Apple Blossom Time (36 page)

The new Martin just stuck out his arm to flag down the bus.

The bus bounced along a dreary road, past a brickworks, a deserted airfield, a sprawl of prefabs on the outskirts of town. I looked out of the window because I – we – had nothing to say. We seemed to have lost the habit.

*   *   *

In the centre of a scrap of paper, I scrawled his name. Edwin Ansty. In a circle around him, I wrote the names of the people who knew what had happened to him. My grandmother, his mother. My mother, his wife. Tom, my stepfather, his best friend. Those three, the closest, would say nothing.

But the circle was wider than it used to be. There was Geoffrey Paxton, his sergeant-major. That name went down on the paper. Who else?

J S P Carterton, second-in-command of the battalion. Judge and jury – or one of them. For that is the fault of the court-martial system. The same men – and, in the case of a court martial in the field, only three men – are accusers, jury and judge. Just three men are responsible for the convening of the trial, its conduct and its outcome – even if that should be death. And in seven years, all record of what they have done has disappeared. Could that be right?

I looked at the circle of names. Two more places were filled by question marks, the other members of the court, but Martin had already discovered that these two were dead. I stared so hard that the names began to blur.

A sudden squall spattered off the window panes and shook them in their warped frames. I got up and pulled the curtains. There was no-one else at home. Mother had gone up to spend the evening with Grandmother, picking over tattered curtains and reputations. Tom was out, probably treating his chums at the Green Dragon. Yet the cottage wasn’t quiet. The wind boomed in the chimney, a hollow, lonely sound. The door between the kitchen and the dark sitting room rattled. The range gave a comforting hiss. I’d stoked it up well – spoiling myself, when fuel was so short – but the night was cold and I was feeling rather low. Anyway, I could argue that I was saving fuel, by sitting in the kitchen rather than lighting the sitting-room fire. Tom had pulled in an easy chair for me, to make it feel cosier.

Perhaps I’d overdone it. As I walked back to the table, I realized that I was feeling very sleepy. Absurd. It was only half-past seven. I went back and opened a window, just a crack, but the wind was coming from that direction and the rain forced itself in, so I closed it again. Typical autumn gale, I thought; tomorrow the first of the leaves would litter the grass and Tom would begin the bonfires that seemed to last until Christmas.

Yes, I really was feeling overpoweringly sleepy. And my head was pounding to an uncomfortable rhythm. I coughed a couple of times, soft, wheezy coughs. Perhaps I was going down with something. Drat. That was all I needed.

I began to draw a chain that linked all the names on the paper. But it was a chain that didn’t have a beginning or an end. Then I realized I’d left out a name – no, not a name, because I didn’t know it – but there was someone missing. I’d left out the person who’d sent me those anonymous messages, the ones that had arrived early in the quest to find my father. I still couldn’t guess whether the sender was vindictive or just disturbed, whether he or she was attempting to encourage my search or frighten me off, but whoever it was deserved a place in my plan.

Who?

At one time, I’d thought it might be James’s mother, but I’d discarded that idea long ago. I realized, now, that I’d been making them fit my own imagined pattern. No matter how plausible their motives, I could no longer see any connection. They had had no access to the information. Or, if I still believed they had, I would also have to believe that I had – by chance, and thousands of miles from home – married a man whose father had – by chance – known my own in France; no, more, known him in the last few months of his life. I couldn’t accept that coincidence, even if I still wanted to.

Pansy? I’d certainly suspected her. I was ashamed of that now. I’d imagined that Pansy – Pansy, of all people – had been so jealous of my marriage to the man who just might, possibly, be the father of her child, that she’d … Pansy? Absurd.

God, my head was thumping.

Then, who? Who had known enough?

Mr Millport? He’d known what had happened to my father, of course. He’d connived with my grandmother to ensure that my father was denied his proper place amongst the remembered dead. But to suspect him of further malice was like imagining Saint Nicholas stealing toys from children.

If it came to that, the whole village seemed to have known, or why did Grandmother fear that the memorial might be vandalized? But they’d all kept their own counsel for twenty-five years. Country people have long memories, but surely a quarter of a century was enough to soften old grudges. This vindictiveness was irrational. It had been especially targeted at me.

