Izzy's War

by Isla Dewar

  ‘Tyler, that’s poaching. You could get into serious trouble for that.’

  ‘We took fish from the river in the forest.’

  ‘That was different,’ she said. ‘There weren’t gamekeepers there. There are here.’

  He shrugged and continued with his story. ‘By the time I got to Southampton, the ship had sailed. When I checked the passenger list, you weren’t on it. So I came here. I went to the post office and told the woman there I was your husband and she told me where to come.’

  Elspeth poured two cups of tea and handed one to Tyler. ‘How did you get into the house?’

  He told her the back door hadn’t been locked. She took her tea back to the living room. He followed, telling her as he went that there was another boat leaving in a couple of days. ‘I’ve booked us on it.’

  She sat on the chair he’d been sitting on and waved him into the smaller one opposite it. ‘Tyler, I’m not going to Newfoundland.’

  She hated that he meekly sat on the small chair without complaint. He should have claimed the comfy one she’d taken.

  ‘Why not?’ he asked. ‘You said you’d come with me. I had it planned.’

  ‘I know. At the time, it sounded wonderful. But on the train you started to talk about gales and huge snowdrifts and cold. Tyler, I’ve had enough of the cold. I want comfort. I want lights. I want to live in a city.’

  ‘I’ll live in a city with you, then.’

  She shook her head. ‘You’d be miserable. You’d hate all the concrete. The roads are covered with tarmac. The trees are mostly in parks. There’s very little wildlife. You’d feel hemmed in. You’d go mad.’

  ‘But I’d have you.’

  Elspeth shook her head again. ‘It wouldn’t work. I’d want to go to concerts, the theatre, the cinema. I’d be teaching the piano and what would you do? Where would you work?’

  He said he’d find something. ‘I don’t care as long as we can be together.’

  Elspeth shook her head. ‘You’d hate it. You’d end up hating me.’

  They sat. Logs shifted in the hearth. Outside some people walked past, voices carrying in the night air. Elspeth couldn’t make out what they were saying. The silence in the room was awful. She wished Tyler would shout. Yell at her, call her foul names. Threaten to hit her. She could deal with that. She could yell back. His sudden meekness was unnerving.

  Eventually he said, ‘You used me.’

  She didn’t reply.

  ‘You used me,’ he said again.

  ‘I didn’t mean to. I didn’t plan it. I just heard that I’d have to stay in that forest for years and reacted. I didn’t think it through. I wanted to go home. Actually, I didn’t even know I was going to say I’d marry you till I’d said it.’

  He got up. Fetched his boots from where he’d left them beside the chair Elspeth was sitting on and shoved his feet into them. He brought his case from the hall, opened it, went to the kitchen and brought the shirt and socks he’d washed and shoved them in beside his clothes. ‘I didn’t unpack. I thought we’d be leaving soon as you got here. Your accordion is on its way to Newfoundland with your other things.’

  She shrugged. ‘Doesn’t matter. I don’t want it any more. My accordion-playing days are over.’

  He got his coat from the stand, hauled it on.

  ‘You’re not going now,’ said Elspeth. ‘It’s late. There are no buses and no trains.’

  ‘I’ll hitch a lift. Don’t want to stay.’

  ‘You can go in the morning.’

  He buttoned his coat, shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘I’ll get a divorce,’ said Elspeth. ‘I’ll say it was me. I’ll say I slept with someone else.’

  He shook his head. ‘No divorce. I’m not going to let you off so easily. You married me, you’ll stay married to me. You won’t be able to marry anyone else. Ever. That’s my deal.’

  He picked up his case and headed for the front door. Elspeth followed him. ‘You’re being silly, walking out this time of night.’

  ‘I’m getting away from you. If I can’t have you, I don’t want to see you.’ He opened the door, walked out. As he stumped up the path, he called, ‘You used me!’

  Elspeth shut the door. She went back to sit by the fire, hands clasped in her lap, head hung. The shame she felt was unbearable. He was right. She’d used him.

  Chapter Fifty-two

  I Don’t Want to Go, I Just Want to Be There

  IZZY WROTE TO Jimmy to tell him she was coming to see him. ‘It’s a long journey. I’ll be on the train for days and days, I hope Sam will be all right.’ She was going to write that she was longing to see him again, but didn’t. Instead she said she was looking forward to meeting his family, and she’d let him know when she’d be arriving as soon as she knew herself.

