Toby reached her first. He leapt off his bike and dropped it against the hedge. ‘How could you go without saying goodbye?’
His arms were round her, hugging her so tight she could scarcely breathe. Prue joined them seconds later, her face flushed, her eyes troubled.
Charity explained briefly.
‘I don’t want to quarrel with Uncle.’ She struggled to compose herself. ‘I want you to remember that.’
They stood side by side in front of her and despite their increased height and the passing of six years, their expressions were the ones she remembered from Greenwich, when she had meant everything to them. The memory came back to her sharply. She reached out her hands to stroke both their faces. ‘I have a home in London, and it’s yours too whenever you want it. ‘I’ll come to your speech days Toby, with or without Uncle’s permission. I’ll meet you anywhere, Prue. But I can’t and won’t come here again.’
She hugged them both fiercely one last time, dried their eyes and kissed them.
‘Go back now.’ She tried to smile. ‘Be good.’
Charity watched as they rode back up the hill. Toby stood up on the pedals, slender and graceful. Prue’s plump bottom wobbled as she struggled to keep up with her brother and for a brief instant Charity was reminded of herself and Hugh that summer in Sussex.
Chapter Twenty-Four
‘Nurse Giles!’ Prue called out, pedalling her bike up the hill towards the nurse.
Dawn Giles turned at Prue’s voice, sighing inwardly. She had come out for a walk to try and sort out what she was going to do. The last thing she needed was a sixteen-year-old questioning her.
Prue’s face was red with exertion by the time she reached Nurse Giles. ‘What’s the matter with Uncle?’ she said breathlessly. ‘Is he ill?’
It was two days since Charity left Studley and Stephen hadn’t come out of his room once during that time, not even for dinner. Prue and Toby had heard odd noises coming from the room – bellows of anger, banging and the sound of breaking glass. They’d been too scared to go and see him, so they’d stayed away when they could. When Prue spotted the nurse walking briskly up the hill away from Studley she thought for one horrible moment the woman was leaving for good.
‘He’s not exactly ill.’ The nurse tried to keep her tone light as she didn’t want to alarm Prue. ‘He’s just upset. People often get like it after they lose someone close to them.’
‘I thought for a minute you were leaving too,’ Prue said. It was sad enough seeing Charity leave, just when she and Toby were getting to rely on their older sister. But if the nurse left they might be forced to look after Uncle Stephen themselves and the thought was horrifying.
‘Just getting a bit of exercise. In fact I’m on my way back now,’ the nurse reassured Prue.
The day Dawn had arrived for her interview at Studley she knew this was the right job for her. She loved the beautiful house, the wages were fair and her room overlooking the garden was delightful. Furthermore, her sister lived only a bus ride away.
Dawn was appalled by the colonel’s health. He was so frustrated, both mentally and physically. His diet was appalling: soft, pappy foods which did nothing to help his bowel problems, and so much starch it was no wonder he was grossly overweight.
Of course she had known it wasn’t going to be easy looking after a grumpy amputee and his frail old mother, especially with those two uppity teenagers tearing round the house. But within days Dawn had discovered that Stephen Pennycuick had a great deal in common with many of the other older gentlemen she’d nursed. She had sensed his eyes on her bottom when she bent over and he was very quick to get an erection when she was bathing him. It had given her heart.
But since Mrs Pennycuick had died and Charity left, the colonel had been impossible. Dawn had put up with a lot from private patients in the past, but never anything like this.
For two days now Stephen had refused to get out of his bed, drinking Scotch continually. He had knocked over endless bedpans in his temper, thrown glasses across the room and hurled the kind of abuse at her she didn’t intend to take from anyone.
All families had secrets tucked away, and certainly Stephen Pennycuick was carrying a heavy burden of guilt about something. Sometimes Dawn thought Stephen confused Charity with his sister Gwen; the state he was in now was more than just grief for his mother and pique that his niece had left. But however much Dawn wanted to help the man and release him from his misery, she was coming to the end of her tether.
