by Annie Groves
‘She’s with the captain at the moment.’
‘I’ll cut along to the hall and wait for her there then.’
Hazel probably wanted to see her to make sure that she was all right, Sam decided miserably as she made her way back down the corridor to the hallway.
The door to the captain’s office was closed so she had no idea whether or not Hazel was still with the captain.
The girl on the reception desk was giving her a sympathetic look. ‘Sorry to hear your bad news, Grey.’
Sam looked away. Did everyone know what a fool she had been over Johnny?
‘The call came through whilst I was on duty. Corp’s in with the captain now. She’s putting a brave face on it but it’s easy to see how she feels. Chin up, though, is what I say. Where there’s life there’s hope, and if your brother did manage to bale out…’
Her brother? The girl on the desk was offering her sympathy because something had happened to Russell, not because of Johnny?
Before she could ask her anything the door to the captain’s office opened and Hazel came out. It was immediately obvious that she had been crying, and the moment she saw Sam her eyes filled with fresh tears.
‘What is it? What’s happened?’ Sam asked her anxiously, pushing her misery over Johnny to one side.
‘Your father telephoned. I’d just come back in – and so I was able to speak to him. Russell’s squadron were sent on a mission to bomb Turin – you know he’s flying one of the Lancasters now and they’ve been using them for this mission. He was full of it in his last letter, boasting about how good the planes were.’ Her voice shook, and she had to stop speaking for a few seconds to collect herself. ‘Something went wrong, so it seems – they don’t know what happened yet, only that Russell’s plane is missing and there hasn’t been any word. He didn’t send out a Mayday or anything, but according to your dad they’d run into heavy fog coming back, and the last time anyone saw his plane was as they left Turin.’
‘Oh, no.’ Tears filled Sam’s eyes as she and Hazel hugged one another tightly.
‘We mustn’t write him off yet,’ Sam told Hazel chokily. ‘It may not be as bad as it sounds. Russell isn’t the sort to give up without a fight and, like they say, no news is good news. Chances are he’s put the plane down somewhere …’
Hazel gave her a wan smile and Sam knew that neither of them believed there was really any hope of that happening. Hazel released her and stepped back from her. ‘I spoke to your mum as well as your dad. I can’t tell you how much it means to me that your parents were kind enough to let me know. I felt as though they already think of me as part of the family even though Russell and I aren’t—’ She had to break off as her emotions overwhelmed her but Sam knew exactly what she was trying to say.
Her own thoughts and emotions were in complete turmoil. She had just discovered that the man she loved did not love her back as she had believed, and in the most misery-inducing and wretched of ways, and now she had to come to terms with not only that but the fact that her brother’s plane was missing. All she could do now was pray that somehow, by some miracle, Russell might have survived, even if that meant that he had been captured by the enemy, but she knew how unlikely that was. And she knew that Hazel knew that too. How cruel life could be, letting you think you had found love and happiness, and then snatching it away, leaving you to live on with your broken dreams and might-have-beens.
‘Your dad said he’d telephone just as soon as he got any news.’
Sam nodded, too miserable to trust herself to speak.
Sally wasn’t sure just what had woken her. In the darkness of her bedroom some maternal sixth sense warned her that, despite the silence, something had disturbed her sleep. Harry still sometimes needed his nappy changing during the night, and as she pushed back the bedclothes she shivered, trying to make sure that she got her feet into her slippers, as she reached for her dressing gown. Even with her slippers on she could feel the cold coming off the linoleum floor as she picked up her torch and switched it on.
The first thing she saw when she opened her bedroom door was the light shining beneath the door to the boys’ bedroom. Her heart thumped. Tommy couldn’t reach any light switches yet, although she had caught him pushing a chair over the floor and then climbing up on it in an attempt to do so.
Quickly she opened the bedroom door, her eyes widening at what she saw. The doctor was seated in the too-small-for-him rocking chair from which she had nursed both her sons as babies, Tommy fast asleep on his knee. When he saw her the doctor raised his free arm, placing one warning finger against his lips to signify that Tommy was sleeping. Somewhere underneath the maternal anxiety rushing through her Sally was aware of another emotion, a mixture of anger, resentment and an aching sense of sadness and loss for both her own husband, who would never hold his sons like this, and the doctor himself for the pain his own loss must cause him.
‘What’s going on?’ Sally whispered. Dr Ross shook his head again and stood up carefully, placing Tommy back in his own bed before coming to join her on the landing.
‘Tommy came downstairs to tell me that he couldn’t get to sleep because of a monster underneath his bed.’
‘You should have woken me. I’m his mother.’ What she really meant was, why had her son gone to him instead of coming to her? But she was too upset and angry to feel comfortable asking such a question.
‘Tommy seemed to think that it was the kind of monster that would have frightened you as well and he didn’t want that. He thinks that now his father’s gone it’s up to him to be the man of the family.’
‘No,’ Sally denied immediately, ‘he can’t think that. He’s only three.’
‘Children grow up fast in wartime, no matter how hard we try to protect them from its realities, and he’s a very bright lad, very sharp and quick.’
