Keep the Home Fires Burning

by S Block

  Bob watched Pat intently, twisting his mouth into a thin smile of appreciation. ‘You smell nice,’ he said.

  Pat didn’t look at him. She was always more unsettled by Bob when he tried to be pleasant.

  ‘I found an old bottle of something at the back of my dressing table. Nearly empty.’ And then, wondering if this was what he meant, ‘You don’t think I’ve used too much?’

  ‘I like it when you make an effort,’ he said. ‘Should do it more often.’

  Why would I want to do that? The very last thing I want is you pawing at me.

  Pat couldn’t recall the last time she’d enjoyed Bob’s touch, and had long since come to dread a compliment as it was usually an overture to mechanical sex in which she parted her legs and locked her eyes onto a point on the bedroom ceiling until Bob had finished his mercifully brief thrusting below. After finishing, Bob would lie on top of Pat for a few moments, regaining his breath. He’d then roll off without looking at her and go downstairs to wash himself, as if he couldn’t bear to carry any trace of her any longer than he had to. He never asked if she enjoyed sex. Either Bob no longer noticed or no longer cared that his wife had received no pleasure from it for years.

  With Marek it was the opposite. The first time they’d had sex almost two months ago in the bedroom upstairs, Pat had immediately understood they were truly making love, with and for one another. Marek’s tenderness had unlocked Pat both physically and emotionally. She’d willingly offered herself to him that first time, and every time since. Because their moments together were so precious to her, Pat went to inordinate lengths to protect them. If Bob were to find out about their affair, the consequences would be catastrophic. Pat knew what he was capable of. Flashes of violence, certainly. But worse than kicks and punches, Bob had a grip on her self-confidence that he could tighten and tighten until Pat felt increasingly insignificant, incapable and, finally, utterly imprisoned within his will.

  Pat finished tying Bob’s tie and took a step back to look at her husband, hoping Marek was at that precise moment writing a new message to leave under the piece of old slate on top of the oldest headstone in the churchyard. She knew Marek and his men were preparing for mobilisation within the next two weeks, and was desperate to discuss their future.

  I’ll check before the wedding service. No – better to look immediately after the wedding, before everyone leaves the church, while Bob is limping out. I’ll make an excuse and look then.

  She could feel her heart race as she tried to will her longing into reality. The possibility of finding a note made her head swirl with excitement.

  Pat suddenly became aware of Bob’s voice.

  ‘. . . they can think what they like. But when my novel’s published, this shitty little village is going to sit up and take notice. You’ll see.’

  Bob had been talking for a while and she’d missed his opening salvo. Pat chose a reliable retort.

  ‘No more than you deserve,’ she said. He nodded agreement.

  Bob seldom required an authentic response from her these days, especially about his new book – a fictionalised account of his experience following the British Expeditionary Force out of France. Pat had read the first draft and found it hard going. Not because it wasn’t a page-turner, or reasonably well written – Bob’s craftsmanship meant it was both. But because its journalist-hero was clearly Bob’s heroic version of himself, which Pat had found revoltingly dishonest.

  ‘I don’t know why I’m expected to come to this bloody wedding. She’s your friend, not mine.’

  ‘It’s expected.’

  ‘Problem with this village all over. Everyone does what’s expected. No one does anything out of the ordinary.’

  ‘That’s what makes it such a nice place to live, Bob.’

  ‘Only if you lack any imagination.’

  She glanced at the small clock on the wall.

  I’d prefer it if you didn’t come. It would certainly make looking for a letter from Marek easier. In fact, I’d be happy if we never left the house together again.

  ‘Anyway. You look very smart, Bob,’ she said blankly, trying not to antagonise him further. ‘We should be on our way . . .’

  Pat carefully pushed past him into the hall to collect her coat.

  Bob looked at her and a flicker of a smile played across his mouth before it disappeared. He took a deep breath, and then another. Keeping his emotions in check. Biding his time. He looked at his watch. Not long now . . .

