‘How about a wee cup of tea before the boys come in? You’re in no hurry to get away, are you, Julie?’
‘No, I told Dad not to wait up for me or anything. He tends to do things like that - worry and fuss a bit since Mammy died.’
Catriona put the kettle on and found two cups and saucers in the cupboard beside the fire.
Grief tortured her. She longed for comfort, for Julie to stay the night and not leave her alone. Longing groped desperately this way and that but could not escape the agony in which she nursed her baby in her arms.
‘Will I make a bit of toast?’ she asked. ‘It’s ages since we’ve had our tea.’
‘I know what you’re trying to do.’ Julie smoothed down her skirt and patted her hips. ‘Sabotage my figure. Jealousy’ll get you nowhere, pal.’
Catriona laughed.
‘Yes, you’d better be careful. Remember what Madge said.’
With a roll of her eyes Julie took a couple of slices of bread from the bread tin and put them under the grill.
‘Obviously she’s not been able to keep her man, and I’m not surprised. Look how she’s let herself go. There’s no excuse for a woman looking like that. Did you see her streaky leg make-up? And her ankles were filthy. Her hair could have done with a wash, too, and why doesn’t she let it grow a bit and put curlers in?’
‘Och, she’s pregnant, poor soul, and she’s already got six children to look after. She’s never been too strong either since that last set of twins was born. She had an awful bad time.’
Julie deftly turned the toast.
‘She looks as strong as a horse. I thought she was going to land one on me. Believe me, pal, I was scared rigid!’
Suddenly they both began to giggle. ‘If she had socked me, I would have howled,’ Julie raised her voice in mock distress, ‘“I’ll get my Reggie to you. He’s more your size, you dirty big bully!”’
‘You and your Reggie!’ Catriona shook her head. ‘You’re an awful girl. Watch the toast. You’re going to burn it. That’ll be the boys at the door! I’ll go.’
As she went into the small hallway she could hear Julie scraping butter on the bread and singing:
‘There’ll be blue-birds over
The white cliffs of Dover,
Tomorrow, just you wait and see …’
Catriona opened the outside door ready to give the boys a row for being late but was taken aback to see Julie’s father in the shadows of the landing.
‘Mr Gemmell! Come away in. Julie’s in the kitchen.’
He seemed reluctant to move and hovered uncertainly on the doormat, his eyes evasive in their brown hollows. He looked ill.
‘Is something wrong?’ Catriona asked.
Dode shuffled down the hall, peeling off his cap.
‘Aye. Ah’ve got bad news.’
‘Not Reggie!’
‘Aye, lass, a telegram!’
‘Oh, no!’ Catriona wrung her hands. ‘Oh, no, Mr Gemmell!’
‘What am ah going tae say to her, hen?’
They both listened in anguish to the sound of Julie’s happy singing.
Miserably Dode twisted his cap.
‘Ah’m nae damnt use.’
‘You’ll just have to give her the telegram. Oh, dear, you’d better go in.’
‘Dad!’ Julie gasped as soon as she saw him. ‘What are you doing here, you auld rascal?’
She had been eating a bit of toast and she tongued her teeth and flicked crumbs from the corner of her mouth. ‘I’m big enough and ugly enough to see myself home. All I need to do is get the subway down the road, for goodness’ sake!’
Abruptly Dode produced the telegram and stuffed it into her hand.
‘This came. I opened it, lass. Reggie’s missing. Failed to return, it says. But don’t you worry, hen. He’ll have been taken prisoner like Catriona’s man.’
Julie stared down at the telegram. Her firm cheeks sagged and went grey like an old woman’s.
Catriona thought she was going to faint and hurried to put her arms round her and help her into a chair.
‘Yes, look how I heard from Melvin. That’s what happens, Julie. They get picked up and taken to a camp and eventually the Red Cross or somebody traces them. It’s happened lots and lots of times.’
‘I want to go home, Dad,’ Julie said.
Dode nodded. He was still twisting his cap and tears shimmered his eyes.
‘A damnt shame!’
‘Come on.’
‘Isn’t there anything I can do?’ Catriona queried, still clinging round the girl’s shoulders. ‘Stay and have a cup of tea. Stay the night if you want to. Both of you. We’ll manage.’
‘No, thanks all the same.’ Julie became suddenly brisk and rose, tidying down her skirt. ‘I just want to go home with my dad.’ Catriona followed them to the door with short steps.
‘Julie, something’s just occurred to me. What about Reggie’s parents? Shouldn’t you go and tell them?’
Julie’s face twisted into a travesty of a smile and she ignored Catriona’s question.
‘Best of luck in your new house, pal. Be seeing you!’
The door banged shut.
Catriona was left helplessly wringing her hands in the empty hall.
Chapter 12
The gate creaked open. Open, then shut again, lazily, like the motion of the trees. The Gardens and the crescent were a green shimmer. Tall trees allowed heavy branches to lean, to undulate, to whisper and ripple.
From where she sat Muriel Vincent could see nothing but gently dancing green framed in the big windows of her sitting-room.
