The Listening Silence

by Marie Joseph

  When she helped Christine into the back of the taxi she saw that the colour had come back into her cheeks. Christine still looked terribly ill, but as she gave her address to the driver Sally sensed that some of her old arrogance was seeping back.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ Sally offered, but, sunk deep into the voluminous coat, Christine moved her head slowly from side to side.

  ‘No, thank you. I’ll be fine. Really.’ As if suddenly remembering Sally’s deafness she lifted her head and repeated the words, moving her mouth in an exaggerated way. ‘I’ll be fine. Thank you for helping me. Thank you.’

  ‘I’ll see to her, chuck.’ The driver, a man in his sixties, with grizzled hair and a noble Jesus profile, grinned at Sally. ‘I’ve had four of my own. I’ll see she’s okay.’

  Nodding, Sally stepped back, the packet of soap flakes still clutched to her chest. She lifted her free hand to wave, but Christine stared straight ahead, a bright wing of hair falling over her averted face.

  It was snowing in earnest now, thick flakes falling like feathers from a leaden sky. At the tram stop, joining the long queue, Sally moved the precious packet to a place of safety inside her coat. Her mind was in a turmoil as she accepted the truth of what she had only half suspected. Obediently she shuffled forward with the women with shopping-bags and the workers going home from their morning stint in factories and shops.

  Sally moved like a clockwork toy, shut away in her silent world, seeing and remembering her brother’s face that May morning after the bomb had dropped down the road killing David Turner’s mother. Almost without realizing what she was doing, she closed her umbrella as her part of the queue moved underneath the tram shelter. In spite of everything, there had been a look of uncontrollable joy on John’s face that morning. As if he had been to heaven and was finding it hard to come down to earth once again. Sally frowned and chewed her lips. She suddenly wanted to weep for him. Right there in the pushing crowd she wanted to cry her pain aloud, but she could not do that, not here and now. So she stared dumbly in front of her, the snow blowing in on her face, pricking her cheeks and stippling her eyelashes.

  ‘Christine is my girl now,’ John had whispered. ‘We’re going to be married when this lot’s over. Be nice to her for my sake, our kid.’

  Sally pushed her way onto the boarding platform of the tram. All the seats were taken, but it didn’t matter. Standing in the gangway, fumbling in her handbag for her fare, her mind was filled with a growing sense of unreality. She bowed her head, the certainty of what she had once only suspected frightening the heart out of her. There wasn’t a single coherent thought in her head, only the truth shouting itself aloud.

  Christine had given herself away. Christine’s baby was John’s baby. Sally did not need to do sums on her fingers to know that. Her brother was dead, but soon his child would be born. It was a suspicion and a secret she had to keep for ever. It was immeasurably sad; sad and yet wonderful. Sally suddenly felt as if her beloved brother was still alive. She bowed her head, the force of her emotions overwhelming in their intensity.

  When she let herself into the house, Josie was in the hall, a hand on the bannister rail, one foot on the bottom stair. Her hair, showing an inch of undyed brown roots, hung uncurled round her small face. Her wrists were still bandaged, and there was an air of such desolation about her that Sally hurried forward, holding out the packet of soap flakes, offering them with love, willing even a single spark of pleasure into her mother’s blank stare.

  ‘See! They’re Lux! If we’re careful they should last us for ages.’ She started to unbutton her coat, shrugging it off and holding it away from her. ‘I’ll go and shake it at the door. The snow’s sticking, and the wind’s that cold even my goosepimples have goosepimples!’

  It wasn’t much of a joke, but it was a try. Sally held out her hand. ‘Don’t go upstairs, Mum. Come and talk to me while I’m eating my dinner. You can go for your rest afterwards.’ She covered the hand on the bannister rail with her own. ‘Would you like me to do your hair this afternoon? You can tell me what to do. I promise I won’t let you turn green or anything. Mum?’

  Josie slid her hand away and started to climb the stairs. Half-way up she turned her eyes full of a terrible accusation on her daughter.

  ‘Mum? What’s happened?’ Sally started to follow, but Josie waved her back.

