To Have and to Hold (27 page)

Carmel snuggled into the tweed of his jacket. She smelled tobacco and a whiff of whiskey, but it wasn’t unpleasant; it was familiar. The heart-rending sobs eventually changed to hiccuping gulps.

Ruby, coming in with the tray of tea, was pleased that Carmel had cried at last. ‘It was what she needed,’ she told Jeff later as he was about to go. ‘It was as if every
thing was knotted up tight inside her and I think she needed your arms around her too. Having a stiff upper lip is all very well, but really it isn’t much comfort when all is said and done and that is what you both needed if you ask me—a bit of comfort.’

Ruby was a very wise woman, Jeff thought. A little later, facing his wife across the room, he wished, whatever their differences, that he could gather Emma into his arms and they could comfort one another on the death of their son. However, he was unable to offer comfort because Emma looked at him coldly although her face was ravaged with wretchedness and heartache. Her voice when she spoke was strange and Jeff knew that it was sheer iron will that was keeping tears at bay.

But what she said in clipped tones was, ‘I don’t see why you think this should interest me.’

‘Emma, for God’s sake. He was our son.’

‘He ceased to be my son when he married that little trollop.’

‘She is no trollop,’ Jeff said firmly. ‘And you also have the dearest, cutest little granddaughter, if you could just bring yourself to see her. She is, after all, part of Paul.’

‘And part of the woman he married,’ Emma said stiffly. ‘I want nothing to do with her. And now leave me, if you will. I want to be on my own.’

Jeff thought if he lived to be a hundred he would never understand his wife. But he also knew there was nothing to be gained by staying. He turned on his heel and went to find Matthew, who had returned home as he requested. Jeff had the urge to make a large hole in the brandy bottle and knew that for that day, at least, he would value Matthew’s company.

While Jeff was talking to his wife, there was a surprising visitor to 17 York Road. Lois opened the door with the baby in her arms, and her mouth dropped open with shock.

‘Matron!’

‘Yes, don’t look so shocked,’ the matron said. ‘I am here to see Carmel. Is this the baby?’ She extended her hand for the child to grasp. Her face had softened and her voice was gentler with the child. Lois remembered someone saying how kind Matron was with the children in hospital and how they all loved her. ‘It is just a pity,’ said the girl who told her this, who was still recovering from a roasting Matron had given her, ‘that her kindness doesn’t extend to probationary nurses.’

‘Yes, this is Elizabeth Eve,’ Lois told her. ‘She is called Beth for short.’

‘And is Carmel still in bed?’

Lois nodded. ‘There has been a breakthrough of sorts. No one had been informed, you see, and when I went and told Paul’s father today, he came straight round. I wasn’t here. I had gone on to tell my parents,
but Ruby, the neighbour I mentioned, was, and she said Carmel started talking to Uncle Jeff. She could hear the murmur of voices, you know—Carmel hadn’t spoken either since she got the telegram—and then, when Ruby went in, Carmel was crying so brokenheartedly Jeff had his arms around her. She needed those tears.’

‘Oh, yes, indeed,’ Catherine said knowledgeably. ‘A person must cry before the healing process can really begin.’

She spoke as if she not only knew, but had experienced those things herself. And yet why wouldn’t she? Lois thought. She must have been young once and probably had her moments.

‘Is this Ruby with Carmel now?’ Catherine asked.

‘No,’ said Lois. ‘She has gone to make her husband a bite to eat and,’ she added with the ghost of a smile, ‘probably try and convince the poor man that she hasn’t moved in here on a permanent basis.’

‘So, could I see Carmel?’

‘Of course,’ Lois said. ‘I will take you up now.’

Carmel was just as shocked as Lois had been at the sight of Matron in the doorway, and even more alarmed when Lois said, ‘I will leave you to it, if that’s all right?’

‘That’s fine,’ Catherine said, and she sat on the chair by the bed. ‘You are probably wondering why I have come to see you.’

Carmel gave a brief nod.

‘Because I know just how you feel. Don’t widen your eyes in such disbelief. My lover was killed in the First War. His name was Len Bishop and we were engaged and due to marry on his next leave. I was twenty-three and a nurse, but I was longing to be married and have
a home and family of my own. But Len too was shipped to France and didn’t return. I had just turned twenty-four when he died in 1915.’

Carmel’s eyes were sympathetic, but Catherine continued, ‘I don’t broadcast this and I hope I won’t have to ask you to be circumspect now. I don’t want it to be bandied around the hospital, although you can tell Lois, if you wish.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I did just as you did, as you are doing,’ the matron said. ‘I retired to my bed. I felt my life was over. I wanted to die to be with Len. In the end, my distracted parents sent for the doctor. That man had the bedside manner of an alligator, which was probably good for me. He said that wallowing in grief would serve no purpose other than to worry those around me.’

