear to me from the start that the severe injuries Jon had received in the sabotage attack, which had gone wrong, had damaged him. There was always the chance that his body might mend itself, but it was only a chance.

  In a way we had both been damaged, for during the war I had been concerned that I had not conceived my lover’s child and visited a specialist. I had been told it was not impossible that I would have another baby one day, but because of some internal scarring after the premature birth of my son, it was unlikely.

  That had caused me some grief, because at the time I had believed Jon was dead, and I had been planning to marry Jack Harvey at the end of the war. It was, however, something I had learned to live with and made little difference to me these days. Jon could never give me a child, and there was no one else in my life now.

  It was not for want of offers. Philip Matthews was not the only man who had shown an interest in me these past few years. Most of the customers at the showroom, where I still worked from time to time, knew that my husband was an invalid. I had been asked out to dinner or the theatre on many occasions, and some men, like Philip, took every excuse to send me flowers or small gifts.

  I had refused them all with a smile and a small joke. It was not that I disliked Philip. He was a good-looking man with fair hair and soft blue eyes, and his manner was always gentle. Had I been a widow, I suppose I might have been tempted to accept some of the invitations I received, though there was only one man I would ever truly want.

  ‘What do you think of this costume?’ Sol asked. ‘It’s not so very different from one we already make – except for the length of the skirt.’

  ‘The jacket has longer cuffs, which give it that extra style,’ I said. ‘But you are right. It is almost the same.’

  We exchanged smiles. Of all my friends, Sol was the one I always went to when I was in trouble. He knew my secrets, my hopes and fears – even those I tried to keep private. There was nothing about my past that was not an open book to him.

  Sol knew there had been four men in my life: Paul Greenslade, who was my son’s father; Richard Gillows, my first husband; Jack Harvey and Jon – but Jack was the one who had given me the greatest happiness.

  Sometimes, when I was alone at night, and my body ached for his touch, I almost regretted my decision not to go with him to America – but then when I saw Jon again, the tenderness I felt for him came flooding back, and I knew I could never have been happy if I had deserted him when he needed me so desperately.

  Jon was a dear friend. I had known him long before I met Jack. He had been there when I needed him, when I was tied to a man I could never love and utterly miserable. He had given me money and hope, hope that I would one day escape to a better life. I would always be grateful to him for his gentleness and kindness, and in my own way I loved him very much.

  I shuffled my papers and sighed, wondering why I could not settle to my work.

  ‘Something wrong, Emma?’ Sol asked, sensing my restless mood.

  I shook my head, unable to explain why I was haunted by thoughts of the past that morning.

  Jon’s face looked much better now than it had when I first saw him in the hospital. He had been injured while working with the resistance movement in France during the war. He would always bear the scars of his wounds, of course, but his mother was able to look at him now without going into hysterics – which she had on that terrible afternoon she first saw the burns.

  I was fetching him home at the weekend, and if all went well he would not have to go back to the hospital that had been home to him for so many months. He would be free at last to live a normal life, or as normal as was possible for Jon.

  He was conscious of the scars, of course, even though they were so much better than they had been at the start, but he was aware that people still stared when they saw him in the street. It was something he had accepted for my sake, because he loved me and he wanted to try living the way we had before he was injured. We had been to the theatre once during his visits home, and to the pictures, but I knew he preferred to stay home and listen to the wireless in the evenings.

  He was always happiest with a book, sitting quietly in his own room – or walking in the countryside. Sometimes, I took him away for the weekend, and that was when he felt most relaxed, away from people and noise. I knew that eventually I might have to consider buying a house in the country.

  It would present no problems as far as money was concerned. Jon had a small income of his own, which would have supported us had we needed it, but I was earning many times what he received. I supposed that now my businesses were running so smoothly I need not work myself, but without my work I would have had too much time to think.

  ‘You’re far away, Emma,’ Sol said, recalling me to the task in hand when I had been silent for some minutes. ‘Still thinking about Jon? About fetching him home?’

  ‘Yes.’ I smiled at him. He could usually read my thoughts. ‘I was thinking things might have to change soon, Sol. I may have to buy a house in the country.’

  He nodded, his expression serious. ‘Make sure it has a good mainline station near by, Emma. You’ll want somewhere not too far away so that you can pop up to town when you like.’

  ‘Yes.’ I had known Sol would understand me. ‘I wouldn’t want to be too far away
…’

  I had been turning the pages of my newspaper idly. Suddenly, a face from the past was staring up at me. I read the accompanying article aloud.

