by Lizzie Lane
Charlotte enthused, ‘I did so enjoy being with you today. Let me give you my address and telephone number.’
She pushed a piece of paper into Edna’s hand. ‘Besides,’ she added with a gleaming smile, ‘the rate Geoffrey is going on with that aeroplane, it’ll be in bits shortly and I shall have to buy another. I really would like another for Christmas. I do hope Colin can oblige. Now you will get in touch, won’t you?’ She gave no one the chance to refuse. Perfectly plucked eyebrows arched above calm grey eyes. Her mouth, still shiny red with lipstick, smiled expectantly. A reply was called for, but only in the affirmative. Charlotte, Edna thought, was not the sort to take ‘no’ for an answer.
Yet Edna liked her. Charlotte really did mean what she said. She smiled up at her, Charlotte’s height and refined features making her more aware of her own lack of stature and her moon-shaped face. ‘Of course I will.’
With a flurry of fur coat, Charlotte got back into her car and started it up. Polly slid into the passenger seat.
Edna waved as she thoughtfully watched the black saloon go off down the hill that would eventually connect with St John’s Lane. She glanced down at Charlotte’s address. Clifton! She might have guessed. High above the Avon Gorge where the river ran sluggishly to the sea. And high above the rest of us, she thought with an amused smile as she curled her fingers over the piece of paper, meaning to throw it into the gutter where it would rot away with what remained of the autumn leaves. But she stopped herself from doing that as a thought came to her. Mrs Charlotte Hennessey-White lived in an elegant Georgian crescent and was wealthy enough to own a car. And yet Edna had the distinct impression she was lonely. That was why she was so involved in doing good works and suchlike. Either that or she was plain nosy and liked interfering in other people’s lives. Why else would she bother with the likes of her?
Just when she was thinking about joining Colin and putting on a brave face, a shadow fell on the pavement and across her feet.
‘You didn’t let the cat out of the bag, did you?’ Ethel Burbage’s eyes darted over the buzzing crowd just in case anyone was more interested in what she was saying than in the homecoming Colin. ‘Imagine what people would think. And the embarrassment it would cause to your father. Well, his job at the corporation does depend on a respectable reputation you know.’
‘I didn’t say anything,’ Edna replied, swallowing the guilt she always felt when her mother reminded her of what she had done. ‘Colin’s lost his legs,’ she added softly.
‘I know. It’s very sad.’ She sounded genuinely concerned. But Edna knew her mother well. Even now she was thinking how best to turn even this dire situation to advantage. At last she said, ‘Then he’ll be glad you’ve waited for him and isn’t too likely to listen to any gossip.’
‘What gossip? No one knows.’
She tapped her arm with a hard bony finger. ‘No. And you’ve me to thank for that, my girl. But I have to say, even if he does find out, he’s in no position to be too choosy. After all, who else is going to marry a man with no legs?’
Except a fallen woman, thought Edna, and felt her face flush as it always did when her mother hinted at what she was and what her son was. But she wouldn’t dare voice her thoughts.
Eyeing the laughing crowd who were gathered around Colin, listening as he told them stories of his ‘heroic’ exploits, Edna asked her mother the same nagging question she asked every time one of the parcels arrived and was forwarded on. ‘How is he?’
The reply was terse. ‘He’s being well taken care of. That’s all you need to know.’
But it wasn’t all she needed to know. Much as it might hurt, much as it might threaten her own good name, Edna made herself a promise that she would go to see her son herself. Colin need never know.
Chapter Four
IT WAS HER husband’s first night home and Charlotte was feeling far more apprehensive about his return than she’d expected.
