All I Have to Give (18 page)

His alcoholic breath repulsed her, as his lips came down on hers. His teeth clashed onto hers. His tongue darted in and out of her mouth. But, against her will, feelings welled up in her.
Suddenly this didn’t seem wrong, but was something she wanted. She wanted him close to her like this, wanted to feel him pushing against her.

But then repulsion at these thoughts fought through the pleasure. Struggling, she tried to pull away. But she did not have the strength to do so; she felt drained of energy.

‘You want me – yer know yer do. Come on, Edith. I love yer. I want yer so much.’

Those words, said with tenderness, softened some of her resistance. She allowed his kiss, revelled in the feel of his hands squeezing her breasts. But still a little voice said:
No.
‘No, no, Albert, this isn’t right. You are drunk. You—’

He took no heed of her. Unable to fight him off, her body went wherever he took it. They landed on the rug on the floor. Bruised and hurting inside, Edith begged him, ‘Please, Albert, not
like this. Not like this. Wait . . . please, wait!’

Her pleas made no difference, and her tears were ignored. His weight came onto her. He prised open her legs with his knees and entered her.

A scream came from her that stung her own ears, but only had the effect on Albert of making him thrust harder and groan louder. ‘Edith. Oh, Edith . . .’ The pain of his thrusts
lessened. His kisses soothed. His declaration of love and his caresses aroused something in her that she didn’t want to give in to, but could not resist as she listened to his voice. His
tone, different from anything she’d ever heard, was heavy with desire. ‘You’re me own love. Me woman. Let me love you.’

Against all she knew to be right, she did relax and knew the joy of him fully filling her. Her body moved with his; her kisses were given willingly and on every part of him she could reach.
Feelings grew and grew inside her, till she abandoned herself to the sheer bliss of them and joined her cries of lust to his. Then it happened. A feeling too big for her burst inside her. She
stiffened, didn’t want it, and yet wanted it with every fibre of her being. When she allowed it, and it reached a crescendo, she hollered her joy to the world, clenching herself onto Albert
so as to hold on to the feeling for as long as she could.

When her body came down from it, she crumbled. Tears tumbled from her. Uncontrollable weeping seized her; this wasn’t the weeping of sadness, but the weeping of release. Of becoming a
woman.

They lay still and quiet when it was over. Neither moved for a full minute. The mantel-shelf clock that Albert had wound up and set to the time on their watches ticked loudly. Albert’s
breath became steadier with every tick, but Edith found she couldn’t steady hers, and the headache she’d ignored came back with a vengeance, marring the feelings of joy she’d
experienced. Or maybe guilt was seeping into her? She’d have to pull herself together. Maybe after a night’s rest she would feel better. Another shiver took her, giving her the thought
that she must have a cold coming on. Which wasn’t a wonder given the conditions she’d lived under these last weeks.

Albert broke the silence. Lifting himself onto his elbow, he looked down on her. His face was awash with tears and was holding something that scared her. ‘I’m sorry. Forgive me. I
shouldn’t ’ave done that. Oh, God! It is all too much. Go back, Edith. I – I cannot face life any more. I can’t live with all that ’as ’appened, and what
I’ve become.’ With this, he rolled over and stood up.

As he fumbled with his jacket, she pleaded, ‘Don’t go. It’s all right, I wanted it to happen . . . Albert? Albert, what are you doing?’ The flicker of a flame from the
fire caught the barrel of his pistol. ‘Albert! No!’

The explosion ricocheted off the walls, deafening her. Blood and flesh and bits of brain slapped her body. ‘Noooooooo! No! Why? Why . . . ?’ Her breath held painfully in her lungs as
she finished screaming, and as the shock of his action settled in her. Kneeling, she stared at the body, with only one side of a head and a grotesque eye staring at her.

The trembling of her body was uncontrollable now. Its severity caused her teeth to rattle together. Her throat dried. The zinging inside her ears increased, and a blackness enveloped her.

The light was momentarily hazy and then became bright again. Edith found it hard to break through the fog that was clouding her brain. Images clawed at her. She couldn’t
breathe without feeling pain.
Where am I?
Something felt very strange. The smells that surrounded her were not familiar, and she could feel the presence of someone in the room, but not
someone she knew. Her head hurt. Her lungs didn’t want to take in their full capacity of air. Sweat dampened her body. Weakness had taken every limb, rendering her unable to move. Forcing
words through a sore and dry throat, she asked, ‘Wh – where am – am I?’

