***
Mark sat waiting for his wife in a small room watching a bulletin on the television of the thanksgiving service at St Paul’s Cathedral for the end of the war. He scanned the screen for a sight of anyone he recognised from his ship, but glimpsed no comrades. Mark felt suddenly alone and wished he were back on the ward among the other injured servicemen. They at least knew how he felt; they shared the same experiences. Soon he would be leaving them behind for ever, along with the physiotherapy, daily dressings and games of cards that had become his quiet routine.
Part of him yearned to be back on Tyneside with Brenda and Ivy and his old friends, yet part of him feared leaving the hospital and his last contact with military life and the experience of the war. It was only four months since he had left Newcastle, less than his normal stints away, but he would be returning as quite a different man. How could he begin to describe to Brenda what he had been through? he wondered. He knew he would not even try.
Just before Brenda arrived with her mother, Mark admitted that part of his reluctance to return was that Colin and Skippy would no longer be there with him. His two closest friends were gone. News of Colin’s death had reached him on the hospital ship on their way to Montevideo. He still could not believe it. As long as he stayed away from Wallsend, he could still imagine they lived, but once he was back in their home town he could no longer pretend. The protective numbness he felt when he thought of Colin and Skippy might dissolve and give way to real pain. And he would have to face their grieving families too, Mark thought with dread.
Then, thankfully, Brenda breezed into the room and took his mind off his troubled thoughts. She rushed at him with a waft of strong perfume, her black hair gleaming under a white summer hat. She wore a red dress and a pale linen jacket and gabbled at him excitedly.
‘Looks like you’re off to a garden party,’ he teased, kissing her awkwardly, aware of the tightness on the right side of his jaw where he was scarred from burns. He noticed her hesitate just a fraction before kissing him. Her nervousness was obvious in the way she kept glancing towards his injured hands and face and then quickly away again. ‘The left hand’s nearly as good as new,’ he reassured her. ‘It’s just the right one that needs a bit of attention still. I’m getting good at picking things up again, mind.’
‘You’ll just have to drink pints with your left hand then,’ Brenda smiled.
‘I intend to,’ Mark grinned, ‘and lots of them.’ They looked at each other, suddenly at a loss as to what to say. I’ve missed you,’ Mark said quietly, trying to put them both at their ease.
‘Good,’ Brenda replied, her eyes shining. ‘I didn’t like to think of you enjoying yourself here with all these army nurses.’ They both laughed. ‘Haway, Mam’s waiting outside with the car,’ Brenda said hastily, watching how he levered himself up with the aid of a stick. ‘Can I do anything?’ she asked.
Mark shook his head. ‘We don’t have a car,’ he grinned. ‘Or do we?’
‘I borrowed Gordon’s.’ Brenda smiled nervously. She saw the look on his face. ‘Don’t worry, I’ve taken out insurance. Both Mam and I can drive it. Gordon offered to come down, but I told him not to take time off work.’
Mark’s mouth tightened. ‘Can’t have him doing that, can we?’ he grunted.
Brenda tried to hold his hand but he winced in pain. ‘Your family’s been good to me while you’ve been here,’ she insisted. ‘I’m going to make sure that you all get on in future. There’s no use looking back and harping on the past. I want us all to have a new start, don’t you?’
Mark wanted to laugh out loud. If only it were that simple, he felt like saying. He would give anything to have amnesia about the past few months, to not be frightened of going to sleep and dreaming of the unspeakable horrors that lay in wait for him.
He gritted his teeth in determination. ‘A new start sounds grand to me,’ he said, hobbling out of the room as quickly as possible. He shouted goodbye to the lads at the windows and the nurses who had gathered on the steps to wish him well. Moments later they were roaring away from the hospital and there was nothing to tell him apart from the thousands of other civilians they passed on the road, Mark thought soberly.
***
It was a drizzly late July evening, but the banner was out over the Coach and Eight: ‘Welcome home, Mark!’ surrounded by union jack bunting. Matty Duggan had a friend who played in a brass band and had organised them to play on the steps of the pub when his son arrived back. Jo murmured to Pearl as they stood in the street, ‘Funny how Matty’s suddenly so interested in his son since he’s become a war hero.’
