Coronation Wives (22 page)

Another hungry rumble came from her stomach. Although her initial yearning had been for bread and cheese, the spicy contents of the saucepan drew her close. Steam rose from the meat and vegetables still hot despite the gas having been turned off. She tentatively dipped her finger into the mixture, brought it to her mouth and sucked on it. The taste was alien, but wonderful; a mix of many spices. She fetched a bowl down from the cupboard, a spoon from a drawer and carved a hunk of sweet-smelling bread from a new loaf. The contents of the
saucepan made a satisfying sound as they plopped into the bowl. After sitting down, she spread butter onto the bread and eagerly ate the bowl’s contents. Goodness, what had possessed Mrs Grey to cook such a delight? she thought.

After using the bread to sop up the last vestiges of the feast, she sat satisfied, her arm curved across her stomach. Full and contented, she contemplated whether to make herself a cup of tea straight away or investigate the possibility of pudding. There was bound to be a custard tart in the larder, perhaps a cold rice pudding, thick enough to slice in squares, or a piece of Dundee cake.

A need for anything vanished as Ivan came back. He was dressed in a clean white shirt and dark trousers. The top buttons of the shirt were undone exposing a few inches of gleaming, hairless chest. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows and not because they’re frayed, she thought. Faint stripes of dubious colour ran through the fabric. She was positive she’d seen it before and eventually remembered where she’d seen it. Ivan, she decided, was wearing one of Colin’s cast-offs.

Mindful of her mother’s instructions, she resolved to be polite, but not too friendly. Why should she?

‘I think Mrs Grey’s left you something on the stove,’ she said matter of factly. She took her dish and spoon to the sink and avoided looking at him.

‘No, she has not! I left
myself
something to eat. I cooked it.
Myself?
’

Two bottles of what looked to be brown ale thudded onto the table.

‘You have eaten my food!’ Ivan strode to the stove. His presence, like his voice, seemed to fill the room.

One part of Janet wanted to flee. The other half was defiant and would not be intimidated. She would stand her ground. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was yours.’

‘Never mind.’

He took a large plate from the rack above the gas rings and transferred the remaining contents of the saucepan onto it, cut bread and fetched a spoon – a tablespoon – much too large to eat it with. But eat he did, sitting at the table, shovelling the food into his mouth as quickly and as messily as possible, swigging from the opened bottle between mouthfuls, and all the time his eyes not leaving Janet’s face.

Her stomach rumbled in revulsion, partly due to his actions and partly because unknowingly she’d eaten something cooked by a man she couldn’t help regarding as an enemy. The urge to comment was too overpowering to ignore.

‘You’re disgusting!’

Another spoonful of food went into his mouth. His eyes stayed fixed on her face. ‘So as well as being a dirty Pole, I am now disgusting? Is this because I am foreign?’

Janet could not control her anger. After all this man had almost strangled her brother a moment ago. The fact that Geoffrey might have deserved it was beside the point.

‘Yes! Yes! Yes! Because of all those things,’ she hissed through clenched teeth, mindful of not disturbing her mother for a second time that evening. ‘Because of all those things! Because of everything!’

He shook his head and smiled. It was like torture. Torture! It was plain torture to have him here. He spooned the last morsel of food into his mouth. ‘What is “everything”?’

She wanted to look away, but didn’t want to retreat. She stared fixedly into his face. At last she said, ‘I don’t like upsets in my life.’

Ivan sprang to his feet, rested his hands on the table and leaned forward. His jaw continued to grind at his food. Fine features were just inches from her face, but she did not flinch or turn away.

‘Ah!’ he said with an air of sudden understanding.

He sat back down. His features softened, but the intensity of his eyes held her, kept her immobile, determined to be brave, determined not to run away.

‘Men,’ he said with a resolute nod. ‘You are afraid of men. One man above all others must have hurt you very much indeed. Yet it could not have been me. I have only met you one time before and I did not hurt you.’

She knew it! They’d met before!

‘Where?’ she asked, her voice trembling with emotion. ‘Where did we meet?’

He smiled and shook his head. ‘I leave you to remember. You will, when you are ready.’

