Still Waters (66 page)

‘Hello! What’s eatin’ you?’ she said breezily as Tess began to splutter about her strange experience. ‘Calm down my woman, do I’ll never get the story outa you.’

‘I answered the phone in the Old House . . . some chap was on the line . . . Mal’s alive, he’s alive . . . I always knew he was,’ Tess stammered. ‘Mal’s
alive,
Auntie Bess, and a prisoner of war in Germany!’

‘Well, in’t that wonderful?’ Mrs Thrower said cautiously, giving Tess a very odd look indeed. ‘Sit you down, my woman, an’ tell me about it. Tell you what, don’t say nothin’ for a moment, I’ll make us a nice cuppa.’ She turned to the kettle, saying over her shoulder as she did so: ‘Meet the postman half-way, did you? Got a letter?’

‘No, I
told
you, it was a t-t-telephone call,’ Tess stuttered. ‘At the Old House. I didn’t know the phone was still connected, so it gave me ever such a fright when it first rang. But it’s all right, Mrs Thrower, I’m not going mad, it happened! Oh
God
, I’m so happy!’

‘A telephone call, at the Old House?’ Mrs Thrower said incredulously. ‘But the wires was all burned up, my love. You couldn’t ha’ heard the phone ring there!’

‘I did,’ Tess insisted. ‘I spoke to some man from his station, honestly I did. He asked if I was a friend of Mal’s and said he’d been trying to get in touch for three days, and then the phone went all funny and we got cut off. But it doesn’t matter, because now I know Mal’s safe.’

‘Well, that’s wonderful news,’ Mrs Thrower said. She poured the tea and handed Tess a cup. ‘Drink that, dearie; that’ll make you feel more yourself.’

Tess took a sip, then put the cup down and rose to her feet. ‘I don’t know what you think, Mrs Thrower, but I promise you the telephone rang, I answered it, and the chap said Mal was safe and a prisoner of war in Germany. I’m not going to try to ring from the Old House, because I admit the line was awful, crackly and horrid, but I
am
going to bike into the village and phone from the public call box. I want the details, you see – where he is and how I can get in touch.’ She put her arms round Mrs Thrower’s plump shoulders and kissed the side of her face. ‘Honestly, I’m not round the bend, I’m just . . . oh, just so
relieved
.’

‘Oh, well tha’s eased my mind,’ Mrs Thrower said, doubt in every syllable. ‘Off you go then – ride careful!’

‘I will, Tess said blithely, and cycled off at top speed, singing as she went.

An hour later she cycled back, a good deal more slowly. When she reached the Old House she stopped outside and stood very still, staring. The house stared back. Tess looked up, to the spot where the telephone wire had once looped across the drive and into the house. It looped still. Well, of course it did, because she’d had a telephone conversation with a man from Mal’s RAF station only an hour or so earlier. She really should go inside now, pick up the receiver and check that the phone was still working. But she did not. What was the point? She had rung station HQ, but though everyone had been perfectly polite, no one had admitted telephoning her.

Not that it matters, Tess told herself now, still staring at the Old House, because I
know
that Mal’s alive. Perhaps I’m going a bit dotty, perhaps I imagined the telephone call because I need to know that he’s all right officially, but unofficially, in my heart, I’m sure. That’s enough – isn’t it?

Back at Staithe Cottage, Mrs Thrower was very solicitous, especially when Tess had to admit that no one at Mal’s Air Force station had apparently telephoned her.

‘There, love, you know what you know,’ she said comfortably. ‘Want another round of bread and butter? I love it when it’s fresh baked.’

‘He’s
alive
,’ Tess told Cherie fiercely later that same evening, when they were walking Fluster past the Old House. ‘Mrs Thrower thinks I went a bit mad or heard things or something, but I didn’t, Cherie. I’m not an idiot, I really did speak to someone from the station. It must be someone who’s – who’s on ops, or on leave, but I did speak to someone. And I’m not a loony, either.’

‘Why don’t we go in and check the phone?’ Cherie said. ‘Only my torch is a bit glimmery; what’s yours like?’

‘It’s good,’ Tess decided, fishing it out of her pocket and flashing it quickly down at her feet. ‘Come on, then. Why not?’

Together, hand in hand, with the dog roaming ahead, the two girls went round the back of the house and let themselves in. They clattered through into the hallway and then stood looking down at the telephone, squatting innocently on the fourth stair from the bottom. Fluster stared at it too, large ears cocked expectantly.

