Primrose Square (30 page)

His eyes flashed with pleasurable fire and for a moment she saw again the old Barry, the cheerful, devil-may-care fellow she'd fallen in love with. Though no longer in love, she was deeply compassionate for him, determined to pull him back from the brink of despair, to make him see that life was still worth living. As quickly as it had appeared, the old image faded, yet there was still something of it there, some sign of a spirit that might give him the courage to go on.

‘Why, Elinor,' he said quietly, ‘you're quite a tonic, eh? I think it should be you doing the major's job.'

‘I want to do what I can to help. Listen, if you get your artificial leg, you'll be able to lead a life the same as anyone else. No' kicking a football, but doing plenty of other things, learning new skills and all such as that. Why throw everything away, Barry? Promise me you never will.'

He took his hand from hers, drew on his cigarette.

‘Maybe later. Will that do?'

‘Have I made you feel any better?'

‘You have. This is the best afternoon I've had since I don't know when.'

‘I'm glad. Maybe we'd better go back now.'

‘I'll get the bill. Now that's something I can do, eh?'

They returned through the darkening streets, where the shoppers were still jostling outside the lighted shops, turned at Maule's Corner and arrived back at the Primrose.

‘Easy does it,' said a patient who had also been out for a walk. ‘Let me help you up the ramp, eh?'

‘Thanks, that's very kind,' Elinor told him, as the young soldier helped her to pull Barry's wheelchair up the ramp on the front steps.

‘Any time.'

He touched his cap and ran ahead, but as she and Barry progressed through the hall to the lift, she saw with a sinking heart that a shutter had come down once more over Barry's face. Needing another man to help him had brought it home to him, it seemed, that he was in a wheelchair, and for a moment she thought that all her efforts to cheer him had been wasted, that he was back to what he had been. In the lift, however, his expression lightened and he smiled.

‘Elinor, that was grand,' he said quietly. ‘When can we go out again?'

Fifty-Six

Another wartime Christmas arrived. That year, Elinor was on duty with Brenda at the Primrose over the holiday, but didn't mind. The atmosphere was relaxed and they enjoyed giving those patients who couldn't spend the day away as good a time as possible. These did not include Barry who had, after all, been invited by Bettina for Christmas dinner, along with her Alfie who had managed to come home on leave from his ship.

‘That's put her in a sweeter mood,' Barry informed Elinor. ‘Doesn't mind me being out of the war now Alfie's home for a bit.'

‘You just do your best to enjoy the day,' Elinor told him, ‘and don't make Bettina out to be worse than she is.'

‘You're too nice, that's your trouble,' he said with a smile, but was pleased when Bettina herself splashed out on a taxi to collect him and expressed herself delighted with his present of a bottle of scent, chosen on his behalf by Elinor.

‘You really seem to get on well with our Barry,' Brenda remarked, after Elinor had waved him off. ‘You sure he's not getting too keen?'

‘On me? No, that's out of the question.'

‘Why? Patients do get attached to medical staff, it's well known.'

‘Doctors, maybe, but I'm no doctor.' Elinor hesitated. ‘Thing is, I haven't told you this before – was too embarrassed – but he's the one.'

‘The one?'

‘The one I went out with and it all came to nothing.'

‘Elinor!' Brenda's eyes widened. ‘How awkward for you, having him here!'

‘I thought it would be, but it's been fine. I felt bitter at the time we split up because he didn't want me, but that's all in the past. Now I feel so sorry for him, I just want to help him.'

‘Oh, well, that's all right, then. But take care he doesn't see something that's not there.'

‘All he wants is to be as he was before. I honestly don't think he's interested in me at all.'

Hessie, though, when Elinor saw her at Hogmanay, wasn't so sure about that.

‘I bet he is falling for you, Elinor, when you do so much for him. Canna blame him, eh? Though I blamed him plenty after the way he treated you. Now, I suppose, we've to forgive and forget. Poor laddie, eh?'

‘Ma, you're like everybody else, thinking Barry's sweet on me, but it just isn't true. He showed me pretty clearly what he wanted when we split up and it wasn't me.'

