Put Out the Fires (23 page)

Nick made a face but didn’t answer.

“What made you come?” she asked curiously. “You said you’d never return to the cottage.”

He stretched his arms and she noticed how tired he looked. He’d probably been driving all night. In fact, she supposed it was the sound of his car that had woken her.

“I intended staying with friends in London for a few days,” he explained. “I lost my way in the blackout and found myself going towards the Great North Road. Then, the most peculiar thing happened. I felt as if I was being drawn towards Liverpool, towards you. I felt convinced you needed me.” He looked sideways at her. “Do you?”

She couldn’t be bothered being tactful. “I don’t know,” she said bluntly. “To be frank, Nick, I’ve scarcely thought about you over the last few days.”

He nodded understandingly. “That’s not surprising. But are you glad I’m here?”

Although she remembered clearly how hurt he’d been when she hadn’t turned up in September, even so, she wasn’t prepared to lie and say things she didn’t mean no matter how much he might want her to. “I’m glad someone’s here,” she said. “On reflection, it was a daft idea to come to the cottage by meself. I think I might have ended up in the loony bin by the end of the day if you hadn’t come.”

“So, you do need me!” he said eagerly.

She lay back and closed her eyes and tried to decide if she needed Nick, but the inside of her head was too woolly to decide anything and she fell asleep with Nick sitting on the floor beside her holding her hand. She dreamt that Tony was calling her. He sounded frightened, wanting his mam.

“Tony!” She sat upright and glanced wildly around the room. “Where’s Tony?”

Nick had fallen asleep with his head on her knee. He woke, instantly alert. “It’s all right, darling, I’m here.”

“But I want Tony!” Her body heaved as she began to cry, and Nick wrapped his arms around her.

“That’s good,” he whispered. “Let it all go. Cry all day if you want.”

Her body felt as limp as a rag by the time she’d finished weeping in Nick’s arms. “I’m sorry,” she moaned. “What a way to spend Christmas Day when you could have been with friends.”

He shook her gently. “As if I’d want to be anywhere else!” he chided. “Shall I make more tea? Are you hungry?”

She shook her head. “There’s not much food out there, anyroad.”

“I bet you’ve hardly eaten over the last few days. Why don’t you wash your face and comb your hair and we’ll go to the pub for a meal? Your stockings are dry, I hung them from the mantelpiece.”

She shook her head again, because the idea seemed grotesque, but after a great deal of persuading, Nick managed to convince her it would do her good.

The pub was packed and they had difficulty finding two empty seats at a table. Eileen felt entirely divorced from the other customers, who seemed to be having a wonderful time. Her body was numb and empty and she couldn’t visualise ever being part of the real world again.

“I can’t stand it here,” she whispered the minute Nick had finished eating. She’d hardly touched her own meal.

“Then we’ll go home, but before we do, I’d like you to have a good stiff drink.” He went over to the bar and returned with a double whisky and she recalled Donnie Kennedy had brought her the same thing in the pub on the Dock Road all those months ago. Now poor Donnie was dead, like Tony.

“Did the drink do you good?” Nick asked as they were walking home.

“That’s what Donnie asked,” she said. She felt slightly dizzy, as she had done then.

“Who?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

They’d only been inside the cottage a few minutes when the telephone rang. “It must be for you,” Nick said. “No one knows I’m here.”

“For me?” She picked up the receiver and said, “Hallo.”

To her amazement, it was her dad. “We’re worried sick about you, girl. Are you all right? I’ll come and fetch you if you like.”

Her heart softened as she thought about his huge frame stuck in a telephone box. He’d probably never been inside one before. “As all right as I’ll ever be, Dad,” she answered.

“Nick arrived this morning.”

“That’s good!” There was relief in his gruff voice. “Tara then, luv.” He rang off before she could say goodbye herself.

When she went back into the living room, Nick said, “I think you should go to bed.”

She nodded obediently. “All right.”

“In fact, I’ll come with you. I’m completely exhausted. I can’t remember when I last had a good night’s sleep.”

Eileen said quickly, “Nick, I don’t want to . . . ” He kissed her forehead. “I know you don’t, darling. I just want to hold you, that’s all.”

