Home Sweet Home (18 page)

‘Maybe he's just teething. I remember his dad teething – cried the place down, he did …' But even as Stan said the words, he looked uncertain.

‘Look, Dad. I think we should call the doctor. I'll pay if …'

Her father glared. ‘Are you insinuating that I'm too mean to find the money for my own grandson?'

Ruby was taken aback. He wasn't a man for raising his voice to his children unless it was warranted. She wanted to shout at him that she had enough pressure on her without him yelling at her like that, but she had no wish to make the situation any worse than it already was.

Thrusting her jaw defiantly forward, she stated what her intention had been. ‘There's no need to shout. I was just offering to pay for the doctor courtesy of the Ministry of Food. There's nothing wrong with that, is there?'

‘So that's it! Just because the Ministry of Food pay you more than a hard-working man …'

‘Dad! This is ridiculous!' She couldn't believe she was hearing this.

‘A chit of a girl—'

‘I am not a chit of a girl! I'm a grown woman!'

‘I can pay!'

She knew there had been times when they were children that there hadn't always been enough money to pay for a doctor. Even now it wasn't easy.

‘Dad, I know you can, and I think we should—'

Charlie began crying in earnest. Clutching his dish of untouched food with both hands, Frances looked from her cousin to her uncle.

‘Do you two have to shout at each other? Can't you see you're upsetting the poor kid?'

‘Less of that American slang in my house,' Stan shouted, half rising from his chair, one fist clenched as though he might lash out at her.

Frances couldn't believe what she was seeing and hearing. She slammed the dish on to the table. ‘The sooner I leave this house the better!'

Ruby and her father stopped facing each other down and looked at her.

Frances was adamant. ‘Don't look at me like that. I mean what I say. I am going! I promise you I am!'

‘I'm sorry.' Ruby shook her head and blinked as though a light had suddenly been switched on.

Stan's stance and bad temper were unchanged. ‘Then go if you want to go, you selfish little baggage! After all I've done for you.'

‘Dad!' Ruby made a dash for Charlie. With all this noise going on, he should have been screaming at the top of his lungs. Instead, there was a wheezing sound from his throat, as though he were trying to catch his breath, as though he couldn't breathe.

With rising panic, she picked up the little boy, holding him so that his head lay on her shoulder.

‘He's so hot. We have to get the doctor – now!'

Her father stared at her helplessly. Frances looked frightened, but also angry. Ruby knew that her cousin had meant what she'd said. She would leave home. But not yet, she prayed.

She rocked backwards and forwards in an effort to comfort Charlie and soothe the frightening sounds coming from his throat.

‘Stay, for Charlie's sake,' she pleaded.

Frances had seemed puffed up with anger but appeared to deflate as the anger left her. ‘I took him out in the pushchair today to give him some air. He fell asleep.'

‘Well, that's something,' said Ruby. Nobody could now convince her that something serious wasn't wrong. Turbulent thoughts tumbled through her mind, and one thought above all others. ‘Frances. Go ring for the doctor.'

Ruby glanced over her shoulder to where her father was now slumped in the fireside armchair, hands clasped in front of him and a grim look on his face.

He nodded at Frances. ‘Ring for him.'

Frances dashed out into the hall, leaving the door swinging behind her.

Ruby cuddled the little boy. His lack of vitality worried her. Normally he would have responded to her open arms by stretching out his own.

Her father's voice trembled. ‘Ruby, I don't want to lose my grandson.'

It occurred to Ruby that she'd never heard her father sounding so desperate. ‘He won't die,' she exclaimed.

‘Never mind putting the little lad to bed. Lie him down on the sofa.'

Ruby did as instructed and sat down next to Charlie. Stan got up and took off his knitted pullover, wrapping it around his grandson, tucking it in on both sides and around the little boy's feet.

The door banged open. Frances reappeared, her face flushed and beads of sweat on her forehead. ‘He'll be on his way soon. He's out on call at the moment, but his wife said she'll tell him the minute he gets back.'

