Call Nurse Jenny (13 page)

‘Might take you up on that, Taff.’ Defiance held him in a vice. Two weeks waiting for a response to his last letter to her, and still nothing.

‘You’re on then,’ said Taffy, and Matthew’s mood loosened enough for him to give way to a terse chuckle.

‘You’re a lecherous swine, Taff.’ But at this moment Taffy was a tonic to an aching heart.

A few days later he was glad he hadn’t been led into temptation, with fatigues preventing him sneaking out of camp with Taffy to the infamous farmhouse. Handed a letter from Susan, he read what seemed to be the usual dutiful scribble, except for one short badly spelt paragraph:

I hope you don’t think I’m not intrested, Matthew. I don’t know how to put my feelings down on paper because when I read it it sounds so silly so I just tare it up. But I do need to tell you that I reelly do …

The next two words had been crossed out, obliterated so completely that a diviner couldn’t have read them, after which she had continued:

I won’t half be glad to see you again so I can tell you how I reelly feel.

All at once it seemed his luck changed. Before he had a chance to reply, the whole unit was returned to Northwood and with a forty-eight-hour pass to boot. On wings of joy he rushed to the phone box on his arrival, finding a lengthening queue of Army personnel eager to tell families of the chance to be with them for the weekend.

In a fever of impatience he tagged on to the end of it, cursing the time the one already in the phone box was taking. At last, the receiver in his grasp, he gave the exchange the telephone number of the shop where Susan worked, having long ago looked it up after she had told him where she was employed.

‘Hello?’ A high, piercing voice spoke loudly in his ear as he asked for Susan. And then, querulously, ‘Who is this?’

‘Can I speak to Miss Susan Hopkins?’ he repeated.

‘I’m sorry,’ came the voice, quite tersely. ‘Staff aren’t allowed to take private calls.’

‘But this is urgent.’

‘I’m very sorry, sir. This telephone is for customer enquiries only.’ She wasn’t a bit sorry, in fact she sounded highly pleased to refuse his request. ‘Only if the call is from the family of one of our staff with dire news do we allow them to take a call.’

‘Then could you give her a message?’ he intercepted. ‘Could you tell her I’ll see her tonight – on the corner of her road – at six-thirty?’

The voice had become filled with exasperation. ‘Really, sir, I am far too busy to relay messages from every Tom, Dick and Harry arranging dates with members of my staff.’

‘Please – just this once. We’re – we’re …’ He thought quickly. ‘We’re engaged, and …’

He broke off as the phone-box door was yanked open. The voices outside came instantly loud, the speaker even louder.

‘Git a bleedin’ move on, mate. There’re others out ’ere, y’know.’

Matthew shot out a hand and jerked the phone-box door shut again. ‘Please … I’ve been away on a training course.’

‘Engaged, you say?’ There was now lively curiosity in the voice on the other end of the phone, and for an instant he hesitated. What had he said? Then he came to an instant decision. ‘That’s right. And I need to speak to Miss Hopkins. It is very important.’

He waited while the faceless one ruminated on this piece of news.

‘Well,’ it deliberated at length, ‘I really cannot alter our rules, but on this occasion I will pass on your message. What name?’

‘Matthew Ward.’

‘Very well. But I sincerely hope you are not making a fool of me, Mr Ward. And please keep in mind that my staff are
not
allowed to make use of this telephone for private purposes unless in an emergency.’

‘I’ll remember. And thank you.’

Thoughtfully he replaced the receiver. Engaged, he’d said, in fear of being cut off. Engaged. Well, why not? All that fretting, all that longing, the tone of her last letter – he was sure now that those obliterated words had been ‘love you’. And didn’t he want this relationship to last? And hadn’t he spent these past four months pining, if he really admitted to it? Well then …

The prospect of being engaged sent a thrill of excitement through his veins he hadn’t expected. Lost in thought, he opened the door of the phone box to be almost pushed against the edge of it by a soldier squeezing by to get in, throwing Matthew a baleful glance as he did so.

‘’Bout bloody time too, mate! Got
my
missus ter phone too, y’know.’

The stress lay on ‘my’. The man assumed he was married. He would be, soon. And again a thrill coursed through his veins.

He hadn’t expected Susan to be there on the stroke of six thirty, but not finding her there on the dot, irrational anxieties began instantly to manifest themselves. Had the manageress not passed on his message? Had he in fact frightened her off with his damned silly proposal? Wouldn’t any girl be? She’d never said she loved him, apart from that crossed-out bit in her latest letter which could have been anything, just a spelling mistake too bad to let by. That bit in her letter about wanting to tell him how she really felt, one could read all sorts of meaning into such a line. In retrospect he had kidded himself. He was a fool.

