Across the Mersey (28 page)

‘I said all along that no good would come of your Vi having Jack,’ Sam reminded her.

‘I should have teken him meself and I blame meself for not doing, Sam. Poor Fran’s that upset.’

‘There was nothing you could have done, not with you being so poorly.’

In Grace’s bedroom Francine lay awake and dryeyed, looking up through the darkness.
Jack
. The pain that tore at her was as real and as sharp as the birth pangs she had felt bringing him into the world. She could remember his birth as clearly as
though it had only been yesterday. She had been so frightened when she had first realised that she was pregnant. She hadn’t even known what was happening to her at first, and then when she had she had been terrified. Con had already deserted her and she had known there was no point in turning to him for help.

Vi had been wrong about one thing. Con had been both her first and her only lover. Frightened though she had been to discover she was pregnant, she wasn’t going to pretend that she hadn’t enjoyed what had led to that pregnancy. Con had known all the right moves and all the right touches all right, and besotted with him as she was, she had been swept away on a tide of physical longing that had been at full flood. That, though, had been before she had learned that he was married and that she was just one in a long line of girls he had seduced and then abandoned. She had made a promise to herself when it was all over and she was on her way to America that she would never make a fool of herself in the same way again, and she had stuck to that promise, not risking dating any of the many men who had asked her out just in case the body she didn’t feel she could trust any more betrayed her a second time.

She had hated giving Jack up but she had wanted to do the best for him. Despite the disgrace and shame she had brought on herself she had loved Jack from the first minute she had held him in her arms; loved him with a helpless aching love that she hadn’t expected and didn’t understand. She
had been sixteen when he had been born, and when Vi had told her that the best thing she could do for him would be to allow her and Edwin to bring him up as their own son she had let her elder sister convince her that giving him up was what was best for him. Jean had been too ill to help her, too ill for her even to talk to her after the tragic death of her own baby. Poor Jean. Francine could only imagine what she must have suffered, knowing how badly she had ached physically as well as emotionally for her own baby in those first months without him, waking up wanting him and going to sleep crying for him. The only thing that kept her going had been her belief that she had done the right thing for him.

‘Come on, Grace, it will be fun going dancing. You might even get that chap of yours on the floor for a smoochy number if you’re lucky.’

‘Me and Teddy don’t want to go dancing, all right?’ All Grace had done since Teddy had told her about his heart had been worry about him. When she was with him she was constantly begging him not to overdo things, constantly trying to make sure that when they were together they didn’t walk too far or do too much, and the anxiety was wearing her down. It wasn’t like worrying about Luke being in France or worrying about Hitler invading England. Those were worries that she shared with other people, and that somehow made them easier to bear. And as well as feeling anxious she also felt guilty. Guilty because she was well and Teddy was not.

‘All right,’ Lillian answered her snappily. ‘Keep your hair on. I was only asking. Don’t come with us then.’

‘No I won’t,’ Grace agreed, equally snappy, picking up the notes she had been studying.

She might as well go to her room as stay here and fall out with Lillian. If Teddy had been properly well she’d have loved to go dancing, and she knew that if she were to tell him what the rest of her set were planning and that they were included, he’d have been eager to join in. But how could she let him? What if something were to happen to him?

She pushed her textbooks to one side and looked towards the window. They were back to double summer time now and the last of the day’s sun was warming her room.

There was a brief knock on her door.

‘It’s only me,’ Hannah called out.

Grace opened the door to let her in.

‘Are you OK, Grace?’ she asked, ‘only you haven’t seemed yourself just lately, and you were a bit sharp with Lillian. Is it because of your brother? I know he’s still writing to her.’

Grace shook her head. ‘No. It’s nothing,’ she lied. Tears brimmed in her eyes. Cross with herself, she wiped them away. ‘I’m sorry, Hannah. I don’t want to cause any upset.’

It was true that she wasn’t particularly fond of Lillian, but the other girl was a member of their set, and that meant that traditionally they owed one another a certain loyalty.

