A Woman's War

by S Block

  ‘Damaged by what?’ asked Stan.

  ‘Well,’ said the doctor, weighing up how to present this to Stan, ‘often there is a problem with the lungs caused by illness. That can certainly have an impact – though I see no evidence in your wife’s case. Other than that, it seems likely your wife suffered from a heart attack at some point in her life. And this damaged her heart. I gather she collapsed just a few months ago, during the harvest.’

  Stan nodded. ‘We’d lost our labour. She was determined to bring it in almost single-handed. She said she passed out with exhaustion.’

  ‘That may be her recollection of the event. But I wouldn’t be surprised if she actually suffered a heart attack. Again, it isn’t uncommon within the farming community, putting themselves under great strain in pressured circumstances. I’ve seen it many times.’

  ‘When isn’t it pressured?’ Stan asked. ‘Landlords putting rents up. Labour scarce. Ministry on your back telling you to chop and change every other bloody week. All the while making sure to get the crop in before the weather ruins it.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ said the doctor, not unsympathetically. ‘Of course, the stress she will have suffered after the shooting incident wouldn’t have helped. Blood pressure rises and falls in response to our moods. Her heart was placed under enormous strain once again.’

  Stan looked at him with his open, rugged face. His temperament for any situation, however difficult, was always to lean towards the practical. If something is bad then something has to be done to make it at least better, if not good.

  ‘What do we have to do then?’ he asked.

  ‘Your wife needs complete bed rest. I would like her to remain in hospital for a few more days to absolutely confirm what I suspect.’

  ‘And then she can return to the farm?’

  The doctor hesitated for a moment. ‘But not to farm work.’

  Stan’s brow furrowed. ‘For how long?’

  ‘For how long? For good, Mr Farrow. Your wife’s heart has been left in a highly vulnerable condition. She can carefully undertake domestic chores – cooking, cleaning, and such forth. But such is the damage to her heart that any more serious physical strain brought on by manual labour could result in another attack. And that could, I am afraid to say, be extremely serious.’ The doctor paused for effect. ‘Extremely.’

  ‘But . . . she’s a farmer to her bones,’ said Stan.

  ‘Not any longer, Mr Farrow. From this moment on she is a farmer’s wife who needs to be handled very carefully indeed.’

  Stan stood still for several minutes after the doctor left him in the corridor to attend to another patient, his mind racing, searching for something to blame for what had befallen his family, and his wife.

  Was it himself? His own vainglory for setting aside his reserved occupation status and needlessly joining up? Leaving Steph and Stan and Isobel to bring in the harvest without him?

  Was it the German pilot who had chased their son, forcing Steph to shoot him dead, and live with the consequences, both psychological and physical?

  Was it Stanley – declaring that he’d joined up, knowing the effect it might have on his mother who was utterly determined that he would never go to battle?

  Or was it some innate weakness in the structure of Steph’s heart that had taken all these years to come to terrible fruition, and threaten her life?

  Or was it all of these reasons taken together?

  Or others that neither he nor the doctor could fathom?

  Stan returned to the ward and sat beside his wife, who lay asleep. He wanted to scoop her out from under the bedclothes and hold her in his arms. He wanted to protect her so that her heart could simply tick over at its least strenuous rate forever. But even lifting her gently out of bed would wake her, and Steph needed to rest above all else. Instead, he took her hand in his and held it very gently indeed.

  ‘Steph . . .’ he whispered, ‘what’re we going to do?’

  Steph didn’t wake.

  Stan watched her chest rise and fall in a steady rhythm. His fingers felt Steph’s pulse on the underside of her wrist, her permanently damaged heart valiantly beating, beating, beating against the clock.

  Chapter 39

  THE DAYS FOLLOWING her night with Annie had been agony for Teresa. While she was convinced Nick would never imagine she might be attracted to women, or that Annie – who Teresa believed Nick knew to be a lesbian – would be attracted to his own wife, Teresa nevertheless assumed her sexual betrayal must be radiating from her like a beacon.

