by Lucy Gordon
The sound of the clock striking made them draw apart, surprised at how much time had passed.
‘I’ll take Billy outside,’ he said, ‘and we’ll bury him tomorrow, when it’s light.’
He carried the dog out to the shed. As they returned, he said, ‘The house is going to be very quiet without him charging around.’
‘Not as quiet as all that,’ she murmured. ‘Mark, I’ve got something to tell you.’
‘Yes? What?’
Absorbed in her thoughts, she missed the hint of eagerness in his voice.
‘Well…after the way we’ve spent the last few weeks…how often we’ve been together in your room or mine…’
‘Dee, will you please come to the point?’ he asked tensely.
‘I’m pregnant.’
She waited for shock, dismay, she wasn’t sure what, but all she saw in his face was frowning concentration.
‘It’s very soon,’ he said. ‘How can you be sure?’
‘Most women couldn’t, but I’m a nurse, so-’
‘Of course, you’d know. Dee, I’m sorry.’
‘Sorry?’ she faltered.
‘I took advantage of your kindness. I should have behaved better, but…well, it’s done now and…’
‘And what?’ she asked, almost fearful.
‘You once joked that we’d have to get married. How do you feel about it now?’
‘Mark, for pity’s sake! Is that a proposal?’
‘I suppose it had better be. If you think you can stand being married to a bad character. I warn you, I’m no catch.’
‘Well, I’ve always known that,’ she said, exasperated almost beyond endurance. ‘I’ll just have to put up with you, won’t I?’
‘It’s a deal.’
Then there was a pause, during which neither of them knew what to say.
‘I can hear Joe coming home.’ Mark sounded relieved. ‘We’d better go and tell him.’
‘Yes, let’s.’
That was their betrothal.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THEY married a month later in the church where the others were buried. Joe, bursting with pride and triumph, gave the bride away, and afterwards Dee laid her bouquet of buttercups on her mother’s grave.
A few of Mark’s comrades from the Air Force were guests at the tiny reception held at home. These days, there were constant air offensives, taking the battle to the enemy, and hope for victory was daily growing.
Dee fell into conversation with Harry, a pleasant man who’d been a good friend of Mark’s and was his best man today.
‘Dashed if I ever thought Mark would find a woman who could tolerate him,’ he confided, laughing.
‘I come from a family whose women are renowned for being long-suffering,’ she assured him in the same tone.
‘Good for you! I say, look at that.’ He pointed to a small toy high on a shelf. It was the Mad Bruin, brought out to enjoy the occasion.
‘Mark won it for me at a funfair,’ she said.
‘It’s very like his, except that his had a frilly skirt.’
‘You’ve seen his?’ she asked, startled.
‘I used to. Not recently of course, because it went down with his plane.’
‘Mark took it with him when he flew into battle?’ she asked, scarcely able to breathe.
‘Yes, but don’t tell him I told you that. He smuggled it in secret and none of us were supposed to know, but I think it was his good luck charm, and it really did seem as though he had a charmed life. But in the end they got him, too.’
Someone called him and he turned away, leaving her free to think. Now she was a mass of confusion. Mark had treasured her gift so much that he’d taken it with him while he’d risked his life, and had continued to do so even after she’d broken their engagement. That knowledge caused a glow of happiness to go through her.
But he’d concealed it from her. So many times he could have told her; when they became engaged, when they were making love. Yet he’d chosen not to, showing that there was still a distance between them. Emotionally, he still hadn’t turned to her as much as she’d hoped.
And had their encounters really been love-making? On her side, yes, but on his? Hadn’t he yielded to desire because he needed to know whether his skills as a lover had survived? And hadn’t he married her because, although not exactly what he wanted, it was the best option now available in a devastated life?
But surely she’d always known this? She, too, was settling for what she could get because anything was better than life without him. She would be his wife and the mother of his children. He would never be romantically ‘in love’ with her. It was too late for that. But his affection would deepen and they would grow close.
She must simply hope for that.
But she refused to be discouraged. She had once promised to love him to the end, no matter what happened, and it was time to keep that promise.
She was taking a risk but it was one she had to take, otherwise her vow of love was meaningless. True love meant keeping on even when the actual emotion was hard to feel.
‘Hey, where are you? Dee?’
It was Mark, looking unbelievably handsome, just as she’d once dreamed he would look on their wedding day.
‘What’s the idea of wandering off alone?’ he chided. ‘They’re ready for the speeches.’
‘I’m coming.’
‘You’re all right, aren’t you?’ He looked worriedly into her face.
‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she said brightly.
‘Not sorry you married me?’
‘Of course not.’
‘No regrets? Sure about that?’
She touched his face. ‘I’ll never regret marrying you, as long as I live. Now, let’s go and join the others.’
The rest of the reception went splendidly. There were toasts and speeches, cheers and laughter. That night they made love gently, then lay contentedly together. It was a happiness she’d once thought she would never know.
