Always I'Ll Remember

by Bradshaw, Rita

There hadn’t been one in his either, not to his knowledge. ‘The war’s changed all that sort of thing,’ he said, knowing this wasn’t quite true. Not in the staunch Roman Catholic families they came from.

  ‘It won’t matter that they know we’ve only attended Mass at Christmas and Easter since we’ve been married, they’ll still expect us to abide by the Church’s teachings. I’ll . . . I’ll be branded a scarlet woman.’

  ‘That won’t happen.’ He sat up straighter. ‘Do you hear me, Phyllis? I won’t let that happen. I shall make it clear this is my fault, I promise. Look, I’ll move out, all right? You can tell your parents and my mother I walked out; only my father will know the truth and he won’t say anything. You needn’t say anything at all about Simon until you want to, even until the divorce is through if you like. No one will point the finger at you.’

  She was sobbing in earnest now, and when, thinking to comfort her, he got up and put his hand on her shoulder, she turned into him, holding him tight round his waist and burying her head in the folds of his jumper.

  As always her overwhelming need of him created a feeling exactly the opposite to what it should. He forced himself to pat her shoulder while he murmured what he hoped were soothing words.

  It seemed like an age before she drew away.

  ‘Silly,’ she whispered, ‘but I was hoping even now that when I told you, you’d realise you want me.’

  ‘Phyllis—’

  ‘No, don’t say anything.’ She stood up. ‘You would never have asked me to marry you if it wasn’t for the baby, and I have always known that in . . . in my head. I just couldn’t make my heart believe there was no hope, not even when you couldn’t bear to make love to me.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that.’ He stared at her. ‘Truly, it wasn’t like that. I looked on you more as a sister, I suppose, that was the trouble.’

  ‘Oh, James.’ The shadow of a smile touched her mouth. ‘That’s probably the worst thing you could say right now.’

  ‘I didn’t mean—’

  ‘Would you mind terribly if you moved out tomorrow?’

  His eyes widened with surprise for a second but he said, ‘No, of course not, whatever you want.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She gestured to the glass of brandy she had served with his coffee, which remained untouched. ‘Drink your brandy. I’m going to bed.’

  He nodded. They had had separate rooms for the last nine months, ostensibly because he hadn’t been sleeping well and had insisted he didn’t want to keep her awake with his tossing and turning. ‘Goodnight,’ he said softly.

  He didn’t go into the office the next morning. Once Phyllis had left for school, he began sorting papers and books and other miscellaneous items. By mid-morning two big cardboard boxes were installed in the boot of his car along with most of his clothes on the back seat, and a waste-paper basket full of torn-up papers had been disposed of in the dustbin.

  Just before midday he shut the front door and walked past the sitting room en route to the garage, his heart thudding as he told himself it was the last time he would ever do that here. He felt little except a sense of urgency to get away, which had been with him since he’d woken that morning.

  It wasn’t until he had driven down the drive and out into the spacious tree-lined avenue beyond that the breath left his body in a great whoosh of relief. It was over. His hands were gripping the steering wheel so tightly the knuckles showed white.

  Whatever furore came from their families he would deflect from Phyllis as far as he could, and he would pay her whatever she wanted in the way of maintenance, but he would never go back to the house again. This was a new start and it had to be a clean break, for Phyllis as well as for himself. She had her Simon and if the fellow was prepared to take her on knowing how she felt, he must love her deeply. It would work out for her. He shook his head at himself, ashamed at the relief again flooding through his mind.

  He must book into a hotel, and then he had to go into the office and face Phyllis’s father. He would leave the practice, of course. Today, if her father wished it.

  He was driving quite slowly and carefully, aware he had to concentrate in view of the circumstances, but as he passed a young woman pushing a pram, something in her bearing reminded him of Abby. A feeling like a tiny electrical shock ran through him, as it always did if someone or something brought her to mind.

  The knowledge that Abby was living and loving somewhere else, with someone else, had nearly sent him mad in the early days. He’d had to school his mind to face the fact that she was alive in the world, breathing the same air and looking at the same sky, but not thinking of him. One of the psychiatrists at the hospital, the only one there who had seen any military action, had told him that trying to understand anything was pointless because mostly there were no answers.

  ‘Acceptance, old boy,’ Dr Owen had said. ‘That’s the secret. Acceptance. Once you acknowledge that the whole damn world is as mad as a hatter and you’re the only sane one, you’ll do all right. Simple really.’

  He hadn’t known then if it was that simple, he still didn’t, but what he did know was that Mortimer Owen had brought him back from the brink of lunacy. For that he’d always be grateful to the small Welshman.

  Warning himself to go even slower, he continued along the main road. Although his mind rarely jumped back into the dark dungeon it had taken refuge in after he had been invalided out of the army, high excitement or stress could bring on a funny spell if he wasn’t careful. He had learned, again with Dr Owen’s help, to combat this by concentrating very hard on the immediate task to hand. It didn’t matter what it was - a book he was reading, some work, a car journey - the trick was in refusing to let his mind swing off course for an instant. He had perfected this now, even in sleep he had control of his thought process and he could actually wake himself up if a nightmare took hold.

