The Soldier's Bride (18 page)

‘Don’t let ’im,’ he muttered, his voice like dead leaves rustling along the pavement. ‘Don’t let ’im take yer away from me. What’ll I do if you go?’

For a moment longer he gazed at his reflection in the mirror, then moved away, dropping the scissors despondently on to the upturned wooden lid of the copper that served for a draining board.

In his thoughts he followed them; saw the glowing faces of two people in love; heard their secret laughter – his daughter no longer a girl but a woman who after six years being courted must know the man who courted her, every inch of him. And did he know every inch of her?

He forced that thought from him, but still he followed them. The man’s face, as he drove the automobile, would be smiling, intent on the road ahead. The woman, head
reclined on the seat back, hair blowing loose from under the tam o’shanter. She’d perhaps take it off, let her hair blow freely.

At Lavinia’s they would laugh and talk around the tea table, play with the grandsons he himself seldom saw, for his eldest daughter rarely came to the flat. They’d talk about things that he sitting on his own in this flat would not be sharing in. Left out. No one to give a toss about him. Bloody families! Unspoken words raged in his head. You bring ’em up, care for them, work, sweat, so they’d be a bit better dressed, better fed than some around here. And what d’you get for it? They turn into bloody snobs who don’t want to know where they were brought up. Too bloody stuck up to show their faces in the place where they were born and brought up.

Then, saying their goodbyes to Lavinia and Albert and their new posh house, the man and woman would climb back into the motor car, drive slowly through the dusk … Arthur pulled aside the heavy lace curtain at the parlour window, white from Letitia’s recent washing and well starched. She did a good job of starching. The sky beyond, shot with thin lines of dark clouds, was tinged by dusk’s last translucent shades of green and dull rose.

In the dusk the man and woman would drive slowly along the edge of the forest with its big quiet trees and its dark shadows. In one of those shadowy places, the man would bring the vehicle to a halt, would turn off the engine, would turn to the woman, his arm around her. He would pull her to him, kiss her, embrace her, fondle …

‘Bleedin’ bloody tyke! Them dirty ’ands of ’is all over
’er! My daughter! Means ter take ’er away, if ’e can. But I ain’t goin’ ter let ’im – by Christ I ain’t goin’ ter!’

In the darkening parlour, Albert, sitting in Mabel’s wooden armchair beside the empty grate, pulled himself up sharp. Talking to himself now, was he? That’s what old age did for a person. All the anger of a moment ago seeped out of him, left him as empty as the grate. His faded blue eyes roamed the shadows of the room.

‘I’m gettin’ on. Gettin’ old. Fifty-six. Christ, what’ll I do if ’e do take ’er away from me?’

With slow effort, like one suffering from arthritis, he heaved himself out of the chair, felt along the mantelshelf for matches, shook the box to ascertain its contents. The struck match filled his face with its yellow glow, touched the ornaments on the mantelshelf. He moved to the centre of the room, reached up, pulled the slender chain of the centre gas light. Escaping gas hissed quietly, then plopped as he applied the lighted match. The mantel spluttered, its light sickly green, then settled, hissed steadily, the light becoming incandescent.

In the darkness of the trees on the edge of Epping Forest, David leaned over, kissed her, a soft gentle kiss. Letty lay in his arms, trying not to think of Dad, wanting only to savour those soft, gentle kisses that said so much. But at the back of her mind she couldn’t help thinking of Dad.

‘It’s getting late, David.’

‘Not that late,’ he murmured, oblivious to all else but her, lying in his arms for him to pour his love into her. The night breeze touching their faces, she returned his kisses.
His hand kneading her breast through the navy blue dress made her sigh, want to rid herself of the heavy hampering clothes.

They were going to make love, here, in the shadows. She knew it, wanted him to love her, her hand behind his neck holding his lips to hers, her blood coursing. Yet, prodding the back of her mind, it’s getting late. Dad’ll be wondering …

Hardly aware why or that she had done so, her muscles tensed themselves.

‘David, we should be getting back.’ They came of their own volition those words, not at all as she had intended.

‘Stop worrying, darling.’ David’s voice was hoarse with eagerness.

