Call Nurse Jenny (49 page)

Matthew stood by the school railings, muffled in overcoat and scarf against the December cold, watching the children spilling out of the dim building into a sleet-spattered playground as the muffled echoes of the hand bell ringing home-time died away inside.

He thought of the night nearly four weeks ago, when he and Jenny had stood together with Mattie watching the fireworks and the bonfire, Jenny holding tightly on to her as she screamed in initial fright at the sudden noises, coaxing her to hold a sparkler by its thin stick between her small fingers until alarmed cries turned to squeals of delight.

At five years old, Mattie had suffered no fear of war. Her only trauma seemed to be the school where she had been started in September. She hadn’t adjusted to it as well as she’d been expected to, and would throw herself into her grandmother’s arms on coming out, saying she hated everyone there. The children were noisy and rough, the teachers frightened her; every morning she burst into tears, fighting every inch of the way as she was taken there, sometimes saying she felt sick, until on several occasions her grandmother relented and brought her home again.

Jenny had expressed concern. ‘There’s something worrying her.’

‘Other kids cope,’ Matthew had said.

‘Mattie’s not other kids, Matthew. She was taken from her mother, though she was too young to understand, and it must have been unsettling. She’s only been with grandparents all this time. Then suddenly she had to adjust to a total stranger she is told is her father. And now she’s whipped off to a school full of strangers and expected to cope. No, Matthew, she’s not like other kids.’

For a moment the old ache had welled up inside him, thinking how like her mother Mattie was, wilful, at times almost uncontrollable, quick to burst into tears. Yet she could be so charming, endearing herself to everyone at first glance. She was so much like Susan, in ways and looks, that it tore him apart to watch her. Jenny was right, he often found himself actually avoiding her so as to lessen the pain it gave him.

‘She’ll just have to learn to adapt. We all have to learn that,’ he had said, remembering that he too had had to adapt over the years after knowing only a youth full of being molly-coddled. It had come as a shock.

But Jenny had been firm. ‘A child’s view of things is different to ours. We know we have to put up with what comes, or go under. We learn to fight adversity. A child doesn’t even know what adversity is, only that they’re unhappy and can’t understand why. It makes them behave oddly, and when we get confused by them, they get even worse in sheer frustration. There’s something underlying all this. Something even she doesn’t remember, but it’s there lurking in the back of her mind. She needs a real parent, which is what you are.’

Now he was being a real parent, waiting for Mattie to come out of school.

He was remembering how Jenny had clutched Mattie to her as a banger went off nearby. The houses around them had danced and shivered in the shadows of the lurid flames leaping high into the air from the bonfire. Jenny had given a visible shudder. ‘She’s had enough of this. I think I have as well.’

They had walked back down the road towards his house, Mattie walking between them, each holding her hand. She had seemed happier away from the violent fun, enjoying the fireworks from a distance. Small rockets had streaked thinly up into the sky over the rooftops, dimmed by bright street lights before which the once practically touchable moon and the pure discs of stars receded, never again to be seen in their full glory by city dwellers in the way they had been during the years of blackout.

Walking back slowly, he had thought what a wonderful mother Jenny would make. And at his gate he had proposed to her and Jenny had said yes.

Recalling it all with a light feeling inside him, he waited for his daughter to emerge from the school exit.

First came the very young, protectively shepherded by a tweed-skirted, motherly teacher into the chill afternoon already gathering into dusk. They were followed closely by exuberant older children: girls in neat hats, precisely buttoned overcoats and shiny strap shoes; boys with caps askew, blazers and coats open and flying, socks concertinaed and shoes with the mud of clogged playing fields clinging to them, laces already coming unravelled.

Taking leave of their teacher, the younger children ducked in and out of the bigger ones, seeking mothers who stood in groups with craning necks to collect their offspring.

Matthew stood a little apart from them, the only man, looking for his child. He saw her moving sedately among the others – small neat figure in her blue overcoat, her short dark curly hair peeping from under the small brim of her blue school hat. Blue suited her, as it had suited her mother.

Swallowing the lump that came into his throat, Matthew called out to her. Catching sight of him, her face lit up, but she walked across the playground and out of the gate to him with all the nonchalance of one having survived a traumatic experience and come off triumphant. The first time ever, he calculated with pride in his daughter’s achievement.

