The Rainbow Years (48 page)
Authors: Rita Bradshaw
She forced herself to smile. ‘Yes, it was. Charles had lots of friends hereabouts.’
‘He was extremely happy the last eight years, you know. He told me so on more than one occasion. In fact, strange though it might sound when one considers his infirmity, I think he was the happiest he’d been in the whole of his life. All thanks to you, m’dear.’
‘Thank you, Edward.’
‘I mean it. It can’t have been easy for you.’
No, it hadn’t been easy but not really for the reasons Edward probably imagined. Amy knew people pitied her, a young wife tied to a paraplegic with constant major health problems. Problems which meant any breaks away from home were out of the question. But it hadn’t been the hard work involved in caring for Charles that she had minded so much. He’d been so grateful for one thing, pathetically so. And the gruelling routine had actually been a blessing in a strange kind of way; it had helped to numb the pain that was with her day and night, the pain of losing Nick. Never a day went by that she didn’t wonder where he was, who he was with, what might have been.
She had realised very early on she would go mad if she didn’t get out of the home she shared with Charles for a few hours each day. Her discharge from the WAAFs had come through some weeks after she and Charles had been injured, once the doctors had realised complications with her broken leg had meant it was going to take some months to mend properly. But as soon as she was able, she had arranged the employment of a part-time nurse in the afternoons and taken up voluntary war work in a munitions factory canteen. Later, when the war had ended, she had given her time to the local children’s home. The few hours’ break from the house and the company of ordinary healthy people had been a life-saver and Amy knew it. It was a panacea against those moments when she found herself resenting the position she was in, and then the guilt that followed.
It had been her dream to adopt several children who had been orphaned by the war but Charles’s doctors had advised against this. They had been worried their frail patient could not cope mentally or physically with the stress and noise which went hand in hand with having children living in the house. Amy could see their reasoning. Charles’s heart never really recovered from the accident and the injuries he had sustained meant he was in almost constant pain, but it had been hard to come to terms with at first.
All in all, though, the years between 1942 and 1950 had run smoothly in the Callendar household and Amy had seen to it that her husband’s environment was a peaceful and happy one.
Although she thought of Nick all the time, she had only spoken of him once to Bruce during the last eight years, and that had been in the very early days when Bruce and Gertie had visited her in hospital while her leg was mending. She had asked her cousin then to tell her if Nick was killed and Bruce had promised he would. Even after Bruce and Gertie were married just after the war finished, she resisted the temptation to attend the wedding in case he was there, using Charles as an excuse not to travel down to Sheffield where Bruce and Gertie had settled. To talk about him or try to see him would have been a betrayal of Charles, that was the way she felt, besides which the words he had spoken as he had left her had seared her mind like a branding iron. He thought she didn’t love him, when in fact she loved him so much it was a physical ache in her chest at times. In her good moments, when she was feeling strong, she told herself it was probably all for the best he thought this way. It would have freed him to carry on with life, meet someone, settle down and have a family. In her bad times these same thoughts tortured her and she had to confess she wanted him to love her for ever, selfish though that was, and to know that she loved him.
Amy glanced across at Bruce and Gertie who were chatting to Betsy and Ruth and their husbands. The twins, along with Bruce and Eva, were the only members of Amy’s family to survive the war, but Eva had gone off to America after marrying a GI and no one had heard from her since. May and her parents, Harriet and little Milly had been killed in May 1943 during what turned out to be the last bombing raid on Sunderland. A parachute mine had devastated their house when Harriet was home on leave from the Land Army; the twins had been in Sunderland infirmary with scarlet fever and so had escaped the carnage.
Perce had met a different end. According to the
Echo
, he had been killed by a hit-and-run car in the blackout one night. There had been whispers that one of the ne’er-do-wells Perce associated with had decided Perce was cheating him and had taken his revenge. No one was brought to task for the crime, however, and the incident soon faded from people’s minds.
