by Connie Monk
‘I’d never do it in a day. His spine. That sounds . . . sounds . . .’ But the words died before she could speak them. It was probably something minor – yet in her heart she knew it wasn’t.
‘We’ll go indoors and you telephone the hospital. The letter was sent yesterday. Perhaps he’s already had the operation and they’ll be able to give you good news.’
She nodded. Brave words, but she wouldn’t look him in the eyes.
Ten minutes later they were back outside. He would be out of the theatre within the next hour. It would be evening before he was recovered sufficiently to know she was there, and even then he would be under heavy sedation. The sister she spoke to was sensitive and helpful. ‘If you can make the journey to be here tomorrow, I believe that would be best. But I do suggest you telephone again this evening.’ The reason for calling again remained unspoken.
‘There’s Beth . . . there’s this place . . . regular orders to be filled . . .’
‘I believe, Kathie, you are hiding behind excuses. But you are strong. Whatever has to be faced you will find the courage. As for leaving Westways, you have all day today to arrange with the girls what must be cut – dug, or whatever you do with things – and I am offering you my services to make the delivery round. Unless Claudia sees that as an intrusion and wants to do it.’
But when the idea was put to Claudia it was clear that much as she enjoyed herself at Westways she had no ambition in the direction of delivering the packed boxes. Right from the day of her arrival she had stood apart from the villagers and that was the way she meant to continue.
‘There are the chickens to be looked after – and, more importantly, there’s Beth.’
‘Beth is welcome to spend the night at the school. It won’t be a hardship for her, I promise.’
‘And I’ll do the chickens. You can let me take a couple of eggs for my breakfast,’ Claudia said with a smile that dug those dimples deep. ‘Beth can take me on as an apprentice when she does them after school today so that I know what they expect of me. There now,’ she beamed with satisfaction, ‘all your problems are taken care of.’
Not for the first time Kathie brought to mind the image of the elderly Marleys and imagined their reaction when their beloved grandson produced over-glamorous and down-to-earth Claudia. It was apparent from Bruce’s expression as he watched the young woman who had been rejected that his understanding of her went deeper.
Late that afternoon, the deliveries made and Beth put in Oliver’s care at the school, Bruce dipped into his meagre petrol allowance and drove Kathie to Exeter. From there she travelled eastward and by dusk she arrived at the hospital. She had been told she couldn’t see Den until after the surgeon’s ward round in the morning, but she had to be reassured that he was out of theatre and had regained consciousness. More than that the nurse she spoke to could tell her nothing except that he was under heavy sedation and could have no visitors that evening.
After a night at a nearby bed and breakfast establishment, she returned to the hospital where, before she was allowed into the ward, she was taken to the sister’s office.
‘Sit down, Mrs Hawthorne. I spoke to you when you called by telephone yesterday and it’s because you have come so far and for such a short time that you are to be allowed to visit out of normal hours. Five until six in the evening is usual, but I believe you will be well on the way home before that.’
‘Yes, I can’t be away long. I run our market garden until Den can be home to do it himself.’
‘I see.’
‘I was told last night that the operation was over,’ Kathie prompted; but why was her heart beating so hard? She must keep that hopeful smile on her face, she mustn’t let the kindly sister know how frightened she was.
‘There will be many jobs he can undertake, but working a market garden won’t be possible. What a mercy you are so capable. There is more to running an establishment than doing the hands-on work.’
‘What are you trying to tell me?’
‘Yesterday’s operation was to remove shots from his back and to examine his spine. There were three shots, one of which had severed his spinal cord low in his back. You understand what that must mean?’
‘Severed his spinal cord? He won’t walk?’
‘He will learn to get around. Wheelchairs are very different from what they used to be. And he will learn to use crutches, even without putting one foot in front of the other, this war is showing us that planting the crutches, swinging the body, it’s amazing the independence that can be achieved. More than amazing, it is truly humbling to see some of the lads we have had in here. But gardening, even simply getting around on land that is dug and cultivated . . .’ She shook her head helplessly.