Hannah came in and closed the door behind her. ‘Look, if it’s the work, Grace, or if something’s happened on the ward, well, there’s nothing to be ashamed of in saying so. There’s been several girls drop out since we started out training, although … well, I’d got you down as the sort who would see things through.’

‘It isn’t the work … or anyone on the ward. It’s … it’s Teddy,’ Grace admitted.

‘You’ve had a fall-out?’ Hannah guessed. ‘And that’s why you don’t want to go dancing.’

It was no use, she would have to tell Hannah, Grace recognised, otherwise she would be imagining all sorts of things that just weren’t true.

‘We haven’t had a fall-out,’ she told her carefully. ‘But Teddy can’t go dancing, Hannah. In fact, he can’t do very much at all. He’s very poorly, you see.’

Hannah listened in silence whilst Grace explained, waiting until she had finished to say shakily, ‘Oh, Grace, how awful.’

‘Yes, it is, isn’t it?’ agreed Grace bleakly. ‘But you mustn’t say anything to anyone, Hannah. Please promise me you won’t. Teddy doesn’t want anyone fussing. That’s what’s making me so on edge, knowing that he won’t be careful. I’m so afraid for him. It’s on my mind all the time. I can’t understand why he’s doing what he is. He didn’t need to volunteer to drive an ambulance. He could be living quietly at home resting, but he says … he says … he says …’ Grace couldn’t go on. Her emotions had overwhelmed her. She could tell,
though, from Hannah’s expression that she understood what she was trying to say.

‘I’ll have a word with Lillian, if you like, and tell her that you’ve not been feeling too good.’

Grace gave her a weak smile. ‘Well, you won’t be able to tell her that I’m having me monthlies.’

Hannah laughed. They had all been bemused at first when their periods had altered so that they all had them at virtually the same time but then Doreen had discovered from one of the more senior nurses that this was something that tended to happen when young women lived and worked together closely.

It just had to have happened, that was all, because if it hadn’t … Bella felt sick with fury at just the thought of what had occurred yesterday when she had called round at Alan’s parents. She,
Trixie
, had been there, sitting in the garden with Alan’s mother, whilst Trixie’s own mother and Alan’s fussed round her. None of them had seen her at first. Trixie was crying, her plain face looking even plainer. Alan’s mother had been holding her hand, comforting her, telling her quite openly that Alan had made a terrible mistake in marrying Bella.

That was when Trixie had seen her and had pretended to be embarrassed, but of course Bella had known she wasn’t.

Bella had been so furious that she had confronted the three of them there and then.

‘Well, Alan is married to me whether you like it or not,’ she had said, ‘and there’s nothing you
can do about it.’ And then she had left and gone round to her mother’s, but her mother hadn’t been there so she had had to come home.

Just let them wait, all of them. She’d make them sorry and she’d give their precious Trixie something to really cry about when she dropped a few hints to other people about keeping their husbands away from her because she was the kind that went after married men.

The back door opened and the refugees, as Bella insisted on mentally referring to Bettina and her mother, came in.

‘What do you two want?’ Bella demanded, taking her bad temper out on them.

‘It is time for my mother to eat and have a rest,’ Bettina told her.

‘If she wants to eat you can take her to a café. And as for her resting, it’s high time she did a bit of work. This kitchen floor needs a good scrub—’ Bella broke off as the door opened a second time and a man followed them in and went to join them.

Bettina immediately linked arms with him, all over him like a rash. Bella could see why. He was extraordinarily handsome, tall, with very dark hair cut short. But no matter how handsome he was he had no right to be here.

‘I don’t know what you think you’re doing,’ Bella told Bettina nastily, ‘but I’ll tell you what you’re not doing and that’s bringing your fancy man here to this house.’

Bella looked at him as she spoke. He was looking
back at her with angry contempt. He turned to Bettina and said something to her in Polish.

‘Jan is my brother,’ Bettina told Bella proudly. ‘He is here in England with the Polish Air Force and he has come to see our mother, who is not well. He will be staying here with us for two days whilst he is on leave.’

‘Staying here? In this house? My house? He most certainly will not.’

‘You have the spare room – why should he not stay? Your Government is paying you for the use of two of your bedrooms already, although you have forced Mama and I to share one.’