There was something about his voice, the fact that he sounded like Charles Boyer with a very excellent foreign accent, the fact that it had softened, did not threaten. And yet she could not stay in the same room with him. He’d admitted they had met before. She too felt they had met before, but whereas he appeared to remember exactly where and when, she did not and that fact in itself frightened her.

There was something decadent about lying in bed with the sun streaming through the gap down the middle of the curtains. Sounds of a family preparing for the day ahead drifted up the stairs.

Susan sounded as though she’d taken charge of Peter. ‘This is your satchel,’ Edna could hear her saying. Peter was answering with a series of ‘Neighs’ as if in receipt of a nosebag full of oats rather than a tan leather satchel in which resided a plastic pencil case, school books and a collection of last year’s conkers.

Things seemed little changed. Was it possible they were managing without her?

Unable to resist finding out, Edna eased herself out of bed and placed her feet on the floor. Gradually she raised herself and took tentative steps to the bedroom door. Gripping the door handle to give herself support, she listened, aching to be part of a normal morning, but mindful that Colin would not approve.

‘Now come along, Pammy. Just a mouthful.’ The tone of Colin’s voice made her smile.

A loud wail soared in protest.

‘Now come on …’

Colin had oodles of patience, but she sensed by the sound of his voice it was running out.

There was a sudden clattering of crockery and cutlery hitting the floor. Pamela was not good in the mornings.

Edna smiled, turned and made her way back to bed. Things were fine enough for now, but it wouldn’t be long before they were missing her very sorely indeed.

Footsteps thundered up the stairs. She’d been expecting them.

Susan came in with the tray on which tea slopped from cup to saucer and a plate of buttered toast, which slid from one side to the other.

‘You have to eat it all up,’ said Susan as her mother took the tray from her.

‘I did the buttering,’ said Peter.

‘I can see that,’ said Edna with an amused smile as she eyed the thickly spread butter. She asked, ‘Have you brushed your teeth?’

They replied in unison. ‘Yes.’

‘Have you washed behind your ears?’

‘Yes, of course we have,’ said Susan, as though not to do so was too disgusting to contemplate. ‘Though
he
wasn’t keen,’ she added with a backwards glance at her younger brother.

She was sorry to hear the last goodbye and the door closing
on her departing family. The day would be long despite the copies of
Woman’s Realm
and
Titbits
that were delivered on a weekly basis. Colin was taking Pamela to work with him. ‘Is that wise?’ she’d asked when he’d first told her. He’d shaken his head at her as he might an errant child. ‘Would it be wise if I left her here and you picked her up or ran down the garden after her?’

He was right. It wasn’t easy to keep a two-year-old occupied. Shame, she thought, that the television wasn’t on all day. Pamela loved it, especially Muffin the Mule, a gangly puppet whose strings were obvious to adults but, apparently, not to children.

Colin left the back door unlocked. ‘Charlotte’s popping in lunchtime, so she said.’

‘If Charlotte said so, that means she’ll be here,’ said Edna as she made herself comfortable and flicked at a copy of
Woman’s Realm.

The district nurse came in at ten thirty to take her temperature and check that the bleeding had returned to normal.

Edna asked her a question that had been nagging her for days, one she hadn’t mentioned to Colin. ‘Will I still be able to have children?’

Sister Monica paused before answering, her attention riveted on her black bag that she was currently clipping shut. ‘Possibly, but you have to bear in mind that you’re getting older and have had three children already. You may very well get in the family way again, but there are no guarantees that you’ll carry to full term. I suggest that you be thankful for what God’s already given you.’

They were in exchange for Colin’s legs
, Edna wanted to say, but that would sound too bitter by far. They had to be grateful for the happiness they had. They couldn’t possibly be happy all the time.

When. the phone rang she made her way downstairs despite the fact that each step jarred and Colin had warned her to ignore it. Her father was phoning from the local phone box down by the park to check that everything was all right. She apologized for leaving so abruptly, and asked if he would be coming out to see her.

‘No,’ he began hesitantly, ‘what with yer mother how she is …’

‘Oh Dad!’ She felt and sounded exasperated.

Even now her mother was ruining her enforced confinement to bed, not that she knew it. Although completely illogical, it was hard not to feel that the illness was self-inflicted, that her mother had contracted
this
particular illness at
this
particular time in order to gain attention.

