A Little Love (11 page)

Pru lay on the bed and closed her eyes. She had spent many of her waking moments this way over the last ten days, hovering between the oblivion of sleep and the dark pit of sadness that threatened to pull her in.

Milly knocked on the door and entered. ‘It’s nearly time to leave.’

‘I’ll be five minutes.’

‘I’ll wait here for you.’

‘No, I’m okay, Mills,’ Pru answered without opening her eyes or turning her head. ‘Just give me a mo.’

Milly left as Pru clambered from the bed and pulled on her navy jacket, applying neither make-up nor a comb to her slightly ratty hair.

‘Right then, Alfie, I’m as set as I’ll ever be. You stay close and we’ll get through this together.’ She smoothed her skirt and left the room, to find Milly standing outside her door.

A crowd had gathered in the opulent square hallway. With her eyes lowered, Pru couldn’t easily distinguish individuals, but she was aware of a mass of black cloth, repeated sharp intakes of breath and a sea of sad faces.

The front door opened to reveal a line of black shiny cars that looked grand, oddly celebratory as they sat on the gravel. William and Bobby were to have a joint funeral in the church where they were to have been married. Pru agreed with Milly, it was right that the service should be conducted in a place that had meant something to both of them.

Pru watched as Isabel stepped through the door and on to the gravel. Her body bucked as she saw the hearses. ‘Oh my God!’ she screeched. ‘Please no! Oh my God! No! No! Someone needs to get him out of there! He can’t be in there. Please, Chris, please! Tell me he’s not in there! My baby, my boy!’ Isabel’s knees gave way and Christopher and another man caught her and kept her upright. She could barely walk, just managing a shuffle as her feet dragged along beneath her.

The two men escorted her back inside. It was best that she lie down and let the day wash over her. There was no need to put her through the torture of watching her son’s coffin being lowered into the ground. It would serve no purpose. Pru was sympathetic to her distress but she envied her the escape.

She returned her attention to the shiny black hearses and the coffins within them, transfixed. Despite being early May, the day was cloaked in a dull grey blanket of rain. She and Milly slid on to the back seat of one of the cars and her eyes never left the wooden box set out behind them. Flower arrangements in a riot of colour were grouped in clusters around the coffin. Her own, a cascade of lilies interwoven with fresh ivy, sat on the top.
‘I can see it now: white lilies with ivy trailing through them, like they’ve been grabbed from the wild and bunched together. It will be haphazard but beautiful!’

Feeling quite detached, Pru didn’t register the well-wishers that had lined the route to the church. Some were there out of respect, some through morbid curiosity – it was big news in a small place. A double funeral was rare and the couple’s youth made it extra newsworthy. Plus the fact that it was the son of that posh woman with the really big house.

Pru sat at the front of the church, next to Milly, their arms touching, giving mutual comfort with this simple gesture. Music began to filter through the little Norman church, not overly sombre, but classical and fitting. Pru wondered who had chosen it, who had chosen all of it? Every face turned to the door as the pall bearers entered. Christopher was one of them. Theirs was a slow progression that seemed to take an eternity.

The vicar stood at the top of the aisle and for a split second Pru thought that she might be at a wedding, but whose wedding? She was here for Bobby, was it Bobby’s wedding? Where had all the time gone and where was William? But then her eyes focused on the two wooden boxes with shiny brass handles that rested on tense shoulders and she remembered that she was not here for a wedding, there would not be a wedding, not for Bobby.

Pru spoke to her in her head. ‘It’s all right, my darling, you go to sleep now, baby. Your dad’s got you and I’m right here. I’ll always be right here.’

The same handsome boys and groomed girls who only a month before had sipped at their Pimm’s and danced to the jazz band in the ornate marquee now filled the dark wooden pews, sniffing into tissues that soaked up their distress. Piers Parkinson-Boater stood in full dress uniform, his medals glinting in the candlelight. Tears ran down his tanned face, which he did nothing to stem.

Pru, anesthetised, stumbled ghost-like through the proceedings, quietly watching the seconds tick by until she could return to her bed and hide. Her eyes darted, unable to focus on the Union-flag-draped coffin that stood beneath the wooden boards listing similarly titled men who had lost their lives fighting for their country. Maybe if William had passed in service for his country, it would not have felt quite so pointless. And Bobby, next to the man she loved, beneath the altar, just as she had wished. The girl with a child-like spirit who filled each room with light, gone, wiped out.