‘War is so dreadfully cruel.’

‘It is,’ Catheine agreed, ‘and remember the war that Len died in was “the war to end all wars”. I was quite resentful and envious of you and Lois the time you asked if you could nurse after marriage. I thought nothing could get in the way of your dreams. Even with Germany rumbling away, I never thought it would amount to anything and certainly not war.’

‘Few wanted to believe it,’ Carmel said.

‘Well, it is here now,’ Catherine said firmly, ‘and, maybe even more than in the last one, it will be women that keep this country afloat. The luxury of lying in bed and letting the world go on around you is no attitude to have in wartime. If you don’t want your man to have died in vain, this is a war we have to win and at the moment we have our backs to the wall.’

The matron looked at the sad eyes of Carmel and her voice was gentler as she went on, ‘I know it’s hard, my dear. Once Len was gone I knew I would never marry. He had been the one love of my life and I threw myself into nursing. You, my dear, have a child. I often wished…of course it could never be. Even engaged couples in those days did not indulge in such things and I would have been disgraced, I know, but it would have been nice to think that Len had left a piece of himself behind.

‘The doctor said Len had been doing his duty and I owed it to his memory to get out of bed and do something useful with the rest of my life. Paul too had been doing his duty and you owe it to him to get up and care for your child. Isn’t it what Paul would have expected of you?’

Carmel knew it was exactly what he would expect. She knew she would always miss him, but lying in bed thinking of him constantly would not bring him back, and meanwhile her baby was suffering.

Matron Turner left soon afterwards and Carmel called Lois and said she wanted to get up. Lois was delighted and Carmel was glad of her help for, once out of bed, she felt incredibly weak and the room listed dreadfully. But she persevered and made the stairs, then sat thankfully in the armchair and told Lois all that had transpired in the bedroom and what had given her the impetus to get up in the first place.

‘She’s right about the baby,’ Lois said. ‘Beth has been missing you. Both Ruby and I have noticed it, but I am so incredibly sorry for you, for me too, all of us, for Paul was such a very special person.’

Although Carmel forced herself to get up every morning and took on the total care of Beth, she felt numb and almost as if she were hollow inside. Nothing seemed to fill the gaping hole in her entire being and nothing helped or eased the pain lodged in her heart—not the letters of condolence and Mass cards arriving from Ireland, nor her mother writing to say that the family kneeled every night to say the rosary for the repose of Paul’s soul.

Father Robertson came to see her. The man wasn’t a very sympathetic person, but even he felt sorry for Carmel and knew that it would take her some time to get over such a tragic loss. He said he would remember her in his prayers and suggested a commemorative Mass, held both to celebrate Paul’s life and mourn his death. Carmel was glad of Jeff’s support there, for the Mass affected her greatly.

She was alone in the house and tidying up one day when she came upon the newspapers Lois had left out for salvage. She sat down and read what had been happening since Dunkirk when she had retired to her bed. Soon she realised that when Matron had spoken about Britain having its back to the wall, she had told the truth.

Nearly three hundred and fifty thousand Allied soldiers had been rescued from Dunkirk, which the paper acknowledged was an amazing feat. However, they had to leave behind them guns, ammunition and vehicles. Hitler, feeling sure Britain was finished, was massing his troops across the Channel, bent on invasion.

Carmel, like most others in the country, faced the possibility of defeat for the first time. If that happened she would feel that Paul had given his life in vain. A call had
gone out for more Local Defence Volunteers and George Hancock was among the thirty thousand men in Birmingham alone who had rushed to join up. All civilians were urged to get involved and there were calls out to learn first aid, apply to be ARP wardens, or at the very least learn to operate stirrup pumps in the event of incendiary attacks.

Yet as Carmel pushed the baby out on those balmy summer days, it was sometimes hard to believe that there was a war on at all, apart, that was, from the notices appearing on hoardings. Travel was discouraged and one poster enquired, ‘Is Your Journey Really Necessary?’ Others reminded you that ‘Careless Talk Costs Lives’ and to, ‘Be Vigilant! The Enemy Is Near’.

Lois had told Carmel that the road signs that had been removed and railway signs painted over to inhibit any potential invader, and people were also advised to disable cars not in use, to lock up or immobilise bicycles and hide maps.

Children evacuated to the south coast were being moved north to what were considered safer locations. Many children had already been taken home by their parents when the threatened bombing raids didn’t materialise and more took them home now.

Ruby said she didn’t blame them. ‘If invasion comes,’ she said, ‘isn’t it better for families to be together?’

Carmel supposed it was, but she had a horror of jackbooted Nazis marching down the streets of her adopted city, putting her life and that of her baby at risk.

