Keep the Home Fires Burning

by S Block

  Nick stepped to one side, revealing Annie, in her ATA uniform.

  ‘Annie flew a Hurricane up for us this afternoon. Invited her back for a drink and a bite.’

  Teresa looked at Annie and felt sick. It was one thing to think of Annie in secret. It was another to have the object of her desire standing three feet from her husband in her own house. She felt herself turn red and hot with embarrassment, which embarrassed her further.

  She knows why I’m embarrassed. This is wrong. Of all people, why has he brought her?

  Annie looked at Teresa’s expression and instantly realised coming back to the house with Nick had been a mistake. When Nick had mentioned coming over for supper Annie hadn’t given it a great deal of thought. She was exhausted after flying a Hurricane up from Hertfordshire in rough weather, and accepted Nick’s invitation without thinking. It was only in the car from Tabley Wood that it began to dawn on her that coming to supper might be a mistake. As they pulled into Great Paxford, Annie started to worry that Teresa would see her arrival, without prior warning, as an intrusion at best; predatory at worst. She wanted Teresa to think neither.

  Annie smiled and tried to put Teresa at ease as best she could with whatever was to hand.

  ‘I like your pinny,’ she said.

  Teresa looked at Annie and took the simple compliment the wrong way.

  How dare you come into my house and snidely mock me?

  ‘It was a wedding gift from a cousin,’ Teresa said, trying to give the impression that under any other circumstance she wouldn’t be seen dead in it.

  It had been a long, gruelling day, and Nick wanted to get the evening under way. ‘Who wants what to drink?’

  When he disappeared with Teresa and Annie’s drink requests, the two women shared an awkward pause.

  ‘I hope you like what I’m making. It’s . . . well . . . it’s soup.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to put you on the spot,’ Annie said, sidestepping Teresa’s attempt at conviviality. ‘I think I should leave.’

  ‘You haven’t put me on the spot,’ Teresa said, maintaining her composure. ‘Nick can bring home whomever he wants. You’re very welcome.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you, but—’

  ‘Besides, if you left now it would raise all sorts of questions.’

  Annie looked intensely at Teresa.

  ‘Such as?’

  Such as why you and I shouldn’t be alone together with Nick in another room.

  ‘Nick would think you were leaving because I’d said something to offend you.’

  ‘He knows nothing offends me.’

  Teresa scrambled for a different topic to disguise her awkwardness and the sense of dread that was beginning to overwhelm her.

  ‘How was your hop up?’ she asked, as if asking someone who had motored a few miles over from Chester or Crewe, and not from Hertfordshire in poor weather. ‘Is it more difficult in poor weather?’

  ‘I love flying in low cloud. Not quite knowing where one is. No bearings to speak of. Fully focused. More challenging, certainly, but I enjoy that. Keeps us ATAs on our toes. That, and not having a parachute to bail out with.’

  ‘You don’t have parachutes?’ Teresa was shocked.

  Annie smiled. It was a detail she had revealed on many occasions, always with the same reaction.

  ‘We’re non-combatants.’

  ‘But what if something happened?’

  ‘I think they rather want us to try and deliver the aircraft come what may. If something goes wrong, rather than saying “oh well, bad luck” and bailing, without a ’chute we have an incentive to try and get the crate on the floor somehow. Gliding, if necessary.’

  Teresa was horrified by the potential dilemma, but deeply impressed by Annie’s insouciant fortitude. She couldn’t take her eyes off her. Annie’s refinement wasn’t only apparent in the way she conducted herself with such good cheer. It was built into her facial features, her bone structure, her eyes, nose, and lips – all in perfect proportion. It was in the graceful way she held herself.

  Class. There’s no other word for it.

  ‘I’m shocked you’re not given parachutes,’ Teresa said.

  ‘Don’t be.’

  ‘But what if—’

  ‘Don’t think about it. I don’t. I’m an exceedingly good pilot. Touch wood, I shall continue to be an exceedingly good one.’

