Wartime Family (32 page)

Lizzie’s spirits scurried all the way up the light wires to the arched ceiling.

‘Margot! I didn’t know you were coming.’

‘No problem, my darling,’ she said, planting dry lips on each of Lizzie’s cheeks before pulling up a chair and crossing one silky leg over the other. ‘Patrick told me everything and I took the initiative from there.’

Lizzie sank back against the pillows. ‘Margot, what a bloody fool I’ve been.’

‘Yes,’ said Margot. She took out her cigarette holder and silver case. In response to a look of condemnation from the ward sister, she put it away again. ‘Is she the sergeant-major here?’ Margot asked.

‘You could say that.’ Lizzie beamed. Things were getting better already!

‘Right,’ said Margot, brushing invisible flecks of dust from her jacket. ‘I took the initiative and got in touch with Bessie. It seemed the sensible thing to do, seeing as she made arrangements for a similar scenario. By the way,’ she said suddenly, ‘do you know she’s now a mother? Isn’t that amazing, especially seeing as that man of hers wanted nothing to do with the first child! Well, that’s Bessie for you!’

Lizzie couldn’t remember quite who Bessie had ended up with, and what was more, she didn’t want to remember. She was ashamed to admit it, but being compared with Bessie made her feel cheap and common.

‘You’re not the same, of course,’ said Margot, as though reading her thoughts. She patted her hand with one white-gloved hand. ‘You mustn’t think that way. The past is behind you now. Look towards the future. Promise me you’ll do that?’

Lizzie promised. ‘Yes, yes. I will. But it isn’t easy.’

‘No. Getting in the family way was the easy bit,’ said Margot. ‘Anyway, let’s get down to the reason I’m here. Bessie booked herself into a nursing home. She told me that it’s run by the Salvation Army, but is very clean and there’s no charge. It’s a registered charity, apparently. They look after you and arrange the adoption once it’s all over. Here’s the address,’ said Margot, handing her a slip of paper bearing her personal monogram.

‘Lovely paper,’ said Lizzie, her thumb tracing the raised lettering as a lump came to her throat. Strangely, she carefully avoided studying the address. Not now. Not yet.

Margot eyed her knowingly. Her voice, usually so cut-glass, so self-assured, now softened, just like a mother soothing her baby. ‘I’m not fooled, Lizzie. You don’t care tuppence about the paper. Look, I can only guess how you’re really feeling, and it’s OK to let it out. And if you want to shout and swear that all men are animals – especially RAF bigwigs – then, sweetie, feel free to do so.’

Lizzie stiffened and bit her lip. The tears would be hot on her cheeks if she let them fall. But she wouldn’t. She had to maintain her self-control. ‘It takes two to tango.’

Margot sighed. ‘You’re very brave.’

‘No. I’m very scared. I’ve been a fool. I should have learned from my mother’s mistake. Something similar happened to her.’

Margot raised one finely plucked eyebrow. In a certain light she resembled Marlene Dietrich – confident, blonde, pale-faced and dark-eyed. She didn’t ask what Lizzie meant by her comment. Lizzie wouldn’t have answered if she had.

‘I take it from my mission to Bessie that you don’t want your parents to know about your fall from grace. And you don’t want to marry Patrick?’

‘It wouldn’t be fair. He’s such a sweet man and although at one time we did talk about getting engaged, I couldn’t do it now.’

‘Why not?’

‘Isn’t that obvious? The baby isn’t his.’

Margot shrugged. ‘So? It happens in the best of families.’

‘I wouldn’t want to tie him down.’

Margot shrugged again. ‘It’s your decision, but it’s a damn good offer.’

Lizzie shook her head. ‘I can’t.’

In her heart of hearts she was still half hoping that Guy would come walking into the ward carrying a huge bouquet. In her more logical moments she knew it was only wishful thinking, a dream from which she must wake up. Where was he now? she wondered. Still in Singapore with his wife and children, she supposed.

‘So!’ said Margot, crossing one silky stocking over the other. ‘I take it you’ve been lying here planning what to do next. Am I right?’

‘Yes. The nursing home can be arranged?’

Margot nodded. ‘I checked.’

‘I’m going to join the navy afterwards.’

Margot grinned wryly. ‘Do that by all means, my dear, but do watch out for the admirals. They too have wives and children and are away from them far longer than wing commanders.’

Lizzie could have been insulted by Margot’s comments, but instead she smiled at the cutting joke. Margot’s satirical comment was merely intended to amuse.