The children were in bed. David had insisted they go at eight o’clock although Charlotte had told him it was a little too early. Then she’d recognised the glint in his eyes, and felt a pink flush warm her cheeks as she remembered the feel of the black hairs of his chest against her bare flesh. But her personal needs were secondary to those of the children. At present they were in awe of this man who they only half remembered as someone they were supposed to respect and even love. Charlotte told herself that it was just a case of getting used to him again. He’d been away and seen goodness knows what horrors. Some of those images he must have brought home with him. His eyes were bright rather than warm and she sensed an unfamiliar tension in him. She told herself not to be silly and forced herself to be jolly. She asked him about Polly, the girl at the station, and the fact that she’d been in his arms before she’d got there. It was only meant to be a joke, yet his looks had darkened. She had laughed and told him so and he calmed down, yet she sensed the tension had not gone away.
Because of this, she decided not to question his orders. He was her husband and they were together for the first time since his last leave in nineteen forty-three.
‘Is he really my daddy?’ Geoffrey asked when she tucked him in and kissed him goodnight.
‘Of course he is,’ said Charlotte.
Geoffrey bit his lower lip, which he always did when he was confused or slightly nervous. ‘I don’t want him to kiss me goodnight. Not yet. He’s not going to, is he?’
It was a bit like discovering a time bomb in Paradise. Everything was supposed to be perfect once the war was over.
She managed to smile and spoke as reassuringly as she could. ‘Not tonight anyway. He has only just come home from overseas and he is terribly tired.’
Closing the door of Geoffrey’s room behind her, she turned towards her own bedroom. David was standing in their bedroom doorway, his shirt undone, his cuffs hanging loose. Despite his casual appearance, he still looked smooth, every inch the professional.
‘Aren’t they a little old for you still to be kissing them goodnight?’ He sounded impatient. It wasn’t like him.
Charlotte forced herself to remain calm, to pretend that it was nineteen thirty-nine again and he’d just come home from his consulting rooms on the edge of Durdham Downs.
She smiled as if everything was exactly as she’d expected it to be. ‘They’re still children,’ she said brightly, averting her eyes from the clenched jaw and the unfamiliar darkness she saw in his eyes. ‘I’ll just settle Janet down. It’s been an exciting day for all of us, darling.’
He stared at her as though she had spoken in a foreign language and for a moment a sickening tightness gripped at her stomach. What was the matter with him? He’d never had so brusque a manner before. The moment passed. With a grunt, he turned and disappeared into the bedroom. Give him time, she told herself. He just needs time.
Janet was looking out of her bedroom window. ‘It’s strange to see lights in the windows,’ she said.
‘Into bed,’ said Charlotte, pulling back the bedclothes. ‘The war’s over, your father’s home and there’s a new world in the morning.’
Janet continued to stare out of the window. ‘I think I preferred the old one even though it was pitch black at night.’
‘Only because it included Betty Grable, red lipstick and drooling American soldiers.’ Firmly but gently, Charlotte took her daughter by the shoulders and guided her towards the bed with its walnut headboard and dark pink eiderdown. Janet looked at her mother wide-eyed with innocent surprise, then sighed and pulled the bedclothes high over her head. Charlotte heard a muffled ‘They were fun’, before she turned off the light and closed the door.
Taking a breather outside her daughter’s room she nervously patted the mane of chestnut hair she was so proud of and David had always admired. It was piled into a crocheted black snood, fastened with ivory pins adorned with butterfly wings. Butterflies were far more abundant in her stomach, tickling her insides and sending nervous shivers down her spine. ‘Don’t be so foolish,’ she
said to herself. ‘He’s your husband. Nothing’s changed. Absolutely nothing.’
So far they had not talked about the action he’d seen. She had decided to let him do the talking all in his own good time. For now it was down to basic things.
Like a virgin on her wedding night, Charlotte made her way along the landing, her footsteps soundless against the pastel pinks and greens of a Chinese runner and her heart hammering in her chest.
She had expected David to be in bed, or at least to be waiting to take her into his arms. Instead he was looking into the top drawer of a serpentine chest and taking out items of her underwear, her stockings, her briefs, and her slips. She closed the door behind her and, puzzled, leaned against it and managed a tight smile.
