by S Block
Pat came into the front room after washing up from supper, and found Bob sitting in the armchair reading through a sheaf of property listings from a local estate agent. It came as quite a shock to her. They both knew they couldn’t remain living with Joyce indefinitely, but Bob hadn’t yet raised the question of where they would next move to, and Pat had casually assumed they might stay for the duration of the war. Bob appeared to have other plans.
Pat glanced at the papers, concerned he might be thinking of moving away from Great Paxford. She seated herself opposite Bob and softly cleared her throat.
‘Property details?’ she asked.
Bob nodded. ‘We can’t live here much longer. I certainly don’t want to, and I can’t imagine you feel comfortable playing second fiddle in another woman’s house.’
‘I appreciate we can’t live here indefinitely. But I really don’t want to leave Great Paxford. My friends are here. My life is here. My job at the exchange. The WI.’
Bob’s face gave nothing away.
‘If the book continues to sell at its current rate – and the publisher seems to believe it will – we could afford a smarter house. Detached. Possibly even with some land.’
‘But those houses tend to be away from the village,’ Pat said, trying to mute the tone of protest from her voice. ‘Well away.’
‘Well, yes, of course,’ Bob replied. ‘That’s the nature of things. We’d be exchanging more space for proximity to Great Paxford. But we might find ourselves closer to another village. Or a city, even. Think about that, Pat. Going back to the city!’
‘Which city – Manchester? You’re not thinking of Liverpool because there’s hardly anything left.’
Bob considered the idea for a moment, his eyes widening at the prospect.
‘Or London. I’ve always told myself I wouldn’t return to London unless I was a success on London’s terms. Now we could.’
‘Don’t you think it would be perverse to be the only people moving into London during the Blitz.’
The instant the sentence left her mouth Pat felt a pang of regret. Under normal circumstances, Bob would take it as a rebuke at worst, a mockery of his pretension at best. Yet Bob’s face didn’t darken. His eyes didn’t narrow into their customary slits through which he looked daggers at her.
‘It would be unusual,’ he said, smiling. ‘However, there might be some logic to moving back now – or when the worst of the bombing is over. The place will be a terrible mess. Property prices will have plummeted. We could pick up a real steal.’
Pat wondered if the idea he’d just aired amounted to a form of war profiteering, or was simply shrewd thinking? Either way, she decided not to pick him up on it.
‘We don’t know anyone in London anymore,’ she said calmly.
She was aware that she was trying to properly argue against moving to London, while also trying to provoke Bob to see if his patience would snap.
‘We could make friends easily enough,’ he replied. ‘London has a thriving literary scene. I’m sure we would be welcomed. My success would almost guarantee it. We might even find ourselves somewhat celebrated. Think about that, Patricia. The literary salons of London!’
Pat thought about it for less than a second and failed to muster the slightest enthusiasm. On the occasions she had visited London in the past, it had always felt like a vast, incomprehensible network of streets and towns smashed together with the sole intention of making any visitor dizzy and lost, with no way of working out how to escape. The volume of people and traffic scared her, and the accents left her wondering what anyone was saying half the time. And then there was the pall of smog that hung over the place, stinging the eyes and throats of any who dared venture out in it. Pat felt it would be easy to disappear without trace in London, never to be seen – or remarked upon – again.
‘I don’t want to live in London. As I said, all my friends are here. My job at the exchange. The WI.’
‘You can make new friends. Find a new little job if you really want one. Join a different WI. It is a national organisation, after all.’
Pat was aware that the conversation was in danger of straying away from the course she had intended and tried to rein it back.
‘Wherever we go, Bob, I would need to know where we stand.’
Bob looked at her, cocking his head slightly to the right, as if trying to better understand her words by looking at them from a different angle.
‘What do you mean – “where we stand”?’
‘More specifically, where I stand in relation to you.’
Bob’s brow furrowed further. ‘I still don’t understand what you mean.’
