by Anne Bennett
‘Course you will,’ Carmel said.
‘There isn’t any of course here,’ Siobhan said. ‘I never go across the door except to go to work or to Mass.’
‘Well, that is one thing I can do for you,’ Michael said. ‘From when we leave here, the two of us will go to the weekly social. It will do me good as well.’
‘But, Michael, my clothes…’
‘The outfits Jeff bought you will do for now,’ Michael said. ‘We’ll cross the bridge of getting more later.’
‘Oh, Michael!’ Siobhan said ecstatically, throwing her arms around her brother.
‘You’ll have me strangled, woman,’ Michael said, though his face bore a huge grin. ‘I gather you approve of my idea.’
Siobhan nodded enthusiastically. ‘I…I don’t really know what to say.’
‘A speechless woman,’ Michael said. ‘Must be a first. A word of warning, though,’ he added. ‘Don’t let the miserable bugger catch sight of those clothes or he might destroy them some way out of spite.’
Siobhan nodded. ‘I’d already thought of that. I’ll keep them in the cloakroom behind the bakery. No one will mind.’
Carmel listened to her brother and sister plotting against the man they all hated. She didn’t blame them in the least and she knew one by one he would lose the stranglehold he had on the children as they grew, for even the youngest, Pauline, had been nine in December. It was only her mother who couldn’t escape and that thought saddened her.
Once Michael and Siobhan had left, life settled down again to the horrible cold and wintry days. The only thing for Carmel to look forward to were the letters from Paul. Then from sometime towards the end of April, all communication ceased.
At first the two girls were unaware there was any sort of problem, because since their husbands had left the camp, they had experienced these silences before and then a batch of letters would arrive together. Lois was at work one day when Jeff called. Since he had broken off relations with his mother, Paul had always written to his father via the firm, and Jeff called down about the middle of May to see if Lois or Carmel had had any news.
‘Why are you so concerned?’ Carmel asked. ‘I mean, this silence has happened before.’
Jeff thought of fobbing Carmel off with some reassuring nonsense, but he knew she was no fool. Nor was she a child and she deserved to know as much of the facts as he did. ‘One of the chaps at work has this radio receiver,’ he said. ‘He gets messages from abroad and he says the word is that the whole of the Allied army is in retreat.’
‘In retreat?’ Carmel repeated. ‘But they will be all right, won’t they? I mean, there’s that Maginot Line. Paul always said that that was unbreachable.’
‘It is,’ Jeff said, ‘or at least without severe loss of life.’
‘But?’
‘What do you mean, but?’ Jeff asked.
‘There was a definite “but” in your voice,’ Carmel said. ‘I need to know about that “but”.’
Jeff sighed. ‘I know nothing definite, you understand, but that line was erected along the border that France shares with Germany, but it stops at the border France shares with Belgium and Luxembourg. The word is out that German paratroopers have landed and taken a Belgium fort thought to be impregnable and now the Dutch and Belgians are fighting for their lives.’
Carmel felt as if her veins were suddenly filled with ice and she looked at Jeff, horror-struck.
‘But they will be all right, our husbands,’ Lois assured her later, as they sat before the meal Carmel had cooked and she told Lois what Jeff had said. ‘We’re luckier than most, for ours are not fighting men.’
‘I hope you are right,’ Carmel said. ‘We will just have to wait and hope to hear something soon. But I can’t help remembering that Norway didn’t hold out for long.’
‘So what chance have Holland and Belgium got, you mean?’
‘Yes,’ Carmel said. ‘I mean, the man and his armies have just rode roughshod over every other country. It’s as if he’s unstoppable.’
The words hung in the air, because neither woman wanted to take that thought any further.
Then, just three days after Jeff’s visit, Carmel and Lois were at home listening to the wireless when the programme was interrupted to report that both Belgium and Holland had been defeated. For a second or two, the women looked at each other and then Lois said, ‘I bought a paper today and it has a map in the middle. Shall we have a look?’
What they saw horrified them, for it was plainly that if the Allies were retreating with the Germans on their tail, they had nowhere to retreat to but beaches.
