Across the Mersey (36 page)

‘Teddy.
Teddy
… No.’

But Grace knew even as she said his name that it was too late and he had gone.

* * *

They let her go with his body into the hospital but later she was glad that they had refused to allow her to help lay him out. Somehow it wouldn’t have been proper really, her seeing him in such a personal way when they hadn’t been like that with one another.

Matron was very kind to her, telling her she was sending her home in the care of a senior nurse Grace didn’t know but whose family apparently lived a couple of streets away from her own.

It was a beautiful evening with a clear sky and a perfect sunset, the air balmy with summer, and the evidence of living things at their fullest flowering was all around her in gardens and on allotments. Teddy should have lived to experience that fullness of life instead of being denied it.

Elspeth, the other nurse, let her walk down her own street on her own, and to Grace’s relief she managed to control herself until she was inside, but the moment she saw her mother she threw herself into her arms and cried her eyes out.

‘The bloody Luftwaffe were at it again last night. They got the dockers’ umbrella this time and the docks,’ Mr Whitehead told Grace gloomily as she did the morning locker round.

The dockers’ umbrella was the local name for the overhead railway that ran the length of the docks and under which dockers often sheltered when it came on to rain.

‘Yes, I know,’ Grace agreed calmly. ‘My dad’s with the Salvage Corps and they were called out, but seemingly the damage wasn’t too bad.’

‘They’ve bin bombing the south-east coast and Dover, an’ all,’ Mr Whitehead continued, determined to look on the black side. ‘Hitler wants to destroy our RAF so that he can invade us unchallenged.’

‘Hellfire Corner, the papers are calling Dover now, but the RAF will soon see them off,’ the cheerful young sergeant in the next bed, who was now recovering from his injuries, told him.

‘Them German Stukas are no match for our Spitfires.’

Grace dutifully tried to concentrate on the newspaper report they were both discussing, which explained how the German Stukas protected by Messerschmitt fighters had roared in over the Channel coast in bomber formation to attack harbours, naval bases and airfields, whilst the Spitfires protected by the Hurricanes of Bomber Command had carefully fed into the battle to take a terrible toll of the Germans who had lost 31 planes to the RAF’s 17.

‘It says here,’ the young sergeant read, having got out of bed against regulations and picked up Mr Whitehead’s paper: ‘“Among the most successful of the RAF pilots are the Poles, who have fought the Germans in their own skies, over France and now over Britain. They burn with hatred for the Nazis and roar into battle with reckless courage.”’

The other men in the ward all burst spontaneously into applause when the sergeant had finished reading.

As pleased as Grace was by the news, poor Teddy’s death was still very raw with her.

They had buried him yesterday, and for the first time she had met his family. Grace’s mother hadn’t really wanted her to attend the funeral, worrying that she might not be up to it, but Grace had insisted that she must pay her last respects, so Jean had gone with her.

Grace had been surprised to learn from Teddy’s mother just how much he had talked about her at home and even more surprised when it had turned
out that her own mother and Teddy’s had gone to the same school.

There had been a good deal of talk from Teddy’s family about how he would never listen to reason about not overdoing things and Grace had thought of the rueful ‘I told you so’ smile he would have given her had he been there to hear them.

The other girls in her set had all been sympathetic, even Lillian, although Grace had suspected that her outward show of sympathy was just that – a show put on because it was what she thought she should do.

Grace still couldn’t quite believe that it had actually happened somehow, and, this morning, once she got into the sluice room she discovered to her dismay that she was crying.

This wouldn’t do, it would not do at all, and it was the last thing that Teddy would want, but still she leaned her head against the wall and gave way to her tears.

The sluice-room door opened and Grace tensed with shock when Seb walked in.

‘You can’t come in here,’ she told him. ‘Sister will have a fit.’

‘I heard about your friend. And I just wanted to say how sorry I was.’

Grace could feel fresh tears filling her eyes. ‘He knew it was going to happen. He’d told me. But I never thought … I’d warned him that he was doing too much. He must have known when he ran after that lad.’

Seb pushed a clean handkerchief into her hand.

‘He’d be that cross if he could see me now. He told me that he didn’t want me crying over him, and that was why we could only be friends and not anything else. He said he didn’t want me feeling guilty like I would do if we’d been a proper couple. But I do feel guilty,’ Grace said wretchedly. ‘Teddy wanted so much to live and I can’t stop meself from thinking that if I had been his girl, you know, properly, then he’d have known what that was like instead of dying without knowing.’

