by Maureen Lee
‘Because I didn’t want to. You’d never have gone out with me if you knew I was married, would you?’
‘No.’
‘I love you, Kitty!’
He tried to embrace her but she shrugged him off. ’Don’t touch me! she hissed.
‘I wasn’t just after a good time,’ he said desperately. ‘It was love at first sight. The very second I set eyes on you, I knew you were the girl for me.’
‘But only for the next few months?’ Why wasn’t she more angry? Why didn’t she tear him limb from limb, shout at him, scream, try to impress on him how much he’d hurt her, how deeply she felt betrayed? Because she hadn’t got the strength, that’s why. Her body felt dead inside and would always remain so. Without Dale, she could see no reason to go on living.
‘Oh, God!’ He flung the cigarette into an ashtray and said tragically, ‘I’ve been fooling myself all along, living in a dream world. I kept telling myself that all that mattered was now. The future didn’t exist. Kitty Quigley was my girl, full stop.’
‘But it’s me that’s been fooled, not you,’ Kitty muttered. She scarcely had the strength to speak. ‘You lied to me …’
‘I didn’t lie, Kitty,’ he protested quickly. ‘I’ve been selfish and a coward, but I’ve never lied.’
‘Then you’ve never told me the truth.’
‘I would have if you’d asked.’
‘It never crossed me mind to ask if you were married,’ she whispered. ‘Why are you bothering to tell me now, anyroad? I suppose you just want to be shot of me, so you can string another poor girl along as soon as you’re in Ipswich.’
‘As if I would!’ Dale groaned. ‘It was when you mentioned Boston, I couldn’t go on letting you believe one day we’d be married. If we could, Kitty, you’d have been my wife months ago.’
My wife! The words tore at her heart. He already had a wife back in America. Kitty stared directly at him for the first time since he’d told her the terrible truth. She longed to hate him. She wished she could see something despicable about him, but he looked no different. He was still the same Dale and she loved him just as much. There was an almost irresistible urge to reach out and touch the little mole beneath his left ear. Instead, she asked coldly, ‘What’s your wife called?’
His lips twisted in a crooked smile. ‘Kathleen.’
‘Don’t you love her?’
‘Not the way I love you.’ He sighed and reached for his cigarettes. ‘We were brought up together, went to the same church, the same school. Her folks were best friends with mine. It had always been assumed we’d get married, and like a good Catholic girl and boy, we did.’ He shrugged. ‘Kathy’s a good wife, and I suppose, till now, I’ve always been a good husband. I’ve never been unfaithful before.’
Kitty gasped as the memories flooded back. ‘The things you said! Even on the boat a few hours ago, you asked me to never stop loving you.’
Dale said slowly, ‘You’ll think me crazy, Kitty, but that’s how I saw it at the time. If I close my eyes, I can still imagine us having kids and growing old together. It’s only when I open them that reality sets in and I realise we’re doomed. I could leave Kathy, but not my girls – and would you marry a divorced man in a registry office?’
‘I don’t know,’ Kitty said hopelessly. She began to cry as the hopelessness engulfed her and she envisaged the years ahead without Dale.
‘It’s all so tragic,’ Jessica thought angrily as she helped Kitty into the living room. ‘Arthur, Rita, now Kitty.’ When would it all end?
‘It’s hard to accept right at this moment, love,’ she told the distraught girl, ‘but you’ll get over it. Remember when Eileen lost her little boy? She wrote and said she wanted to kill herself, but within a year, she was married and had Nicky.’
But Kitty wasn’t listening. ‘I trusted him!’ she sobbed. ‘I would have trusted him with me life. How could he do this to me? I still can’t believe it’s happened.’
‘I suppose that’s my cue to say all men are bastards, but they’re not, truly they’re not.’ Neither Arthur nor Jack were capable of such selfishness; nor, she suspected, was Gus Henningsen.
Kitty veered wildly from one extreme to another. ‘Dale’s not a bastard. He loves me. He still wants us to meet whenever possible.’
‘Would you do that, Kitty?’ Jessica asked cautiously. She prayed the girl would answer no, else she would only be storing up more heartbreak for herself when Dale eventually left for good.