‘Jesus Christ!’ Lois exclaimed. ‘What can they do with the Germans behind them and the sea ahead of them? What bloody chance have they got?’
Then, on 31 May, the veil of secrecy was lifted and they heard of the thousands of Allied soldiers that the Royal Navy, with the help of smaller boats, were attempting to rescue from beaches at Dunkirk. There were pictures in the paper of the thousands of soldiers waiting their turn to be evacuated and the pier heads they had built out of discarded vehicles and equipment. There were many pictures of small boats of all shapes sizes and descriptions too of their lifting as many men as possible.
There were pictures of the returning soldiers, many wrapped in blankets, being given tea, sandwiches and cigarettes from the stalwart women of the WVS. Carmel and Lois scanned the pictures anxiously to see if they could spot their loved ones.
The telegrams began to arrive and on 3 June one was delivered to 17 York Road for Lois, who was on duty at the hospital. Carmel took it from the lad with trembling fingers and, lifting the child from her cot, she took her round to Ruby.
‘I must take this to Lois straight away,’ she said. ‘And I would hesitate to take the baby because I don’t know what it says…how she’ll be, you know.’
‘You go on, ducks,’ Ruby said, lifting Beth from Carmel’s arms. The baby loved Ruby and she gave her a gurgling smile and waved her podgy arms in the air as Ruby went on, ‘Leave this little angel with me. Your place is beside Lois. She has need of you now.’
Chris was alive, but injured and at a military hospital in Ramsgate. Lois made immediate arrangements to go down and visit him. So Ruby knew Carmel was alone in the house when, as she dusted the front room, she spotted the telegraph boy stop again outside 17 York Road the following day.
She usually went into Carmel and Lois’s house by the back door, but she didn’t wait that day. Leaving her duster and polish, she scurried out the front way. The front door was ajar, but still Ruby had trouble opening it because the crumpled and unconscious form of Carmel was behind it, the telegram still clutched in her hand, the telegram that said Paul Vincent Connolly was missing, presumed dead.
By the time Lois returned the next day, confident that her husband was on the mend and would be transferred to a Birmingham hospital as soon as it could be arranged, she found Ruby rushed off her feet and worried to death. Lois was devastated herself by the news of her cousin’s death. She shed bitter tears and knew she would always feel the loss of him, a gap in her life that would never be filled. She was grateful to Ruby, who did not urge her not to cry, but seemed to think it perfectly natural she should. She held her tight and told her to cry it out.
Carmel, on the other hand, lay as one who had died herself, but her eyes remained open. She had not spoken nor eaten a morsel since she received the telegram, nor taken any notice of the child.
‘I’ve had to feed Beth, you know,’ Ruby said. ‘I got bottles in and all because, well, I doubt Carmel could have fed her, even if she wanted to, for a shock that affects a person so deeply it would effectively dry up the milk, I’d say.’
But Carmel had given no thought to her child. Her mind was filled with thoughts of the husband she adored. The loss of him hurt her so deeply, she wondered how a person could be suffering so much pain and remain alive. She wondered bleakly what was there for her in life without Paul beside her. She wanted to be with him
wherever he was. In one hand she clutched the locket he had given her for her twenty-first and with her other she held a photograph taken of him before he went away.
Ruby saw the despair in her eyes and the dejected slump of her body when she lifted her to try to coax her to eat a little broth or something similar. She would turn her head away from food, but would sometimes take a few drops of water.
‘I am afraid to leave her and that is the truth,’ Ruby told Lois. ‘I would say she is distressed enough to do something silly. Not that she needs to, because if she doesn’t eat soon, she’ll fade away. I mean, there wasn’t much of her to start with.’
Lois knew every word that Ruby said was true and she was distracted with concern for her very special friend. She saw too that Ruby couldn’t do it all and, anyway, Carmel shouldn’t be left alone, so Lois went to the hospital the next day and asked to see the matron. The older woman, though pleased that Chris was on the mend, was distressed at Carmel’s news.
‘How is she managing?’
