Emma's War

by Rosie Clarke

  Jon was a dear friend. I had known him long before I met Jack. He had been there when I needed him, when I was tied to a man I could never love and utterly miserable. He had given me money and hope, hope that I would one day escape to a better life. I would always be grateful to him for his gentleness and kindness, and in my own way I loved him very much.

  I shuffled my papers and sighed, wondering why I could not settle to my work.

  ‘Something wrong, Emma?’ Sol asked, sensing my restless mood.

  I shook my head, unable to explain why I was haunted by thoughts of the past that morning.

  Jon’s face looked much better now than it had when I first saw him in the hospital. He had been injured while working with the resistance movement in France during the war. He would always bear the scars of his wounds, of course, but his mother was able to look at him now without going into hysterics – which she had on that terrible afternoon she first saw the burns.

  I was fetching him home at the weekend, and if all went well he would not have to go back to the hospital that had been home to him for so many months. He would be free at last to live a normal life, or as normal as was possible for Jon.

  He was conscious of the scars, of course, even though they were so much better than they had been at the start, but he was aware that people still stared when they saw him in the street. It was something he had accepted for my sake, because he loved me and he wanted to try living the way we had before he was injured. We had been to the theatre once during his visits home, and to the pictures, but I knew he preferred to stay home and listen to the wireless in the evenings.

  He was always happiest with a book, sitting quietly in his own room – or walking in the countryside. Sometimes, I took him away for the weekend, and that was when he felt most relaxed, away from people and noise. I knew that eventually I might have to consider buying a house in the country.

  It would present no problems as far as money was concerned. Jon had a small income of his own, which would have supported us had we needed it, but I was earning many times what he received. I supposed that now my businesses were running so smoothly I need not work myself, but without my work I would have had too much time to think.

  ‘You’re far away, Emma,’ Sol said, recalling me to the task in hand when I had been silent for some minutes. ‘Still thinking about Jon? About fetching him home?’

  ‘Yes.’ I smiled at him. He could usually read my thoughts. ‘I was thinking things might have to change soon, Sol. I may have to buy a house in the country.’

  He nodded, his expression serious. ‘Make sure it has a good mainline station near by, Emma. You’ll want somewhere not too far away so that you can pop up to town when you like.’

  ‘Yes.’ I had known Sol would understand me. ‘I wouldn’t want to be too far away …’

  I had been turning the pages of my newspaper idly. Suddenly, a face from the past was staring up at me. I read the accompanying article aloud.

  ‘Mrs Sheila Jansen, wife of the popular American jazz singer Todd Jansen, was having tea at the Ritz yesterday. She is in the country to visit old friends and make arrangements for her husband’s concert tour next month …’

  Sol looked at me as I finished reading. He knew what was in my mind. ‘You’re afraid she might try to take Lizzy from us?’ I nodded, staring at him in apprehension. He reached forward and patted my hand. ‘Don’t worry about it, Emma. If she had wanted the girl, she would have been in contact with us before this.’

  ‘I hope you’re right, Sol. James and Lizzy are inseparable. I don’t know what they would do if they were parted.’

  ‘I can’t see Sheila wanting to take her.’ Sol frowned as he saw the distress I was feeling. ‘Her husband doesn’t know she had a child, does he?’

  ‘He didn’t know,’ I said, swallowing hard. My throat was dry and I was really upset. ‘But supposing she comes here? Supposing she does want her daughter back?’

  ‘Then we’ll fight her,’ Sol said. ‘You still have the letter she sent when she gave Lizzy to you?’

  ‘Yes … but I can’t do that, Sol. I love Lizzy, but she is Sheila’s daughter. She gave her up because she had a chance of a new life with Todd. You can see that things have gone well for her – she looks marvellous. She’s wearing the New Look, and not a copy either. She must have bought that in Paris. Jane told me that Todd was doing well, but I hadn’t realized he was as successful as all that – though I know he’s a good singer.’

