‘She’ll be all right, Dad, don’t worry. I’ll make a fresh pot of tea. This’ll be stewed.’
‘Don’t bother, I couldn’t drink it anyway.’
Joe paced the floor like a man demented until Neil pulled him to a halt. ‘You should go and lie down for a while, Dad, and I’ll give you a shout about six.’
‘I’ll not sleep.’
‘You’ll be resting, though.’
‘Aye, that’s right.’ Joe went out, his shoulders drooping.
Neil stretched his legs out across the fireplace. He had kept the fire going, and it was warmer in the kitchen than it was in his room. It was better not to go back to bed, in any case, because he might fall asleep. It crossed his mind that he had scarcely seen Queenie apart from mealtimes, and he wondered if she had kept out of his way or if she really went out every night, like his mother had said.
Poor Mum. What would they be doing to her at this minute? He had told his father not to worry, but he was every bit as worried himself. What would they do if anything happened to her? Dad would go to pieces, for Mum did everything for him and if Queenie ever left – a lovely girl like her was bound to marry some day – he wouldn’t know where to begin as far as housework was concerned. Dad likely hadn’t the faintest idea where the sweeping brush was kept, never mind anything else. As for cooking, he couldn’t even boil an egg.
But nothing was going to happen. The operation would be a success and Mum would be back home again in a week or two, as fit as a fiddle.
Chapter Nineteen
Startled by the click of the letter box, Neil looked at the clock in disbelief. Five past seven? He had fallen asleep after all. Stretching his arms, he stood up stiffly and went to take in the post. There were two letters, one from Flo in Wanganui – that would cheer Mum – and the other addressed to him in Freda’s neat writing. He tore it open.
20 March, 1943
My Dearest Darling,
I’ve missed you very much this past week. I’m feeling a lot better now and I’m going back to work on Monday, half days only for a start, the doctor says. Nothing has been happening here so I haven’t anything to tell you, except I LOVE YOU.
Give my regards to your mum and dad and tell them I’m sorry I couldn’t come with you this time. Remember me to Queenie, also your aunt and uncle and Olive. I can hardly wait till I see you again on Wednesday night.
All my love, darling. Freda x x x
A warmth had spread through Neil’s chilled body, and he read the love note again. He would be seeing Freda again the day after tomorrow! Laying the letter down, he filled the kettle and was setting it on the cooker when Joe came through, his sparse, uncombed, grey hair straggling on to his brow, his chin dark and bristly with stubble, his hand stifling a big yawn. ‘I fell asleep after all.’
‘So did I.’ Neil lit the gas ring and laid the matches back on the ledge. ‘We’d better wash and shave first before we phone the hospital.’ He felt surprisingly reluctant about that now that the time had come. He wanted to know how his mother was but he didn’t want to hear . . . if it was bad news.
Lifting yesterday’s newspaper from Joe’s chair, he knelt on the rug to remove the ashpan from the fire, then tipped the contents onto a double page. Next, he twisted the other pages individually in the way he had seen his mother doing, criss-crossed some kindling sticks over them and was placing coal on top when the kettle came to the boil. Raising his head, he saw that his father was gazing vacantly into space.
‘You shave first, Dad,’ he ordered. ‘Leave some water for me and I’ll put the kettle on again for the tea. I’ll make the toast once I’ve washed. Will you be going to the shop?’
‘I think I will, I can’t sit doing nothing.’ Joe lifted the kettle and poured some boiling water into the basin in the sink then, with soap lathered over his face, he turned round again. ‘I can’t wait, Neil. I’m going to phone now.’
He disappeared into the tiny lobby and Neil crossed his fingers superstitiously until he came back. ‘They just gave me the usual pap. “She’s as well as can be expected.”’ Joe imitated the impersonal voice that had answered him. ‘What kind of thing’s that to tell a husband? They won’t let me in to see her till seven at night, for it’s only on Wednesdays and Saturdays and Sundays you get in in the afternoons.’
‘Mum must be doing fine, or else they’d have told you.’
‘I suppose so.’ Joe pulled off his shirt and ran some cold water into the basin to cool it down.
