Now the War Is Over (40 page)

She was sorry for asking then.

They set off along the green paths of the hills, Reggie with his stick. Melly found the pace soothing. She kept thinking how odd it felt to be here with Reggie of all people. She imagined how
she would have felt if she was twelve. Oh, how she had worshipped him! She thought he was the be-all and end-all. All that hanging about in the yard, waiting for him to put in an appearance. She
smiled at the thought of herself.

They stopped at the top of the high hill. A haze hung over the city, which looked like a model in the distance.

‘Doesn’t look real, does it?’ Reggie said.

‘I can’t believe that’s really where we live,’ she said. She glanced at Reggie. He was staring into the far distance. ‘D’you remember that time you took me
out on the bike?’

Again, she wanted to bite her tongue out – fancy coming out with that after what had happened to Wally! But Reggie didn’t appear to be offended. He seemed glad that she’d
brought it up and made an amused sound.

‘Why did you?’

‘Dunno.’ He pushed his left hand down into his pocket. ‘Probably felt sorry for you. You were always hanging about on your own.’

‘Is that why you brought me out today? Cos you feel sorry for me?’

Her tone was sharper than she intended and Reggie looked uncomfortable. Straight away she felt drab and severe-looking again and wished she hadn’t said anything.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Well, maybe – a bit. But it wasn’t just that.’ He paused. ‘I thought you’d like it.’

‘I do.’ She relented. She liked it more than she had expected. It felt good to be out, to be high up. She could breathe more easily. But she didn’t want to feel pathetic, like
some charity case.

After a moment she realized Reggie was looking at her, closely, seeming to search her with his eyes.

‘Auntie said you’d been having a rough time – that’s all.’

‘Oh,
did
she?’ Now she sounded really irritable and didn’t mean that either. ‘Come on – let’s get going.’

They strolled along hardly noticing where they were going between the trees, talking more lightly. Reggie told her about the family, how his brothers were getting along, about his job.

‘I never expected to do anything like this,’ he said. He seemed to come fully alive talking about it. ‘Growing up where we did – I hardly knew what a blade of grass
looked like, never mind all the stuff I know now! I s’pose I’ve got the accident to thank for it. If that hadn’t happened, I’d’ve just stayed on where I was, at GEC,
even after the army. I know Mom and Dad got that money – that made a difference in a way. But it was smashing my leg up that did it really. It changed everything.’

‘You’ve had a rough time as well,’ she said.

There was a silence.

‘I think about him every day.’ Reggie sounded awkward, but as if he needed to say it. ‘Wal. I wonder what he’d be doing. If we hadn’t . . . You know.’

‘Having adventures, I expect. Like he always did.’ She didn’t know what made her say that. Truly, she’d barely known Wally Morrison, as he was even older than Reggie. But
he had been such a lively, good-looking man. Reggie gave a little laugh.

‘Yeah. You bet.’ He seemed pleased by what she said. ‘There’s not that many people remember him, except the family.’

‘Oh,’ she said, and added, because it would please him, ‘I remember him.’

‘He was the one with the looks,’ he said, teasing a little.

‘Not just him,’ she said, teasing him back as he fished for compliments. ‘Freddie’s a looker as well. Cissy used to like him – remember?’

‘I’d forgotten that. Well, Freddie’s going about with a girl called Sal now – she’s all right. Doesn’t take any of his nonsense.’

They walked in single file for a moment along a narrow part of the path. Melly watched Reggie as he stepped ahead of her, supported by the stick. His injured hip still made his tread uneven but
the sight of him walking moved her with tenderness. He had always been wiry, but the outdoor life had made him much broader and stronger than the pale lad she remembered.

As she rejoined him at his side, to walk down a wooded slope, he said almost casually, ‘So, what happened to you, Melly?’

‘Happened?’ Her heart started thudding unpleasantly.

‘At the hospital. You wanted to be a nurse, didn’t you?’

Wanted. Past tense.

‘I . . .’ Abruptly, with no warning, she was sweating, her heart pounding. It was like going right back into it, the panic, the stifling sense of horror.

‘Hey . . .’ Reggie turned and saw that his question had stirred her up. ‘Sorry, Melly. I dain’t mean to . . . Shall we sit down for a bit – here.’