‘What are you doing, darling?’
He turned round, a pair of sheer nylon stockings hanging from both hands. ‘Where did you get these?’
She laughed, walked across the room and took the stockings from him and bent down to put them back in the drawer. ‘I was one of the lucky ones. I had friends in the right …’
His hands were suddenly like claws on her shoulders. He spun her round to face him.
‘American friends! I heard about them. “While you British are fighting, the Americans are taking care of your wives!” That’s what German radio told us.’
As he shook her, her carefully prepared hairstyle fell out of its confines and tumbled about her shoulders.
‘You’ve got it wrong!’ she said through clenched teeth, mindful not to wake the children. ‘My friends were Americans in the Red Cross and they were women!’
Her legs felt weak. He was glaring down at her, his eyes wide, his pupils seeming a different colour from how she remembered them; not dark brown any more, but burgundy, almost red.
‘I hope you remembered your marriage vows!’ he growled.
Not one blink. She held his glare although her legs were weak and her mouth was dry.
‘Of course I did!’ Her voice was low but emphatic. She stared into his eyes. There was no need for her to say more. She wouldn’t – she couldn’t – ask him the same question yet it was there, waiting to be asked, waiting to be answered. In that moment she wanted to turn back the clock and be alone with the children again. Perhaps he guessed what she was feeling.
‘You’re my wife,’ he blurted as if that explained everything.
He cupped her face in his hands. His kiss was hard on her lips, his need of a shave prickly against her skin.
Despite the fact that he had almost accused her of being unfaithful, she had to forgive him. He’d seen sights no civilised man should ever see. So she returned his kiss.
‘You’re my wife,’ he said again, his tone low and demanding.
‘I am,’ she said, then bit her lip with shocked surprise as he tore at her dress. There was a series of popping sounds as all the buttons down the front snapped off or tore away from the material.
She tried to make for the bed, but he grabbed at her wrists and pushed her back into the alcove at the side of the fireplace.
‘I want you here.’
‘No! We always …’
She winced as he slammed her back against the wall. She froze, unable to move because she could hardly believe that this was her husband and she was allowing him to do this. But what else could she do? For now she had to bear it. That’s what she told herself as he pulled her breasts from her bra and ripped the crotch of her briefs to one side.
He grunted as he thrust himself into her. She tried to pretend that it wasn’t happening. She squeezed her eyes shut, turned her head away and lay her chin upon her shoulder. She put up with it – but only for tonight she vowed. Only for tonight.
She lay in the darkness afterwards, a chill gap in the bed between his body and hers. What had happened to make him behave like this? She turned and gazed at the outline of his body against the meagre light filtering in from the arched street lamp out in the crescent.
Physically her husband was home, but part of him was still among the dead and dying in the midst of a bloody battle. What had he seen there to make him take her like that? How could a professional man, a doctor, change so much?
It had once been Charlotte’s ambition to be a doctor herself, to escape from the society circuit already allotted to her by birth.
Unlike David, born in Bath to a family who owned a sizeable estate on the outskirts of the city, she had been born in Kensington, daughter of a high-ranking civil servant who had been knighted at the end of the Great War and accepted into the echelons of higher society.
Charlotte had gone to a girls’ boarding school where it was noted she was a good organiser possessing maturity beyond her years. Her height, her grey eyes and her beautifully arched brows gave her a serene look. It was to her that the girls came to air their problems with parents, teachers, lessons and, most of all, with the emotional problems that all young girls have.
Being wise to herself as well as for others, it occurred to her that she enjoyed this sort of thing so it seemed only sensible that she should enter some sort of career where she could put those skills to some use. That was why she’d considered becoming a doctor. In her final year at school she applied for the famous teaching hospital, St Bart’s, but to her horror was told that there were fewer places for women than for men. To some extent, even in the twentieth century, women were still regarded as an eccentricity in the medical establishment, and the few that were accepted tended to be bluestockings who had already fought their way through university.