  ‘Sometimes somebody comes back from the dead. You think they’re dead and one day there’s a knock at the door, an’ when you answer it they’re standing there.’ She turned her back, climbing the stairs like a woman of eighty with an arthritic hip. ‘But then it’s not your son. An’ you know it will never be your son.’ Her voice was flat and final. ‘It can never be your son, because he’s dead. Proper dead. Proper dead!’

  Sally opened the door of the living-room, and then felt as if her heart had stopped.

  ‘Hello there, Sally!’ The tall man in Air Force uniform smiled, coming towards her with hands outstretched.

  ‘David!’ Sally closed her eyes to stop the floor coming up to meet her. ‘David Turner! I’m dreaming! I have to be!’

  There were the lines of hardship and deprivation on his thin face, and as he talked Sally saw the shyness was still there. It was a reserve so alien to Lee’s frank way of speaking, so different from Lee’s jokey way of expressing himself, that Sally found herself for the first ten minutes comparing the one to the other. Then she hated herself for the comparison.

  ‘All this time, David.’ She sat opposite him, smiling, wanting to go on smiling. ‘It’s unbelievable. So wonderful. Oh, I can’t tell you how wonderful it is just to see you sitting there.’

  ‘And you,’ he said. She saw him glance at her left hand. ‘Your mother told me you were going to be married.’ He looked away, then, as if remembering, turned back to face her again. ‘He’s a lucky man.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Sally suddenly felt the tall young airman’s shyness affecting her. ‘Lee is an American,’ she said stiffly. ‘From Texas.’

  They were silent for a while, then David said gently: ‘I am sorry about John. Your mother told me.’ He hitched at the crease in his trousers. ‘She’s taken it very hard.’ He swallowed. ‘Well, of course she has. That was a stupid thing to say. What I mean is, she is very …’

  ‘Bitter,’ Sally said at once. ‘She cut her wrists, David. It wasn’t just a cry for help. She really wanted to die.’ She moved restlessly in her chair. ‘My mother has changed. It will be a long time before she can accept anyone else’s happiness.’

  ‘I saw that in her face when she opened the door.’

  ‘Yes, you would.’ Sally tucked a stray curl behind an ear. ‘Oh, David, I can’t tell you how marvellous it is, you coming back like this. I was so sure I would never see you again.’

  ‘Bad pennies always turn up.’ David looked down at his shoes. ‘There were times when I doubted it myself, I can tell you.’

  ‘Tell me what happened.’ Sally felt the familiar sense of unease as David glanced quickly towards the door. Was it the telephone in the hall? Someone at the door? David caught the look of uncertainty on her face and felt again the almost forgotten impulse to cherish this small vulnerable girl. He spoke quickly and clearly to reassure her.

  ‘It must have been next door. I thought I heard a noise, but your father is out on Home Guard duty, so your mother says.’ He smiled. ‘It’s okay. I was mistaken. It’s nothing.’

  ‘Then tell me,’ Sally said once again, and her face took on its listening look, so familiar to him.

  ‘Well, I baled out over Belgium, then I was hidden in a hayloft by a farmer and his family.’ David stretched out his left leg to the fire, flexing the injured muscles. ‘My leg was broken and I had a head wound, and a fever, so they kept me hidden until I could walk.’

  ‘And then?’ It was like getting blood out of a flamin’ stone, Sally thought, with a sudden warming feeling of pure affection.

  ‘I left the farm,’ David said simply. ‘I walked through the nigh
t, then I was picked up – that was where the miracle came in – by a loyal Belgian who was a member of the Resistance.’ He paused, remembering the terrifying moments when he had stumbled across the stubble field, dragging his injured leg behind him, not knowing whether he was following friend or foe. ‘I didn’t know it then, but I was in for a long bout of pneumonia, and without drugs of any kind I was ill for a long time.’ He touched his forehead where a long scar, faded now to a purple weal, stood out against the pallor of his skin. ‘I was almost over the pneumonia when this got infected somehow, and it didn’t help when they were forced to keep moving me on from one hiding-place to another.’

