As Time Goes By (26 page)

Sally couldn’t look at him. She didn’t want him
to see the shocked pity in her eyes. ‘I expect she wanted to do what she thought was best for you,’ she told him quietly. ‘It must have hurt her to let you go.’

‘It’s a kind thought, but I doubt that she did. She’s dead now so I’ll never actually know. My adoptive parents became close friends with the doctor in the small town we’d moved to. He was kind to me and encouraged my interest in medicine. I’ve been very lucky to have people in my life who’ve helped me to achieve my dream of becoming a doctor and in turn helping others, but make no mistake, nothing can change the beginnings I came from, or the way one is judged because of them, even if I was once foolish enough to think otherwise. Now, you will need some housekeeping money. How much do you think you will require each month for food and other necessities?’

Sally kept a close watch on what she spent and knew to the penny how much it cost to keep a roof over their heads and buy their food each week, but when she gave the doctor this sum he shook his head and told her, ‘That won’t be enough. I shall pay all the household bills, of course, but I don’t want you to short-change the boys out of some foolish notion that you have to stick to a budget that isn’t sufficient. No, I shall open accounts at any shops you wish to recommend and we will take things from there.’

‘You’re being very generous,’ Sally felt obliged to say. ‘Far too generous, in fact. It’s no wonder the girl you’ve got coming in to do some cleaning
doesn’t do it properly. She’ll have recognised that she can take advantage of you. She’ll find that she’s going to have to pull her socks up a bit.’ There was a martial glint in Sally’s eyes.

‘Well, I’ve said my piece, so is there anything you want to ask me? Anything within the house you might want to see changed?’

Sally hesitated and then said quietly, ‘Well, since you’ve asked, I’m a bit worried about the boys coming to live here, especially Tommy.’

‘How so? They’ll have more room and a bigger garden and—’

‘It’s nothing like that.’

‘What is it then?’

She had known this wasn’t going to be easy, but it had to be said, for Tommy’s sake.

‘It’s the way Tommy is with you. He’s only three and he doesn’t understand things properly yet. He’s … well, you don’t need me to tell you that he’s taken to you, what with him always calling you “his doctor”, an’ all. The thing is that now that we’re living here I don’t want him getting the wrong idea or making a nuisance of himself, and you having to put him straight.’

‘What exactly are you trying to say?’

‘Tommy can’t remember his own dad. I don’t want him … well, with you having lost your little ’uns … well, I know it can’t be easy for you.’ This was so difficult for her and she was beginning to wish she hadn’t said anything but it was too late now. Her voice had become muffled because the truth was that she didn’t think she
could have borne to see too healthy little boys running around alive and well, and having to share a house with them, if her own had been in their graves.

‘No,’ Dr Ross agreed tersely, ‘it isn’t. But I wouldn’t be much of a person if I blamed your boys for that, and besides, having you and them here can’t possibly be compared with my life with my wife.’

Sally recoiled. Who’d said anything about wanting to be compared with his wife? Not her. All she’d tried to say was that she didn’t want Tommy making a nuisance of himself, even if what she’d meant was that she didn’t want the doctor upsetting her son by putting him in his place. There’d been no call for him to make that comment about his wife. There were some things that a person just didn’t say.

‘If that’s everything you wanted to say to me, Doctor, then I’d better go and get on,’ she told him, her pride smarting.

She was just about to pick up the tray when she suddenly remembered something she had needed to ask him. ‘I was wondering what time you’d be wanting your tea. I was thinking maybe six o’clock or thereabouts.’

‘My late wife always used to insist we had
dinner
at eight thirty,’ he informed her.

Sally’s face reddened with his stress on the word ‘dinner’. Posh folk had dinner, not tea – she ought to have remembered that instead of having had him tell her.

‘Then that’s when I’ll make sure your
dinner
is ready, sir,’ she told him smartly, picking up the tray and making for the door before he could continue the conversation.

‘Happy?’

