‘He’ll let you see it as soon as he’s happy with it,’ Amy replied, pouring her a glass of milk.
Grace took it and guzzled thirstily, but made sure she left a little drop to put in Oscar’s saucer.
There was a knock on the front door, and Grace was already running. ‘I’ll go, Mummy.’
By moving very fast, Amy just beat her daughter to the door. Grace could reach the latch now, and had to be watched in case she ran out into the road.
Standing on the doorstep were a man, a woman and two children.
‘Hello, you must be Amy.’ The man smiled broadly, but he had the same strained look as Ben, and he was just as thin. ‘Ben told me all about you. My name’s Stan Carlisle, and this is my missus, Helen. The kids are Daisy, she’s six, and Len, who’s eight. We’ve come to see the big man, if that’s all right. He said we could call any time.’
‘Yes, of course.’ She stepped aside. ‘This is my daughter, Grace. Come in and I’ll take you up to Ben.’
They came inside and Stan slipped an arm around his wife. ‘I would have come sooner, but it’s taken me longer to recover than I thought it would.’
Ah, that accounted for his appearance. ‘Were you in the same camp?’
Stan nodded, and his expression sobered. ‘How is he?’
‘He’s been having a difficult time. Come into the kitchen first and meet Mrs Dalton.’
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ Mrs Dalton asked when she had been introduced.
‘The missus will, and perhaps the kids can go in the garden for a while. I’d better see Ben alone first.’
‘Of course.’ Amy was a bit apprehensive about Ben seeing someone from the camp, but he was here, and they couldn’t be rude. ‘Er… he hasn’t said a word to us about the camp. He doesn’t seem to want to talk about it.’
‘We all feel like that.’ Stan gave her arm a gentle pat. ‘Don’t you worry none; he’s a fine, brave man, and will soon get back into the run of things. It’s going to take all of us time, but we’ll make it.’
Grace had already taken the children out to the garden, so Amy showed Stan up to the studio.
The door was wide open, and Ben was engrossed in painting. ‘Ben, Stan and his family have come to see you.’
‘Hmm?’ He turned his head. ‘Shorty! What did Amy call you?’
‘Stan.’ They greeted each other with obvious pleasure.
‘I never knew your real name. It’s good to see you. How are you?’
Seeing that they were quite happy, Amy went downstairs again.
Helen was talking to Mrs Dalton and drinking tea. She looked up anxiously. ‘Is everything all right? Stan’s been fretting these last few days, wanting to see how Ben was, but he hasn’t been too well. He’s been very ill and had a bit of a relapse when he was repatriated. It sapped all his strength. I’ve never met the man upstairs, but I’d give him my last penny if he needed it, after what he did for my Stan.’
‘What was that?’ Amy and Mrs Dalton spoke at the same time.
‘Stan would have died if it hadn’t been for Ben. Hasn’t he told you anything about the camps?’
‘No, he’s been very quiet,’ Amy admitted, pouring Helen another cup of tea.
‘My Stan was like that at first, then one night he had a terrible nightmare. Frightened the life out of me, I can tell you, but after that he told me all about it.’
They listened in horror as Helen told them about the march in the freezing weather, and how Stan had been too ill to walk, so Ben had carried him all the way.
Helen blew her nose. ‘Nearly killed himself, Stan said. There was another man as well, Charlie, and the three of them stuck together. They all made it to the next camp, but Stan was delirious by then and doesn’t remember much. But Ben saved his life, that’s for sure.’
At that moment, Stan came into the kitchen carrying a painting, with Ben right behind him. ‘Look at this, Helen!’
She smiled gently at his excited face. ‘Introduce me to your friend first, Stan.’
‘Oops, sorry, forgetting my manners. Ben, this is my missus, Helen. Helen, this is the big man himself.’
He stood back, beaming as they greeted each other, and then rested the painting on the table. ‘Just look at this, pet. That’s me, the bloke by the door looking furtive is Charlie, then there’s a few of the others from our hut, and’ – he pointed to a lone figure in the background – ‘that’s Ben. Always trying to find a bit of peace and quiet, he was.’