Pat couldn’t tell if he was being deliberately obtuse or genuine in his incomprehension.
‘The other night, Bob. When you . . . fell out of sorts in bed . . . and said all that about being sorry for the way you’ve treated me . . . what brought it on?’
Bob considered Pat for a moment. ‘Are you doubting my sincerity?’
A shiver ran the length of Pat’s spine. Bob had a genius for getting to the subtext of her questions, and she suddenly couldn’t tell if his temper had just been knocked off its previously even keel.
‘I’m not doubting it, Bob. I’m simply curious as to what brought it on, that’s all.’
Bob might say anything in the moment that he either believed or wanted to believe, or wanted Pat to believe; but if Pat couldn’t trust him to speak truthfully it made no difference. Only by his actions would she know the truth.
‘Did you mean what you said about the way you’ve been treating me over the years? Were your tears genuine?’
Bob looked at her for a few seconds, then nodded.
‘They were,’ he said quietly. ‘I don’t want to continue the way we have been,’ he said. ‘It’s no way for either of us to live. We fell into a rut—’
‘No, no—’ said Pat, interrupting. ‘You fell into a rut and pulled me down with you. Every time I tried to climb back out you pulled me down again. And then you started to dig, making the rut deeper and deeper over the years, until it was impossible to even see over the side, let alone climb out of. I’m sorry, Bob, but I can’t have you characterising things as having been some kind of joint enterprise.’
Pat took a deep breath, knowing that under any other circumstances this would be an intolerable provocation. More than anything, he hated being forced to take responsibility for his bad behaviour. She braced herself for an onslaught.
‘You’re right,’ he said, his voice not rising an iota. ‘That has to end.’
‘For how long?’ Pat asked. ‘You’ve never managed to stop before. There have been weeks here and there—’
Bob nodded. ‘You know how it is, Patricia. I can only say what I feel. I can only say what I hope you will believe . . .’
‘Why now, though? What has brought this change of heart?’
Bob looked at her, maintaining eye contact for what seemed like minutes.
‘Marek,’ he said, simply.
The sound of her lover’s name coming from Bob’s lips stunned Pat into silence.
He’s never spoken his name before. Marek has only ever been referred to as ‘the Czech’ or ‘the Czech bastard’, spat out like a bitter pill Bob refused to swallow.
‘Marek?’ Pat said, hesitantly.
‘I tried to understand your attraction to him, and came to the simple conclusion that you must consider him a better man than I.’
Pat struggled to stop herself bursting into laughter at Bob’s observation.
‘Once I realised that, I realised I could no longer blame you for your behaviour where he – and I – were concerned. I then realised that if I had any hope of keeping you, I had to change. Only time will prove if I have,’ he said, his words echoing her own thoughts.
Pat looked at him. Bob held out the sheaf of papers from the estate agent.
‘Why don’t you have a look through these while I get back to work? Mark any that might be
of interest and we can discuss them later.’
Pat looked at the sheaves of paper and felt intensely confused. Instinctively, she reached out and took the papers.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
‘I know you probably think I could drag you somewhere you don’t want to go, but I really couldn’t,’ Bob said. ‘And wouldn’t want to. I want you to be happy, Pat. To make a fresh start. Don’t you want that?’
Pat nodded.
‘If that meant a little sacrifice in the form of giving up your job at the exchange, or not being as active in the WI, wouldn’t it be worth it?’
Pat looked at Bob for several moments and then, wanting to seem encouraging, nodded a second time.
‘Perhaps,’ she said, trying to sound both open to the idea and non-committal in the same sentence.
Pat left the front room and closed the door behind her. She stood in the hall holding the paperwork Bob had just given her, not knowing what to think of Bob’s explanation for his resolve to change.
But if . . . if . . . if . . . if Bob can change?
It was a question she was convinced she knew the answer to. And yet she was hearing words and a tone from Bob she had never heard from him before.
