Homecoming (35 page)

‘We were born too soon, Jack.' Brian fumbled blindly for the plate of chocolate biscuits from behind the
Sunday People.
‘It says here that the last National Service call up will be in nineteen-sixty.'

‘If I'd known, I would have gone to ground for a few years.'

‘Like where?'

‘One of my mate's brothers joined a travelling fair.' Jack picked up his cup.

‘They'll catch up with him sooner or later and I wouldn't like to be him when they do.' Hearing the clink of crockery Brian handed Jack his cup. ‘Pour me one too while you're at it, mate. Only more sugar this time.'

‘I put in three last time.'

‘Then I obviously need four.'

Too depressed after his talk with John and Katie to argue, Jack went into the kitchen. The teapot was cold so he filled the kettle and set it on the gas to boil. While he was emptying and rinsing the pot he looked out of the window. Martin was in the garden forking over the vegetable plot that Roy had so carefully tended and nurtured when he'd lived in the house. His face, jeans and sweater were covered in dirt but even from that distance Jack could see that he was smiling. But then he wasn't an idiot who'd cheated on his wife.

The telephone rang and Brian shouted, ‘I'll get it.'

‘About time you did something around here,' Jack called back, rinsing the teapot in warm water. He heard Brian talking. As Brian's voice pitched higher and grew more anxious, he hoped it wasn't anything to do with the garage. If he lost his job on top of everything else, he'd have nothing left.

‘Where's Martin?' Brian ran through the door.

‘In the garden. What's wrong?'

‘That was Helen on the telephone.'

‘Helen …'

‘She's fine,' Brian said impatiently. ‘But Lily's ill. It sounds serious.'

Helen set the receiver down on the telephone in the matron's office and steadied herself on the desk.

‘The staff here are good here in an emergency. I've watched them dozens of times,' Maggie reassured her.

‘If Lily had said that she felt ill …'

‘Emily said she collapsed without warning.'

‘Mrs Clay?' The matron walked into the office. ‘Your sister-in-law is haemorrhaging. The doctor is doing everything he can to try to stabilise her, but her condition is too critical at present for her to be moved, even to hospital. However, her baby still has a strong heartbeat.'

‘Lily's pregnant?'

‘You didn't know?'

‘No.' Helen shook her head and she remembered how sensitive Lily was. Lily, even more than Katie and Judy, had felt for her when she had lost her baby and that was before she had confided that she couldn't have any more children. She would have been the last person Lily would have broken her good news to.

‘Would this be a wanted child?' the matron asked.

Resenting the woman's implication, Helen retorted, ‘Very much so. Lily and Martin have been married for two years. They have everything, a house all paid for …'

‘I am sure that the doctor will do everything he can to help your sister-in-law and her baby. Did you manage to get hold of her husband?'

‘Yes, he's on his way.'

‘How long will it take him to get here?'

Helen tried to recall how long it had taken her and Lily to drive to the house. ‘An hour and a half at the most.'

The matron glanced at the clock. ‘We should know more by then.'

‘I still say I should drive Marty to this place.'

‘For Christ's sake, Jack, Helen is with Lily,' Brian reminded, ‘and the last thing Martin and Lily need right now is for you and Helen to start quarrelling.'

‘We wouldn't!'

‘Whatever, but you'd make a bad situation even worse.' Brian looked up, as Martin stampeded down the stairs in clean trousers, his shirt and belt flapping, his fly open. He grabbed his jacket.

‘Ready?' Martin demanded.

‘I will be when you zip up your trousers.' Brian pulled the car keys from his trouser pocket and checked that he had his wallet and chequebook. ‘Let's go.'

‘You'll let me know what's happening,' Jack shouted, as they ran through the front door leaving it wide open behind them.

Neither Brian nor Martin answered. Jumping into Brian's car, they drove off at breakneck speed.

‘And that's all Helen said?' Martin pressed Brian for the tenth time in as many minutes.

‘That Lily had collapsed and it looked serious. She then gave me the address – you have looked it up?'

