A Winter Love Song

by Rita Bradshaw

  She stood lost in the words and melody, her voice tremulous and sweet, and for the first time since she had come round in the hospital she truly felt like herself again.

  How long she stood on the doorstep in the quiet of the night Bonnie didn’t know, but when she finally turned back into the warmth of the house and shut the door, a deep peace had enveloped her. She might never sing professionally again, but this song, a winter love song, would be the first of many she could sing down the years for her family, she told herself.

  She sat down at the kitchen table, her legs trembling as though she had run a great distance, which in a way she felt she had.

  She’d sing to the babies she and Art would have, gentle lullabies to soothe them to sleep and to let them know how precious they were and how much she loved them. She pictured it in her mind and smiled, even as the tears slid down her cheeks. Her children wouldn’t mind that her voice had no strength or vigour to it, that it wasn’t the voice of the famous artiste, Bonnie May. It would be their mam singing and that was all that mattered. The rest, wonderful though it had been, was just tinsel and glitter . . .

  She brushed her hand across her damp face and stood up. It was Christmas, her da was home and Art was sleeping upstairs. What more could she ask for?

  When Nelly and Thomas arrived for Christmas dinner at midday on Christmas Day, they found a radiant Bonnie waiting for them. She flung her arms round Nelly, saying, ‘Thank you, thank you,’ as she hugged her, putting Nelly’s mind at rest that they’d done the right thing in it all. ‘I didn’t understand why you wouldn’t stay here,’ Bonnie said a little while later as they sat in the sitting room sipping a pre-dinner sherry, ‘and then you and Art and Thomas disappeared for most of the afternoon. I was feeling a bit put out, I have to confess.’

  Nelly smiled. ‘I don’t blame you. But has Art explained why he didn’t tell you? He thought he was doing it for the best in case something went wrong at the last minute.’

  ‘I know.’ Bonnie’s smile dimmed. ‘And it could have. He’s so poorly, Nelly.’

  John was upstairs taking a nap, Annie was in the kitchen and Art and Thomas were outside clearing snow, so it was just the two of them, and Nelly put her hand on Bonnie’s. ‘Take each day and be thankful for it,’ she said softly. ‘He’ll improve no end now he’s home, you’ll see. Being with you is the best tonic he could have. He’ll get better, Bonnie. We’ll will him to between us.’

  ‘Art is going to see about getting him an artificial leg now he’s back in England. If Da had stayed in hospital here like the army wanted, that would have happened in the normal course of things, but Art said we’ll see that he gets the best one money can buy. He hates the crutches, Nelly. Hates not being independent and able to move about freely.’

  ‘But that’s good in a way, it means it’ll motivate him. And they’ve made wonderful advances in artificial limbs since the war began. Everything will be all right now, Bonnie. I know it will.’

  ‘Oh, Nelly, what would I do without you?’

  They talked a little more before John came downstairs, and once she had given her father a glass of sherry, Bonnie left him and Nelly together, saying she was going to set the table, or rather the Morrison shelter that masqueraded as a table. ‘It’s one of the few things Annie lets me do at the moment,’ she said ruefully. ‘If she could wrap me up in cotton wool, she would.’

  John smiled at his daughter. It had shocked him to the core to hear how badly injured she had been and that she might never sing again, but she seemed to be taking that well, unless she was putting on a brave face, of course. When Bonnie had left the room, he turned to Nelly, his voice low as he said, ‘How cut up is she about the possibility of not singing again?’

  Nelly looked into the dear face that was so pale and thin, the bones prominent under the skin, and her voice was soft when she said, ‘Don’t worry about her, John. She really has settled that in her mind. She was much more concerned that she might not be able to have children, but the doctors have assured her that’s not an issue. She has the right perspective on things, on life.’

  John nodded. He turned his gaze to the crackling fire; it was almost hurting him to look into Nelly’s heart-shaped face. She was just the same as he remembered; she didn’t seem to have aged at all apart from the faint touch of silver here and there in the sandy gold hair. But her skin was still clear and unlined, her deep-green eyes wide and heavily lashed and she was as slim as someone half her age. A beautiful woman. But she had always been lovely. ‘The right perspective on life,’ he murmured. ‘She doesn’t take after me then.’