  He shook his head slowly from side to side. ‘Sally … I know we’ve had the bombing here, but we don’t know, believe me we don’t know, what they are suffering over there. We have to rescue them. Somehow, sometime, when the time is right we have to go in force and liberate them. Their bravery is …’ He lifted his hands. ‘Oh, God, it’s indescribable! As far as I know, not one family paid the price for helping me, but then I wouldn’t know. They kept moving me on, even once when I was delirious. I remember being hidden underneath a load of manure in a farm cart.’ He grinned. ‘Not to be recommended for someone running a high temperature.’

  ‘Then eventually …?’

  ‘Eventually I was taken by train, believe it or not, down through Vichy France, then to the Spanish border. Over the mountain passes by a Spanish guide, on to Lisbon, and home.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Last week. I spent a week being medically examined, questioned, then leave.’ He smoothed the back of one hand with the fingers of the other. ‘I should have written to you, but I wanted to … well, I wanted to surprise you. And anyway,’ he added quickly, ‘I had to come back to see to things here, about the house. You know.’

  It was hard having to look at her all the time. It was almost impossible to keep the truth hidden when grey eyes searched your face all the time. David desperately wanted to get up and walk away from her. Just for a moment, maybe to stare through the window – anything. She had been in his thoughts every waking minute. He had imagined the day when he would turn up out of the blue at her door. Her eyes would widen, she would come into his arms, he would hold her away from him and tell her how the memory of her had kept him sane. There would be no more holding back. Francine had made him see that the time for holding back was gone. Whatever was to become of him, Sally had to know how much he loved her, how he had always loved her since the time she walked past his house on her way home from school, navy-blue coat flying open, striped tie anchored into place by her form badge, shapely legs encased in long black woollen stockings.

  ‘That poor deaf girl,’ his mother had said, but there had been nothing even bordering on pity in his feelings for Sally. To pity her would have been an insult to her own bright courage. No wonder the unknown American had fallen in love with her. David glanced round the room. There was no sign of a photograph anywhere, but he knew what the Yank would be like. Closing his eyes briefly he conjured up the image of a broad-shouldered, grinning slob, chewing gum and showing large tombstone teeth.

  ‘Are you all right, David?’ Sally’s voice seemed to come from a long way away. ‘What’s going to happen about your house? Will the compensation mean you can start afresh somewhere when it’s all over?’

  With an effort David jerked his mind back to reality. ‘After the war’s over? You know, that’s something I never think about. There’s too much to do first.’

  ‘You won’t be flying again?’ The question was more a statement of fact, and for no reason he could fathom David spoke more sharply than he intended to.

  ‘Of course I’ll be flying again! Why not? It would kill me to be some desk-bound wallah. Especially now.’ He tapped his left leg. ‘That’s as good as new, and when I’ve joined my new squadron it’ll be action stations again.’ He smiled. ‘It’s a good life if you don’t weaken.’

  There was nothing Sally could say to this quiet inarticulate man. His shyness was still there, but now there was a determination and a bitterness about him which hadn’t been there before. The last time she had been in his company for any length of time he had been all taut nerves, his hands dancing on his knees like bony spiders. His unexpected vehemence startled her when he suddenly said: ‘I have to go back, Sally. For the sake of so many people I have to go back. There was a pal of mine. I left him hanging dead from a tree.’ His words spluttered out passionately. ‘My blood’s up, Sally. It was tough luck on old Jack, but I’ve got to see to it that he didn’t die in vain.’ He smiled. ‘I’m up for a gong. Imagine! I survived, so they give me a gong. Jack died, so he gets sweet Fanny Adam. There’s justice for you!’

  When he stood up suddenly Sally looked round, startled to see her father coming through the door wearing his Home Guard uniform, both hands outstretched in welcome, his face a mixture of shock and delight as he saw David standing there, unbelievably alive.

  In the afternoon, when David had gone, Sally pulled on her wellingtons, tied a woollen pixie-hood round her hair and set off for a walk. She went past the flattened spaces where once four houses had stood and turned down the uneven road out to the fields which were grey with the slush of half-melted snow.