But she had dreamed of how, on their wedding night, she could finally tell him that she was deeply, passionately, romantically in love with him. Now she knew that she couldn’t do it. She would have to wait longer for the right moment. It might be years in coming. Or it might never come.
His pride in his approaching fatherhood was immense. He was home every evening, something that made her an object of envy among her friends, and his whole attitude towards his wife, and marriage generally, exuded contentment. Dee knew that she was lucky, and that it was sheer perversity that made her long for some sign that she was more to him than just the mother of his baby, that he’d married her for more than the refuge she offered.
At last it was time for her to leave her job. On the last day there was a small party in the early evening, with speeches from Sister, Matron and even Mr Royce, who’d found the time to drop in. While he was toasting her, Dee looked up to see Mark standing in the door, a glowering expression on his face that she’d never seen before.
Now she recalled how he’d said that Mr Royce was in love with her, even advised her to catch him and make a ‘good’ marriage. But that was nonsense, wasn’t it? Surely Mark had abandoned that fantasy?
But his scowling face said otherwise.
‘I see that your husband has come to collect you,’ Mr Royce said genially. ‘Take her home, sir, and take the best possible care of her, because she means the world to all of us.’
Mark’s smile seemed fixed on by rivets. ‘I don’t need to be told to take care of my wife,’ he said in a soft voice that only Dee and Mr Royce could hear. ‘Are you ready to go?’
‘Yes, quite ready.’
He drove her home in the battered second-hand car that he’d bought to celebrate her pregnancy.
‘You should go to bed now,’ he said as they entered the house.
‘I’d like some supper first.’
‘All right, but then you go to bed. You need all the rest you can get.’
‘Excuse me, are you instructing
me in a medical matter?’ she asked indignantly.
‘This isn’t medical, it’s husband and wife,’ he said illogically.
Joe was out that evening, which was just as well, she thought, considering Mark’s temper.
‘You’re not still making a fuss about Mr Royce, surely?’ she demanded, annoyed in her turn, and perfectly ready to have a row if that was what he wanted.
‘Shouldn’t I be? Do you really think he’s over you?’
‘I’m not sure there was ever anything for him to get over. It was just in your imagination.’
‘Like hell it was! Do you think I’ve forgotten that he’s the man you ought to have married?’
‘Who says?’
‘We both know it’s true.’
‘Then why didn’t I marry him?’
‘Because I forced you to marry me.’
Astonishment held her silent. After a moment he turned to see her properly.
‘We both know it’s true,’ he said. ‘Once I’d made you pregnant you didn’t have a choice. That’s what I was counting on.’
‘You were…counting…?’ She was groping for answers, trying to come to terms with this.
‘Why do you think I came to you night after night-?’ he growled.
‘Or I came to you.’
‘I was trying to make you pregnant, so that I could marry you.’
It took a moment for the full glorious truth of this to burst on her.
‘You wanted to-you actually wanted to marry me?’
‘Don’t pretend you didn’t know.’
‘I’ve never known. Why didn’t you just propose?’
‘Because I had no right. What kind of prospect was I? Nothing to offer you beyond a damaged body and a load of nightmares. I didn’t have the nerve to ask. But if you were pregnant it would be my duty to marry you, and I could square it with my conscience that way.’
Dee listened to this with mounting disbelief.
‘Don’t glare at me,’ he said. ‘Are you angry?’
‘Angry? Mark, have you never understood? I wanted to marry you, and you were determined not to ask me, so I became pregnant on purpose.’
‘What?’
‘I had to do it, to force your hand.’
‘Do you mean that you…that while I was trying to force…that all the time you were…is that what you’re saying?’
‘Yes,’ she said through twitching lips. ‘That’s exactly what I’m saying. At least, I think it is. Oh, darling, it’s crazy. We each wanted to get married, and we forced each other. And all this time-’
The last words were almost drowned by his shout of laughter. ‘Come here,’ he cried. ‘Come here.’
Crowing with delight, she threw herself into his arms, kissing his face madly, fumbling for his buttons.
‘Let’s go upstairs,’ she urged. ‘We have to celebrate this in the proper way.’
But the words acted like a douche of cold water on him, making him freeze in mid-gesture and step back from her.
‘What am I doing?’ he groaned. ‘I must be out of my mind to even think of…I’m sorry-forgive me.’
‘Darling, it’s all right. We can go ahead.’
‘You’re pregnant. It could harm you-or our baby.’
‘Trust me to know about that. There’s a little time left before we have to stop, I promise you.’
She thought she’d swayed him. He reached for her with desperate hands, then snatched them back, groaning.
‘No, you’re just indulging me, but I won’t risk your health. Stay away. Don’t tempt me.’
He ran, and a few moments later she heard him in the garage.
She wanted to scream her frustration to the heavens. They had taken one more step along the road, potentially a happy step. He wanted her. He’d wanted to marry her.
True, he hadn’t actually said he loved her, but that would come, surely, the first time she could tempt him back into her arms? But he’d made it clear that the baby meant more to him than she did, so for the moment she would have to be patient again.
But she was so tired of being patient.