‘Aye, but things are different now, eh?'

Hessie began setting out her one bottle of port and the remains of her Christmas cake, in preparation for the visit of Mrs Elder, the dressmaker, who was coming round to see the New Year in with her young daughter, Sally.

‘But you be careful, eh?' she went on. ‘It'd no' be a bed o' roses, married to a fellow who's lost a leg and is feeling blue all the time. You make it clear, you're no' getting involved.'

‘Oh, Ma,' Elinor sighed. ‘There'll be no marriage, I can promise you.'

‘Here they come,' was all her mother said, as the visitors arrived. ‘Open the damper of the range, Elinor, let's get a bit of warmth.'

And it was pleasant, sitting together, waiting for the clock to strike twelve and usher in 1917, but Elinor did wonder if things weren't a little boring for seventeen-year-old Sally. Shouldn't she have been out at the Tron Kirk with friends? It was the traditional place to see in the New Year, after all.

‘Och, no!' her mother cried. ‘She's far too young for that. I'd never have a minute's peace if she was out in the town for Hogmanay.'

‘Plenty of lassies my age go to the Tron,' Sally, dark-haired and pretty, said sulkily, but it was plain she knew she'd get nowhere with her mother, who was still looking worried, and said no more.

‘Shall I put the drinks out now, to be ready?' Hessie asked. ‘There's lemonade for Sally, if she doesn't like port, and we might as well cut the cake.'

As she busied herself pouring drinks and slicing the cake, she sighed a little.

‘This is when you think of the missing ones, eh? Walt always liked his dram at Hogmanay.'

And other times, thought Elinor.

‘My Keith was the same,' Freda remarked. ‘And then there's your Corrie, Hessie. Shame he couldn't have got more leave.'

‘Is that him there?' Sally asked, studying a photo of Corrie on the shelf over the range. Wearing his uniform, he'd been taken against the mysterious background of a battleship – the photographer's choice – and was looking very young and rather startled. ‘Isn't he handsome?'

‘He is,' Hessie said fondly. ‘You'll have to meet him when he next comes home.'

‘I'd like to,' Sally cried with such enthusiasm that her mother and Hessie exchanged glances. ‘Be sure to tell me when he comes.'

‘You could write to him, you know,' Elinor suggested. ‘Soldiers love getting letters.'

‘I don't know him, though.'

‘You could be what they call a pen friend. A lot of women write to the soldiers that way.'

‘I'm better at sewing than writing,' Sally admitted, with a giggle. ‘But I could have a go. Will you tell me where to write?'

‘I'll find the address for you now.'

‘No, wait,' ordered Hessie. ‘Look at the clock. Nearly twelve. Get ready, everybody!'

All four rose, glasses in hand, their eyes on the hands of the old mantel clock, and as the hands moved to twelve and the clock began to strike, Hessie cried, ‘To 1917! Happy New Year! May it bring peace to us all.' Her voice trembling a little, she added, ‘And bring the laddies safely home.'

‘To 1917,' the others echoed, drinking the toast. ‘Happy New Year!'

They exchanged hugs and kisses and shed a few tears, as Corrie looked gravely on from his photograph. With them in spirit, his mother and sister said, from wherever he was, at the beginning of another year of war.

Fifty-Seven

After all that had been said about Barry's possible feelings for her, Elinor felt a certain diffidence about seeing him again after New Year, but all was well. She could detect no change in his preoccupation with his own situation, and though she did sometimes find his eyes resting on her, she decided she'd been right and everyone else wrong over his attachment to her.

Which meant their little outings could continue with no worries, except perhaps for the winter weather, which was bitterly cold, sometimes wet, sometimes snowy, but not usually bad enough to keep them in.

‘Thank God,' Barry commented, as they set out one February afternoon, muffled to the eyebrows. ‘I couldn't stand being indoors any longer. First, there's old Henderson, jawing away, then that nurse giving me exercises, bending me around till I feel like swearing in her ear. When am I going to get away, then, Elinor? When's the sentence up?'

‘Depends how soon you get better.'

He twisted round in his wheelchair to look at her.