She struggled back up the stairs. She’d got halfway when the phone rang again. Carefully, so as not to slip or jar the fragile balance between pain and ordinary discomfort, she went back down the stairs and picked up the receiver.

‘Whore! Leave my husband alone! You slut! You cheap whore!’

Edna sank down onto the lyre-legged piano stool which served as a seat to telephone users. ‘Mother,’ she groaned, ‘why are you doing this?’

There was a sound of struggling on the other end of the line, followed by a click, then silence. Edna closed her eyes and rested her head against the wall. Her mother was just a shell, a crazy, empty shell. ‘In fact,’ Edna exclaimed with frustration, ‘she might just as well be dead!’

Charlotte swept into the bedroom on the stroke of one wearing a powder blue suit and a matching hat that seemed to consist of half a handful of swansdown. After the customary greeting, the fluffing up of pillows, and the administering of vegetable soup and lightly buttered bread, Charlotte served tea.

She just loves being in charge, thought Edna, and obediently ate and drank everything that was put before her.

‘Now remember,’ said Charlotte, ‘no getting up for at least two weeks.’

‘That’s ridiculous!’

‘Of course it’s not. You’ve been ill.’

‘No, I haven’t. I’ve had a miscarriage. It’s a perfectly natural part of being in the family way. Anyway, I can’t leave Colin to fend for himself. He’s tired out already.’

‘Oh Edna!’ Charlotte sounded totally exasperated.

Edna would not be moved. ‘As soon as I can, I’m out of this bed. Colin and the children need me.’

‘Don’t rush. Janet told me to tell you that she’ll call in for Susan and Peter this Saturday. At least that means you and Colin will only have Pamela to deal with. She said something about taking them to Clevedon.’

‘What a wonderful daughter you have,’ said Edna, sighing with contentment as she lay back against the pillows. ‘What with the miscarriage and my mother’s condition, I’d almost forgotten Janet and how much she enjoys being with the children. A day with just Colin and Pamela will be blissful – even if he does fuss. I didn’t think she would have time. Is she still seeing that young doctor she was sweet on?’

Charlotte looked at her askance.

Edna bit her lip and felt her face flush warm with embarrassment. ‘You didn’t know?’ she asked cautiously.

‘I thought there was someone, and Geoffrey hinted at it, but you know Janet, she keeps things to herself and Geoffrey is not always around, not that he’d say much if he was.’

Edna sensed Charlotte’s disappointment that Janet had not mentioned having a new boyfriend. I wonder what she’d say, she thought, if she knew that Janet had also trusted me with her darkest secret of all?

‘It can’t be very serious if she hasn’t told me,’ said Charlotte.

‘No. And you have been very busy lately,’ returned Edna, licking her dry lips and avoiding Charlotte’s eyes. Best if the conversation was taken in another direction. She avoided asking Charlotte about her Polish refugees. Once her friend got onto that particular path there’d be no stopping her. She’d heard quite enough about Ivan and his compatriots already. She tried another tack. ‘Janet was saying something about a letter from Germany,’ she said suddenly. ‘She seemed to think it was something to do with me and was from a man named Josef.’

Charlotte looked at her blankly and forced a laugh. ‘I’m sure I don’t know what she means.’ She suddenly remembered seeing Janet in the study late one night, the file lying open on the desk. If only Janet had been more discreet, though it didn’t sound as though she’d told Edna the contents of the letters. And now was not the right time, she decided.

Edna perceived a stiffening of the flesh, a clenching of the jaw, almost as if Charlotte was trying to hold something back. She remembered the orphanage and the German prisoner of war who worked there. Charlotte had got him that job. She’d seen them in the grounds sometimes watching the playing children while she’d leaned over Sherman’s cot and tickled his chin. She remembered the looks that had passed between them. Never had she seen Charlotte look so beautiful, so completely enthralled. ‘Was it the man who worked at the orphanage?’ she asked.

Charlotte clasped her hands tightly together and looked down at them, running her tongue nervously along her lips. ‘Yes. I did have a letter from him.’ She looked up and smiled. ‘He asked to be remembered to you.’