  ‘Don’t say that.’

  ‘It’s true though, isn’t it?’ He continued to look into the fire. ‘Through my stupidity she was left at the mercy of Louisa’s mother and grew up without me to take care of her. Nothing I can do or say will change that.’

  ‘We all make mistakes, John, and you were trying to find a way to make a better life for her.’

  ‘A flawed way. I was a fool. I’ve been a fool most of my life, one way or another.’

  Again she said, ‘Don’t say that.’

  Once, years ago, this woman had been his for the taking. He had known he only had to say the word and she would have married him and been a good mother to Bonnie, but he had clung to the belief that to do so would have been a betrayal of what he’d felt for Louisa. It had taken Skelton’s thugs and the years since then for him to understand that loving Nelly – and he had, although he’d fought against admitting it to himself for a long time – didn’t lessen what he’d felt for Bonnie’s mother one iota. But none of that mattered, not really. He hadn’t been good enough for Nelly then, and he was even less so now. Once he would have been able to give her his strength and virility, children of her own, but now . . . look at him. He made himself sick.

  Quietly, he said, ‘Thomas’s father?’ He didn’t say Franco. That had to come from her and if she wanted to pretend the boy was her husband’s, then that was her right. ‘Were you happy with him, this – this Mr Harper?’

  ‘We both know who the father of Thomas was, John.’

  Her quiet reply brought his gaze swinging to her face but now Nelly was staring into the flames. She had made the decision some time during the night when she had lain awake tossing and turning, that should he enquire about Thomas she would tell him the truth. About Franco, about her supposed marriage, everything.

  ‘After you left the fair we thought you were dead. Everyone thought you were dead, even the police. I – I was upset.’ The understatement of the year, Nelly thought painfully. ‘Franco had always wanted me and one night . . . Well, you can guess. That once – and it was only once – gave me my beautiful boy, so in all honesty I can’t say I completely regret it. Does that shock you?’ She raised her eyes for a moment.

  ‘Of course it doesn’t shock me, Nelly.’

  ‘And there was no husband. Harper is my real name. I was born Eleanor Harper and my parents were wealthy, but we never got on. I rebelled against them and used the money that my grandmother had given me to make a new life for myself. When – when I discovered Thomas was on the way I left the fair, took up my real name and bought a house, and began yet another new life as a widow with a small son. That’s it, really.’

  She looked fully at him. There was no condemnation in his face, only astonishment and admiration. ‘You’re an amazing woman.’

  ‘Not really. You talk about mistakes, and mine with Franco meant my lovely son has had to grow up without a father. He didn’t deserve that. It’s my biggest regret, I suppose.’

  ‘Like I said, I was a fool back then, Nelly.’

  Something quivered deep in her stomach. His words could have meant anything; she mustn’t read more into them. She’d loved this man for twenty-five years and for most of that time her love had brought her nothing but agony of mind. It was only in the last little while that she had come to terms with the fact that he would never see her as more than a friend and learned to be content wi
th that. And with the acceptance had come a quietening of spirit and even a kind of happiness. She couldn’t go back to the uncertainty, the longing, the sheer pain of before, she couldn’t. She’d endured enough. It would break her. And she wouldn’t allow anyone, even John, to do that.

  ‘I want to say something, to set the record straight, and once I’ve said it I’ll never mention it again. Never embarrass you again. And I’m not saying it because I think anything could ever come of it, that we could . . . No, I only have to look in the mirror to see what I am, and you – you’re as beautiful as you were back in the days at the fair. More beautiful, if anything.’

