Polly's War (32 page)

He rubbed a hand over his face and started prowling about the kitchen, back and forth, like a lion in a cage. ‘
Michael and me
.’ He cruelly mimicked her voice and before she could guess what was about to happen, he’d brought the flat of his hand down across her face. The blow knocked her off balance, sent her reeling across the kitchen so that she stumbled and fell, catching the side of her head on the edge of the steel fender.

He was instantly contrite. Full of apologies he hurried to fetch iodine and warm water; assuring her that he hadn’t meant to lash out. It was the war that caused his temper to be so short, he explained, and jealousy of her feelings for Michael. ‘All you have to do is agree to give our marriage a chance. You really shouldn’t have provoked me. It’s your own fault.’ Lucy rather thought that it must be, for otherwise why would he have hit her?

Polly met them at the front door and, in honour of the occasion, wasn’t wearing the much knitted cardigan which she’d rarely seemed to have off in six long years of war but a smart frock in navy blue with a crisp white collar. It made her look young again. She hugged and kissed her daughter, saying how pretty she looked. Lucy was wearing a lemon seersucker dress, cut on the bias and it was quite apparent to Polly that she’d lost weight since Belinda’s death. Polly intended to get something inside her today. As Charlie led the way into the house, limping slightly on the stick he now used, Polly also noticed a small bruise on her daughter’s face and mildly enquired how she’d come by it.

‘Oh, I bumped my head on the cellar door,’ Lucy said. ‘Shall I set the table?’

‘Now isn’t that something? A pair of willing hands for once.’ Aw, and wasn’t she proud of the lot of them. It made her heart sing for all there was the sadness of an empty place at the table. ‘And where are my two treasures?’

The children, having not long since filled their stomachs with their usual breakfast of bread and jam, were soon sprawled on the floor, flat on their stomachs playing with toy soldiers, oblivious to the appetising aroma of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding that was making all the adults salivate with hunger.

Polly watched her only son with pride as he carefully spooned cereal into baby Matt’s mouth which fluttered open like a young bird for more every time the spoon was taken away. At three months, wasn’t he the finest baby in the street if not the whole of Manchester? She tickled him under the chin and, thinking it was the spoon, the small mouth fastened itself upon her finger with a startling fierceness. Polly burst out laughing. ‘Look at the precious soul. Isn’t he the one? Won’t he grow as big as his da one day and just as greedy.’

Benny grinned, taking this as a compliment.

Seated opposite Benny was Tom, looking fitter than ever. What a fine, good looking young man he was, to be sure. He’d surprised Polly by proving to be quite diligent at his work in the warehouse, for all it was little more than labouring. She’d agreed to let him drive the van occasionally as he was proving to be a useful member of the team.
 

She glanced across at her daughter, as if searching for clues as to her state of mind but Lucy was busily setting out knives and forks. Polly watched as Tom slid an arm about her waist, popped a kiss upon his wife’s neck as she bent over and then merrily tweaked the soft brown curls on her brow. So everything must be fine and dandy between them, she thought. Lucy didn’t return the gesture or even smile a response. Mebbe she’d best have another talk with the girl, just to make sure.

Serving out the meat and vegetables on every plate took an age, but nobody minded as by then they’d all consumed a fluffy slice of Yorkshire pudding topped off with onion gravy. As Polly handed out the brimming platefuls, she recalled a time when her family would think that humble dish alone would constitute a dinner fit for a king, certainly it had gone down well one Christmas back in Ancoats when there’d been no meat to follow.

‘That’s too much for me, Lucy demurred, unloading half of the food on to her brother’s plate.
 

‘Nay, is that all you’re having, lass? It wouldn’t keep a sparrow alive,’ Charlie said.
 

‘I’m not very hungry.’

Polly gave Lucy a keen look and wondered if she’d been crying. But then losing her sister-in-law had been a blow to them all, and the pair had been as close as two slices of bread stuck together with jam. Which reminded Polly for some reason of her grandchildren. She finally managed to drag them away from their toys and placed a small plate of dinner before each of them, all the while advising Lucy as if she was a girl still and Polly’s responsibility as a mother were as strong as ever, to take better care of herself.