The soft whisper caressed Sam’s ear, causing the now familiar flutters of longing and excitement to race through her body. In breathless exaltation she daringly snuggled closer to Johnny in the darkness of the back row seats of the cinema, as he caressed the curve of her throat.

‘Mm,’ she answered him blissfully.

‘Sure there’s nothing else you’d like?’

He was teasing her, knowing how much she loved the intimacy of his touch, Sam knew, but there was something she would like very much indeed, so she took a deep breath and told him softly, ‘Actually, there is. I’d love to meet your family, Johnny. I know you’ve told me that you mother is living in Wales now, but I heard Sergeant Brookes saying something to you the other day about your sisters.’

She wasn’t going to say anything to him about how she’d felt a little bit hurt that he hadn’t said so much as a word to her about his family, whilst
asking her all sorts of questions about her own.

She felt the change in him immediately. His body tensed against hers and then he moved slightly away from her, no longer holding her quite so close.

‘Well, you’re not going to get to,’ he told her so curtly that for a few seconds she was too shocked to speak.

When she did manage to speak she only got as far as protesting, ‘But, Johnny—’ before he interrupted her sharply.

‘No. And that’s an end to it. Apart from anything else, me sister Jennifer is the only family I’ve got living in Liverpool now, and her and me … well, she’s got her life and I’ve got mine.’

‘But she’s your sister.’ Sam was unable to take on board what he was saying. She and Russell might have quarrelled fiercely as children but there had always been a very strong bond between. All the more so now that they were grown up, in fact.

‘Stow it, will you, Sam?’ Johnny told her ‘Let’s watch the film.’

He obviously didn’t want to talk about his sister, but why?

‘Perhaps we could go and see her?’ Sam suggested, unwilling to give up.

‘No!’

His angry vehemence made Sam recoil, feeling confused and hurt. If her brother had been living close enough for them to visit him, she would have been both thrilled and proud to have had the opportunity to introduce Johnny to him.

‘Well, if you’d rather not,’ she told him valiantly, trying not to let him see how hurt she felt, ‘then of course we won’t.’

‘There’s no point.’ His voice was still curt.

No point in her meeting his sister? Why not? The harshness in his voice suggested that his reasons were ones that caused him pain. Had there been a quarrel between them that they’d never made up – things like that did happen in families, she knew – or was it that they simply did not get on? Sam realised uncomfortably that she felt unable to ask him. Her closeness to her brother made her feel very sad for Johnny and for his sister.

She was so lucky with her own family, she acknowledged. Impulsively she reached for Johnny’s hand and gave it a small loving squeeze. He was still sitting upright and slightly away from her, but she resolved not to allow herself to feel hurt.

‘I wish your mum was still living in Liverpool,’ she told him tenderly. ‘I would have loved to have met her and heard all about when you were a little boy, and about all the little girls who wanted to marry you when they grew up,’ she teased him, hoping to lighten the atmosphere between them, but instead, she could feel him tensing again.

He removed his hand from hers, withdrawing from her physically and emotionally, Sam recognised. Why?

‘That’s daft talk,’ he told her. ‘What’s past is
past. It’s us that matter now, Sam. Our future together, us.’

He obviously didn’t want to talk about either his childhood or his family.

‘And talking of us,’ he added in a deeper and far more loving voice, ‘how about I do what I thought we’d come here to the pictures to do in the first place?’

‘Watch the film, you mean?’ Sam enquired, mock innocently.

‘You can watch the film if you want, but what I want to do is this,’ was Johnny’s response as he reached for her, drawing her back into his arms and bending his head to kiss her.

Sam still wasn’t entirely used to the heavenly physical intimacy that being a girlfriend brought, not yet, but she was learning fast!

‘Johnny, why don’t we go back to your billet?’ she whispered against his lips, surprising herself with her own daring. ‘We could be alone there and—’

‘Yes, and we both know what would happen if we were, and that’s exactly why we can’t,’ he stopped her firmly.

Sam fiddled with the button on his coat. ‘Why can’t we? Other couples do.’

And it would mean that they were properly promised to one another, she told herself silently, and then surely those odd niggling little fears she had when he distanced himself from her wouldn’t be there any more.