  ‘John, don’t—’

  ‘I loved you back then, Nelly, but like the fool I am, I had the idea I’d be letting Louisa down if I admitted it, to myself as much as anyone else. You were a cut above then and you still are, and I don’t mean just because you come from a different class and all that. It’s you, your beauty and your goodness, everything about you. But like I said, I was all knotted up inside then, still am, I suppose, but not about you, not any more. I just wanted you to know how it was, that’s all. And I suppose at the heart of me, while I’m being honest, I thought if we got together you’d find out very quickly that I wasn’t what you wanted and I’d be a laughing stock. That sort of thing mattered then, before the war. So I’m just saying this once, while it’s the two of us, that it was never you. That’s all. It was me being a lily-livered coward. I promised myself years ago that if I ever got to see you again I would tell you how it was, so I have.’

  The strength was draining from her; she had no defence against the wonder of what she was hearing. In a dream, once in a while, she would hear him say he loved her, that he’d got it all wrong and that he wanted her. But it had only been a dream. Her head was sunk on her chest and her shoulders were hunched, her eyes closed, but his name was wrenched up from the depths of her, ‘John, oh, John.’

  He went to get up and comfort her, still unsure if her love for him had survived the years and what he had put her through, because it seemed impossible that she could want him as he was now. It was a clumsy and hasty effort to rise and before he could steady himself one of his crutches had clattered to the floor and he almost went sprawling before floundering back into the chair. And then Nelly was kneeling beside him, much as Bonnie had done the evening before, saying, ‘It’s all right, it’s all right,’ as he swore his deprecation of himself.

  ‘I just wanted you to know, that’s all. I don’t expect anything—’

  She cut short his words by placing her lips on his, and as she kissed him he realized he’d never been kissed by a woman like this before. Louisa had loved him, and there had been women in the years since he had left the fair – fleeting encounters, mostly, along with one or two who had professed love with the idea of him putting a ring on their fingers – but none of them, even Louisa, had wanted him like this, needed him, loved him with such a naked passion.

  He took her face in his hands and now he was kissing her until they were both breathless and gasping, but even then his lips continued to move over her face, kissing her eyes, her brow, her nose and catching the tears on her cheeks. ‘I never expected—’ he began again, but Nelly put her finger to his lips.

  ‘Expect,’ she said fiercely. ‘Do you hear me, John? Expect, and go on expecting for the rest of our lives. This is the beginning – all that’s gone before doesn’t matter now.’

  ‘But you could have anyone, you’re so beautiful, so lovely.’

  ‘I’ve only ever wanted you.’

  ‘Even as I am now?’ He still couldn’t quite believe it.

  She kissed him again in answer, and then, as they heard voices approaching, the sitting-room door opened and she rose to her feet. ‘Happy Christmas,’ she whispered in the moment before the others came into the room, and they were both laughing, albeit with a touch of hysteria, as they turned to face Bonnie and Art and Thomas.

  It was going to be a wonderful Christmas.

  Epilogue

  1950

  It was John’s sixtieth birthday, and he and Nelly, along with Thomas and his girlfriend and a whole host of friends, were gathered at Bonnie and Art’s house to celebrate the occasion. Bonnie and Art, along with Annie, had left London for the coast at Newhaven shortly after the war was over, once it became apparent that the doctors were right and Bonnie would never be able to take up her singing career again. They had bought an old and decrepit but once-grand house set in some fifty acres of land, a view across rolling fields to the back of it that eventually led to a coastal path and down to the beach if you were prepared for a very long walk. The grounds had a wonderful five-acre orchard containing productive fruit trees, a huge vegetable garden and several greenhouses, and most important of all a separate three-bedroomed cottage that was actually in better condition than the house when they saw it. It was here that John and Nelly, who had married within weeks of John coming back to England, set up home together, along with Thomas.

  Bonnie had decided that if her career in the limelight was over then she wanted more of an outdoor life, and a smallholding with a bit of market gardening thrown in was the answer. It had taken nearly a year to get the house in order, but they had managed to furnish the six-bedroomed property fairly cheaply. It seemed that people didn’t want big houses after the war and large places were being subdivided into smaller units with the result that more and more items were finding their way into junk shops and auction rooms – huge old pieces of furniture that were nevertheless beautiful with an ageless charm. They fitted well into the somewhat baronial rooms of Westwinds.

