Between Friends (78 page)

‘Martin, I love you.’

‘Then why …?’

‘I was … I had to …’

‘
Had
to! No-one has to do anything they don’t want to do, Meg. I know that years ago you and Tom … well, that Tom had this idea that you and he were to be married though God alone knows how he convinced himself of it. You had a ring … Christ, I can remember in a letter I said …’ His face worked painfully and she knew he was trying to compose himself, to hang on to the tiny shred of control he had. ‘But you said you loved
me
. You
did
love me, or have you forgotten that night?’

‘No! Dear Heaven, Martin, how could I ever forget it?’

‘Very easily, it seems, in another man’s arms!’ His voice was a snarl of torment and his ravaged face hated her for it and his pain was almost more than she could bear. There was visible menace in the bleak depths of his eyes and his fury at suffering it overwhelmed him. She was terrified of the destruction such pain and rage might unleash and that he would not be able to endure it. He was, or had been a strong and arrogant man but his vulnerability now weakened him and he could not bear her to see him as he was. Her kiss had calmed him, for a moment only, the sweetness, the unexpectedness of it taking him by surprise, but now he threw her off and turned his back on her, jerky, uncoordinated, malevolent in his jealous rage.

‘My God, Megan, you are quite a woman, aren’t you? Unnatural almost, one would say, really one would for Tom and I are
almost
like brothers.’ His voice was sneering. ‘Did it give you a kick to sleep with first one and then the other … Goddammit, it makes me want to vomit … to … to think of you … in his bed, to imagine you … in his arms as … as … you must be insatiable, my dear, not able to wait … so why are you not with him now … in the bed you share … or perhaps …’ His face became contorted and she recoiled from the expression on it. ‘Perhaps you fancied a change … a bit of new …’

His face was quite unrecognisable and Meg knew he was, at this moment, as deranged as Tom, but whereas Tom’s danger was directed only at himself, self-hurting and self-destructive, Martin’s was aimed at the one who had hurt him, herself!

‘Is that it?’ he went on, his breath hissing through his teeth. ‘A change from Tom, eeh and who better than Martin who hasn’t had any for so long he’ll be famished for it! Well, madame, lets be at it then …’

‘Martin … aah, don’t, don’t, my love … don’t hurt yourself …’ Her heart was consumed with pity and as he came towards her she did not step back this time, nor flinch, nor even show fear for she felt none. She held out her arms to him and written on her face was her deep and eternal love, strong, unquenched by time and sorrow, undimmed by the foul words he spoke. He raised his hand, his fist clenched as though he would strike her, then roughly knocked her arms away. He was deep in frenzied confusion, she could see it in his face, since what was in hers was undeniably the truth and she knew, at last, that she must tell him about Tom. Only then would he understand.

‘Sit down, Martin, please.’

‘What’s the bloody use, Meg?’ He pushed his trembling hand through his shock of hair and let out his breath on a long, agonised sigh. ‘I might as well go now before Tom comes down to see where the hell you’ve got to. If he does, I tell you, Meggie I can’t guarantee I won’t knock him down.’

‘He won’t do that, Martin.’

‘Why not? My God, if you were mine …’ his face spasmed and his voice shook with emotion, ‘… I’d want to know why the hell you weren’t in
my
bed!’

‘He won’t come down tonight, Martin.’

‘Oh, and why is that?’

‘I put a sleeping pill in his drink. The ones his doctor gives me for when they are … needed.’

‘A sleeping …? What in God’s name are you saying?’ He gripped her arms roughly and gave her a shake. ‘Why should you give him sleeping pills, and for that matter what the devil is he doing in bed at this time of night. Bloody hell, it’s only nine-thirty! His … his best friend, his old childhood mate is back from the bloody dead and he’s in his bed and you’ve given him a
sleeping pill
. What the devil’s going on here, Megan? What game are you playing? Jesus, if I didn’t know you better …’

‘Tom is ill, Martin.’

