The Rainbow Years (49 page)
Authors: Rita Bradshaw
‘He was burned, Amy. Horribly burned. Disfigured.’
She stared at him, hearing the words, conscious of the people milling about in the background and Gertie’s troubled face, but unable to take it in straightaway. After some moments she managed to whisper, ‘When?’
‘Just after you’d split. Well, the next day actually. He was eventually put under the care of Mr McIndoe.You’ve heard of him?’
‘No.’
‘He’s the best consultant plastic surgeon in the world, let alone the Royal Air Force. He did great things, Nick’s still able to use his hands to some extent.’
She felt the world begin to spin and it was only Gertie’s quick thinking that provided the chair for her to sink into. And it was Gertie who said, ‘He didn’t want you to feel sorry for him, Amy. Like you felt for Charles, I suppose. He said you had made your choice and he didn’t want it complicated by him. He swore Bruce to secrecy, me too, and although we didn’t agree with him we couldn’t do anything else.You know Nick, he’s fiercely proud and independent.’
On my darling. My love. Disfigured. Burned. And I didn’t know. All this time and I didn’t know.
‘He’s not too bad now, Amy. Well, not really. But you know Nick. Always full of confidence and self-assurance.’
No doubt Gertie thought she was helping but she was making it worse. The Nick she’d known wasn’t like that at all. He’d been as vulnerable as the next man. As Charles.
Had she made the wrong decision?
Amy physically squirmed in her chair. Because of some misguided sense of right and wrong, had she made the wrong decision?
Had she made the wrong decision?
Amy physically squirmed in her chair. Because of some misguided sense of right and wrong, had she made the wrong decision?
She must have spoken out loud although she wasn’t aware of it because Gertie said softly, ‘I don’t think so, dear. Nick’s a survivor, you know that, but Charles wasn’t made that way. You gave him eight years of happiness in a life that had known very little, and you did what you thought was right, regardless of what you really wanted. I don’t think you can say that was wrong.’
‘Where . . . where is he?’
There was a pause and then Bruce said, ‘He works for the British Aircraft Corporation selling airliners. He loves it.’
‘Does he ever ask after me?’
‘Every time we speak.’
Nick. Oh, Nick. ‘I have to talk to him. No, I have to go and see him.’ It was the only way Nick would believe his injuries didn’t matter a jot, if she proved it to him, face to face.
‘He won’t agree to that, Amy.’ Bruce was clearly finding this difficult. ‘He abhors pity.’
‘Pity?’ Amy glared at the man who, next to Nick, meant more to her than anyone else on earth. ‘Who said anything about pity? I’m not a child, Bruce. I know what people with bad burns can look like. There’s Joy Garfield up the road, she had her face taken off by a doodlebug. And then George Benson—’
‘OK, OK.’ Bruce held up his hands in surrender. ‘It’s just that I know he wants you to remember him as he was.’
‘And then we continue living the next forty or fifty years apart? Oh, I’m not saying he’ll want me after all this time.’ Amy stared at Bruce and Gertie, her eyes swimming with tears. ‘But it’ll be up to him. All I can do is go to him and say I’m his if he wants me. I have always been his, that’s never changed for me.’
A large fat lady with a black squashed tomato of a hat waddled up and spoke a few words of condolence to Amy. Amy had no idea who the woman was. Probably the wife of one of Charles’s old business colleagues.
When the lady had gone, Bruce said, ‘All right, Amy. It will probably be the end of a beautiful friendship when Nick finds out I’ve given you his address, but all right.’
‘Thank you.’ Amy smiled her relief. ‘You do see I have to try, don’t you?’
Bruce’s grin included both women and it was rueful. ‘You being you, I do see that.’
‘And it must be a surprise.’
‘Shouldn’t that be phrased shock?’
‘Shock, surprise, whatever.’ Amy looked steadily at them both. ‘He must not know I’m coming. If I don’t give him the chance to refuse to see me it’s a fait accompli.’
‘Now she’s talking French at me . . .’
Chapter 26
Bruce called Amy the day after the funeral to say he had found out Nick was out of the country on business for a couple of weeks and his secretary couldn’t be specific as to when he was expected back. But he’d ring and let her know when he had news. OK?
It wasn’t really OK but after a maudlin hour or two Amy pulled herself together. She wasn’t going to sit and twiddle her thumbs, she had masses to do and she had better get on with it. She hadn’t slept a wink the night before and at some time during the tossing and turning and making herself endless cups of tea, she had decided to sell the bungalow forthwith. A stage of her life had definitely ended and she needed to slam the door on it.
A couple of days after Charles passed away, his solicitor had called to see her. Mr Callendar had asked him to do this at the appropriate time, he informed her gravely, and he had promised he would. He needed to tell her that as well as the bungalow and the car she’d purchased some years before, after learning to drive, there was a tidy sum in the bank. He wouldn’t want her to run away with the idea she was a rich woman, but there was certainly enough for her to live frugally for the rest of her life.
Amy thought back to this conversation now and she knew there was no way she could spend her days going to the bridge club and having little rides in the car and growing old with a couple of cats for company. Whatever happened with Nick. If things worked out between them, and she hardly dared hope they would, then her future would be with him. If not, then she would find a job working with children, perhaps even as a live-in matron at a children’s home or something. Whatever, she would
live.
live.
The next few days saw Amy sorting through a mountain of paperwork, a little of which it was necessary to keep but most of which she burned.Then came clothes. Charles’s things she gave away. Most of her own she packed, apart from a few items for daily wear. Charles’s books and personal mementoes and such she put into two large crates which she sent to Edward; she kept nothing for herself. She had her memories both good and bad, and they were the only things she wanted to take with her into the future.