  Chapter 3

  Walking up the hill towards the church, the trim, elegantly dressed woman in her mid-fifties tried to curb her natural disposition towards briskness and kept to the pace of the smartly dressed eight-year-old boy at her side. The strong wind buffeted them both as they passed by the hedgerow. His hand was like a small ball of warm putty in hers.

  To a stranger they looked like any other mother and son, yet just a few months earlier Frances Barden had been entirely unaware of little Noah’s existence. As the product of a ten-year, secret relationship between her husband, Peter, and his company accountant, Helen, Noah’s existence had been kept from Frances. When her husband and his lover had been killed in a car accident just outside the village, events had spiralled from that moment to this at a speed that left Frances gasping.

  She looked down at the boy.

  How is it I’ve ended up playing mother to their child and not to my own? Have I taken you in to help you, Noah, or myself? Are the feelings I’m experiencing ‘maternal’ or ‘pity’?

  After putting Noah to bed and reading him a story, Frances spent most evenings in the drawing room with a glass of whisky, trying to make sense of everything that had happened in the last eight months. Peter often told her she thought too much, a criticism that irritated her immensely. Is it ever possible to think too much? Would he have accused a man of the same?

  Noah looked up at Frances. His dark eyes were the colour and shape of Peter’s. They often fooled her into believing she might hear Peter’s voice when he spoke. But it was always the voice of a small boy.

  ‘What plane does he fly?’

  Frances knew Noah was talking about Teresa’s fiancé. Noah had been obsessed by the prospect of seeing a real wing commander ever since she told him he would accompany her to the wedding.

  ‘I’m not sure. Hurricanes, I think.’

  His eyes widened, the name instantly exciting him, as it now excited all English boys his age.

  ‘Don’t hold me to that, Noah. I may have that wrong. Aeroplanes aren’t my strong suit.’

  ‘Has he shot down any Germans?’ He looked at her intently.

  Frances sensed where this was going. ‘I really couldn’t say.’

  ‘But has he killed people?’

  During the Great War, Frances had seen that most boys had a weakness for picturebook glory, which no one seemed to discourage. Stupidly, in her opinion.

  ‘I’m sure Wing Commander Lucas would be only too happy to discuss how many Germans he’s killed with an eight-year-old boy who really shouldn’t be thinking about such awful things. Though perhaps not on the day he’s getting married.’

  Noah looked a little disappointed, but accepted the point.

  Frances started to think about her own wedding day, then stopped when she remembered Helen – her husband’s mistress – had been a guest.

  She always struck me as a clever woman, but unambitious. Whereas I couldn’t stop pushing at everything. Was Helen his respite from me? Stop this . . . Peter had betrayed her terribly. There was no justification for it. No justification. But should I not look for some explanation?

  The road got steeper and a silence grew between her and Noah. Frances could see the tall trees surrounding the church at the top of the hill hurling their branches around in the wind, as crows rode the turbulence. Outside the church, congregants gathered in their finest, holding down hats and skirts.

  Frances couldn’t think how to break the silence.

  Peter would point out something a
musing or interesting along the way. Or make a silly joke that would leave Noah in stitches.

  Frances smiled at the memory of Peter readily making a fool of himself to elicit uncontrolled giggling from children.

  Having learned the full extent of his betrayal, Frances had determined to never think well of Peter again. Yet she found trying to sustain a form of hatred towards him utterly exhausting. It had threatened to drive her mad.

  Thank God for Sarah.

  Frances could see her sister standing outside the church up ahead with two other women.

  Thank God for you, my darling sister. You saved my life.

  In the terrible weeks after Peter’s funeral, Sarah had pressed the argument that rather than loving Helen instead of Frances, Peter had loved Helen in addition to Frances. Then, even the idea of sharing Peter’s affections with another woman had torn Frances apart. Yet the more she considered the proposition, the more Frances wanted it to be true. Over many months, as the pain of Peter’s violent death had settled into grief, Frances had slowly absorbed Sarah’s reasoning. The alternative was to believe Peter had spent every moment with Frances wishing she were Helen. That would have been too much to bear. Besides, it didn’t match what she felt to be true: that she and Peter loved one another. Their life was, as he’d told her one evening after returning from a concert in Liverpool, ‘an utter blast’. Frances used to make him laugh until he cried.