That’s why she’d come out this afternoon. To think things over. Should she go, or stay? The trouble was she didn’t have anywhere to go. Her sister Kate would put her up for a day or two, but that wouldn’t help much.
Giving her charges a bit of loving was how Dawn had controlled her difficult patients in the past. But Stephen Pennycuick was such a brusque, unaffectionate man and Dawn was just like any other woman: she wanted a bit of tenderness in return.
Dawn was thirty-nine with a powerful sex drive which sat rather uneasily in such a strong, competent and compassionate woman. She had been sixteen in 1943 when she was seduced for the first time by an American airman but by the time she began her nursing training at eighteen she had lost track of how many lovers she’d had. Dawn had never been pretty; she was a big girl with the kind of face and lank hair that makeup and perms didn’t seem to help. But she had a shapely body and she made men feel good.
Marriage and children held no appeal for her. She loved nursing too much. She wasn’t glamorous enough to become a gentleman’s mistress, and that only seemed to leave rough, working men. She had tried a couple of these, but once the novelty of new passion wore off, she found herself hating the dullness of the life, trapped in a tiny house, expected to clean, cook and wash their filthy clothes without even appreciation. It was after she had run away from the last one that she stumbled accidentally into private nursing and at once saw advantages in this new life that a hospital could never give her.
A decent place to live, a job with prestige – and so often a secret sex life with an appreciative gentleman.
*
Dawn let herself in at Studley and stood for a moment in the hall listening, before she took off her raincoat. She couldn’t hear any noise coming from Stephen’s room, so perhaps he’d fallen asleep.
Ten minutes later, with her cap and apron on, she opened the door of the colonel’s room.
She heard his sobs before she saw him: great gasping ones that cut her in two. Worse still, he had turned himself on to his stomach and couldn’t get back because he was too weak.
‘Now, now, sir,’ she said, advancing across the room. ‘What sort of a state is this to get yourself into?’
He had vomited in the bed and lay there like a big messy baby.
‘Go away,’ he shouted, but his voice was muffled by the pillow. ‘Get away from me!’
‘I’m not going to put up with this, sir,’ Dawn said, pulling back the covers. The air in the room was fetid with his body odour, vomit and whisky, but such things didn’t bother Dawn Giles. She pulled back the curtain a little way, opened a window wide enough to let the smell out and pushed his chair up to the side of the bed. ‘You, my boy, are going in the bath,’ she snapped at him. ‘And we’ll have no more nonsense.’
She hauled him on to his side and practically dragged him into his wheelchair. ‘I’ll look after you, sir, but only if you behave like a human being,’ she said.
‘Leave me alone,’ Stephen roared at her as she peeled off his nightshirt while the bath was running. ‘I don’t want a bloody bath.’
When he wouldn’t co-operate by using his arms to swing across on to the bath seat as he usually did, she slapped him.
His look of shock made her giggle, despite her anger with him. The slap on his shoulder had left a bright red imprint on his white skin. His mouth hung open and his eyes were wide and almost innocent with surprise.
But he co-operated then, putting one hand on to the bath rail, the other on th
e wheelchair and hauled his fat body across on to the bath seat.
Stephen wasn’t much to look at naked: a huge flabby belly almost hiding his private parts, arms surprisingly thin through lack of exercise, his back and buttocks still bearing scars from his war injuries, and those two pitiful stumps that once had been fine sturdy legs.
‘That’s better,’ Dawn said tartly as she soaped and sponged him like a baby. ‘From now on you’re going to do as I say, otherwise I’ll be off too and then you’ll be put in a home.’
It was as Dawn dried him that he began to cry again and it was second nature to cuddle him.
‘There, there,’ she said comfortingly, letting his head rest against her big breasts. ‘You’ve had a bad time, but I can make things a bit better. I’ll show you how to do some things for yourself, I’ll take you out for walks in your chair and we’ll try to get you to lose a bit of that extra weight. It’s only your legs that are gone, remember. The rest of the man is still there.’