  ‘Mrs Sheila Jansen, wife of the popular American jazz singer Todd Jansen, was having tea at the Ritz yesterday. She is in the country to visit old friends and make arrangements for her husband’s concert tour next month …’

  Sol looked at me as I finished reading. He knew what was in my mind. ‘You’re afraid she might try to take Lizzy from us?’ I nodded, staring at him in apprehension. He reached forward and patted my hand. ‘Don’t worry about it, Emma. If she had wanted the girl, she would have been in contact with us before this.’

  ‘I hope you’re right, Sol. James and Lizzy are inseparable. I don’t know what they would do if they were parted.’

  ‘I can’t see Sheila wanting to take her.’ Sol frowned as he saw the distress I was feeling. ‘Her husband doesn’t know she had a child, does he?’

  ‘He didn’t know,’ I said, swallowing hard. My throat was dry and I was really upset. ‘But supposing she comes here? Supposing she does want her daughter back?’

  ‘Then we’ll fight her,’ Sol said. ‘You still have the letter she sent when she gave Lizzy to you?’

  ‘Yes … but I can’t do that, Sol. I love Lizzy, but she is Sheila’s daughter. She gave her up because she had a chance of a new life with Todd. You can see that things have gone well for her – she looks marvellous. She’s wearing the New Look, and not a copy either. She must have bought that in Paris. Jane told me that Todd was doing well, but I hadn’t realized he was as successful as all that – though I know he’s a good singer.’

  ‘All the more reason for her to hang on to what she’s got with him,’ Sol said. ‘If she comes, it will probably be just to see Lizzy. Believe me, Emma. That woman is as selfish as they come. There is no way she would risk her comfortable lifestyle for Lizzy’s sake.’

  Sol had never liked Sheila, and perhaps he had good reason. We had always been friends, though she had been jealous of my success for a while after her own attempt at shop keeping had failed at the start of the war. By the way she looked in the photograph, she had no need to be jealous of me now. Todd was obviously giving her everything she had ever hoped for.

  All I could do was pray that she didn’t want Lizzy back!

  Chapter 2

  ‘You made it in time then?’ Sarah Miller whispered as I took the seat next to her in the school assembly hall a few minutes after the concert had begun. ‘I’m so glad.’

  ‘Me too. I wouldn’t have missed this for the world.’

  ‘Doesn’t he look wonderful?’ Sarah whispered as James came to the front of the stage.

  ‘Yes. Wonderful.’

  I was so proud of my son.

  My eyes filled with tears as I listened to James singing the beautiful hymn. Where had his talent come from? No one in my father’s family that I knew of had a singing voice, nor my mother’s. So perhaps he had inherited it from Paul?

  Thinking of Paul renewed my fears about Sheila’s intentions. There had been a time towards the end of the war when I had feared that Paul would try to take James from me, though my fears had proved groundless. It would have been difficult for him, because James’s name had been changed to Reece when I agreed to marry Jon. My husband had been a lawyer before the war, and changing James’s name was one of the first of many things he had done to protect us.

  Neither of us had wanted James to bear the name of my first husband, because Richard Gillows had been a self-confessed murderer. Nor had we wanted James to have his true father’s name.

  I was not certain what James thought of Jon. When he first visited us after the war, on a rare break from the hospital, I had introduced him as my husband, explaining privately to James that he had been away fighting for a long time.

  James had protested that he wanted his daddy back, but I had told him that was impossible. Jack Harvey had returned to America and we had to stay here. Whether or not James had vaguely remembered Jon from before the war was impossible to say. Just how much could a child of a year or so remember?

  He had never spoken of Jon as his daddy, but to my relief James had accepted my husband when he came to the house. He had not screamed or made a fuss when he saw Jon’s face, merely taking the mutilations in his stride. He had never been affectionate towards Jon, but treated him with the same kind of politeness he would show a stranger.

  His school had taught him that. As a small child he had often screamed and kicked up a fuss to gain his own way, and I was not sure he had ever forgiven me for sending Jack away. He never spoke of that night in late 1944, when he’d crept down from his nursery to hear us quarrelling, but I knew he had not forgotten the man he had called Daddy.

  James had long outgrown the pedal car Jack had once bought him as a Christmas gift, but he refused to be parted from it. I sometimes wondered if he remembered the promise Jack had made him to return just for his sake one day.