  You can’t do that to someone who’d rather you didn’t exist.

  Peter had betrayed her in an extraordinary fashion, but one could argue that the inordinate lengths he went to in order to conceal his double life were an expression of his desire to protect Frances; which was, in turn, an illustration of his love for her.

  As they drew nearer to the church Frances glanced down at the top of Noah’s head.

  ‘None of what happened is his fault,’ Sarah had said.

  How could it be? I’ve lost my husband but he’s lost his mother and father – in many ways he’s bearing up better than I am.

  By the time Noah’s grandparents – Helen’s parents – had come to beg Frances to shelter Noah from the Luftwaffe’s bombardment of Liverpool, her anger had given way to an intense curiosity to see what of Peter the child might possess. Beyond that, he wasn’t her responsibility, and it made little difference when she was told that Peter would have wanted Noah brought to a place of safety. Frances had felt no sense of duty towards the boy, and resented the emotional blackmail she believed Noah’s grandfather was trying to exert. And yet there was something about the way Noah had looked at her through the window of the taxi when he’d arrived at the house. She’d seen the same expression on her own face in the bathroom mirror in the weeks following Peter’s death. A loss of confidence around the eyes. A fearfulness about the future.

  In that moment, Frances realised Noah was a fellow traveller in loss, grief and sheer bewilderment. Before the boy had got out of the taxi, Frances had resolved to take him in. Leading Noah into the house, she’d recalled a remark Sarah had once made in response to the child of one of her husband’s recently deceased parishioners, sent to live with a relative they’d never met before.

  ‘Children just need love,’ Sarah had said. ‘It doesn’t always matter from whom.’

  Frances watched Noah look around as they approached the church; everything seemed to interest him, just as it had Peter. His questions were pointed, not general, just like Peter’s. He listened to the answers and remembered them, and expressed affection at unexpected moments, taking Frances’s hand to stroke, or kissing her cheek, just like Peter.

  Noah is Peter’s son. I am Peter’s wife. Noah is therefore my . . . ? What are we to one another? I wonder.

  Frances squeezed his little hand with a pulse of affection, prompting Noah to look up and smile at her.

  ‘Remind me, Noah. Have you ever been to a wedding before?’

  ‘No. Never been asked to one,’ he said, in all seriousness.

  Frances laughed. She waved at her sister, who Frances could now see was standing with Erica Campbell and Joyce Cameron outside the church. They smiled and waved back.

  ‘I think you’ll enjoy it immensely.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s where people are at their most happy. Not just the man and woman getting married. Everyone . . .’

  ‘Were you at your most happy at your wedding?’

  Frances glanced at the darkening autumn clouds overhead.

  ‘Absolutely.’ The thought of it raised a lump in her throat. ‘We should hurry, Noah. Before the rain starts . . .’

  Chapter 4

  Great Paxford’s six-hundred-year-old church wasn’t simply full for Teresa’s wedding to Wing Commander Lucas, its pews were packed with villagers, and the choir stalls of carved oak were bursting with children ready to sing their hearts out for their beloved teacher. Everyone was smiling and excited as they settled to the Flower Duet from Lakmé, sung by two beautifully voiced leading lights from the local operatic society. Even the figures painted onto the medieval stone screen of the chapel seemed to be looking upon the event with a benevolent air, and the life-size monuments of ancient knights lining the walls seemed less morbid today, lending the occasion a sense of unabashed pageantry. The enthusiasm among the congregants wasn’t merely a reflection of the village’s need to let off steam amidst the daily chaos of war, it was in large part a testament to how popular Teresa had become during her brief time at the village school.