Echo
, he had been killed by a hit-and-run car in the blackout one night. There had been whispers that one of the ne’er-do-wells Perce associated with had decided Perce was cheating him and had taken his revenge. No one was brought to task for the crime, however, and the incident soon faded from people’s minds.
Amy had been ashamed to confess to herself that she’d felt deep relief at Perce’s death. Since living in the town again she had felt menaced by her cousin’s proximity, and as she confided in Gertie one day shortly before Perce’s accident, strange things kept happening, strange, frightening things. A window smashed by persons unknown, a dark silhouette standing in the garden one night when she had gone to shut the curtains, the bell rung in the early hours but no one at the door, foul rubbish including a dead rat tipped in the front garden and, more scary than anything else, the odd phone call when all she could hear was heavy breathing. These had all stopped when Perce had died.
Gertie slipped over to Amy now, her swollen stomach bearing evidence that her third child was expected soon. She put her arm through Amy’s, saying, ‘Bear up, kiddo. It’s nearly over.’
Amy nodded. ‘It’s such a lovely day. I keep thinking he would have been looking out over the garden and watching the birds.’When they had bought the small detached bungalow on the outskirts of Bishopwearmouth, Amy had immediately had the two double bedrooms knocked into one large room. It bordered the garden and by doubling its size enabled their room to be both bedroom and sitting room. Charles’s bed had been positioned by the large French doors Amy had had installed, which gave her husband a wonderful view of the bungalow’s extensive grounds. If the weather was clement the doors had always been open, but even on the coldest days Charles had been able to look out at the goings-on of the birds he loved.
‘How are you feeling really?’ Gertie asked with the privilege of an old friend. Although they only saw each other a few times a year, the two were still close and talked on the telephone often.
‘Odd, I suppose.’ Amy looked out through the bungalow’s large window to where quite a few of the assembled guests were standing talking and drinking in the warm June sunshine. ‘All of a sudden I’ve got time on my hands after having every minute of the last years accounted for. I keep thinking Charles’s medication is due or that I’ve got to turn him; oh, a hundred things.’
Bruce had joined them as Amy had been speaking and now he said, ‘That’s perfectly natural and it will fade in a little while as you pick up a different sort of life.’ He was privately of the opinion that due to Charles’s complete dependence on his wife, Amy had taken the role of a mother without realising it, which would increase her sense of loss now. There was no doubt she’d felt tender affection and compassion for Charles, and Charles had worshipped the ground she walked on. Bruce hadn’t expected Charles to keep to his promise to lay off the drink but even if he had longed for one he hadn’t mentioned it and had remained sober. Bruce had had the unworthy thought at first that Charles might try and bribe the nurse or persuade a friend to bring a bottle in but Charles had proved him wrong, and Bruce was very glad of it.
He looked into the face of the cousin he loved and admired. She was still beautiful, outstandingly so, but she looked every one of her thirty-four years. The sorrow she rarely spoke of, that of her inability to have a child of her own, combined with the hard physical work of latter years had given her beauty a very mature air. There were more than a few flecks of silver vying with the golden tints in the still thick, rich brown hair, and even when she was smiling the deep blue eyes carried a wealth of sadness.
‘Have you any plans?’ he asked. ‘What you’re going to do with yourself now?’
Amy shrugged. ‘There’s all the clearing out to do. Charles’s medication would fill a small room all by itself. And I might take a short holiday in a few weeks. Pamela’s offered me the use of their villa in Margate anytime I want it.’
‘Who’s taking my name in vain?’ Pamela appeared at Amy’s shoulder, her arm tucked through that of a tall, white-haired man. She had married the RAF CO from the base she had been stationed at during the war four years ago, and the two appeared blissfully happy. Her husband had a country estate as well as the villa in Margate but the two were rarely at either residence, preferring to spend most of their time travelling round Europe. Her husband was almost double Pamela’s age but it didn’t appear to concern either of them. Sadly, Nell hadn’t been so lucky.The plucky northern lass had been killed when a Stirling had crashed on take-off at the airfield she’d been assigned to, landing in a hangar where Nell and some other WAAFs had been working. Nell had been trying to drag one of her friends clear when the bombload had exploded.