He led her to a grassy lip beside the path. She sank down, grateful, feeling the cool of grass stems at the backs of her legs. Without knowing it was going to happen she was heaving with deep,
wrenching sobs. She heard the rough, distraught sounds as if they were coming from someone else. Her chest heaved and she gasped for each breath.

‘Hey,’ Reggie said. ‘There now. It’s all right. I dain’t mean to make you cry . . .’

She felt his arm round her shoulders, his solid strength beside her as she screwed her eyes shut, falling into a dark place of scattered images – Mr Alexander on the floor; blood, so much
blood; and above all terror and panic. For a few moments she knew nothing except this place where there was no base, nothing to catch her, just a sense of falling, of darkness and fear. Only when
she began to surface, to let cracks of light between her wet lids, did she realize she was shaking all over, her knees jerking up and down.

‘Melly,’ Reggie was saying. Then louder, ‘Melly! Open your eyes. It’s all right. Don’t, don’t – it’s all right.’

Only then did she realize that what had held her and stopped her from falling endlessly was Reggie’s arm and his voice, talking, making reassuring noises.

He didn’t ask her anything until she was calmer and the shaking had almost stopped. She sat for a time, stunned, as if all she wanted to do was sink into sleep, there on the path. He was
gentle and didn’t push her, or say anything. He kept his arm about her back to steady her and he waited. Of all the things anyone had ever done for her, she was grateful for this, his sitting
there, waiting.

Eventually, she pulled her hands over her eyes to dry her tears. She found herself yawning.

‘Sorry,’ she said, very quietly, embarrassed now. ‘I never meant for that to happen.’

She turned to Reggie. In his eyes she could see bewilderment, but also that she had not frightened him away. He was here.

‘It’s all right,’ he said.

They sat for a few more moments and then he said:

‘What the hell happened, Melly – in that hospital?’

As they walked on, she tried to explain.

‘I s’pose it was all a build-up of things,’ she said. She felt limp and exhausted, but cleansed as well. ‘No one tells you what it’s going to be like. They
can’t, really. It’s – well, it’s life and death. Only it’s one thing to say that but when you’re there . . . The only death I really knew about before was Wally.
And I don’t know if I really took that in. Not exactly. Anyway, there were other deaths before, on other wards. And it wasn’t just
death
, exactly – it was . . . I
don’t know.’

She walked along, struggling still to understand it for herself.

‘When you’re working there, they’re very strict about not getting close to patients, and if anything happens no one wants to talk about it. It’s the professional thing.
The patients think we’re all angels and we have to behave as if nothing affects us.’

‘Sounds like the army,’ Reggie said. ‘Well, except for the angels bit. It’s more, you know, fighting men – made of stone.’

She looked at him. ‘Yes, I suppose so. I hadn’t thought of it like that. And you can’t go blarting all over the patients, can you? Or running about in a panic. That’s no
help. But I don’t know how you’re supposed to . . . Anyway, there was Mr Palmer – he was a black man . . .’

She told him about Mr Palmer and Mr Stafford and finally Mr Alexander, that image she could not shake from her head of looking along the ward, seeing his body prone in the doorway. The body of a
young, good-looking man who moments before had been walking along, getting better . . .

‘God,’ Reggie said.

‘One minute he’s talking to me about poetry and all sorts – the next . . .’

She stopped, shaking her head. ‘It’s . . . you feel you can’t control
anything
. It’s all slipping away and . . . and . . .’ She couldn’t say it, not
to him –
Whenever I love someone, something terrible happens.

‘Yeah,’ was all Reggie said. But he said it as if he had some idea what she was talking about.

She looked at him again. He smiled, shyly, then looked away.

‘How about we go and get a cup of tea?’ he said. ‘I could do with one, I don’t know about you.’

They had tea and scones in the Lickey Hills tea rooms just before they closed.

Once they got there, Melly felt wrung out and distant again, even though he had been kind and helped her. She couldn’t help it; she seemed to shut down inside. By the time they got back to
Harborne she was wiped out and needing to sleep.

‘So – you’re at work tomorrow?’ he said as they drew up at the house.

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘Shame.’ He helped her out of the car. A real gent, she thought later but at the time she was desperate to go and lie down. She hardly knew what she was saying.