Martin stepped back and looked disbelievingly at her. He rubbed his hands over his face, pressing the palms into his eyes, then shook his head. He stood for several seconds, his eyes locked with hers, then he sighed and turned away. Taking off his greatcoat he threw it over the back of a chair before sinking tiredly into the depths of the settee, then in the manner of one who seriously doubts his ability to take any more he sighed again, softly, hopelessly.

‘What is it, Meg? What are you keeping from me? What the hell has happened in the years I have been away? You’d better tell me … and lass, let it be the truth.’

‘I have never lied to you in my life, Martin.’

‘I know … I’m sorry. I don’t often say that, Meggie, but tonight has been … somewhat strange … go on, tell me about Tom.’

‘You have heard of shell-shock, Martin? The men in the trenches …’

‘Yes. It took me a long time to get back here … through France and the field hospitals and on the way I saw sights … and when I got back to Blighty, in the hospital where they checked me out, I saw it … and Tom?’

‘He cannot get over it. He … saw things … did things which will not let him alone. He’ll … never recover … never, from his experiences. His friends … all of them in the ‘Liverpool Pals’ were killed and one in particular. I think his name was Andy though of course I can’t ask Tom … I believe … I think … Tom killed him. Tom … has nightmares … he talks … the man was badly wounded … suffering, I suspect Tom put him out of his misery. He buries it beneath … other things, but … well, I have a man to look after him.’

‘Jesus … to look
after him
… He seemed alright to me. Fitter than I am!’

‘His mind is not … fit, Martin. That is why I cannot … I
cannot
destroy him further. If you and I, if I was to leave him he could not survive it. And then there is … my daughter. She is the light of his life. She
gives
him life, and, I think, hope for tomorrow. He sees tomorrow as her! There is nothing for him and the sad thing is he knows it, but through her,
he
has a future. I could not take it, nor her, from him and … I could not leave her. You know … you must know I love you. Tom is, has always been … my friend and I love him dearly but not in the way I love you, nevertheless, Martin, I must stay with him. You know I must.’ Her voice broke on a thread of pain.

He was still then, quite fixed in the immutable truth and dread of what she had told him and in the knowledge of what it meant to
him
. For five minutes neither spoke, both encapsulated in the grief of the parting which was to come, to come
again
and Meg felt the numbness creep protectively over her because really she could not,
could not
bear it. She was torn apart, ripped from the enchantment, the delirium of joy she had been given, flung to the drowning depths of fresh sorrow, and for a dreadful moment she had it in her to wish that Martin … Dear God, forgive her … had not come back to her!

‘How old is your child?’

‘She is four this month. Her birthday is on the fifteenth …’ She heard her voice trail away into an abyss of silence, a silence so complete and empty his triumph filled it, reverberated around it, drums beating, cymbals crashing, pipes piping and bugles sounding in the jubilation of the trap his quick mind had set for her and into which she had neatly fallen. When he turned her to him his face was alive again, the desolation gone, the jealousy gone, the anger gone and all that remained was understanding … and love, his strong, masculine, victorious love.

‘She’s mine, isn’t she?’ His eyes demanded the truth and when he saw it in hers he threw back his head and for a moment she thought he would shout his rejoicing to the ceiling, to the very room on the next floor where Tom slept. He sat like that for a long moment, his eyes closed, his face turned upwards, his lips parted in a sigh of thanksgiving, then slowly he lowered his chin and looked at her wonderingly, understandingly. Putting his hand beneath her chin, he lifted her face to look into his, then kissed her and his soul was in it.