‘Don’t be like that,’ Pearl chided, squinting through her instamatic camera. ‘I think it’s grand the way everyone’s rallying round.’ The local papers had been full of Mark’s miraculous escape from Gateshead and there was a reporter and a cameraman hanging around waiting for his arrival. ‘Norma says Matty’s wanting Mark and Brenda to move in with them until he gets fit again. Imagine that? It’s always been a squash for them at Brenda’s mam’s when he’s been on leave, so Brenda’s keen.’
Jo thought that would be a disaster. ‘It’s about time they got somewhere of their own,’ she whispered.
‘Plenty time for that,’ Pearl answered distractedly. ‘Let’s just get him home and settled first.’
It struck Jo that they were talking about Mark as if he belonged to them all, common property to share around. She looked at her father’s drawn face as he sat on a wall behind the crowd on the pavement. She and Pearl had persuaded him to come at the last minute, not wanting to leave him alone with his bleak thoughts. Painful realisation engulfed Jo. They were using Mark as a substitute for Colin, channelling their raw hurt into this homecoming. It could never be the same as having her brother back, but it was a temporary balm to their grieving. It made Jo afraid at the burden they were putting on Mark. He should not be expected to make them all feel better. He belonged to Brenda and Ivy and the Duggans and not to them, she reminded herself harshly.
Jo looked around for Alan, who was leaning against the wall with her father, looking ill at ease. He had been reluctant to come.
‘You’ll only get upset,’ he had predicted. ‘It’ll just rub it in that your brother’s not there.’ How right he had been, Jo thought, and moved swiftly to his side. This was a mistake, she panicked.
‘We’ll not stay long,’ she said, grateful for the arm he slipped around her shoulders.
‘We can go now if you like,’ Alan suggested.
But just then a cry went up from the street corner. ‘They’re here!’ The band struck up a nervous rendition of ‘Bobby Shafto’ and then ‘Rule Britannia’. By the time Mark and Brenda and her mother had emerged from the car, they had played them both again. There were shouts of delight, flashing cameras and tearful greetings. Jo wondered at the scene. Half these people hardly knew Mark, she thought indignantly, and wouldn’t have crossed the street to talk to him before he went away.
Craning for a view, as the welcoming party of Duggans steered him into the pub, Jo caught a glimpse of Mark’s bemused face. Her heart thumped to see him at last. His hair had grown. It curled around his ears, but did not hide the puckered skin around his jaw. It made his smile lopsided, but his dark eyes shone with emotion and she felt a momentary wave of relief that he looked much the same. His hands were bandaged and he walked with the aid of a stick, but he hardly limped. Strangely, he looked fit, his shoulders broad, his stance confident.
‘How does he look?’ Jack asked nervously.
‘Fine, Dad,’ Jo answered, feeling a hard lump form in her throat. They exchanged looks of sorrow, each thinking of Colin and how they would have given anything for him to be sharing this moment. Marilyn had gone away to visit friends now that the school holidays had begun. She seemed unable to cope with their grief as well as her own, and Jo knew she had been desperate to avoid Mark’s triumphal return.
‘I’d only spoil the party,’ she had cried into Jo’s shoulder befo
re she left.
This was how Jo felt now. She could not face going into the pub and pretending to be cheerful. She knew it would be awkward for Mark too.
‘Let’s go home,’ she urged her father. ‘We can see him later, when there’s less of a fuss.’ She saw the relief on Jack’s face as he stood up.
‘Aye, let’s,’ he nodded. ‘Where’s Pearl?’
‘Disappeared inside with Ivy,’ Alan told them. ‘Doing her roving camera bit.’ He took a firm hold of Jo’s arm. ‘Come on, let’s leave this circus and get your father home.’ She went quickly, before anyone saw the tears streaming down Jack’s grief-stricken face.
‘I’m sorry, Dad,’ she whispered. ‘I shouldn’t have put you through this.’
***
Inside the pub, Mark felt dazed by all the attention. Brenda had promised him a quick drink at their local, for old times’ sake, before going home. He had never dreamed of this surprise party. Now he was downing pint after pint, astonished by the number of well-wishers coming up and embracing him and shaking his hand as he sat in a chair by the bar. He felt like pinching himself as he watched his father and brother fighting over who would buy his next drink. Opposite, his mother was beaming at him and wiping away tears as if he had come back from the dead. Brenda hovered close, a possessive hand on his arm, laughing and crying with the rest of them.