‘Ye definitely look a bit peaky. Starvin’ yourself will do no good at all. Belinda would hate to see you make yerself ill, wouldn’t she so?’

Benny, returning from putting Matt down in his crib asked what it was Belinda would hate and Lucy irritably told him that it was only Mam nagging.

Tom chipped in, ‘I’m at her all the time to rest more but will she listen? Stubborn to a fault she is. All she has to do is settle back and enjoy her children, instead of which she’s again fussing about going back to work.’

Perhaps these words rekindled her rebellion, or maybe it was being in the heart of her family with a mother who had always worked outside of the home, which gave Lucy the courage to make one more stand. ‘And why not? I don’t have to spend my entire life wiping children’s mucky faces, or cleaning other folk’s doorsteps. There might very well be something more interesting and demanding I could do.’

‘Well said,’ Polly laughed, applauding vigorously. ‘Couldn’t we use all the help we can get at the warehouse, if you’d a mind.’

Tom scowled at this apparent show of feminine solidarity. ‘Leave her be, Polly. Don’t encourage her day dreams. A wife’s place is in the home.’

Polly might have protested against this damning indictment of womanhood but Lucy, her dander up now, returned to the subject which had been exercising her mind more and more these days, wagging her fork at him across the table. ‘Tell me, when you were wounded at Salerno, there was presumably a roll call.’

Tom looked startled by this abrupt change of subject, as did the rest of the family while Polly clicked her tongue in annoyance. ‘Sunday dinner is not the place to discuss the war, m’cushla. Besides, haven’t we put all of that behind us?’

‘I’d like to know.’

‘It’s all right,’ Tom said with a patient smile, as if he were used to humouring his wife. ‘Aye, there always is a roll call after a battle. That’s very shrewd of you to guess.’

She hadn’t guessed of course. Michael had mentioned it once and somehow the question had stuck in her mind. ‘And later, when they’d collected in all the wounded, they’d check again, wouldn’t they? Scour the site for bodies, for instance.’

A nerve by the corner of Tom’s eye twitched, and though he appeared to be searching for an answer, or even a way out of the conversation, could apparently find none. ‘Your mam’s right. This isn’t a fit subject for dinner. Can we get on with it in peace?’ Then bent his head to the task without bothering to answer the question at all.

Lucy set down her knife and fork and leaned across the table towards him. ‘But how come they didn’t find
you
? Why did they rescue all the other wounded, and not you? Why were
you
left behind to be captured and nobody else?’

‘How should I know? I was unconscious. That was a bad winter. The mud was dreadful. By the time I was well enough to walk about or ask questions, my battalion had moved on.’

‘So
where
did you spend that first winter? And who found you? When were you taken to that POW camp? How?’

No one else at the table spoke a word, or even moved; every eye was upon Tom, every ear listening to the exchange, waiting for the reply which came eventually in a soft monotone.

‘It - wasn’t quite then I was captured. It was later. An Italian family found me. They were very kind. Can we forget the war, please? This beef is delicious,’ he added, turning deliberately to Polly who smiled sympathetically at him, not quite understanding what was going on but clearly troubled by it.

Lucy pushed her plate aside, despite protests from her mother. She’d always been able to tell when he lied, and she knew he was lying now, without question.

When the family had gone, Polly toed off her shoes and sank into an easy chair to rub her aching feet with a sigh of relief. ‘What a mystery they all are to me these days,’ she groaned. ‘I thought they were hard enough work as children, but there’s still never a moment but what I’m worrying about one or other of them. There’s our Benny upstairs, widowed and alone, poor soul, thankfully turning into a devoted father.’

‘You should be pleased about the latter, at least,’ Charlie smiled.

‘Oh I am. Though I’m none too chuffed to be tied up so tight with that father-in-law of his. He’s a cold fish is Councillor Hubert Clarke.’

‘ But substantial. A self-made man.’