The words were tumbling out on top of one another, things she would never normally have dreamed of saying, but instinctively Grace sensed that Seb would understand what she was feeling and what she was trying to say.

He did. And he understood too that his own feelings for Grace had become far more personal than he had realised until now.

‘You’ve nothing to feel guilty about, Grace,’ he reassured her, ‘except that you’re upsetting yourself when Teddy didn’t want you to, and over something he wouldn’t have wanted you to be upset over.’

‘How do you know that? You didn’t even know him.’

‘No. But just from what you’ve said about him now I can tell that he was a man of honour and decency,’ Seb insisted truthfully. ‘Maybe he did want what you’ve just said, but I reckon that what he wanted more was what he’d already said he wanted for you. You should respect that and respect him for it, because I certainly do. He sounds
a fine man and I wish I’d had the opportunity to meet him.’

‘He
was
a fine man,’ said Grace, her tears subsiding, and then starting up again as she wept, ‘It’s so unfair, Seb.’

He crossed the small distance separating them and took her in his arms, holding her comfortingly.

‘It is,’ he agreed. ‘Bloody unfair. But that’s life, Grace. You know that. It is unfair. And if you want to be fair to him, then the best thing you can do is to remember him as he wanted you to.’

Grace raised her head to look at him, her eyes widening slightly as her body registered the fact that she was in his arms.

‘Grace.’

He hadn’t intended to kiss her. He hadn’t even thought of doing so, not for one minute, Sebastion assured himself. He had seen her rush into the sluice room, had guessed she was upset and had simply followed her to offer his sympathy.

But now that he was kissing her, Seb realised, he didn’t ever want to stop.

A sound outside the door brought them both back to reality. Seb released her and Grace stepped back from him. They were both breathing unsteadily and Grace knew that her heart was racing – not with shock but with excitement.

‘We shouldn’t have done that,’ she told Seb weakly.

‘No,’ he agreed, ‘but I’m glad that we did.’
Her mother had been in such a bad mood since Jack had run away and they had to collect him from Aunt Jean’s and then take him back to Wales, that Bella just didn’t feel like going round to see her.

Bettina and her mother were carrying on as if the Poles were the saviours of the nation, ever since it had been in the papers about them being such daring fighter pilots, and Bella was sick of listening to them.

Now just because the post hadn’t brought a letter from Jan this morning they were acting like the world had ended and had rushed off to see what they could find out, fearing the worst and that Jan might have been shot down in one of the now almost daily air battles between the Luftwaffe and the RAF. Well, good riddance if he had, Bella thought nastily.

She wished they weren’t having such a hot August. It was really draining her, what with the heat and the air-raid sirens going off night after night, and her having to get out of bed and go down to the shelter until the all clear came. At least today, though, she didn’t have to worry about having to put up with Alan’s temper, seeing as he was playing golf with his father. And yet even though she resented Bettina and her mother, the house felt empty without them there to complain to about how miserable she felt.

It was definitely too hot outside. She might as well go upstairs and lie down comfortably on her bed, as stay out here in the garden, thought Bella.

Less than an hour later Alan woke her up when he came storming upstairs, obviously drunk and in a furious temper.

‘What are you doing back?’ she asked him irritably. ‘I thought you were playing golf.’

‘Trixie’s father was at the golf club, and do you know what?’

Bella gave an exaggerated sigh and got up off the bed. ‘No, and I don’t want to know either,’ she told him as she walked past him.

He caught up with her on the landing, grabbing hold of her arm and pushing her back against the banister rail so hard that it hurt her back.

‘Well, you’re going to know. He said that Trixie’s getting engaged,’ said Alan bitterly. ‘That’s thanks to you, you bitch,’ he raged. ‘It’s because of you that I’ve lost the girl I love. The only girl I’ll ever love.’ He was sobbing now, drunken tears streaming down his face. ‘It’s all your fault. Everything. You’ve ruined my life.’

She’d ruined his life! Her back really hurt and so did her arm where he was still holding it in a painful grip. Bella gave him a baleful look and demanded crossly, ‘Let go of me, Alan. You’re hurting me.’

‘Am I? So what? It’s what you deserve. In fact …’ He was looking at her now in a way that sent an atavistic prickle of warning up under Bella’s skin, lifting the hairs at the back of her neck.