  And it was here, in the master bedroom, exactly a year to the day after the country had celebrated VJ Day, that John Arthur Franklin made his way into the world, followed sixteen months later by his twin sisters, Daisy Louisa and Rose Bonnie, in the middle of the coldest winter in living memory. Relentless snowstorms, six-foot drifts and sub-zero temperatures for weeks on end brought Britain to its knees, but the huge roaring fires that were kept going twenty-four hours a day in Westwinds’ cavernous fireplaces, and the self-sufficiency that Bonnie’s smallholding-cum-market-garden was already well on the way to providing, meant everyone was warm and snug and well fed.

  Thomas had made it clear to Nelly and John after the move that further education was not for him, despite his academic prowess, and John wisely persuaded Nelly not to force the issue in spite of her disappointment. Thomas agreed to take a couple of courses on farm management and accountancy, however, with a view to developing and running the business side of the enterprise at Westwinds under Bonnie’s overall control. Along with Thomas, Bonnie employed two gardeners, a woman who came each day to assist Nelly in the dairy that was attached to the main house – they had a small herd of five gentle dairy cows – and two general hands, big burly village lads who worked, as Art put it, like the dickens and were worth their weight in gold.

  John would never be the man he was before the war – his injuries had been too severe for that – but over time he’d learned to walk very well on his new artificial leg and function independently which meant the world to him. He was in charge of their flock of chickens, and his care was reflected in the huge quantities of eggs the birds laid regularly. Like the cows, he knew each of the fowls by name and swore they all had personalities of their own, which effectively put paid to the idea of any of his charges ending up as a roast dinner.

  Art had continued to keep on his nightclub in London when they had moved to Newhaven, unable to let go of his old life completely. Most weekends he joined the band he employed there, and often Annie would make the journey to London with him and visit her children and grandchildren, staying overnight with one or another of them.

  Bonnie completely understood her husband’s need to continue to perform. The band members, on the whole, were the old crew Art had played with before the war, with a few new faces replacing the ones who hadn’t made it home. She knew Art came into his own when he played in front
of a live audience and she would never have dreamed of denying him that, or asked him not to fulfil the record contracts that continued to come his way. Music and performing were in his blood, as singing had been in hers, and but for the accident that had put paid to her career she knew she would have continued to sing occasionally. But she didn’t brood about that. If, now and again, she became a little sad, she would look into the faces of her precious children and know that she had been given much more than she had lost. And she would be content.

  Westwinds and its little community was a happy, blessed place, the peacefulness, the breathtaking views, the clean, clear air and the proximity of the animals and birds providing healing to her father in a way that nothing else could have done. And they all needed healing in their different ways after the war. The price of victory and defeat had been fifty-five million men, women and children dead, countries facing years of rebuilding and inevitable political turmoil, and memories that would scar many more millions for the rest of their days – because lives lost can never be recaptured and those who grieve will never forget.

  Bonnie looked down at the baby in her arms. She had left the celebrations for her father downstairs, and escaped to the quiet of her bedroom for a little while to feed her newborn baby in peace. Little Betty was only two weeks old, a bonny nine-pound baby with a shock of blonde hair like her namesake. ‘Bonnie and Betty once again,’ Bonnie whispered, stroking the soft downy brow with the tip of one finger as the baby snuffled in her feeding. ‘And I’ll tell you all about your lovely Auntie Betty, my darling. She won’t be forgotten.’

  She lifted her head and sat gazing out of the open window, drinking in the mellow September afternoon. The high sky was a deep cornflower blue, and the smell of woodsmoke drifted on the warm breeze.

  Betty should have been here today. She should be laughing and celebrating downstairs with the others, with Selina and Cyril and Violet and little baby Cyril, with Hilda and Annie, Enoch and Gladys, Ralph and Mary, Nelly and Thomas, and all their other friends. She was so glad that Verity had come today with her new husband, but it should have been Larry down there. Poor Larry, who’d driven Hilda mad half the time but who’d given his life for what he believed in, as so many others had done.