‘I don’t know,’ wept Kitty. Her mind went back to the hotel room. She’d started to cry and Dale had taken her helpless body in his arms. Before she knew where she was, he was stroking her breasts, touching her. She wanted to resist, but seemed to have lost every shred of willpower. And it wasn’t just that, she wanted him more than she’d ever done before. Their bodies became a tangled mass of heaving limbs, and she poured herself into him. Her nails scratched his back as he bent over her, groaning in sheer ecstasy towards a dizzy pinnacle never reached before. When Kitty came, she bit his shoulder and tasted blood.
Then, without a word, Kitty got off the bed and put on her clothes. She could feel Dale’s eyes watching her every move. She paused at the door. ‘Tara, Dale.’
He didn’t reply, and before the door was closed, he too had begun to weep.
Chapter 17
It was well into the early hours before Kitty could be persuaded up to bed. She spent the remainder of the night tossing and turning, sitting up, then lying down, quite literally unable to grasp what had happened. Dale was married! He had lain with another woman, done the same things with her as he’d done with Kitty, murmured the same words, and one day he would lie with the other woman again.
It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be. She’d dreamt the whole thing, imagined it, because no way in this world could last night have actually happened.
The jangle of the alarm clock made her jump, although she was wide awake and expecting it. Kitty got out of bed immediately. Her legs were like jelly and she’d never felt so wretched, but despite everything, she was longing for a cup of tea.
She decided not to tell anyone at the hospital, but there must have been something about her face that gave her away. Everyone was very respectful and careful of what they said. Even Clara Watkins, when they were in the auxiliaries’ rest room having their mid-morning break, said awkwardly, ‘Bear up, Kitty. Everything’ll turn out right in the end.’
‘Will it?’ Kitty replied politely.
When the shift ended, she went home, scarcely able to remember anything about the ten hours she’d just spent at work. Jessica had a pot of tea freshly made and greeted her with a warm hug. Jessica was being very kind, but Kitty was aware she shouldn’t cause too much embarrassment in someone else’s house.
After she’d drunk the tea, she said, ‘If you don’t mind, I’d like to lie down.’ She wanted to get out of Jessica’s sight so she could grieve in private.
She lay on the bed, and the same old thoughts came pouring through her head. ‘How could he? How could he do this to me? Dale!’ Her body was soggy with weariness, and after a while she fell into a fitful sleep. She was woken by the bedclothes being tugged. Unbeknown to Jessica, Penny had come upstairs and was trying to climb on the bed.
Kitty leaned over and lifted the child up. She loved Penny. She was such a dear little girl, it was hard not to.
‘Sorry, Kitty.’ Penny stroked her face.
‘Sorry for what, luv?’
‘Sorry Kitty sad.’
Kitty burst into tears. ‘When you grow up, Penny, whatever you do, don’t fall in love.’
Later that night, her dad came. Perhaps Jessica had told him that what his daughter needed was family.
‘Oh, kiddo!’ He took her in his arms and rocked her gently to and fro, every trace of resentment and envy entirely forgotten. His girl, his own flesh and blood, had been badly hurt, and he could feel the hurt twisting inside his own guts. Bloody Yanks. He’d like to throttle every single one of
them. ‘You know, luv, you can come back home this very night if you want.’
‘No, Dad. I’m better off here. I only feel in the way with Theresa there.’
‘Theresa!’ There was a silence and Jimmy looked into the gentle, red-rimmed eyes of his daughter. ‘I made a terrible mistake with Theresa.’
‘I know, Dad.’ Kitty nodded. ‘I always knew, but you’re stuck with her now and there’s nothing you can do about it.’
‘There’s something lacking in the woman. I don’t know what it is. Perhaps she’s got a screw loose or something. She doesn’t mean to be cruel or unkind. She just hasn’t got the nous to know any better.’ Jimmy knew he’d been too quick to get married, too anxious to replace Kitty, who he felt had deserted him, with another woman. Theresa had made him feel young again, but only for a while. Now there was always an unpleasant atmosphere in the house and she barely spoke to him. He scarcely saw Georgie and Billy except at weekends. By the time he got home, they’d usually been sent to bed for some reason. ‘I should have got to know her better,’ he muttered. ‘I was too fast off the mark.’