What do I feel about all this?
‘I have no idea,’ Pat whispered, to the empty hall.
You can’t trust him.
‘I know,’ she whispered. ‘But what choice do I have?’
Chapter 27
THE DAY AFTER Laura’s successful Christmas party, the temperature of the air around Great Paxford suddenly plunged close to zero, and a harsh north-easterly wind blasted flurries of early snow around roofs and gutters, and across the village’s de-marked roads like swirling clouds of white smoke. Laura and Tom had been caught outside when the weather turned, walking beside the canal. Laura was halfway through detailing the extent of what lay ahead if she hoped to gain a scholarship to medical school when he took her arm and stopped her. Finally facing a silent Laura, Tom calmly told her his news.
‘I’ve put myself forward for bomber-pilot training,’ he said, as matter-of-factly as he could, as if to downplay the significance of the news he had been waiting to say all afternoon.
Laura was unsure whether she had heard correctly, or if the wind had played tricks on her hearing.
‘You’ve done what?’ she said.
‘I mentioned I was thinking about flying a couple of weeks ago,’ he said, trying to sound nonchalant.
‘I didn’t think you were serious,’ Laura replied, struggling to stay calm. ‘Besides, I told you what I felt about it at the time.’
‘Yes. I know. You did. You were very clear. I know it’s dangerous, but . . .’
Laura’s position was that she had seen her sister go through the wringer when her young husband, Jack, had perished during flight training. She couldn’t bear the possibility of going through anything similar.
‘Why have you pursued it,’ she asked, ‘when you knew I was against the idea? I mean, you know that one of the reasons I chose to go with you is precisely because you didn’t fly.’
‘And there was I thinking it was because of my irresistible charm and good looks.’
‘That helped, of course. But what I mean is,’ Laura said, struggling to make her position clear, ‘I would never have opened myself to the possibility of stepping out with you – of even considering your world-class charm and good looks if you were a flyer. I’m sorry, Tom, I just wouldn’t have. I’ve never made any bones about that. Why have you pursued this?’
‘Things change,’ Tom said quietly. ‘The war is chan-ging all the time,’ he continued, believing that the more he spoke the more likely it was that he would win Laura to his position. ‘We have no choice but to change with it. You were in the WAAF. You got thrown out—’
‘Grossly unfairly,’ Laura added.
‘My point being that you’re now in the Observation Corps – something you would never have seen yourself doing a year ago. So now, to cripple the supply of new planes to the Luftwaffe, the RAF will have to ruthlessly bomb Germany’s industrial heartland. Where single-pilot fighters were needed to win the Battle of Britain, huge bombers are needed to pound Germany into submission, just as they’re trying to pound us. Each bomber will require a team comprised of pilots, gunners and bombardiers. A year ago, we never would have thought this would be necessary. A year ago, we never imagined Hitler would send hundreds of planes over Britain at night to drop bombs on civilians. I want to fly in the defence of my country, Laura. If it turns out that it can’t be as a pilot, then it can be as another aircrew member. I want to do my bit.’
Tom’s final sentence was delivered with such earnest passion that Laura sensed further argument would be futile. She had seen countless young men of the village succumb to the same desire. The more she heard it the more Laura realised war dominated their psychology as an experience against which they were drawn to test themselves, as their own fathers had during the Great War. At least, that was the theory before they found themselves facing enemy fire. According to her father, a medic at Ypres, once men found themselves up to their necks in blood and gore they spent much of their waking life praying to simply survive, all sense of ‘greater glory’ blasted away.
‘You’ve already made up your mind. I respect that,’ Laura said. ‘My father tried to join up again when war was declared. In fact, it was his army medical that discovered his cancer.’
‘It hasn’t been easy to find the right time to tell you, given how strongly I know you feel about this. And how excited you were after the Christmas party, and about becoming a doctor.’
