Wartime Brides (15 page)

Colin was waiting for her at the end of the street on Wednesday night. Although his chair was designed for pushing, his arms were still strong enough for him to propel himself forward by turning the extra rim he’d made and connected to his wheels.

‘The worker returns bearing gifts,’ he said merrily.

‘How did you guess?’ She managed to return his smile and tossed him a five of Woodbines – free issue for the week. They started walking – or at least she did.

‘At least you’re no sacrifical lamb.’

She frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You refuse to be led to the slaughter. All that organising going on behind your back. And I didn’t help.’

‘What good’s a mere man against my mother?’

When their laughter had died away, Colin came to a halt and took hold of her hand. ‘You don’t have to go through with it you know. I would understand.’

She looked down at him. A mixture of guilt and hope swept over her. He’d given her a chance to escape but in her heart of hearts she knew she couldn’t take it. Her son and his father had both been taken away from her. Colin was all she had left. Would the day ever come when she could tell him about Sherman?

She bent down and kissed his forehead. ‘I’ve made my decision about marrying you. I’d also like to make my own decisions about the wedding.’

Colin visibly relaxed. ‘It won’t be easy. Your mother likes getting her own way.’ He paused suddenly and snatched his hand away. ‘Here! Does that mean you’ll end up just like her when you’re older.’

‘I hope not!’

‘Hope the kids don’t either,’ Colin added.

Edna’s smile froze as she remembered the dark hair and coffee-coloured skin of the child that had been taken away, his chubby hands and his even temperament.

‘No. I don’t think they could be,’ she replied, and hoped Colin didn’t notice the tremor in her voice.

There were over one hundred guests at the reception to celebrate the homecoming of a number of top doctors in the Bristol area. The university dining room thronged with lately returned combatants, their faces a little more strained than before the war and their suits sharply cleaned and pressed for the first time since hostilities began.

David was exuberant. His natural charm was at full strength as he greeted old acquaintances and basked in the admiration of those who had not seen as much action as he had.

Only when they started asking him more in-depth questions about his escapades, particularly the more social side of his service, did his face stiffen and his voice sharpen.

‘I hear Cairo is a beast of a place,’ said one old surgeon, a very large whisky in one hand. ‘Beastly things happen there.’ He tapped the side of his nose. ‘If you know what I mean.’

Charlotte, filled with apprehension, placed her gloved hand on David’s raised arm. She felt the muscles harden. ‘Can you get me a drink, darling? I’m terribly thirsty.’

The old surgeon, whose tongue was rapidly running out of control, turned to an equally elderly colleague who had no doubt spent his uniformed existence no further south than Surrey.

‘Take no notice of him,’ said a pleasant voice close to her side. ‘His imagination is prone to run riot occasionally.’

‘I won’t,’ she said, smiling as she turned to face the speaker. Her smile froze.

The speaker’s mouth was crooked, his skin purpled and severely dimpled by burns. Eyelids as smooth and immobile as plastic seemed tautly stretched across his eyes.

‘We’ve all been through a lot,’ he said in a gentle voice. ‘Even those who stayed in Blighty were under a fair amount of stress.’ He nodded in the direction of the old
surgeon
who was now extolling the licentiousness of a Cairo he himself had never visited. ‘He’s glad he didn’t go abroad but embarrassed about it.’

‘My husband was sent to the Western Desert,’ Charlotte said, once she’d got over the shock of his face. ‘Then he was transferred to Singapore.’

‘Not a healthy place to be.’

She asked him, ‘Where were you when the war ended?’

‘Hamburg,’ he answered.

‘Really?’ He must have seen her puzzlement and went on to explain.

‘I’m not a Jerry. I stayed behind with the wounded at Dunkirk and was promptly marched off to a POW camp.’

‘Is that where you …’ Charlotte began. She felt embarrassed asking.

He shook his head. ‘No. As a doctor I was sent to Hamburg when the blanket bombing started – Americans by day, RAF at night. I got caught in a firestorm. Still, marvellous what they can do nowadays, isn’t it?’

At that moment David came back with her drink. The disfigured surgeon shook hands and exchanged pleasantries before drifting off.

