Polly's War (33 page)

‘Why? Were you chased?’

He turned upon her, brandishing the poker, his eyes matching it with a glowing fury. ‘For God’s sake, how many times do I have to tell you?
I don’t like talking about it
!’ Heart racing, Lucy saw that she’d pushed him too far.

‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured. Going to him she took the poker from his shaking hand and slid it back in the stand, then rested a soft hand upon his shoulder. ‘Perhaps we should leave it for now.’ He’d clearly suffered far more than she realised. Tom turned to her with a tight little sob and sank into her arms, burying his face into her shoulder. The raw vulnerability of his despair shook her and she helplessly smoothed his shoulder, patted his back, trying to share his pain as he gulped on his sobs.

Later, as he sat sipping the tea she made him, he talked a little and Lucy listened in shamed gratitude. ‘You’ve no idea what we suffered in those camps. Starvation, torture, locked in solitary if we stepped out of line,’ he fabricated, remembering what he’d read about such places in the newspaper reports he devoured every day. ‘After I’d got away, I could’ve been recaptured at any time, tortured, killed. Can you imagine how that sort of terror feels?’

 
Lucy felt hot with shame and pity at having interrogated him so hard. ‘Oh, Tom, I should keep my nagging tongue still, I really should. It was just that I wanted to understand what you’ve been through, so that I know how to help you.’

He put down the cup, looked her straight in the eyes and there was such sorrow in his face, such an aching sadness that a knot of agony rose in her throat. ‘You can help me best, Lucy, by giving the final heave-ho to that Michael Hopkins, to getting him out of our lives for good.’ Then firmly and possessively he pulled her close into his arms and kissed her while Lucy, as so many times before, did her utmost to respond.

The scent of the cigarette he’d smoked, the warmth and closeness of him, rekindled memories of long forgotten pleasures they’d once enjoyed together. He was still an attractive man and even if she couldn’t love him quite as she did Michael, she was still fond of Tom and felt guilty at having let him down, and of causing him to mistrust her. Didn’t he deserve some happiness at least, after suffering such untold horrors that he couldn’t even bear to speak of them? Now she’d forced him to recall those painful memories, and caused him to break down. Her guilt intensified.

‘How about that day’s fishing you keep promising our Sean. It’s Whit Monday tomorrow, a holiday. I’ll put up a picnic and we’ll have a day out, as a family. See how we get on.’ He really didn’t deserve to be hurt any more, not after everything he’d been through. She should remember that.

He seemed pleased by the suggestion and Lucy asked no more questions, nor gave him any further arguments. She allowed him to take her to bed, hoping against hope that this time when he made love to her, he would be patient. She lay her head against his chest, let him stroke her hair, her buttocks, her breasts, steadfastly setting the image of Michael aside but, as always, he was as selfish and clumsy as ever. He turned her on to her back and took her as if he were barely aware of her as a person, simply using her to satisfy his lust. Valiantly she fought against the tears that brimmed in her eyes. The only relief being that, as usual, it was over mercifully quickly, then he lay with his back to her on the far side of the bed.

‘Goodnight Tom,’ she said. He didn’t reply, nor did he trouble her again that night, for which she was unutterably grateful as she nursed her soreness.

Chapter Twenty-One

It was a gold and emerald spring day, the sky a bright blue with fluffy white clouds as fat as pillows and a light breeze to take the edge off the intense heat. They caught a bus along Oldham Road and walked down Ashton Road to Woodhouses. From here they followed the path down by the cricket club which led to the River Medlock where they were deep in the countryside and the air was sweet yet just moments from the city centre. What a wonder it all seemed. Birds sang, dragonflies skated on the quiet waters, and the grass verge was starred with oxeye daisies, red campion and stitch-wort. The children ran ahead, constantly chastised by Lucy not to go too far, or too near the water.

‘What a worry children are. It’s a wonder you decided to return, knowing all this responsibility was waiting for you.’ She slanted a glance at Tom, half hoping he would snatch the opportunity she offered to admit he hadn’t returned out of love for her but only because of a sense of duty to his children. Would knowing that fact release her from any sense of duty to him? Lucy found herself holding her breath while Tom stopped, as if needing time to consider, letting his gaze travel slowly over her.