  The womenfolk debated how beautiful Teresa looked in her white wedding gown, trimmed with Irish lace, and were almost as impressed by the tall figure of the wing commander in his crisp blue uniform and cap. The menfolk were perhaps less struck by the couple’s sartorial details, but nevertheless admired Teresa and Nick for their determination to pursue the course of their relationship in spite of world events. For everyone present, whether loved ones were at home or fighting overseas in whereabouts unknown, this marriage at this moment was a timely restatement of the truest adage known to mankind: life goes on.

  Alison Scotlock sat stiffly on the front pew, where Teresa had asked her to sit with her family during the wedding service. It was a compliment to be asked to sit with Teresa’s parents and older brother, but since childhood Alison had disliked sitting at the front of anything. A reserved, watchful individual, being ‘on view’ left her feeling exposed. In her first year at school, Alison had been the cleverest child in class by some distance. Her teacher made her sit at the front, using Alison to correctly answer questions other children got wrong. It was only a matter of time before the boys turned against her, swiftly followed by the girls. Being a clever girl, Alison discovered at the age of eight, was a burden best hidden.

  Before Teresa had arrived in her life Alison felt most at ease sitting behind her desk, tucked into the corner of the front room, out of view of anyone passing by the window. There, she could lose herself in clients’ business accounts for hours, quietly plying her trade as a bookkeeper.

  When Alison had suggested to Teresa that she would feel more comfortable in the middle of the congregation, or even at the back, Teresa had refused.

  ‘You took me into your home when I first came to Great Paxford. Became my closest friend. Helped me fit into village life. You’ve no idea how much seeing you at the front will help me get through the ceremony.’

  ‘When the day arrives,’ Alison had replied, ‘you’ll fly through it. You’ll see.’

  ‘Whether I fly or crawl through it, knowing you’re at the front will make it immeasurably more possible.’

  Alison had come to greatly value their friendship, so had dropped her request for anonymity.

  The congregation fell silent as Teresa was followed up the aisle by two nervous bridesmaids from her class clutching small bouquets of marigolds. Nick turned to watch his bride approach, and couldn’t suppress a smile of unadulterated joy, discreetly wiping the beginnings of a tear from his eye before it spilled over. As Teresa moved next to Nick the exp
ressions on the faces of the congregation were unanimous – they were looking upon a truly golden couple.

  As Teresa and Nick were led through their wedding vows by the stand-in vicar, Alison felt a small ball of dread turn slowly over in the pit of her stomach. Despite reservations about taking in the young teacher when Teresa had first arrived, a profound comradeship had been swiftly forged between them. With Teresa now gone, Alison’s small cottage suddenly felt cavernous. With only her dog, Boris, for company, the prospect of returning to her old seclusion caused Alison to pull her shawl around her shoulders.

  Had she still been going into the Barden factory on a daily basis, Alison might not have felt this so strongly. But with the factory closed following an investigation over substandard parachute silk, there was little but daily necessities to take her out of the cottage. Indeed, the blame Frances levelled at Alison for inadvertently introducing a crooked silk supplier to the factory forced her to remain inside her cottage most of the time. She even altered the times she took Boris for a walk, bringing the morning walk forward and pushing the evening walk back an hour to minimise the number of people they might encounter.

  Alison glanced around. She knew Teresa’s pupils had quickly found their new teacher warm, kind, funny, clever, strict, but rigorously fair. Their parents followed suit, as did members of the Women’s Institute, which Alison had suggested Teresa join to quickly get herself known around the village.

  Alison watched as the Reverend James gave Teresa and Nick his blessing, then turned to Sarah in the row behind.

  ‘You can see how much Nick loves her,’ she whispered. ‘His eyes.’

  Sarah nodded. She had been thinking how much more relaxed and enjoyable her husband, Adam, would have made the service than this dour replacement. Adam’s services were compassionate, interesting, and not without entertainment value. He believed people should attend church because they actively enjoyed the experience, but he neither insisted nor expected others to share his faith. How could he, when his own wife couldn’t?