‘She isn’t. Not at all,’ Lois cried. ‘She lies in bed as if she is made of stone. She doesn’t speak and hasn’t eaten. Ruby, a neighbour, has been dealing with things while I have been away in Ramsgate. It can’t go on, for there is the baby to see to as well and Ruby is frightened to leave Carmel alone for any length of time.’
‘Does she think Carmel would do some thing silly?’ the matron said. ‘She never struck me as that type of girl.’
‘Nor me, Matron, in the normal way of things,’ Lois said, tears glistening in her own eyes. ‘But…oh God, Matron, I have never seen Carmel like this.’
‘What do you wish to do?’
‘I must stay with her for now,’ Lois said. ‘For if anything happens to her then I would never forgive myself.’
The matron knew she had to release Lois to help her friend and so she said, ‘Shall we say a week’s leave for now, just to see how things go?’
‘Oh, thank you, Matron.’
‘Not at all,’ the matron said. ‘After all, I know the girl too, don’t forget. When she is more herself, say I was asking after her.’
Lois was impressed by the matron’s understanding, but as she looked at Carmel’s prone form later, she did wonder if she would ever be able to pass on the matron’s message. The only signs that Carmel was alive was the shallow sound of her breathing and her eyes, which were wide open and fixed on the ceiling.
Lois sat by the bed, eased the locket from Carmel’s hand and laid it on the table beside the bed before covering that hand with her own, glad that Ruby said she would take care of the baby while Lois tried to break through to her friend.
‘Look at me, Carmel,’ Lois commanded, and when there was no response, Lois gave her hand a little shake and said sharply, ‘I know you can hear me, so stop this and look at me.’
Carmel wanted to say that was almost too much effort but it took more effort to talk, and perhaps if she turned her head to look at Lois, she would then leave her alone. When Lois looked into Carmel’s eyes fixed on hers, she was shaken by the level of pain she saw reflected in them. It was like looking into two pools of sorrow, and Lois knew Carmel wouldn’t feel better until she had released the tears lurking behind them, which were making her eyes glisten.
‘You really can’t go on like this, Carmel,’ she said quite sharply, sensing that Carmel needed to be shocked out of this trance-like state. There was no response and so she went on, ‘Do you think Paul would like you to go on like this?’
Carmel gasped at the sound of Paul’s name and, encouraged, Lois went on, ‘I am sure he would be impressed at you lying in bed, neglecting your child, leaving her in the care of a neighbour and you not seeming to care whether she lives or dies.’
This time, Lois saw tears trickle from under Carmel’s eyelids and slide down her cheeks, but she didn’t let on she had seen. Instead she got to her feet, saying as she did so, ‘Right I am away to fetch up some broth, and this is me you are dealing with, not Ruby, so we will have no nonsense from you. This time you will eat it!’
Carmel did eat it. She refused the bread and Lois didn’t insist, but she drained the broth with a little persuasion and bullying, though she still didn’t speak. But it was a start, and Ruby was delighted. It was that evening, as Lois sat feeding the baby, that she realised probably no one had been informed of Paul’s death, for Carmel had been in no state to do so and Ruby wouldn’t think to do it.
She would write to Carmel’s family in Ireland that night after she had got the baby to bed, she decided. Her uncle would have to wait until the morning. She knew from what Paul and Jeff himself had said that he spent most evenings at his club and she could hardly trail him there. Women were not allowed in these bastions for men, anyway. Lois would have to tell her own family too and she knew she would have to call on the goodness of Ruby again in the morning while she undertook the unpleasant task of breaking the news of Paul’s death to those closest to her.
When Lois told her Uncle Jeff about the telegram, she thought for a minute he was going to pass out. The colour drained totally from his face and he had to feel for his chair. Then he flopped into it as if his legs wouldn’t hold him up any more.
‘Uncle Jeff, are you all right?’ Lois cried. ‘Oh, what stupid things we say. I am so sorry. There is no way I know to soften news like this.’
‘I’m all right, my dear,’ Jeff said. He looked far from it. He appeared breathless, gasping for air, his voice was husky and his eyes unnaturally bright. ‘If you would look in the filing cabinet there,’ he said to Lois, ‘top drawer, there is a bottle and a couple of glasses.’