Amy found herself staring intently at the miniature of her mother often during this time which was one of tears and sadness as well as burning hope for the future. The original had been lost along with everything else when the German plane had destroyed the house in Ryhope. Bess’s calm lovely face was the one permanent, unchanging anchor in a world that had gone topsy-turvy again, and Amy slept with it by her bed each night.
The first people who came to look at the bungalow fell in love with it immediately and offered the full price without prevarication, expressing an interest in most of the furniture when Amy said it was also for sale.They were a young couple, a sweet, unworldly pair who were due to get married at the end of the summer. Amy liked them very much and when the young woman went into raptures over the number of birds in the garden, she knew they were the right ones for the place.
Bruce rang one night in the middle of July to say Nick was back, just as Amy was ironing the curtains she had washed that morning. Every curtain in the bungalow had been taken down and laundered, every carpet cleaned, every rug beaten to within an inch of its life, every work surface scrubbed and every item of furniture polished to gleaming perfection. The physical exertion had helped to keep her mind off the possible outcome of seeing Nick, at least in the daylight hours. The nights were a different kettle of fish; the gremlins came out in full force then. But in all her whirling doubts and fears, one thing remained constant. She had to try.
‘He’s just clinched quite a big deal apparently,’ Bruce said, ‘so he’s taking a couple of days off to relax at home.’ Home was a cottage in Sussex, according to Bruce, and this had surprised Amy. She had imagined Nick would have settled for an impersonal bachelor flat, something of that nature. ‘Look, Amy, are you sure you’ve thought this through?’
‘Positive.’
‘No doubts?’
About going to see Nick? Not one. About the outcome? Myriad. ‘Bruce, this is something I have to do however it turns out.’
There was a short pause. ‘You’ve got to prepare yourself for the fact he has changed, and I’m not talking about the burns now. There’s an edge to him somehow, a cynicism, a “I don’t care what the hell you’re thinking” attitude that goes more than skin deep. It’s not that he has any trouble attracting the opposite sex -’ Bruce stopped abruptly, then said sheepishly, ‘Sorry, but he doesn’t, so it’s not that. It’s not bravado.’
‘That’s good,’ Amy said quietly. ‘At least if he listens to me and gives me a chance I shall know it’s not because I’m any port in a storm.’
‘No, there is that. Look, Gertie and I have been talking. Do you want us to come with you?’
‘And have Gertie drop the baby on his doorstep? Somehow I don’t think that would help matters much.’
‘I couldn’t leave her with the bairn so close.’
‘I wouldn’t want you to. I shall be perfectly all right, I promise.’ And then her voice softened. ‘But thank you, both of you, for all your support and concern.’ Her voice became brisk as she added, ‘Now I’m going to say goodnight so I can pack an overnight case and be away first thing. It’s a long drive but with your directions I’m sure I shan’t get lost.’
‘Ring me at work if you do and I’ll try to put you right. You’ve got my number, haven’t you?’
‘Yes, I’ve got your work number, Bruce.’ She loved him dearly but she wished he wouldn’t worry so. ‘Now concentrate on Gertie and the baby. Tell her I’m praying for a little lassie this time.’ They already had two boys and Gertie had confided in her some weeks ago that she would love a girl.
‘I’ll do that. Bye, Amy.’
‘Bye, Bruce.’
Contrary to what she had said she remained sitting for a long time, her thoughts in the past. And it wasn’t only Nick she was thinking of. She had loved Charles at the beginning, albeit a romantic, girlish love, and she had loved him at the end but in a different way entirely. But what she felt for Nick was so far removed from any of this as to be incomparable. If he didn’t want her she would never marry anyone else, she knew that.
During the war she had known lots of women who had had more than one man, many more in some cases. Even here in Sunderland it was common knowledge that this woman and that had had ‘friends’ visiting them when their husbands were away fighting, and more than a few marriages hadn’t survived when the husband had come home. Because of the war, divorce wasn’t the scandal it once had been, even in the Church. Times were changing fast. And here was she at the age of thirty-four having only ever slept with one man, and the last time being well over a decade ago.
She stood up at last and wandered into the kitchen. She made herself a cup of tea which she drank staring out of the window into the darkening twilight.
She had thought her life had ended when she lost her baby and the chance ever to be a mother. It wasn’t really until Nick had come to see her in the hospital and whispered they could adopt that she had ever considered the idea. Since that time it had been with her always, even though it hadn’t been possible when Charles was alive. But if Nick still wanted her she would forgo adoption if he had changed his mind about it and consider herself well blessed nonetheless.
But she was jumping the gun here. She finished the tea and washed the cup and saucer before walking through to her bedroom. Enough thinking. It only wound her up until her thoughts spiralled and she found herself going round in circles. Tomorrow would determine the rest of her life sure enough, but however things turned out she wasn’t going to crumble. She wouldn’t let herself.
Surprisingly she slept well, but when she awoke it was with the very clear picture of a sweet little face in her mind. She had always been grateful that as time had gone on she had never forgotten the tiniest detail of that one brief glimpse of her son. She only had to close her eyes to see him and this she did often. But last night it had been different. Last night she had dreamed of him, and instead of the nurse whisking him away he had smiled and reached out to her and she had held him close to her breast. She had sat down in a big old rocking chair and cradled him in her arms, gently rocking him to sleep, and as she had looked down at the tiny sleeping face she had known - in the manner of dreams - that he was the first of her children and that there would be others. She’d woken up with her face wet with tears and it had taken some time to pull herself together, but strangely a sense of peace had descended that hadn’t been there the day before.
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