As Stephen sat in his wheelchair in a clean nightshirt while she changed his bed, Dawn knew that their relationship was going to grow as it had with her other gentlemen. He’d had an erection several times before when she bathed him, but always she had given it the officious smack taught to her by an older nursing sister. It hadn’t seemed right to take liberties, with his mother, nieces and nephew in the house.
But his mother was gone now, the children out and Stephen needed comfort.
She helped him from the wheelchair into the clean bed, but instead of letting him go once he was safely in, she kept her arms round him and let him lie with his head on her breasts.
‘That’s better,’ she whispered, sliding her fingers underneath his face to fold down her apron and unbutton her striped uniform dress. ‘We all need a bit of comfort now and then.’
Dawn was proud of her breasts: they were big, but firm and pink with plump brown nipples. It always gave her a thrill when a man saw them for the first time – that gasp of pleasure as they reached out for them, the hungry look in their eyes.
But Stephen’s expression surpassed anything she’d ever known. His eyes widened and his mouth attacked them with such ferocity, it alarmed her. He took one in each hand, squeezing and biting till she had to stop him.
‘Gently now,’ she whispered. ‘They’re there for you any time, but I like them stroked and kissed, not that rough stuff.’
She made him sit up in his bed then, and held her breasts in her hands. She could see herself and Stephen reflected in the glass of a picture. Her breasts like two firm melons and his rapt face, enthralled by them.
‘Have you got something you’d like to put between these, sir?’ she said, licking her lips as she jiggled her breasts.
‘Oh nursey,’ he gasped, his breathing hard and heavy. His eyes were glazed with wanting and he pulled his nightshirt up to expose his erect penis.
‘That’s better.’ She smiled lasciviously, guiding it between her two breasts and squeezing them together round it. ‘Nursey just wants you to be a happy boy.’
Stephen was sleeping like a baby when she left him later. Dawn had his promise there would be no more scenes, no more wild drinking and that he would stick to his diet.
She sat in the drawing room with a gin and tonic in her hand, waiting for the children to come home. She could stay here now. A week or two and she’d be able to put a stop to those dreadful enemas, even though he seemed to get some kinky pleasure from them. No more strapping him in at night; she’d teach him to get in and out of bed himself. A set of dumbbells would improve the muscles in his arms and perhaps she’d get herself a nice new set of black undies to excite him.
‘How’s Unlike Stephen?’ Prue asked as she came in, Toby close behind her.
‘Much better now.’ Dawn smiled warmly at the two blond teenagers. ‘He’ll be up for his meals tomorrow again. Now off you go to bed and don’t worry any more.’
‘Well Nurse Giles, you’ve done a fine job.’ Dr Harris smiled appreciatively at the big nurse as she saw him out the door. He had been the colonel’s doctor for some twelve years and today’s visit was the first time he’d seen a real smile on the man’s face. ‘Only a month since his mother died and you’ve worked a miracle.’
‘Go on with you.’ Nurse Giles beamed. She liked Dr Harris, he was a real gentleman, though a bit small and wiry for her taste. ‘I’m only doing what I was trained to do.’
‘Getting him to lose a stone, toning up his arm muscles, not to mention improving his disposition, is more than just nursing,’ Dr Harris insisted. ‘He looks good for another twenty years at least.’
‘I hope so.’ Nurse Giles smiled. ‘I’m very happy here.’
‘And the children?’ Dr Harris raised one bushy eyebrow. ‘How have they coped with losing their grandmother?’
‘Very well,’ the nurse reported. ‘Young James came down to stay for a week and that cheered them up. Now Toby’s back at Wellington College. Prue’s studying hard for her exams next year. It’s very peaceful at Studley now.’
‘What about Charity?’ the doctor asked. He’d only met her briefly when Isobel died and later at the funeral, but he’d been very taken with her and disappointed to hear the gossip flying round the village.
Nurse Giles sighed deeply.
‘I haven’t managed to make the colonel see how silly he’s been about her. But I suspect the kids are keeping in touch. Charity won’t give up on them, that girl’s got a backbone of steel.’