‘It’s been really nice, Reggie, thanks. And I hope everything goes well for you when you get back to Worcester.’

‘Right – thanks.’ He seemed deflated. As if he was disappointed but trying not to show it. ‘Nice to see you, Melly.’

She waved him off from the front. Going into the house, she went straight up to her room. The rest of the family were watching telly. Canned laughter floated up the stairs. She lay straight down
on her bed and fell asleep.

How long am I going to go on feeling like this? Melly thought as she walked home from work the next afternoon. I’m like an old lady.

A day in the sweet shop was not difficult but it still wore her out. Her feet ached. She could not clear her muzzy head. All she wanted was to go home and lie down.

As she was nearing the house, her heartbeat picked up speed at the sight of two people standing outside, talking. Tommy’s blue three-wheeler was parked and in front of it, the red sports
car. By the three-wheeler was Tommy, leaning on his stick, talking to Reggie Morrison who was leaning on his. Like two old men, she thought sadly. But what was Reggie doing here again? She thought
she had said a final goodbye to him yesterday.

Surely Reggie was not interested in her – especially after all her carry-on yesterday? She realized she still saw Reggie as someone much older, more superior than herself. But a little,
remembered pulse of excitement began to beat in her again.
Reggie . . . Reggie Morrison . . .

The two of them were bent over the Invacar, Tommy showing Reggie the controls. Melly was tempted to slip past into the house but they both looked up as she came along.

‘Reggie’s here!’ Tommy announced happily.

‘Yeah,’ Melly said. ‘I can see. All right, Reggie?’

She turned away but Reggie hurried after her.

‘Melly?’ He touched her arm to stop her. ‘I just came over to see if you . . . Well, if you was feeling better. You . . . We . . .’ He seemed flustered. In the afternoon
light she saw a scattering of stubble in his chin, like salt. He spoke fast as if he was afraid she might reject him before he had finished.

‘We never said goodbye proper, like. And I wanted to see if Auntie’s any better and . . .’ He was almost gabbling. ‘Today – I was going to go over to Wally’s
grave and I thought you might come with me and Mom and Dad said to bring you in to say hello – they haven’t seen you in ages.’

This was true. But why on earth did Reggie want her company when she was so miserable and drab? He must feel sorry for her, that was what it was. She shrugged.

‘All right. If you want.’ She kept her voice flat. ‘I could do with a cup of tea first, though. Come in and see Auntie. She’s a bit better.’

‘All right,’ he said. ‘Afterwards?’

‘Yeah. I
said
– yes.’ She heard her own sharpness again. She could not understand herself.

Tommy went to stow his car away. Reggie went up to see Gladys and after a quick cuppa with the family, they set out in the car again.

Melly told herself grumpily that whatever Reggie wanted it wasn’t her. It might just have been company of any kind. She sat back in the cramped car seat, telling herself that none of it
mattered anyway.

‘Auntie’s not looking too good,’ Reggie remarked.

‘She’s got a bit of a chest,’ Melly said. ‘But she is better. You should’ve seen her the other night.’

‘She knows she can’t go back there, doesn’t she?’

‘Did she say that? Dad says she can’t – the place is in a right state.’ They swung towards town. Wally was buried the other side, in Witton cemetery. ‘She was going
to have to get out sooner or later.’

‘Stubborn old bird she is. She doesn’t like being forced into it.’ He shook his head. ‘Funny, isn’t it – the old end. Mom and Dad always say there was nowhere
like it, even though where they live now’s like a palace to that.’

‘Mo’s still going back to the Salutation, isn’t he? It’s not as if everyone was nice, though,’ Melly said. She couldn’t look at the shabby, broken-down yard
through rose-tinted spectacles. ‘Lil was always nice – she’s still hanging on. But some of them . . .’

‘Old Jackman and his missis – miserable pair of sods. And d’you remember that lot at number four – the blonde?’

‘Irene Sutton. Oh, God,’ Melly said, laughing at the memory of her. ‘And poor little Evie. Auntie said she saw her – a while back – in town. Said she was ever so
pretty.’

‘She always was sweet looking from what I remember.’

‘That terrible mother of hers . . .’

‘D’you want the roof down?’

‘Not if you want to hear yourself think,’ Melly said.

Reggie glanced at her. ‘No. All right then.’