  He replied that everyone was really excited to be meeting her at last. He’d told them all about his lady pilot and her passion for pork chops. ‘I’ll be at Great Falls when your train comes in.’

  It took weeks for Izzy’s passport to come. After it arrived, she phoned Julia, who booked her on a flight. ‘Next week,’ she said. ‘I’ll pick you up at the station and take you to Heathrow.’

  Izzy asked if Charles would come along, too.

  ‘He’s gone to Scotland. I think he is rather taken with your friend Elspeth.’

  ‘Really’ said Izzy. ‘She didn’t mention anything about that to me.’

  ‘She must be taken with him, then,’ said Julia. ‘Women are always secretive about someone they rather fancy, don’t you think?’

  Izzy said she supposed they were.

  That night, Izzy fished out her tortoiseshell pen, sat at the kitchen table and wrote to her mother. ‘I am going to America to see Jimmy. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. I don’t know when I’ll be back. But I’ll write to you and tell you all about it. I was going to ask your forgiveness for what I’ve done. But, really, I don’t think there’s anything to be forgiven for. I am not married, and I had a child. But now there is someone in my life I love more than I thought possible.’

  She posted her letter the next morning. On her way back to the cottage, she counted the number of times she said hello. Six. She thought it a shame to leave a place filled with so many familiar faces. Soon she’d be a stranger in a strange place. Dread of stepping into the unknown seeped through her.

  She was due to leave on Monday morning. On Saturday, she dropped in at the garage and asked Eddie Hicks to pick up her motorbike and sell it. He asked what he should do with the money he might get. ‘It isn’t worth much.’

  ‘That’s not what you said when you sold it to me,’ she said.

  ‘True,’ said Eddie. ‘But I lied.’

  ‘Give it to Mrs Brent. I owe her a lot more than the bike’s worth. But that’s all I have to give her.’

  They were standing in the oil-smeared garage forecourt, chatting, idly watching the two o’clock bus rumble in. Passengers spilled out. Izzy stopped talking, drew her breath, peered at the people milling at the bus stop. ‘Sorry,’ she said to Eddie, ‘got a bit of a shock. I thought I saw my mother.’ She looked again at a woman in a neat blue coat, red hat snug on her head. ‘Oh God, it is my mother.’ She took off, thrusting the pram in front of her, running, shouting, ‘Mum!’

  Joan stopped, turned and waited for Izzy to reach her. They stood a moment, staring at one another. Izzy’s mother threw her arms round Izzy. ‘Look at you, a mother and off to America.’ Izzy disentangled herself, held her mother at arm’s length and gazed at her. That face, so familiar, so beloved, had grown old, tired and marked with grief.

  But once inside the cottage, she looked round and was her old disapproving self. ‘I can’t believe you’ve been living here. It’s a hovel.’

  ‘It’s snug,’ said Izzy. ‘I like it.’

  ‘Where am I to sleep?’

  ‘In the bed. I’ll take the sofa. Elspeth says it’s very comfortable.’ She sat on it, and it wheezed and creaked in protest.


  Joan was in the armchair, holding her grandson. She’d been holding him since she arrived and it looked like she wasn’t going to let him go. Every now and then she leaned over and peered into the kitchen. At last, she could stand it no longer. ‘Let me in there, there are dishes to do. Can’t sit here looking at them.’

  A few seconds later she appeared at the kitchen door. ‘Izzy, what is there to eat?’

  ‘Soup,’ said Izzy. ‘Mostly I eat soup. It’s all I can make except for fried eggs.’

  ‘There’s no food here.’

  Izzy shrugged. She didn’t much care about eating these days.

  ‘You’re as thin as a pin,’ her mother said. ‘That’s not right. You need feeding up.’

  At five o’clock Mrs Brent stopped by. ‘Heard you’d come,’ she said to Joan. ‘Eddie told his wife, who told Jack Harman, the postman, who told my William when he was in at the Duck’s Foot, and he told me. Well, I said, that Izzy won’t have a bite to eat. She never does. So I brought you a ham and egg pie and a bit of brisket for roasting tomorrow.’