Her parents were greatly relieved that her dream was never realised. Working for a living was not what they had planned for her. They wanted her to be a debutante not a doctor. Besides, she didn’t need to earn money. The family had plenty. It seemed everything was against her, but Charlotte was not the sort to sit back, look pretty, and wait for Mr Right to come along. The same friend who had told her how to apply for a teaching hospital now asked her if she’d like to do hospital visiting in connection with WRVS and the Red Cross. Charlotte accepted and thus found herself listening to people’s problems, medical and otherwise.
Pouring out endless cups of tea, reading to those who’d recently had eye operations, pushing wheelchairs, and even comforting those who’d just been told their loved one was dead. It was all grist to the mill.
It was at Bart’s that she’d met David, a star even as a young doctor about to take his finals.
He was the epitome of what a doctor should be – tall, dark and handsome with a wonderful bedside manner. Women were drawn to him. Even when Charlotte was on his arm, she was aware of admiring glances and easily able to guess at the fantasies occurring behind the lowered lashes.
Strangely enough, she’d never felt jealous. On the contrary, she’d been pleased that others admired the man she loved. It made marrying him seem all the more worthwhile.
Their marriage had always been good, even after the children had come along and his private practice in Bristol became ever busier. His partners took over his workload when he declared his intention to go to war. He needn’t have gone. Doctors, of course, were a reserved occupation.
A regency house in Royal York Crescent, Clifton became their home. On Sundays, in that far-off peacetime, they had walked on Durdham Downs, a vast expanse of grassland bequeathed to the city by wealthy benefactors. From there they would gaze in awe at the Clifton Suspension Bridge, nearly one hundred years old and spanning the three-hundred-foot drop of the Avon Gorge.
The children had kept her busy, and although David had been adamant that they should attend boarding school he relented when she threw a tantrum that was completely out of character. To his mind children attending day school was at least worth his wife’s happiness though, unknown to him, she still had trouble finding enough useful things to do to fill her days. The war had changed that. She hadn’t told David all that she had done and all she intended to do. She had, of course, outlined some of her activities in her letters, but not all, just the things she thou
ght might lift his spirits and let him know she was doing her bit.
Even though she had been beside herself with excitement at the thought of his return, she had feared telling him that she intended pursuing a career, the roots of which had been put down in the war years.
Now he was home and she wasn’t sure she knew him any more. In the drabness of a December dawn she watched him sleeping and tried to remember how he would have reacted to her plans before the war. It would have definitely caused a scene but he would have attempted to understand. She knew that much. But how would he react now? He had got used to giving orders, to being in charge. And he expected those orders to be obeyed. The horrors he’d seen on the battlefields could only be guessed at. But at least he was physically fit. Perhaps the fact that he had ravished her was purely because he had only just arrived home. She squeezed her eyes shut and wished it were so. He’s not been with a woman for a long time, she told herself.
In the morning she presumed she was the first up and was just about to go along to the bathroom when she noticed that a draught was blowing up the stairs. Leaning over the mahogany banister rail, she saw that the front door was ajar. The bathroom would have to wait. Either someone had got in or someone had gone out. It had to be one of the children.
The garden was shrouded in a damp mist that made greens look grey and left the stoutest of plants limply hanging their heads.
She shivered, wrapping her dressing gown tightly around her while deciding who had found it necessary to venture forth at this hour.
Her daughter was prime suspect. Janet was young and her enthusiasm for young American soldiers had known no bounds from the first moment they’d given her gum, chocolate, and then stockings as her tastes and her looks developed.
GIs were encouraged to rise early by sergeant majors who took pride – and sadistic pleasure – in tipping men out of warm beds and into a damp dawn. But there weren’t too many of them around nowadays. Those that weren’t mopping up in Europe and the Far East were waiting for ships to take them home.