Polly's War

by Freda Lightfoot

  ‘You’re mad,’ she told him, excitement cascading through her.

  ‘I’m in love.’

  They sat in a drab dining room that smelled of stale cabbage and endless fry-ups yet barely recognised the fact. They paid even less attention to the curiosity and amusement in the eyes of the landlady who served them fatty pork and jam rolypoly pudding. All they wanted, all they needed, was each other.

  ‘Will you be wanting to use the facilities?’ the woman enquired when the meal was over, not quite with a wink but plainly enough for them both to understood that she was not discussing the bathroom arrangements.

  Lucy gazed across at Michael and, embarrassed by what she read there, dropped her eyes to the grubby tablecloth, blushing furiously. Then somehow, without any conscious thought she was smiling up at the woman and saying thank you, that would be splendid.

  Michael handed over the money to buy them an afternoon of privacy, an hour or two away from reality.

  No time was wasted in preliminaries. They were tearing at each other’s clothes the moment the bedroom door was closed, Lucy shivering with a new intensity of longing when Michael caressed her breast. The excitement of warm naked flesh meeting for the first time was too overwhelming for either to spare a glance at their surroundings. Neither noticed the fly-spotted wallpaper or the dingy curtains. They were too absorbed with tasting, sharing, loving, becoming one with the other, lost in a private world of their own where they could express the pent-up emotion and passion that they felt. Afterwards, lying with arms wrapped tight about each other, they could hardly bear to get up and dress and return to cold reality.

  ‘You realise this is wicked. It should never have happened,’ Lucy whispered, nuzzling close against the warmth of his body.

  ‘Ask him for a divorce. Explain how you believe there is no hope for the marriage.’

  ‘I did try, but failed. It’s too soon.’ Lucy related parts of their conversation but made no mention of the knife. She believed Tom regretted that moment of lost control, that he would never do it again.

  ‘Try one more time. Please Lucy.’

  ‘I will, as soon as he’s more settled in his new job, more used to civilian life and has come to terms with whatever is eating him up about his past.’

  ‘I can’t bear to give you up.’ Michael was rolling her over onto her back, placing feathery light kisses over her throat and breasts, making her gasp with new desire. How could she resist, when she needed him so?

  Over the following weeks the dingy hotel in Aston-in-Makerfield became a favourite haunt for the two lovers. The landlady came to welcome them as old friends, asked no questions, simply took their cash and left them alone. It felt to them both as if it were only here, in this grubby little room that they truly became alive.

  It amazed Lucy to find how adept she became at lying. She returned home that first evening, as on every other following and smiled at her husband, asked how the children had been. She behaved as if they were a normal, happy family and she had not just betrayed him with another man. But Lucy knew in her heart that what she was doing was wrong, and it couldn’t go on like this.

  Decisions needed to be made.

  She was afraid that if she asked for a divorce she might lose the children for wouldn’t she, in theory, be classed as the guilty party? Not for a moment did she consider giving Michael up. She’d felt suffocated, trapped in a marriage without love. She gloried in the love she found with Michael, bloomed with the wonder of it so that her hair shone, her face glowed and her eyes sparkled with happiness. Yet she continued to shy away from making any decision. Much better to leave things as they were. Tom didn’t suspect. How could he? They were very careful. No one was getting hurt, she told herself Tom was reasonably content, and she could deal with her mother if she started interfering again.

  ‘But I want more than this Lucy, more than a hole-in-the-corner affair,’ Michael would protest. ‘I want us to be together all the time. For us to be man and wife.’

  ‘I know love, so do I. Oh, what are we going to do?’ And her heart would melt with need for him, so that they would have to make love all over again.

  Polly, still keeping a close eye on the goings on of her family, was surprised one evening in late June to find young Sean walk into the warehouse, bold as you please. ‘Heaven help me, where did you spring from? Where’s your mam?’ She quickly peered out through the door on to an empty street.

  Sean grinned, jumping up and down on one foot with excitement. ‘I came all by meself Nan.’

  ‘What, all the way, on your own, across the canal basin? Even under the railway arches and over the canal bridges?’