Dr Harris turned to go, looking out for a minute across the drive.
‘Autumn’s on its way,’ he said. ‘I saw some kids collecting conkers on my way here. Maybe the long winter’s nights will mellow the old chap still further. Keep up the good work, Nurse Giles. I’ll see you next month.’
Dawn Giles closed the front door behind him and smiled to herself.
Margaret was baking an apple pie, the smell of cinnamon wafting through the house. Pat was polishing the furniture in the drawing room. Dawn had got what she wanted now: a beautiful home and security. Long cosy evenings by the fire, listening to Stephen talking about his army days, the places he’d been to and how Studley was when he was a boy.
Maybe Dr Harris wouldn’t be quite so approving if he knew just how she’d achieved so much with Stephen, but Dawn knew the healing powers of a good sexual relationship.
And it was early days yet. She hadn’t shown him all her little tricks, by a long way.
Chapter Twenty-Five
June 1968
‘I can’t really believe we’re leaving here,’ Rita said to Charity as she handed her last box to the taxi driver waiting in Barkston Gardens. ‘I thought it was incredible when we moved the office to King’s Road, but I never imagined being sensible enough to buy flats of our own.’
‘Come back here a moment.’ Charity ran back to the doorway to shelter from the rain. ‘Give me a hug.’
Rita ran to her, rain already turning her hair into corkscrew curls.
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Rita laughed. ‘Anyone would think we were going to the opposite ends of the world. I’ll see you on Monday at the office.’
Dorothy leaving for New York and the lease expiring on the flat in Barkston Gardens at the same time had been the deciding factor in moving out. It made better financial sense to buy a place of their own than rent again, and now Rita had found a minute studio apartment close to the office and Charity a flat in St John’s Wood.
The new office had come about for similar reasons. A year ago, when the lease expired in Fulham Road, Charity had had to go cap in hand to the bank, for a loan to buy the lease of another office in King’s Road, Chelsea. At the time it had been very worrying – the new place had much higher overheads – but the gamble had paid off: larger premises in a better area had increased Stratton Promotions’ profile and with it came bigger and more lucrative contracts.
‘This is the end of an era,’ Charity said. ‘We have to mark it with something.’
Rita hugged he
r friend exuberantly.
‘I think we left enough marks on the flat and the neighbours,’ she said. ‘Now look, I’ve got to go. Simon’s waiting for me to go and buy a bed.’
‘I suppose you’ll be testing it this afternoon,’ Charity shouted as Rita ran back to her car.
‘As the Aussies round here would say, “too right”.’ Rita grinned. ‘Good luck settling in. Give the kids my love tomorrow. Next time they’re in London I’ll pop round to see them.’
Charity went back upstairs for her last few things, but as she stepped into the bare hall, alone, she suddenly felt an unexpected pang of sentiment.
Rain was drumming against the windows, obliterating the sound of traffic from the Earls Court Road. A dismal, yellowy light showed up all the marks of the last five years.
The carpet had always been threadbare under the settee. Now it was a hole. Stains as diverse as wine, nail varnish and spilt coffee made a joke of her leaving it for the next tenants. White shapes on the yellowing walls marked where pictures had been; paintwork was scuffed and peeling in places. Rita’s room was bare now, the furniture she’d brought from her parents’ home so long ago, sold to a man across the square. A whiff of Chanel still lingered in Dorothy’s, but the many scratches on the dressing-table, stains of wine and tea splattered on the ivory walls, were far more evocative of her untidy nature. Dorothy had gone to the States a few weeks before on a modelling job, but as always she’d found a wealthy man and the girls guessed this one was keeping their friend between jobs.
Charity had been just eighteen when she first saw this flat. Now she was twenty-three and buying the kind of flat which had once been just a dream.
‘So many memories,’ Charity said aloud as she went back into her old room. The curtains were gone, given to Lou. A big blown-up photograph of her taken by John in Florence was already hanging in her new flat. The bed here looked saggy and uncomfortable, the small bamboo table was fit for nothing but a rubbish dump.
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