‘Pretty as a picture,’ she had often said. ‘Such a nice outlook.’
The room was quiet, so quiet she was sure she could hear her tiny gold wrist-watch ticking.
The stiff-faced girl in the chair opposite said, ‘I got these.’
She handed over some letters.
The first one had Reggie’s squadron and air station address at the top.
Muriel read:
‘Dear Mrs Vincent,
Prior to receiving this letter you will have received a telegram informing you that your husband Flight Lieutenant R. Vincent had been reported missing from an operational flight which took place on the night of 6th June 1944.
It is with very deep regret I am writing this letter to convey to you the feelings of the entire squadron following the news that your husband has been reported missing.
On Tuesday evening last an aircraft and crew of which your husband was pilot and captain took off to carry out a bombing attack on the French coast. This flight was vital and one of the many fighting and courageous efforts called for by the Royal Air Force. The flight should not have taken very long but although other aircraft completed their mission your husband’s aircraft failed to return.
The most searching enquiries through all possible channels and organisations have so far revealed nothing but of course it will take some time for possible information to come through from enemy sources and I can only hope your husband and crew are prisoners of war. Meanwhile further information may come available; if so, this will of course be passed to you immediately.
A committee of officers known as a Committee of Adjustment has gathered your husband’s personal possessions together and will communicate with you in the near future.
May I again express my personal sympathy in your great anxiety.’
The letter was signed by a Wing-Commander.
Another communication headed ‘Casualty Branch, Oxford Street, London’, began:
‘Madam,
I am commanded by the Air Council to express to you their great regret on learning that your husband, Flight Lieutenant Reginald Vincent, Royal Air Force …’
The letter from the chaplain was written in a spidery longhand:
‘Dear Mrs Vincent,
I am writing to express my profound sorrow that your husband F/Lieut. R. Vincent is missing after operations on the night of 6th June. I understand the uncertaint
y and anxiety which you must feel. I was up waiting for the crews and it was a great grief to us when your husband’s plane failed to return.
I can only hope that your husband and his crew may have escaped disaster by baling out and have become prisoners of war. But of course there is no certainty of this, and it is not until official information comes through via the Red Cross that your terrible suspense will be ended.
You may rest assured that whatever this news, it will be communicated to you at once.
I know that whatever has happened to him he would not have you overcome with sorrow, and you can be sure that his chief thought was less for his own safety than for loyalty and devotion to duty.
Like so many other brave men, he has willingly hazarded his life for a great cause, and we may be proud and thankful for his example.
During these times, we can but commit ourselves and our anxieties into the hand of God, who cares and suffers in the griefs of His people.
I pray that you may find in God your comfort and be made strong to bear your heavy load of suffering.’
The last letter was neatly typed and signed by a Fight Lieutenant for the Group Captain commanding Reggie’s base station:
‘Dear Mrs Vincent,
As the officer disposing of the effects of your husband F/ Lieut. R. Vincent, may I be permitted to offer you my most sincere sympathy.
In accordance with Air Ministry regulations your husband’s personal effects are being forwarded to the RAF Central Depository, Colnbrook, in order that certain formalities may be completed under the provisions of the Regimental Debt Act. All enquiries regarding these effects should be addressed to the Officer Commanding, RAF Central Depository, Colnbrook, Near Slough, Buckinghamshire.
A bicycle, BSA with dynamo and lamp, was found in the effects and is being retained on this station pending disposal instructions from the Central Depository.’
Muriel passed each letter in turn to her husband Norman whose face contorted in ugly sobs and had to be hidden and mopped with a handkerchief he fumbled from his trouser pocket. He was shaking all over like an old man.
Muriel viewed him with cold unloving eyes He had never been an use in a crisis. Oh, he fussed and made cups of tea and insisted on calling in the doctor if she was ill. He could hold on to money, too, and she could depend on the fact that he would never squander all he had and leave them penniless. He did not drink or gamble or go with other women. But he was a weak man.
Long ago she had discovered he was a weak man and she secretly despised him.
She remembered overhearing two women confiding in each other over cups of coffee in a restaurant near Norman’s bank. One of them had obviously been having trouble with an overdraft and Norman had taken advantage of her predicament. She was furiously recounting to her friend:
‘My dear, he’d always been such a gentleman before. I could hardly believe my ears. You wouldn’t speak to me like that, I said, if my Nigel were here! No, my dear, he’s no gentleman. He’s just a horrid ferret-faced coward!’
Muriel’s stare raked over his lanky body, his faded eyes now red with tears, his thin features. Quite a good description she had thought at the time and she still thought so.
The bitterness inside her hardened into a spearhead that aimed straight for Norman’s heart. Somehow whatever had happened to Reggie must have been Norman’s fault. Norman was a cheat and a failure. He had failed her right from the start. His pathetic ineptitude in bed had sickened her so much she had long since abandoned having anything to do with that side of their marriage.
Often she marvelled at Norman’s managing to father one child. She thanked God he had managed, of course. Having Reggie, loving him, watching him grow, planning for him, dreaming about the wonderful future he was going to have, had been the only justification for her marriage, for her whole life, in fact.