But her worrying only became stronger, made her even more rigid.

‘David …’

‘Stop worrying.’ His breathing had become harsh, his hands had become urgent, seeking her. But they threatened too. Threatened to sweep aside all care, all conscience.

‘No, David – don’t.’

The habit of obligation, a cruel invader, without her realising it, dominated her. How she hated it, but like a helpless victim she had to surrender to it. One small compensation – there would be another time when she would be totally at liberty to forget everything and allow herself be made love to with all indulgence. One hour earlier she would have. But now …

‘David, it’s late!’

The sharpness in her voice brought him abruptly to
himself. Leaning back from her he misread her anguish of indecision for rejection, was staggered for a moment, even as he realised it wasn’t rejection of him but the influence of one who, for all he was miles away, might as well have been sitting behind her, frowning hostile disapproval. Someone against whom he could never hope to compete if he tried for a million years.

Sitting back to stare into the dusk, his lips tightened. ‘Right! Let’s get you back home to your father. That is what’s worrying you, isn’t it? Him. I take second place and always will. Then by all means let me get you home!’

The engine, still hot, roared into life without needing to be cranked.

On the verge of tears, Letty wanted to cry out, no, she didn’t want to go home, wanted him to make love to her. But there’d be no mending what had just passed between them. David was beyond being consoled. He drove in brooding silence. She too sat silent, counting the interminable miles home, the drawn out creeping of the next forty minutes it took to reach there.

Outside the shop, he switched off the engine. His body sagged limp against the seat back. He didn’t look at her.

‘Letitia.’ His tone, so grimly decisive, frightened her. ‘I apologise for losing my temper. I have been thinking, bringing you home this evening …You and I – we are getting nowhere. All this waiting. We … I’m getting older. It has been six years, Letitia. A man can have only so much patience and mine is running out. I think it’s time we made up our minds. You whether you really do want to marry me or whether you feel you must spend the rest of your life
looking after your father, and I must decide whether to wait for you for the rest of
my
life if you can’t leave him. But in all truth, Letitia, it is asking too much of anyone. I’ve no idea what decision you will come to, but mine is that I can no longer consider having to wait indefinitely for you. It’s up to you, Letitia, to say which course you will choose.’

He’d never spoken like this before, so stern, so solemn, so blunt. Letty’s reaction, the threat of an empty future stretching ahead of her, was instant. Her voice echoed along the dim street.

‘David, don’t say things like that! You can’t leave me – not after all these years …’

‘Exactly.’ He turned to her now, in the fitful glow of the sparsely set gaslamps, his face full of pain, tender love, fear. ‘After all these years. For how many more do I stand in the background watching you give three-quarters of yourself to your father and the remaining quarter to me? Perhaps I’m not being fair to want you all to myself, but I don’t feel you’re being fair either. I’m not asking you to stop loving your father. I’m asking you to love me …’

‘But I do!’

‘Not as a woman should love a man, Letitia. It’s ludicrous, the way you expect me to hang around. I can’t take it much longer. I don’t want to leave you, darling. I merely said, we must come to a decision soon. It can’t go on as it is.’

‘Oh, it won’t David!’ She clung to him now. ‘I’ll sort something out about Dad. I’ll tell him he’s got to face facts. I’ll tell him he can’t have me round him forever. I want to be married and be like everyone else and have a husband
and a family. I
will
do something, David. Please trust me. I will! I promise!’

‘You’ve promised before.’

‘But I will, this time I will. I prom –’ She’d already said that, couldn’t say it again. It meant nothing to him. ‘Oh, David darling, don’t frighten me like this. I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

She knew she sounded dramatic, but desperation and wretchedness made her so. Her world was being demolished. Then, from deep inside, there came a feeling of defeat, a strange unwanted stillness that seemed to flow over her and through her, sapping all her will to fight, a sort of deadness, or was it pride instilling her with perverse stubbornness?

She sat still, head up, staring blankly in front of her, yielding herself up to that pride. She sensed him looking at her, but when she returned his look, he glanced away.

‘I think it might be a good thing,’ he said slowly as if to himself, ‘if perhaps we don’t see each other for a while.’

