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Page 37
She held her breath. Bridie looked at her with such hatred that Catherine knew she was going to die. Here she was, standing in the sunshine, dressed up to the nines, half an hour from being married and her best friend was going to shoot her. It all seemed so ridiculous, so pointless, so darkly funny. But Catherine knew if she laughed at that instant, Bridie would fire the gun.
Nothing happened. They held each other’s look. Bridie still gripped the revolver but with less conviction.
Slowly, Catherine walked forward. Their shoulders brushed as she passed. Down the steps. Her heart boomed like a bass drum. Surely Bridie must hear her fear, smell it on her person? She kept putting one foot in front of the other, hardly daring to breathe. She was halfway down the drive and still alive. If Bridie shot her in the back from this range, she might survive. Her steps quickened. From here she could run into the street and scream for help. At the gate, she wondered if Bridie could shoot after all. Perhaps there were no bullets in the gun. Perhaps she had never been issued with bullets and it was all a bluff.
Turning into the street, Catherine began to run, not daring to look back. She ran, sobbing with relief until her lungs were fit to burst. Slowing, she walked through the town, mingling with strangers, dabbing at her tear-stained face, trying to compose her shattered nerves.
She was five minutes late. Tom was at the top of the church steps anxiously looking out for her. She gave him a huge smile.
‘Aren’t you supposed to be inside?’ she panted.
‘Thought you’d changed your mind,’ he said with a bashful grin.
‘Wild horses wouldn’t keep me away.’ Her laughter was strained. Not even wild soldiers.
The service was brief, almost hurried. Father John could not hide his awkwardness in having to marry Catherine to an Anglican. Although Tom showed no signs of being offended, Catherine felt annoyed and hurt on his behalf. What should have been a high moment of fulfilment was reduced to a gabble of words and a hasty blessing.
Perhaps it was because of her overwrought state, but it was easier to blame the priest for the joyless service. Still, Catherine put on a brave face for the others and pretended that all was well. At last it was over. She was married to Tom. Bridie had not stopped them. She would never be alone again. They came out of the church grinning at Major Holloway’s box camera, arm in arm. Catherine was touched to see some of Tom’s pupils had turned up to wish them well.
Her dread returned at the thought of what they might find at The Hurst. The guests were to share a sandwich lunch before the Townsends took the newly weds to the station. Tom had booked a brief honeymoon, with a couple of nights in London and a visit to his family in Essex.
Thankfully, all was calm at the house. Mrs Fairy whispered to her that Bridie had sat on the steps crying her eyes out for ten minutes, refused a cup of tea and then left.
‘I was all for ringing the police, but she promised she never intended to harm you. Told her to clear off and not come back.’ Mrs Fairy patted her hand. ‘Still, you’ll be leaving Hastings soon and you’ll not have to worry about her again.’
Tom wanted to know what they were gossiping about. Catherine swung her arm possessively through his.
‘Nothing my husband needs to know about,’ she joked, delighting in making him blush.
She was glad when it was time to catch the train and wave their friends away. They sat close, holding hands, revelling in being alone together at last. Tom had arranged a theatre trip for the evening and Catherine felt light-headed at the thought of parading round the big city on the arm of her handsome new husband.
But halfway to the capital, the train stopped at a crowded station. Scores of bedraggled soldiers squeezed on. Their clothes were damp, their exhausted faces unshaven. A strange smell hung about them of sweat and dirt and smoke. Catherine clutched Tom’s hand tighter, fearful of what it might mean. The train finally pulled away, but the crowded carriage was eerily silent. One man caught her staring at him.
‘Where have you come from?’ Catherine whispered.
‘France,’ he said. She waited for him to say more but he didn’t.
She felt compelled to ask, ‘Is it very - bad?’
He hung his head, too overcome to speak.