‘It
looks
all right,’ Cherie said after a moment. ‘Go on, pick it up, see if it’s connected.’

‘I know it is,’ Tess said. Her heart was beating so loudly that it was making her body vibrate. ‘I told you, I spoke to . . .’

Abruptly, she snatched the receiver off its cradle and held it to her ear. After a moment, slowly, she handed it to Cherie.

There was no sound. Nothing. No clicks or buzzes or sounds of breathing. It was dead.

‘Oh,’ Cherie said slowly. ‘Well, you said you were cut off, didn’t you? It’s just that it’s still cut off, Tess, that’s all.’ She replaced the receiver almost reverently and took Tess’s hand, carrying it to her face and rubbing it against her cheek. ‘It’s all right, Tess, I know you spoke to someone, you aren’t going off your head, really.’

She turned away from the telephone, her torch describing an arch which included the hall floor and the inside of the heavy oak front door. Tess hissed in her breath and Cherie clutched her.

‘What? What’s the matter?’ she said, her voice echoing round the empty house. ‘I nearly died when you grabbed me, Tess – it was you, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes, you clown,’ Tess said. ‘Swing your torch round again, poppet. I thought I saw something when the light fell on the front door. There! See?’

Something square and white glimmered in the torchlight.

‘It’s a letter,’ Cherie said, going slowly over to it. Fluster, nose cautiously extended, crept after her. ‘Tess – it’s addressed to you!’ She bent and retrieved the envelope, then handed it to Tess. ‘How odd! Well, I suppose it isn’t all that odd, really. Perhaps the postman dropped it in the road and someone didn’t realise the house was empty and shoved it through the letter-box.’

‘Anything’s possible,’ Tess agreed. ‘Come on, let’s get back home, I want to read it and I don’t intend to do so by torchlight. Where’s Fluster?’

Fluster, hearing his name, came bounding out of the shadows causing both girls, already strung up, to give a shriek which made him bark, and that made them laugh and considerably eased the tension.

‘What idiots we were,’ Tess said as they made their way back to Staithe Cottage. ‘I’m so sorry, Cherie darling, for acting daft. Never mind, we’ll make a nice hot cup of cocoa and drink it and . . .’

‘And read your letter,’ Cherie interrupted. ‘It wasn’t handwriting you knew, was it?’

‘I don’t know, I scarcely noticed anything, really. Come on, race you to the cottage.’

They burst into the kitchen, to find it empty.

‘Mr Thrower will have gone up to bed and Mrs T will be down the garden,’ Tess said. She took off her mac and hung it behind the door and then fished the envelope out of the pocket. She examined the writing, which was strange to her, and then the postmark.

‘It was posted yesterday,’ she announced, and slit the envelope. ‘Hello – it’s from Mal’s station!’

‘What does it say? Oh, what does it say?’ Cherie was demanding, when the back door opened and Mrs Thrower came back into the room. She was carrying a dark lantern and stood it down on the draining board before turning to the girls.

‘Last visit, anyone?’ she said. ‘Lantern’s all lit . . . off you go now.’ She looked from one to the other. ‘Wha’s up, then? Cat got your tongues?’

Silently, Tess handed over the letter. Mrs Thrower frowned down at it.

‘Wha’s all this, then?
Dear Miss Delamere, it gives me much pleasure to inform you
. . .’ she broke off with a little scream, then dropped the letter and threw her arms around Tess. ‘Oh my dear, in’t that wonderful news? I’m that glad for you, Tess, I declare I could dance a jig!’

‘What? What does the letter say? Tess, how can you be so irritating?’ Cherie all but screamed. ‘Read it to me . . . no, I’ll read it for myself!’

Tess pulled herself out of Mrs Thrower’s embrace and flung her arms, in her turn, round Cherie.

‘It’s confirmation!’ she said in a high, breathless voice. ‘He’s a prisoner of war in Germany. They’ve sent me his prison number, his address, everything, so I can write letters, sends parcels . . . oh Cherie, the
relief
! Mal’s alive, just like I said! I’m the happiest person in the whole world!’

Marianne had to be told, of course. She was no longer at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital but at a special Burns Unit where they were doing their best to repair the damage done to her, so on her first day off after the letter’s arrival Tess went, by train and bus, across the country to tell her stepmother the good news.

She reached the Unit and was taken into the Day Room for Marianne’s ward, a pleasant, airy room with large french windows opening on to a terrace, around which dahlias bloomed. The room wasn’t crowded but there were a couple of women knitting and a man listening to a wireless set so the two of them, after their initial greetings, got some privacy by carrying a couple of chairs out on to the terrace and basking in the autumn sunshine, whilst Tess showed Marianne the precious letter.