‘I think I’ll avoid top-brass officers from now on.’

‘I’m glad to hear it.’ Margot studied their surroundings with disdainful eyes, her thick eyelashes sweeping her cheeks. ‘Well, you can’t stay here for ever, my sweet, and you can’t arrive at the nursing home until the optimum moment. Have you considered where to stay until then?’

This was the question that had been unsettling Lizzie for some time. ‘I don’t know.’

Bits of pale lemon wool had transferred from her bed jacket to the turned down sheet that covered her. Lizzie picked at them thoughtfully. Hotels and guest houses were too expensive. She could ask Harry if he knew of anywhere, but that would mean letting him into the secret. She’d already asked Patrick; he didn’t have a clue but badly wanted to do something to help.

‘I could ask a few of my mates,’ he’d said.

She’d declined his offer, fearing he would interpret her acquiescence as a sign that she might marry him. She cared for him deeply, but surely love was what she’d experienced with Guy – or had that been merely passion?

‘I’ve got a place,’ said Margot. ‘I call it my bijou getaway, my little place in the country where I can be myself rather than Margot Ponsonby-Lyle. It’s near Stowmarket, which isn’t a million miles away from here, so I can visit you quite regularly – an added bonus if ever there was one.’

To Lizzie it felt as though a ton weight had fallen from her shoulders. Her face relaxed, the muscles down her back stopped feeling as taut as a bow string. She almost leapt across the bed.

‘That’s wonderful! Oh, Margot, how can I ever thank you enough?’

Margot winked one dark eye and pursed her red lips like a femme fatale from a 1920s movie. ‘There is a certain proviso, my darling Lizzie.’

Lizzie waited, half expecting her to say that she could only stay there for two weeks a month.

Seeing her anxious expression, Margot laughed. ‘Don’t look so worried, darling. I require no rent, the accommodation is clean and the house could do with a full-time resident to warm it up, so to speak. The first proviso is that you use the second bedroom, a charming little pink and white room up under the eaves.’

‘It sounds wonderful.’

‘Slow down, darling. The second proviso is far more important than the first. You’ll have to put up with me using the main bedroom when I need to.’ She winked again. ‘It has a four-poster with a lumpy mattress, but it doesn’t stay lumpy for long with two bodies rolling over it. My chap’s quite a hunk and helps me flatten it now and again. How’s that with you?’

‘Very generous. I can never thank you enough.’

Relieved to have somewhere to stay, Lizzie didn’t immediately enquire who else was rolling over the lumpy mattress with Margot. She had a bolthole to stay in until presenting herself at the nursing home and that was really all that mattered.

‘It’s small, but pretty,’ Margot said on the day she collected Lizzie in an army staff car and took the road to Stowmarket.

Margot was telling nothing but the truth. The cottage was thatched wattle and daub, with thick beams supporting a low ceiling. An ancient range, its brass handles polished by Margot’s ‘little woman from the village’, provided hot water for cooking and heating. As winter approached, the little woman’s husband brought apple and elm logs to burn in the huge inglenook fireplace. He also trapped rabbits, a welcome addition to anyone’s diet.

‘Your secret is safe with me,’ said Margot, ‘as long as mine is safe with you.’

Margot’s secret was Owen, a PT instructor from Cardiff. He spoke with a Welsh accent, sang in the bath and had iron-hard muscles.

‘What he lacks in mental agility, he certainly makes up for physically,’ murmured Margot on the first weekend she brought him to the cottage.

‘With those muscles, he could flatten a lumpy mattress all by himself,’ Lizzie commented. She’d just seen him doing physical jerks out on the front lawn, muscles as thickly knotted as tree roots protruding from the confines of a tight white vest.

‘But not so much fun, darling,’ whispered Margot. She licked her lips.

Lizzie saw the hungry look in her eyes, surmising it had nothing to do with the mince and onions being stewed for lunch. She’d probably looked at Guy in the same way at one time, wondering what the likes of him saw in a girl like her. Her mother would have warned her. She wondered about Margot’s mother.

‘Do your parents know about him?’ she asked Margot.

‘Good grief, no! Pa would fetch a shotgun and Ma would have a fainting fit. There’s no commitment between us – perish the thought,’ explained Margot with a flourish of manicured fingernails, French perfume drifting from every movement. ‘It’s purely a physical thing. Being with someone physically helps me forget there’s a war on. After the war I’ll probably marry an ex-major from the Guards with a job in the City – a stockbroker or a Swiss banker. He’ll be rich, I’ll be a dutiful wife and although he might not be much in the physical department, I’ll put up with it. After all, I’ll still have my memories.’