In fact, I was probably the only person in Ansty Parva who had not known what had happened to my father. If I suspected one person, I might as well suspect three hundred. Martin had said that once and I had not listened.

So why? And why now? There had to be a reason.

Round and round, round and round … if I could just close my eyes for a moment …

I drew a large question mark on an outer ring and chained it into the circle with bigger links. And then I stopped. That was all I knew.

I stared at my scribbled diagram. The marks blurred and then merged together. Dots and dashes. Squiggles. I blinked to try to clear my vision, but that didn’t work. Sleepy – I felt so sleepy – no, sick …

What a waste of time … I’d think again in the morning … I’d understand … in the morning …

*   *   *

And the rain was falling on my face and the stones were pressing into my back and legs and I was cold, so cold, and someone was shaking me …

‘Laura, Laura. Oh God, Laura, wake up…’

Sleep … let me …

‘Laura, please … breathe…’

No … I could drift … go away …

And the rain was like needles on my skin, a cruel way to wake, and he wouldn’t leave me alone and I hated him for bringing me back. He shook me and shook me and wouldn’t let me go. Couldn’t he see how much it hurt?

So I took a breath. And then another. Cruel … Damn him … From some hidden reserve of army language I dredged up a word I’d never used in my life before. ‘Bugger off.’

‘Laura, thank God, darling Laura, I thought I’d lost you…’

And Martin laughed and cradled me to his chest until the coarseness of his sweater rasped my cheek and I could smell wet wool and sweat and fear. And I could tell the difference between his tears and the rain because the rain was cold.

*   *   *

‘The fire cement has just crumbled away.’ Tom’s voice was muffled because his head was squashed into the gap between the range and the chimney breast. He backed out into the open. There was coal dust in his hair. ‘There’s no seal left between the range and the flue.’

I nodded. What a silly way to nearly die.

‘The fumes must have been leaking for ages, but we wouldn’t have noticed it with windows and doors open all summer. I suppose you closed everything up last night because of the weather?’

I nodded again.

‘Carbon monoxide,’ said Tom with chill precision. ‘I saw a chap once who’d gassed himself. His skin was cherry pink. Couldn’t get over how well he looked. Not a bad way to go, on the whole, I thought. If you have to. You looked like that – pink, very. No pain, I suppose?’

It took me a moment to realize he was asking a question. ‘Only coming back.’

‘Thought so. Ah, well.’ Tom nodded. ‘How amazing – Martin coming round like that. Were you expecting him?’

‘No.’

‘Lucky, then. Anyway, I’ll have it fixed in a jiffy. No more accidents.’ Tom delved into his pocket and brought out a crumpled piece of paper. ‘You were clutching this. Hanging on for grim death. Your mother found it when she put you to bed.’ He smoothed it out on the kitchen table and read it. ‘Awful lot of question marks, old girl.’

*   *   *

I used to think that I was a patient person. Fairly. As a child, I knew that everything would come, if I just waited long enough. Christmas. Birthdays. A pony. All in their own good time and much more exciting because of the anticipation. Imagine how dull we would be, if we could have everything we wanted whenever we wanted it. Now my relationship with Reg Shellard, the postman, was in danger of breaking down.

He couldn’t help it if no-one did write to me, he protested, why blame him? And no wonder, when I had a face that’d curdle the milk. I was persecuting him. He only carried the post, he didn’t make it. So leave off.

But he did, eventually, bring me the answers I’d been expecting.

From the office of Crockford’s, I learned that the Reverend W S Mantell, chaplain to Princess Augusta’s Own between 1916 and 1918, had died in 1929.

From the British Medical Association, I learned that Dr Humphrey Whitlock, medical officer to Princess Augusta’s Own from May 1918 to the end of the war, still practised in Camberley.

*   *   *

‘Another job interview?’ questioned Mother. ‘Laura, dear, why can’t you be content with a local job?’

‘Because I can’t find one,’ I answered, truthfully.

‘But there was that trip you made last month – where was it, Bedfordshire – the fare was so expensive. And it all came to nothing in the end. Your demob grant won’t last for ever, you know. You ought to put something aside for a rainy day. Besides, it’s so nice to have you at home…’

‘Camberley isn’t Darkest Africa, Mother.’

