by Annie Groves
‘That’s all right, Grey. I too have an older brother who seems to have more than his fair share of our family good luck.’ Was that really a twinkle she could see in the captain’s eyes? ‘Just as well really that they do, in these times. Dismissed.’
‘Where’s Hazel?’ Sam demanded as she rushed into the dormitory several minutes later.
‘She’s gone for walk, she was feeling a bit low,’ May answered. ‘Try the chapel.’
The small chapel, which had been used by the school during its occupancy of the building, was tucked away down a long corridor on the ground floor. The house had apparently been built on the site of a much older dwelling, and since that dwelling had contained a private chapel, it had been decided to incorporate this within the new building, to be reached via a specially constructed windowless corridor, its walls half panelled and half covered in a sombre dark green wallpaper. Old-fashioned candle sconces still provided the only form of illumination for the corridor. Because of the war and the need to use candles sparingly, only every third sconce contained a candle and then only one where the sconce provided for two, so that long shadows haunted the passageway no matter what the time of day.
Sam wasn’t overkeen on using the corridor with its darkness and silence, so she hurried down it as fast as she could, focusing on what her news was going to mean to Hazel, and what it would have meant to her had she been in the same position. Just as she reached the chapel she stopped abruptly. Life was so precious and so fragile, just like love. She put her hand up to her chest to ward off the spear of pain that had lanced through her.
If anything should happen to Johnny, she wouldn’t even have the right to grieve. How could she live the rest of her life not knowing where he was or even if he still was? She loved him so much. But he did not love her, she reminded herself.
The door to the chapel was always left open, and although it was no longer used for any religious services there was still some sense of peace and prayer about the small panelled room, with its arched ceiling and simple altar.
Someone, no one knew who other than that it had been one of the first groups of ATS to be billeted here, had started what had become a tradition in placing in the chapel a lighted candle that was never allowed to go out, as a symbol of hope. Very often one would come here and discover that several candles were burning: silent witnesses to the hopes and prayers of some of their number for loved ones.
As she stood in the open doorway, Sam could see Hazel in one of the pews, her head bent in prayer, Russell’s scarf, which he had given her the last time they had been together, clasped tightly in her hands.
What must it feel like to be praying for the life of the man one loved, not knowing what his fate might be, clinging to a hope so small and so frail that it was pitiful? Sam hoped she would never have to know.
Hazel was getting up. Although she was not particularly religious Sam waited in the doorway, feeling that to rush to Hazel with the good news would somehow not be right. So many people must have come here in hope and fear. You could feel it in the air and the silence. This was a place for humility in the face of terrible things, a place for acknowledging the heavy weight of human grief rather than celebrating human happiness. It commanded that there be silent respect for the fragility of those who came here to light a candle to ease the darkness of their despair. Gusting giddy careless laughter might blow out that light.
Sam waited until Hazel reached the doorway and then touched her arm gently.
‘Dad telephoned,’ she told her. ‘It’s good news. Russell is safe and well.’
‘Oh, Sam!’ Radiance illuminated Hazel’s face. ‘Oh, Sam!’ she repeated emotionally, as they stepped into the corridor. ‘I hardly let myself believe it. Tell me that I’m not dreaming.’
‘You aren’t dreaming,’ Sam assured her, ‘and it is true.’
‘Oh, thank God … thank God.’
Tears were running down Hazel’s face and Sam could feel her own eyes filling as well.
‘Whilst I was praying for him I felt so close to him. Perhaps he was trying to tell me that he was all right. Love is such a precious thing, Sam, but it makes us so vulnerable. I don’t know how I could have borne it if I had lost him. One must, of course, but to endure such a pain …’
Sam had to turn away from her so that Hazel couldn’t see her own pain. It hurt so much, contrasting Hazel’s joy and relief with her own despair. But then Russ loved Hazel, and Johnny did not love her.
She turned towards the corridor wall, and shaped her fingers to make shadows dance along the wall, making Hazel laugh.
‘My father used to do that when I was a little girl. Do some more,’ she encouraged her, laughing even more when Sam obliged.
At least she could make people laugh, even if she couldn’t make Johnny love her, Sam told herself as she tried to force her unhappiness away.
Hazel was still laughing when they reached their sitting room, insisting that Sam showed the other girls what she had been showing her.
One thing led to an other and before too long Sam was larking about, persuading May to let her show her what a good gymnast she was by leapfrogging over her and then pretending that she’d got stuck.
‘Oh, stop it, Sam, please,’ Alice spluttered. ‘I’ve laughed that much my sides are aching. You’re a real tonic, you are, and no mistake.’
A tonic for them, maybe, but whilst she was laughing on the outside and playing the clown, inside her heart was weeping tears of loneliness and loss as it grieved for Johnny.
It had grown so late whilst Sally waited for Alex to return that she had dropped off to sleep in her chair a couple of times, woken by the sound of the wind buffeting the house, and the ache in her limbs from the awkward angle of her sleep. Alex had been gone for so long that she was beginning to wonder if he was staying away deliberately. She knew what she had said to him had distressed him. She hadn’t wanted to distress him but she hadn’t been able to think past her own feelings of guilt until Doris had made her see that her duty now lay to the living and the future and that for their sakes she must put aside her guilt.