She went to bed in her petticoat because it hadn’t crossed her mind to bring a nightdress, and was fast asleep by the time Nick got under the clothes. When she woke up it was pitch dark outside and his arm was heavy on her hip and his breathing steady and even. She lay there, thinking for the first time in days about someone other than Tony. She was glad Nick had come. There was no-one else in the world she’d sooner have with her at the moment. It was just so hard to deal with anything outside her immediate grief. She turned over carefully so as not to dislodge his arm, until they were facing each other. It had been light when they came to bed and the curtains were still open. She could just make out his face in the dark. He was beautiful, she thought, beautiful in the way men sometimes were, with glossy olive skin and long dark eyelashes she’d always envied. His hair was black and curly and remained curly, no matter how short it was cut. It was his eyes she loved most, a lovely liquid brown that turned her stomach inside out when they looked at her in a particular way. His nose—well, his nose could have been a better shape, a bit smaller and slightly less crooked.

Impulsively she leaned across and kissed him. His eyes opened. “Darling!” he whispered.

“Make love to me,” she said urgently.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m not sure at all. I just thought I might lose myself in you for a minute.”

“Let’s see!” He began to touch her and, incredibly, she no longer felt empty, but full of desire. It was every bit as good, perhaps better, than it had ever been before. There was an added desperation inside Eileen, as if the more passionate she became, the more it would lessen, temporarily at least, her aching misery.

When it was over and they lay in each other’s arms, Nick murmured, “I don’t think a day has passed since I last saw you when I’ve not thought about us, about making love and wondering if it would ever happen again.”

“Nor me.”

“Honest? I thought you might forget all about me once you were back with Francis.”

“As if I could forget you, Nick! And I was never really back with Francis, not properly. I was merely put in the position where I had no choice.”

He stroked her face. “I was horrible, wasn’t I?” he said in a small voice.

“You were,” she confirmed.

“Selfish, too. I couldn’t understand how you could put him before me.”

“But I didn’t, Nick,” she began, but before she could go on, he laid his finger on her lips.

“I know, I know. Afterwards I realised I’d done precisely the same thing when I joined up. There are certain things that make you the person you are. I had to fight, and although you thought it meant I didn’t love you, you stood by me and gave me the benefit of the doubt. I was too impatient to understand you had to stay with Francis. I let you down.”

“I let you down, too, although I couldn’t help it.”

“You know,” he mused, “on the last day we were here together, that terrible day, I kept praying you would try to seduce me. If only you had, I would have been lost.”

“I thought about it, but I was too frightened. Say you had rejected me?”

“I’m sorry, darling,” he whispered. “I nearly wrote to you loads of times since, but I was worried it might land you in trouble.”

“Never mind. It doesn’t matter now, does it?” The wretchedness was gradually returning. Everything that had happened with Nick seemed trite and unimportant compared with her recent loss.

Normally acutely sensitive to her feelings, to the slightest nuance of expression in her voice, for once he didn’t seem aware that she had changed. “No, it doesn’t matter, not now,” he said. “In a few months” time, after a decent interval has passed, we can get married, can’t we?

“Can’t we?” he repeated urgently when she didn’t answer.

“I don’t know, Nick,” she said tiredly.

“Christ!” He threw back the clothes and got out of bed.

She could just about see his long, smooth, naked body gleaming in the dull light. “Why not?”

“You’ll catch your death of cold. Get back into bed.”

“Not until you’ve told me why we can’t get married.”

She sat up and dragged the eiderdown around her shoulders. It was freezing in the unheated bedroom.

“Nick,” she said impatiently. “I’m not in the mood for this sort of thing.”

“Neither am I. Why can’t we get married? I thought that’s what we both wanted more than anything in the world.”

“Get back into bed, please.” She patted the space beside her. There’d often been times when she thought of him as a little boy, not much different from Tony. “Please?”

“Oh, all right!” he said sulkily.

His skin was like ice and she pulled the eiderdown around him. “I’m not sure why I don’t want us to get married just yet, Nick. It’s to do with Tony, I know that much. I used to feel as if you were marrying the pair of us, not just me.”

“I know, I know, I felt the same.”