After her busy life, it was pleasant to have time for herself and to be cared for by two concerned men. In the afternoons she began putting her feet up, regarding her growing bump with placid contentment.
She was half dozing like this one day when there was a knock on the door. Opening it, she found Harry, the airman who’d been a guest at the wedding.
‘I’m afraid Mark’s not here,’ she told him. ‘He’s working on a car at the owner’s home.’
‘It doesn’t matter. I just wanted to deliver this.’ He held out a large envelope. ‘It seems that all Mark’s things weren’t cleared out when he left and they found this recently. Very sorry. Can’t stop, I’m in a hurry.’
He blew her a friendly kiss and departed.
The envelope wasn’t sealed and she tipped the contents out onto the table. There were a couple of stray socks and a few papers concerned with his time in the service. It was while sorting through these that she came across the letter he’d written her and never sent:
…You were right to break it off. I’m a useless character and I’d be no good for you…
The touch of humility took her breath away. He’d spoken like that once before, after his injury, but this had been written before. Had he felt like this even back then? Surely in those days he’d been different, more at ease behind the mask of bonhomie?
From the garage came the sound of clanking as Joe worked away. Mark would be back soon. Gathering everything together, she hurried up to her room and shut the door. Safely alone, she resumed reading the letter.
…Do you still have the Mad Bruin?…let him remind you of me sometimes; even if it’s only the annoying things…never seem to understand when you want to be left alone…
But I never wanted you to leave me alone, she thought sadly. I wanted more of you, not less.
The letter became disjointed, suggesting that he’d returned to it often, while never finishing it.
Dee threw herself back on the bed, trying to come to terms with the discovery. Her heart was touched by the man she found here, a vulnerable man, not the cockily self-confident loudmouth he tried to present to the world. But someone who was secretly waiting for love to let him down-as it always had done, going back to his earliest days.
This was the true Mark, the lovable Mark, but still the one he concealed from her. The letter had never been sent. She closed her eyes, conjuring him up in the darkness, trying to see him as he must have looked when he was writing. Had he murmured her name?
‘Dee-Dee-’
She opened her eyes to find him sitting on the bed beside her, frowning in concern.
‘I was just dozing,’ she said, looking up at him from the pillow. She saw him looking at the letter in her hand. ‘Harry brought some of your things that weren’t returned before, and this was among them.’
‘So that’s what happened to it. So many things vanished, including my little bear.’
‘Harry said you had her in the cockpit with you when you went down. He told me that at the wedding. I wish you’d told me yourself.’
He took the letter and she watched his face. He looked sad and strangely older than only a few hours ago.
‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have read it,’ she said. ‘You never wanted me to see it, did you?’
‘Not then. I didn’t know how to face you. There was so much I wanted to say but I couldn’t find the words.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘I was angry. You dumped me and it was a shock. My pride was hurt. This-’ he indicated the letter ‘-was me trying to say so and making a mess of it. It’s probably just as well I didn’t send it to you.’
‘Or maybe it’s a pity. Who knows what might have happened? I might have come to visit you.’ There was just a hint of hope in her voice.
‘Or you could have had an attack of common sense and stayed well clear of me.’
‘Does that mean you’re sorry we’re together,
Mark?’
He frowned, as though not understanding the question. ‘How can you say that?’ he asked, laying a hand on her stomach. ‘Everything that’s worthwhile in my life, in the whole world, is here. All hope is here, all love is here, all life.’
He laid his face against her for a moment, then raised it and said gently, ‘I’ll make you a cup of tea.’
He hurried away, taking the letter with him and leaving her smiling. There was joy to be found in his words, his all-embracing acceptance of her as the hope of his life. She tried to ignore a faint niggling disappointment that his affection seemed to lack the other dimension that would have meant so much. He’d turned to her as a refuge from horrors, something she knew was common to many men who’d been involved in fighting. It was more than she might have expected and if it wasn’t what she’d hoped for, so what? With the years stretching out ahead of them, it was time to be realistic.
Wasn’t it?
Gradually the war news became more hopeful. Mark was still in touch with many of his pilot friends, and they passed on information not yet available to the rest of the world. In September 1943, allied troops had landed in southern Italy. In January 1944, more troops reached Italy in what became known as the Anzio landings. Their progress was slowed down by fierce resistance, but they overcame it. Hope was in the air.
Then came February, when a few days became known as ‘Big Week’ as the allied air forces stormed across Europe. The three of them listened to the nightly radio bulletins and Dee tried to read Mark’s face, wondering if he felt excluded from what was turning into a triumph. But the smile he turned on her was always warm and tender, and his hand would reach out to touch her stomach gently.
Both Joe and Mark watched Dee like guard dogs. If there was a job to be done away from home it was always Joe who took it, and even he announced that he would soon refuse them.
‘This is the last one until it’s all over,’ he announced one morning, buttoning up his jacket.
‘Dad,’ she protested, laughing, ‘nothing’s going to happen for a few weeks.’
‘And I’m going to be here when it does. ’Bye darling. Take care.’