Charlotte watched him go, feeling sadly inadequate and extremely grateful. What were her problems compared to his? Her own, personal domestic bliss had gone with the war. That man had lost a lot more. So why should she be frightened of telling David that she was not giving up her Red Cross and counselling work? She took the plunge.

‘I didn’t give my notice in,’ she blurted, sounding braver than she actually felt. ‘I want to continue.’

His face seemed to turn to stone.

Charlotte took a deep breath. ‘I don’t care what you say, David or what you do. I have to have some purpose in life and without the children …’

‘Ah! So we’re back to that,’ he growled.

Charlotte glanced round at the assembled crowd. How long would it be before someone realised that one of their most eminent members was arguing with his wife.

‘David!’

The intervention of another old acquaintance saved the day. For the rest of the evening an uneasy truce held. It wasn’t until they were in the car driving home that the storm finally broke.

She knew it was going to happen the moment he turned onto Durdham Downs and toward the sea walls that bounded the cliffs along the Avon Gorge.

‘Please, David,’ she began, her stomach tightening with fear. She had recognised another of his mood swings and guessed what was coming next.

He switched off the engine. His hand stung her cheek and there was a slight click of neck bone as her head went sideways.

She willed herself not to cry, instead she fought, not caring what anyone might say if they saw a bruise on her face or her neck. But David was devious. So far no one had noticed a thing – except Josef.

‘You are my wife and will do as I say!’ he snarled.

His hands were around her throat. Her head was bent back as his alcoholic breath smothered her face.

‘I’m not your slave!’ she managed to say.

She struggled, clawed at his hands as they almost choked the breath from her body. Just when the whole world seemed to fade into night, his hands left her throat.

‘You’re mine!’ he mumbled against her ear as his hands tore at her clothes and he pushed between her legs. ‘You do as I say and don’t you forget it!’

There was a ripping sound as the silk dress was torn from knee to waist. She cried out as his fingers ripped at her underwear and bruised the soft flesh of the inside of her thighs.

An odd thought occurred to her. If it had been anyone else this would be called rape. But this was her husband and in law there was no such crime.

Polly held the door open for them when they got home. Just lately she’d started staying overnight, glad to escape the overcrowding down at York Road now Hetty and her lot had moved in.

‘Let’s have a nightcap,’ David shouted and strode purposefully to the study. Charlotte followed unwilling to cause a scene. Aware that Polly’s eyes were following her, she grasped her coat firmly so that it wouldn’t fall open and expose the fact that her clothes were ripped to shreds.

Once the door was closed he started on her again. ‘Don’t defy me, Charlotte.’

‘David. There are a lot of people needing help nowadays.’

‘It doesn’t have to be from you.’

She raised her voice. ‘But I want to help! What else is there for me to do all day alone in this house.’

David swigged back the gin he had poured and threw the tumbler onto the floor.

‘Women like you!’ he growled.

Uncomprehending, she frowned. What did he mean women like her?

‘I saw a woman like you destroy a good man. A very good man. And all because he took pity on her life behind a wall. But they’re right you know, those Libyans. Women should know their place, then there would be no problems.’

Polly’s ear was close to the door and her sympathy was entirely with David. What the hell was the matter with Charlotte, the silly cow! What
she
wouldn’t only give to pack in work and stay at home all day with someone to come in and clean and cook and do all the nasty domestic things she particularly hated.

‘Woman don’t know when she’s bloody alive!’ She whistled as she went up the stairs to the yellow distempered room at the back of the house, a cool oasis from the haphazard arrangements at York Street.

Christmas with Aaron had consisted of walking through the city centre, dodging the piles of rubble and twisted metal, all that remained of Bristol’s old tramway. It hadn’t mattered that there was no Christmas dinner. Anyway, all Meg could provide was a small chicken and a Christmas pudding made of breadcrumbs, saccharine and any bits and pieces of fruit, including discarded orange peel, that she could find.

As it turned out Aaron brought food from the base, slices of tinned turkey meat and Christmas cake flown in
from
the States but had declined to enter the house and stay for a meal.

It had suited Polly. ‘Don’t blame you now Hetty and all ’er kids ’ave moved in,’ she said, as the noise of children shouting, laughing and crying spilled out into the street. One of them had been Carol.