It was gone ten o’clock when she finally heard Alex’s key in the door. She didn’t wait for him to see her and come to her, choosing instead to go to him so that when he stepped into the hall she was waiting there for him.
Without a word she went to him and helped him off with his hat and coat and his muffler, all damp from the rain the wind was slanting against the windows.
‘Sally …’
She could hear weary resignation and anguish in his voice, and she knew he was anticipating that she was about to resume their earlier painful discussion. They would have to talk, but for now something else was more important, and that something else was the gift that she had been waiting to give him; the gift of their future together.
She put her finger to her lips and shook her head, and then she went to him and stood up on her tiptoes to wrap her arms around him and tell him tenderly, ‘I love you, and I want us to be together.’ And then she kissed him.
She could feel the wild thrill of emotion grip him and run through him, his body shaking slightly as though he could hardly dare to believe what he had heard.
Tears filled his eyes and spilled down onto his cheeks. ‘Oh, my love, my precious, precious love. You don’t know …’ He broke off and shook his head as though his emotions had taken him beyond mere words. ‘When I left you earlier I was in such despair. I felt that all life could hold for me now was my duty to my patients, and that without that there would be no purpose in my going on. Not that that was a new feeling for me – it wasn’t. After the death of the boys my guilt at not being there to save them filled me with such a loathing for myself that if it hadn’t been for my doctor’s oath only to preserve life I might have been tempted to take my own, although that of course would have been more of an escape than a punishment.
‘And then there was you, with your loveliness and your spirit. If you hadn’t stolen away my heart that d
ay I saw you in the street, then you most certainly would have done when I heard you sing. You have a beautiful voice, I’m surprised that you don’t sing in public more, although I admit I would be jealous in case I lost you to some handsome admirer.’
‘That will never happen,’ Sally assured him, sensing his vulnerability. ‘I do love to sing, but I’ve never been that keen on being on the stage. I’m not ambitious enough, that’s what I’ve bin told, and I reckon that it’s true. I’ve certainly never wanted to be one of them singers wot travels round all over the place.’ She shook her head. ‘No, me kids and me home are what matter most to me.’
‘And me – do I matter to you, Sally?’
‘Yes,’ she admitted huskily. ‘You, me kids and us being together, that’s all I really want, Alex. And p’haps singing in church now and again,’ she allowed with a smile. ‘Mind you,’ she reminded him, ‘you’re saying now that I have a lovely voice, but you certainly didn’t look like you was enjoying listening to it that night at the Grafton. Glared at me something fierce, you did.’
‘That’s because I was so jealous,’ Alex repeated. ‘There you were, looking and sounding so lovely, with every man in the place adoring you – what chance would I have, a dull doctor, when there were all those handsome men in uniform?’
‘You are not to say you are dull, because it isn’t true,’ Sally chided him.
‘I’m afraid it is.’
‘Well, in that case we must just be dull together,’ Sally told him lovingly.
‘Oh, Sally.’ Alex’s voice was full of emotion. ‘I feel like I’ve been granted a miracle – three miracles, in fact, with you and the boys.’
Sally laughed. ‘I shall remind you of that the next time two of your miracles are making a nuisance of themselves disturbing your peace.’
‘I shall love them as my own, Sally, and that is my solemn promise, not just to you and to them but to their father as well.’
Now it was Sally’s turn to feel tears welling up in her eyes.
‘I shall love them as my own,’ he continued, ‘but there must always be a place in their hearts where they can cherish Ronnie. It will be up to both of us to make sure that they grow up knowing about their father, and all that he was, all that men like him gave up for us and for this country. I take that as a sacred duty that I shall do my utmost to fulfil.’
How could she ever have thought of denying her sons the goodness of such a man in their lives? Doris had been so right to caution her to think beyond her own immediate guilt and fear of gossip. What did that matter when set against the loving kindness of a man like this? How fortunate she was, when she had done so little to deserve such good fortune.
‘Promise me you mean what you’ve just said to me,’ Alex insisted.
‘I mean it,’ Sally assured him.
He was bending his head to kiss her, but she stopped him, whispering, ‘Not yet. There’s something else I have to tell you …’
She could feel the anxiety he was fighting to conceal as he waited for her to continue and an even more intense surge of love welled up inside her.
‘You’ve burned my dinner?’ he guessed. He was making a brave attempt at seeming light-hearted but he was holding her hand so tightly that Sally knew how anxious he really was.
‘No, but I have put both our hot bricks in your bed – instead of one in yours and one in my own, if that’s all right with you?’
‘Sally, Sally … oh, my love, you are my love now, and I will never, ever let you go.’
TWENTY-SIX
‘Quick, Sam, catch.’
Automatically Sam made a dive to catch the deliberately low-flung rolled-up scarf that May had thrown her, as they climbed out of their transport at the barracks. The other girls laughed and applauded her skill, then laughed even more when Sam made a grab for May’s gloves and started to juggle skilfully with the scarf and the gloves.
‘Stow it, Sam,’ Hazel warned her firmly. ‘Top brass heading this way.’