‘Yes,' Martin folded the map back on the square around Cartref. Try as he might, he couldn't make the miles between Swansea and the house any less than twenty-four. ‘I should have insisted on going with her. She said I'd cramp her style, or perhaps I said it and she agreed.'

‘If you don't sit back in that seat and take it easy, Marty, you are going to drive yourself mad or to the point of collapse, and then we'll have two sick people to cope with.' When Martin continued to sit poised on the edge of his seat, one hand on the door handle as though he were about to jump out of the car at any moment, Brian tried to distract him. ‘Why did Helen and Lily drive up into the wilds of Carmarthenshire anyway?'

‘To see the woman who is having Jack's baby.'

As Brian turned to Martin, he momentarily lost concentration.

‘Watch out!' Martin grabbed the wheel and turned it seconds before they would have hit the kerb. ‘Perhaps I should drive.'

‘In your state?'

‘Yours is so much better,' Martin retorted sardonically.

‘Run that sentence by me again. The one where you said something along the lines of a woman having Jack's baby.'

‘You heard it.'

‘Christ! No wonder Helen threw him out.'

‘Can we please just get there,' Martin shouted, as Brian slowed the car.

‘As soon as I can, Marty,' Brian checked his rear-view mirror to make sure there wasn't a police car behind them. ‘Just as soon as I can.'

‘You are going to wear yourself out, Helen, and your tea's getting cold,' Maggie advised, as Helen paced restlessly from one side of the lounge to the other. All the residents were in the dining room eating their ‘high' Sunday tea, which meant the addition of a round of meat paste sandwiches to the usual cake or scone. But as Maggie was supposed to be Helen's sister-in-law and Helen had asserted that Lily was hers, the matron had given permission for Maggie and Helen to eat their tea in the lounge, an unheard of privilege that neither recipient was in a state to appreciate.

‘You can't expect me to sit and drink tea when Lily could be dying.' Helen tensed her fists impotently. ‘I'll never forgive myself if anything happens to her. I had no business asking her to come here with me. I had no right …'

‘You weren't to know that she was going to be taken ill, and if you don't mind me saying so, you are not helping your sister-in-law by getting yourself into a state,' Maggie said decisively. ‘The best thing you can do for her now is to be strong when her husband arrives. He may need you.'

There was an authoritative tone to Maggie's voice that suggested she was used to making decisions and being obeyed. As Helen stared at her, she blushed.

‘I'm sorry, that's the sergeant's wife coming out in me. We are – I was – expected to look after the wives and children of the ranks.'

‘You're right,' Helen said shortly. ‘I am not helping Lily by getting myself into a state and I won't be any use to Martin if I carry on like this. It's just that I hope … that she doesn't lose her baby as I lost mine,' she finished quickly, fighting emotion as memories of the worst time in her life came flooding back.

Maggie moved instinctively closer and almost put her arm around Helen, but remembering the situation between them, thought better of the idea. ‘You heard the matron, the doctor is doing everything he can for your friend and her baby.' She pulled a chair next to Helen and, to her relief, Helen finally sat down. ‘I can't tell you everything is going to be fine, because it might not be, but at least she has you for a friend and because you've been through the same experience you will be able to help her.'

‘You must have been good … as a sergeant's wife,' Helen said. ‘Good at dealing with the problems of the wives and children of the other ranks.'

‘I'm not sure I was good at giving advice, but I liked trying to help people. It was a peculiar life in a way, not really mine or even my choice, it just went with what my husband did for a living. And I did love him. Very much, perhaps in a way too much.'

‘Because of the other woman.'

‘Other women,' Maggie corrected, with a touch of resentment.

‘More than one?'

‘It was an accepted part of army life and no wife I knew dared question it, publicly that is. Plenty, including me, tackled our husbands in private about their behaviour. But the men frequently went away for months at a time and during those months they always seemed to manage to organise themselves a social life of sorts that included women amongst the recreational activities, even when they were posted to the wilds of Africa. We wives on the other hand were stuck in married quarters with the children, immersed in trivia and domesticity. The highlight of our social calendar was the odd coffee morning or bring-and-buy to raise funds for the children's Christmas party.'