An older man next to him said wearily, ‘Were lucky to get out. Jerries everywhere. Took us days to get to the coast. That many refugees on the road.’ His eyes looked haunted. ‘Killing the lot - every bugger in their way - even the bairns. Bloody mass murder.’ He didn’t apologise for his language. Catherine recognised his accent as North-Eastern, possibly Sunderland.
Her eyes stung with tears; she felt overwhelmed by what these men must have been through. Glancing around she saw how some of them were bandaged, their uniforms torn. They were still in shock at their defeat and utterly spent. Anything she said would be quite inadequate.
‘You’re - very - brave lads,’ she whispered.
The older soldier studied her a moment, then shook his head. ‘No lass, not us. It’s the lads we left behind covering our backs are the brave ones.’
She saw the glint of tears in his eyes and looked away, fearful of bursting into tears at their plight. The next time she glanced over, he was asleep on a comrade’s shoulder. No one spoke again. She exchanged silent looks with Tom and felt his discomfort. Did he feel guilt at sitting there among men his own age who had narrowly escaped death while they had been marrying? It left the pair of them subdued that evening.
London felt edgy. It was teeming with people in uniform, boarded-up buildings and queues outside food shops. There was a desperate gaiety about the theatregoers that jarred after the train journey. Newspaper billboards confirmed the stark news that the evacuation of troops from Dunkirk had begun.
Their landlady pointed out the tube station they should go to should the sirens go off.
‘Thinking of shutting up the place and going to stay with my sister in Worthing,’ she told them glumly. ‘You’ll likely be my last customers till this war’s done with.’
They retreated to their dingy room, infected by the woman’s gloominess.
‘Let’s go to bed,’ Tom beckoned.
Catherine looked anxiously at the faded green counterpane that Tom was turning back. He caught her look.
‘I’ll change in the bathroom down the hall if you like.’
Catherine nodded, her nervousness mounting. She had pushed the thought of the wedding night to the back of her mind. That morning she had doubted she’d live long enough to see it. Then the soldiers on the train had occupied her thoughts, filling her with an unnamed dread. But now the moment had come: the consummation, sex. She had worried over it for years. But there was no need. She was married and nothing she did would be sordid or dirty. So why was she gripped by such overwhelming panic that she felt physically sick?
Hurriedly, she stripped off while Tom was out of the room and threw on her nightdress. She climbed between the sheets, which were chilly and damp-smelling despite it being June. Catherine turned off the light and plunged the blacked-out room into pitch darkness. Tom came back, fumbling and clattering into furniture.
‘Where are you?’ He banged into the bed.
Catherine would have laughed if she didn’t have her hand clamped over her mouth to stop the nausea. Tom clambered in and reached for her in the dark. She froze at his touch.
‘What’s wrong? Are you cold?’ He began to rub her shoulders. ‘I’ll soon have you warmed up.’
Catherine had a violent flash of memory. She was sitting on a man’s knee and he was jiggling her up and down, whispering in her ear. He was a friend of Kate’s. But her mother was not there. She was too small for her legs to reach the ground and they flapped out in front of her like a doll’s. They were alone. His words were strange and frightening and she wanted her mother to come back and stop the jiggling and the talking.
‘Kitty, you’re shaking. It’ll be all right, I promise. I won’t hurt you.’
Catherine’s stomach heaved. Tom’s words. Or were they Danny’s? Suddenly, she remembered how it ended. She was eight years old again and running into the backyard to get away from him. Danny came after her, telling her to be quiet and not to wake her grandda or grandma. He caught her halfway to the dry closet and wrapped big strong arms about her.
‘Kitty, you’re shaking. I’m not going to hurt you.’
He pushed her against the brick wall. Then he was caressing her trembling limbs with one hand, the other over her mouth so she could not cry out. A big, clammy hand that smelled of the docks.
‘I’ll get you ready for bed, eh? Help your mammy. It’s our own little game.’
He pulled at her knickers. She had never played this before, didn’t want to now. Wanted him to take his hands away more than anything in the world. He unbuttoned his trousers.