‘There’s a war on, after all,’ she reminded him,
‘and if anything should happen …’ she gave a tense shiver at the reality of her own words. ‘I don’t want to lose you, Johnny, and I don’t want to die without knowing what it’s like to lie in your arms, knowing that I’m completely yours.’

She could feel his chest lift as he made a small choking sound and then she was being crushed in his arms as he kissed her very hard and for a very long time. Somehow or other his hand was cupping her breast and hers lay against his thigh where the evidence of his desire for her beneath her fingers made her heart thud with excited longing. When he finally released her she had lost all track of what was happening on the screen but she didn’t care one bit.

‘We could go back now,’ she whispered eagerly.

‘Don’t tempt me,’ he answered her thickly.

He was still touching her face, stroking her skin and then playing with the small feathery fronds of her hair where it had grown to curling round her ears, curling them instead around his finger.

‘Why not, when I want to tempt you, Johnny, when I want you so very much?’

A sudden surge of music warned Sam that the film had finished. Soon the cinema lights would be going on, and the National Anthem would be playing and then there would be no privacy for them any more. She wanted desperately to understand why Johnny was blowing so hot and cold with her, but somehow she felt unable to ask him, and now with the film ending it was too late.

Sam’s passionate nature meant that she had given herself over heart and mind to Johnny, and she wanted to give herself over to him with her body as well. Others might say that it was a sign of respect for her that he was holding back, but somehow all she could feel was rejected.

‘You’re quiet,’ he commented later, when they had left the cinema and queued up to buy a bag of chips to share as Johnny walked her to her bus stop. ‘What’s up?’

Here was her chance to tell him how confused she had felt earlier in the evening – and hurt as well – but somehow instead she heard herself voicing another fear as she admitted, ‘I hate it when I see you going down into a bomb shaft.’

‘It’s my job.’

‘Yes, I know.’ She gave a small shiver. ‘You’re so brave, Johnny. I couldn’t do it. Just the thought of being underground scares me silly.’

He gave her a reassuring hug. ‘I’d like to punch that brother of yours on the nose for what he did to you.’

Now thankfully he was her loving protective Johnny again.

A bus was coming down the road towards them, the blue glow of its blackout lights momentarily casting an eerie faint blue glow over their faces.

‘He didn’t mean any harm,’ Sam assured him. ‘We were always falling out as children, but he is my brother, after all, and I love him dearly.’

She bit her bottom lip anxiously as she realised
what she had said. She’d really gone and put her foot in it now. She hadn’t deliberately mentioned how close she and Russ were as a way of encouraging Johnny to talk to her about his sister and why he didn’t want them to meet, but she could tell from Johnny’s silence that he was angry with her again.

She tried to snuggle up to him but instead he nodded in the direction of the bus stop several yards away, where half a dozen people were already queuing and told her briskly, ‘Your bus is due any minute. We’d better go and get in the queue. You won’t want to miss it.’

‘Yes, Mrs Beddows, I’ll tell the doctor that you’ve rung and that you want him to call round and see your husband,’ Sally said firmly into the telephone receiver, before replacing it and then carefully checking the message she had written down in the notebook the doctor had given her, showing her how he wanted the caller’s name, telephone number if they had a telephone, and their message recorded, along with the time of their call.

Although she wasn’t fully prepared to admit it, Sally was rather enjoying her new role and the confidence it was giving her. Or at least she was when she managed to stop worrying about those elusive feelings and yearnings that sometimes managed to push through the barriers she had erected against them, reminding her of what it had felt like to play devil’s footsteps, as a little girl, when no matter how quickly you turned you could
never catch sight of the ‘thing’ you knew was stalking you. Most of the time it was easy to convince herself that those feelings and yearnings didn’t exist, that she, newly widowed, had no right to have them for anyone, least of all someone like the doctor.

People treated you with proper respect when they realised you were a doctor’s receptionist. Sally thought she might ask Doris if her Frank could come round and carry down a little table from upstairs so that she could put her notebook on it and a chair behind it for when she needed to record messages.