Lucy felt herself grow hot beneath his scrutiny. Because she’d felt so down lately, much of the time she looked as if she’d dressed herself from the rag bag, a far cry from the Lucy of old; her hair too often fastened up, as wartime fashion had dictated, in a scarf which she wore like a turban with the tails tucked in. Today she’d let her hair fly loose in the breeze and she could feel her cheeks flushed pink by the breeze, knew his gaze lingered on her lips, rosy with the lipstick she’d applied, as if inviting kisses. She wished, in that moment, she hadn’t indulged her vanity quite so recklessly, when the last thing she wanted was to attract his attentions.

He drew her close to his side. ‘Remembering the children was what kept me going. They’re a part of you, so how could I wish to be without them?’

She felt strangely moved by his words, tears springing readily to her eyes. ‘Oh Tom, what a lovely thing to say.’

‘Besides, I flatter myself that Sean and I are getting along better these days.’

‘Which is the reason you are loaded down with fishing rod, nets and jam-jars,’ she said, laughing.

‘Exactly.’

‘I’m going to catch a big whopper,’ Sean announced, running back to them at the sound of his own name.

‘Are you? Well that’ll solve what we have for our tea.’ Lucy’s eyes were dancing as she walked along beside her husband, almost as if they were a normal family, and she wondered if her foolish suspicions had made her misjudge him. Perhaps he was jumpy because he was finding it hard to settle, and not because he’d lied at all.

It was indeed a delightful afternoon. Lucy’s worries that he might try to kiss her dissolved as they ate a huge picnic from the basket she’d brought then lay about on the grass, content to watch the children play and giggle at silly jokes. Sarah Jane took great delight in waving to all the passing barges, declaring her earnest intention to live on one because she loved all those pretty flowers they had painted on them. Lucy said her daughter would be better suited to a coal barge, considering the state of her frock, while Sean was in his element fishing. He cast his line like an expert, after Michael’s careful tuition, without any fear of his ending up in the water himself. He even caught two fish, admittedly small, due largely to the patient assistance of his father. He didn’t stop talking about his prize all day. Today Lucy saw a different Tom Shackleton, one who seemed quite his old self, cheerful, joking and relaxed as if anxious to re-establish himself with his family, and with his wife.

After lunch they picked bluebells in the Clough then walked on, following the path by the river to Daisy Nook.
 

‘For years I thought of nothing but getting back home to you, wanting to make things right.’ He turned his face away, his gaze fixed with a melancholy sadness upon the rickety bridge ahead of them, so that she wasn’t able to judge whether he truly meant what he said. When he did turn to her, she saw a strangeness in his eyes, as if he were in some distant place where she couldn’t quite reach him. ‘But you’re right. It has been hard coming back. I lived in a village in the Italian mountains for a long time. It was an unusual sort of life but I grew used to it.’
 

Lucy held her breath. Would he reveal more? She waited and hoped but he seemed to snap back to the present, a dreadful bleakness in his gaze.
 

‘Don’t
you
ever leave me, Lucy. How would I manage without you?’

‘I do appreciate how hard it’s been for you Tom,’ she said, alarmed by his plea and she could have sworn there were tears in his eyes, not for a moment considering they might be manufactured by self-pity. ‘Really I do. Perhaps if you talked about it more, it would make it easier?’

He didn’t seem to hear her. ‘I want us to be happy, to be safe. I want to make up for the time we’ve lost. I’ve got myself a good job, found us a house, even put a bit by for a rainy day. What else should I do? Tell me, Lucy, and I’ll do it.’

She felt close to panic, almost as if she were being suffocated. She’d meant to break free, now she felt more entangled than ever. How could she leave him without seeming as if she was letting him down when he needed her the most? ‘I don’t know, I really don’t know what to say.’ She was thankfully saved from her dilemma by Sean who came running pell-mell back to her. ‘Mam, Mam. There’s a lake, and boats. Can we go on one. Can we?’

