Whisper on the Wind (66 page)

‘Your husband is comfortable.’ Or improving or even, these last few days, making good progress. But always the half answers, the guarded statements. So why didn’t they say it? Why didn’t they tell her there had been nothing they could do – that they were sorry, but –

And more than a week since Marco left; a going so sudden that even now she could hardly believe it; still expected to look up and see him there, smiling, or waving, calling ‘
Ciao
, Kat!’ But she mustn’t think of Marco. It had been meant that he should go because Barney needed her, now. He had left that next day and two days later they had all been gone and more prisoners arriving by train to take their place.

Those Germans marched from Helpsley Halt under armed guard, yet they marched with heads high, arms swinging. Helpsley people stopped and stared as they stamped past, wondering if they’d been wrong to dislike the Italians so. Indeed, the Helpsley constable had had it on good authority that the new prisoners were making it quite plain that it was only a matter of time before their Führer put paid to the Russians and could fling the whole of his fury against the stubborn British. Arrogant to a man, they were. It was like having a time-bomb ticking away on the edge of the village, some went so far as to mutter, because no one could say that the war was going our way; not with food getting scarce and good news from the war front even scarcer.

It stood to reason, said the man in the street. The Germans were getting it all their own way in North Africa, with only a handful of our soldiers between them and the taking of El Alamein. And in Russia the Germans had taken Sevastopol and –

‘Are you going to ring Shilton, yet?’ Roz broke into Kath’s brooding.

Last night they had learned that Barney was leaving Edinburgh; coming back to Shilton in an army ambulance and Kath still none the wiser about anything.

‘I shall give it till eight – surely he’ll be there by then. And I won’t be fobbed off any longer. I shall ask to speak to the Sister and
make
her tell me how he is. I can’t understand it. It’s as if they’re going out of their way to hide something. Eight o’clock,’ she said again, tapping her wrist-watch with an agitated forefinger, ‘and then –’

And then
what
?

At exactly eight o’clock, Kath asked the operator at Helpsley exchange for trunks, and trunks, amazingly, connected her to Shilton House Hospital with no delay at all. And yes, the Sister said, Driver Allen had arrived and appeared to be none the worse for the long journey.

‘He seems in the best of spirits …’

‘But his eyes, Sister – the operation? I want you to tell me if it’s been –’

‘Ah – now there I’m afraid I can’t help you. I’ve only just come on duty and your husband’s records are with the Medical Officer-in-charge, at the moment. I haven’t even done rounds, yet, nor has the MO. I’m sorry, but I can’t –’

Prevarications! Side-stepping and evasions! Why couldn’t they say it? Why didn’t they say ‘We’re sorry. We tried, but –’ It was all they had to say.

‘Tomorrow, perhaps? Come tomorrow, Mrs Allen. He’ll be good and rested by then and the MO will have done his rounds …’

‘When is visiting-time? How early can I get there?’ And the sooner the better, she thought angrily, because tomorrow she would have an answer!

‘Come whenever you like, after ten. I don’t suppose Driver Allen will be going to church parade.’

Church parade
? But the remark served at least to remind her that tomorrow was Sunday and her rest-day; remind her, too, that there would be no trains into Helpsley Halt and the only way to get to York, and beyond it, would be to hitch a lift.

‘I’ll be there as early as I can, will you tell him and – and thank you, Sister.’

Thank you for
what
– because whose husband were they talking about, anyway, and whose future?

‘Tomorrow I shall
demand
to be told how he is, Roz!’ Tight-lipped Kath put down the receiver. ‘I shall stay there till they tell me. Why are they always like that – cautious to the point of stupidity? Do they think I’m an idiot, or something?’

‘Forget it, Kath; they’re always the same. When they aren’t blinding you with medical mumbo-jumbo they’re being evasive. It’s the way they are; almost as if they’re afraid to commit themselves.’

‘Well, this time they’ve had their lot! If the ward-sister won’t tell me I shall ask to see the medical officer, or whoever’s in charge.’