  This had kicked in the instant Teresa woke the very next day, and opened her eyes to see Nick in a deep sleep beside her. Within seconds, Teresa felt a gut-churning mix of guilt and disappointment for falling short of her ambition with regard to Annie’s sojourn at the house. While they had weathered moments of intimacy and suggestion that arose from the usual course of daily interaction, it seemed to Teresa that her resolve had crumbled at the first true moment of serious emotional weakness brought on by intense worry over Nick going back into the cockpit. That the crisis had been momentarily resolved by sex was no excuse in the moral universe that Teresa wished to inhabit. Furthermore, the longer she thought about it the more convinced Teresa became that she may have used her anxiety about Nick to justify sleeping with Annie, given that she had fantasised about being with Annie for months.

  Would I do the same tonight if Nick is away from the house? And tomorrow? Now I’ve proven I have no willpower precisely when the situation requires it . . .

  Lying on the pillow beside him, Teresa felt intense pity towards Nick. Intentionally or not, Teresa hated that she was now effectively playing him for a fool. Such were her feelings of love and admiration towards him, Nick was the very last person she would ever wish to force into such a role.

  I am responsible for my actions, and through them I have made him foolish, whether he knows it or not. If it ever came out – and it absolutely must not under any circumstances – people would ask, how could he not have realised? How could he have allowed Annie into the house? What kind of deluded idiot doesn’t realise what’s taking place under his own nose? He doesn’t deserve this. And yet I’ve put him in that position because I lack the very moral fibre that he demonstrates every hour of every day.

  For a brief moment, Teresa was tempted to confess.

  And wreck three lives?

  She had been told by nuns and priests since childhood that ‘confession cleanses the soul’. It didn’t take her long to realise that the axiom also put those in authority in a position of great advantage over children who had been primed since infancy to hand themselves in for the slightest misdemeanour.

  Telling the truth because it should be told is more beneficial than lying continuously. But confession too often gets us off the hook without considering the feelings of everyone who might suffer the consequences. Whatever happens here, I must consider the consequences. If I confess to Nick what’s happened, our marriage will end. That would leave us both miserable. It would also shatter Nick’s longstanding friendship with Annie.

  Annie and I were drawn to one another because that’s our nature. She told me that when we first met she went out of her way not to come into contact with me, to avoid any romantic feelings between us.

  It’s a mess, certainly, and we could have, should have done more to avoid it. But . . . until you become embroiled in things it’s easy to assume avoiding it will be straightforward. We should be able to exercise judgement and step around danger. But we don’t. Or can’t.

  We’re not animals, and yet—.

  I’m going round and round.

  Focus on the situation as it now stands. Focus on what you must do. Focus on taking action going forward, not on how you arrived at this point. Focus on how to stop this spiralling out of control. Focus on Nick, because he’s what’s important now. Because protecting Nick protects me.

  This was the argument that stiffened Teresa’s resolve to remove Annie from the house.
r />   The day after Teresa settled on this course of action, Annie appeared in the kitchen doorway and asked, ‘What are we going to do?’

  Teresa looked calmly at Annie and took her time to respond. Say the wrong thing, and the situation could blow up in her face quite horribly.

  ‘What do you think we should do?’ she asked, determined to assess the lay of the land before she committed herself.

  ‘I don’t want to pretend it didn’t happen,’ Annie replied. ‘I don’t want to deny there are feelings between us. That would be cowardly.’

  Teresa nodded. ‘I agree,’ she said. ‘So what do you want?’

  Annie looked at Teresa and smiled.

  ‘Now that particular dam has burst, and in such a wonderful way, I would like to continue in the same vein, but while being exceptionally cautious about Nick.’

  ‘In other words,’ said Teresa, determined to clarify Annie’s position, ‘some kind of affair behind his back?’

  Annie bridled at the insinuation.

  ‘Saying “behind his back” sounds terrible. But if we were to have an affair we would each want to protect Nick from it, wouldn’t we?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Teresa. ‘It goes without saying. If we were to have an affair of some kind.’