It occurred to him as he waited in the damp warmth of this still-light mid-April evening that he didn’t really know anything about her. He
felt
that he knew her, but it wasn’t the same thing.

Staring along her street that teemed with grubby children at play, their shouts echoing from the flat, scabrous walls on either side set with endless doors and windows, not a tree, a plant, a blade of grass to be seen, he realised how unlike was her life to his. He had to be honest with himself. Because he thought himself in love was he seeing all this and her too through rose-tinted glass? Perhaps, as well as love, did he feel some sadness and pity for her too? Without that he would be viewing these slums with utter distaste, eager only to get away.

Where he stood was a pub, its blown-out windows and frames covered by sheets of waterproof-painted cardboard, its walls, door and sign pockmarked from flying shrapnel. Across the road, a little way down, a gash in the previously unbroken row of terraced houses held a pile of rubble, a result of the bomb Susan had told him about. The slanting evening sun picking out the interior walls that had once been private pitilessly exposed the wallpaper, the poor fireplaces, the smallness of the rooms that had once been, and almost touching the rubble, the houses of the next street, hitherto unseen from here, now peeped through like people surprised at being caught in the open.

He glanced at his watch. Six thirty-five. Was that all? A breathless voice called his name, light footsteps from behind him came running, and there she was, almost falling into his arms as he turned, her tone gabbling with panic.

‘Oh, Matthew. I had to stay behind at work. Stock-taking. I got your message but I only just got away and nearly missed the bus. I was so scared you wouldn’t wait. I thought you might think I didn’t care and give up and go away …’

She was reaching up, kissing him, here in the street for everyone passing by to see. ‘Oh, Matthew, did you mean what you said? On the phone? You did mean it, didn’t you?’

He nodded, gently stopping her frantic embrace, aware people were grinning as they went past. ‘It wasn’t a very romantic way to propose …’

‘Oh, it was!’ she broke in, still holding tightly to him. ‘I never dreamed I’d get such a romantic proposal. And to think that bitch didn’t tell me until it was time to close and then said we had to do stock-taking. She let me go a bit earlier, but I hate her.’

‘Doesn’t matter. You’re here.’ She’d never know how relieved he felt. ‘I want to take you out, Susan, to celebrate. I can’t afford much in the way of a posh restaurant, but …’

‘I couldn’t eat. I’m too excited,’ she burst in. ‘I want to go somewhere quiet with you, darling. Just us two, and we can talk all about
things.
We’ve got to discuss things.’

‘Yes.’ Her closeness was making him feel worked up inside, a sort of churning making it hard to breathe properly. They had to get away from here. ‘Where do you want to go?’

At last she broke away, thought for a moment. ‘It’s still light. It’ll stay light for ages yet. Let’s get some sandwiches and take them up on Beacon Hill. We can watch the sunset and be all romantic – just you and me. It only takes half an hour to get there.’

On the rounded promontory called Beacon Hill, more or less deserted but for one or two people walking dogs, they reclined on Matthew’s greatcoat on the rabbit-nibbled turf to eat a couple of meagrely filled off-ration chicken sandwiches as the sun sank lower.

‘On a clear day you can see ten counties from here,’ Susan said, huddled inside her coat against the rapidly cooling air. The sun had become a red ball in the smoky haze of the city, outlining the rim of their world. She pointed southwest. ‘That’s the Malvern Hills.’

Matthew looked, then laughed. ‘Clouds.’

‘They’re hills, Matthew.’

‘All right, hills,’ he laughed and she turned a petulant face towards him.

‘Don’t make fun of me.’ Her lips were so close that he leaned forward and kissed them, tasting the sweetness that was her lipstick but which he was sure must also be her lips. Forgetting her pique she returned the kiss, nestled against him, lying quiet now and watching the rim of the sun finally sink out of sight, leaving its reflection to tint the clouds orange and pink, that in turn bathed the earth in ruddy glow.

‘Matthew,’ she said quietly, slowly, relaxing against him. ‘You did mean it, about us being engaged? Only it was so casual. It was romantic, being said over the phone, but … well, you know, if you said it again now.’