‘Trying to become a doctor.’ Laura looked solemnly at Tom. ‘Wouldn’t you sooner fly a Spitfire?’
Tom shook his head. ‘According to those in the know, bombs are going to win this thing. Besides, I took the test for fighter pilots on the QT and my reactions weren’t quite fast enough. But they might do for large bombers. And as I said, if I fail the test to fly the buggers I’m pretty certain I could make aircrew.’
Laura digested this information, and Tom’s determination, in silence.
‘Well, look at us,’ she finally said. ‘While I’m trying to get into medical school you’ll be trying to get into the cockpit of an RAF bomber. All I can say is I hope I succeed and you fail.’
She smiled, trying to make light of what was in fact her most fervent hope.
‘Before, when you declared that I mustn’t become a pilot or we could no longer see one another, I couldn’t tell whether you were over-reacting in the heat of the moment, or were serious.’
‘I was entirely serious, Tom,’ Laura said, entirely seriously. ‘A hundred per cent. I do understand why you want this, and that there is nothing I can do to dissuade you. It would be pointless anyway. Your determination is reflected in the fact you went ahead without discussing it with me first. My opinion was clearly not a significant factor in your decision.’
‘Now wait—’ Tom tried to interject and halt Laura mid-flow, before the conversation ran away from him. He was too late. Laura was already bowling towards her conclusion with unstoppable momentum.
‘I do understand why you did that, Tom. I don’t hold it against you in any way. In your shoes, I expect I would have done the same.’
‘Thanks,’ he said drily, hoping the matter had found its way to a conclusion.
‘But it doesn’t alter my conviction that I cannot have a relationship with a flyer.’
Tom stood rooted to the spot. A coot raced across the surface of the canal and sank into the water a hundred yards ahead.
‘What?’ he said.
‘I saw it almost destroy my sister, and I’m not as strong as she is.’
‘I disagree. You got through the business with—’
Laura couldn’t allow him to finish his sentence.
‘Are you seriously trying to compare enduring a stupid affair with having to survive your death?’
Tom looked at Laura, not
knowing what to reply. Eventually he said quietly, ‘I’m rather hoping not to be killed, actually.’
‘But that’s not in your hands, is it? While not being involved with someone to whom that could happen is in mine. I can’t do it. I can’t and I won’t.’
She couldn’t stop tears from welling in her eyes but she was loath to be controlled by them.
Laura felt a thick lump in her throat. She recognised it from the church at her father’s burial as the sensation that foreshadowed loss. It was this that told Laura her relationship with Tom was now over.
The tears came, by the canal and later that evening at home, when Laura sat in the armchair beside the fire as Erica dozed in Will’s armchair. Looking at the small framed photograph of Kate and Jack on the mantelpiece, Laura’s sister beaming with pride beside her new husband in his pressed RAF uniform, Laura knew she had made the only decision possible. Despite how much pain she was feeling at the prospect of losing Tom as her chap, it was better this than living with the uncertainty of his survival from one day to the next, and then – God forbid – with the utter devastation that might come if the very worst should happen to him.
I won’t go down that path. I won’t get involved with anyone until the war is over.
‘Good luck, Tom,’ she whispered, focusing on Jack’s handsome young face. ‘God’s speed, my dearest boy . . .’
Chapter 28
FOLLOWING THE INCIDENT at Brindsley’s, Steph refused to set foot outside the farm. She sent Stan and Stanley into the village for any provisions they might need, and they found themselves receiving smatterings of applause and admiring looks as they strolled along the High Street. Stan was nonplussed by it, but Stanley enjoyed the attention, and the accolade he heard on more than one occasion that he was ‘a hero’.
It was while Stan and Stanley were off in the village that Steph heard footsteps approaching behind her one afternoon while hanging out sheets to dry in the yard. For a moment she froze, expecting to hear the fruity tones of another reporter from another newspaper, come to find a new angle on her story. Instead, it was Sarah Collingborne’s voice she heard.