‘They canna do anything for me. I'm never going to get better.'

‘Oh, Barry, don't say that! I hate to hear you talk like that, after all we're trying to do.'

She had been pushing him along the paths in the Princes Street gardens, but was beginning to feel numb with the cold and afraid that it was too cold for Barry, having to sit in his chair. Better go back.

‘No!' cried Barry. ‘No' yet, Elinor. We usually have tea, eh? I canna face going back just yet.'

‘It's just so cold  . . .'

‘We'll get warm in the café. Come on, if you want to help me, this is the way.'

She gave in, turning his wheelchair to return to Princes Street, crossing over and moving into George Street, the wind all the time cutting through their clothes, turning their noses red and their hands white, until they reached the haven of the café.

‘They know us here now,' Barry remarked, as the waitress smiled and took their order. ‘Wonder who they think we are? Brother and sister? No, we look too different. A couple of lovers?'

Elinor's head jerked up, but he only grinned.

‘No, I expect they realize, you're my nurse and I'm your patient.'

‘Did you mean it?' she asked, putting her hands to her face, which was gradually becoming less cold. ‘When you said you'd never get better?'

He made no reply, only stirred the tea she gave him.

‘Like one of these buns?' she asked.

‘Please.'

Still he said nothing, until she'd set the buttered bun on his plate, when he leaned forward and fixed her with his intense gaze.

‘I did mean it, Elinor. I'll never get better  . . . unless you're with me.'

‘Me? I don't understand. I'm with you now. Why do you say you won't get better, then?'

‘You call pushing me out in a wheelchair being with me? Making my bed? Running the hospital bath? Looking after me, Elinor, that's no' what I want.'

‘What do you want?' she asked fearfully.

‘I want you to marry me.'

Colour flooded her face and receded, as she desperately drank some tea and tried to think what to say, as he kept on looking at her with those eyes that could seem so dead but were now so much alive.

‘I've had time to think in the Primrose, you know,' he continued. ‘I've had time to see what a fool I was, back in 1914 when I joined up. You wanted us to marry and I didn't want to be tied down.' He gave a short laugh. ‘Tied down? I guess I'm tied down now, all right. Stuck fast, eh? But you were right. We should've married. I see that now, and though I've no right to ask you to take on a cripple—'

‘Don't call yourself that!'

‘It's the truth, it's what I am.'

‘When you get your artificial leg  . . .'

‘When! That's so far away, I can forget it. As I say, I've no right to ask you to take me on now, but I'm asking, anyway. I feel you're my only hope. You're all that stands between me and  . . .'

He fell silent, began to eat the currant bun, mechanically chewing, as though it had no taste, and after a moment, Elinor ate hers.

‘More tea?' she whispered.

He nodded and she filled his cup. Then their eyes met.

‘What do you say?' he asked hoarsely.

What could she say? She was all that stood between him and  . . . what? What did he mean? The sea at Musselburgh? No, surely he'd got beyond that? He'd realized there was a life for him after his amputation; she'd made him see that, hadn't she? Seemingly not.

‘I'll never get better unless you're with me,' he had said.

So what could she say?

‘I'll have  . . . I'll have to think about it.'

‘But you're no' turning me down? You'll think about it?'

‘I will, I'll think about it.'

A smile lit his face, his eyes shone, and he reached over to press her hand.

‘Elinor, you don't know what this means to me. That there's a chance  . . . Listen, I want to thank you—'

‘No, wait, wait till later.' Her eyes went round the tea room away from Barry – she must be brave about this, think it all out carefully.

‘Let's get the bill,' she said quickly. ‘Let's go back.'

When she'd taken him back to his room, she was relieved to see that Donald, his room mate, was there, lying on his bed, smoking, and had to have his cigarette taken away and another word of reprimand, which meant she and Barry couldn't speak of what was in their minds. His eyes, of course, were saying plenty, and she was able to meet them and let him understand she'd meant what she said.

‘I'm off duty now,' she told him. ‘Got to face the cold again – oh, dear!'

‘Stay on,' called Donald. ‘Have a delicious supper with us.'

‘No, I must get home. See you in the morning.'