  Joan thought about asking how Mrs Brent had come by so much food, but decided against it. There were Mrs Brents in the village where she lived, there were Mrs Brents everywhere.

  They spent Sunday packing. Or rather, arguing about packing. Joan thought Izzy should take two cases, one filled with clothes for her, one with clothes for the baby.

  Izzy said, ‘I’m not lugging two cases and a baby all the way to Montana.’ She won.

  ‘You’re just like your father, stubborn,’ said Joan.

  Izzy didn’t answer this.

  ‘He thought you did something very wrong,’ said Joan.

  ‘I didn’t do anything hundreds of other women did.’

  Joan said she knew that. ‘But surely you could have taken precautions.’

  ‘I did. We did, Jimmy and me. It was just the one time we didn’t.’

  ‘One time is all it takes,’ said Joan.

  ‘Well,’ said Izzy, ‘I’m not sorry. I refuse to be sorry. Dad should have been sorry for being so unforgiving.’

  ‘He was,’ said Joan. ‘I told you that . . .’

  ‘Did he ever talk about me?’

  ‘All the time,’ said Joan. ‘Right before he died, he was talking about you.’ She thought Izzy had broken his heart, but didn’t mention it. Too much pain, too much sorrow, too much to regret, she thought.

  They caught the eight o’clock bus to Blackpool.

  ‘You don’t have to come with me to the airport,’ said Izzy. ‘You could just head home once we get to London. There is a direct train.’

  Joan insisted she was coming to see her daughter off. ‘It isn’t lucky to go on huge journeys without someone to wave you goodbye. Besides, I don’t know when I’ll see you again.’

  ‘I’ll be back,’ said Izzy.

  ‘If not, I’ll be out there to visit. I fancy an adventure. I’d love to see America. I’ve been there often in the movies, I’d like to go for real.’

  At Blackpool, they boarded the train for London, took their seats in the carriage. Joan held the baby. ‘I don’t want to let him go.’

  Julia was waiting at the station when they arrived, she ran forwards waving, shouting, ‘Yoo-hoo, darling!’ Something that embarrassed Izzy. By now she was getting nervous. She was thinking about changing her mind. She was very quiet on the journey to the airport, and was struck dumb on entering the departure tent.

  ‘My,’ said Joan, ‘isn’t this lovely. Like a sultan’s tent. Sofas and everything.’

  ‘I phoned ahead and ordered drinks,’ said Julia. ‘But I didn’t know you were coming.’ She apologised to Joan.

  ‘Oh, don’t mind me.’

  ‘She can have mine,’ said Izzy. ‘I don’t feel like anything.’ Her stomach wasn’t taking kindly to the idea of the journey ahead. She had butterflies.

  ‘You’re nervous,’ said Julia.

  ‘Just a little,’ Izzy agreed.

  ‘Don’t you want to fly to New York? Aren’t you excited?’

  ‘No,’ said Izzy.

  ‘Oh,’ said Joan. ‘I’d be excited. Now I see this place, carpets, people milling about, drinks, I want to go on an aeroplane. I never thought it would be so luxurious.’ She sipped the sherry that was meant to be Izzy’s. ‘I don’t know why you’re so reluctant,’ she said to Izzy. ‘Anyone would think you didn’t want to go.’

  ‘Well,’ said Izzy, ‘I want to be in Montana, I want to see Jimmy and his family. I just don’t want to go there. I am dreading the journey.’

  ‘The journey is everything,’ said Julia. ‘You should enjoy it. Flight to New York, taxi to Grand Central Station, train to Chicago . . .’

  ‘I don’t know what platform the train leaves from,’ said Izzy.

  ‘Track three,’ Julia told her.

  ‘How will I find it?’

  ‘There will be notices. When they built Grand Central, they knew you’d be passing through one day and thought they’d better put up signs for you. You’ll find it.’

  When the flight was announced, Julia linked arms with Izzy and led her out. They kissed. Izzy kissed her mother. Then hugged Julia once more. ‘Thanks for everything.’ She turned, hesitated.

  Julia pushed her. ‘Go.’ She stood with Joan, watching the plane take off, waving till it was out of sight. Then she said, ‘Well, time for tea, I think. We’ll go to the Savoy. Then we’ll see about getting you on a train back to Scotland.’