“It’s different now, entirely different without him. It doesn’t seem right . . . ” Eileen struggled for the words. “I mean, I can’t contemplate being happy for a long, long time, if ever.” She touched his face. “Please say you understand, darling?”

“I think so,” he said grudgingly.

“What are you wearing?”

He actually managed to laugh. “That’s a bloody stupid question. Nothing!”

“I mean, did you come in uniform or civvies?”

“Uniform, of course. Didn’t you notice?”

“No.” She shook him. “That’s what I’m trying to get at, don’t you see? I didn’t even take in how you were dressed.

I’m all switched off, Nick. I don’t want to marry you feeling like a zombie. It wouldn’t be fair.”

“I don’t give a hang what’s fair. All I want is for you to be my wife. That’s all I’ve ever wanted since the day we met in Southport. You could come and live by the base in Canterbury. It would do you good to get away.”

For a brief moment, she was tempted, but more by the thought of getting away than being married. “No, Nick,” she said firmly. “I want us to be married, but not yet.”

“I’m beginning to think this relationship is doomed,” he said bitterly. “Every time we’re about to get together something happens to prevent it.”

“Jaysus, Nick!” Her voice was raw and hoarse. “Tony’s dead!”

“Aah!” He slid down the bed and buried his face in the pillow then beat the pillow with his fist. “I’m sorry! I’m so besotted with you I can’t think of anything else.”

She lay over him, her cheek against his back. “I understand.”

“You understand everything. You’re too good for me.”

“Let’s go to sleep,” she said, “and we’ll talk about it in the morning.”

Nick left soon after breakfast, as his leave expired at midnight. “Do you want me to write?”

Eileen nodded. “Often, and I’ll write to you,” she promised.

He pulled a face as they embraced for the last time. “You know I love you, don’t you?”

“I know, and I love you.” It was just that at the moment the love was buried underneath mounds of grief.

He hugged her so tightly she could scarcely breathe.

“One of these days we’ll be together for always.”

“I promise, Nick.”

After he’d gone, she began to tidy up, feeling numb. It would be wise not to spend another night at the cottage, though she dreaded the thought of returning to Pearl Street. The house would never be the same again without Tony there.

There was a knock on the front door. She felt convinced it must be her dad, but it was Miss Thomas who stood outside, a moth-eaten fur coat over the inevitable costume and an old-fashioned felt hat on her head.

“Eileen!” The two women embraced briefly. “I’m so sorry, dear, though ‘sorry’ is such an inadequate word, isn’t it?”

“Come in. I’m afraid it’s a bit cold. I’m leaving soon and I’ve let the fire die. I was just about to go home.” Eileen led the tiny woman into the living room. “How did you know where I was?”

“I called at Pearl Street earlier and your sister told me you were here. I intended coming to Melling, anyway, as there’s some work I’d like to catch up on.”

“Trust you to find work to do on Boxing Day!”

“I’m going away tomorrow on a long deserved holiday, although I say so myself, and there’s something I must do before I go.” Miss Thomas perched herself on the edge of the chair like a bird. “Forgive me if it seems a silly question, but I feel bound to ask - how are you?”

Eileen shrugged. “Bearing up,” she lied.

“Everybody bears up remarkably well considering.

Virtually every single worker turned up for both shifts on Monday, yet some of them had been through hell over the weekend.”

“I forgot all about work. Anyroad, it was the funeral.”

“I know, dear. I was there, along with Carmel representing the girls.”

“That’s nice of you,” Eileen said awkwardly. “I’m afraid I didn’t notice.”

“I would have been surprised if you had.” Miss Thomas smiled warmly. “I’ve come to offer my condolences and say that I completely understand if you don’t want to return to work for some time. If you need a week or two off, then take it.”

“A week or two?”

“Oh, my dear!” the woman said hastily. “I’m not suggesting you’ll get over it that quickly, not for a moment!”

“I know.” Eileen played with the material covering the arm of the settee, plucking at the threads where it was bare. “I’m not sure if I want to go back to Dunnings,” she said hesitantly. “I’m not sure if I want to do anything I was doing before. I definitely don’t want to return to me old house. Yesterday, Nick turned up and I didn’t want to marry him and I always thought that’s what I wanted more than anything in the world.”