  I thought the enforced parting from the man he adored might be one of the main reasons behind his attitude towards me at times. James loved me as I loved him, but there were moments when I felt that perhaps he did not quite trust me.

  I tried hard to show him that I loved him more than anyone, but I was not always able to give him as much of my time as he needed. Lizzy never seemed to resent it when I had to work, though of course as much as I loved her she was not my own child. She remembered another life – a life that had been much less pleasant – and she was always grateful for whatever I gave her.

  But I was allowing my mind to drift from my son’s performance. Sarah and I both clapped enthusiastically as James finished his song and went back to stand with the other performers.

  ‘He was so nervous,’ Sarah whispered. ‘But he pretended not to be.’

  I wiped the tears from my eyes as the applause for James’s singing reverberated round the hall. He looked such a little angel. No one would believe that this was the same child who had recently put a frog in Mrs Rowan’s bed!

  She had made such a fuss! I had had to punish both Lizzy – who insisted she was the culprit until James owned up – and my son, by cancelling a trip to the pictures for them both. It had been a Laurel and Hardy film, which they had both been looking forward to seeing. I had regretted having to discipline them but it had had to be done. However, I was going to give them a special treat this afternoon, and perhaps we could go to the cinema another day, during their summer holidays.

  The concert was to celebrate the end of term, and most of the children who could sing were performing.

  Sarah touched my arm. ‘It’s Lizzy’s turn now. She looks so pretty – but very nervous.’

  A woman behind made a shushing noise and Sarah pulled a face, subsiding into silence.

  Lizzy was singing in the chorus. Her voice was not remarkable, but she made up in enthusiasm for what she lacked in tunefulness. I had chosen this particular school because it accepted both girls and boys, but the time was coming when they would have to go to separate schools. I did not look forward to the day I had to part them.

  What was I going to do if Sheila wanted her daughter back?

  Sol and my mother had both warned me that this might happen one day. I had dismissed their fears at the time, but now I was beginning to worry. Lizzy had become so dear to me that I would miss her terribly – but not as much as my son. He would be devastated, and so would Lizzy.

  The concert was over now. I got up and moved to join the other parents who were claiming their children. Mr Smithson, the children’s head teacher, came up to me, his face wreathed in smiles.

  ‘You must be very proud of James, Mrs Reece?’

  ‘Yes, I am. Very proud.’

  ‘I am so glad you could come this time. You missed the last concert, and that was such a shame.’

  ‘Unfortunately, I was working.’

  He nodded, but I caught the disapproval in his eyes. Obviously he did not approve of mothers
who worked, not now that it was no longer our patriotic duty, though it had been very different during the war of course. Jon’s mother held much the same opinion. Dorothy was always hinting that she thought I ought to give up work now and devote myself full-time to looking after my husband and the children, but that was something I was not prepared to do, despite my devotion to them.

  Lizzy and James ran towards me.

  ‘Did you see me, Mum?’

  ‘Emmie – wasn’t James good?’

  ‘Yes, darlings. I saw you both and you were both wonderful.’

  ‘Lizzy was scared but I wasn’t,’ James boasted.

  ‘Can we have ice cream, Emmie?

  ‘Yes, I should think so, darling.’

  I nodded to Mr Smithson and took the children by the hand. Their chattering was relentless throughout the car journey, and tea, which we had at Lyons, because they preferred it to a hotel, where they felt they had to be quiet.

  We had rolls of vanilla ice cream, little cream cakes, tea for Sarah and me, and fizzy orangeade for the children. It was a happy occasion, and I indulged their liveliness, even though I noticed one or two matrons giving me a rather jaundiced look.

  Well-brought-up children were not supposed to be quite as noisy as my two, but I didn’t see why they shouldn’t enjoy themselves. Perhaps they were spoiled, but I loved them both so much that I did not like to curb their natural excitement – though I stopped James when he started flicking the paper from his ice cream across the table at Lizzy.

  ‘That’s enough of that, darling,’ I said. ‘It’s time we went home now.’

  They protested that they wanted to go to the park, but I did not give in. The wind was cool that afternoon, and Lizzy was prone to chills if we were not careful. Besides, I had some work to do. I had given up the afternoon to attend the concert, but I would have to make up for it by working on my figures that evening.

  ‘Mum … can we go to the seaside this summer?’ James asked as I opened the car door for them to pile in. ‘Pam said her sister would have us for a week – but I would like to stay in a hotel this time, or somewhere different. Like the place we went with Jack that year …’