While Charlie snuffled and wheezed on the settee, his head resting against a cushion, Stan headed back to his armchair. Normally he settled himself comfortably into it, but tonight he perched on the edge, elbows between his knees, hands clasped tightly in front of him.

‘Finish your supper, Frances, and then you go on up to bed. I'll do the dishes.'

‘No! I won't! I can't eat. And I can't leave him!'

Stan took a deep breath. His gaze was steady and commanding. ‘I think you should. The doctor might be a while in coming. We may have to take turns and it would help if you got some sleep so you can take over from us.'

Frances instantly regretted her terseness. ‘Oh, I see what you mean.'

‘We'll wake you,' Ruby added. ‘When there's news.'

All signs of rebellion faded. Frances said goodnight, though softly, her voice not much more than a whisper.

Stan Sweet sat with bowed head, wishing the doctor would hurry. The slow ticking of the wall clock and Charlie's strangled breathing lay softly on the silence.

‘I'll go wash up …'

In the process of rising from the sofa, Ruby noticed the look on her father's face. Fear gripped her heart.

‘You don't think he's going to die, do you?' she asked, a jolt of cold horror welling up in her stomach.

‘I hope not.'

The thoughts in his head weighed heavy, and rubbing at his forehead did nothing to relieve the pressure. There was so much going on in there, and going on in his life, their lives. ‘Sit down. There's something I have to tell you.'

Feeling like winter inside, Ruby lowered herself back onto the sofa, nervously pushing a soft cushion aside with her elbow.

‘What is it?'

She waited, fearing he was going to tell her something about Charlie that she didn't already know. His face was gaunt and pale. She tried to recall whether he'd looked so grim when she'd left the bakery this morning.

Her attention went back to her nephew, her brother's son, Charlie. His eyes were closed. His breathing was snatched and shallow. Her hands began to shake. How could she think of anyone or anything else when her nephew was gasping for breath?

She checked the clock. ‘Where is the doctor? Come on, Dr Foster. Hurry up!'

The gaze of father and daughter met briefly. Stan turned his head to stare at the glowing coals in the old iron range.

‘Ruby. I know you've written a lot of letters to Johnnie. Did you ever receive any replies?'

Ruby edged forward on the sofa until, like her father, she was perched on the edge of her seat. She strained to hear what he was saying. Her father struggled to his feet. She vaguely wondered when the strong physical presence she'd known all her life had visibly weakened. She swallowed. ‘What is it?' It hurt to speak. It seemed to her that she'd swallowed a mouthful of burrs. Ordinarily, they attached themselves to clothes. Tonight it felt as though they had stuck in her throat.

He was standing by the mantelpiece, one arm resting along one end of it.

‘It's only a card, Ruby. Nothing much at all and he isn't saying much … not that I meant to read it. But then, it's only a postcard.'

With a quick flick of his wrist, he brought out the card from behind the clock and gave it to her.

Ruby's hands trembled as she held the simple white postcard and read the address. Her heart trembling as much as her hands, she turned it over – and was sourly disappointed.

She read it again and again just in case she'd missed something. Nothing. All it said was that he was well and that the Japanese were treating him well. She frowned: so much for the rumours that the prisoners were being badly treated by their Japanese captors.

‘It came through the Red Cross,' said her father, as though that might have some relevance as to why it was so short. ‘I'd have mentioned it sooner but …' He motioned his head towards Charlie.

Ruby turned the card over to the address and then back to the message again. The words had the flavour of being written by somebody on holiday rather than in a prisoner of war camp somewhere in the Far East. She looked to see if there was something else. It wasn't like Johnnie to leave it at that. In the early days, when there had been letters, he'd always had a way of getting a message through despite army censors. Surely he would have done the same now if there were any truth in the wicked rumours they'd heard.

Nothing. Nothing at all. She was sorely disappointed. And then she saw it. A thumbprint. A sickening fear coiled like a snake in her stomach. The thumbprint was his. She knew it was his. He'd dipped it in mud, a dark reddish mud. But why mud?