The vicar began to speak but his words became distorted inside her head, as if she was listening to them under water. Then without warning her hearing crystallised to register the line, ‘These two young people united in death as they were in life, in love and before Christ’s image on the cross as they would have been on their wedding day.’

A muffled scream came from the back of the church. The majority of the congregation didn’t turn round – out of politeness, or respect – but Pru did, she couldn’t help herself. She turned just in time to see a flash of mousy brown hair disappear through the heavy church door.

As the mourners trooped out of the church and towards the plot, freshly excavated and awaiting the young lovers, Pru scanned the graveyard. Spying what she was looking for, she padded across the spongy grass. And there she was, the girl from the hospital, peeking from behind a large cedar tree, staring into space.

‘I thought I saw you. It’s Megan, isn’t it?’ Pru spoke softly, not wanting to alarm the girl. ‘I saw you before at the hospital, do you remember me?’

The girl nodded, blinking slowly. Her hair hung limply either side of her pale face, glued to her forehead in lank strands by the mist of rain that continued to settle over them. She looked exhausted and desperately sad. Pru sank down by her side.

‘I didn’t expect to see you today, have you come far?’

Megan whispered to the grass. ‘London. I got the train, then a cab.’

‘That’s quite a trek. He must have meant a lot to you.’

Pru could hear the sobs coming from across the graveyard: that would be the moment that the bodies were committed to the ground. Closing her eyes, she tried to calm her thoughts. She had no desire to see it, didn’t want that image in her head. It was enough that she could picture Bobby pale and lifeless on a trolley.

‘Are you that girl’s nan?’ Megan looked up.

‘No. My name is Pru and Bobby was my niece, but I brought her up.’

‘Well, you didn’t do a very good job! I don’t know who she thought she was! Messing up my life.’

Pru tightened her mouth and narrowed her gaze. ‘Why would you say something like that? She was a wonderful girl and I loved her very much. She is not yet in the ground and I would appreciate it if you showed her a bit more respect. I thought you might need help, that’s why I came over to talk to you. I was mistaken.’ Pru stood and dusted off her skirt, some pine needles, sticky with sap, stuck to her palms as she did so.

‘I’m sorry.’ Megan shook her head and let a fresh wave of tears cascade down her face. She made no attempt to dry them or cover her sadness. ‘I knew I shouldn’t have come today, but I had to, I wanted to see where he was buried. I waited until the last minute to sneak in. I didn’t want to see anyone. Bill said his family wouldn’t be happy about the baby and that we had to keep it a secret until they got used to the idea, but I never expected anything like this.’

‘The baby?’

‘Our baby. Bill was my fiancé.’ Megan ran her hand over her bump protectively.

‘Your
fiancé
?’

‘Yes. I’m due in two months. And now I’ve just found out he had another bird. I can’t believe it!’

Pru tried to digest this new information. Billy-boy a philanderer? About to become a father? Poor, trusting Bobby. It was mortifying to hear her referred to as the other woman. Becoming William’s fiancée, his future wife, had been her greatest joy. Was this girl for real? Eight weeks! In just eight weeks there would be a baby.

Megan sniffed. ‘Bill said that things were going to change. That living like this would be temporary, that we’d go and get our house.’ She twisted her soggy tissue into a ball and looked up at Pru. ‘And I felt like I’d won the bloody lottery, not cos of the money, but because I had him, an army officer! I couldn’t believe he would love someone like me, but he swore he did, he really did! I felt loved.’

Pru watched as the girl’s face crumpled and the strength left her legs. She folded like a rag doll and slumped down on the grass under the tree. ‘What am I going to do without him? I loved him. We’re having a baby! I’ve got nothing without him, nothing.’ Raising her knees, she placed her head in her hands and cried. ‘He promised me he would take care of us. He sent me a brochure of a house in Ashford that he wanted us to go and see. It was on a little estate and it had a dishwasher and new carpets that came with it and a proper garden, with grass.’

‘Ashford, Kent. Not too far, but just far enough.’

‘Eh? Just far enough for what?’

Pru grimaced but did not reply.

Megan drew breath. ‘I knew deep down it wouldn’t really happen, not to someone like me. I knew it, but I didn’t want to believe it!’