  Joan said she was worried. ‘I don’t think Izzy has any money. I mean American money.’

  ‘She has five hundred dollars; I went to the exchange for her. I will phone Jimmy and tell him she’ll be arriving at Great Falls on Friday.’

  ‘You’re very organised,’ said Joan.

  ‘I know. It’s a gift. I have discovered I have a knack for bossing people about. Tea, then we’ll get you on a train to Scotland.’

  It would be a long haul home, Joan thought. Miles and miles. And thinking about Izzy all the way. Oh, Joan thought, my Izzy, my lovely daughter, flying planes, now travelling across to the other side of the world. I should have done things like that. I should have been fearless. I’ve always been afraid.

  All the way home, travelling north for miles and miles, she’d wonder what on earth it was she was afraid of.

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Nobody There

  IZZY HAD WORRIED that Sam would cry all the way to New York, but no, he looked about, he smiled and he charmed the air hostesses. Later, thirty thousand feet above the Atlantic, he slept. Izzy supposed he must be used to flying, he’d done enough of it when she’d been expecting him. She sank back in her seat and slept herself.

  In New York, she discovered the trick of travelling. She followed the crowd. She passed through immigration, stepped out into the New York afternoon and took a cab to the station, all by walking purposefully behind a man who’d been on the same plane she’d been on.

  The cab driver carried her case down the huge stairway into the station, showed her where to buy a ticket to Chicago and called her ‘ma’am’. She liked that and tipped him five dollars, wondering if it was too much or too little. The man at the ticket desk called also called her ‘ma’am’ and pointed the way to track three.

  Aboard the train, Izzy took a seat by the window. ‘So we’ll get to see the scenery,’ she told Sam.

  A middle-aged woman took a seat beside her. ‘Going to see my daughter,’ she said. ‘She just had my first grandchild.’ She was enthused about Sam. Smiled at him, touched his fingers. ‘How old?’

  ‘Five months,’ Izzy told her.

  ‘You’re not from New York,’ the woman said. ‘Is that a Boston accent?’

  ‘No,’ said Izzy. ‘Scottish.’

  The woman froze. ‘You’re not one of them damn war brides, are you? Only, we’re not too keen on them.’

  Izzy said, ‘No. I’m just here to visit a friend. Someone I met during the war. I’m not a war bride.’ She was about to add that she w
asn’t married, but stopped. After all, she had a child with her; not being married didn’t look good.

  ‘There have been protests, you know,’ said the woman. ‘I’m Ida, by the way. Not long ago a whole boatload of war brides came over and there were protests at the docks. The women had to be locked in their buses to keep them safe. Women over here were angry about these Brits stealing their men.’

  Izzy said, ‘Well, back in Britain some people were angry about Americans stealing their women.’

  Ida said, ‘I guess there’s always two sides to every argument.’

  The train swayed and bumped, rattled. Scenery hurtled past. Ida asked Izzy if she wanted to go to the dining car. ‘I hate eating alone.’

  Izzy ordered a hamburger. Ida had chicken. She did most of the talking. In fact, apart from when she slept, Ida spoke all the way to Chicago. Izzy was glad about that, it stopped her worrying about catching her train to Great Falls.

  In Chicago, Ida led the way to the ticket office, where Izzy paid for a roomette on the train. ‘It’ll be easier to look after Sam,’ she said. ‘I won’t have to slip off to the loo to feed and change him.’

  Ida agreed and showed her to the train. She shook Izzy’s hand and told her it had been a pleasure to meet a real Scottish gal, then slipped off into the crowd.

  The roomette was to Izzy’s taste – small. It had a seat by the window that folded into a bed, a long seat and a table. When Sam slept, she wrote to Elspeth.

  I’m on my way. The world flickers past, little stations gone in a whoosh before I can really see them, before I can even read the name on the platform. There are miles and miles of rolling green beyond the window of the train, and mountains. They look blue, snow-capped.

  Elspeth, everything is big here. You’d love the sandwiches, they’re huge. They have food here that we haven’t seen for years. I can’t tell you how many cups of coffee I’ve had. Everyone is friendly. I think it’s because the country is so big, they keep talking to one another so they don’t get lost. I’ll be on this train for two days, and I’ve just done two days on a train to Chicago. Imagine, two days on a train!