Home Sweet Home (28 page)

In her mind she attempted to face the likelihood that Michael wasn't coming home. According to the BBC, eight aircraft had been lost. It seemed likely that his plane had been one of them. None of the planes she'd seen fly overhead, back from the mission, had been his. She hadn't seen his identification number. Of course, she could be mistaken, but she'd identified his plane many times before. If he'd returned safely, he would have telephoned her. Perhaps he'd been too weary, or perhaps … he couldn't. He was dead. If he was dead, nobody had telephoned her to tell her the bad news.

Desperately, she searched for reassurance, telling herself there could be any number of reasons for her not having heard anything. Flight control may not have received a radio message. They may have received a radio message saying the plane had lost power and was limping home. Worse still, it might have ditched over enemy territory, which could mean he had crash landed and was dead or incarcerated until the war was over, if he had survived. She'd learned enough from Gilda Jacobsen, the mother of her nephew Charlie, to know that it was a regular occurrence for a prisoner to die at the hands of the Nazis.

Whatever had happened, it was not beyond reason that they were sparing her feelings.

The sudden ringing of the telephone coincided with her becoming aware of her daughter's crying. Her heart beating wildly, she pounced on it, though not before calling to Beatrice that Mummy would soon be there.

‘Hello!'

‘Mary! He's home! Charlie's home!'

She recognised her sister's voice. Half of her rejoiced. The other half was disappointed. She'd so wanted it to be Michael.

‘Ruby. That's wonderful.' She forced herself to sound over the moon but it wasn't easy. Of course she was relieved. Charlie was home and had recovered from a dreadful disease.

As she listened to what Ruby was telling her, Beatrice's crying became more demanding.

‘Sounds as though young Beatrice is screaming the place down,' said Ruby laughingly. ‘What are you doing to her?'

‘Nothing,' snapped Mary. ‘She just needs feeding, that's all.'

‘Oh.'

Mary caught the hint of disbelief in Ruby's voice. Only natural, of course, between twins who knew each other almost as well as they knew themselves and sensed when something was wrong.

‘I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap. I'm under a lot of strain at present.'

‘Mary, I know that. We heard something about a big raid on the BBC this morning.'

Beatrice continued to cry. Ruby made no reference to her, her own feelings locked into those of her sister.

‘Dad heard the news about the raid on the dams, too. We presumed Michael took part.' She paused. ‘Are all the planes back?'

Mary held her breath for just a beat, enough for Ruby to comment again. ‘Mary. You don't think they are, do you?'

Mary closed her eyes. Should she tell the truth or leave it until she knew for sure? She sighed deeply.

‘I don't really know. Not yet. I'm so afraid …' She sucked in her lips and squeezed her eyes shut in an effort to keep her anguish – and the tears – at bay.

A few more minutes on the telephone and she would be bawling her eyes out. But she didn't get a chance. In the deepest depths of despair came the voice that changed everything.

‘Hey! Hey! What's this baby screaming about?'

Receiver still clasped in her hand, Mary gasped. ‘Michael!'

Michael's voice was followed by the sound of the front door slamming, announcing the unmistakeable arrival of her husband, breezing in like a hurricane. It always felt like that once he was home, both his presence and his physique seeming to fill the house.

She shouted into the telephone. ‘He's fine! He's home!'

It was hard not to slam down the telephone straightaway and rush into his arms. ‘Good news about Charlie,' she blurted. ‘Love to everyone!'

Not for one minute did she consider her sister's reaction to her abrupt goodbye. Michael had been missing but now he was home! And Charlie was home too.

Mary stood immobile, hardly able to believe her eyes, her hand held to her open mouth.

Michael's broad shoulders and height filled the doorway. An odd thought came to her. Past residents of the cottage, long dead, of course, must have been a lot smaller than today if the cottage doors and ceiling heights were anything to go by. Her husband was jiggling his daughter up and down while she avidly sucked on his finger.