‘Why not ask Barney?’ Roz suggested. ‘Well, he should have a good idea, shouldn’t he?’

Barney? She hadn’t thought of Barney – but there had been no news from him, either. Not even the briefest of letters.

‘I wonder why he didn’t get one of the nurses to write, Roz? You’d have thought someone could have found a minute to dash off a couple of lines …’

‘Mm. Something like “Your husband asks me to send you his undying love and to tell you he can’t wait to see you?” Oh – I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that – but you know what I mean, Kath? And I suppose you don’t know when you’ll be back?’

‘Not to an hour or two – well, there won’t be a train to Helpsley. But you’ll be all right?’

‘I’ll be fine. I shall wash my hair and have a lovely long bath.’ At least she would do her best. You couldn’t do a great deal in five inches of bathwater. Once, the permitted water level had been six inches. Roz wondered just who had made such an earth-shattering decision; who had decreed that fuel was now a munition of war, and water, too, and if anyone
dared
to take even an extra half-inch of bathwater, they would be guilty of an offence against the war effort! Before so very much longer, she supposed, one of the faceless ones at Whitehall would be insisting that civilians shouldn’t bath at all! ‘Then I think I might have another look at what’s in Gran’s desk.’

‘You won’t get yourself upset, Roz? Can’t you leave it until I’m there?’ Roz was beginning to look a little better, Kath was sure of it; maybe because she hadn’t been sick, this morning – nor yesterday morning, either. ‘Why don’t you have a really lazy day, tomorrow? Why not slop around in your dressing gown or put your feet up for an hour or two?’

‘I probably will. I’ll see how the mood takes me. But I won’t do anything to get myself upset; there’s Sprog to think of, now. And, Kath – I do wish you and Barney all the luck in the world. But you know that, don’t you?’

Kath knew it. And if she could hold back tomorrow; if she could stop the sand in the time-glass from running out, then she would do it. Wasn’t it strange that people said tomorrow never came? Because it did and it would; tomorrow she was going to Shilton. Tomorrow, she would know.

Try though she might, Roz could not call Paul back to her. Once it had been easy, yet now, since that night, she could neither see his face nor hear his voice, his laugh. It was as if he had never been, and the pain of it could only be eased when she opened the drawer in which she had placed his photograph and, sighing, recall him.

The house was full of echoes today, but it always was when she was in it alone. Carefully she unlocked her grandmother’s desk. There, she was sure, would be the answer she sought and some small solace for her grief. Gran knew. Gran had lost her love and though she had never accepted it, she had learned at least to live with it. It would be there, perhaps, like a magic recipe, showing her, pointing her along the path that led to acceptance. Gran had come to terms with loneliness, and Polly too, and she, Roz, would do the same. She had Sprog. Her little unborn child was all that stood between her and despair.

She took the last of the diaries, its gold-leaf numerals still bright.
Today, they killed my darling Martin.

She should have remembered she would get no comfort from the diaries, for after that heart-tearing sentence there had been no more words. The diary for the year to follow – for 1917 – was there, poignantly unused.

Letters, then? People wrote letters all the time in Gran’s early days; so few had telephones, then. At times of bereavement, special notepaper was bought; black-edged, to be used for the first six months of the year of mourning, black-edged envelopes, too. They would be easy to recognize, those sad notes of condolence. She hoped they would still be there, and picking a bundle at random, searching through it quickly for the tell-tale black, she found one almost at once.

It was postmarked Honiton, though the date had faded beyond reading. Once, though she was too young to remember her, she’d had a great-aunt in Devon. Mary, Gran’s sister.

A flush pinked her cheeks, because reading someone else’s letters, even though they belonged to Gran, wasn’t the thing to do. But Gran would understand, now more than ever, her need to do it.

The writing on the Honiton letter was flowing and feminine; the name of the writer was indeed Mary – a
loving sister
Mary. The words were beautiful, sad and heartfelt – this was a letter to Gran in her heartbreak.