Standing up, Neil took a taper from a jar on the mantelpiece, lit it from the gas ring then held it to the paper in the grate. He was still blowing life into the flame when Joe looked round, ‘You’ll come with me tonight?’
‘Of course I’ll come with you . . . oh, hell’s bells! I said I’d meet Olive tonight. I’ll have to phone her.’
‘You’d better wait till they’re up. It’s early yet.’
‘OK, Dad. I’ll leave it till about eight.’
Queenie came through then – she normally waited until Joe had shaved – and had to be told what had happened during the night. ‘Why didn’t you wake me?’ she cried.
‘You couldn’t have done anything,’ Neil soothed.
‘I bet she’d have been glad of another woman there, not just two men.’
Joe patted her shoulder. ‘But one man was her husband and the other man was her son.’
Understanding why the girl’s mouth tightened, Neil said, ‘I’m sorry, Queenie. I’m sure Mum would have been glad if you’d been there, too, but they were away in the ambulance before I realised you were still sleeping and there was no point in wakening you then. But you can come to the hospital with us at night.’
‘Are you sure you want me to come?’
With a low moan, Joe flung his arms round her, ‘Queenie, lass, she’ll need all her family round her and you’ve been a daughter to us as much as Patsy.’
The trembling of his voice made her burst into tears and he held her, his own eyes moist, until she calmed. Watching them, Neil had a sudden longing to have her in his arms, to wipe away her tears. There was nothing sexual in it, but he knew how easily this could change if he dared to touch her.
When he was left alone, he took the wrapped-up ashes down to the rubbish bin in the backyard, then made his telephone call to Rubislaw Den. Martin, after expressing sympathy for Gracie, went on, ‘Hetty’ll want to visit her, but I’ll tell her to wait until tomorrow, when you’ll be away.’
‘Thanks. Em . . . Martin, I’d arranged to meet Olive tonight, but will you tell her I can’t make it after all?’
‘I’ll call her down and you can tell her yourself.’
‘No, it’s OK.’
‘Right, I’ll pass on the message.’
‘Thanks again.’ Neil hung up, hardly daring to think what Olive’s response would be, but he couldn’t cope with her on top of everything else.
When Joe came home for lunch, his face was less strained. ‘There’s nothing like being kept busy to take your mind off trouble. What have you been doing with yourself?’
‘I went to the butcher’s. I forgot meat was rationed, but he gave me half a pound of mince when I told him Mum was in hospital, and I got two mealy puddings in case that wasn’t enough. Then I cooked it, made your bed and mine – Queenie had made hers – and I did some sweeping and dusting.’
‘He’s a good lad, isn’t he, Queenie?’ Joe observed.
‘I’d have done the housework at teatime,’ she protested.
Neil laughed, ‘I’d nothing else to do.’
‘We’ll need all our time tonight,’ Joe reminded them. ‘We have to be at the hospital for seven, so we’ll have our tea at twenty to six – Jim can manage on his own till six – just something quick.’
Giving a grinning salute, Neil said, ‘Yes, sir! What does sir fancy, sir?’
‘I meant to bring up eggs, but I forgot, so just make up a pan of that dried stuff.’
When they arrived at Foresterhill Hospital at
ten minutes to seven, a large queue was already waiting, but the door was not opened until precisely seven o’clock. The uniformed doorman, a stout officious individual, allowed in only those who had the cards which were issued to visitors and was adamant that others would not be admitted, even if they had travelled great distances to be there.
‘Only two to each patient,’ he repeated, and Neil could hear several people near them arranging to come out at half time and hand their card over to a third person so that he or she could get in. He was about to suggest this to Queenie when it was their turn to face the tyrant but didn’t have to. ‘Members of the forces don’t need a card,’ the man told them, surprising Neil by smiling at him as they went inside.
When they reached her ward, Gracie’s face still bore some evidence of what she had gone through, but her smile was warm and loving. To allow his parents some privacy, Neil and Queenie went to sit in the corridor after fifteen minutes – filling in time by watching the steady stream of nurses and visitors – and went back when the bell rang to mark the end of visiting time. ‘Cheerio, Mum,’ he said, ‘I’ve to go back in the morning, so I won’t manage to come again, but I’ll be thinking about you. Get well soon.’