Lois brought the whiskey and laid it on the table. ‘You will join me, my dear?’
‘No, thank you, Uncle,’ Lois said for it was far too early in the morning for her, but she didn’t begrudge her uncle taking comfort where he could. Jeff poured himself a good measure and downed it in one swallow. Lois was glad to see the colour return to his face and he seemed more in control of himself as he leaned towards her and said, ‘Tell me everything you know.’
‘That is precious little,’ Lois said. ‘I got word that Chris was injured first and that he was in hospital in Ramsgate and I set off to see him. He was in theatre when I arrived and, though I did see him for a few minutes later, he was too groggy to make any sense. I didn’t know then about Paul, you see. Anyway, when they said Chris was going to be fine and that he was being transferred to a hospital in Birmingham later, I left because I was worried about leaving Carmel on her own. We all knew then about the rout of Dunkirk and because of Chris I knew the Royal Warwickshires had been involved but when I left she hadn’t heard a word of how or where Paul was.’
‘So she was on her own when she heard?’
Lois nodded. ‘Ruby found Carmel slumped in a faint in the hall, the telegram still in her hand, saying Paul was missing, presumed dead. She could barely open the door, she told me. She helped her to bed and she has been there ever since.’
‘Ever since!’ Jeff exclaimed, ‘Why? When was this?’
‘Three days ago. I came home only yesterday. Poor Ruby had too much to do looking after Carmel and Beth to think of informing anyone.’
Jeff nodded. ‘I understand perfectly,’ he said. ‘She looked after the important things and that is all you can expect—more in fact than you can expect. You have a neighbour in a million there.’
‘Don’t I know it,’ Lois said fervently. ‘Without her I’m not sure what Carmel would have done. Will you go along and see her? She has always thought a great deal of you.’
‘It’s a mutual thing,’ Jeff said. ‘It will be no hardship for me to see her and, rest assured, you will have my constant support. Don’t hesitate to call on me for anything.’
‘Thank you, Uncle Jeff,’ Lois said. ‘What about Aunt Emma?’ She had trouble saying the name without a curl to her lip when she remembered the way she had treated Paul.
She was mightily relieved when Jeff said, ‘Don’t worry about your aunt,
my dear. Leave her to me.’
Lois hoped her sigh of relief wasn’t audible as she said, ‘Will you be all right? I have to go and tell my parents, and Ruby is once more holding the fort so I must get back as soon as I can.’
‘Don’t worry about me,’ Jeff said. ‘You already have enough on your plate. And I will be along to see Carmel as soon as I can manage it.’
He barely waited until the door closed behind his niece before buzzing his secretary. ‘Find Matthew, would you, and ask him to spare me a few minutes?’
If the secretary was surprised there was no hint of it in her voice. ‘Certainly, sir.’
Jeff poured another large glass of whiskey, which he again swallowed in one gulp. Then he leaned back in his chair and let the tears flow unchecked from his eyes as he grieved for the loss of his elder son, his favourite, if he was honest. He hadn’t cried since he was five years old and his father had told him that if he wanted to grow up to be a big man, he hadn’t to cry like a baby. As he wanted his father’s approval above all else in the world, Jeff had adhered strictly to his rules and hadn’t even shed a tear when the old man died.
But that day he cried for Paul, though he resisted the desire to wrap his arms around himself and howl like a wounded animal, for he ached so much inside it was as if Paul’s death had carved a hole in his heart.
However, by the time he heard the sound of Matthew’s voice as he accompanied the secretary to her office, he was calmer and he wiped the last of the tears from his cheeks and composed himself to tell Matthew of his brother’s death.
Working in a different section, Matthew hadn’t seen Lois arrive. When Jeff’s secretary had found him and told him his father would like to see him, Matthew had been examining his conscience. Though they worked in the same firm, they seldom met on a regular basis and he knew there had to be some reason that he had been summoned to ‘The Presence’ like a naughty schoolboy, but he couldn’t think of anything that he had done particularly bad—certainly nothing his father would think he had a right to interfere with.