Margot sounded totally convinced of how things would be, as though a map had been drawn with a straight path that she would dutifully follow. In a way Lizzie was saddened by it. What about poor Owen? How did he feel about the affair?

They were two lovely people from opposite ends of the social spectrum, and yet in a strange way they suited each other. But then, opposites attract, she thought – just like her and Guy.

Owen seemed nice and was well put together. He was very keen on keeping fit, getting up early and doing physical training in the garden most mornings. Margot on the other hand rarely came down to breakfast before nine.

Lizzie took her friend a cup of tea in bed when she came to stay. Four visits down the road she suggested Margot get up and join Owen out on the lawn.

‘It’s not civilized,’ she’d told Lizzie, her voice muffled beneath the bedclothes. One eye blinked open. ‘Besides, I had all the exercise I needed last night.’

‘Margot, you are incorrigible!’

‘But fun,’ murmured Margot, retreating back beneath the bedclothes. Lizzie laughed and went back downstairs.

She fried a little streaky bacon for breakfast, and set out toast, butter and marmalade. Both the bacon and butter came from a nearby farm and was brought in by Margot’s ‘little woman’ who turned out to be called May Letherby.

Lizzie glanced out of the small kitchen window. Owen had finished his morning exercise and came in wiping at his naked upper torso with a towel. His muscles rippled and bulged beneath his skin. Feeling her face redden, Lizzie picked up the spatula and attacked the sizzling bacon.

‘There’s mushrooms as well as an egg today,’ she said, scooping both on to their plates. ‘Mrs Letherby came across the mushrooms in the field on her way over.’

She stopped herself from gabbling on that Mr Letherby kept chickens, and that the bacon had come from a pig killed and cured some weeks before. Officially, it should have been reported to the Ministry of Food, but this was one little piggy that the Letherbys had kept for a private market.

Owen beamed and sniffed the air. ‘Champion!’

Shrugging himself into his shirt, he pulled out a chair, straddling the seat as though he were mounting a horse.

Lizzie sat down too. She picked up the teapot. ‘Tea?’

‘Let me,’ he said, his mouth full of bread and mushrooms. He took the pot from her and poured. ‘You’re in a delicate condition, luvvy. No sense in lifting anything heavy when I’ve got the muscles to do it for you.’ His smile was as broad as his accent. She thanked him and, between mouthfuls of breakfast, she asked him how long he’d been in the army.

‘Five years now. I’m what you call a career soldier, you see. That’s why I’m not fighting overseas. I’m wanted here, to use my experience to lick men into shape. They’re so green some of them, you see. Greener than a valley in springtime!’ Suddenly he nodded at her belly. ‘Marge tells me the father ran out on you.’

Marge?
Margot never allowed anyone to call her Marge.
‘So downmarket, darling. Makes me sound like a girl from a cotton­mill town.’

Lizzie felt her face reddening. ‘She had no business telling you that.’

‘She tells me a lot of things. Sometimes she tries to hold back, but I’ve got a way with her, you see.’

‘Oh, you really think so?’ snapped Lizzie, slamming down her knife and fork. ‘You’ve got big muscles. And that’s all you’ve got and that’s the only reason she bothers with you. There’s no commitment. She told me that herself!’ Her eyes blazed. She wanted to stab him with her look.

A slight smile played around his lips. ‘Is that what she told you then?’ His voice was as gentle and as rhythmic as a song. His eyes twinkled with untold secrets. He leaned closer, so close that she could smell the fresh sweat glistening on his chest and shoulders. ‘Mark my words; me and Marge will spend the rest of our lives together. She might not admit it just now, but believe you me, that’s the way it will be.’ He gestured again at her stomach. ‘I didn’t mean to insult you. We all need a bit of passion in the midst of all this bloodshed. I understand if you don’t want to talk about it. I apologize. Have to say though, it makes me ashamed to be a man when others of my gender treat women like that.’

Accepting that Guy Hunter had lied to her was never easy. Night time was the worst; it was when she was alone and darkness fell that she remembered how it had felt to lie in his arms. That was also when she felt jealous of Margot and her Owen. She never challenged Margot that the relationship was anything but physical. Only time would tell who was telling the truth. In the meantime she fended off letters from her mother. It was hard enough going through this by herself, harder still ignoring the fact that her mother would be worrying.