‘I’m sorry he disturbed you. I’ll have a talk with him and make sure it doesn’t happen again … He must have gone all the way down those stairs in the dark.’ Her voice wobbled. ‘He could have fallen.’
‘He’s got more sense than you give him credit for: he counted the stairs, so he told me.’
‘He counted them? But I’ve only just started teaching him his numbers. He should have come in to me and he would have done if…’
‘If what?’
‘I know it must be hard to bear what … what you’ve lost, but my sons can’t … I don’t want you thinking that just because you’ve given me a job that means you can take over my boys … like … like they was a couple of stray mongrel pups. They aren’t, and they aren’t neglected either, no matter what you might be planning to try to prove. You might think you’re doing them a favour, acting all charitable towards them like that vicar and his wife did with you, but you’re not and I won’t have it. They’re my sons and that’s the way they’re going to stay. I’m really sorry about what happened to your own boys. I can see that you must have been a good father to them. But my two have got a dad of their own, even if he is dead, and they don’t need you or anyone else trying to take his place.’
There it was out! The fear that had been growing inside her ever since Daisy had had her say and destroyed her peace of mind with her hint that the doctor might be planning to take the boys from her.
‘You can sack me if you want…’
‘If I want? You don’t know the first thing about what I want, Sally, because if you did …’ He started to walk past her and then stopped and turned round. ‘And for your information, no child, not even my own, if I should have any more, and certainly not yours, could ever take the place of the sons I’ve lost. And if you were the mother you keep on telling me you are, you’d know that for yourself. There isn’t a day or a moment of a day when I don’t mourn them and blame myself for what they and I have lost, but neither my guilt nor my grief can bring them back. All I can do is try to make sure that I do everything I can to protect those children who are alive, and whose lives for one reason or another are in my hands.’
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He stepped through the door he had wrenched open whilst he was talking to her and closed it so firmly after him that Sally felt the draught blowing coldly against her skin, making her shiver.
His words had brought her up sharply, shocking her, and now that he had gone she was discovering that they were stuck into her conscience like so many painful little darts, to prick at her heart. Try as she might she couldn’t dislodge them. She looked at the closed door. She had hurt him, she knew, but couldn’t he see that she had to keep a safe distance between them and that it wouldn’t be right if she did not?
Sally was still thinking about the doctor’s outburst half an hour later, lying in her bed, unable to sleep.
He was wrong when he said she didn’t have any idea of what he wanted. She had a very good idea indeed, because it was what she wanted as well. She closed her eyes and tried to steady her thudding heartbeat. However had it come to this, that she, a newly widowed woman, a mother, with more than enough problems in her life already, was lying awake at night sick with longing for a man she had no right to want? It made her go cold with dread to think of the scandal there would be if anyone ever got to know how she felt.
Even if she wasn’t newly widowed, even if there were no other barriers between them, there was the gulf in their social stations in life. She had known it was the wrong thing to do when she had agreed to come and work for him, but foolishly she had not been able to help herself. What she was thinking … feeling … wanting was wrong – worse than wrong, it was a betrayal of Ronnie and their marriage. Poor Ronnie, who had had his life taken from him in the most cruel of ways through fighting for his country. How would he feel if he knew that she, his wife, the mother of his children, was lying awake in her bed at night longing to be in the arms of another man? She had tried so hard to fight it, and then, when that that failed, to deny what was happening to her. She had tried to turn her unwanted feelings from desire to angry resentment and dislike, and she had congratulated herself when she had thought she had succeeded. But then just when she had begun to think she was safe, something would happen, a look, a smile, her awareness of the scent of male skin, a dozen tiny different things, insignificant in themselves but with such an intense effect on her senses that they ripped through the foolish belief that she had conquered what she felt like tracer bullets tearing into a night sky. She should never have come here … never. If she had any sense … But she didn’t, did she? And even if she did go, where would she go to now, so close to Christmas? What kind of mother would she be if she took the boys from the comfort of this house, just because she was afraid of her feelings?
‘Bad show about your brother, Grey. Chin up, though. That’s the spirit, eh?’ the major told Sam as she held open the car door for him.
It had been raining all night and now this morning the ground around where Johnny’s section were digging out a newly discovered unexploded bomb was filled with deep puddles and sticky with mud. A stiff wind was blowing the rain into her face like needles but it wasn’t their cold sting that made Sam flinch so much as the tearing ache caused by the sound of Johnny’s voice.
‘Thank you, sir,’ she answered the major, the etiquette of war taking priority over her personal feelings as she responded to his brusque words of intended comfort.
She didn’t want to look at Johnny but she just couldn’t help herself. She longed desperately for the comfort of his support and his closeness but he had his back to her. Deliberately, so she suspected. He was certainly making it clear that it was over between them. Perhaps he was even pleased. At least now he wouldn’t have to pretend that he loved her when he didn’t. And as for his reasons for taking up with her, so explicitly described by Lynsey, well, a good-looking man like Johnny wouldn’t find it difficult to get himself a girl willing to share his bed.
It was just as well it was raining so hard, Sam decided. No one would notice that she was crying.
The telephone rang just as Sally was sitting down to eat her tea, but she got up automatically and hurried into the hallway to answer it.