… and I am sad to my soul that you lost your child – the son you both so very much wanted. To say that we must accept such a sorrow as God’s will is hard to bear, but I am arranging to come and visit you and bringing with me some small comfort – if comfort you can call it.

I shall travel on Tuesday by train, staying overnight in London and arriving at York station at three in the afternoon of Wednesday next. Perhaps Martin will arrange for me to be met there
?

A letter from great-aunt Mary, who would have had a carriage awaiting her at the station – or had Grandpa owned a motor car, then? Eagerly Roz opened the diary for 1903, flicking the pages impatiently.

… a
letter from Mary, dear soul. I am pleased she will soon be here. Mary will make me smile again.

More pages, then Mary had arrived.

And such a run north. Locomotives travel faster and faster. Such speed. Mary looked tired but our northern air will be a tonic for her
…

And then blank pages. Seven of them. A whole week of chattering and gossiping, no time for diaries. What had it been like for them, sisters together? Afternoon tea beside a roaring fire in a room that no longer existed; a dinner-party given in Mary’s honour – or would Gran have been receiving, so soon after her miscarriage? Had they, at the turn of the century, gone into mourning even for a stillborn child?

The pages snapped over between her thumb and forefinger. The day was Monday.

My sister returned to Honiton this morning, leaving sadness and bewilderment behind her. I cannot believe what she has told me, though Martin has been goodness itself and we are to make all haste to set things to rights. I do not accept that such a thing can happen to us. I pray with all my heart that Mary will be proved wrong.

Wrong? What had happened during that visit, Roz frowned; what terrible thing to be faced and set to rights? Was this, then, her secret sorrow?

But surely not then? Not when she was newly-married? She must have been deeply in love, then – starry-eyed, still. As she remained until war came and a telegram bearing a date in December, 1916 …

January 3rd, 1904. So sad a new year. Nothing, now, is left to doubt. Mary and I should never have married, for our children will be tainted.

The London doctors told Martin that I am a carrier of haemophilia as my sister, to her sorrow, has discovered. It is no comfort to know that such a monstrosity can strike both high and low at will; that the Tsarina of Russia, even, must bear a like grief. I only know I can never give Martin the heir he so longs for. Why are we so cursed
?

‘Gran!’ So that was why there had only been one child and no son for Ridings. ‘Oh, poor, darling Gran,’ Roz whispered. But wasn’t it better that the little boy had not been born alive? So awful a thing, although today such a disease could be held in check – even lived with. Neither Gran nor Aunt Mary knowing about it when they married and Gran having her first baby with no trouble at all. Her first baby?

Only then did the enormity of it hit her. It slammed into her like a great tidal wave, knocking the feet from under her and the breath from her body. Gran’s
first
baby?

‘Janet – my mother,’ Roz whispered.

And
that thing
was passed down, wasn’t it, through the female line? Haemophilia didn’t affect women; they just carried it in their blood then passed it to their sons. Daughters were all right; injured, they would not bleed without stopping. Daughters could ride it out; only their sons bore the brunt of it.

‘Mother!’ Roz whispered. ‘You must have known! Why did you have a child? Why did you have
me
?’

Her heart pounded and a dizziness washed her so that she clung tightly to the arms of the chair.

She had wanted her child to be a son; a living image of Paul. Oh, God, God, God! They had made a child as her own mother and father had done, for surely they, too, had made their child carelessly? Surely, knowing what she did, Janet Fairchild could not have deliberately conceived.

‘Paul – what did we do?’

The room tipped and tilted around her. Kath! Where was Kath? Oh, please, let this not be happening!

But Jonty would know what to do! Stumbling and dazed, she flung open the door to the kitchen. Picking up the telephone she tapped the receiver-rest impatiently to demand the attention of the operator.

‘Get me Home Farm,’ she gasped. ‘223,
quickly
, please …’