‘Look, Kitty.’
She didn’t want to look. She screwed her eyes shut. But she had seen the thing and still saw it even with her eyes closed. She whimpered in fear. Vomit rose in her throat. She gagged behind his foul hand. She would drown in her own sick. She hated this game. Kate and Grandma Rose would be cross if she puked down her newly starched pinafore.
Then someone was yanking Danny backwards and roaring like a bull. Pushed aside, she fell on to the cold cobbles and banged her hip. Grandda was screaming obscenities over them and beating Danny with the fire-poker like he was a lump of clinker. Screaming and beating and yelling...
Catherine lurched for the side of the bed in the tiny London boarding house and vomited on to the thin rug.
‘Kitty!’ Tom cried in concern, swiftly turning on a rickety side lamp. He stroked her head. ‘Darling, you should have said you weren’t feeling well. Perhaps it’s something you’ve eaten.’
Catherine retched and cried in misery. How could she possibly explain it was nothing to do with food? A twenty-six-year-old memory had reared up the moment he had tried to touch her intimately, and spoilt everything. Danny. Some lodger her mother had been allowed to court because he was Irish and Catholic and ‘kind to the bairn’.
‘Sit on his knee, Kitty. Why won’t you sit on his knee? Danny’s bought you a twist of sweets’
Kate’s horrible man. But Kate had not been there to protect her. She was probably out buying whisky in the ‘grey hen’ for her and Danny to drink. How was it that all her troubles led their way back to her mother?
‘I’m sorry,’ Catherine sobbed, as Tom wiped up the mess. ‘I’ve ruined our wedding night.’ She watched him roll up the rug and put it outside the door.
He came and sat on the edge of the bed, but did not try to touch her.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said tiredly. ‘We’ve got a lifetime together. One night makes no difference. I’ve got you for ever; that’s what counts with me.’
Catherine put out her hand and grasped his tightly. ‘You’re such a kind man,’ she whispered.
The next day, they both put on a cheerful face and went out sightseeing. But the news sweeping the city was doom-laden. There was fierce fighting on French soil. Many of the ships sent to rescue the British Expeditionary Force were being sunk. Thousands were trapped with their backs to the sea. Paris was being bombed.
They went to a matinee and saw Gone with the Wind. For a couple of delicious hours, Catherine lost herself in the dramatic love story and cried when headstrong Scarlett O’Hara was abandoned by Rhett Butler. The actor Clark Gable was one of her heartthrobs. Afterwards, Tom took her for a meal, but the restaurant closed early and there was nothing for it but to return to the boarding house.
This time, Catherine steeled herself for the marriage bed, determined to get the deed over with. Again Tom changed in the bathroom, but came back to find her waiting with a side light on.
They kissed and held each other, then Tom whispered, ‘Do you want . . .?’
‘I’m ready,’ she agreed tensely.
He caressed her gently, hesitantly, as if it was all new to him too. Suddenly it dawned on Catherine.
‘You haven’t done this before either, have you?’ she blurted out.
Tom stopped. She saw him blush in the dim light. Catherine giggled. Somehow it made it easier. Neither had expectations of the other. She stroked his lean, sinewy back.
‘Haway then, let’s have a go,’ she smiled.
He bent and kissed her, a long tender kiss, while they touched and explored each other’s bodies. Catherine found it unexpectedly pleasant. She would have been quite happy if that had been it. But she knew there had to be something more. When the moment came, she tensed and cried out in pain. Tom faltered, so she stifled any noise and clung to his strong back. The bed creaked rhythmically, reminding her of the strange sounds she had sometimes heard coming from her grandparents’ room - after Rose’s protests had failed.
Tom gave a small grunt, sighed and relaxed back. Catherine lay, wondering if that was it. When he leant over to turn out the light, she realised it was over. They were properly husband and wife. She felt a surge of triumph. Lying in the dark, she could not help a smile of satisfaction. Though she was baffled as to why people made such a thing about sex. Books and films had led her to believe it was something special, something irresistible. Instead it was messy and uncomfortable and faintly comical. Perhaps it would improve.