He tightened his arm around her. ‘Darling, I’m saying it now. Shall we get engaged?’ Yes, this was what he wanted. Couldn’t imagine life now without her. She would be his wife. He felt his insides leap with the joy the thought brought. ‘Susan, I want to marry you.’

He heard her deep intake of breath, her reply exhaled in a series of long sighs. ‘Oh … Oh, Matthew. Oh …’ She seemed incapable of saying anything else. It meant yes, he knew. But there were material things to think about too, unwanted material things. ‘I’ll have to tell my mam and dad.’

‘Will they object?’ She was still not twenty-one. She must have their consent. His heart fell a little. But he needn’t have been anxious.

‘No. They’ll be glad to see me go and make a bit more room. I’ve got three brothers and two sisters and we’ve only got three bedrooms. They’ll be thrilled, especially as you’re someone really nice with enough money …’

‘Hold on,’ he curbed her, laughing. ‘I’m not Rockefeller, you know. I’m existing on a corporal’s pay.’

‘But your family’s well off, aren’t they?’

‘They’re nothing to do with me.’ He hoped he hadn’t sounded a bit grim but he didn’t want to think about them at this moment. ‘You’ll be marrying me, not them.’

‘I know. Oh, Matthew, of course I know. Married. I’m going to have to pinch myself to make sure this is me.’ She had turned, lifting her face to his. ‘I shall love you always, Matthew. Always and always.’

And on her cue he kissed her with a pressing need for her bursting inside him like a radiant explosion. Consumed by its heat he let his weight bear her down beneath him and on the warmth of his greatcoat they made love, she in trusting joy of his promise and he in the knowledge that they would be together till all eternity. And it was beautiful.

He wrote home, cramming his letter with Susan’s charms, and defiantly told them that he was engaged.

That Sunday he went dutifully to see Susan’s family. Susan had already broken the news and her mother, fair, full-bosomed and not a bit like her trim daughter, planted a kiss on his cheek in a cloud of Evening in Paris perfume.

‘She’s right about you being so good-looking, love, ain’t she, Dad?’

‘She’s right, yeah,’ echoed Mr Hopkins.

Susan’s two sisters sat on the arms of the settee, the air around them redolent of peardrops from nail varnish being applied as they both regarded Matthew with mute envy of their sister.

Two of her brothers were in the street, the youngest sprawled on a mat in front of an empty firegrate torturing a clockwork train with a screwdriver.

The place smelled of Sunday midday dinner and Matthew was glad he hadn’t been invited to eat with them; the lingering odour of overboiled cabbage almost overwhelmed him so that it was difficult to draw a breath without feeling nauseated. Susan, sweet and fastidious Susan, deserved better than this. He would give it to her as soon as this war was over and they could find a place together. Meantime, as soon as they were married she might go to his parents and live in a far more wholesome atmosphere.

Mr Hopkins, a small man who looked as if he had once been handsome, lounged in an armchair rolling a cigarette which he lit. The match was dropped in the empty grate, the matchbox replaced on an already cluttered mantelpiece. ‘Wondered who she’d end up with,’ he muttered.

‘I’m very glad she’s found herself a nice lad,’ said Mrs Hopkins, handing Matthew a cup of tea while Susan, sitting beside him on the edge of the settee, smiled with satisfaction and cuddled nearer to him. Her teacup was on the floor at her feet, the liquid in it strong and muddy, as was his. He took a sip, tried not to grimace and put it down beside hers. Behind him a mound of well-thumbed magazines kept sliding forward, making his seat uncomfortable.

‘When you planning to marry then?’ Mr Hopkins asked.

Matthew glanced at Susan, saw her eyes, those deep blue eyes, full of trust. ‘As soon as possible,’ he answered.

Mr Hopkins coughed, a moist rumbling cough, and flicked the wet butt of his cigarette into the grate. ‘Up the spout is she, then?’

‘I’m sorry?’ Matthew queried at once, hardly believing what he heard and appalled.

‘Pregnant is she?’

Susan’s two sisters giggled. The boy on the mat looked up, mildly interested. Mrs Hopkins gave a small embarrassed tut.

‘No, Mr Hopkins, she isn’t,’ Matthew said tersely, wanting to be out of here as soon as he possibly could. Love Susan as he now did, beyond measure, he did not want to set foot in her parents’ house ever again. This man repelled him. But that Susan was small like her father, it seemed incredible that he was indeed her father. With no way to explain to him, a man who confused love with lust, his feelings for his daughter, he said instead, ‘If I’m posted before we can be married, there might not be another chance for a long time.’