  ‘All the more reason for her to hang on to what she’s got with him,’ Sol said. ‘If she comes, it will probably be just to see Lizzy. Believe me, Emma. That woman is as selfish as they come. There is no way she would risk her comfortable lifestyle for Lizzy’s sake.’

  Sol had never liked Sheila, and perhaps he had good reason. We had always been friends, though she had been jealous of my success for a while after her own attempt at shop keeping had failed at the start of the war. By the way she looked in the photograph, she had no need to be jealous of me now. Todd was obviously giving her everything she had ever hoped for.

  All I could do was pray that she didn’t want Lizzy back!

  Chapter 2

  ‘You made it in time then?’ Sarah Miller whispered as I took the seat next to her in the school assembly hall a few minutes after the concert had begun. ‘I’m so glad.’

  ‘Me too. I wouldn’t have missed this for the world.’

  ‘Doesn’t he look wonderful?’ Sarah whispered as James came to the front of the stage.

  ‘Yes. Wonderful.’

  I was so proud of my son.

  My eyes filled with tears as I listened to James singing the beautiful hymn. Where had his talent come from? No one in my father’s family that I knew of had a singing voice, nor my mother’s. So perhaps he had inherited it from Paul?

  Thinking of Paul renewed my fears about Sheila’s intentions. There had been a time towards the end of the war when I had feared that Paul would try to take James from me, though my fears had proved ground-less. It would have been difficult for him, because James’s name had been changed to Reece when I agreed to marry Jon. My husband had been a lawyer before the war, and changing James’s name was one of the first of many things he had done to protect us.

  Neither of us had wanted James to bear the name of my first husband, because Richard Gillows had been a self-confessed murderer. Nor had we wanted James to have his true father’s name.

  I was not certain what James thought of Jon. When he first visited us after the war, on a rare break from the hospital, I had introduced him as my husband, explaining privately to James that he had been away fighting for a long time.

  James had protested that he wanted his daddy back, but I had told him that was impossible. Jack Harvey had returned to America and we had to stay here. Whether or not James had vaguely remembered Jon from before the war was impossible to say. Just how much could a child of a year or so remember?

  He had never spoken of Jon as his daddy, but to my relief James had accepted my husband when he came to the house. He had not screamed or made a fuss when he saw Jon’s face, merely taking the mutilations in his stride. He had never been affectionate towards Jon, but treated him with the same kind of politeness he would show a stranger.

  His school had taught him that. As a small child he had often screamed and kicked up a fuss to gain his own way, and I was not sure he had ever forgiven me for sending Jack away. He never spoke of that night in late 1944, when he’d crept down from his nursery to hear us quarrelling, but I knew he had not forgotten the man he had called Daddy.

  James had long outgrown the pedal car Jack had once bought him as a Christmas gift, but he refused to be parted from it. I sometimes wondered if he remembered the promise Jack had made him to return just for his sake one day.

  I thought the enforced parting from the man he adored might be one of the main reasons behind his attitude towards me at times. James loved me as I loved him, but there were moments when I felt that perhap
s he did not quite trust me.

  I tried hard to show him that I loved him more than anyone, but I was not always able to give him as much of my time as he needed. Lizzy never seemed to resent it when I had to work, though of course as much as I loved her she was not my own child. She remembered another life – a life that had been much less pleasant – and she was always grateful for whatever I gave her.

  But I was allowing my mind to drift from my son’s performance. Sarah and I both clapped enthusiastically as James finished his song and went back to stand with the other performers.

  ‘He was so nervous,’ Sarah whispered. ‘But he pretended not to be.’

  I wiped the tears from my eyes as the applause for James’s singing reverberated round the hall. He looked such a little angel. No one would believe that this was the same child who had recently put a frog in Mrs Rowan’s bed!

  She had made such a fuss! I had had to punish both Lizzy – who insisted she was the culprit until James owned up – and my son, by cancelling a trip to the pictures for them both. It had been a Laurel and Hardy film, which they had both been looking forward to seeing. I had regretted having to discipline them but it had had to be done. However, I was going to give them a special treat this afternoon, and perhaps we could go to the cinema another day, during their summer holidays.