Dai Evans had come into work that day, bruised, but full of beans. Ellis may well have thrown him out, but he’d moved in with Vera Dodds. It made Jimmy aware he’d missed out, not with Vera whom he couldn’t stand, but with some other woman, perhaps one more his age. He could have ended up having a dead good time instead of being stuck with Theresa. Still, as Kitty said, he’d made his bed and he had no alternative but to lie on it.
‘How’s work?’ asked Kitty.
‘Not bad,’ Jimmy smiled. ‘Fact, it’s not bad at all. Working on the docks is different than it used to be. We’re essential workers now, so we don’t get pissed around any more. And the pay’s good.’ From odd remarks his workmates made, he discovered he’d become a figure of fun during the period he was pretending to be an invalid, but now he’d got his self-respect back.
‘I’m ever so pleased, Dad.’
‘So’m I, kiddo. Well, I’ll be off now. Theresa’s left me dinner in the oven. She seems to spend a lot of time round at her mam’s lately. See you tomorrer, luv.’
‘Dad!’ Kitty clutched his sleeve.
‘What is it, luv?’
‘Those lads, Georgie and Billy. It’s not right the way Theresa keeps them stuck in the bedroom. You need to put your foot down. They’re your lads now, every bit as much as hers.’
Jimmy pursed his lips. ‘You’re right, kiddo. I’ll see what I can do.’
It was a beautiful July evening, the very best of weather. Pearl Street was full of lads playing football against the railway wall and girls with their skipping ropes and whips and tops. Dominic and Niall Reilly were swinging on a rope strung from the lamppost outside the King’s Arms.
Jimmy went indoors and called his stepsons to come downstairs. After a few minutes, they appeared on the landing.
‘I said, come down.’ Jimmy put his hands on his hips and looked at them sternly.
‘But me mam sent us to bed early,’ said Georgie.
‘What for?’
The boy looked vague. ‘I’m not sure. I think it was because our Billy asked for more bread and margarine.’
‘If you come down, I’ll do you some bread and marge – jam too, if there is any.’
‘But what about me mam?’ Billy said fearfully.
‘Sod your mam and come down this very minute.’
The boys descended nervously. Theresa never laid a finger on them, but a look from her could make them tremble.
Jimmy cut four slices of bread and made them each a jam sarnie. ‘Now, when you’ve finished that, you’re to go out in the street and play.’
‘Don’t want to,’ said Georgie.
‘Why not?’
‘No-one’ll want to play with us. They think we’re cissies ’cos we stay in all the time.’
‘In that case, I’ll come out and kick a ball round with you. The other lads’ll soon join in when they see me.’ He thought they’d be delighted, but both boys merely shrugged, and Billy said listlessly, ‘If you like.’
Their big white faces were still frightened whilst they silently munched their bread and jam. Jimmy sat in his chair and watched them. Obviously, they were scared their mam would come in.
‘Did your dad used to play with you?’ Apart from the day they’d met, Theresa had never once mentioned her first husband.
To Jimmy’s amazement, Georgie’s face lit up. ‘Yeah, well, not play exactly. We used to go fishing every time he was home.’
‘Fishing!’ exclaimed Jimmy. ‘Did you now! Whereabouts?’
‘In some river, I don’t know where it was. We used to get the bus.’
‘T’weren’t a river,’ argued Billy. ‘Our dad said it was just a stream.’
‘Did you catch much?’ asked Jimmy, interested.
‘Nah, just tiddlers. We’d bring them back in a jam jar.’
‘Would you like me to take you fishing next Saturday after I finish work?’
Billy burst out crying, much to Jimmy’s horror. ‘What’s the matter, lad?’ he asked, alarmed.
‘I don’t half miss me dad,’ sobbed Billy.
Georgie was doing his best to blink back his own tears. ‘So do I,’ he said, his bottom lip trembling. ‘Our dad was the gear.’
Poor little sods! It had never crossed Jimmy’s mind the lads were mourning their lost father. Bloody Theresa! He cursed the woman for her lack of sensitivity. At the same time, he cursed himself for thinking the lads were merely being churlish, when in fact they were dead miserable. Whilst they had been talking, they’d edged closer and by now both were leaning against Jimmy’s knees. They were an ugly pair, but perhaps not quite as ugly as he’d first thought. He had a feeling he could grow fond of them in time, and if the feeling was reciprocated, they could end up a proper family, excluding Theresa, of course. Or including her, if she ever turned out to be a human being.