  Sean nodded vigorously, evidently proud of this feat.

  ‘Glory, isn’t that a brave thing to do,’ Polly said, trying not to alarm the child while hugging him tightly to her breast. Later, when she’d taken him back home and found the house empty save for Sarah Jane who was going frantic with worry, she fed them both and gave a stern lecture about strangers who ran off with small children, and Jinny Greenteeth who lived down by the water and ate them if they wandered off alone. Then having thoroughly frightened her beloved grandchildren into staying safely at home in future, Polly read them two cheering stories and tucked them up in bed. After that she sat in the kitchen and waited impatiently for Lucy to come home. Within seconds of her daughter crossing the threshold, Polly laid into her, determined to frighten her witless for her neglect of the children, using words such as irresponsible, dangerous, wanton, lazy and hair brained eejit.

  It made no impression on Polly that Lucy insisted this was her one evening out a week, or that Tom had agreed to stay in and mind them. Polly had been too frightened by the little boy’s adventure and told Lucy in no uncertain terms that the task of child minding was, first and foremost, a mother’s responsibility. ‘Did you even remember to ask Tom? If you had he would surely have been here with them.’

  ‘Oh, so he’s innocent and I’m guilty without even the benefit of a fair trial, is that it?’

  ‘Where was it ye had to go that was so urgent? And don’t try and lie, for you know I can allus tell.’ Polly watched the tell-tale signs of guilt wash up her daughter’s throat to mantle her cheeks with pink. ‘So that’s the way of it. I might’ve guessed. Aw, Lucy, have ye no sense?’

  Any hopes Polly might have had of talking sense into her daughter were demolished as Lucy flounced out of the room, refusing to answer any more questions. Undeterred Polly went instead to see Minnie Hopkins and demanded she tell her what was going on between Michael and Lucy.

  The old woman folded her arms across her skinny breast and sucked on her teeth, which for once she had in, and shook her head. ‘I know nowt. Not my business.’ Nor yours neither, her expression seemed to say.

  ‘Saints preserve us, of course it is. Isn’t he your nephew and Lucy a married woman. It’s a sin for sure. Aren’t they committing adultery, apart from the unholy mess they’re getting them poor kids into.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you’ve turned to religion in your old age, Polly lass, and after all tha suffered from it in the past by way of bigotry from that brother-in-law of yours.’

  Polly had the grace to blush but persisted with her concern for Lucy. ‘No good can come of it. They’ll all end up getting hurt.’

  ‘Don’t be too hard on t’lass. She’s doing her wifely duty and sticking with Tom, po-faced and shifty though he is, just as you asked her to.’

  Polly was startled. ‘Shifty, who says so?’

  ‘I do. Never looks you straight in the eye. There’s allus summat suspicious when folk won’t do that. And don’t try telling me how much he’s suffered. We know about suffering in this house, and he looks pretty fit to me.’

  ‘Lucy is neglecting her children, going out night after night.’

  ‘Nay, only one night a week, so far as I’m aware. Surely any woman has a right to that? But if yon lass is doing summat she shouldn’t then it’s for her and that husband of hers to sort out,
not thee. You’re her mother, but you don’t rule her life.’

  Minnie terminated the discussion by firmly changing the subject to the coming Bring and Buy in the church hall. Polly was forced to make a tactical withdrawal if not an absolute surrender.

  The following Thursday, Lucy was late leaving as Sean had been fractious, trying to persuade her to take him with her to the pictures. She’d had to run to catch the bus and could hardly believe her eyes when, the moment she jumped on board, there was Polly, large as life in her tweed coat and head scarf, seated next to some toothless old dear in a rain hood. ‘Hello m’cushla, and where are you off to?’ She might very well have added - at this time of night - for it was writ plain in her bright enquiring eyes that she’d caught the bus on purpose to check on her.

  Lucy took a moment to answer while she found a seat opposite her mother, fumbling in her pocket for some loose change for the conductor. Thrusting a collection of carefully hoarded halfpennies into his hand, he jiggled them and wisecracked, ‘Carol singing started early this year, has it?’ He gave her a broad wink as he clipped her ticket. Lucy tried to smile, her brain whirling.