‘Oh, it’s beautiful, even though it’s of the POW camp.’ Helen was clearly impressed, smiling at Ben. ‘Stan said you were clever, and he’s right.’
‘If you like it that much, it’s yours.’ Ben smiled back. ‘I’ll wrap it for you.’
‘You can’t do that, mate,’ Stan said quickly. ‘The painting’s worth a lot of money; you can’t give it away.’
Tipping his head to one side, Ben studied the painting. ‘It’s too personal to sell. You know what it’s all about, so I’d like you to have it.’
‘Well…’ Stan was obviously struggling with his desire to own the picture and the belief that Ben shouldn’t be parting with it for nothing. ‘Let us give you something for it.’
‘No way, Stan. If it hadn’t been for you, I’d have gone barmy in that camp. Please take it. I can always do others.’
Amy watched Stan accept it with the hint of a tear in his eyes, and she knew Ben had done the right thing. It would give enormous pleasure to the family, and that’s what every artist wanted for their work. This was the first time Ben had mentioned the camp, and she could see there was a deep bond between the two men, brought about by their shared experiences. From the little Helen had told them, things must have been desperate while Stan had been ill, and Ben would have cared, just as he had cared for the little girl he had met only once. She had always loved the boy; now she loved the man – in a much deeper way.
That realization came as a shock, and she struggled not to feel disloyal to John. But it was four years since he had been cruelly taken from her. No amount of time would ever dim the love they had shared, but she had moved on and rebuilt her life. The steps had been terribly painful, but she had made it. John had been her first, special love, and always would be.
Needing a moment to compose herself, she walked into the garden on the pretence of checking on the children. She didn’t know when her feelings for Ben had changed from fondness and friendship to love, but it had happened. Her heart and body now desired him, but she must not let him know. He had enough problems trying to readjust and pull his life together, just like Stan, and goodness knows how many others. What he needed was uncomplicated support and affection, and that was what she would give him.
‘Mummy.’ Grace ran towards her. ‘Oscar doesn’t want to play with us, so I showed Daisy and Len where Uncle Howard bakes his pots.’
Amy smiled as the other two children rushed up to her, asking excitedly, ‘Do you think we could see the things he makes?’
‘Of course. I’ll take you to his workroom later. Now, would you like a drink? Tea or milk?’
‘Tea, please,’ they both said politely.
Just as they walked in from the garden, Howard appeared from the hallway, covered in dust, as usual.
‘Ah, the man we were just talking about.’ Amy urged the children forward. ‘This is the sculptor in the family, and he’ll show you where he works.’
He studied the two children, who were gazing at him expectantly, and then turned to their mother. ‘They are very clean and tidy. My workroom’s covered in dust.’
‘Please, Mum!’
Helen nodded. ‘A little dust won’t hurt them.’
‘Right, kids, your mum says it’s all right, so let’s go.’
Daisy and Len rushed after Howard, eager to see this fascinating place.
Grace didn’t bother to follow. She was standing on tiptoe trying to look at the picture on the table. Seeing she was having a job with this, Stan swept her up and sat her on
his knees.
‘That’s me.’ He pointed to the shortest figure in the painting.
‘Hmm.’ Grace gave him a smug look. ‘Uncle Ben’s painting my picture too, but he won’t let me see it yet. I don’t like waiting.’
‘I know that’s hard, but it will be worth waiting for. Everything good is.’
She cast a sideways glance at Ben, then leant towards Stan’s ear and whispered, ‘Have you seen it?’
‘I have,’ he whispered back, ‘and you look very beautiful.’
‘My mummy’s beautiful, but she thinks she isn’t.’
‘Ah, well’ – Stan winked at Amy, who was listening with a faint smile on her face – ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder. My missus thinks I’m tall, dark and handsome.’
Grace didn’t understand what he meant, but joined in with the laughter anyway.
Ben was the most relaxed Amy had seen him since his return. He looked highly amused as he watched Stan with Grace.
