Guarded Passions (10 page)

‘Sorry! Have I woken you? I waited until I thought it was a reasonable hour … it's after nine-thirty, you know.'

‘I've got a friend staying and we had a late night.' she explained.

‘Yes … yes, I know. Your parents told me.' He hesitated, as if unsure what to say next.

Helen waited impatiently, irritated that he had woken her if all he wanted was to chat. The sound of the phone had disturbed Katy who appeared, yawning, tousled from sleep, clutching a green and blue flowered dressing-gown around her.

‘It's Donald … Donald Brady,' Helen whispered, shielding the mouthpiece with one hand.

‘The one whose parents own Bulpitts?'

Helen nodded absently, her attention taken by what Donald was saying.

‘Helen … I saw your parents last night … they were all just sitting down to dinner when I left … About half an hour later it happened …'

‘What happened … what are you trying to tell me?'

‘Look, Helen. This is difficult to say on the phone … Are you on your own?'

‘I told you, I've got a friend staying with me … why?'

‘Could you fetch her?'

‘Whatever for! You've never met Katy.'

‘I … I think she should be there when I tell you …'

The distress in Donald's voice suddenly registered with Helen. She stiffened, wondering what was coming next. Her thoughts raced. Had he heard something about Adam? she wondered.

‘What is it you're trying to tell me, Donald?'

‘Helen … look … I don't know how to say this. Perhaps it would be better if I spoke to Katy.'

‘Katy's here in the room but I'd rather you told me,' she said cautiously. A sixth sense told her that whatever it was Donald had to say it was something unpleasant.

‘OK.' He gave a deep sigh, then rushed on, ‘It's about your parents. They were having dinner with my mother and father when our house was bombed. It was a direct hit. No one … none of them … they were all killed.'

There was a silence, so taut that it was as if an invisible bridge linked them, then it shattered like broken glass as Donald's voice came down the line, calling her name urgently.

Helen found herself unable to answer. Dumbly she passed the receiver over to Katy and, in a stupor, listened as Katy cross-questioned Donald in a cool, staccato voice.

Katy was the epitome of practicality for the next few hours. She phoned Julia Freeman and told her precisely what had happened. Aunt Julia promised to come straight over, as soon as she had found someone to take over her ambulance duties.

Unable to phone Adam direct, Katy asked the police to relay a message to his unit and, within a couple of hours, he phoned to let them know he had been given compassionate leave and was on his way home.

Aunt Julia and Donald made the funeral arrangements. The four bodies were brought back from London for burial in the local churchyard.

It was a brief, touching ceremony, attended by most of the villagers of Sturbury. Donald and Isabel were there, too, but Katy had been posted back to her unit. Helen bore up bravely, with Adam's help, but it was as if she was living through a nightmare; none of it seemed to have any real meaning for her.

When it was all over, Donald and Isabel returned to London. Adam was loathe to leave Helen, but they both knew that if he didn't return to his unit it would be tantamount to desertion.

Helen had other problems to face, too. Immediately after the funeral, her father's solicitor disclosed that Dr Price had been heavily in debt and the house was mortgaged up to the hilt. His advice was she should sell it with the practice and he undertook to find a buyer.

‘It means you will be left with nowhere to live, of course,' he went on sympathetically, ‘but Miss Freeman is agreeable to you making your home with her as a temporary measure.'

Helen felt dazed by the news, but Aunt Julia didn't seem in the least surprised.

‘I told them years ago that they couldn't go on as they were,' she said cryptically. ‘Far too many servants, and sending you to such an expensive school, was bound to drain their resources. Your father only had about eight paying patients and most of them were much too healthy for his own good.'

‘His surgery was always packed,' Helen protested.

‘Yes, with villagers who traded a cabbage or a rabbit in return for a bottle of medicine. None of them could afford to pay him. And if they had tried to do so he would probably have handed the money back to them with a shilling of his own added to it.'

‘Did mother know about this?' Helen asked bewildered.

‘Of course she did. She was as soft-hearted as he was. More food went out of that house to people in the village than was ever eaten at their table.'