  Annie looked at Teresa and smiled.

  ‘I really do like that pinny.’

  ‘Oh, be quiet!’ Teresa smiled. ‘It’s hideous!’

  ‘It really isn’t. I like wildflowers.’ Annie held Teresa’s look for a few moments. ‘The wilder the better.’

  Teresa blushed.

  They could hear Nick clinking glasses in the front room. Annie glanced towards the door, then back at Teresa, her cheerful demeanour suddenly dropping.

  ‘You have nothing to fear from me, Teresa. I promise. Nothing at all,’ she said quietly, with an intensity Teresa had not previously experienced.

  Teresa was about to reply when Nick returned with their drinks and handed them out.

  ‘One Scotch and water, one small sherry, and a large G and T for me! Cheers!’

  Annie drank most of her Scotch in a single gulp while looking directly at Teresa, then turned to Nick, her customary ease returning to her expression.

  ‘I really oughtn’t have come, Nick. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m shattered. I’m in the air back south tomorrow. I really need to go back and get some shut-eye.’

  Nick looked disappointed. Annie was generally a sure bet for an entertaining night.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  She nodded. ‘It’s only just starting to kick in. In five minutes, I’ll be unconscious.’

  ‘My food’s bad, but not that bad,’ Teresa said, smiling, relieved Annie might be going in short order. She wanted to appear as if she too would be disappointed if Annie couldn’t stay. Teresa could have managed an evening with both Annie and Nick, but on her own terms, with planning and preparation.

  ‘I’m sure it’s lovely, whatever it is.’

  ‘Like I said, it’s just soup,’ said Teresa, apologetically.

  Please don’t ask what kind because I don’t really know.

  ‘What kind?’

  ‘That’s a perfectly reasonable question,’ Teresa offered, buying herself some time. ‘Difficult to say.’

  ‘A little of everything?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Annie looked at Teresa and smiled.

  ‘Variety is the spice of life,’ she said with an almost imperceptible glint in her eye that passed Nick by completely. But not Teresa, who felt a wave of anxiety pass over her that left her momentarily nauseous.

  Please leave. This isn’t fun or amusing in any way. I am a married woman. Behaving like this in front of my husband is completely inappropriate.

  When Nick left to take Annie back to Tabley Wood, Teresa sat at the table and knocked back her sherry in a single shot. She reviewed the last twenty minutes, trying to calculate how much of a fool she had made of herself, and how much anger she felt towards Annie for behaving so recklessly in front of Nick.

  Save it for the clouds, where no one else can get hurt.

  Teresa concluded that she hadn’t been completely ridiculous, despite the apron. Aside from her little game of innuendo, she grudgingly concluded Annie had behaved impeccably. Seeing Teresa had been wrong-footed and embarrassed by her arrival, Annie had offered a perfectly believable excuse and left without drama, leaving Nick none the wiser.

  Just.

  Teresa sat for a few moments, allowing the silence to restore her equilibrium. She then rose from the table and wandered into the front room and poured herself another sherry. She sat down in the armchair and looked around the room at the prints on the wall, and the photographs on the mantelpiece. Her eye was drawn to her wedding photo. She and Nick at their most beautiful and handsome. A dazzling couple by any standard.

  Nick’s wife is who I am now. F
orget everything else.

  She slowly sipped her drink, and told herself to stay away from Annie from this moment on.

  Nick. This house. Our life together. Nothing is worth risking everything I have. Nothing. And no one.

  Chapter 33

  Erica walked slowly up the drive of the cottage hospital. A coal-black chorus of crows called earnestly to one another as they rode the thin branches of high treetops in the stiff, cold wind. Erica’s pace didn’t quicken when the hospital came into view. If anything, it slowed, as her dread began to rise at the almost certain prospect of listening to Dr Mitchell patiently describe further deterioration in Will’s condition.

  What will it be today? His speech? Sight? Hearing? Mental faculties? Will he recognise me at all? Because that will come, I’m sure. Or will he leave us before he completely loses control?