  The concert was to celebrate the end of term, and most of the children who could sing were performing.

  Sarah touched my arm. ‘It’s Lizzy’s turn now. She looks so pretty – but very nervous.’

  A woman behind made a shushing noise and Sarah pulled a face, subsiding into silence.

  Lizzy was singing in the chorus. Her voice was not remarkable, but she made up in enthusiasm for what she lacked in tunefulness. I had chosen this particular school because it accepted both girls and boys, but the time was coming when they would have to go to separate schools. I did not look forward to the day I had to part them.

  What was I going to do if Sheila wanted her daughter back?

  Sol and my mother had both warned me that this might happen one day. I had dismissed their fears at the time, but now I was beginning to worry. Lizzy had become so dear to me that I would miss her terribly – but not as much as my son. He would be devastated, and so would Lizzy.

  The concert was over now. I got up and moved to join the other parents who were claiming their children. Mr Smithson, the children’s head teacher, came up to me, his face wreathed in smiles.

  ‘You must be very proud of James, Mrs Reece?’

  ‘Yes, I am. Very proud.’

  ‘I am so glad you could come this time. You missed the last concert, and that was such a shame.’

  ‘Unfortunately, I was working.’

  He nodded, but I caught the disapproval in his eyes. Obviously he did not approve of mothers who worked, not now that it was no longer our patriotic duty, though it had been very different during the war of course. Jon’s mother held much the same opinion. Dorothy was always hinting that she thought I ought to give up work now and devote myself full-time to looking after my husband and the children, but that was something I was not prepared to do, despite my devotion to them.

  Lizzy and James ran towards me.

  ‘Did you see me, Mum?’

  ‘Emmie – wasn’t James good?’

  ‘Yes, darlings. I saw you both and you were both wonderful.’

  ‘Lizzy was scared but I wasn’t,’ James boasted.

  ‘Can we have ice cream, Emmie?

  ‘Yes, I should think so, darling.’

  I nodded to Mr Smithson and took the children by the hand. Their chattering was relentless throughout the car journey, and tea, which we had at Lyons, because they preferred it to a hotel, where they felt they had to be quiet.

  We had rolls of vanilla ice cream, little cream cakes, tea for Sarah and me, and fizzy orangeade for the children. It was a happy occasion, and I indulged their liveliness, even though I noticed one or two matrons giving me a rather jaundiced look.

  Well-brought-up children were not supposed to be quite as noisy as my two, but I didn’t see why they shouldn’t enjoy themselves. Perhaps they were spoiled, but I loved them both so much that I did not like to curb their natural excitement – though I stopped James when he started flicking the paper from his ice cream across the table at Lizzy.

  ‘That’s enough of that, darling,’ I said. ‘It’s time we went home now.’

  They protested that they wanted to go to the park, but I did not give in. The wind was cool that afternoon, and Lizzy was prone to chills if we were not careful. Besides, I had some work to do. I had given up the afternoon to attend the concert, but I would have to make up for it by working on my figures that evening.

  ‘Mum … can we go to the seaside this summer?’ James asked as I opened the car door for them to pile in. ‘Pam said her sister would have us for a week – but I would like to stay in a hotel this time, or somewhere different. Like the place we went with Jack that year …’

  My heart stood still. He had not mentioned Jack for so long that I had almost believed he had forgotten him. Yet in my heart I knew he would never do that – any more than I could.

  ‘We might go to a hotel somewhere,’ I replied, carefully keeping my voice level. ‘But we can’t go there, darling. Not to the Cottage. It belongs to Jack.’

  ‘He would lend it to us if you asked,’ James said, pulling a face. That hint of mutiny was in his eyes again. He would never truly forgive me for sending Jack away. ‘I know he would. If you wrote to him in America and asked.’

  ‘I don’t know his address,’ I said. ‘Besides, there are lots of other nice places we could stay.’