Only Ivy sat with a strange expression on her plump, flushed face, as if like him she could hardly believe what was happening. He felt a mixture of euphoria and detachment, as though he was watching himself from above. Was this really his father who was speaking about him with such pride to Ted at the bar? Mark marvelled.
Gordon was apologising drunkenly to him. ‘We’re going to be best mates from now on,’ he promised. Mark guessed he had been in the pub celebrating for a considerable time.
Mark gulped down his beer, obliterating the hollow feeling in his guts at the mention of best mates. No one could ever take the place of Colin or Skippy, he thought emotionally, but tonight he was going to do his best to forget. Glancing around the pub again for any sign of the Elliots or the Jacksons, he was relieved that they had not come. Only Pearl had been there briefly, steering Ivy into a seat beside him and giving him a tearful kiss.
‘Grand to have you back, pet,’ she had smiled. ‘Come and see us when you’re settled.’ Then she had disappeared before he could ask about Jack or say anything about Colin.
Someone had put Queen on the jukebox, and another pint had been slopped on the table in front of him.
‘Get it down your neck, son.’ Matty was grinning. ‘We’ll carry you home tonight.’
Mark felt elated, the alcohol wrapping him in a delicious feeling of well-being. He had survived. He was home. Everything around him was sweetly familiar and now his family appeared to love him again. It was all too good to be true, and he was going to make the most of it, he determined. Looking at Brenda’s pretty, animated face, Mark felt a surge of optimism for the future. They were going to be fine. It was his last conscious thought that night. By closing time, they had to frog-march him to the door and haul him into a waiting taxi.
Chapter Twenty-Four
To Jo, it seemed as if the whole summer was punctuated with a succession of ships returning to southern ports and flag-waving celebrations caught on television. Each time she was drawn to watch the cheering crowds and emotional scenes of reunion; close-ups of hugging families and tearful sweethearts. She could feel their relief and joy and it made her feel wretched for her family and Marilyn. Yet her friend would not allow Jo to comfort her. Marilyn returned briefly at the beginning of August, but her parents took her away on a coach tour to Austria and Jo only managed a snatched telephone conversation.
‘We’ll meet up when I get back,’ Marilyn promised. ‘It’s too soon just now.’
Jo was hurt that her friend did not want to see her, but she could hardly blame Marilyn for steering clear of them. Had she herself not done the same to Mark? Jo thought guiltily. She had written to him and Brenda suggesting a night out in Newcastle, but had never arranged it. She had not meant to deliberately avoid them, but the end of term was busy and she knew Alan was not keen to go out with them.
‘Leave them alone,’ he had said. ‘They’ll want a bit of peace and quiet after all the limelight. Time to themselves. You get on with your own life, girl.’
So Jo had taken his advice and kept away, only hearing from Pearl that Brenda and Mark had moved in with the Duggans. But by mid-August, her aunt was making pointed remarks.
‘The longer you leave it, the harder it’ll be,’ Pearl warned on one of Jo’s visits to her father. ‘Mark’s been round to see us a couple of times. He was asking after you.’
‘I can’t just turn up at the Duggans’,’ Jo protested. ‘Matty probably wouldn’t let me through the door. And I don’t want to run into Gordon…’
Pearl gave her a look. ‘You know I’d go with you,’ she offered.
‘I’ll leave it a bit longer,’ Jo said uncomfortably. ‘I sent him a card when he and Brenda moved.’
She was surprised that Mark had agreed to move in with his parents, but then she no longer pretended to know what he thought about anything. She could not tell Pearl that she was burdened by Ivy’s secret about Mark’s grandfather, that increasingly she was uneasy that Ivy had told her and not her own family. Mark might be able to guess by the look in her eyes that she was keeping something from him. But then maybe Ivy had already told Mark about Hassan. Maybe it had helped reconcile him to his father and that was why they were living under one roof for the first time since Mark was in primary school.
‘How is he?’ she asked tentatively.
‘Still getting physio on his right hand,’ Pearl said, ‘and I think his leg gives him bother at times. But he seems cheerful.’