‘So that’s why,’ he said, never taking his eyes from hers, then he put his arms about her and drew her head to his shoulder and
held
her to him and sighed in quiet, peaceful, contented acceptance. ‘So that’s why you married him. To give our child a name. It’s like Tom to do something like that! Well my love, my darling Meg, we shall have to see what can be done for I am here to claim and
protect
what is mine,
mine
, d’you hear, and no-one is going to stop me. As for Tom … well … we must look for a solution and we shall find one, never fear. I don’t know what it is, sweetheart but for every problem there is an answer. I am … sad, you know that for like you, Tom is my friend and I do not relish the feeling that I am to make him suffer but I will not let this illness of his stand in the way of the happiness you and I deserve. Must we sacrifice what is ours, our love, our life, our daughter in order that Tom might have security. A place can be found for him, near to us so that we can see him and he can watch the child …
our
child, Meggie, grow up, but I cannot let him take what is mine, my darling,
mine
! Tom is my brother, Meg and all my life I have treated him as such but I will not allow him to destroy my life. I have fought for this life of mine, for five bloody years. By God, I have suffered too in the war and it is my turn to live now, girl. You are my reason, the mainspring of my life, my hope and ambition for the years we have ahead of us. I cannot give you up, Meg, even for Tom. There must be a way out of this, there must. Now, we will sit here for a while and I will hold you in my arms for I have dreamed of this moment for five years. Of course in my dreams the holding went on and on and the loving began and in my dreams you loved me just as fiercely, but we cannot, not under the same roof as Tom, but we will, my lass, we will. Dear God, Meggie, I love you … I love you, d’you hear …’

The little girl was at the nursery table when Meg and Martin entered the room the next morning and she looked up in quick interest, her eyes, the tilt of her small head, the way her eyebrows moved, even the quirk of humour at the corner of her mouth so inexorably Martin Hunter’s, Meg saw Sally Flash stare with open-mouthed surprise, as she looked from him to the child. Beth Fraser’s face, so endearingly, eternally female, was, in spite of it, a replica of her father’s. Only the colour of her skin and hair were different. She had the creamy silken flesh of Meg and her russet tumble of curls, but in every other aspect she was Martin Hunter’s daughter.

‘Where’s Daddy?’ she demanded immediately, her brown eyes
accusingly
on this stranger who had come in his stead. ‘He said he would take me up to the paddock to see McGinty right after breakfast. I’ve eaten my egg, Mummy, see …’ She held up the empty eggshell, ‘And now I want to go and see McGinty!’

‘Yes sweetheart, but this … this gentleman … has come to see you. He is an old friend of Mummy and Daddy’s and I want you to …’

‘But where’s Daddy?’ A sudden look of alarm, ‘Has he got a heggate?’

‘No darling, he hasn’t got a headache and he will be here soon but …’

Sally Flash stood up nervously.

‘I’ll just go down to the kitchen for some more milk … there’s none left in the …’ She moved across the room and slipped diplomatically through the doorway leaving the disquieting recognition to hover in the nursery at the table where the handsome man had sat down beside Beth. She would just go and have a cup of tea in the kitchen and take comfort from Annie’s stalwart presence, and pray to the God in whom she firmly believed that the stranger would take himself off again, for if he didn’t she had the most curious feeling there would be trouble. Of what kind she was not awfully sure but Mr Tom had been going on for days about Beth’s lovely
blue
eyes when all the world could see they were as brown as those in the face of the man who now knelt beside Mr Tom’s daughter … oh Lord … perhaps Annie would know …

‘This is Mr Hunter, Beth …’

‘Please … not Mr Hunter. My name is Martin, Beth and …’

‘Have you seen my new pony?’

Her eyes flashed brilliantly into his and Meg saw him blink, startled and onto his face came an expression she had never seen before, but then, until this moment, Martin Hunter had never looked into the inquisitive face of his daughter. His expression was guarded as yet, wary almost, as though he could not quite understand the emotion he felt, and he had yet to arrange it to his own satisfaction, in his methodical engineer’s mind. Martin Hunter had come home to claim Meg Hughes and that, until now, was all he really wanted. Even during the night, in the room to which Meg had showed him, when he had known of the existence of his child she had really been nothing to him. A child, a girl, his, and so he would take her with him, and her mother,
naturally
for what was Martin Hunter’s remained Martin Hunter’s! But now, here she was, beautiful, bright, engaging and with a stubborn set to her chin which told him she had spirit. Her face was good-natured, appealing, but in it was something none of them, not even her mother had recognised. In her was the fledgeling challenge of Martin Hunter. He saw it in the face of his daughter and it was then his love was born.

‘No,’ he answered, ‘but I would like to. I bet he’s a beauty!’ Like you, his eyes said and he grinned in delight.