An answer came in French, but with an accent Edith didn’t recognize. Memory exploded in her brain, forcing an agonized cry from her.

‘Non, non. Ma chère, vous êtes en sécurité?

Nothing about her felt safe; she felt so weak, so ill. But she had registered that the woman had called her ‘my dear’ and she didn’t sound threatening.

‘My name is Petra Tolenski, and my husband is Aleksi. We are from what used to be Poland.’

It seemed Petra needed to tell her story. She continued, talking about how she came to be living in France. Much of it went in and out of Edith’s focus, but from what she could glean,
these people were from the Russian sector of what had been the independent country of Poland just over a century ago.

‘Eleven years ago the Russians recognized us as a country and liberated us, but we could see that the German and Austrian hold on the partition of our country was very unsettled, and we
feared for what would happen in the future. And so, with our new freedoms, we took the chance to get out. We have a daughter, Marcelina, who went back to marry her long-time boyfriend. She would
not listen to us and is now caught up in the terrible regime of the German Reich and cannot leave.’

Petra’s voice droned on, spinning around with the pain in Edith’s head. It was a pain that threatened to take her back into the blackness, which held nightmares she didn’t wish
to visit. But eventually Petra told her how she came to be here. Her husband, Aleksi, had seen lights and smoke coming from the deserted farmhouse whilst he had been in his top field, bedding down
his herd of cattle. That had been three days ago. He had gone to investigate. He had taken his barrow and brought her here, and had gone back and buried the young man.

Dizziness sent the room spinning again, as memory tore through Edith’s mind. She wanted to ask: why? Why had they just buried Albert and not fetched the police? But fear that the symptoms
she’d been suffering had escalated stopped her, as a realization came to her that she was on the verge of pneumonia. The very word terrified her – she would face the prospect of her own
imminent death if she wasn’t treated immediately. If she’d been in an unconscious state for three days, then her brain’s initial coping mechanism must have shut off from reality.
Now, it would seem, her body was taking the impact.

A pause in Petra’s story gave her a moment to ask, ‘C – can you g – get a doc – doctor, p – please?’ A fit of coughing almost suffocated her and
produced the dreaded frothy sputum she knew to be an indication of how serious her condition was.

‘It is thirty kilometres to the nearest doctor, and our donkey is lame. It would take Aleksi a day or more on foot, and he cannot leave the livestock at this moment; also there is the
harvesting. We have been hoping that the goat-herder, who comes along at this time of year, would arrive and take a message for us. But he hasn’t come.’

‘I – I can pay f – for your 1 – losses. Plea – please.’

There was a splitting pain in Edith’s head and her breathing was agony. She knew it wouldn’t be long before she entered the disease state of crisis. Her terror intensified.

‘PI – please,’ she said. It came out as a desperate cry.

Still Petra hesitated.

‘I – I need . . .’ Once more a fit of coughing left her gasping for breath. ‘St – steam . . . roo – room. Fill with st – steam and – and . .
.’ Her mind jumbled. Nothing made any sense. A sinking feeling took her. It offered relief from all the pain in her head and chest. Letting go, Edith sank into unconsciousness – a place
of swirling peace.

Low Moor, late August 1916
The munitions factory explosion brings change

Finding no solace in anything she did, Ada had come to the conclusion that to carry on working towards her goal was the only way to cope. Oh, aye, she’d thought of doing
herself in, and would have done if it hadn’t been for Joe’s love. Not that she could return his feelings, as everything inside her had died with the letter’s arrival, but she
found something to grasp onto in the friendship and support he offered, and felt a need to be where he was. This meant doing the daily grind at the munitions factory.

Today, Monday 21st August, it was three weeks, four days and twelve hours since she’d read the terrible words. She felt weary through to the bones of her as she stepped off the train after
an early shift at the factory and began the trudge up Clackheaton Road. Agatha and Mildred were by her side, and Joe was just behind.