  As James drew nearer to the town centre he noticed many of the shops and businesses were still covered in bunting and the flags of the victorious countries, even though the VJ celebrations had been over for some days. Brass bands, street parties and dancing in Mowbray Park had been the least of it, and even though large areas of the town had been flattened by enemy bombs, folk everywhere had declared it was the start of better things.

  Better things. He repeated this to himself. He hadn’t believed that at the time, not with things so bad between him and Phyllis, but now . . . Now maybe it was possible. One thing was for sure, he had survived the war and, God willing, he had another forty or fifty years before he was put six foot under. He didn’t intend to waste them.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  During the weeks following the euphoria of the victory celebrations the lives of the women at the smallholding were underlaid by a curious feeling of mental exhaustion. If they’d but known it, Abby and her friends were not alone in experiencing this.

  The years of worry and separation had caused many couples to grow apart but, more than that, women in general had learned to live independently. Most of Britain’s women had been out to work in a ‘man’s world’; others had brought up their children single-handedly; some had managed to do both. Sometimes the sudden return of a war hero meant more than mere domestic inconvenience though. The newspapers regularly reported cases where a soldier came back to discover his wife had been unfaithful and ended up in court for attacking his rival, or worse. Gladys, in common with most of her generation, clicked her tongue, shook her head and declared she didn’t know what the world was coming to. Abby and others of her age knew the world had changed for ever. Everyone was having to adjust and it was strangely tiring.

  Abby was now corresponding regularly with Ike again but it wasn’t the same as seeing him face to face, and she ached for the moment they would be reunited. She’d sensed from his letters that the last months of the war had been harrowing, and as the media reported more and more unspeakable horrors, she wondered how he would be when they met. Men all over the world had had their faces, bodies and personalitie
s redrawn by the experience of war, and Ike was such a gentle, caring soul. She felt he would be troubled more than most by the cruelty and depravity they were hearing about.

  The government didn’t seem to be in any hurry to rush through the necessary legislation and documentation to enable the thousands of British GI brides to join their husbands across the Atlantic - not that that really affected her, Abby kept reminding herself. She knew from the tone of Ike’s letters that he hadn’t changed his mind about asking her to marry him when they met again, but with the fledgling business and all her new responsibilities, he was going to have to wait for some time. Would he be happy with that? It was a question she asked herself often but to which she received no answer.

  Rowena, too, was in a state of turmoil. She and Mario only managed to meet under cover of darkness now, and that was proving more and more difficult. The women had invested in a stout bicycle for her but still it was a long haul up hill and down dale to the farm, and the light summer evenings meant she couldn’t leave for her rendezvous until gone ten o’clock. Added to this was the worry that Vincent would find out about their love affair and make things difficult, although to date this had not happened. Mario had reported that Vincent was treating them well but then it was in his own interests to do so. After his cavalier dismissal of the three women, the authorities had refused him more prisoners of war or land girls.

  With the retention by the new Labour government of wartime disciplinary powers of enforced supervision and ultimately dispossession for farmers who did not meet their quotas, Vincent must be a worried man. Everyone who knew him, with maybe the exception of Gladys, thought he deserved whatever he got. It wasn’t often payback time came so swiftly.

  As autumn slipped past, the wartime slogan ‘Dig For Victory’ became ‘Dig For Victory Over Want’ as more and more food restrictions began to bite. With German and Italian prisoners of war working on farms and Polish servicemen being recruited as coal miners, Britain was doing what it could to survive, and by the beginning of December Abby and the others could already see signs that their venture was going to be successful. Large gardens, family estates and even allotments had suffered during the war. The enemy’s bombs had played their part in this, but even more importantly, lack of labour had meant that glasshouse repairs had been neglected, paths became overgrown, plants had been left to run wild or were lost altogether, and private stocks of seed were dissipated. With the prediction that bread, cakes, flour and oatmeal would be rationed in the New Year, every household was desperate to make the most of any land they had, however small.

  Yes, everything had changed, one way or another, and there was no going back.

  The first day of December found Abby alone in the house for the first time since moving into her new home. She had been laid low with influenza over the last few days and was still feeling awful but had struggled out of bed that morning, anxious about all the work to be done. On reaching the kitchen and finding she didn’t have the strength of a kitten, she hadn’t protested too hard when Gladys had scolded her roundly and sat her in the ancient rocking chair in front of the fire. Even Clara had ticked her off. Her face solemn, she’d stood by the chair and said, ‘You’re being very silly, Abby. You’ll make yourself much worse if you try and get up before you’re ready, now then. I’ll help as soon as I get back from school and all the jobs will get done, I promise.’

  Abby had smiled but it had dawned on her that Clara was growing up fast. She was twelve years old now and was as pretty as a picture, as Gladys often said.