‘I think this child's hungry.'

‘You're home,' she said again, daring herself to believe it.

‘I'm home.' There was something reserved about his smile, almost as though he were embarrassed to be there at all.

‘I didn't see your plane go over. I mean, I saw it go out, but I didn't see it come back.'

A look of great sadness came to his face. He shook his head and the corners of his mouth turned down, all trace of a smile vanishing.

‘It went down but I wasn't in it.' He heaved a big sigh. ‘I've been grounded, at least for now. My fingers keep seizing up. A pilot needs two working hands to fly a plane. Flying with a gammy hand would put his own and his crew's lives at risk.'

‘Grounded!' She repeated the word he had used, rolling the syllables over her tongue, at the same time thinking it was the most wonderful word she had ever said. ‘I thought …'

Michael smiled down at his daughter, who was still doing her utmost to suck milk from his thumb. When he looked back again at Mary, his face clouded.

‘The medical officer examined me. He said it could be some time before my hand returns to its normal flexibility, though there are no guarantees.' He shrugged. ‘In the meantime, it's been suggested I take a job teaching the theory of flying to would-be pilots. It means a new posting, but hell, I suppose it's something.'

‘And your plane? What happened?'

She already knew it had not returned, but she needed to know more.

‘It crashed into a hill at the end of one of the dams they were trying to destroy. I suppose you heard it on the news.'

His gaze returned to his daughter, almost as though he was too ashamed to look his wife in the face. ‘A lot of good men are dead. I should have been one of them,' he said quietly.

‘Why didn't you let me know you weren't flying? I was so worried.'

‘Nobody was allowed to leave the base. Everything about this raid was very hush-hush and top secret. Here. I think you'd better feed our daughter before she eats my thumb.'

Mary took the child from him, unbuttoned her blouse and sat down in her chair. Beatrice's rosebud mouth began sucking immediately she was put to her breast.

Overcome with emotion, Mary looked tearfully up at her husband. ‘I'm so glad you're home.'

He put his arms around her, cocooning the baby between them. Beatrice carried on sucking. ‘I'm glad to be home.'

He didn't need to say anything more to know that they were sharing the same thought, that there were a lot of other wives and girlfriends who would weep alone tonight.

By the time summer was in full bloom, Frances realised she was in love. Not only that but she was pregnant.

It had been over a month since her last period, but already she was feeling nauseous. Each morning she locked the bathroom door so she could be sick in private.

Gossip of who she was in love with was circulating the village, only to be expected seeing as she'd been seen on numerous occasions climbing into the passenger seat of Declan's Jeep. The gossip had not yet reached her uncle's ears, and Frances feared the moment when it did.

Preoccupied with her war work and with making sure Charlie was well looked after following his return from hospital, Ruby hadn't yet seemed to notice either the moony look in her cousin's eyes or the fact that she was declining her favourite meals.

To Frances's mind, everything hinged on getting married – as quickly as possible. The time had come to face her uncle Stan.

She stared out of her bedroom window, his response already in her mind.
He's too old for you
.

But Declan wasn't too old. He wanted to marry her and she wanted to marry him. Just one niggling fear lingered in her mind. What if Declan wasn't the father? What if the child had been conceived that last night in the lane with Ed Bergman?

The prospect of Declan not being the father made her desperate. She didn't want it to be Ed. Being unsure made the need to marry more urgent. She wanted getting wed done and dusted in double quick time. Never had she felt such urgency in her life, which in turn led to great concerns. What if Uncle Stan refused to give her permission to wed? What then?

The answer came swiftly. There was one other person who was able to give her consent. She would tell nobody about the prospect that she was pregnant until every avenue of opportunity was open to her. The only other person who could sign for her to wed was her mother. The prospect chilled her, but she was determined to face the woman who had abandoned her.

‘I want to find my mother.'

Stan paused in the process of cleaning his pipe when Frances asked the question, his features abnormally still, almost as though he'd stopped breathing.