‘Helen would change her mind if she’d seen you dressed up as Vera Lynn and singing “The White Cliffs of Dover”.’
‘What!’ Helen nearly fell off her chair. ‘But you can’t sing, Stan. You’re tone deaf.’
‘Neither can Ben.’ He smirked. ‘When we did a take-off of Flanagan and Allen, we brought the house down.’
Howard reappeared with the children, only splattered with a little dust. ‘What’s all this about?’
Ben sat back and folded his arms, a wry smile on his face. ‘I was only supposed to paint the scenery, but Stan forced me into the show. He made a very unconvincing woman, by the way.’
Grace clambered down from Stan and disappeared in the garden with the other children.
‘I tried to get Ben into stockings. Those long legs would have caused a riot, but he flatly refused.’
‘You bet I did! I wasn’t taking any chances with a camp full of deprived men.’
Tipping his head back, Stan laughed, a deep throaty sound. ‘No one would have touched you, mate. You made the rest of us look like half-pints.’
Amy glanced across at Helen, but Stan’s wife just shrugged her shoulders. It was obvious that this was the first she’d heard about it, as well.
She shook her husband’s arm. ‘Stan, you never told me about this.’
‘Sorry, pet, I would have got around to it, eventually. Boredom was a great danger in the camp, and Christmas was a bad time for all of us, being away from our families. So, we always put on a concert on Christmas Eve to take the men’s minds off home. You can’t have a show without women in it, so we used to dress up. One or two looked quite good, didn’t they, Ben?’
He nodded and rolled his eyes. ‘And some looked grotesque. But it kept a lot of us busy rehearsing and setting up the stage, and gave everyone a much-needed laugh. The guards thought we were a lot of crazy Englishmen, and they might have been right. When we weren’t planning ways to escape, we were prancing around on a stage making fools of ourselves.’
There was a warm, comforting glow inside Amy as she listened. This was the first time Ben had talked freely about his time as a POW; even on their boozy night out, Howard couldn’t recall him mentioning it at all. All right, he and Stan were only recounting the lighter moments, and she guessed they must have been precious few, but the tight knot he had inside him was loosening a little. This was an important step forward for him.
‘Yeah, but it helped, didn’t it? The Major in our camp was a good bloke; he understood the importance of something to occupy our minds. The International Red Cross sent us a few books, and a football, and these were a blessing, along with the occasional letters.’ Stan squeezed his wife’s hand. ‘I only received three of your letters in all that time, but I treasured them, and read them over and over again.’
‘How many of ours did you get, Ben?’ Howard asked. ‘As soon as we knew you had been taken prisoner, we all wrote regularly.’
‘I received nothing from you until a few weeks before the Yanks liberated us.’ His eyes became bleak. ‘It wasn’t until then that I found out what had happened to John.’
‘Not knowing what was going on at home was a great worry.’ Stan grimaced, changing the subject. ‘Another way we used to occupy ourselves was with regular lectures. They were a mixed bunch in the camp, and you could learn about anything from fishing or keeping pigs to the ancient philosophers. Ben gave a few on the art of forgery.’
‘Forgery!’ Mrs Dalton exclaimed.
‘Oh yes, he was our official forger, and damned good he was. Charlie pinched a German pass and Ben made such a brilliant copy that a couple of men just walked out of the gate. Unfortunately, they were soon caught again, but it gave us all a lift at the time.’
‘Who was Charlie?’
‘He was a pickpocket, Howard,’ Ben explained. ‘A real villain, but he was a good friend to Stan and me.’
‘Yes, he was. He even gave some lectures on how to relieve people of their possessions without them feeling a thing. Very well attended, they were.’
‘He gave me his address, Stan, and we must look him up sometime.’
‘I’d like that. It will be interesting to see if he’s kept his promise and gone straight…or straight for someone’s pocket.’
They were laughing just as the front door closed with a crash, and Ted erupted into the kitchen. Amy and Mrs Dalton were on their feet in an instant when they saw his face and Howard rushed to his side. ‘What’s happened, Ted?’