Bella could feel her temper rising. How dare this … this nobody, who did not even have a country any more, start acting as though she had the right to make demands?

The mother had started to cough, just like she did at night. Bella glared at her whilst Bettina and her brother fussed over her.

‘There’s nothing wrong with her, you know. She just puts it on for sympathy.’

They were speaking in Polish again, and ignoring her, whilst Jan guided his mother to a chair, and Bettina filled the kettle and put it on the stove.

‘I’m not putting up with this,’ Bella began, but Bettina overruled her, telling her fiercely, ‘It is you who is making my mother ill. Do you really think that we want to be here, living like this, in this? At home in Poland we had—’ She stopped, bright red spots of colour burning in her face, and then continued passionately. ‘My father was a well-known
and respected medical specialist. We lived in a beautiful and very old house. Our home was filled with music and laughter and friends. It was a life that someone like you could never understand. My parents loved one another very dearly and you could not understand that either. You, who has a husband who never wants to come home and who when he does needs to get himself drunk before he can bear to be with you. You see, it is as I told you, Jan,’ she continued, turning to her brother. ‘We must find somewhere else to live. I have complained already to the organisation that put us here and they have promised to find us somewhere else as soon as they can.’

Bella couldn’t believe her ears. Bettina had complained about her?

‘You come over here to our country,’ she raged at her, ‘where you don’t belong, expecting to be housed and fed by our government. You take jobs from our men and you can’t even speak English properly, and then you dare to complain? Why don’t you go back where you came from?’

Bettina burst into a torrent of Polish, stopping only when her brother put his hand on her arm and shook his head slightly before turning towards Bella, and telling her coldly, ‘You are the most despicable person I have ever met.’

Then, without waiting for Bella to respond, he went to his mother and said gently, ‘Come, Mama, lean on me. Yes, that’s it. Now we will go upstairs and you will rest, and then tonight I shall take you both out for a meal.’

Now the three of them were behaving as though she didn’t exist, Bella saw wrathfully. If anyone needed helping upstairs for a rest it was her, not their mother, because she really did feel very odd all of a sudden. Very odd indeed.

‘Look.’ Gently but very firmly Teddy put his hands on Grace’s shoulders and gave her a small shake. ‘Stop worrying about me, please. Everything’s fine. I’m fine. The thing you should be worrying about is this war, not me, Grace.’

‘It’s easy for you to say that. How can I stop worrying when I know …?’ Too late Grace realised what she had said. Of course it wasn’t easy for him. How could it be?

‘I shouldn’t have told you.’ Teddy sounded weary and his smile had gone.

They’d taken the ferry across to New Brighton because Teddy had said that it was a shame not to enjoy the spring sunshine even if they couldn’t walk on the beach because of its fortifications against enemy landings, and now Grace felt guilty because she’d spoiled what should have been a happy day out.

‘You mustn’t say that,’ she told him, fishing in her pocket for her handkerchief in case she disgraced herself by starting to cry. The beaches looked so ugly and frightening with the defences in place. She wished passionately that things were different, that there was no war and that Teddy could be well.

‘I’m glad you told me, I really am.’ It was the
truth. ‘I would have hated it if … if I hadn’t known,’ she finished lamely.

‘I told you because I wanted there to be honesty between us, Grace, and because, selfishly, I wanted you to be the one I could turn to and talk to.’

‘You can talk to me, Teddy,’ insisted Grace.

Teddy shook his head, the soft floppiness of his hair already tangled slightly by the sea breeze. ‘No I can’t. Not as I want to. Just then you were going to say you’d have hated it afterwards if you hadn’t known, but you didn’t say it. That isn’t being straight about things, Grace. That is not what I want. I know it’s hard for you, and I know I’m asking a lot of you, things that I don’t have any right to ask. I don’t want you fussing like me mum, or thinking the worst every time you don’t see me for a few days. What I want more than anything else is to live whilst I can. I want to share that living with you, Grace, but what I don’t want when I’m gone is … One day, Gracie, you’ll meet someone and fall in love.’