Olive had no time to think properly until she went to bed. She had spent most of yesterday planning what she would say to Neil tonight and he’d actually cancelled their date. To be fair, it was Gracie’s fault, not his, but it meant that she had no opportunity to carry out her scheme for his last night. She had meant to act the lovelorn girl, to weep on his shoulder in the hope that he would succumb to her pleas, and if that didn’t work, she had intended to turn nasty, to threaten to tell Freda. She had not thought beyond that. She had been positive that he couldn’t hold out against her for long, that she could wear him down . . . but this had happened.
When she was given Neil’s message, she had said, ‘I’ll go to Foresterhill to meet him after visiting time,’ but her father had forbidden it. ‘He’ll be wanting to be with Joe since it’s his last night. He’ll be upset about his mother and you’re not to pester him. At least he had the decency to phone as soon as he could to tell you he couldn’t meet you.’
It wasn’t decency, Olive mused, it was cruelty, maybe even fear, after what they had done on Saturday night. She would never forgive him for not keeping their date, and she would never forgive Gracie. They’d all conspired against her, even her own father. Mum hadn’t said anything but she’d been too afraid that her sister might die. Olive’s heart gave a leap. If Gracie did die, Neil would need somebody to console him and who better than the cousin who had loved him for as long as she could remember? That could be the answer to the maiden’s prayer . . . though she wasn’t a maiden any longer.
It was quite late before Neil arrived back at the camp so, as Freda had known, it was Wednesday evening before he went to see her, still undecided as to whether or not to tell her about Saturday. As he neared her home, he was struck anew by the quaintness of the low, roughly hexagonal cottage, which, according to Mr Cuthbert, had once been the lodge for Duffin House, burned down in the late 1800s – the ruins could still be seen in one of the fields. He had also said that the walled part of his gardens had originally been the kitchen garden for the manor house.
When Freda opened the heavy, latched door, her face still looked rather pinched, but her eyes glowed as she gave him a welcome-back kiss. ‘We’ve something to tell you,’ she said softly, her voice charged with excitement, and dragged him inside. He was disappointed that she hadn’t given him a more substantial sign that she had missed him, but her father was saying, ‘Sit down, Neil, and I’ll pour out some sherry.’
Obeying, Neil wondered what was going on. There was an air of conspiracy, even Mrs Cuthbert looked less forbidding than she had done before, and her husband was making something of a ceremony of the simple task of opening a bottle. Whatever they had to tell him, it couldn’t be anything bad, so he let his eyes travel round the small, cosy room. He had only been inside once before, when he asked if he and Freda could be married, and he had been so much taken aback by her mother’s refusal that he had paid no attention to the room, but it was just perfect for such an old-fashioned lodge. The beamed ceiling was low and there was chintz everywhere: the curtains, the loose covers on the armchairs, the cushions on the wicker chair, twin of the one he was sitting on. The table and the dresser, where Freda’s father was engaged in filling four stemmed glasses, were of solid oak. It was a homely room, a comfortable room, but he felt anything but comfortable when he met Mrs Cuthbert’s calculating eyes.
‘Now, Neil,’ Mr Cuthbert boomed, handing round the sherry, ‘I suppose you’ll be wondering what all this is in aid of. We do not often indulge in drink, but we could not let . . .’
‘Get on with it, George!’ his wife snapped.
Neil gathered that she was not in favour of ‘it’, whatever it was, but Mr Cuthbert was not to be deterred from making the speech he had prepared. ‘We could not let this occasion pass unmarked. It’s the only time we will have the chance. I had always imagined myself . . .’
‘For heaven’s sake!’ his wife said, exasperation getting the better of her. ‘Can’t you get to the point without all this rigmarole?’ She turned to Neil. ‘I don’t often climb down over anything, but you can marry our Freda as soon as you want. She was miserable all the time you were away and . . . my daughter’s happiness has always come first with me.’