  The smile disappeared from Annie’s face. ‘That isn’t what you want?’

  ‘I’m afraid not, Annie,’ Teresa said, unable to completely mask the disappointment in her voice. ‘I realise it could mean the end of the friendship that’s evolved between us. But I simply cannot take the risk of Nick finding out. And because we are both very close to Nick, the only way of making sure that can never happen is to stop everything between us now.’

  ‘If I didn’t know him you might continue?’ Annie asked.

  ‘But you do.’

  ‘But if I didn’t?’

  ‘This very situation has come about precisely because you know him so well. Which is why it must end, Annie. Before it’s too late.’

  ‘Too late?’

  ‘Before we slip up, or aren’t as careful or as clever as we think we are, and Nick discovers . . . us.’

  ‘But he won’t,’ Annie insisted.

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  ‘Why would he?’

  ‘I can’t live with the possibility he might. I can’t live being terrified of him walking through the front door one evening having been told something that someone’s seen. Or . . . or entering a room to question me about something he’s heard, or noticed. I can’t live like that. As much as I have feelings for you . . . I can’t do it to him.’ Teresa stared at Annie, silently imploring her not to make this any more difficult than it was proving to be. ‘It must end, Annie,’ she said in a soft, quiet voice. ‘Completely.’

  Aside from her intelligence and beauty, the quality that attracted Teresa to Annie was her determination to live by her own compass. Now she feared it, horrified at the prospect of the very quality that drew Teresa towards Annie might be the same one to cause the young pilot to wreck her marriage.

  The one piece of leverage Teresa felt she had over Annie was her friendship with Nick. Her own family something of a wasteland, Annie looked upon Nick as an older brother whom she adored. Teresa was counting on Annie not wanting to see Nick hurt by any of this. The situation boiled down to a simple equation. Either Annie could accept Teresa’s declaration that there would be no more relations between them and keep her relationship with Nick and with Teresa (as a friend only); or she could create a great deal of trouble now, and lose both relationships.

  She looked at Annie and wondered what she thought. She didn’t have long to wait. Annie smiled ruefully.

  ‘When Nick came back I saw how fast you shot upstairs and knew you were unlikely to lie with me again. At least,’ she said more in hope than expectation, ‘not in the house.’

  ‘Not anywhere,’ said Teresa. ‘Waiting for Nick to come upstairs my heart was thumping so hard I thought it would break a rib. I’ve never been so scared in my life.’

  ‘What have I told you about a life lived in fear?’ Annie said.

  Teresa, older and a little wiser than when she first met Annie, was prepared for this.

  ‘I’m not afraid of being unmasked. Or of losing my current status – though I shan’t lie and pretend that losing the two people I most care about in the world wouldn’t affect me terribly, because it would.’

  ‘That needn’t happen if we were careful,’ Annie said, trying one last time to test Teresa’s willpower.

  ‘Isn’t the nature of temptation to incrementally lead us away from what’s careful towards what’s risky?’ Teresa asked. Which is when people get caught.

  ‘I don’t want to lose your friendship, Annie,’ Teresa continued, ‘for a fleeting moment of pleasure. I don’t want to lose Nick. And I don’t want to see the wonderful relationship you two have get smashed to pieces. He loves you dearly. Sometimes I listen to him talk about you and find myself hoping he talks about me to other people in as glowing terms.’

  Annie nodded. ‘He does. I can assure you of that.’

  Teresa felt a burst of love towards her husband in that moment. It helped propel her argument forward. ‘We need to protect him, don’t you agree? You know better than I how potentially catastrophic it could be if his mind were to be distracted on a sortie by the discovery that you and I were having an affair.’

  After what seemed like an age, Annie finally nodded.

  ‘You’re adorable, Teresa, don’t get me wrong. Extremely. But you’re too nervy. I don’t want to be with someone who needs constant affirmation that they’re doing the right thing, or that everything will be all right. I can’t guarantee either of those. And I can’t make up for your insecurity. I want to be with someone at ease with themselves enough to look me square in the face when we kiss, not with one eye glancing over their shoulder for who might come through the door and see.’