‘It’s the hospital here, Mrs Walker,’ she heard a crisp female voice telling her. ‘The doctor has asked us to telephone you and let you know that he’s been called out with the emergency team.’
‘Oh, yes. Thank you for letting me know.’
‘I can’t tell you when he’ll be back. Terrible accident, there’s been,’ the woman on the other end of the line told her. ‘A double-decker bus coming from Lime Street full of passengers got hit by one of them American lorries and overturned.’
Sally sucked in a shocked breath.
‘Bodies all over the place, so I’ve heard. Worse than if there’d bin a bomb gone off, so one of the ambulance drivers has said. Shouldn’t wonder if the emergency team will be there all night.’
Sally shuddered as she replaced the receiver. Those poor people. What a dreadful thing to happen.
Her cup of tea had gone cold but she didn’t feel in the mood to make herself another.
‘Where’s my doctor?’ Tommy demanded crossly, playing with his food instead of eating it.
‘He’s gone to see someone who’s very sick,’ Sally told him. ‘Hurry up and eat your tea and then I’ll read you a story.’
‘Don’t want you to read it. Want my doctor.’ Tommy banged his spoon down onto his plate, sending mashed potato flying onto the table, and the floor, which Sally had washed that afternoon.
‘Tommy, that’s very naughty, wasting good food like that,’ Sally scolded him but her heart wasn’t really in it. ‘I know,’ she told him. ‘Why don’t you finish your tea and then we’ll sit down and write a letter to Father Christmas?’
He was too young yet to really understand about Christmas, which was just as well since the only toys to be had were second-hand and cost far more than she could afford, but his face had brightened up and he was giving her his normal sunny smile. She didn’t feel like smiling, though, and not just because of the bad news about the bus. There was no point in her feeling sorry for herself because of her feelings for the doctor; she would just have to remember that saying of her mother’s: ‘What can’t be cured must be endured.’ After all, she wasn’t some silly young girl who still thought that her life wouldn’t be worth living if she couldn’t have the boy she wanted, was she?
The sound of a key turning in the front door brought Sally out of the kitchen chair where she had been dozing in front of the fire.
It was gone midnight, and the last time she had opened the front door it had been raining cats and dogs, and a wind coming in off the sea that threatened to strip your skin from your bones.
She had switched off the light in the kitchen but the hall light was on, and that and the glow from the fire was enough to show her the weariness etched into the doctor’s face.
He obviously hadn’t seen her in the dimness of the kitchen and so she was at liberty to watch him, greedily absorbing every tiny detail to store away in her heart. He looked so tired and pulled down, his shoulders slumped, rainwater puddling from his coat onto the linoleum floor. She saw him turn towards the stairs, a look of such desolation on his face that her heart turned over with a mixture of pain for what she saw and guilt because she was seeing it without him knowing that she could.
Stepping back into the shadows, she scraped the chair’s feet noisily on the floor and then called out as though she had only just realised he was there, ‘Is that you, Doctor?’
‘Sally!’
The blaze of delight she could see in his eyes as she switched on the kitchen light tore at her heart but she affected not to notice it, busying herself by going into the hall and tutting over the mess on her clean lino.
‘Yes, I’m sorry. I didn’t realise …’
‘It looks like you’ve brought half the Mersey in with you. You’d better give me that coat, and your shoes, although goodness knows how I’m going to get these shoes dry. I’ll have to try to find some paper to stuff in them and then put them in front of the fire overnig
ht.’
‘You shouldn’t have waited up for me.’
‘I dare say I wouldn’t have done if I’d known how late it would be but seeing as I’d made you a dinner anyway I thought I might as well keep it hot for you.’
‘They telephoned you from the hospital, didn’t they, to let you know? I would have telephoned you myself but there was such a rush.’
‘Yes, they did.’ She let the crossness drop from her voice as she said quietly, ‘It sounded a really bad business, from what I was told.’
‘Yes. Yes, it was. The bus was full … men coming home on leave, some of them with their wives and children who’d gone to the station to meet them and welcome them back.’ He lifted his hand and rubbed it over his eyes. ‘We did what we could, but … the bus had slid along the road on its side, you see, from the impact of the crash.’
‘It had been hit by an American Army lorry, so the hospital said,’ Sally encouraged him, sensing that he needed to talk.
‘Yes. Yes, that’s right. The lorry was loaded with some heavy-duty equipment. No one knows yet just what happened. The driver, poor boy, was in a terrible state. He was only young – seventeen, he said, although he looked younger. Some of them lie about their age when they join us. His voice had barely broken. He’d gone through the windscreen.
‘Still, at least the lorry driver is alive,’ he continued, ‘unlike some of the bus passengers. There was one family … the prettiest little girl. She looked just as though she’d gone to sleep. There wasn’t a mark on her face, but her poor little body …’
His voice broke and automatically Sally went to him, only just managing to stop herself from doing what she had promised herself she would never do, and touching him. She was almost tempted to put her hands behind her back to make sure that she couldn’t do so.
‘I’ll get your dinner out for you then, shall I, Doctor?’ she asked, taking refuge in formality.