  ‘But I liked it there …’

  ‘Well, we’ll see,’ I said, hoping to change the subject. ‘I’m not sure Jack still lets people stay there. He might have sold it …’

  It was unlikely that Jack had sold the Cottage. It was a lovely old house that had been in his family for generations. I did not know if he ever visited it these days – or if he even came to England.

  I had heard nothing from him since the night we had quarrelled.

  I was still thinking about Jack, and the few days we had spent at his cottage in Sussex, as I parked the car, then ushered the children into the house.

  Mrs Rowan came out into the hall, her face wearing its disapproving look.

  ‘You have a visitor, madam. I asked her to wait in the parlour.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Rowan. Did she leave her name?’

  ‘Mrs Jansen,’ the housekeeper said. ‘I think she’s American.’

  My heart caught with fright as I told the children to go with the housekeeper. Sheila had come, just as I had expected after reading that newspaper article that morning.

  I went into the sitting room. Sheila was standing by the window, looking out at the street. I knew she must have seen us come in. She turned to me and smiled, and I saw she was wearing a very smart costume, similar to the one she had been wearing in her photograph. Her shoes were made of the finest leather, and her hat was both smart and attractive. Her hair looked lighter, as though she had had it rinsed to an ash blonde, but it had been done professionally and did not look cheap or tarty. She was wearing a large diamond ring as well as her wedding ring, and looked very comfortable with her new status.

  ‘Hello, Emma,’ she said. ‘Are you pleased to see me?’

  ‘That depends on why you’ve come,’ I replied. ‘Lizzy is very happy here with us, Sheila. I wouldn’t be very happy if you wanted to take her away from us.’

  Sheila laughed. She looked attractive and well, much more like the girl who had come into my father’s shop in March to buy her favourite toffee pieces than she had when I’d last seen her, but with a confidence she had never had in those days.

  ‘Good grief, no,’ she said. ‘Todd has no idea Lizzy exists. I just wanted to make sure she was OK, that’s all. I couldn’t possibly have her with me. Todd doesn’t want children; it would interfere with his career. We
travel all the time, Emma. We shall be here for several weeks while Todd is on stage in London, and down in Bournemouth. He’s starring in a seaside show.’ Her eyes met mine. ‘You did know he’s a famous singer these days, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I had heard it from Jane Melcher, but I didn’t realize how successful he was until I saw your photograph in the paper this morning.’ I was relaxed now, my fears receding. ‘Have you got time to see Lizzy? She and James have been singing in their school concert. I took them to tea afterwards. If I’d known you were coming, I would have come straight home.’

  ‘I didn’t mind waiting,’ Sheila said. ‘I’ve got nothing much to do for a few days. Todd is still in Paris. He will be here next Tuesday. I came on ahead to make sure of hotel bookings and things …’ She hesitated, then, ‘I wondered if I could take Lizzy away for a couple of days, Emma. You and James could come too if you like?’

  ‘They don’t finish school until Friday, and I have to fetch Jon home from hospital on Sunday …’ I saw the flicker of disappointment in her eyes and made a swift decision. ‘I could send a note to their school, I suppose. We could go tomorrow morning, and come back on Saturday afternoon if you like? It would only be two days …’

  ‘Bless you,’ Sheila said. ‘I wouldn’t blame you if you thought I was a rotten mother and refused to let me near Lizzy … but I have missed her.’

  ‘I understand, Sheila. It was your chance and you took it. Besides, I’ve loved having Lizzy with us. She’s like a daughter to me – though of course I know she isn’t mine.’

  ‘You haven’t had any more children?’

  ‘No, I haven’t.’ I kept my smile in place. It wasn’t so very hard, even though there was a secret hurt deep inside me. ‘Not yet. Things have been difficult with Jon in hospital on and off …’

  ‘It must have been a shock for you when you heard he was still alive,’ Sheila said, then blushed as my brows rose. ‘I met Jane Melcher at a charity concert in New York once. She told me about Jon, and the sacrifice you’d made.’