They’d reached Crime Lake about which there were a multitude of yarns about its bottomless state, legends of ghosties and ghoulies, no doubt all intended to keep curious children from venturing too near the water. Tom hired a boat and took them all out in it. Lucy lay back, trailing her fingers in the cool water and felt a new confidence flow through her veins. They were at least getting along better. Today had been good for them both and perhaps in future he would relax more and not feel the need to bully her in his typical army fashion. He’d opened up a little this weekend. Perhaps that too was a good sign, one she could encourage.

It was after she’d put the children to bed, both near dead on their feet from tiredness and the excitement of the day, and she was preparing vegetables for a quick stew, that it all started to go wrong. He began by saying what a lovely day they’d enjoyed and Lucy agreed.

 
‘We could move if you like,’ he suggested, quite out of the blue and in his most reasonable tone. ‘We could leave this house, this city and go somewhere fresh. Just you, me, and the childer. I’d like that.’

Lucy felt a jolt of panic. ‘Why would I want to? Manchester is my home.’

‘There are plenty places just as good. Better, in fact,’ he smilingly told her. ‘I could buy us a little business of us own. Why not? Then you could work for me. Some place abroad where the weather’s better, far away from the grubby wharves of Castlefield and nosy old Pansy Street. Like I said, I’ve a bit put by.’

Lucy picked up a carrot and began to scrape it clean. What was he saying? She wondered how he could have come by any money. He surely didn’t earn enough labouring for Polly to have much in the way of saving. She longed to summon enough courage to tell him that it was all over between them, that she’d no wish to work in a little business with him, that it was Michael she loved with all her heart and soul, with every ounce of her being. But she daren’t take the risk. He was so volatile, with such mercurial changes of mood. Heavens, she couldn’t deal with him like this, she really couldn’t.

As if reading her thoughts, he hissed, ‘Michael Hopkins isn’t right for you. He’s a weak fool. A bloody conchie.’

‘He isn’t,’ Lucy retorted, instantly on the defensive and going all hot and flustered. ‘He’s a fine man and I love him.’

‘No you don’t.’ Tom lurched towards her with such violence that she jumped back, startled by this burst of ferocity. The knife she’d been holding fell with a clatter to the floor and he snatched it up. Holding it in his fist, he stabbed the table in front of her, over and over in a ferocious outburst of temper, punctuating every word. ‘
You only- went - with - him - because - you - were - missing
 
- me
.’

She was stunned by this outburst. Shocked by his violence.

‘Lots of women have had affairs during this war, but when their husbands came home, they gave their lover-boys up.’

Lucy could only gaze in horror at the row of holes in her table, a tremor of fear crawling up her spine.

 
Seeing her expression Tom let his shoulders droop and he placed the knife down on the table, straightening it meticulously then grinned up at her, shamefaced. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to alarm you. I get carried away sometimes.’ Very gently he reached out a hand to stroke her cheek and she managed not to flinch as his voice dropped to a soft whisper. ‘But it’s all right. I’ve forgiven you, Lucy. You should be grateful I’m prepared to let the past go. I can’t say fairer than that, now can I? You wouldn’t want me to have to defend my honour, as it were? Or for anything nasty to happen to lover-boy, now would you?’

She gave a tiny shake of her head, anxious to appease him, to put an end to this appalling conversation before his temper flared again. What did he mean about something nasty happening to Michael? This day, this marriage, was all going terribly wrong, sliding out of her control.

But he was still smiling at her, saying what a lovely day they’d had and must repeat it some time soon. ‘Now, is this dinner ever going to be ready? I’m sick of waiting.’ Reaching for a potato he began to peel it, taking painstaking care to bring off the peel in long thin slivers. With shaking hands, Lucy picked up a carrot.

That night he cried in her arms, whimpering that he might have hurt her through his ungovernable temper and all because of what the war had done to him. He begged her again not to leave him and Lucy felt that the fragility of his mind was such that if she did, he might break down completely. Goodness knows what would happen then. She knew she should leave, run far, far away, but couldn’t quite summon up the courage to do so. But how could she possibly escape? And if she did, he might hurt himself. He might hurt her, or even the children? There seemed no help for it but to continue to live as a dutiful and loyal wife.