‘Does he know?’ Kathie asked in a voice that seemed trapped in her dry throat.
‘Colonel Fulbrook, the surgeon, saw him this morning. I told him you were coming in after he left and I hoped he would let your husband hear it from you. But he said he would tell him himself; the sooner he knew the better. And perhaps he was right, perhaps too it was easier to take from a senior officer. I’ve seen so many times over these last months just how much it means to a man to be one of that band of servicemen. Each is isolated in his own tragedy and yet they are one small part of . . . of a brotherhood.’
But had Den ever felt himself to be that? ‘Bloody war’, she seemed to hear him say.
‘Now I’ll take you to the ward. This way.’ It was like a living nightmare, and what a moment for Kathie to remember how she had imagined Den would return unexpected to surprise her. ‘Here we are. You’ll find him at the end of the ward in a bed with the curtains closed around him.’
‘Thank you.’ Kathie remembered her manners and added, ‘You have been kind.’
The sister bustled away and if Kathie had been able to read her thoughts she would have found they were similar to Dennis’s.
All eyes were on her as she walked the length of the ward. In a second she would see him. He was home, for him the war was over; wasn’t that cause for thankfulness? Through recent weeks she had, if not forgotten, at any rate ceased to be haunted by the memory of how distant they had become when last he was home, but now without warning it flooded her mind. With her hand on the curtain she found herself hesitating, then as suddenly as it had come so the memory faded and she was filled with certainty. However difficult he found the adjustments he would have to make, they would share the problems; that wedge of ice that held them apart had melted under this new challenge. Losing their precious Jess would never grow less painful but surely as they made a new future – for it must be a new future, nothing could ever be as it was in the past – they would be able to reach out to each other and share their sadness. Almost timidly she pulled the curtain aside and stepped into the enclosed space.
She’d lived with Dennis years enough to know when he was genuinely asleep. Now he was lying propped up with pillows with his eyes closed, the pallor of his skin giving the tan gained under French skies an unhealthy yellowish tinge. He probably imagined it was a nurse who had just moved into his limited privacy.
‘Den,’ Kathie whispered, leaning over him, ‘you don’t need to act asleep, it’s me.’
His eyes shot open and his mouth too. She bent over him, moving her face against his. He raised his arms and pulled her close, so close that she couldn’t move her head away from his. Then she heard the sob he couldn’t hold back. In the hour since the surgeon had given him a truthful account of the hopelessness of his case, fear, misery, even self-pity had combined and time and again it had taken all his willpower not to give way. But that was when he’d been on his own. Once Kathie was with him he could fight no longer. She cradled him in her arms holding his head against her.
‘No bloody use to anyone. I’d rather have been killed.’ His words were muffled as she held him against her, but she heard them clearly and dug desperately for something to say that would help him. But what could there be? Of course he felt he was ‘no bloody use
to anyone’, but they had to fight their way through and build something new.
‘You might wish it, but I certainly don’t.’ She ached with compassion for him, but there was no sign of it in her voice. ‘Den, wallowing in misery won’t help either of us. We’ve been chucked a challenge and we’re going to beat it. Right?’
‘We? It’s me who’s got the prospect of life in a wheelchair. You? You’ll be all right; you and those girls will go from strength to strength. Stan’s gone. He’d almost got to the coast and a plane came out of the sky. Machine gunned the line as they tried to get to the beaches. Bert started to carry him, but he’d gone. Stan gone, me useless, Bert’s war isn’t over yet, and God knows what’s in store for him.’
‘We none of us ever know what’s in store, what any day might throw at us.’
For the first time, they looked directly at each other. Jess seemed very close.
‘Tell you what, Dad!’ Kathie found comfort in using the child’s expression. In her mind she seemed to hear Jess’s voice, surely Den would open his heart and feel her spirit to be there with them as he heard the words: ‘You and Mum are going to sort it all out. When you get home you’ll feel better.’
He shook his head and leant back on the piled pillows.
‘How long do you think it’ll be before they send you home?’ Kathie asked him, this time in a voice that was just her own.
‘God knows. What’s the difference?’