  After Clara had left for school, the others all went about their various jobs, Gladys declaring she would help out in the greenhouse for a while before returning to see about the dinner.

  Abby sat staring into the red glow of the fire. She ought to put some more wood on but her limbs felt like lead and it was too much effort to move, swathed as she was in an old blanket which Gladys had insisted on tucking round her as if she was an old woman in a bathchair. There was a muffled hush over the house which she attributed to the snow which had begun to fall early that morning. Already it was inches thick outside and the forecast was not encouraging, predicting more of the same over the next few weeks.

  When would she hear from Ike? She shut her eyes, leaning back in the rocking chair which creaked violently at any movement. His last letter had stated he had things to see to at home before he could come and see her, and she didn’t understand this. She’d expected he would come immediately he was demobbed. She pushed the old fear that he would rethink their situation and decide she wasn’t worth waiting for to the back of her mind with some effort, telling herself sternly she didn’t intend to go down that route again. She had to trust him, had to believe that what they had was real and would stand the test of time and anything else thrown at it.

  She wasn’t aware of drifting into sleep but she must have done because when she next opened her eyes, Ike was sitting in the old stuffed armchair opposite her. She blinked once, then again but the apparition didn’t dissolve. ‘Ike?’ Then he was kneeling by her chair, his arms round her as he murmured, ‘My love, my love, I didn’t want to wake you.’ He took her lips in a long, hungry kiss that left no doubt he was very real.

  Abby clung to him, responding so fiercely that they were both gasping when their mouths reluctantly drew apart and even then Ike’s lips couldn’t leave her face and nose and ears, covering her skin in quick burning kisses while he muttered incoherent words of love.

  It was minutes later before he rose to his feet and then he gathered Abby up in his arms before sitting down with her on his lap in the armchair. She was feeling light-headed, dizzy. ‘When? How? I mean, what . . . what are you doing here?’

  ‘Loving you,’ he said very softly, kissing her again. He gazed at the lovely face he had pictured so often in his mind in the worst of the mayhem. It had been thoughts of Abby and the dream of a future spent with her that had got him through and he knew it, otherwise he’d have gone mad like so many poor devils had done.

  ‘I . . . I look awful.’ Abby raised a shaky hand to her hair which hadn’t been washed for a week. When she’d imagined herself welcoming him into her arms it had never been with lank hair and a shiny nose.

  ‘You’re beautiful.’ He kissed the tip of her nose. ‘Just beautiful.’ He kissed her eyelids. ‘And kissable, so, so kissable. ’ He kissed her mouth. ‘Delicious in fact.’

  ‘But you’re in America.’ She sat up a bit straighter.

  ‘Clever ole me.’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘I had things to sort out. They’re sorted.’ He pulled her into him again. Her cheek rested against his and her arms were round his neck. She drank in the clean fresh smell of him; the aftershave he always wore had never smelled so heavenly. ‘So now I’m with my girl, for good if she’ll have me.’

  ‘Ike—’

  ‘Marry me, Abby.’ He turned her round on his lap, reaching into his pocket with one hand and drawing out a tiny box. ‘Be my wife. Soon. And before you say anything,’ he put his finger to her mouth as she went to speak, ‘I understand how things are here which is why I’ve sold up back home and have got my tail across the Atlantic. Hell, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, eh, honey? We’ve thousands of GI brides trying to get into the States so one American doctor moving country for love isn’t too big a deal. I think I knew the day I met you this relationship was never going to follow traditional lines.’

  She stared at him through misty eyes and when he opened the box and took out a ring, she couldn’t see it clearly for a moment or two. She blinked rapidly. He slid the ring onto the third finger of her left hand and for a second, just a second, she remembered that other occasion and the smiling, confident young man who had thought he was invincible and would be coming home for her. And then she ruthlessly put the memory from her. This was Ike’s moment, and hers, and it didn’t belong to anyone else, not even her darling boy.

  She looked down at the ring and an enormous solita
ire diamond glittered back at her, its magnificence making her hand look tiny and fragile.

  ‘I love you, Abby.’ His voice was thick and throaty and now there was no lightness in his tone. ‘I’ll love you till the day I die. I want to cherish you, adore you, protect you and worship you. Will you have me?’

  She looked into the craggily handsome face, lifted the hand with the ring and ran her fingers through his hair, which was much greyer than when he’d left. ‘Yes please,’ she said.

  Over the next few days Ike was heard to laughingly remark that he thought he’d found a cure for influenza, and certainly from the moment she had seen him Abby had felt much better. They’d decided on a Christmas wedding, and since Ike was staying at a hotel in Whitby, all the legal niceties and preparations were left to him. At first Abby had wanted the quietest of weddings, just Ike and herself, Clara, her three friends and little Joy, but when Ike had gently informed her his parents and brother and sister and their families would expect to be present, she had to face the fact that she must inform her own relations in Sunderland. But not her mother. On that she was resolute. If her mother caught wind of her wedding she’d spoil it. Somehow she’d ruin the day, besides which she never wanted to set eyes on her again.