Nothing Norman could possibly feel would ever match the torture she was in now. Yet he was reduced to blubbering and making a fool of himself in front of the girl. Reggie’s wife had more backbone than his father.
In disgust she averted her gaze from Norman. Her eyes wandered over to the window again then came back to the girl sitting opposite.
She stared at the erect figure, immaculate in the black suit and crisp white blouse, hair like polished mahogany, curling neatly inwards and contrasting with creamy skin and hard green eyes.
Reggie loved this girl. Over and over again he had told her, ‘I love her, Mother. I thought you’d understand. I really love her.’
Understanding began to grow in the silent room that had been so familiar to Reggie. How often had he sat in that same chair in which his wife was now sitting.
Muriel cleared her throat.
‘I had a letter too. From Reggie. “In case anything happens to me, Mother”, it began. He must have written it at the same time as the one you told us he wrote to you.’
Julie raised a brow.
‘Oh?’
‘He asked us to look after you.’
‘That won’t be necessary. I’m perfectly all right, thank you. Well, if you’ll excuse me.’ She rose, tucking the letters neatly into her handbag and closing it with a snap. ‘I’d better be going.’
Muriel rose too, smiling politely, calmly, yet plummeting down a ski slope of panic as if she would be alone in the world if the girl went away.
‘Must you? I … I thought perhaps you could stay for dinner. We have plenty, I can assure you.’
‘No, thank you all the same, but my father’s expecting me.’ Julie turned, hand outstretched to Norman.
‘Goodbye, Mr Vincent. Chin up and all that! Reggie wouldn’t want you to be upset.’
The contrast between the man and the girl was striking. For the first time Muriel saw the proud tilt to Julie’s head and thought that there was no danger of her breaking down and acting the fool.
Yet she was only nineteen.
‘Mother, will you please take care of her for me,’ Reggie had written.
She could see him writing the letter just before he went on that last flight, his blond head bent in concentration over the paper. He always wrote in spurts and flourishes with long pauses in between when he thoughtfully chewed his pen.
In the taut silence as Muriel followed her daughter-in-law across the parquet-floored hall, her son felt very near.
At the outside door Julie said jauntily:
‘Well, goodbye, Mrs Vincent. Thanks for the afternoon tea.’
Just for a second Muriel thought she saw her own anguish mirrored in the green eyes.
She touched the girl’s arm.
‘You must come again.’
‘Aye, aw right.’
The brittle voice lapsing unexpectedly into broad Glasgow accent gave it a pathetic droop that Muriel found unbearable.
She suddenly ached to take the poor child in her arms and comfort her, but already Julie was away down the stairs, the clumping of her wooden heels filling the stained-glass sanctuary with unaccustomed noise.
Muriel returned hurriedly to the sitting-room and went straight across to peer out of the window.
It seemed as if Reggie were at her elbow, all the time anxious.
‘I love her, Mother …’
Recklessly she did something that she would never have dreamed of doing before. She rattled her fist against the window.
Julie jerked round in the crescent below. She gazed up.
Muriel waved.
A stunned look dulled the young features for a moment, then they tightened and brightened. She smiled and waved back.
Muriel watched the girl clip briskly away in the Queen Margaret Drive direction, then turned back into the quiet sitting-room where Norman was still fumbling a handkerchief over his face.
‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself.’ She passed his chair, smoothing the skirt of her dress close to her legs as if it might be contaminated by any contact with him.
Norman shook his head.
‘Our only son!’
; ‘Oh, be quiet, Norman. Reggie’s all right. Where’s your faith? We’ll be hearing from him one of these days. It’s just a matter of waiting. For his sake, if for nobody else’s, try to wait with some dignity.’
Norman just kept shaking his head.
‘You’ve always been the same.’ She picked up the white polo-necked sweater she was knitting for Reggie and tucking the needles under her arms she started them clicking busily.
‘Muriel, for pity’s sake put that away. I can’t bear to see it.’
The needles continued as if they were taking pleasure in their jabbing movement.
‘Reggie’s sweater?’
‘Muriel, please!’
‘He gets cold. You’ve heard him say how cold it can get in that bomber.’
‘He’s been shot down.’
‘And taken prisoner.’
‘Muriel.’
‘He’ll be glad of this in a horrid prisoner-of-war camp. And I’ll see that he gets it. I’ll contact the Red Cross.’
‘Our only son!’
‘Oh, be quiet. Control yourself. Try to remember you’re a man. That girl has more backbone than you! You’re always the same, Norman.’
‘My dear, I’m only facing facts and accepting them. His wife doesn’t believe he’s alive any more than I do.’
‘That’s a lie. How do you know what she believes? You were so wrapped up in yourself and your own feelings all afternoon you hardly gave the poor girl a glance.’
‘I couldn’t bear to look at her. She reminds me all the time of Reggie. He spoke so much about her that last time he was here. I hope she doesn’t come back, Muriel! What’s the use, after all?’
‘That’s so typical of you. It doesn’t matter, of course, that Reggie asked us to look after her.’
The Breadmakers Saga Page 47