‘Look here, my fine fellow,’ she tried another tactic, ‘I’ve come a long way and spent a night on a lumpy mattress in a B and B so that I could come a-visiting.’
‘I’m sorry. But you shouldn’t have left the gardens. Everything depends on you.’
‘The gardens are in good hands. The girls know exactly what they have to do and Bruce has promised to do the deliveries – just Jack Hopkins and the school. And as for the chickens, Claudia is seeing to them and earning herself eggs for breakfast.’
‘And the waif?’
She looked at Den with grudging affection. He might resent Beth being in their home, but he was conscious that she would need someone to look after her.
‘No need to worry about Beth. She’s living it up tonight, staying at the Hall. “Bloody war” it might be but there is a new feeling of kindness, of camaraderie, you can feel it amongst people. Rich and poor, we’re all alike. People queue with their ration books, all in it together.’
‘What am I going to do, Kathie? The future – it’s just . . . just nothing.’
‘It’s only nothing if that’s what we allow it to be,’ she answered.
He was quite composed when he spoke again.
‘It’s easy for you,’ he said, his voice distant. ‘You can walk, you can dig, you can drive, you ca—’ He couldn’t trust his voice. She saw how tightly he set his jaw.
‘Den,’ she whispered, dropping to her knees by the side of his bed and gripping both his hands in hers, ‘I know it’s easier for me. But surely we’ve been a team so many years that we can face this together.’
‘I’m just a bloody encumbrance. You know what?’
‘There you go! Now it’s you who sounds like Jess.’
‘Don’t!’ he snapped. Then, going back to what he wanted to say, he continued, ‘I remember it happening, I was almost to the boat and the plane swooped down with its gun blazing. Just one searing sharp pain, then nothing. Then I couldn’t feel my legs, couldn’t swim. I felt the water closing over my head. But, damn him, Bert dragged me up. The rest is just a blank. So it all could have been a blank, it would have been over, if only he’d let me drown. Why? Why in God’s name couldn’t he have let me sink to the bottom? Better than this, better for both of us after that swine in the plane had done for me. What can I do? Oh God, what can I do?’ Was he even aware that she was with him or was he blind to everything but fear and despair? He wasn’t just crying, he was bellowing. She imagined the patients in the other beds in the long ward looking at the closed curtains in sympathy.
It wasn’t surprising that Kathie didn’t hear a nurse approach. The first she knew was the swish of the curtain rings on the rail.
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Hawthorne, I’m afraid I have to ask you to leave him. I’m going to give him an injection and then he’ll sleep. If you come at visiting time this evening you will find an improvement.’
The arrangements at home had been for one day. Would Bruce keep Beth for a second night, would he be prepared to continue acting as delivery boy and what about Claudia? She could see it was useless to try to talk to Dennis, sunk deep in an abyss of misery he seemed unaware of his surroundings or of the noise of his crying either. So she walked the length of the long ward, conscious of the sympathetic glances from the other patients. Walking down a corridor she read a sign pointing to the Rehabilitation Department and looking through an open door she stopped to watch men out in the sunshine in wheelchairs propelling themselves with growing confidence. Once Den could get amongst them some of his natural optimism would return.
She had noticed a telephone box near the hospital so the first thing was to put through a call to Westways. She imagined how the outside bell would shatter the midday silence and knew she would have to wait while Claudia got back to the house and indoors to the telephone.
‘Westways Market Garden,’ the voice of efficiency rang in her ear. ‘Can I help you?’
‘Claudia, I’ve just come from seeing him.’
‘Tell me.’
‘It’s what I dreaded . . .’ And so she told the story, missing out nothing. ‘He’s very down in the dumps.’
‘Frightened his socks off, I should think. And yours too. What will you do? No, that’s a daft question. As if you can start to look to the future at this stage. Look, Kathie, if you want to stay on there for a bit, I can easily move in here. Beth will be better at home, I expect, and those two girls seem to know what’s what. If Bruce offers I’ll let him do the delivering, but otherwise I can drive the van. I took the morning order up to the hall. Really, we’re coping.’