‘How do you know about all this?'

‘She was my sister, Helen. We were very close. That's why I hope you'll move in with me … at least until after your baby is born. It's what your mother would have wished.'

‘You know about that, too!' Helen gasped, staring at her open-mouthed.

‘Of course I do. Your mother guesed right away, that's why she didn't oppose you getting married!'

‘And did Dad know as well?'

Aunt Julia shook her head. ‘I don't think so, not unless your mother told him when they went up to London.'

‘I do wish she'd said she knew,' Helen sighed. ‘It would have made things so much easier.'

‘Mmm!' Aunt Julia picked up her cigarette-case, took out a cigarette, then snapped the case shut. ‘I won't offer you one and start you on my bad habit,' she said, with a tight smile. ‘Your parents were against me smoking so I never did when they were around. Cowardice really … a bit like you not telling them about the baby. Anyway,' she added, as she struck a match, ‘now that is out in the open, and there are no secrets between us, you'd better come and live here at Willow Cottage until this war is over and you and Adam get a home of your own.'

To take her mind off her personal worries, Helen decided to go on working at Bulpitts. The new matron was young, stern and hardworking, and the atmosphere changed overnight. Helen told her she was pregnant. Now that her parents were dead it no longer seemed to matter who knew. Matron's only comment as she noted down when the baby was due, was, ‘Right, I'll put you on light duties.'

Although Aunt Julia made her welcome, Willow Cottage wasn't home for Helen. She had never liked cats and Aunt Julia's two sleek Siamese seemed to resent the intrusion of a stranger, spitting and clawing at her whenever she went anywhere near them. Finally, she wrote to Adam and asked him if he would find her somewhere to stay near where he was stationed, at least until he was sent overseas.

Adam Woodley lowered his kit-bag onto the floor and looked around the hotel bedroom critically. He hoped Helen would like it. Compared to the opulence of the bedroom at The Crown in Salchester, where they'd spent their brief honeymoon, he had to admit it was pretty stark.

The heavy blackout curtains at the window looking out onto Sussex Square, gave the room a sombre air. On the cream walls hung one picture of a sea scene. The double bed had a plain, wooden headboard that matched the oak bedroom suite. Two armchairs, a round, oak coffee-table set between them, stood on the beige floral carpet.

He looked at his wrist-watch; he'd have to hurry or he wouldn't get to Waterloo Station in time for Helen's train.

He'd been surprised and delighted when she had suggested they should spend his Christmas leave in London. He had thought it would be the last place she would want to visit after what had happened to her parents there less than six weeks before. But she had been adamant, insisting that Aunt Julia needed Willow Cottage to herself over the holiday.

He'd known it wouldn't be easy to find somewhere to stay. Despite the risk of bombings, the blackout and rationing, everybody seemed to want to spend Christmas in London. And American soldiers, with pay-packets twice the size of those of British servicemen, seemed to have taken over every available room. He'd been lucky; someone in camp had put him on to the Regent Court Hotel and there'd been a room available.

At Waterloo Station he elbowed his way through the crowds to the platform where the train from Salchester and the West Country had just pulled in. He scanned the people emerging from it, but Helen was not on it. Concerned, he went to check the time of the next train. As he did so, he heard his name called on the tannoy, asking him to report to the station-master's office.

Filled with a sense of foreboding, Adam sprinted along the crowded platform. A hundred thoughts raced through his head. It was almost an anti-climax when he was handed a slip of paper with Helen's phone number on it.

The phone was answered as soon as he was put through, as if someone had been sitting waiting for his call.

‘Is that you, Adam?'

‘Yes, who's that?'

‘Helen's aunt … Julia Freeman.'

‘Where's Helen? She was supposed to be coming to London …'

‘I know, that's why I left a message for you to phone. Helen's not coming … she … she's had a miscarriage …'

‘Is she all right? Can I speak to her?'

‘They've taken her to Salchester Hospital. I'm afraid you can't see her until tomorrow … and you must phone first.'

‘Is it very serious?'