Had Billy-boy really been fooling them all? Stringing Bobby along, hurting everyone? Pru shuddered. Despite it all, her heart ached for this little girl who had been promised security and a little love – everybody’s dream.

‘Come on, Megan, try not to cry, love. It’ll only make you feel worse.’

Megan stuttered and coughed. ‘I couldn’t feel any worse. If I wasn’t pregnant, I swear I’d top meself and go and join him, I would. I’ve got nothing without him, nothing at all. And all I can think of now is that he was going to marry someone else – that was what that vicar said! I heard it and I know vicars don’t lie, but that’s what he said and I can’t believe it. When your mate asked if I knew Bobby, I wasn’t thinking straight, but I thought it was a bloke, an army mate of his or something.’ She shook her head. ‘Were they really going to get married?’

‘Yes, Megan, they were. I don’t know what to say to you, other than it all seems like a horrible mess.’

‘It wasn’t a mess! It was all very straightforward. We are having a baby and we were getting a house. But now he’s gone and died and everything’s dissolved. Am I supposed to believe he was marrying someone else? I don’t know what to believe! I can’t think straight.’

‘It seems like he was seeing you both and obviously neither of you knew about the other.’ Pru shook her head at the improbability of it.

‘I don’t know what to say. I had no idea.’ Megan clutched at her tummy.

‘No, I can see that.’

She looked up at Pru, like a child, not a young woman about to become a mother. ‘What would have happened to me, to our baby?’

Pru sat up straight. ‘I honestly don’t know.’

Megan howled then, not caring who heard, and collapsed into herself.

Pru edged closer. ‘Please don’t cry, it’s all right.’ It was almost as if Megan were Bobby just woken from a bad dream. Faced with this young woman in need, Pru felt her natural desire to fix things kick in. She wanted to help.

The two sat in silence for a minute until Megan stood up. ‘I’ve got to go.’ She stepped towards the gate but as Pru started to follow her she turned, angry. ‘Look, you don’t even know me, so just fuck off, leave me alone. Please.’

Pru nodded. ‘I’m going. But if you change your mind, Megan, or you need anything at all, then I’m in Curzon Street – Plum Patisserie, you can’t miss it.’

Megan turned away and carried on walking, without giving an answer or looking back.

Pru re-joined the mourners as they were about to make their way back to Mountfield. Milly saw her across the path and grabbed her arm. ‘Where have you been? I was worried sick! Are you all right?’

‘I don’t know.’ She spoke the truth.

‘We won’t stay long, just show our faces and then go home, okay?’ Milly spoke to her as if she was a child.

Pru nodded. ‘I saw that girl, the one from the hospital. Megan.’

‘When?’

‘Just now, she was here. She said she was William’s fiancée.’ Pru smoothed the creases from the sleeves of her navy jacket and ran her hand over her face, trying to remain composed.

‘What?’

‘She’s telling the truth, Mills. She’s devastated. And she didn’t know about Bob.’ Pru let her tears fall, wondering if she would ever run out.

Piers Parkinson-Boater walked over to them with an older soldier by his side. He adjusted his hat as he approached. ‘Miss Plum, I am so very sorry. I was fond of Bobby, I can only picture her laughing or jumping up and down.’ He smiled. ‘And William was a great bloke and an inspirational soldier.’

The older man stepped forward. ‘I’m Sergeant Rob Gisby. William certainly was an inspirational soldier.’ He smiled too; his eyes were kind, and red from crying.

Pru nodded at the two men. She couldn’t speak for William’s soldiering credentials, but as for being a great bloke, the presence of a second, pregnant, fiancée cast something of a shadow over that assertion. ‘Thank you.’

Both women accepted their handshakes before they walked away.

‘What do you make of it all, Pru? Who the hell is she?’

‘I don’t really know. We don’t know anything, do we? Apart from her name’s Megan and she
said
she was his fiancée, and she’s pregnant.’

‘Christ alive, I can’t even think about it. Poor Bobby.’

‘Poor everyone. She looked like an unfortunate little thing, you know, Mills. Reminded me of us when we were younger. It bothered me that she was on her own.’

‘Well, it doesn’t bother me! I think it’s a bloody disgrace, coming here on the day we lay them to rest, causing trouble.’ Milly folded her arms indignantly.