‘You don’t know how grateful I am. If I had to I’d come home tonight, but another day or two and perhaps the worst of the shock will have given way to . . . to acceptance. He’s always been so fit, so strong. If he were some paleface sitting at a desk all day it wouldn’t hit him like this.’
‘It’s a real bugger.’ The gorgeous Claudia spoke from her heart. ‘But I bet any paleface with a job at a desk waiting for him would feel just as knocked off his perch. You can’t imagine, can you? We all want to help – and seeing us milling around him will make him feel even worse. Bert came in after you’d gone and he’s coming again this afternoon. He’ll know what we ought to be doing out there, won’t he?’
Kathie felt a weight had been lifted. Bert knew the garden as well as she did herself. But this was his leave; she couldn’t expect him to give up his time to working at Westways. That’s what she told herself; but she knew that that was exactly what he would want to be doing.
‘Poor Bert,’ she said, more to herself that to Claudia. ‘He and Stan were always together.’
‘I know. But being useful might help him over the initial stage. I don’t think he wants to kick about locally – not without Stan.’
‘I’ll ring again tomorrow. And thank you, Claudia, you’re a brick.’ Hardly the description the folk in the village would have given the young madam with her airs and graces.
Two days later Kathie got off the bus outside the fish and chip shop in the village and walked to the turning to the common.
Out of the tragedy some sort of order had to be found and it had to be up to her to organize it. But hadn’t she been doing just that ever since the previous September? Yet somewhere there was a difference in the way she approached her work on the land. No longer was she ‘holding the fort’.
On that first evening home Kathie couldn’t settle in the house. Leaving Beth to do her homework she came outside knowing she could find plenty to do. Later Beth would join her, but she never gave
homework short measure; she enjoyed doing it. Something that even to Kathie seemed unchildlike. Until that time, Bruce had frequently come to Westways if he could spare the time during the morning, but that was the Bruce they were used to seeing: charcoal grey suit, white shirt, silk tie (never a loud tie, always something in keeping with his sober attire) with a matching handkerchief in his breast pocket, well polished black shoes. Claudia had said that he seemed to enjoy being part of the team during the few days she’d been away. On that first evening back after her visit to the hospital he arrived unexpectedly at about seven o’clock, this time wearing workman’s overall, short-sleeved shirt and wellington boots. Hearing footsteps Kathie turned, her greeting dying on her lips.
‘Gosh,’ she said as she collected her scattered wits, ‘you look ready for anything. Claudia isn’t here this evening.’
‘I didn’t come to see Claudia, I came to offer my inexperience to you. Can you use me? But first, tell me how he was when you left. Is he making progress?’
Rather like ‘I’m very well, thank you’ being the universal answer to ‘How are you?’ Kathie was about to say that Dennis was making good progress, he had all the courage he would inevitably need. But something in Bruce’s expression stopped her. She shook her head helplessly.
‘Can you imagine how he must feel. He is a . . . is a physical sort of person. That’s why he took this place. It was his life – his and mine too. Shall we have to let it go to someone fit and strong, like he used to be?’ It wasn’t so much what she said as the frightened look in her eyes that drew him to her. Before he reached a hand to her, common sense took hold. She had troubles enough without him confusing her any further.
Weeks went by, the school broke up for the long summer holidays. It fell quite naturally into place that Claudia and Oliver came each day to Westways. The village school wouldn’t start holidays for another fortnight so with no Beth for company Kathie made sure he was kept busy. Rationing certainly did make it more complicated but lunchtime became a sort of party hour. Early each morning Kathie prepared her cauldron of vegetable soup. No one enjoyed those lunchtimes more than Oliver. Never in his life had he seen his mother as she was here. Always she was pretty, always she loved people and parties, but this wasn’t like the parties she used to have in the apartment in London where everyone kept refilling their glasses and the laughter grew louder and yet to Oliver’s sensitive ears not a happy sound. But Westways was like another world; the only thing that remained the same was that Claudia took no particular notice of him, but even that didn’t hurt like it had before.