Suddenly Jack came out of his reverie by the window and spoke. ‘No he’s not. The lad’s hurting inside,’ he said quietly. ‘He’s not right.’
Jo glanced at Pearl. Her aunt sighed. ‘It’s early days.’
‘What do you mean, Dad?’ Jo asked. But her father just shook his head dolefully.
Pearl explained. ‘Norma’s worried at the amount of time he spends round the pubs with Gordon and Matty. He’s drinking a lot.’
‘Well, he’s on leave,’ Jo said. ‘He’s entitled to let his hair down after what he’s been through.’
‘Perhaps,’ Pearl sounded unsure, ‘but Norma says it’s most nights. Brenda goes out with them too. They’re spending all her wages and giving nothing towards the household expenses. Norma says that’s why Brenda’s mam was happy to see the pair of them move out. They’re spending like there’s no tomorrow.’
‘Maybe they don’t want to think about tomorrow,’ Jack said bleakly.
Pearl’s face flickered with impatience. ‘We all have to think of the future some time,’ she said crossly. Jo looked at her in surprise. She had not heard Pearl utter one cross word to Jack since Colin’s death. Her father did not seem to notice and went on staring out of the window. Pearl shrugged dismissively and turned to Jo. ‘Go and see Mark,’ she urged. ‘He visits Ivy most afternoons while Brenda’s working. He doesn’t seem to be able to talk about Colin to us, but maybe he could to you.’
***
Jo finally plucked up courage to visit Ivy’s towards the end of August. It was a couple of days before she was due to go on holiday with Alan. His friends Frank and Maya had taken a house in Galicia, in north-west Spain, and Jo and Alan were to join them. They both needed a break. Alan had been working punishing hours at the theatre, but now there was a lull until mid-September.
Jo had been reluctant to leave her father, but Alan had insisted. ‘We need to get away, Joanne,’ he said, adding pointedly, ‘and give each other some loving attention.’ Now that Alan had made the decision for them, Jo was looking forward to the holiday. But she needed to get this visit to Ivy’s over with before she could leave with an easy mind.
Ivy answered her knock
with a finger raised to her lips. Jo crept in behind her, wondering why she had to keep quiet.
There he was, curled up on the sofa asleep. He looked like a young boy, his face empty of expression, the scarring hidden by a cushion. His mouth was slightly open and he was breathing rhythmically. Now and then, his arm would flutter as if a small shock was sweeping through his body. She looked at the bandaged hand as the tremor lifted it and wondered what he dreamed about. Jo felt a wave of tenderness towards him. He looked so vulnerable, childlike. She resisted the urge to touch him or kiss his head of dark wavy hair. Why had she been so afraid of seeing him? she thought guiltily. She had been wrong to avoid him for so long.
Ivy silently handed her a mug of tea and nodded to her to follow her outside. They took two kitchen chairs into the backyard and sat in the afternoon sun.
‘Comes here most afternoons when the pubs close at three,’ she sighed. ‘I try and sober him up before he goes back to Matty’s. There’s something eating away inside him but he won’t talk about it.’
‘Who’s he drinking with in the daytime?’ Jo asked.
Ivy snorted. ‘Anyone who’ll buy him a pint. And there’s plenty of them want to be seen with the lad now he’s famous round here. One day soon they’ll get tired of it and then who’s going to pick up the pieces?’ she asked angrily.
‘What do his parents think?’ Jo squinted at Ivy.
‘Oh, Norma’s spoiling him; making up for years of neglecting the lad, so she won’t say anything,’ Ivy answered. ‘And Matty…oh, Matty! He thinks it’s champion having someone to go out drinking with. He doesn’t see what I’m worried about. Gordon’s just as bad. He and Barbara aren’t getting on, so he’s out all the time. And Barbara takes it out on the family by not bringing Michelle to see me…’
‘I’m sorry, Ivy,’ Jo sympathised. ‘What does Brenda think of it all?’ she asked.
Ivy shook her head. ‘She goes out with them too − or with her other friends. Never in as far as I can gather. It’s been one big party since Mark got home, except…’
THE TYNESIDE SAGAS: Box set of three dramatic and emotional stories: A Handful of Stars, Chasing the Dream and For Love & Glory Page 109