  ‘I’m going out with a friend,’ she said at last, unable to find a better excuse.

  ‘Who might that be?’ Polly softly enquired. Her neighbour removed the rain hood so that she could better hear the reply, shaking drops over everyone seated nearby. ‘I thought they all lived in Castlefield. This bus is going to the city centre. Now who d’you know who lives there? No one at all, I’m thinking.’

  Lucy met her mother’s shrewd, probing gaze and surrendered, mainly because a friend was the one thing she needed most in all the world. There were times, like now, when she ached to have Belinda to talk to, but her dear sister-in-law was gone. ‘All right. I’ll tell you, but you mustn’t blame me too much. We couldn’t help it.’ Lucy became embarrassingly aware of how a bus full of prattling chatter seemed to grow oddly silent as ears positively twitched in their eagerness to listen in to this fascinating discussion. While Lucy hesitated, Polly pressed on with her interrogation.

  ‘I suppose you’re going to tell me that you love him.’

  ‘I suppose I am.’

  Polly’s neighbour sucked on her gums and gave a brisk nod of her grizzled head. ‘God makes ‘em and the devil pairs em.’

  Lucy shot the woman a fierce glare. The bell pinged and the bus lurched to a halt, the conductor calling out to mind the step. There was the usual jostling crowd waiting at the bus stop, anxious to get on before people had time to alight. Lucy waited until the conductor ping-pinged for the bus to start again then was on her feet in a second and jumped off the moving vehicle.

  She waved cheekily at Polly as it roared away, her mother’s face tight with annoyance.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  During the long hot summer of that year, Lucy struggled to cope with her difficult and loveless marriage. How she envied the young Princess Elizabeth as her romance progressed smoothly towards what would undoubtedly be a happy one. The young couple were so clearly in love. But then Lucy’s too had once seemed equally full of hope and promise until the war had changed everything, destroying the Tom Shackleton she’d once known and loved. In his place had come this hard, unfeeling person.

  Despite his protestations to the contrary it was as if Tom was barely aware of her as a person. He would sit mute through family meals, barely register her presence as she went about her household chores. To her enormous relief his love making, if you could call it that, became less frequent, though it remained as rushed and insensitive as ever. Lucy could barely bring herself to tolerate the intimacy let alone respond. But fearful of arousing his irascible temper, she never refused him. Afterwards she would stare up into the darkness and silently nurse her despair.

  With Michael it was entirely different. She only had to see his smile, look into his eyes for her to burst with love for him. He would stroke her with such a loving tenderness it made her cry. He would kiss her warm eager mouth and groan with desire as he pressed against the soft silkiness of her skin; they’re bodies melded together as if created for that sole purpose.

  And if she ever suffered a pang of guilt for acting upon their love then Lucy would remind herself of how cold and unfeeling Tom was, of how he could have written and told her that he lived, yet had chosen not to do so. Lucy was utterly convinced that he was lying to her about whatever happened to him back then, that there was much he could tell her if had he a mind to. If she could but discover the truth of those missing years, then she would be free.

  She watched with some envy as Benny slowly rebuilt his life, caring for his son, working with his mother in an easy and friendly fashion. Her own relations with Polly remained distant following her shameful behaviour on the bus. On two occasions Lucy had plucked up the courage to go round to Polly’s house specifically to apologise and talk about the problem. She longed to unburden herself and ask advice on what she should do, or rather ask how she could leave her husband without suffering guilt, a seemingly impossible quest. The first time Polly wasn’t in. On the second she found her putting a cold compress on Charlie’s knee which, as well as being swollen with painful arthritis, sported a massive purple bruise.

  ‘ I was only weeding the marigolds along the back yard wall,’ he ruefully admitted.

  ‘You’re supposed to be resting, not gardening,’ Polly scolded.