With Pamela’s arrival the group talked of inconsequentials until Amy left them to circulate among the friends and family who had come back to the bungalow after the funeral. In the six days since Charles had died in her arms, she had kept busy organising the service and then this reception, putting on a spread which belied the fact England was still firmly in the grip of food rationing. She had cleaned and baked, weeded the garden and cut the lawns until everything was pristine and gleaming, but now it would soon be over and she would be left on her own.
Even as she stood talking to the priest who had taken the service, her mind was moving on a different plain altogether. What would Father Collins say if she told him she had longed for this day lots of times over the last years? Not for Charles to be dead, no, not that, but for her to be able to have some freedom. Freedom to go for a walk if she felt like it, to have a bath without keeping one ear cocked for Charles’s bell, to sleep all night without having to set the alarm every two hours to turn Charles in his bed, just . . . freedom. From care, from responsibility, from worry. She had been ashamed of herself for thinking this way but every so often the feeling had risen up in her.
But now? Now she dreaded everyone going and panic was making her heart beat a tattoo under the calm exterior she was presenting to the world. Which was silly, ridiculous. Sooner or later she had to face the fact that Nick was somewhere in the world living, loving, laughing without her. She couldn’t use the punishing regime she’d inflicted on herself for the last years to duck reality any more.
‘. . . in heaven.’
‘I’m sorry?’ She stared into the young earnest face of Father Collins. She hadn’t heard a word he had said.
‘I said it must be a great comfort to you to know that Charles is now receiving his reward in heaven for the pain and discomfort he bore so bravely on this mortal plain.’
‘Yes, of course.’ He was nice, Father Collins, but she could no more confide in him than fly to the moon.
‘What do you intend to do now?’
Why was everyone asking her what she intended to do? How could she answer that? Charles hadn’t been gone two minutes. And then she forced the irritation down to the place where she had kept other unacceptable emotions for the last eight years and smiled at the young priest. ‘I’m not sure.’
‘Of course, of course. Early days, early days.’
Early days.Yes, it was early days but then again eight years had passed. ‘Excuse me, Father.’ She left him without another word and made her way back to Bruce and Gertie who were now standing apart from the rest of the crowd. ‘I need to ask you.’ She was looking straight into Bruce’s face and she saw something which led her to believe he had been waiting for this. ‘I need to ask you about Nick. How he is. Where he is. If he’s happy.’
Bruce glanced at Gertie. Just a fleeting glance but enough to cause Amy to say, ‘He isn’t . . .’
‘No, no, he’s alive and kicking.’
Then he was with someone. Ecstatically happy. Married with a quiverful of little Johnsons. She swallowed hard. ‘I suppose he’s married.’
‘No, he isn’t married. There’s been one or two long-term relationships but he’s never . . . No, he isn’t married.’
‘Happily living in sin, knowing Nick.’The flippancy didn’t fool any of them.
‘He’s not with anyone at the moment, Amy.’
Then what had made Bruce look at Gertie like that? Amy abandoned the last of her pride. ‘He doesn’t want you to talk about him to me. Is that it?’
Bruce hesitated.The brief millisecond was aeons long.‘Not for the reason you are probably thinking.’
There could only be one reason. And she deserved it. She knew she deserved it and she had no right to think it could be any different. It wasn’t until this moment that she realised how the possibility of seeing Nick again, of there being some slight chance for them had sustained her through the last eight years. Embarrassment, humiliation and a consuming sense of pain made her voice clipped when she said, ‘It’s all right, Bruce. I won’t mention him again. Let’s forget it, shall we, and—’
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