  The wind was fierce, biting at her in angry gusts, so she walked with head bowed as it blew stinging sleet at her, turning her nose into a cherry.

  Miraculously there was a sun, hovering over the horizon, as round and red as a child’s ball. When she reached the reservoir she stopped and looked down at the thin layer of ice covering the dark water like a ruffled skin. The scene was so desolate, so devoid of even a vestige of warmth, it seemed to be part of the sadness deep inside her, cold and without hope.

  The meeting with Christine, then with David, had left her mind in a turmoil of whirling thoughts, and the progress of the war too seemed to be locked in frozen immovability, neither side making any discernible gains or losses.

  She thought about the countries across the English Channel, suffering not only the cold and despair, but also the added dangers of German occupation. As David had said, they were paying the price, locked in with an enemy who would show no mercy.

  She felt a sense of shame at her elation on finding the packet of soap flakes. For that tiny space of time she had been happy; in spite of everything she had known an upsurge of joy. Men might be lying frozen on the Russian Front, buried deep in drifts of snow, and yet her own little world had been brightened by a cardboard carton of Lux flakes. She shivered, thrust her hands deep into the pockets of her coat, and turned for home.

  There had been a strange shadow on David’s thin face. A sort of death wish, as if he knew and accepted that his days, once he started operational flying again, were numbered.

  She trudged on, burying her nose in the upturned collar of her coat. She grieved for the friend who had lost so much … his mother, his entire crew, and his home. Tears pricked behind her eyes as she saw again the look on David’s face when he said his goodbyes to her at the front door.

  ‘I don’t suppose I’ll be seeing much of you from now on.’ His chin had been lifted in the shy mannerism she knew so well. ‘Me joining a fresh squadron, and you getting married. I don’t suppose I’ll be back this way all that often.’

  ‘But you’ll write?’

  He had smiled then, a strange smile moving only his lips and leaving his eyes empty and sad.

  ‘Your American’s a lucky bastard. Tell him I said so.’ Balling his hand into a fist, he had punched her gently on the side of her cheek. ‘Take care, Sally. Take good care.’

  And before she could tell him that he was the one needing to take care he had walked away, back erect, down the path and away down the road, not even turning to wave.

  Stanley noticed his daughter’s red and swollen eyelids the minute she came into the room. But he said nothing, merely stared into the fire, keeping his thoughts to himself.

  Nine

  ‘YOU MEAN YOU’VE made up y
our mind about leaving Duckworth Brothers?’

  Reluctantly Stanley put down his newspaper to stare at Sally. He tried not to look as exasperated as he felt.

  What the heck had got into her now? Taking off his reading glasses, he plucked nervously at his moustache. He hated change, couldn’t abide it, and the way things were going this war was changing everything, even his home life.

  John was dead, Josie was moving round the house like a zombie since the doctor had signed her off as unfit for work, and now Sally was upsetting the apple cart again.

  It had been a terrible week, with Singapore falling to the Japanese. Even Mr Churchill had sounded depressed as he described it as a great English and Imperial defeat. Out in Libya the Allies were on the retreat, and to cap it all German battleships had had the nerve to sail brazenly up and down the Channel.

  There was a scab on the bridge of his nose, the result of a collision with a lamp post in the black-out. He fingered it morosely.

  ‘I can’t understand your reasons for wanting to leave a safe, steady job, Sally. You don’t come within the Essential Work Order, not with your little disability. Why swap and change now?’

  ‘I needed a change.’ Sally leaned over and actually patted his hand. ‘Come on, Dad, don’t look so worried. I’d have joined the WAAFS if that had been possible, so the way I see it this is the next best thing to being in the Services.’

  Stanley glared at her. ‘But that place you’re going to is two tram rides from here, plus a long walk at the other end.’ He frowned so that the line above his nose deepened. ‘I’ve seen some of the girls coming home from that factory, and they’re rough. Not a bit like the girls you’re used to working with in your office.’ Angrily he rustled the paper on his knee. ‘Why waste your typing? What will you be doing, anyway? Working on a machine? Because in your case that could be dangerous. Surely you can see that?’