*   *   *

‘I suppose I’d better go with you,’ said Martin.

‘Why? I don’t need anyone to hold my hand.’

‘Who was it, last time, went in with all guns blazing and stirred up the military shit?’

‘Me.’

‘And who was it quietly winkled out some useful information from the clerks?’

I laughed and punched his arm. ‘You.’

‘See. Besides, I don’t think I dare let you out of my sight.’ He put his arms round me and drew me close. ‘I thought I’d lost you, Laura. Don’t do that to me again.’

It was so long since he’d touched me. He was stiff and awkward, uncertain of his welcome. I drew his lips down to mine. I’d forgotten …

I’d forgotten the taste of him, the way I had to stretch to reach his face. I’d forgotten the feel of his body, whipcord and wire. I’d forgotten how right I felt, how safe, when I sheltered within his embrace.

I knew that I was wanted and the knowledge was powerful and exciting. If decent women don’t feel desire, then I am not decent and I’m proud of it.

It was Martin who had the common sense to call a halt. We were in his mother’s garden, for heaven’s sake. She’d have had a heart attack to see me there, like a harlot, with my lips rosy from Martin’s kisses and my blouse unbuttoned.

His fingers trembled as he tried to fasten my blouse. ‘Bloody buttons. Why are your buttons always too big for the holes?’

‘They’re not. It’s you.’ I fastened the last three to prove my point.

‘I haven’t been fair to you, Laura,’ Martin said softly.

‘No, you haven’t,’ I agreed, briskly. I don’t know if that was what he wanted, but that was what he got.

‘I came back and – I can’t explain…’

‘Try.’

‘I couldn’t connect. Does that make sense? Everything I saw was distorted. I looked around at my home and nothing was the way it ought to be. I walked down the road and I smelt smoke. I woke in the night and I heard the sound of digging.’

I listened, aghast, with a growing sense of shame. Martin said that he’d not been fair to me – and that was true – but how fair had I been in return? I realized that I had not made the slightest attempt to understand him. I had looked, but not seen. I had listened, but not heard. Where had I been when he had woken to the sound of digging? What sort of love was that? He had needed me and I had failed him.

‘I looked at faces,’ he went on; ‘people I’d known all my life, people I’d been to school with, you, Laura, even you – and behind them all I saw the other faces, the hungry, the pleading, the dying…’

He turned his face away, but I could still see the jumping nerve at the angle of his jaw. I touched it, gently, as though it might hurt him.

‘Martin, I’m sorry, I never guessed. I didn’t understand what had happened to you. I’m sorry.’

He looked back then, and stroked my hair away from my forehead. ‘And then I nearly lost you. God, I can’t think of my life without you in it. And I realized that it was time to come back and live in my own world again. So, Laura, when will you marry me?’

‘As soon as you ask me.’

‘Then I’m asking you now. When, Laura?’

‘I don’t know…’ It was difficult to look at his eager face. ‘Soon, Martin, soon.’

I didn’t realize then, but later I understood why I hadn’t answered him. I had something to do first.

*   *   *

Dr Humphrey Whitlock practised from a bay-windowed Victorian house in Camberley’s respectable Park Street. Martin and I were shown by Mrs Whitlock through a hall booby-trapped by bicycles, alphabet bricks and a one-legged teddy bear. You’d think a doctor could have stitched the leg back on. From the hesitant way she opened the consulting room door, I guessed we were a nuisance, a break in a packed appointment book.

He wasn’t as old as I’d expected. He was a brisk, late-middle-aged man with spectacles and a straggly moustache and the pink, rather soggy hands of someone who washes too often and doesn’t take time to dry properly. There was only one chair opposite his desk, the patient’s chair, so I sat in it. The sun shone straight into my face, leaving Dr Whitlock as an intimidating black bulk.

Martin stood behind me. His hand was on the back of the chair. If I leaned back, I could feel the pressure of his knuckles. I was scared – of what might be said, of what might not be said. Martin moved his hand to the back of my neck and gave it a quick, encouraging squeeze.

Dr Whitlock said, ‘Well? And what can I do for you?’ in the way that doctors do, the way that makes you want to say, ‘I don’t like to trouble you, but…’

‘I think you may once have known my father.’