He slapped them both on the shoulder. ‘Well, lads, things are going to change round here. As from today, I’m in charge. You’ll not be spending any more time in your room, you’re to play in the street like the other kids. As for your mam, if she attempts to put her foot down, I’ll …’ Jimmy paused, unsure what he’d do.
‘You’ll bloody clock her,’ suggested Georgie. ‘Me dad always said he’d like to clock her, but he never did.’
By the end of the week, Kitty had managed to adopt an air of false brightness. She smiled a lot, though the smile never reached her eyes, and spoke very fast in a rather high-pitched voice. She didn’t manage to fool her close acquaintances but, as she said to Lucy, ‘I can’t stand the thought of people feeling sorry for me. I can’t go round with a long face for the rest of me life.’ She giggled a touch hysterically. ‘The patients’ll never get better with a nurse who looks like the Angel of Death!’
Only in the solitude of her bedroom did she let herself go. Even then, she drew the eiderdown over her head so Jessica couldn’t hear the sobs that racked her body night after night. It didn’t help when she received a letter from Dale: he loved her, he missed her. Please could they meet again?
It took almost superhuman willpower for Kitty to throw the letter on the fire after she’d read it once. There was nothing she wanted more than to mend her broken heart by sinking into Dale’s arms in their hotel room with the black wallpaper. But their romance was doomed. He himself had used the word: doomed. If she weakened and allowed herself to see him again, she’d have to go through all this again when the war was over and he returned to his wife and family.
A week later, another letter came with an Ipswich postmark. It was waiting on the sideboard when Kitty arrived home from work. The envelope felt thick, as if there was more than just a letter inside, and Kitty guessed what it contained. She flung it on the fire, unopened.
Jessica gasped, and the two women stood watching as flickering blue flames quickly seized the paper and it began to burn. The envelope went first, exposing the contents, the photographs w
hich had been taken on the ferry to New Brighton. The one of Dale kissing her was on top – perhaps he’d put it there deliberately. Gradually, the flames took hold, the photos began to curl and burn, the two figures on the boat turned brown, then black, then completely disappeared. Soon, all that was left was a little square of grey ash. Jessica, noting the way Kitty was staring intently at the fire, seized the poker and dispersed the ash, so there was nothing left to remind her of the final day out in New Brighton with Dale Tooley.
Kitty had her curly brown hair cut very short. She’d lost her appetite and was losing weight and the short hair made her face look even thinner. Perversely, where once she’d been healthily pretty, the haunted expression in her large hazel eyes and the delicate contours of her suddenly hollow cheeks gave her an air of almost fragile beauty.
In the middle of July she turned twenty-eight, though pleaded with Jessica not to do anything special for tea. ‘I’d sooner ignore it. I feel more like sixty than twenty-eight.’
‘Whatever you say, love, though you’re a bit young to forget about your birthdays.’ Even so, Jessica gave Kitty a pretty cream georgette scarf and her dad bought her a tiny locket on a chain.
‘It’s real silver, kiddo. I got it from that pawnshop in Marsh Lane. The feller there said it’s antique, whatever that means.’
Soon after her birthday, Kitty was on her way down to the office with papers for a patient who was about to be discharged, when a startled voice said, ‘Kitty! I hardly recognised you with your hair like that.’
‘Hello, Stan,’ she said calmly. ‘I didn’t know you were back.’
Stan Taylor laughed. ‘I’ve never been away. I was made permanent months ago.’
‘I didn’t realise. I’ve been rather taken up with other things lately.’
‘So I’ve noticed. Whenever I’ve said hello, you looked as if you were a hundred miles away.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Seeing as you’ve recognised my existence,’ he said eagerly, ‘how about a trip to the pictures one night soon? It’s ages since we had a chat.’
Kitty paused before replying. She had no wish to go out with another man again, but it would make a change to talk to someone who didn’t know about the break-up with Dale. Jessica, Sheila, her dad, the other nurses – everyone talked to her in an artificial way, as if she were a child and they were terrified of saying something wrong. She knew they were being sympathetic, but it only seemed to emphasise how deeply she’d been hurt.