  Having eventually secured the services of Dr Rosen for the next twelve months at least, Erica had tried to turn her thoughts to Will’s remaining days, without much success. This failure was partly due to the unpredictable nature of Will’s decline (a word she loathed but found difficult to replace with one more apt), and in part because she continued to struggle with the absolute certainty that her husband was going to die soon. Her breakdown at the WI committee meeting had been a sudden, explosive recognition of the finality of Will’s journey, and had taken her completely by surprise. Everyone lives with the unspoken understanding of their own obsolescence, yet somehow manages to trick themselves into believing their loved ones will live for ever. The realisation that Will’s days were now terrifyingly finite had rocked Erica in Frances Barden’s dining room. She realised afterwards it had been triggered by the discussion about the possibility of leaving trekkers in the open to potentially perish under German bombardment.

  Later that evening, Erica had told Laura she felt enormously relieved that news of Will’s illness was finally out, at least among her closest friends.

  ‘How did they react?’ Laura asked. She was curious to know how different people would respond to the news.

  ‘They were terribly upset.’

  ‘What did they say?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Erica paused. She didn’t want to get upset again. ‘They . . . were very kind. So kind. We’re very lucky to have such good friends at this time. Very, very lucky. You’ll see for yourself.’

  Erica wasn’t yet prepared for the rest of the village to know that Dr Rosen wasn’t merely the temporary replacement for Will – that Will would never return as their GP. Laura needed to prepare for the onslaught of sympathy that would come.

  ‘Your father is greatly loved in the village. People will want to do something for him, even though there is nothing anyone can do. When they realise this they will want to do something for us, probably when we want to be left alone. At all times, Laura, remember – they only mean to help us.’

  Erica pushed through the squat hospital’s small entrance and walked along the corridor towards Will’s ward. She had decided not to tell him that her friends now knew the real state of his health. She didn’t want him thinking about anyone but himself, and how to ensure the last weeks and days of his life were the proper culmination of the forty-seven years that had gone before.

  The hospital smell was a strangely reassuring mix of institutional stew and disinfectant. The sound of low voices, busy footsteps and doors opening and closing had become familiar to Erica, almost reassuring. As Great Paxford’s pharmacist, Erica frequently came to the hospital, but never before as a patient, or as the daily visiting wife of one.

  Entering the ward, Erica stopped dead, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up in terror. Her palms were instantly clammy. She looked around the ward for some clue as to why Will’s bed was empty, but no clue offered itself. There were no staff or other visitors she could ask. The other patients lay motionless, asleep and almost indistinguishable from the sheets and blankets they were buried under.

  Without being conscious of making the decision to do so, Erica slowly started to walk towards Will’s bed, as if her presence might trigger his reappearance between the sheets, or from beneath the bed, or from a cupboard nearby, in some elaborate revelation. Upon reaching Will’s bed she could see it was not freshly made, indicating that, wherever he was, Will was not long gone. She laid her palm on the bottom sheet. It was still warm. Her head pounded.

  Will is bathed in his bed. Fed in his bed. So why has he been removed from it?

  Erica turned at the sound of the ward door swinging open, and saw Will being pushed through in a wheelchair by Jeremy, the stout, bearded, red-faced, friendly orderly from Chester to whom Erica had spoken on many occasions. Will’s mouth and nose were covered by a face mask, and a small canister of what Erica assumed was oxygen lay on his lap. When Jeremy saw Erica, he smiled.

  ‘Just been for a stroll. Hope we didn’t shock you,’ he said apologetically as he parked Will beside his bed.

  Erica stared at Will as tears of relief filled her eyes, and she smiled like a happy idiot. She was preparing herself for Will to leave her, but wasn’t yet ready.

  Not yet. I need more time.

  Some colour had come back to Will’s face, and sitting upright in the wheelchair made him look much more like his old self than when he lay in bed. His skin hung better on his face in the same way a suit looks better on a hanger than draped across a chair. He even looked a little like ‘Doc Campbell’, sitting behind his desk in his surgery.