‘The Germans have surrendered. It’s over! By God, it’s over!’
Pandemonium broke out with everyone on their feet and milling about so they could hug each other.
Hearing the commotion, the children rushed in from the garden, joining in the celebrations. It was bedlam as each little voice yelled that the war was over.
Ben swung Amy off her feet, spinning her round and round. And she cried, great tears running down her cheeks.
The long years of war had been a mixture of loss and gain. She had tragically lost her darling John, and that loss was sorely felt in this moment of euphoria, but she had gained a daughter. And Ben and Howard had survived. That was something to be very, very grateful for.
40
The next day, 8 May, was the official VE day, and celebrations were in full swing. There were street parties going on all over the country, and their street was no exception. Grace was so excited to see the row of trestle tables stretching right down the road, laden with sandwiches and cakes. Every household had contributed something, making it quite a feast, in spite of the severe rationing. Many of the children were in fancy dress, and Mrs Dalton had taken the skirt off one of her silk evening dresses, sewing nearly all night to make Grace a dress and pair of wings. With her unruly mop of hair, Grace was an appealing-looking angel. John’s parents had arrived last night, determined not to miss their granddaughter having fun, and also to spend this special time with their daughter-in-law. It was a bittersweet time for them all, and Amy was glad to have them with her. Grace was growing more like John every day, and he should have been here to enjoy this, but he wasn’t, and no amount of longing and wishing could make it so. The little girl was happy, though, and had her two uncles. After what they had been through, that was not simply a blessing, but a miracle.
Ben’s parents and Howard’s had also arrived, filling the house to capacity, but no one seemed bothered about sleeping. Howard was disappointed that Chrissie hadn’t been able to get away and join them as well. Amy couldn’t help wondering just how serious their relationship was, and if there would be a wedding in the near future.
A neighbour had a wind-up gramophone outside their house, so they had music as well. The children yelled and shouted as they enjoyed the food, and the grown-ups drank beer and danced to the sound of the Glenn Miller orchestra.
By the time it was dark, they were all tired out. Grace had already been asleep when her grandpa had carried her to bed and tucked her up; he and his wife had gazed at her with tears in their eyes, remembering their so
n who was no longer with them. Amy knew that many would be experiencing great sadness while the country went wild with joy.
That night everyone slept where they could – in chairs, on the floor – but nobody cared, and in the morning, the house gradually emptied as they all returned to their own homes.
Mrs Dalton sighed and put the kettle on. ‘Now let’s try and get back to normal, and the first thing to do is have a nice cup of tea.’
With nods of agreement, they all sat down in their usual places around the large kitchen table.
‘I think this would be a good time to decide about the future.’ Howard looked at Ben. ‘We’ve got to get back in business. Amy and I have been working for some time, and now have a good stock of items to sell. We should open another shop without delay. After the austere years of the war, people will be looking for a way to brighten up their homes and lives.’
‘Agreed.’ Ben nodded, then gazed around the table. ‘I know I’ve been difficult since I came back, and I still want to shut myself away, but I’m fighting it. You’ve all been understanding, and that has helped a lot. I’ve been grateful for your support.’ His smile was wry. ‘But the one who brought me back to my senses the most was Grace. She stood in front of me, little face showing her hurt, and told me I wasn’t nice.’
‘Ah well, she would,’ Mrs Dalton said with more than a touch of pride. ‘That little one speaks her mind, and too bad if you don’t like it.’
That summing-up of her daughter brought a smile to Amy’s face, and made everyone grin. Her little girl was next door at the moment, playing with their neighbours’ two children.
‘Getting involved in starting up our business again might help me adjust a bit more quickly.’ Ben leant his elbows on the table. ‘So what do you suggest, Howard?’
‘Well, I’ve got two pieces of news. First, I think I’ve found suitable premises in the King’s Road. A bit further up this time, and larger, but it will need a lot of work done on the inside before we can open. I only saw it last week and haven’t done anything about it until you all see it.’
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