‘I worry about mine, for all they are big enough and ugly enough to look out for themselves,’ Ruby went on. Carmel knew she had reason to worry. Ruby’s two sons,
Bertie and Henry, had received their call-up papers and her son-in-law, Donald, was expecting his any day, as the battle began in the air.

The Germans began pounding the southern ports and attacking shipping prior to invasion, and Lois was very glad Chris had been moved, as Ramsgate was getting almost nightly raids. The hospital he had been sent to now was a new one, called the Queen Elizabeth, which had been built to replace the old Queen’s. As many of the old Queen’s staff had been transferred to the new hospital, Chris was well known there. That, together with the fact that he was a Dunkirk veteran, meant they could not do enough for him.

‘He’ll expect me to run around after him the same way when I get him home,’ Lois grumbled, but she knew she wouldn’t care a jot about that. Chris was alive and would be well again, and she knew how lucky she was.

So did Carmel. She still cried for the numbing loss of Paul some nights muffling the sounds in a pillow lest she disturb Lois. Sometimes, though she knew it was totally against the rules, she would take the baby into bed and they would sleep together.

Chris never spoke of Dunkirk and the first time Lois had asked him, his eyes had filled with tears so she was careful never to mention it again. This was what she told Carmel when she asked if he knew what had happened to Paul.

The day Chris came home, Carmel tried not to be selfish and begrudge Lois her happiness. But it did give her a pang when he walked through the door looking so hale and hearty.

He seemed happy to be back and he was totally charmed by the baby, but behind his eyes there was definite sadness. Lois asked about it when they were alone while Carmel was putting the baby to bed.

‘I feel as if I have a heavy burden between my shoulder blades,’ Chris said. ‘And I need to speak to Carmel.’

Lois didn’t ask why. She knew she would know soon enough and so, when Carmel came down, she used more of their precious tea ration and Chris ushered the two girls into the sitting room.

He waited until Carmel had the tea in her hand before saying, ‘I was with Paul to the very end. I want you to know that. He was the greatest mate a man could ever have and there will never be another like him. I could weep now at the thought that I’ll never see him again and I can only imagine your pain.’

Carmel noted Chris’s glittering eyes, and though the tears were seeping from her own she was glad that Chris spoke about Paul so easily.

‘Thank you for that, Chris,’ she said through her tears. ‘I know what good friends you were. You say you were with him till the end?’

Chris nodded. ‘I could tell you about it, if it would help.’

‘I don’t know if it would help or not,’ Carmel said. ‘But I want to know it all.’

‘We were in a little place between Lille and Wormhout,’ Chris said, ‘working in a field hospital together. Everyone was trying to make for Dunkirk, for the word was there was some sort of rescue operation being attempted from there and most of the wounded had been sent on. But Paul had four who were too ill to move and he was hanging
on to the last minute, until the Germans were almost in sight, to leave them, believing then they would be taken care of.

‘In the end, we had to go and we hadn’t gone very far into this little wooded area when we heard German voices. We knew it was a scouting party going ahead of the main convoys and we were thanking ourselves for our lucky escape. Paul was saying that at least now the wounded would be cared for when we heard the machine-gun fire. Paul looked stricken for he knew that the Germans had shot the wounded men.

‘He seemed to go a little mad then and he set off at a run back the way we had come. I went after him but when I reached him and tried to stop him he shook me off. His eyes were wild and I know he wasn’t thinking straight. Neither of us had slept for days and hadn’t eaten either for hours. What I mean is that he wasn’t himself when he burst out of the shelter of the trees yelling that they were all murdering bastards. A single rifle shot brought him down and he sort of folded at the knees and then they shot him again and he slumped to the ground. I heard the Germans laugh as they kicked him into a ditch.’

Carmel was crying in earnest and Lois had her arms around her, but she was still glad that she had listened to Chris. Since Carmel had recovered from her collapse, she had harboured the idea that maybe Paul wasn’t dead. The telegram had said missing, presumed dead. What if he was in hospital or a POW camp somewhere and he had lost his memory?

Now that theory was knocked flat. His best friend had seen Paul killed. She had to face that. It was no
good hiding under dreams and fantasies. Paul was dead and gone and she had to face life without him for the sake of little Beth, who would depend on her. Lois too was upset, both by the story of the tragic death of Paul and also by the thought that in just a couple of days time, Chris had to rejoin his unit and could be in the thick of it once more.

All through the summer, the battle for supremacy of the skies raged on. The German airforce knew they had to annihilate the RAF before German landing craft could cross the Channel in safety.

The results of these attacks would be reported in the newspapers the next day. ‘The Germans lost 217 planes to Fighter Command’s 96’ the papers would boast. Carmel wondered if it were true, or just written to raise morale, though it did nothing for hers. In fact she found it distasteful, as if the war was a kind of game. Yet every plane lost represented someone’s life.