The prospect of facing her uncle had brooded with her for some while. It was early days but unless she suffered a miscarriage, she had to face the fact that she was pregnant and had to get married. Perhaps if Declan hadn't come along, she would have married Ed. Then it occurred to her it might not be Declan's baby. It might be Ed's.

Her problems loomed huge in front of her. The one thing she couldn't ignore was that it was Declan she wanted. She sighed. Getting pregnant and falling in love had changed everything. Childhood was well and truly left behind; womanhood was most definitely here. Declan was the cause of that, the man she gave herself up to with such unconcerned desire. She was still friends with Ed, but had distanced herself. He'd been hurt at first but there were other girls in the village and he had other things on his mind. Rumours were rife that this year was the one when the allied armies would retake the continent of Europe from the grip of the Nazis. Soon he would be posted and likely they would never see each other again.

‘Soon you'll be off chasing the French girls, as well,' she'd said to him when he'd cornered her and asked her how she was. He hadn't denied that he would be.

‘But I wondered about us … you know … after that time …'

‘I'm fine. Let's just be friends.'

Ed had looked surprised but hadn't pestered her to resume their relationship. That in itself was a sign that he had accepted their romance was over. Declan had been right.

She drew her thoughts back to the task in hand. Never had this mattered to her so much.

Reading her uncle's thoughts was difficult at the best of times – more difficult now, with the closed expression on his face. Guessing at one of them, she said, ‘It's not that I'm not grateful for all you've done. I just want to know why she ran away and left me after my dad died.'

She rested her hand on her stomach. Not for any conscious reason except as some kind of confirmation that she would never, ever leave a child high and dry.

Stan eyed the lovely young girl, wondering why he hadn't noticed how much she'd grown, how swiftly the child had become a woman. Like her mother, but not like her mother, the same confident tilt to the chin, but more serene, nowhere near as flighty.

Even before they'd married, he'd told his brother what he'd thought about Mildred, not that he'd taken any notice. His brother had been badly wounded during the Battle of Ypres back in 1914. Although it was the internal injuries that finally killed him, it was the physical scars he bore that affected his judgement.

‘Look at me,' he'd said, coughing so harshly it was as if he was in danger of coughing his lungs up, before turning his head so that the scalded skin on the damaged side of his face was presented to his brother. ‘There's not going to be too many women willing to put up with a bloke that looks like this.'

Stan had admitted that Mildred appeared to be sweet enough, but would her kindness last? It looked as though she didn't have a penny or a relative in the world. It was hard to do it, but he had pointed out that she might just be marrying him for security.

‘And who could blame her?' Sefton had responded. His smile had lifted the undamaged side of his face, giving him a sardonic look. ‘I'll be giving her what she wants, and she'll make me believe that she loves me. It doesn't matter if she doesn't. We're both giving each other something we both need.'

At last Stan looked up at his young niece and said, ‘Your mother was not my most favourite person.' He lowered his eyes to the task of cleaning out his pipe, as though doing that was more important. ‘We didn't always get on. She wasn't like your father. She wasn't like you, either. I would advise that you leave her well alone.'

Frances felt her face growing hot. This was not what she wanted to hear. ‘Whatever she is, she's still my mother,' she said, her tone of voice controlled but strident.

His eyebrows beetled above his nose and he looked at her with eyes that had sunk deeper in his head in recent years. There was kindness in them but also a look that hinted at deep thoughts laced with vivid memories.

As he straightened, he nodded affably, his brows going back to normal. ‘I suppose you're right, but I really don't understand why you want to meet her. Why now? She left you …'

Frances broke across his statement with one of her own. ‘I want to know why she abandoned me. I want to know why she didn't love me enough to stay!'

Stan was now in the process of refilling his pipe. Frances's outburst caused him to stop midway. ‘I'm sorry. It's wrong for me just to look at her from my point of view. I wasn't thinking of you.'