‘B – but,’ Neil stammered, ‘I thought you said we’d to wait at least a year . . .’
‘Have you changed your mind about marrying her?’
‘Oh no!’ The full realisation of what she had said dawned on him now. ‘This is great! Do you still want the wedding to be in the church or have you climbed down over that, too?’
Freda broke in, ‘I persuaded her to let us have it in the registry office in Newcastle, and it’ll only be your mum and dad and mine there. No fuss, no white dress, no anything.’
‘I’m not happy about it,’ Mrs Cuthbert stated, needlessly, ‘and to prevent you treating the marriage lightly since it will only be a civil ceremony, we will all go to church on the Sunday, so that it can be blessed properly. I trust that your parents will not object to that?’
‘I’m sure they wouldn’t, but I don’t think they’ll be able to come. Mum had an operation on Monday morning to remove a kidney stone and she won’t be fit to travel for a while.’
‘Oh, Neil,’ Freda sighed, ‘does that mean we’ve to wait?’
‘Mum wouldn’t want us to postpone our wedding. I’ll write to her tonight and tell her. I’m sure she and Dad won’t mind not being here.’
George Cuthbert, having stood patiently with his glass in his hand, had obviously decided to carry on as if there had been no interruption. ‘I had always imagined myself leading my daughter down the aisle, but I know times are changing, and I suppose church weddings will soon be a thing of the past. Be that as it may, I now raise my glass in a toast. To Freda and Neil, a long and happy life together, and may all their troubles be little . . .’
‘To Freda and Neil.’ His scowling wife interrupted in time to stop his indelicacy.
Because Freda seemed disinclined to leave her parents at such a momentous time, Neil remained with them until it was time to go back to camp, but she offered to walk a little way with him. ‘Mum was worried about me not picking up after the flu,’ she confided, ‘and I said I was missing you and that’s why she changed her mind.’
‘I missed you, too.’ His conscience stirred, but perhaps not deeply enough. ‘By the way, I took Olive out a couple of times when I was home. I hope you don’t mind?’
‘No, of course I don’t.’
‘I was going to see her on my last night, as well, but I called it off because of Mum.’
‘That would have been three times, and you always said you didn’t particularly like her.’
There seemed to be no annoyance in her voice but, to be on the safe side, Neil spoke firmly. ‘I’ve never like
d her. You’re not jealous, are you, darling?’
‘No, you Scottish chump.’ She hesitated for a moment, then said, wistfully, ‘You’ve never actually proposed to me. I’d always dreamt of a romantic . . .’
Neil whirled her round to face him. ‘Dearest darling, will you please do me the honour of becoming my wife?’
‘This is so sudden,’ she said, with feigned coyness. ‘I’m only a poor little virgin and . . .’
‘I know that!’ he exclaimed wryly. ‘But not for long now. And that’s not the reason I want to marry you . . . well, it’s part of it, but I do love you, with all my heart.’
After several ardent kisses, Freda pulled away. ‘I’m sorry about your mum and when you write, tell her I hope she’ll soon be on her feet again. Now, I’d better go before Mum and Dad think we’ve eloped.’
‘A letter for you, Mrs Ferris.’ The auxiliary nurse handed an envelope to Gracie who glanced at it and smiled. ‘It’s from my son. He’s in the REME and he was home on leave when I was taken in here. He just went back on Tuesday night.’
‘He’ll be wanting to know how you are.’
‘Aye.’ Gracie had been intending to write to Neil today in any case, because Joe hadn’t brought her writing pad in when she asked him. He’d a mind like a sieve and Queenie was as bad. The house would be in an awful state by the time she got home. Sighing, Gracie opened the letter.
Wednesday night
Dear Mum,
I hope you’re making good progress and what I’m going to tell you should make you feel even better. Freda and I are getting married! I’m going to arrange it with the registrar for as soon as possible. Freda’s Mum and Dad wanted you to be here and I hope you’re not disappointed that we’re not waiting but honestly, Mum, I’m so happy I couldn’t wait. Tell Dad he should be thankful that he won’t have to make a speech. That’s all I’ve time for before lights out.
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