‘There are complications. Are you going to stay in London until the morning or come on down here?'

Adam looked at his watch. It was almost eight-thirty, so it would be nearly midnight before he reached Sturbury. ‘Perhaps I'd better leave it till the morning,' he told her. ‘I'll phone you again first thing.'

Adam left the phone-box in a daze, and made his way back to the hotel, his mind churning with worry about Helen. He stopped at the reception desk and asked for his bill so that he could pay in advance and catch the first train next morning. When the receptionist heard the name Woodley, she told him, ‘I've just taken a telephone call for you.'

‘My wife … she's worse?'

The woman looked puzzled. ‘I don't know anything about that.' She picked up a slip of paper on which she'd written the message and began reading it aloud. ‘Regret to inform you Gary Woodley has been reported killed in action.'

The words echoed in Adam's brain like a nursery rhyme chant. Over and over they drummed, until he thought his head would burst. Clamping his hands over his ears he heard himself shouting aloud, ‘No! No! No!'

‘Here, you all right? Would you like a nip of something. Bit of a shock is it?'

‘What?' he stared at her uncomprehendingly.

‘That message I've just given you … upset you like? Someone close was it?'

‘My brother.' He turned away from the desk, hands clenched, unable to stand the pity in her eyes. ‘Think I'll just go for a walk … sort myself out …' Choked with emotion he made for the door.

The streets were in complete darkness. The thin crescent of moon that had been shining when he had set out to meet Helen, was now hidden behind low cloud. Within a few minutes Adam was completely lost. Uncaring, sick with grief, he wandered wherever his feet took him, until finally he felt so exhausted he knew he must have a drink. He had no idea where he was, except that he must be a long way both from his hotel and from the centre of London. The houses were smaller, packed together: long terraces in narrow streets. Great gaps between buildings and mounds of rubble indicated where bombs had devastated homes and shops. Finding a pub in the blackout wasn't easy.

After several abortive attempts Adam was lucky. A door opened as he turned the handle and, when he pushed aside the heavy blackout curtain that hung over it, he could smell cigarette smoke and hear the friendly chink of glasses and the buzz of voices.

After the darkness outside, the sudden light dazzled him. He stumbled to the bar, ordered a whisky, and drained it at a gulp. Banging the empty glass down on the counter he ordered another. The neat spirit seared a burning path down his throat to his stomach, but spread warmth and strength back into his limbs. After his third whisky he ordered a beer.

When the barmaid, a plump peroxide-blonde with roguish green eyes and an impudent smile, came and leant her elbows on the counter, he promptly offered to buy her a drink.

‘And I'll have another whisky … make it a double.'

‘What are you celebrating?' she asked as she clicked her glass against his.

‘Being alive,' he said morosely.

To his surprise he found himself telling her about Gary. The words came gushing out like wine from a newly uncorked bottle. So much whisky on an empty stomach had completely banished his normal reserve.

Dora was a good listener. She said very little, but her sympathetic nods and understanding murmurs were all he needed. When she finally put the towels over the barrels and called, ‘Time', Adam was almost out on his feet.

‘Come on. You need some food.' She turned out the lights and guided him towards the stairway at the back of the bar. ‘If I let you go out like that you'll be picked up by the MPs, end up on a charge and give this pub a bad name.'

She half pushed him up the narrow stairs to the sitting-room above and helped him across to the settee. ‘Sit there while I rustle up something for us,' she told him.

It was a low-ceilinged room, stuffy and crammed with heavy furniture. Every available surface was cluttered with ornaments and photographs.

Adam slumped back against a pile of gaudy cushions. When Dora returned ten minutes later with a plate of sandwiches and two mugs of steaming black coffee, he was already asleep.

‘Come on,' she said, relentlessly shaking him awake. ‘You've got to eat.'

‘Do you look after all your customers like this?' he said, yawning, as he struggled to sit upright.

‘Only the good-looking ones. My ma'll skin me alive if she gets back and finds you here. Good job she's gone over to see her sister and won't be back until the morning.'