‘What marvellous news, my dear, even though you’ve still got a long wait ahead of you before you meet again,’ Marianne said, laying the sheet down on her lap. The brilliant dentist had given her an excellent set of false teeth which looked amazingly real, and she had a wig of softly waving hair which fell rather pleasingly across her scarred brow. She had had come a long way from the blackened figure on the bed which had so horrified Tess months before.

And it wasn’t only Marianne’s looks that had changed. Suffering, Tess thought now, had left its mark on her character. Indeed, it had improved her greatly. Now, Marianne was patient, thoughtful and sensible. She read the books she was brought instead of thanking the donor prettily and then throwing them down in a corner. She listened to the wireless, not just the war news but other programmes. She laughed over comedies, cried over music, enjoyed plays, opera, all sorts. For the first time since Tess had known her, Marianne seemed able to appreciate points of view other than her own. The tragic accident had made her slow down, stop to consider, and as a result she even thought before she spoke, so that hurtful remarks, Tess assumed, were often swallowed unsaid. Even her lost beauty, which had once meant everything to her, was no longer paramount: Marianne had been heard to say that character was as important as looks, and to mean it, what was more.

‘I’m glad you’re pleased,’ Tess said gently, now. ‘Because I know you must have wondered whether I was doing the right thing. We’d only known each other for about a week, but I suppose loving someone is always a bit of a gamble, and with Mal it’s a gamble well worth taking. And as for waiting – well, waiting when you know that he’ll be coming back is sheer bliss compared with waiting and secretly wondering if you’ll ever set eyes on him again.’

‘I’m sure it is,’ Marianne said. ‘Sometimes I wonder if Maurice and I will ever marry, you know. But if we don’t, I’ll understand. He – he could do very much better. I’m not getting any younger.’

Tess laughed. ‘Who is? But don’t worry about it, Marianne. Take each day as it comes and enjoy each one as far as you possibly can. That’s what I made up my mind to do, when I didn’t know what was happening to Mal.’

‘I do try,’ Marianne said. ‘Did I tell you, they say I can go home for a few months, whilst scar tissue grows. I’ve told Maurice and he says he’ll take me up to Scotland, to a quiet little hotel he knows, or down to Cornwall. I said we couldn’t stay away for months, and he said why not? He said Cherie could come with us and go to a local school . . . he was awfully kind, Tess. But . . .’

‘But what?’

‘He’s being too damned
noble
,’ Marianne said with a return of her old fretfulness. ‘I feel like today’s good cause, not like a much-loved fiancée. And I don’t like it.’

Tess giggled. ‘You go away with him,’ she advised. ‘After a few weeks in each other’s company, you may both decide that marriage would be a mistake. You’ve changed a lot Marianne – for the better, I might add. If Maurice has any sense he’ll realise what a pearl he’s got and hang on with both hands.’

It was Marianne’s turn to giggle. ‘Oh, Tess, you do me good! But what will Cherie say? She’s at the end of her school life, she may well feel deprived and annoyed with us if we try to move her now.’

‘I imagine she’ll stay with the Throwers, given half a chance,’ Tess said at once. ‘She’s awfully happy with them and although she’ll take her school certificate next June to please you, she wants to leave school then. She wants to join the WAAF.’

‘The uniform will suit her,’ Marianne said. ‘You wanted to join the WAAF once, didn’t you, Tess? I stopped you from very selfish motives I’m afraid, and I’m ashamed to say I’m still very glad you didn’t go off and leave us. Oh my dear, what would I have done without you?’

Tess felt tears form in her eyes; Marianne had remembered about her stepdaughter’s longing to join the WAAF and wasn’t ashamed to say that she appreciated Tess’s sacrifice. It touched her deeply, but she couldn’t let Marianne see it.

‘Well, I shall get a vicarious thrill out of seeing Cherie in Air Force blue,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I did wonder whether to put in for the WAAF again now that you and Cherie are both settled, but I decided not to. I’m very lucky at Willow Tree Farm, the Sugdens are kind and appreciative and the girls are lovely, I couldn’t ask for better friends. So I’ll stay very happily where I am for the duration.’ She got to her feet. ‘It took me half a day to get here and it’ll take me half a day to get back, so I had better be going, but is there a canteen or a dining-room where we might get a cup of tea before I leave? I’m parched.’