She looked up at him with those great soulful blue eyes, so like her mother’s. ‘Are
you
taking me home today, Daddy?’

‘Yes, Mattie,’ he replied, love swelling within him as he gazed down at her, that love filling every dark place her mother’s going had left inside him. She would fill it every day from now on. She and Jenny between them. By them he would survive. ‘I’m taking you home.’

‘Is Jenny going to be there?’

‘Yes, she’ll be there.’

Jenny had come over early. They had talked while his mother had taken Mattie to school, for once without tears with Jenny – he guessed he would always call her Jenny – promising to bring her sweeties if she didn’t cry. ‘And next week I’ll go to school and wait for you to bring you home. Is that all right?’ And Mattie had squealed that it was and had taken her grandmother’s hand almost with enthusiasm. Jenny was good for her, would always be good for her.

‘And you should call her Jenny, not Jenny,’ he said solemnly. ‘Or if you like, you could call her Mummy.’

Mattie thought for a moment, regarding him steadily. ‘I like Mummy, it’s easier.’

Matthew felt a small pang for her. She had never truly known her real mother, had she?

She was looking up at him, her mind gone entirely off names. ‘Can we go home now, Daddy? I’m cold.’

Home. He held her hand as he led her to the car, which was warmer than having to walk in this weather. Home. By Christmas it would be a new home, his and Jenny’s home, paid for from the trust money he’d been given on his twenty-first birthday, put away to accrue interest through the years, once intended for him and Susan. That was in the past now. The rest of the money would go to resuscitating the partnership – his father’s wedding present to him, saying he himself was too old to manage alone any more. From now on the past would be put aside, only the future of importance.

He held out a hand and felt the soft fragility of Mattie’s small fingers twine around his, trusting, possessive, confident of both present and future.

What of the future, he mused as they went towards the waiting car. Two weeks from now he would be married. In two weeks’ time he would begin his life anew, perhaps regain a small part of what he had lost, after all those promises so carelessly made so long ago, so lightly taken for granted. He knew better now. He would make new promises to himself now; would never again take them all for granted, but he knew it would never again be quite the same.

Guiding his daughter to the car, he opened the rear door for her to scramble gratefully in. Then he went around the front, slid into the driver’s seat, started the engine and pressed down on the accelerator with a force that made the thing roar wildly into life, driving off sharply enough to toss Mattie back into her seat with a delighted giggle.

Also available from Ebury Press:

By Maggie Hope:

She is the downstairs maid; he is the Master’s son...

Forced to become a kitchen maid at Fortune Hall, Hetty Pearson strikes up an unlikely friendship with the younger son of the house, Richard.

But Hetty is just a poor servant girl: what hope does she have of either winning Richard’s heart or escaping his older brother’s more base attentions?

Also by Maggie Ford:

Can she escape the hardships of her past?

Growing up in London’s tough East End, young Sara Porter has had to learn to take care of herself. Her mother resents her maternal responsibilities and has never shown her daughter the slightest bit of love.

Starved of affection, Sara vows not to let anyone get close and focuses instead on getting out of the East End. But still she hopes that one day she’ll find a real family to call her own...

Also available from Ebury Press:

Trapped in a marriage to the wrong man...

Struggling to make ends meet, Mary Anne Randall is offered no help by her drunk and abusive husband. A pawnbroking business run from the wash house at the back of her home is the only way she can hope to keep her three kids fed and clothed.

But, as storm clouds gather over Europe, can Mary Anne break free from her loveless marriage for what might be a last chance at love...?

Also available from Ebury Press:

A scandalous woman?

Having left her abusive husband for very good reasons, Mary Anne Randall finds herself judged harshly by her neighbours, especially after she has the courage to risk a second chance at happiness.

But with the only man she has ever loved away fighting, Mary Anne is less concerned by her tarnished reputation than with keeping her children safe, as the bombs fall on Bristol – all too close to home.

Also available from Ebury Press:

She is a servant girl...

When her father becomes ill, Emily Carter finds herself sent into service at Priorsfield Manor in order to provide the family with an income.