As though in the very second that it flashed through her mind that being trapped between Alan and the banister rail meant she was in a perilous
position, the same thought seemed to occur to him, so that when she tried to twist her body round to escape from any danger he slammed her back against the banister. The force he used sent the breath gasping from her lungs. Instinctively Bella reached out with her free hand to try to drag Alan’s fingers from round her wrist. She was panting now, her ears filled with the sound of Alan’s drunken jeering laughter. He was gripping her wrist so hard she thought it might actually break.

Panic filled her. She clawed wildly at his face, but he still didn’t let her go. Instead he grabbed hold of her by the hair with his free hand, banging her head against the wall.

Her ears ringing with pain and nausea, Bella sobbed in panic, begging him, ‘Stop it, Alan, please stop it.’ She was crying and too frightened to conceal her terror as Alan dragged her towards the top of the stairs.

‘One push and that would be it,’ he told her. ‘You and that brat you’re carrying would be dead and I’d be free. Trixie wants me really, I know she does. She’s always loved me and she always will. She said so. She’s only got engaged to this other chap because of you.’

He had pushed her back against the banister and was leaning in to her. Bella could hear the wood creaking and moving beneath their combined weight.

Abruptly he swung her round, and away from the banister, so that she had her back to the stairs.

Bella hiccuped in sick relief. Thank God he had
come to his senses. He was still holding on to her wrists, manacling both of them now.

She tried to pull them free and then screamed in sick terror as Alan jerked her backwards, causing her to fall off the top step, suspended for a nauseating heartbeat of time in nothing other than the air before he yanked her back to the safety of the stair.

‘That’s it, you go ahead and make me let you go, and then it will be your own fault. I’ll tell them that I tried to calm you down and stop you, but you just went ahead and fell all by yourself.’

He was grinning at her now, a maniacal drunken grin, his eyes savage with his hatred of her.

He was going to do it. He was going to let go of her wrists and push her down the stairs. Bella could see it in his eyes. Sobbing in terror, she was trembling violently. She was going to die. Alan was going to kill her. She felt him release her right wrist. She reached out frantically towards the banister.

Suddenly there were feet on the stairs; an RAF uniform; Jan, his body supporting hers as he punched Alan once and so hard that he collapsed onto the landing like a deflated puppet.

Bella sagged against Jan, too shocked and weak to do anything other than let him take charge. She was trembling so much she could hardly stand, never mind walk, and she had to lean heavily on him. She could smell the scent of his skin and his hair.

He took her into the kitchen and sat her down on a chair.

‘I’ll call your doctor.’

‘No,’ Bella protested. ‘There’s no need.’

‘He would have killed you if I hadn’t come in.’

‘No,’ Bella denied, but she knew that it was true and that in his drunken fury Alan had intended to do just that. Bella, though, had been brought up by a mother who had taught her that appearances were everything, and Bella couldn’t endure the shame of other people knowing what Alan had tried to do.

Now that she was out of danger, all she wanted to do was to pretend that it had never happened. The last thing she wanted was everyone knowing what kind of husband Alan was, and even worse, that he loved someone else and had wanted to leave her.

Alan! She could hear him lurching down the stairs and she looked anxiously towards the door but to her relief he didn’t come into the kitchen, and within a few seconds she heard the front door being slammed behind him as he left.

‘You need to see the doctor and tell him what’s happened,’ insisted Jan.

Bella shook her head and then stopped, wincing. Just moving her head hurt because of the way Alan had banged it against the wall.

‘What are you doing here anyway?’ she challenged Jan. Now that she was safe, her normal desire to make sure that the refugees knew their place reasserted itself. Far easier to do that than let herself think about those moments when she had feared for her life. ‘I thought you were busy
being a hero. Not that it managed to stop Hitler invading your own country, of course.’

There was a small pause but he didn’t respond to her gibe, simply saying instead, ‘I had a twenty-four-hour pass. I knew my mother would be worrying with everything that’s been in the papers about the fighting over the Channel, so I decided to come home to tell her myself that there was no need to worry about me.’

Bella wished he would go away. She wasn’t feeling very well at all, but she wasn’t going to let him see that. She hated him, she really did, and she would rather anyone but him had seen what Alan was doing to her. He must have hit Alan very hard.

Her head was swimming and a cramping pain was invading her stomach.

‘You’ll find your mother and sister down at the WVS Refugee Centre. And I don’t know who gave you a key to my house but they had no right to do so.’