‘Aw, he’s substantial all right. Too many beef dinners there, for sure.’ Polly’s chuckle soon changed into a frown. ‘It’s odd but whenever we reorder anything for the shop, he’s nearly always out of stock. And when I ring and ask him to send the van to collect unsold stock as we agreed, the van’s always occupied somewhere else and I have to keep reminding him. I’ve been waiting for over a week now to be rid of a consignment of bookcases. Like cardboard they are. I’ll never sell them.’

‘Ring him again,’ Charlie said, only half listening with his eyes closed.

But Polly’s thoughts had moved on. ‘Our Lucy is another worry. Is she happy d’you think?’

Charlie met her gaze with the frankness she’d come to expect from him over the years. ‘No, I don’t think she is in the least bit happy. I’d say, if I didn’t know better, that someone put pressure on her to stay in that marriage against her will. I hope, Polly my girl, that it wasn’t you.’

Polly’s eyes rounded with false innocence as she felt a nudge of guilt. ‘Now would I do such a thing?’

‘You just might, by your own twisted sense of loyalty.’

‘Twisted is it, to want me family to thrive?’

‘Yes, it is, if you interfere too much. A person must make their own way in the world, not follow a path set by someone else. The only way a marriage can thrive is with love, and no one can order that to be present, not even a loving mother. I reckon you should have a word with your Lucy, and tell her that whatever she decides to do about it, we’ll give her our full support. There’s not much wrong with Michael Hopkins, and if he makes her happy, isn’t that what you want too?’

Tears standing proud in her fine eyes, Polly dragged herself out of the chair to kiss her husband full on his lips. ‘Sure and what would I do without you. Aren’t you the wisest man in all of Castlefield.’

‘Not Manchester?’

That too. The whole world. Come on. I’m whacked. Take me to bed.’

‘Only if you hand me my stick first,’ and they both burst out laughing.

At that moment Lucy was attempting to explain to her husband why she had asked all those probing questions, desperately striving to calm his irascible temper. She’d certainly had ample opportunity to regret such impetuosity as she put the children to bed and read them a story, delaying the moment she too must go to bed till the last possible moment.

‘You questioned my honesty in front of your family,’ he kept repeating, over and over. ‘You’d no bloody right.’

‘I wanted to understand, that’s all. I need to know what you went through,’ she prevaricated. ‘How you managed to survive through all the humiliation and torture you suffered. That way I can perhaps better help with your problems. I
want
you to tell me, Tom. I feel that if this marriage of ours is to survive, then I need to know everything.’

‘Why?’

She decided to take the risk and make her feelings plain. ‘Because of the way you make love, and speak to me. So harsh and unfeeling, even unkind. Perhaps it’s because of what happened to you back then. But if we could talk about it, maybe it would go away, this anger which seems to be gobbling you up.’

Tom strode over to the fire where he took down a pack of cigarettes from the mantle shelf and shook one out of the packet, as if he were an American GI. Lighting it, he inhaled deeply. ‘And you’re an expert on war veterans, are you?

‘I care about you. Despite everything that’s gone wrong between us, I’d like to help put it right. Yes, I’ve been guilty of fond feelings for another man, but only because I thought you were dead. Nothing physical happened between us.’

He snorted his disbelief. ‘So you say.’

‘It didn’t, I swear it. In any case, forgiveness of my supposed infidelity isn’t enough. We have to be happy together. If we can’t, then there’s little point in carrying on, is there?

Having gone this far, Lucy was determined to speak her mind. She smiled reassuringly up at him, hands clenching with nervousness. ‘So let’s talk, shall we? Properly. You can start by explaining what life was like in that camp, then how you managed to escape. Did you dig a tunnel, or sneak under a fence? It must have been an incredibly dangerous thing to do. Were you alone, or with comrades?’

He was still pacing about the kitchen, unable to settle, his voice high-pitched and taut with anger. ‘Of course I was with comrades. I’ve told you, we got separated.’ He bent over the fire, stabbed at the coals with the poker to bring the flames back to life and Lucy could see his neck growing red. She wondered if it was with the heat he was producing or with annoyance. Whatever the reason, she couldn’t curb her curiosity.