She sought Tom’s hand in the dark and held it. She loved this man. She wanted him with her for ever.
She slept deeply, dreaming about Tom being one of the Dunkirk soldiers. He was on a train and she was trying to reach it, but the crowds on the station kept pushing her back. He beckoned frantically for her to follow, but the train left without her and she was alone, crying and waving.
She woke with a shudder, to find Tom with his arms around her, stroking her hair.
‘It was a bad dream, Kitty,’ he soothed. ‘Just a bad dream.’
Catherine allowed herself to be comforted. How could she tell him that often her bad dreams were premonitions of things to come?
Chapter 46
Catherine sat at the window of their small flat and gazed out at the September sunset, reluctant to turn on a light and draw the blinds. Ferocious bombing over London seemed the new tactic of the Luftwaffe rather than dog-fights with the RAF over the Channel. Not for the first time, she wondered at the decision to evacuate to St Albans. They were more likely to be attacked here. On still nights they could hear the explosions over London and see the far-away glow of a city on fire.
‘Come away from the window,’ Tom urged, pulling down the blackout.
She felt drained, unable to move from the chair. He put a hand on her forehead.
‘Are you feeling unwell again? You haven’t had another nosebleed?’ His look was anxious.
She shook her head. ‘No. I’m just tired. Though I don’t know why. I worked for hours on end in Hastings and never felt like this. It’s more tiring doing nothing,’ she laughed.
Tom gave her a wary look. It was the one thing they had argued over since their marriage in June: the lack of a job for Catherine. He thought she would welcome having a much smaller place to care for, after the back-breaking work at The Hurst. And there were social duties as a teacher’s wife to keep her occupied even in wartime. But once their small flat was unpacked and organised, Catherine balked at the long hours waiting for Tom to return. Queuing with a ration book at the grocer’s was the main event of her day. She longed for activity.
A lot of Tom’s colleagues these days were elderly bachelors, brought out of retirement to replace younger men alread
y called up. Catherine held a couple of dinner parties, but felt overawed by their conversation and classical education. One in particular, an English teacher called Forbes, seemed to delight in putting her down. The only time he spoke to her directly was to ask for tips on how to get stains out of his shirts.
‘You worked in a laundry, didn’t you, my dear?’
Catherine wished she could think of a witty remark to put him in his place, but could only blush and mumble about the cleaning powers of vinegar. She yearned to be able to hold her own in conversation with such men. She had no confidante of her own - except for Tom. Catherine revelled in her husband’s company and had never been so happy. But the hours when he was not there were long and lonely.
At times, she missed the fug of The Hurst kitchen with Mrs Fairy and Rita bustling about, and guests wandering in for a biscuit or to borrow the scissors. Her old house had been requisitioned and occupied by army officers; Mrs Fairy was being kept on to make their breakfast and Rita was working in a factory. Farewells had been tearful, Catherine far more upset at leaving The Hurst than she ever would have predicted.
Although she would never dare say so to Tom, Catherine regretted the terrible falling out with Bridie. How she wished for the company of the Bridie she had first known, before she had grown jealous and manipulative and bullying.
A card from her former friend had followed them to St Albans via the school, wishing her a happy marriage and that one day they would be reunited in Hastings. Catherine had destroyed the card and not written back; to do so would have felt disloyal to Tom.
If only she had had Tuppence’s boisterous company to keep her occupied, but dogs were not allowed in their lodgings. It had been a terrible wrench giving the dog away to the Townsends.
Bored and guilty that she was doing nothing towards the war effort, Catherine had gone for a job in a munitions factory without telling Tom. He had been dismayed, but said nothing until she rapidly developed breathing problems and lethargy. She was brought home in an ambulance one day, bleeding profusely from her tongue and nose, and Tom had put a stop to the job.