He began slowly. ‘After I saw you the last time, I was so happy about you saying you loved me that I couldn’t think straight.’
‘I didn’t want you to think straight. I told you the truth.’
‘I know you did, but the more I thought about it, the more I was convinced that you only said it on an impulse. You were married to Glynn, and you still loved him, so I began to feel that I’d been a proper heel. That’s why I never wrote to you again.’
‘I thought you’d been killed.’
‘That’s what I meant you to think. If I was out of the way, you wouldn’t have anything to complicate your life. I carried on writing to my mother though, till even that reminded me of you, because she’d guessed, long ago, how I felt about you, and often asked about you in her letters.’
‘Oh, Jack. Didn’t you realise that she’d be nearly out of her mind with worry? And me, too?’
His mouth twisted. ‘I never meant to come back, Renee. You’d both have believed I was dead, and you’d have got over it come time. When I was demobbed, I went to London and found a job, the same as I was doing here. Then I met a girl, started going steady with her, and even set a date for the wedding.’
A knife turned in her heart. ‘What went wrong, that made you come back, after all?’
During a slight pause, he stared into space, then he looked at her earnestly. ‘I couldn’t get you out of my mind, Renee, that’s what went wrong. Every time I kissed her, it was you I was kissing. When I made love to her, it was you . . . I couldn’t go through with it, so I told her about you, but if she’d kept me to my promise, I’d have gone ahead and married her. She could see it wouldn’t have worked, though, and called it off.’
His voice wavered a little. ‘She was a decent girl, and I felt really awful about letting her down like that.’
Renee was torn between being thankful that he’d come back, and being jealous of the unnamed girl that he’d made love to, when he’d never made love to her, and who must have awakened something in Jack before he’d said he’d marry her in the first place. But, if he could accept Glynn having been in her life, and Fergus, surely she could forgive him for something he’d done while he thought she was unavailable to him.
Jack carried on, steadier now. ‘I packed my bags and came home. I meant to get a job in Peterhead and never come near Aberdeen again. I’d done enough damage to people’s feelings, and I didn’t want to come between you and your husband.’
‘And then your mother told you about my divorce?’ She couldn’t understand why his eyes were still clouded.
‘I could hardly credit it, at first, and I was impatient that it would be morning before I could come to you, but I had all night to think about it. Renee, is it because of me you’re being divorced? Did Glynn find out that I love you, and that you’d said you loved me?’
The imaginary knife made another twist. It was her turn to confess, but would Jack understand about what had happened between Glynn and her? ‘It wasn’t because of you, Jack,’ she said, slowly. ‘It was because of Fergus Cooper.’
‘Fergus?’ His anxious face contorted with horror. ‘Have you started up with him again?’
‘No, no, it wasn’t that. It was . . . I told Glynn, on our wedding night, all that had gone on between Fergus and me, and he couldn’t understand or forgive.’
She went over the trauma of the Monday nights with Glynn – how he’d tried to destroy Fergus’s claim on her, and how he’d come to avoid Monday nights altogether – and Jack listened without a word, his face impassive, his eyes fixed on her as if he were in some kind of trance.
This is it, she thought, sadly. This is the end of Jack’s love, too. How could he possibly feel the same about her after hearing all these sordid details? But she had to tell him, before he could understand the situation. Steeling herself, she carried on.
‘When Glynn went missing, I was nearly frantic.’ She bit her lip with the remembered pain. ‘I hadn’t heard from you since that night in the lane, and I thought you’d both been killed.’
He broke his silence at that. ‘Oh, Renee, I’m sorry. I didn’t realise what I’d been putting you through . . . But he wasn’t dead, either?’
She swallowed. ‘No, he wasn’t dead.’
‘Why did he suddenly ask for a divorce?’
‘He’d been seriously wounded, you see, and he was sent to a hospital in England when he was able to be moved. That’s when everything really ended. He wouldn’t let me go to him, but his mother sent his old girlfriend to visit him, and you can guess the rest. He fell in love with her all over again, and wanted to marry her. He wrote that our marriage would never work, because he couldn’t forgive me for . . .’ She shrugged. ‘He asked me to divorce him by putting all the blame on him, and I agreed.’
During the short silence which fell, Renee held her breath. It was asking too much of Jack to expect him to ask her to marry him now that he knew everything.
He was smiling, however, when he leaned across and took her hand. ‘I’m glad it wasn’t because of me.’ Her apprehensive face made him add, ‘Darling, I’m not like Glynn. I knew all along what was going on between Fergus and you, and I never blamed you for it.’
‘Thank you for saying that.’
‘It didn’t change the way I felt about you, any more than what you’ve told me now about Mondays has changed it, but I have to ask you this, to set my mind at ease. Renee, if Fergus comes back, would you fall under his spell again, like you did before?’
She shook her head quickly. ‘He did come back, a few months ago, but I just felt sick when I saw him, and told him to leave me alone. He’ll be married, by this time, to a girl he left pregnant when he joined up, and they’ve gone to live somewhere in the south of England. She wrote and told us about it, and she knows about him being a rotter, so their marriage might succeed. I hope so, anyway, and I’m glad he did the honourable thing for once in his life.’
Jack squeezed her hand. ‘There’s one last thing I have to ask you, my darling, and please don’t be angry about it.’ He seemed slightly reluctant to come out with it, but finally said,
‘How will you feel about Mondays, after we’re married?’
A stab of anger did shoot through her, until she realised that this had to be dealt with before they could have complete understanding. ‘I love you, Jack, and I’ll never think of anybody but you, on Mondays or on any other day of the week.’
He pulled her down on his knee, and kissed her until they were forced to surface for breath. ‘Oh, Renee, if you only knew how much I’ve longed to do that,’ he whispered huskily.
As his lips touched hers again, she jerked away, her eyes widening in dismay. ‘I’ve just thought! We’ll have to buy a new bed. You won’t want to use the same one as . . .’ She turned scarlet as her voice tailed off.
His grimace was one of relief at the insignificance of her embarrassment. ‘Renee, my pet, we’re not innocent young things any longer. If I can share your bed for the rest of our lives, it wouldn’t bother me if you’d had the entire British Army, Navy and Air Force in it, including the Marines.’
‘Jack Thomson!’
Her shocked expression made him chuckle so infectiously that she had to join in. ‘Oh, I’m glad we can still laugh about everything together.’ She touched the dimple at the side of his mouth, lovingly.
‘We’ll always laugh together, Renee, no matter what happens.’ This time, his kiss was tender and reverent.
‘Now, I think we should go downstairs, to prove we haven’t been up to anything we shouldn’t . . . not yet, anyway.’
They were still smiling when they entered the living room, where the two mothers turned round expectantly.
‘Have you done all your talking?’ Anne smiled archly.
‘And got everything sorted out?’
‘Not quite!’ With a theatrical flourish, he went down on one knee in front of Renee, his ‘cow’s lick’ rather spoiling the image of romantic suitor he was trying to project.
‘‘‘Pray, will you marry me, my pretty maid?’’’
She giggled, then made a deep curtsy. ‘‘‘Yes, if you please, kind sir, she said.’’’
He stood up and hugged her. ‘You see,’ he confided in a loud stage whisper, ‘we’ll have to make it legal to please the two mums.’
Anne sighed with contentment. ‘Thank God you two got together at long last.’
‘I think God meant them for each other all along,’ Mrs Thomson observed, gravely.
Jack spluttered. ‘I’m sure He did, but He took His time about letting us know.’
The house was filled with laughter, for the first time in almost three years.
THE END