She kept staring at it, trying to work out whether there was some hidden meaning. Mud and a thumbprint didn't really say anything to her, except that he might be knee deep in it. No. It was not quite the right colour for mud. Not quite … She narrowed her eyes in order to examine it more closely.

Her father fixed her with a steady gaze, aware that she was giving this card more than a cursory study. ‘What is it?'

She heard the sudden sobriety in his voice, looked up and saw the way his brows had folded over the questioning look in his eyes.

She didn't need anyone to tell her that her own eyes were sparkling. Her heart raced with excitement as she glibly turned her suspicions into words. ‘You know that Johnnie had a way of sending a message the authorities didn't always want sent?'

‘You mean the censors.'

‘That's right.' She looked down at the bottom right-hand corner of the card on the side where the message was written. ‘There's a thumbprint. It has to be his. It looks like mud, but …'

Her father took the card from her shaking hands, took his spectacles from his breast pocket and scrutinised it just as closely as she had.

Holding it gingerly in the lower left-hand corner, he concentrated on the fingerprint, aware of the swirling lines that varied from one person to another.

Yes, she was right. He'd thought so earlier, too. It had to be Johnnie's fingerprint, but what was the point?

Then it hit him.
It looks like mud, but …

She was asking him if she was right and that Corporal Smith had used a very specific medium for his fingerprint. He recalled the trenches of the Great War, the mixing of mud and the spilled blood of a lost generation.

‘Blood,' he said, his fear-filled eyes meeting those of his daughter. ‘Your Corporal Smith dipped his thumb in blood. I'm guessing it was his blood!'

‘Has this child not been vaccinated?'

Dr Foster looked accusingly at Ruby and her father.

‘Poking needles into a little lad?' said Stan. ‘I hold no truck with that.'

‘You're being ridiculous,' Dr Foster snapped. He placed his hands on either side of Charlie's throat. ‘He has diphtheria. He has to go into hospital.'

‘Hospital!'

‘Can't you give him some medicine?'

On hearing Stan's comment, the doctor fixed him with a steely stare. ‘I take it you want your grandson to live?'

Stan fell silent.

While waiting for the doctor, Ruby had tried soothing Charlie with songs and placing a cool compress on his hot little forehead. Nothing had worked.

Her father had stood over her the whole time, his face creased with worry, his throat pulsating as he attempted to swallow lumps of fear. His thoughts were easily read and touched her heart. He'd lost a son to a war; he did not wish to lose a grandson to an illness.

Dr Foster continued to glare at Stan. Ruby was surprised that he didn't glare back. Never before had she seen her father looking so intimidated.

‘I'm not sure I agree with vaccination, Doctor …'

Judging by the doctor's red face, he was about to let off steam – and Stan was first in the firing line.

‘Mr Sweet, there are some wonderful things happening in medicine that promise to make the world a healthier place for children to grow up in. You should have had your grandson vaccinated. Now! I have no more to say on the subject! This little boy is very sick. He has to go to hospital.'

His tone was brusque and his movements brisk.

Ruby watched as he placed a hand to either side of Charlie's neck. ‘Swollen,' he said. ‘Do you see?'

Ruby touched her throat in response to the sight of Charlie's thickened neck. He was sniffling and his nose was caking up with blood and debris.

A cold shiver ran through her. ‘Doctor, will he live?' she asked bluntly.

Dr Foster, a man of around sixty years of age, had practised medicine in the village for most of his life. He was well respected and thought of as quite rich, mainly because he drove a car and had a telephone. Despite his years, he was interested in new developments, read scientific papers on medicine and improvements in surgery with great alacrity.

Wakened by the doctor's arrival, Frances had crept downstairs. Now she stood by dumbly while plans were made to take Charlie into hospital. She'd tried covering her ears to keep his crying at bay. She didn't want to believe he was ill. She wanted him to be back to his old self, chuckling and laughing, playing games with bits of wood and dirty puddles.

‘No time to call an ambulance,' said the doctor, his mood and tone of voice as sombre as a church at midnight. ‘Get his things together. I'll take him in my car. Which of you wants to go with him?'