With a swift flick of her wrist Sam sent the scarf and then the gloves flying in May’s direction, and she struggled ineffectually to catch them.
‘You’re such fun, Sam,’ May told her, still laughing as she came over to her. ‘By the way, have you heard that Lynsey’s asked for a transfer? Seems she’s serious about that Yank she’s going with, and since he’s being posted down south she wants to move as near to him as she can.’
Sam nodded but didn’t say anything.
Every day, or so it seemed to her, it got harder for her to hide her unhappiness behind the mask of the joking tomboy she had always found it so easy to be. She was still that Sam, but now there was another Sam living inside her as well, and that Sam ached for her lost love.
She didn’t know how on earth she was going to cope with seeing Johnny day in and day out, knowing that they were over, she really didn’t. Just thinking about it blurred her vision with misery.
‘Morning, Grey.’
‘Morning, sir,’ Sam returned the major’s greeting along with a smart salute. No matter what her feelings might be it would never do to let the side down and show them.
His brisk, ‘Got some meetings at Derby House today,’ left her feeling slightly sick with relief at being spared the ordeal of having to see Johnny, if only for one day.
‘And who did you see when we were out shopping, Tommy?’ Sally asked as she picked him up and sat him on the kitchen drainer so that she could remove his Wellington boots.
‘Favver Christmas,’ Tommy told her triumphantly.
‘Issmass,’ Harry echoed with a beaming smile that made Sally laugh.
She had had ever such a nice time in town showing the children the decorations that the shops were putting up, after morning surgery had finished. Some of them were looking a bit war-worn now, but the kiddies didn’t see that and the look on their little faces had been a treat to see. It had been a shame that Alex couldn’t have been with them, but they had both decided that until they were ready to go public with their relationship it made sense not to go about together as though they were already a family.
As she had said to Alex, though, last night in bed, cuddled up to his warmth, what they did in private behind closed doors was no one’s business but their own. Not that they wouldn’t have to be a bit careful. Tommy was that age when he didn’t miss a trick. Mind you, Sally admitted to herself, with her feeling that happy that she couldn’t stop smiling there’d be others asking a few questions if she wasn’t careful.
She put Tommy down on the floor to play with his brother. Alex was out doing his rounds, and with the rain lashing down like it had been he’d want something hot to warm him when he came in.
She was just turning the gas down under the vegetable soup she was making when she heard someone knocking on the front door.
‘You stay here. It will be a patient wanting to see Dr Alex,’ she instructed Tommy as she went to answer it, wiping her hands on her apron and then taking it off. She and Alex had decided that for now that’s how the boys should refer to him.
‘A sick person?’ Tommy asked.
‘Yes,’ Sally agreed, opening the door into the hall and then closing it firmly behind her before going to open the front door.
It had been raining all day, a sharp wind icing the rain. A man was standing on the doorstep with his back to her when Sally opened the door, huddled into his raincoat, his hat pulled down and his coat collar turned up to protect him from the weather.
He swung round to face her, malicious pleasure in his small mean eyes as he said, triumphantly, ‘Thought I wouldn’t track you down here, did you?’
Sid! The Boss’s debt collector!
Sally reacted instinctively, immediately backing into the hallway and trying to close the door, but he was too quick for her.
‘A little birdie told me you were here. The Boss isn’t very happy with you. It gets her goat when her customers try to cheat her.’
‘I’m not trying to cheat her,’ Sally denied. ‘You told m
e yourself that she said I could have a bit of a holiday from paying her if I wanted to.’
‘Bit of an ’oliday mebbe, but you took off and disappeared wi’out giving us a forwarding address. Just as well I’ve got some good friends to give me a tip-off as to where you was.’
The confidence that came from having Alex’s love gave Sally the courage to say determinedly, ‘Well, you can tell her that by my reckoning I’ve paid her what I owe her three times over and more.’
She could see that her answer hadn’t been what he was expecting and her hopes rose that he was going to leave, but instead he moved closer to her and snarled threateningly, ‘Your reckoning won’t hold water with the Boss, I can tell you that much. Does her own figuring, she does, and she reckons that you still owe her plenty. Mind you, she said to tell you that she’s prepared to act generous towards you like on account of you losing your hubby.’
He was leering at her now, and remembering how he had behaved towards her before, Sally could feel horror and revulsion crawling through her stomach. She wasn’t going to let him see how she felt, though, not for one minute.
‘The doctor will have something to say if he comes back and finds you hanging around, you not being one of his patients.’
There, that should make him take himself off, Sally decided. But to her shock instead of reacting as she had expected the debt collector’s leer deepened.
‘Funny you should mention him.’
‘Why should it be? This is his house, after all,’ Sally reminded him sharply.
‘And you’re working for him as his housekeeper and that, so the Boss has heard.’
‘Yes, that’s right.’ Sally’s heart was thumping far too heavily for comfort now, as she sensed that somehow a trap had been sprung but not able to work out exactly what that trap was.
‘That’s why she’s told me to come round and have a word wi’ you, on account of you and her being able to do a bit of business together, wi’ you working for the doctor.’