  ‘I’m tired of resting and it isn’t doing any good. Trouble is the knee doesn’t always behave as I tell it,’ Charlie joked. But this incident, not the first by any means, had so clearly upset Polly it somehow didn’t seem the right moment to impose further worries upon her mother.

  Lucy brewed tea for them all and sat for an hour listening and sympathising over the agonies Charlie suffered, the various treatments and ‘cures’ they’d tried, not to mention the pressures of Polly’s business. Then she went home without even mentioning her own troubles.

  When the precious Thursday came round again, Lucy put on a new frock, one she’d made herself, finding the money for it by pinching a penny here and there out of the housekeeping. But for once, Michael failed to notice for his distress over their situation was growing. Lucy strived to placate him, to make him understand that however much they might want to be together, Tom needed her more, for now. But his pleas grew so heated they came close to quarrelling.

  ‘And what about my needs?’

  ‘We must be patient.’

  ‘For how much longer? I love you Lucy and want to spend the rest of my life with you, not simply snatched moments in this seedy hotel.’ Looking out through the smeared glass of their bedroom retreat onto a dingy back street piled high with rubbish and rust-caked dustbins, Lucy couldn’t help but agree.

  She unbuttoned her dress, let it fall to the floor in a soft whisper, heard Michael’s stifled gasp as she stood before him in her brassiere and French knickers, his eyes riveted to the outline of her nipples pressing against the flesh coloured silk. His voice, when he found it, was hoarse with longing. ‘It’s marriage I want, Lucy, not just sex. A proper life for us both.’

  Lucy put her hands to her cheeks and began to cry.

  ‘Don’t. Oh lord, how I want you.’ He went to her then, smoothed back her hair and cupped her small face in his hands. ‘You know that I love you. I used to think we could run off and live together. But much as I want to be with you, it’s no good pretending that would be an easy decision, because it wouldn’t. In the eyes of the whole world we’d be living in sin.’

  She slid a hand up about his neck and kissed his chin, his mouth, the roughness of his cheek. ‘I don’t call it a sin to love someone as we do.’

  ‘Folk like Lily Gantry would have a field day.’

  ‘I don’t care. Let them do their worst, we’d be happy at least.’ She felt desperate suddenly to get away from Tom, to feel safe and start life anew with the man she truly loved, yet knew she lacked the courage to leave, or ask Tom for a divorce. Perhaps living together was the only wa
y out for them. What was so shocking about that? She pressed closer, pushing the softness of her breasts against the hardness of his chest, teasing him and bringing a smile at last to his lips with her display of wantonness. ‘Maybe Tom would give up the fight to hold on to me, if he saw how happy we were together.’

  His face was in her hair, breathing in the sweet, exciting scent of her. ‘What about the children? How would they feel about it? They’d be ostracised at school, all their mates teasing them.’ He asked this in such a quiet, sensitive way that Lucy dropped her gaze so that he couldn’t read the fear in her eyes. If they didn’t solve this problem would she lose him? She hardly dared think of that.

  ‘It wouldn’t matter They both adore you, you know they do.‘

  ‘Try talking to Tom first, Lucy, sensibly and honestly. I’d come and speak to him myself, only that would be more likely to inflame him. Tell him you’ve done your best but that we need to be together, no matter what. Ask him for a divorce. I’ll find the money to pay for it somehow.’

  He stroked her cheek and meeting the loving urgency of his gaze, for the first time in months Lucy felt a surge of hope for the future, a new sense of freedom. ‘All right. I’ll try once more, I promise.’

  ‘Be firm this time,’ Michael insisted, pulling her down beside him on to the grubby sheets so he could remove these last silken impediments to their loving with his own eager hands. ‘Be firm but kind. Show him you mean it this time.’

  ‘I will.’ Lucy was drowning in her need for him, helping him with the buttons and hooks. ‘I shall be absolutely determined. Believe me.’

  The next week passed in an agony of indecision. Time after time Lucy attempted to summon up the courage to broach the subject. But life was going along quite smoothly for once and she felt a reluctance, a fear almost, to spoil it. Tom even allowed her to have little Matt one afternoon, to give Doris-next-door a rest, which was lovely.