The station clock had shown it was two-thirty. The sun beat down on them. Children, on holiday from school, ran around, some of them rolling balls with a stick. One of a group of girls threw a
stone into a pattern of chalked numbered squares and hopped into where it landed. All of them chatted and laughed.

Women stood in the doorways of their houses or sat on their steps. Flowered aprons covered their long skirts, nets kept their hair in place, and fags hung from their mouths as they called out to
one another. It was a chatter that stopped, as if as a mark of respect, as she, Agatha and Mildred walked by, for the three of them were known as the mothers of the lost ‘pals’ and, as
such, held the admiration and awe of their fellow mothers.

Smoke billowed in the distance from the Low Moor Munitions Factory. How Ada longed for a position to become available there, so she didn’t have this daily journey to Leeds. As they turned
into New Works Road and she caught sight of the factory, and of her cottage, her longing to work there increased. But then she remembered that if she moved jobs, she wouldn’t be near Joe.
That thought had her turning her body to look at him, but as she did so, an intense force hit her, taking all control from her and flinging her backwards. She thought she’d bump into Joe and
send him flying, but his own body was propelled away from her, as if a giant hand had picked him up and thrown him. Seconds later Mildred and Agatha flew past her, in much the same manner.

Debris fell from the sky; bricks, bruising and cutting, bits of wood and a roof tile hit her face, and dust stung her eyes. But it was a huge piece of wooden beam that gave her a pain that
seared through her. It crushed her and left her unable to move, as it pinned her to the ground. The boom – a sound like nothing she’d ever experienced – blocked her ears and made
the noise of crumbling houses, shattering windows, women’s screams and children’s cries come to her as if they were far away from her, instead of surrounding her.

The munitions factory – oh God, it’s exploded! Please God let everyone be all right. Let Beryl be safe. Oh, why didn’t I go and make me peace with her? And where will Paddy
be? What about our home? Me things – me lads’ stuff!

Then Ada’s panic died, as there was a terrific bang and a huge fireball shot into the sky above her. The ground beneath her shook. Something hit her head. The pain from it was only
momentary, as she was sucked into a welcoming darkness that took her to a place where she could feel nothing and knew nothing.

Waking to a world of whiteness disorientated Ada, as did the strange shapes around her: distorted figures of people, a swirling curtain and a trolley shape that wobbled.

‘Oh, me Ada, are thee alreet, lass?’

Joe’s lovely voice. He was here with her. He hadn’t been killed. ‘Oh, Joe. I can’t see thee, but I feel your presence.’ It was a feeling she had never experienced
before. A good feeling: a feeling of great love, and not in any way related to the sexual attraction that she now knew was all there was – and had ever been – between her and Paddy.

‘I’m here, lass, at the side of you. No, don’t turn your head. I’ll lean over you. One of your eyes is bandaged, and the other has been washed out and some drops put in
it, so you might not be able to focus.’

A dark shape came into view above her. ‘There, lass, is that better? Now, you’re not to worry. You’re in Leeds Hospital. They say you’ve broken a few ribs and need
monitoring, in case one of them pierces your lung. But you are going to be fine. Everyone is okay – cuts and bruises mostly. It was the munitions factory. It exploded and set off a secondary
explosion in the gasworks.’

‘Is – is Paddy . . . and me house . . . ?’

‘I think Paddy’s all right. I asked around, and it turns out he was in the Black Horse when it happened; a few were having an after-hours game of poker with the landlord. He
wasn’t hurt, but no one seems to have seen him since. I thought he would be with you, so I took care and was ready to turn away if he was here.’

‘And me house?’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Naw!’

‘Look, it’s not reduced to rubble, like some. But it ain’t liveable in, either. I’m sorry, lass.’

‘Oh God, Joe – me stuff!’

‘Stuff’s only stuff; it can be replaced.’

‘But me memory box of me lads’ things, and the money as I’ve been saving. I have to have them! Do something for me, Joe. Please go to me house and get them for me. Please,
Joe.’

‘Don’t fret yourself, Ada, lass. I’ll do what I can.’

‘Go now, Joe. I can’t lose me boys’ things, nor me money.’

‘You won’t. Just tell me where to look. But I can’t go now – there’s coppers and firemen all over the place, stopping folk going into their houses until they are
deemed safe. I’ll go in the early hours of the morning, under the cover of darkness.’