Christmas would be on them before they knew it. People were talking about it when they went shopping, worrying about what might be available and what would not. Sally, with her five guineas a week coming in, had put in an early order with Molly’s aunt in Nantwich for a nice plump farm-reared goose for Christmas dinner, and the weight of the doctor’s name on those accounts he had opened at the local shops in Wavertree had meant that she had been able to get in a few precious extras – all legal and proper, mind – none of that black market stuff, not after what had happened to Tommy.

She looked at her watch. Just gone midday. The doctor had said he would be coming home for his dinner today because he had patients to see in the afternoon. She had managed to get a nice bit of fish, which she had poached for him in some of the extra milk allowance she got for the boys. Her
own mother may not have been much of a cook but Doris was, and Sally had not been too proud to learn from her.

She started to sing softly to herself as she ran up the stairs to check on the boys. Tommy was coming out with all sorts of big words now, and Harry had grown a full inch since she had last measured him not so long ago. She’d have to start letting down his little romper suits and knit them both some new pairs of mittens.

She’d have to get those old medicine bottles that patients had brought back washed out an’ all, now that the doctor had checked through them.

She was still singing a few minutes later as she hurried back downstairs to check on the doctor’s dinner, or ‘lunch’, as he called it, having reassured herself that the boys were all right, oblivious to the fact that the doctor had returned and was standing in the open doorway to his office until she was almost in the hall.

‘Oh, I’m sorry, Doctor,’ she began. ‘I didn’t know you’d come in.’

‘There’s no need to stop singing on my account, Sally. In fact I hope that you don’t.’

He’d gone back into his office before Sally had time to react to what he had said and the fact that he had called her Sally and not Mrs Walker, and not for the first time!

She was acutely conscious of that, though, half an hour later when she knocked on the now closed door, waiting for him to call out ‘Come in’ before she opened it.

‘I just came to tell you that your dinner … I mean your lunch is ready, Doctor.’

This was the first time he’d come back at dinnertime to eat and Sally had taken great care to polish the mahogany dining table before laying it.

‘I’ll be through in a minute,’ he told her.

Sally hurried back to the kitchen, quickly serving the boys their own fish pie dinner, before carefully placing the doctor’s lunch on the plates she had already warmed, ready to take through to the dining room.

When he opened the kitchen door, and commented cheerfully to the boys, ‘Hello, you two. Started without me, have you?’ Sally was so taken aback she could only stare at him before starting to stammer defensively, ‘I’ve laid out the table in the dining room for you to have your lunch there.’

He was frowning now, the smile he had given the boys gone. ‘I see,’ he said curtly, making Sally feel that she had offended him.

‘I thought that was what you would want,’ she told him.

‘What
I
would want? What would you know or care about what
I
wanted?’

Sally stared at him. ‘I … it wouldn’t be right, you having to eat here in the kitchen with us… People would think I was taking advantage, and getting above meself …’

‘
People
would
think
…?’

Was that anger or contempt she could hear in his voice, or was it a bit of both? Sally didn’t know and she certainly couldn’t ask him.

Without waiting for her to make any response he turned on his heel and strode out of the kitchen, leaving her on her own to answer Tommy’s accusatory, ‘Mummy make my doctor cross.’

‘My, Sally, you must have worked like a regular Trojan to get this place looking so spick and span.’

Sally forced herself to smile back at Doris. The doctor’s anger towards her at dinnertime still rankled and had destroyed her sunny mood.

‘Well, it’s thanks to you more than anyone else that I know how a house should be kept, Doris.’ Sally told her truthfully. ‘Been more like a mother to me than my own, you have, teaching me what’s what after I had Tommy. Couldn’t cook so much as a meat and tatty pie then, I couldn’t.’

‘Don’t give me all the credit, Sally. You’re a good hard worker and a willing learner, and me not having a daughter, and our Frank being married to June in them early days, and the two of us not getting on – not like me and Molly do – well, you gave me back as much as I gave you.’