  Teresa knew that this was Annie’s way of conceding defeat, and went along with it for her sake.

  ‘You need to find someone more confident in themselves,’ she said.

  ‘I suspect I need girls who only like girls. I thought you were like several women I’ve met, in lavender marriages. Lesbians, but pretending otherwise.’

  ‘I’m not pretending otherwise. There was a time I thought I might be. But not now. I love him.’

  ‘I can see that. I always saw the social advantage you gained from being married to Nick. But I’ve come to realise that you really do love him.’

  *

  A week later, Annie passed her medical and moved out of the Lucas house to head south for her re-orientation back into the ATA. She had kissed Nick and Teresa goodbye, and made them promise to look after one another.

  That night, Teresa was relieved beyond measure to be making supper for two and not three. The air felt fresher in every room of the house, and she realised how close she had brought them all to catastrophe. She felt tremendous relief that she no longer needed to strategize and apply tactical awareness to the basic task of living in her own home.

  I’ve no one to blame but myself. But saying that, there are so many forms of love. Each one, when it strikes, is like being consumed by a fever. I consider myself extremely fortunate. I still have a life. It isn’t Annie’s, but I could never live like her because I’m not made like her. I sometimes wish I was, but now I have to make peace with the life I have.

  After supper that same evening, Nick returned to Tabley Wood. He telephoned the house at 8.16 p.m. to tell Teresa that he was going up with the squadron to intercept a German raid. Teresa sat rigid with terror for three hours and twelve minutes until the telephone rang again, and Nick’s voice reassured her that he was intact and coming home. In bed, they made love in the dark. For Teresa, it may not have been the thrilling, exquisite pleasure that Annie had been able to generate, but it was nevertheless sweet and soothing, and sent them to sleep in each other’s arms.

  *

  Two weeks later
Teresa missed her period. She put it down to the stress over Annie heaped on top of the extreme anxiety she felt when Nick went up to fight.

  A week after missing her period, Teresa experienced her first bout of morning sickness, mistakenly ascribing it to a piece of fish eaten for breakfast that had been left overnight on a plate on the side.

  Two days after that, Teresa knew beyond all doubt that she was pregnant.

  Teacher. Grieving lover. Wife. Ex-teacher. Mother-to-be.

  In the space of eighteen months the war had accelerated her life beyond all measure.

  Unable to entirely wash the taste of bile from her mouth, and still feeling nauseous, Teresa looked at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. She could barely recognise herself.

  Chapter 40

  WHILE THE SERIOUSNESS of Steph’s heart condition was swiftly confirmed by the hospital, she had yet to be told the full extent of the effect it would have on her life. She had been labouring under the impression that she had been confined to a hospital bed to regain her strength under medical supervision, prior to being released back to the farm, in reasonable nick. Stan had asked the hospital to keep Steph for a few more days than they needed her to be there, to allow him time to make the arrangements needed for her homecoming.

  The physical arrangements were straightforward enough. With Stanley and Isobel’s assistance, Stan undertook an inspection of the farmhouse and farmyard to see where improvements could be made to make Steph’s life easier.

  Inside the house, Stan put a handrail along the wall of the staircase to ease Steph’s ascent and descent. He also fitted a light in the middle of the ceiling above the staircase, allowing Steph to always see her footing.

  In the bedroom, Stan had been advised by Dr Rosen that raising the height of their bed and placing a high-backed chair with arms nearby would make a useful transition to Steph when standing up in the morning, and could assist with her getting dressed.

  In the kitchen, Stanley sanded down sticky drawer runners so that Steph wouldn’t have to struggle to open old, warped compartments. Stan lowered racks and hooks so that items stored or hanging from them were within easier reach than before, preventing Steph from over-exerting herself by having to reach up, or stand on a chair. Stan went through all their cupboards with Isobel, and moved regularly used ingredients items lower down, within easy reach without strain.