  Will looked at her and slowly pulled the oxygen mask away.

  ‘Thought you’d . . . seen the last . . . of me?’

  ‘Your husband has a terrible sense of humour, Mrs Campbell,’ said Jeremy. ‘I don’t mind the odd joke from patients about kicking the bucket. But his are continuous and not very funny.’

  ‘They . . . keep me . . . amused,’ said Will, smiling.

  ‘Could you put the mask back on, please, and stop showing off.’

  Jeremy winked at Erica.

  ‘He thinks he can survive without oxygen. He can’t.’

  Erica smiled. Will hadn’t looked this well since the day he had been pulled from the wreckage of their house. She’d thought she’d lost him then, and it had taken forty-eight hours before Dr Mitchell allowed her to have any hope he might live on for a while longer.

  ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ Jeremy said discreetly.

  Erica indicated she wanted a quiet word and followed him to the door of the ward.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she said, when Jeremy turned to face her. ‘When I was here yesterday Will was barely conscious and lying slumped in bed. Now he’s in the chair. His breathing seems so much better . . . ’

  Jeremy looked at Erica for a few moments, his cheerful expression transforming into one of empathetic seriousness.

  ‘That’s how it is with . . . this,’ he said quietly. ‘The side effects come and go, from one day to the next. Today’s a good day. Tomorrow may not be so good. The day after, who knows. The oxygen helps a great deal. But what you’re seeing . . . it’s temporary, Mrs Campbell. Please don’t forget that. I hope I haven’t spoken out of turn.’

  ‘No. Not at all. Thank you.’

  Jeremy nodded at Erica then left the ward. Erica felt dizzy. When she’d seen Will’s empty bed it was as if all the air had been suddenly sucked from the hospital, and her own lungs. When Will had returned with Jeremy, upright in the wheelchair, the air had rushed back in with him. She thought she might faint and decided to sit down. She picked up the chair reserved for visitors and took it around the bed so she could sit beside Will.

  ‘You’re looking a lot better,’ she said.

  ‘At death’s . . . doorstep . . . if not . . . at his . . . actual door . . . ’ Will replied. ‘One hand . . . on the . . . knocker. This gas . . . helps. You should . . . try . . . it. Everyone . . . should. In my . . . opinion . . . oxygen is . . . hugely under . . . rated.’

  He placed the mask back over his mouth and nose and drew on the gas, letting it re-energise every
corner of his exhausted body. Erica took his hand in hers.

  ‘It’s just so lovely to see you sitting up and alert.’

  Will nodded. His skin-and-bone head sat on his thin neck like a lollipop on a stick. His pyjama collar and dressing gown grew looser by the day.

  ‘I wish Laura had come with me today.’

  Will nodded. ‘Has he . . . told you?’

  ‘Has who told me what?’

  ‘Mitchell.’

  ‘Has Dr Mitchell told me what?’

  Erica was puzzled.

  He’s told me everything – at least, that’s what I’d been led to believe. Is there something else? Some good news he’s been waiting to spring on me when we next met?

  Her heart started to thump harder in her chest.

  ‘Told me what, Will?’

  ‘How long . . . I have . . . left.’

  Erica hadn’t been aware that Dr Mitchell had discussed this with Will, owing to Will’s condition. She had been labouring under an assumption that Will had no idea how far advanced his cancer was. Will looked at her over the face mask. He knew her so well. He knew what she was thinking, and nodded.

  ‘I . . . asked him . . . of course.’

  Will slowly wrapped her hand in both of his. She looked at his thin fingers and caressed the skin covering his thumbs, feeling how diaphanous it had become. Each muscle and sinew and vein of his hands was prominent beneath her fingertips. Each bone of his fingers and knuckles was perilously close to the surface. Will squeezed Erica’s hands hard, forcing her to look at him. He took a deep gulp of gas and pulled the mask from his mouth.