‘Please don’t say that, David.’ Although she had interrupted him sharply, she was surprised at her own tone – low and even and without tremor, without any note of pleading even, as she said please.

‘I was going to say, for a couple of weeks perhaps,’ he finished. ‘It might give both of us time to reflect on what is happening to us.’

‘David …’

‘I think you had better go in, Letitia,’ he said abruptly. ‘Your father’s waiting up for you.’ He glanced upwards and, following his eyes, Letty saw the dull glow of gaslight through the brown curtains.

Without waiting for her reply, he got out and came round to open the door on her side of the motor.

‘Will I see you tomorrow?’ Trying to smother the note of pleading, her voice sounded stiff, its tone flat. David was looking down at the pavement, avoiding her eyes.

‘I’m not certain what I’ll be doing. Next Sunday perhaps. I’ll write to you in the week, let you know.’

Before she could argue he had kissed her briefly on the cheek and was making his way back around the vehicle.

Her earlier stubborn pride reared up instantly, whispered crazily: If that’s the way he wants it. She felt she was choking. And someone was weeping in an empty room deep inside her own body. Beyond that she seemed incapable of thought. As if her mind and body belonged to someone else she walked to her door, fumbled for her latch key, pushed it into the keyhole and turned it, gently pushed the door. The bell jangled. You could never creep in without anyone inside being warned, no matter how carefully the door was opened.

Letty turned, looked back. The vehicle’s engine had been ticking over all this time. She hadn’t noticed. And now, without even looking at her, David released the brake, moved off slowly.

She watched it go towards Arnold Circus. He would most probably go through Calvert Street, coming out on to Shoreditch High Street to go diagonally northwards across London towards the elegant serenity of his nice home in Highgate. Another world, one which if she was really brutal with herself, didn’t include her. Never had. Not in six years it hadn’t. She felt strangely and
unexpectedly deceived. All these years she’d been deceiving herself really.

Letty closed the door with exaggerated care, aware of a hard lump growing inside her chest, getting harder and tighter, filling the cavity, pressing against her ribs. She heard Dad’s voice, ‘That you, Letitia?’ and automatically called back, ‘Yes.’ Who else did he think it would be?

The lump was suffocating her. By the time she’d got to the top of the stairs she could hardly breathe. Yet at the same time there was a voice inside her that was crying, ‘You’ll see him – next week, or the week after, you’ll see him. You will!’

‘That you, Letitia?’ Dad called again from the parlour. She could hear him knocking out his pipe against the fender.

She couldn’t face him. Not at the moment. Tomorrow perhaps, when she was more herself. The lump was strangling her.

‘I’m going straight to bed, Dad,’ she said, passing the parlour. Her voice sounded as if someone had their hands round her throat. ‘I’m tired.’

‘Too tired to come in ’ere an’ see me after I waited up for yer?’

‘Yes, Dad, sorry!’

She didn’t care what he thought; wanted only to be on her own. She heard his muffled complaints as she closed the door to her bedroom; heard him come to her door, prayed, Please God, don’t let him come in. Don’t let him start on at me. I want to die …

Face in the pillow she listened, tensed, tears held back, bursting inside her; heard him move away and go into his
own room, his voice low as he grumbled to himself about her not caring two hoots about his feelings.

His door closing quietly, the tears oozed on to the pillow, forming large damp patches where the outer corners of her eyes pressed. Never had she known a moment like this, when nothing, no amount of tears, could mend the hurt inside her. It was all over, everything. David was gone. He said he would write to her, let her know about next Sunday. But she knew he wouldn’t. He would leave her behind, take up his life without her, doing things she’d never again share in.

It seemed incredible that six years could end so abruptly and so completely. She still couldn’t believe it, clung to the belief that it wouldn’t be so, yet knew that it was.

The worst hurt of all was the fact of being excluded from all he would do from now on in his life, sharing nothing of it. And it had been her fault. No – it had been Dad’s fault. She hated Dad with all her being for what he had done to her with his selfishness, but more she hated the love she still had for David, exaggerated by separation, making her heart ache with nothing to be done to stop it.

August Bank Holiday Monday was lovely after a sultry, changeable weekend.