She’d left the supplies with Meg and marched off with Aaron. So far she had avoided mentioning the fact that she had an illegitimate child. There was plenty of time yet.

Number 14 York Street was now severely overcrowded. Hetty and Bertie slept in Polly’s old room, the kids were in with Carol, and she’d been expected to share a bed with Meg in the front room downstairs. It wasn’t that she didn’t love Meg. She was a good woman. But blimey, there had to be a line drawn somewhere.

Never mind, she said to herself with a smug smile as she took off her dress and hung it on a hanger on the wardrobe door. You’ve got a date with Aaron on Friday and you know damn well that he’s going to ask you to marry him.

Stripped down to her brassiere and bloomers, she stretched her arms wide and did a quick twirl. ‘Look out America! Here I come!’

Chapter Nine

RAIN SPEWED FROM
gutters and gurgled down drains.

Polly hopped from one foot to another. Her shoes were sodden, her hat was limp at the edges and a decorative feather flopped over one eye.

‘Great George’, the bell in the university tower that could be heard all over the city, confirmed eight o’clock. Aaron
had
said seven-thirty.

There were lots of excuses for him being late. Perhaps the bus had broken down. Perhaps he’d got extra duties.

Two off-duty sailors strolled by, eyed her up and down and slipped her the wink.

‘Fancy a good time?’ one of them said.

She tossed her head. ‘Not with you I don’t.’

They shrugged and strolled off. At one time she’d have decided to forget her absent date and go and enjoy herself. In the case of Aaron she found it impossible. What if he found out she’d been drinking with other men? He wouldn’t kill her or hurt her. She was pretty sure of that. But he would be upset, she just knew he
would
. Funnily enough she would be too. He meant too much to her to spoil it now. He was her passport to a better life.

So she stood and waited some more. Great George struck nine.

‘Damn the bastard!’ she muttered under her breath.

Spirits low and coat wet, she turned to go home.

She headed for Old Market, not caring that more water filled her shoes and ran down her neck. Head down, she barged through the crowds coming out of the Kings’ Picture House and would have charged onwards if she hadn’t met an obstruction.

‘Polly?’

She recognised Edna and Colin, whose wheelchair she had unseeingly barged into.

Wary that they’d ask her where she’d been, she got in first. ‘Hello. Been to the pictures then? Good, was it?’ She nodded at the billboard advertising
Brief Encounter
. ‘I hear it’s romantic. Is that right then?’

Colin smirked wickedly. ‘Saucy more like! Love between two married people, who aren’t married to each other. Hanky panky!’

Playfully Edna smacked his shoulder. ‘Colin!’

‘There’s been a war on,’ Colin protested. ‘Lots of things happened that shouldn’t have happened and straying off the straight and narrow ain’t nowhere near the worst of it.’

Edna ignored his comment and asked the question Polly had been dreading. She hated being stood up, no matter what the reason. ‘Have you been anywhere nice?’

‘Working,’ Polly said brightly. ‘You know I do a bit now for Charlotte and David, don’t you?’

‘Doctor and Mrs Hennessey-White?’ Edna never could get used to calling Charlotte by her first name. ‘I haven’t seen her for a while.’

‘Still busy with her Red Cross stuff and all that. Don’t know why she bothers though with the house that she’s got and the money he makes. Give me half the chance and I’d change places with her like a shot!’

‘She likes helping people,’ Edna said, and couldn’t help sounding defensive. Charlotte was a bit of a busybody, yet she was basically kind-hearted.

‘Care for a drink?’ Colin piped up suddenly. ‘So long as we can find a pub with a wide enough door to get me and the old Wells Fargo express through the door!’

Polly thought about refusing but then thought of the conditions back in York Street. God, if she’d known that swine wasn’t going to turn up she’d have stayed overnight up in Clifton. At least it was quiet and there was no doubting that David Hennessey-White appreciated her being around. Never mind. She’d just been offered an alternative.

‘Love to!’ she said.

Because the Stag and Hounds dated from medieval times, its door was wide enough to take a horse and trap.

Colin was an avid collector of trivial information, and imparted some of it to Polly and Edna as they went in.