‘So you're saying it's normal for soldiers to have affairs with other women?'

‘More like one night stopovers than affairs,' Maggie answered thoughtlessly, not realising the implication of her words in relation to her own predicament until it was too late.

‘So Jack …'

‘From what he told me, Helen, there wasn't anyone else for him except you and if it hadn't been for the grief and the wine …'

‘If you don't mind, I'd rather not hear any more.'

Maggie looked up at the clock. It had been half an hour since Helen had telephoned Swansea and twenty-five minutes since the matron had left them to return to the treatment room. Her father had told her she had always been too impatient. Waiting for events good or bad was, for her, the worst possible kind of torture.

‘You just passed it,' Martin shouted.

‘You sure?' Brian asked.

‘There was a plaque on the wall that said Cartref,' Martin bellowed angrily.

‘All right, no need to yell, I'm doing my best.' The brakes screeched in protestation as Brian slammed to a halt. Ramming the car into reverse, he executed a hair-raising three-point turn and hurtled back along the road they'd driven.

Martin had the door open before Brian stopped the car. Diving out, he charged up to the front door and rang the bell, keeping his finger on the button until he heard footsteps. ‘I'm Martin Clay, Lily Clay's husband,' he blurted breathlessly to the women who opened the door. ‘I had a call to say she'd been taken ill.'

‘Martin.' Helen ran down the corridor and into the hall. The member of staff moved back, as she flung her arms around his neck and hugged him.

‘How is Lily?' he enquired urgently, drawing away from her.

As Helen tried to tell him in as few words as possible that the last she'd heard, Lily was unconscious, Brian joined them.

‘Mrs Clay is extremely ill and needs to rest, which is totally impossible given the noise level in this hall.' The matron looked disapprovingly from Martin to Brian. ‘I take it that one of you is Mr Clay.'

‘I am.' Extricating himself from Helen, Martin stepped closer to the matron. ‘How is my wife?'

‘Not at all well,' the matron replied with irritating imprecision.

‘Can I see her?'

‘The doctor is with her.'

‘I am her husband.'

There was a resolution in Martin's demeanour that unsettled the matron. ‘I'll check with him as to whether or not it is advisable for you to see her.'

‘I will see her,' he called after her, as she walked away. ‘She is my wife. You can't stop me from seeing her.'

‘Martin, there is something that you should know.' Helen stood beside him.

‘Not now, Helen,' Martin stared after the matron's retreating figure, noting exactly where she was going.

‘Lily is pregnant.'

‘What?' He whirled around.

Helen swallowed hard. ‘The matron told me. She asked if the baby was wanted.'

‘The bitch!'

‘Marty, come out here for a minute.' Unlike Martin, Brian was aware of whispering behind closed doors. He had no idea how many people were listening in on them, but he felt that any inmate, staff or resident, who overheard Martin call the matron a bitch wasn't likely to be sympathetic. He led Martin back through the main door into the anteroom set off the porch.

‘Lily never said a word …'

‘She wouldn't, Marty,' Brian said softly, as he pushed him down on to the cold stone bench and sat beside him. ‘She wanted you to buy into the business and she had enough trouble persuading you to take up that overdraft she organised as it was. She knew that you would never have done it if she'd told you that she was pregnant.'

‘You're right. I was so terrified of failing her. If I'd known she was pregnant and would have to give up work, I would have walked away from the whole proposition.' He looked at Brian accusingly. ‘Did she tell you that she was going to have a baby?'

‘No, I had no idea.'

‘Helen?' He looked to where she stood, hovering miserably in the doorway.

‘She didn't confide in me, but given what's happened between Jack and me, she wouldn't have, Marty.'

Martin sat forward and sunk his head in his hands, running his fingers through his hair. ‘All the signs were there, only I was too stupid to see them. She was putting on weight; she wouldn't even have a glass of sherry the other night. Why on earth didn't she tell me?'